4. THE BALCONY
I LOVE THIS PLACE, MY DEAR; it’s the second time I’ve been here. About a month ago we sat at this very table with Olga María. What I like is its European ambiance, how you don’t feel like you’re in San Salvador — the only thing missing that would make it perfect is air conditioning. I prefer this side, facing the street, each table with its own little balcony. I still have my doubts about this neighborhood; I wish it were in one of the better residential areas, but it’s not that bad here. Look at all the traffic. That mall across the street, it’s done in such poor taste, so tacky, more for servants than anybody else. Did you know Mirna Leiva owns this place, that classmate of ours from the American School? I don’t see her here now. Last time she was tending bar. She lived abroad for several years, after her major difficulties. Remember they arrested her for being a communist? Poor thing. She spent several years in Madrid. Her grandparents are from there. At one time the three of us were close friends, yes, with Olga María, we were about thirteen, I think it was before high school, but later we grew apart, especially after they arrested her and there was that big scandal. I don’t understand how she could have gotten mixed up with the communists. She comes from a good family, they’ve got coffee plantations. Poor woman, they disinherited her, things turned out badly for her. But now with this place she’s doing super-well. A real success story. It’s worth every penny: the wine and food are very reasonable, considering the quality. We came at night with Olga María. We ordered a bottle of French white wine and a plate of cheese and cold cuts. Everything was delicious. We talked and talked. I think that was the last time we talked so much. She looked gorgeous that night, with her black miniskirt and high-heeled boots. Stunning; I never saw her looking so sexy. First, we checked the whole place out; around the other side, behind the bar, they have foreign magazines and newspapers, in case you come alone and want to read. Then we picked this table. Olga María was kind of sad — it was her disappointment with Yuca and her problems with Marito — but after a few glasses of wine she got livelier, happy, she started having a good time. Check it out: the best thing about this place are the waiters, all university students, handsome devils, every one, enough to drool over. They say Mirna picks the gorgeous ones on purpose so women get addicted to coming here. Evil tongues, my dear; even though, if I were Mirna, who knows if I’d resist the temptation to give a few of them a whirl. That one over there is the one who waited on us when we came with her. Gorgeous, isn’t he? I think his name is Rodolfo. You should have seen Olga María that night! She didn’t stop chatting up that Rodolfo. Every time he walked by she called him over and started plying him with questions. She was making the poor thing very nervous. Olga María could be quite a handful when she got tipsy. He told us he was in his second year at medical school, he told us almost all the waiters were at the university, and he didn’t have a girlfriend. But he’s not going to wait on us, look, it’ll be this one. He’s not bad, either. What do you want to drink? It’s only five thirty. Too early for wine. I’d like a cappuccino and an apple tart. And bring me a glass of water, you hear? What did I tell you? Though he seems kind of stupid. Look over there, in the red car, isn’t that Cuca? It’s her. Of course, it is. What’s she doing in this part of town? Poor thing, that Cuca, she just doesn’t measure up to Sergio. I don’t understand how such an attractive man ended up in that woman’s hands, even though, it’s true, she is a nice person. Anyway, that night, with Olga María, you should have seen how much fun we had. In the end, we got a bit outrageous, but we kept our voices down, whispering, so nobody would hear us. She kept saying she wanted to take that dreamboat home with us, she wanted to eat him up. Yes, my dear, after a few glasses of wine everything gets topsy-turvy. She asked me if I’d be willing for the two of us to go to bed with the same man. We were a little off our rockers by then. Olga María surprised me: she was always so reserved, so proper, low-key, so modest. But that night she was like a different woman, magically transformed, as if the wine had revealed her hidden self, I don’t know, my dear, but she was happy, free, after a while she didn’t mention her relationship with Marito, or the girls, or the business, she was just fantasizing about what we’d do with that cute waiter I just showed you, how we’d handle him between the two of us. Later, I thought maybe her failure with Yuca, her disappointment, might have affected her mood. She even asked me certain questions you don’t go around asking any day of the week. For example, she wanted to know what my biggest sexual fantasy was, my ultimate sexual fantasy, what I imagined would feel the absolute best and what would be very difficult, if not impossible, to do. Yes, I’m not lying to you, at this very table. I think that waiter unleashed her passions, or who knows what. Here he comes with the cappuccinos. This guy is good-looking but he doesn’t let loose in you what got let loose in Olga María that night. Not even close. That was the last time I saw her so happy, as if she already had some premonition of her own death and wanted to enjoy life to the fullest. She told me that her sexual fantasy, what she would like to try before she died — how incredible, my dear, I still remember those very words: “what I would like to try before I die”—was to be in bed with two men at the same time. I think we all have that fantasy. Don’t you? I asked her which two, because it’s not the same to go to bed with two ugly idiots as with two hunks you have the hots for. There’s so much traffic. This time of day is always crazy. Look at that jam. That’s what’s so stressfuclass="underline" too many cars. I hope it clears up by the time we leave. What do you think she answered? That at that moment the only one she could think of was that waiter, Rodolfo, I said his name was. Poor Olga María. When you think about it, it must be awful to live with the same man for almost ten years, even if you do love him and have kids with him. Can you imagine always screwing the same way? Because no matter what, you always get into some kind of routine. That’s what happened to me with Alberto, and we lived together for barely a year. Horrible. But Alberto is a special case. I don’t know how I ever got together with that man. Thank God I freed myself from his clutches. He doesn’t have a shred of imagination. I always had to get on top: he never took the initiative. I think that man could live perfectly well without sex. I like being on top, but not all the time. I’m telling you, I was always the one who had to be in charge: he just lay there in bed, with his undershirt and shorts on, like a plank of wood. Of course: he claimed that he’d catch cold if he took off his underpants and T-shirt. What a calamity. I don’t know if all financiers are such wusses; and I don’t want to find out. This cappuccino is delicious, isn’t it? You can tell it’s a real cappuccino; in most places they just whip up the milk a little and pour it into any old coffee and call it a cappuccino; what a fiasco. Taste the cake, dear: it’s divine. Let me ask this kid if they make it here. No, right? That’s what I thought. That time with Olga María we didn’t try the cakes; just wine and cheese and cold cuts. As I was saying, she was in this super-liberated mood, and she told me that at the very beginning of her relationship with Marito she told him about her fantasy of sleeping with two men, but instead of going along with her, he got angry. Men are such brutes. Don’t go getting any ideas that Marito is some kind of saint. He’s nowhere near as bad as Alberto, needless to say, but it’s just that men, once they’ve got you, they don’t worry about it anymore. Olga María told me she was sick of Marito, in bed I mean, that he always went through the same rituaclass="underline" he rubbed cream on his hands and started massaging her legs, then her hips, until his thing stood up, and then he got on top of her. Always the same. When she told me, I told her she shouldn’t complain, a man massaging your legs before making love is nothing to sneer at. I told her again about my experience with Alberto. Nobody’s ever done it to me that way, starting out with a leg massage. But she told me she hated the cream, she didn’t want anything more to do with a man who massaged her legs with cream before fucking her. Now I understand her: ten years of having the same thing done to you is enough to drive you crazy. That’s why she had such a good time with Julio Iglesias and José Carlos; she’d put up with being only with Marito for a long time. Now that I think about it, that must have been her disappointment with Yuca: just imagine, you’ve been waiting for this man to ravish you, and to do it with the full force of his virility and his imagination, and it turns out the man’s so strung out, he can’t even get it up. It could even make you feel resentful. Speaking of Yuca, here’s what I wanted to tell you: I think one of Yuca’s political enemies might have hired a hit man to murder Olga María, in order to hurt him, to implicate him in a crime, you know, like the “crime of passion” hypothesis Deputy Chief Handal is considering. Doesn’t that sound logical to you? I’ve been thinking about it. That’s the only way it makes sense that someone actually plotted and planned s