not invited, she thought. Just when she was starting to save enough money, she was going to get herself fired on account of a client she barely knew. Doña Fina was waiting with the door half-open.
‘You wanted to speak to me?’
‘Sit down,’ Doña Josefina said curtly.
Karen scrutinised her boss. Doña Josefina was raising her left eyebrow slightly.
‘Karen, you were absent from work, during work hours, without my consent,’ she started. ‘I want you to know that nothing escapes me. Even when I’m not here I have eyes and ears everywhere. Do you hear me, honey?’
‘Yes, Señora.’
‘Now, just so you’re aware how much I always know, I’ll tell you where you went: to that girl Sabrina Guzmán’s funeral. Know how I found out? This morning her mother called, saying she thought she came here often, and that she’d been here the day before last. I wasn’t sure who took care of her, so we checked the appointment book. That’s how I found out you lost a client. My deepest condolences, honey.’
‘I only saw her two or three times.’
‘Four, to be exact. And what do you know about her?’
‘Not much, Doña Fina, she was a normal teenager.’
‘Oh honey, as if that exists. You’ve got to understand, if they launch an investigation, the police will ask you the same questions. You’d better know how to respond. What did she get done?’
‘The usual.’
‘A wax?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bikini?’
‘Yes, Señora.’
‘The full Brazilian?’
‘Yes.’
At that moment, Annie poked her head around the door.
‘Sorry to interrupt. Karen, your next client is waiting.’
‘Can I leave, Señora?’
‘Off you go. But best not mention this to anyone. If you start saying a client died after an appointment with you, no one will set foot in your cubicle again.’
‘Thank you,’ Karen said, wondering if Doña Fina was serious. She was making sure to pull the door half-shut behind her when she stopped midway and turned around:
‘Excuse me, Señora, but the girl is already buried. What could they investigate now?’
‘How am I to know?’ Doña Josefina waved her hand. ‘Now shut that door for me, I have important things to attend to.’
As the years went by, Eduardo cried more easily. He cried in romantic films, on seeing how his hair came away on the pillow, on noting his erectile dysfunction. Not long ago he cried, oh how he cried, when, finally, after a Viagra, and vast amounts of concentration, he managed to be with a woman. The worst thing is, I found out because he himself told me. My only consolation is that, as far as I know, while we were married he never brought them home, or that’s what I like to believe. He especially liked a black woman named Gloria, who couldn’t have been over twenty. Oh, to have my twenties again, I thought, when I spied them on the terrace of a seafood restaurant on Calle 77. It was a coincidence. I had been to see a dermatologist, and decided to walk home. I saw them from the pavement opposite. He squeezed and released her hand in a seductive move so old that, back in the day, it worked its magic on me. I knew her name because once, when I was using his computer, I opened a folder called ‘Gloria’, where I saw the photos. As with other times, I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t blame him for going out on the street to get what I’d stopped giving him so long ago. I was hurt more by his selfishness, his lack of interest in me and the fact that he left me on my own. The girl got to me less. Over the years, bit by bit I’d lost all feelings of desire, and this got worse with the onset of menopause. I thought, if he needs sex, he can go get it where it’s on offer. But he could at least keep me company, show interest in the things I care about. Though, truth be told, I’m not too sure what these are any more, since I’ve been focused on him for so many years.
That day, when I saw them with their hands entwined, brushing against a shrimp ceviche cocktail, I’d just been diagnosed with vitiligo. Just what I needed, I thought. I held in the urge to cry in front of that cardboard cut-out of a doctor. He was looking at me with such pity. But he was only a whippersnapper, he couldn’t have been over thirty.
I went out quiet, calm. Said to myself, I’m going to walk home, I’ll go via the supermarket. The diagnosis explained the large white streak that had appeared a few months ago, ruining my black hair. Same went for the patches on my ankle and left cheek. I was feeling low, I won’t deny it. And right then I came across my husband with that ebony sculpture, the woman I’d already seen in her birthday suit. It was too much. One humiliation after another. And the worst thing was, I didn’t even care. I’m not sure what it is. Whether it’s the menopause or just that I’ve grown used to living with shame, the fact is I remained in a listless state I thought I’d never come out of, until Claire came back into my life.
She gave me back some of the energy I’d lost. We hadn’t been especially close at school. As a psychologist, my father was respectable more than wealthy, so we lived in different worlds. Claire was beautiful, haughty, proud. She was from a good family and was outstanding at whatever she set her mind to; I was nothing special. On top of that, I had frightful mousy hair with about as much lustre as potato soup, and horrendous glasses. We had a friend in common, Teresa, who these days is wife of the Minister for Internal Affairs. But Claire was a sophisticated woman from a very different world from me.
Nevertheless, when we met up for the first time after she’d said she was back in Colombia, she was so affectionate, and I suspected she was lonely. So, we caught up a second time, four or five days ago, and drank an outrageous amount of whisky. I confess I’d never had a whisky in my life. I’d tried it, so I knew what it tasted like, but I’d never drunk a whole one. When I had the chance, I drank a glass of wine, maybe a champagne or Baileys. Never whisky. But Claire poured herself one and said, ‘Do you want a whisky?’
I wasn’t about to say ‘Do you have a Baileys in the cupboard somewhere?’ like an old lady or a fifteen-year-old. No. I summoned the courage and said, ‘Yes, pour me one, yum.’
Recalling it now makes me chuckle. The first one tasted awful, but the next ones were a riot. That’s the kind of thing that happens when I’m with Claire. It’s like, let’s see, we’re the same age – I think I might even be a little younger – but next to her I feel so straight-laced. In contrast, she’s independent, liberated. Youth is definitely a mindset. On top of that, she’s heading towards sixty and is still stunning, absolutely stunning.
So, getting back to Eduardo, I met him when I was twenty-five. According to him this meant that, as a woman, I was in the prime of my life. He was thirty-seven. Until then I’d been a bookworm. My mother died when I was eleven. I was always quite ugly. In any case, I was never a beauty. I didn’t know much about men, and what I knew about relationships came from books. I decided to become a psychoanalyst because I grew up listening to my father talk about his cases, so it seemed
