the waves were dragging me along almost with no resistance. My body was one thing and I was another, I don’t know. I don’t remember much about it. My head was spinning, I could hardly see, I was gasping so much no air came out, it only went in. My blood was going to explode, my arms and legs felt hollow or, I don’t know, like a deflated lilo. Sprawled amid the rocks, I heard voices approach, I saw or thought I saw several naked men around me, suddenly I felt like going to sleep, someone touched my chest, I was drifting off, air started coming out of my mouth, I made an effort, I opened my eyes and now, yes, I thought about Anabela, and how I had done it, how for once I had been good enough for her.
The air smelled of leather. A studied gloom made it difficult to see anything properly. Almost all the coats appeared to be in good condition. She steadied her glasses. She was thinking of her husband’s unpredictable taste, somewhere between conventional and whimsical. She felt an urgent need to smoke. That night, or tomorrow morning at the latest, her period was going to start: an insistent dagger below her navel and a feeling of irritation at everything were signs.
She took a brown leather double-breasted coat off the hanger. Scrutinized it for a moment. She hung it up again, took down one that was black and had a pointed collar. She hung that up too and took down another longer gray one with big padded shoulders. Too manly, she thought maliciously. Returning it to the rack, she reached for a dark suede jacket and looked at it approvingly: it was just right for her husband’s old-fashioned taste. She could picture it on him with amazing clarity, as if she had already seen him wearing it, as if it had always belonged to him. In fact, now she thought about it, the coat was almost identical to the one she herself had given him the Christmas before last. But that was impossible. She tried to make sure. She examined the lining, the buttonholes, the sleeves: they looked the same, but how could she remember the exact shape of the buttons, or the brand? It was the same size too, although her husband wore the same size as most men. She noticed that the elbows were not at all worn: it might be, it might not be.
She paused to think it over. How could it have ended up here? Why would her husband pawn his present from the Christmas before last? Things hadn’t been going so well over the past year. But they hadn’t gone that badly. Or had they? She tried to recall their most recent arguments. No, there must be other reasons. It could simply be that he hated the coat (how elegant, he had exclaimed, you can’t imagine how badly I needed one), or that he couldn’t find an excuse not to wear it, and so decided to sell it and later pretend he had lost it (it looks great on me, really great, he had insisted). But her husband hadn’t said anything about having lost the coat. And yet she had no recollection of ever having seen him in it either, except the day he had tried it on at home. She studied the coat once more, then put it back. It was that one. It wasn’t that one. She didn’t know if it was that one. She felt the dagger twisting in her stomach again, and a pain encircling her head and pressing down on her vertebrae. She had spent all day—all her life—on her feet. When had they last gone on a trip? A real trip, just the two of them? They hadn’t had enough money. Or, above all, any reason to go. But that dark suede coat, where on earth had it come from? She searched the inside pockets, hoping to find some evidence to confirm her suspicions. They were empty.
Taking it down again, she went over to the shop assistant, who was painting her nails behind the counter and had a star-shaped nose stud. She asked her if she remembered who had brought the coat in. The girl looked up, twisted one side of her top lip, and replied in a nasal voice: How should I know, love, so many people come and go in here. She looked the girl in the eye, demanding she make an effort. The assistant shrugged, then looked down again and dipped the brush in the nail-polish bottle. And you can’t tell me how long this coat has been in the shop either? she insisted.
The assistant left the brush in the little bottle, sighed and grabbed the coat from her so as to check the label. It’s been here since last January, okay? And went back to her nails. I’ll take it then, she said, picking the coat up from the counter and removing the hanger. It’s my husband’s birthday, you see, and I want to give him a surprise.
It is worth recalling that clumsiness can sometimes arise from an excess of symmetry. Elisa and Elías were a case in point. Incapable of embracing each other without their respective right and left arms colliding in mid-air, both equally aroused the admiration of their friends. They had the same habits. Their political views did not clash even over incidental details. They enjoyed similar music. They laughed at the same jokes. In whatever restaurant they ate, either of them could easily order two of something without consulting the other. They were never sleepy at different times, which, however stimulating for their sex life, was annoying from a strategic point of view: Elisa and Elías secretly competed to be first in the bathroom, for the last glass of milk in the refrigerator, or to be the first to read the novel they had both planned to buy the week before. Theoretically, Elisa was able to reach her orgasm at the same time as Elías without the slightest effort. In practice, it was more common for them to find themselves tied up in knots, created by their always simultaneous desire to be on top or beneath the other. What a perfect couple, two halves of the same little orange, Elisa’s mother would tell them. To which they both replied by blushing, and stepping on each other’s toes as they rushed to kiss her.
I hate you more than anyone in the world, Elías wanted to howl in the middle of an eventful night. He was unable to get Elisa to hear him, or rather he was unable to distinguish his own protest from hers. After an unwelcoming sleep filled with synchronized nightmares, the two of them had breakfast in silence, without any need to discuss what was going to happen next. That evening, when Elisa came home from work and went to pack her bags, she was not surprised to find the wardrobe half-empty.
As usually happens, Elisa and Elías have tried several times to patch things up. However, it seems that whenever either of them tries to call, the other’s phone is busy. On the rare occasions when they have succeeded in arranging to meet, perhaps offended at how long it has taken the other to make a move, neither of them has turned up.
I like that we don’t do the things we don’t do. I like our plans on waking, when morning slinks onto our bed like a cat of light, plans we never realize because we get up late after imagining them for so long. I like the anticipatory tremor in our muscles from the exercises we list without doing, the gyms we never join, the healthy habits we conjure as if simply by desiring them, our bodies will glow from their radiance. I like the travel guides you browse with that absorption I so admire, and whose monuments, streets, and museums we will never set foot in, as we sit mesmerized in front of our milky coffees. I like the restaurants we don’t go to, the light from their candles, the imagined taste of their dishes. I like the way our house looks when we picture it refurbished, its startling furniture, its lack of walls, its bold colors. I like the languages we wished we spoke and dream of learning next year, as we smile at each other in the shower. I hear from your lips those sweet, hypothetical languages: their words fill me with purpose. I like all the proposals, spoken or secretive, which we both fail to carry out. That is what I like most about sharing our lives. The wonder opened up elsewhere. The things we don’t do.
Midwives are complaining that men are infiltrating the Obstetrics ward. The Hospital management characterizes the situation as “an isolated incident.”
—Ideal de Granada newspaper, 4 February 2003
And
