The brunette stood up, put the magazine down on her chair, and bent over to look through her carry-on bag — her miniskirt edged up, more generously exposing her thighs — while scolding the children who weren’t paying any attention to her. The bartender and I, as well as probably half the waiting room, were holding our breaths, as if on tenterhooks, the scene seemingly frozen into an abrupt silence while she continued to look through her bag, her buttocks in the air, until she straightened up, smoothed down her miniskirt, went back to her chair, picked up her magazine, and began reading. I took a big sip of vodka to celebrate, convinced now that she was Salvadoran and that I would have a chance to talk to her during the flight, even the fantasy of having a woman like that when I arrived in San Salvador was enough to change my mood, and whereas before I’d been hearing a soundtrack of the irritating squawks of my argument with Eva, now an intoxicating melody was playing, because, the fact was, ever since I had gone through immigration, I had entered a new state, bachelorhood — hurrah! — and a paradise full of sweet asses awaited me at my destination, of course not all of them like this filly’s, the sight of which I was now so greatly enjoying, but a paradise nonetheless, a prospect that made me ecstatic and sent me into a trance. . But what if she wasn’t on her way to El Salvador? I asked myself as I drank down the last of my vodka tonic. And what if she was traveling with the children’s father?. . I convinced myself that I should approach her now or never, and armed as I was with the audacity a few drinks can provide, pulling behind me my rolling suitcase and carrying the duty-free bag in my other hand, I gallantly started off in the direction of the row of seats where she was reading, then without preamble I asked her if the seat next to hers was free: she looked up at me, slightly put out, and without saying a word indicated that I could sit there if I wanted; but at that instant and out of the blue, one of her boys climbed onto the chair and pronounced it taken. I stood there stunned for a few seconds, looking at his fat little face and insolent grin, then managed to eke out a nervous little laugh, like an idiot on show in front of everybody in the waiting room, especially the bartender, who had sent me off with a wink of complicity. She didn’t lift her eyes from the magazine, as if the whole scene had left her wholly indifferent, and I, having already lost my nerve, immediately looked for a place to sit down in the row of seats facing her, trying to conceal my confusion but not knowing how to occupy my mind and my hands, above all my mind, which was now reproaching me for my inability to react, because what I should have done was take advantage of the kid’s effrontery to strike up a conversation, ask her questions about her children, and in that way find my way forward; and I felt intense hatred toward that fat little boy I was now looking at with the sullen expression of a tolerant adult, to which he responded with another insolent look. And then I turned back to the woman, who was barely five feet away from me, and I realized that the whole time she had been aware of the situation and was definitely amused at my expense, no matter how serious or how focused on the magazine she looked, at any moment it would become impossible for her to contain herself and a smile would betray her, that’s why I didn’t take my eyes off her; and I even allowed myself to look down at her thighs covered with delicate golden fuzz, a sight that was very nearly driving me crazy, nothing excites me more than a lower back or thighs covered with delicate golden fuzz; but the person who was really going crazy was the boy in the chair, because when he realized that I was looking at his mother’s thighs, he leapt up, his face twisted in rage, and threw himself against the other boy, who was sitting on the ground leaning on the carry-on bag, locking arms with him in a wrestling match that had them both rolling around on the tiled floor. The brunette called them to order with a threat, but she didn’t stand up or look at me again. And then I asked myself whether Evita reacted that violently when a strange man approached her mother, a question that only proceeded to sink me deeper into sadness, because suddenly I realized how voluble my character was, the way events could do with me whatever they wanted, so that instead of remaining lucid as I stood on the brink of this new stage of my life, there I was, getting seriously unhinged, drooling like an idiot at the sight of a stranger, my ego battered, thrashed by a child. Damn, all I needed now was a bout of self-mortification. .
Fortunately, at that very moment, the door at Gate 19 opened for the passengers who had just arrived on the flight from San Salvador, according to the announcement over the loudspeaker made by an airline employee, who requested that we remain alert, we would begin boarding in about fifteen minutes. I looked up to see if I recognized any of the arriving passengers and observed the agitated expressions on their faces, some of whom were confused about which way to go for immigration and customs, but I didn’t recognize anybody, and a few minutes later I saw the brunette stand up, exclaim in delight, and walk over to a woman who had just disembarked, a woman she embraced effusively right next to me, allowing me to contemplate — enthralled — her thighs and ass, within reach of my hand, which I didn’t dare move, just to be clear, because I sat absolutely still in my privileged position, like a chameleon invisibly perched on his branch, because I did not want them to be aware of my presence, not for anything in the world, not while I was furtively and ecstatically contemplating the edges of her olive-skinned glutes, also covered in delicate golden fuzz — damn, a spasm of desire was shaking me to the core — until the boy mentioned earlier appeared and positioned himself defiantly and with furrowed brow between my gaze and his mother’s backside at the very moment she turned to tell him to say hello to the woman she had been embracing. That was when I turned and looked in the opposite direction, where the recently arrived passengers were moving toward customs and immigration, and I even stood up, turning my back on her, afraid that the kid would snitch on me, tell her I was ogling her, but also seized with a certain uneasiness, because now I knew that the brunette would be on my flight and the contemplation of her silky flesh had befuddled my senses, to the extent that I was not even paying attention to the arriving passengers, as if my entire being had remained glued to the skin on the backs of her thighs leading up to her glutes. And because my mind had been rendered much too vulnerable by all those impressions and emotions, I suddenly found myself wondering where it came from, all that anxiety that overwhelmed me whenever I spotted a pair of beautiful legs under a miniskirt, anxiety that obliged me to look at those legs compulsively, like a voyeur, no matter what the circumstances, a kind of vice or obsession that had accompanied me since my early adolescence, since the awakening of my sexuality, and that had always driven crazy the women who had shared their lives with me. And then an image rose out of my memory: during my first years of high school at the all-boys school run by Marist priests where I was a student, a group of boys would gather every afternoon on a kind of embankment under which passed cars driven by young mothers taking their children to school or picking them up and from which we could catch a clear glimpse, under the steering wheels, of the naked thighs of the drivers who were wearing miniskirts, thighs that excited us, made us shout out in delight, and supplied us with images for our masturbations. Needless to say, not one of the mothers of the members of that group drove under that embankment where we stood to get a peek into those cars, and even if one had, she would not have been an object of interest, our mothers belonged to an older generation, one that didn’t wear miniskirts, and the women who awoke our incipient lechery were younger women who were taking their children to nursery school or primary school. And while I stared distractedly at the crowd in the opposite direction from the brunette with the spectacular legs, I told myself that even if my mother had worn a miniskirt, she never would have awoken my interest, that I had never felt the least bit attracted to her, on the contrary, my grandmother Lena had taken it upon herself to revile her so much that she’d made mincemeat of my Oedipus complex from a very tender age. .