A Change of Skin (14 page)

So, Dragoness, Sister Jeanne Féry. And we see why instead of playing the usual and tired game and putting together our belly-buttons, we should take out our peashooters and force ourselves and others, Javier, for example, to face a little truth. Ah, Elizabeth. Between participation and escape there remain to us only our individual maladies, our personal cancers, our parodies of the great synthesis.

*   *   *

Δ   Javier folds down the coverlet and the sheets and in silence lies on his stomach. You are seated with your legs drawn up, your knees holding the covers high. Although he tries to keep his face turned away, your woman's smells come to him: cologne water, menstruation, fatigue. With a corner of the sheet over his face, he murmurs:

“I finally saw her and went near her because I could see that she had been crying. I thought to myself, a woman cries to attract, to show off her tears and share them. She would never cry in solitude. Or, if she did, it would be in the belief that her tears could be felt by someone even though he was not present, that they could charm him at a distance, move him, be heard by an ear that was out of sight but not out of reach. There are no tears in vain. I think that was what I thought. She went on crying and around us the party went on. We were in darkness again. Perhaps only by chance I was the only person who noticed, the only one tuned to her wave length, open at that instant to her tears and the thread of silence that had led me to her, past the couples dancing and kissing in the dark room.”

He removes the sheet from his face and out of the corner of his eye peeks at you as you sit smoking with your eyes pensive and distant. He covers his face again and again smells your smells.

“The music was pointing out that it was just one of those crazy flings,” he says with his voice slightly muffled by the sheet. “Yes, for to go to a party is always to venture an encounter only chance controls. But not to venture it unarmed. No. Always with the breastplate of an attitude, the shield of words, the lance of memory. Always with a mockery ready, should the need for it come. A game to play. And what a laugh if the girl should play the game too.

“I found her again. A warm damp hand that I couldn't see took my hand, which apparently had reached toward her. It was she who took my hand. I didn't take hers, I swear it. She found me more than I found her. We stood in the darkness of the room, for the lights had been turned off now, and the contrast between her warm fingers and my cold ones must have seemed strange. Then it had to happen, I had to move close to her, let my skin feel the nearness of hers. Still not looking at her. And now I took her hand as she had taken mine. We embraced, we pasted our bodies together and began to dance again, discovering ourselves to each other little by little and gropingly, the softness of her skin, its fine golden hairs, her smooth blond hair combed to the side of her head. Her warm neck. Her breasts firm and free under her dress. Her thighs tight, hard.

“I said to her, ‘So you came alone?'”

And you, Dragoness, sitting on the bed smoking, remember and say quietly: “The girl nodded yes.”

“I asked her, ‘Did they leave you all alone?'”

“She nodded yes again. Her hands were like yours. They were giving names to the parts of your body without her imagining that you were both thinking the same thing.”

“‘And the man you gave the drink to?' I said to her. ‘Why didn't he say something to you?'”

“The girl shrugged her shoulders,” you say, repeating the action with the words. For if he wants it this way now, Dragoness, you are willing, for a time at least, just as you were willing then. You go on: “In a low voice she sang along with Ella Fitzgerald, ‘
Too hot not to cool down.
'”

“‘Maybe,' I suggested, ‘he had been worried by the mystery of your absence?'”

“She raised her face to you, Javier, and looked at you.”

“And I went on, ‘Maybe he wanted to avoid giving you pain. Perhaps he knew you would not have been happy if he had told you his thoughts.'”

“The girl answered that it's worse to live not knowing what someone is thinking, only imagining.”

“‘No,' I told her. ‘Often it's worse to know. Maybe when he found you there in the dim light and you gave him his drink, he loved you so much that he decided to say nothing.'”

“The girl said that she would have preferred that he not be so solicitous of her.”

“That he be the partner of her intelligence as well as her passions?”

“Maybe, something like that, I suppose.”

“But I replied, ‘He would have had to give up his pride, and you would have stopped loving him. He knows that you love him only so long as you have his pride before you to overcome and defeat. That once you succeed in that, there will be no reason for love.'”

“‘Well, you know him if anyone does,' the girl said.”

“I laughed. I laughed because she was playing my game so marvelously. I stopped and took a glass from a low table without releasing her waist. She had accepted the game, the parody. But at the same time it was beginning to be a little shaky, she was beginning to take it seriously. I decided not to let her know how it might end. I said to her, ‘Do you think he has exhausted all his surprises?'”

You put out your cigarette and light another, Elizabeth, and exhale slowly, then say quietly, “‘Oh, don't say that!'”

“‘Why?'”

“‘Because,' the girl told you, ‘this time you are going to repeat yourself.'”

“‘Want some of this drink?'”

“‘Thanks.'”

“‘De l'amour j'ai toutes les fureurs…'”

“‘Yes, de l'amour…' Then she stopped. ‘No, let me think about it.'”

“She thought for a moment. Finally she took the glass, snatched it away from my hand, and drained it while shaking her head no.”

“She was saying no, that she would not drink to that tonight.”

“Why? What was she concerned about, I thought. What did tonight mean to her? Did it mean the two of us together and alone in bed? Or with other people? No, I couldn't understand her.”

“It meant labyrinth,” you say, straightening your legs for a moment and then raising them again. You are restless with the day's fatigue. You are tired of this complicated game-within-a-game. “A worn-out labyrinth,” you repeat a little wearily.

“‘No,' I told her.” Javier's head is still covered by the sheet.

“‘Yes, oh yes,' the girl said. ‘Theseus and the Minotaur.'”

“‘No,' I repeated. But she went on…”

“‘Ariadne's thread.'”

“‘No. Not that either.'”

“‘The Cyclops's cave,' said the girl.”

“‘Nor that.'”

“‘Charybdis opens its devouring snout and vomits black waves and swallows them again. On the island of Trinacria the herds of the sun are grazing. Orion pursues the summer Pleiades and they rush into the sea. Ulysses no longer recognizes his homeland! Between Scylla and Charybdis the doves drop dead. There's no suspense, Javier. The myth is known in advance and is known by all.'”

“‘But the voyager no longer recognizes his homeland. That's the point.'”

“‘All right,' said the girl. ‘Go on.'”

“‘I shall go down into the labyrinth with you.'”

“‘Yeees,' she said. She was not certain now.”

“‘And together with you either be saved or be lost.'”

“‘Noooo,' said the girl. She was not sure at all. She was…”

“‘Kiss me,' I said. I didn't know the scene we were acting now. But I could guess what had to be done. ‘Minstrel. Idiot. This cold night will turn us all to fools or madmen.' I was trapped by her lips, by your lips, Ligeia. To fools and madmen. You wouldn't let me go. This cold night.”

“‘Dost thou call me fool, boy?' she smiled at you.”

“‘A bitter fool!' I told her.”

“‘Bitter, perhaps,' the girl said. ‘We've played it before, Javier. It's worn out too.'”

“‘You have never given the right answer,' I told her.”

“‘All right,' she said. ‘What should I have said?'”

“‘All thy other titles thou hast given away. That thou wert born with. You were born a fool and you will die a fool. Without ever knowing or understanding. Just as you were born flat on your back between the legs of your mother, so you will be carried away flat on your back on the shoulders of your pallbearers, a fool to the last, even in death. Womb to the tomb.' Then I added quietly, ‘No. Can't pride be generous sometimes?'”

“And the girl answered, ‘Yes, when it gives in.'”

“‘Gives in or is yoked?' I asked her.”

“‘I don't know, Javier,' the girl said. ‘Tonight I don't know anything. I don't understand anything.'”

“‘I'm going to have to leave you.'”

“‘No,' she said. ‘Please don't do that.'”

“‘And you won't be able to give yourself until I come back. And when you know my sin, when you learn the destiny that destroys me, you won't die less, but you will die feeling more guilty.'”

“‘Bah,' the girl said. ‘What difference does dying make?'”

“I laughed again and hugged her and kissed her. She was wonderful. Simply wonderful. She had followed me like my own shadow, I couldn't confuse her. I wanted to leave with her now, quickly, to give her a reward for the seriousness with which she had confronted and defeated my mockery. And she wanted to give me my reward too and she said, I said, we said it together, ‘Let's get out of here.' Nat King Cole as we pushed our way past couples neither of us knew and out a door into the light of a hall where the women's coats were piled on a sofa. She searched for hers,
the Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble,
looked for her coat still holding my hand, turning the linings to find her initials,
they're only made of clay, but our love is here to stay.
In the taxi, we kissed again. We kissed with closed eyes, a kiss that did not end, but at the same time I was alert to every sound, as alert as I had ever been in my life. The silence of the expensive streets of Las Lomas. The whistles of night watchmen walking their rounds. The sounds of engines whirring swiftly past, the whiplike sounds of tires passing. The radio in the taxi: the voice of a little boy singing out winning national lottery tickets, and outside, the whisper of falling water at the fountain of Diana the Huntress. Another long silence. We stopped for a light. The mocking whistles of some kids in a car stopped alongside us. Radio music from other cars. A newsboy who wanted to get rid of his last copy of
Ultimas Noticias.
He stuck the paper in through the open window on the right and we separated from our kiss and she began to fix her hair while the cab driver took out a peso and gave it to the newsboy, at the same time rapping his knuckles and saying in English, ‘Never,' as if we had been his partners in a conversation, and looking at us in his mirror, as he probably had been watching us all the time, he went on in Spanish,

“‘You got to watch them all. There are some black souls in this town who will reach in and knock the flag down when you're stopped, and then you drive away with the meter off and your fare has a free ride.'

“‘Let's go to the apartment,' the girl said to me. ‘Now, quick.'

“No, I told her, we weren't going to the apartment. I told the cab driver to take us to the head of Avenida Juárez. He waved a hand in the air and I remember what he said:

“‘Just as you say, Mustafa. It's your dough. No more one-peso pickups to bother with for a while. Let 'em bang on the door if they want to, I'm in business now.'

“‘Where?' said the girl. ‘Javier, I want to be with you. Now. Where are you taking me? Let's go to the apartment.'

“‘The Mustafa said Juárez,' said the cab driver. He was watching us in his mirror. The girl was silent. You were silent, Ligeia. Presently we were in front of Bellas Artes and I told the driver to stop. I got out and held my arm to the girl. She didn't want to get out. ‘Take me to Rin and Nazas,' she said to the driver. But when I paid the driver and walked away, she left the cab and followed me along Aquiles-Serdán. I would stop and look back and she would stop and turn and touch the thick marble banister that runs beside Bellas Artes and then I would walk on and so would she. Our steps were one. And my senses were wire-tight. I heard the neon signs winking, bubbling, laughing in the night silence. The newspaper and magazine stands of galvanized iron were empty, their wire netting drawn. Trash along the street, thrown-away paper, tips of ice-cream cones, cigarette butts, torn cellophane, wads of gum, the river of refuse that flows along all the streets of Mexico City. The girl following, I walking ahead in the silence. My rubber-soled steps. Her clicking high heels. I waited for her to catch up and took her by the wrist.

“‘No,' she protested. ‘Not here. What do you want to do here?'

“‘Here we enter our labyrinth,' I said to her.

“‘No, Javier, please.'”

“‘The voyager does not remember his homeland. He must rediscover it.' I laughed and pushed through the door, leading her by the wrist. Silence ended as they sang
Lo bajaron por la sierra, todo liado como un cohete …

“But rediscovery was hard in that smoke. ‘Have you ever seen such smoke?' It clouded around us, almost suffocating.

“‘It's horrible,' she said. ‘Please, please, let's get out.'

“‘We're going to have some drinks.'

“… lo traen desde San Miguel, lo llevan a Sombrerete …

“‘Bards, Ligeia. Minstrels. Bards with dyed silver hats and bellies swollen by pulque. Let's sit down. Let's try to hear them. A violin. The guitar. A guitarrón. Bring us two tequilas.'

“‘No, nothing for me.'