I’ll buy a whole truckload of presents all silly things throw money around on silly stuff I want to be silly. She’s crazy that one with her demands. And she even—. She must think I’m a whore. So what. I’ll bury myself in money take my courses buy a laboratory just like that one. The colored water dripping and me green yellow blue ah I’ll dye myself in an ocean. An ocean, love. I’m floating off and the green tongues of the fish are licking my feet. I laugh because the green tongues are licking me my legs no! I cry covering myself because the biggest tongue licks my abdomen and penetrates me so warm ah love. I love you. As happy as.
“We could go live someplace stupid like Ireland. Why Ireland? I don’t know either, just Ireland. Hanh? There’s money coming.”
She opened her eyes and focused them gradually on the young man. He was smoking and smiling vaguely.
“What time is it? What time is it, Max?”
“We didn’t come here to get up-tight. Throw everything to the wind, fabulous. An island.”
She grabbed the cigarette from his mouth and smoked.
The shorter coat would look great with velvet slacks. She could pay for it in five installments. Ten. Bastard. Queer. He couldn’t forgive her because she was beautiful and had breasts. “Flatten down that chest, flatten it!” he yelled at the showing and everybody laughed. Hatred, he was hateful because he wished he had breasts and didn’t. It doesn’t matter. The scaly one will give me a shipload of coats. Three factories. He’ll want a virgin. So what? I’ll stuff myself full of baby oil and he’ll find one when we go to bed. I could model for Marcil too and he’d give me the little black suit or—. Brando will go crazy but I’ll tell him give me the coat then.
“Quick, Bunny! Give me your mouth!”
I give him my mouth give him everything. But tense scratch scratch. And if I am. Lena will pay for plastic surgery but she doesn’t have a bag of gold does she? I need yenom yenom Mother Alix said she’d pay. Take money from a saint and give it to the Turk, group analysis for godssake. Stupidity. Next year I start over. And I can pay for individual treatment thank you sir. Thinking I wanted to go to bed. Pretentious Turk. “I’m married, very happily married. My wife is a geisha.” Geisha geisha. I’ll bet she puts horns on him twenty-four hours a day. Well done. It wouldn’t be any good anyway because one loses respect for them, look what happened with that dumbass. Crazier than me that one there. Psychiatrist, shit. How could he help me? Even a baby. You’ll see, I am again. That’s just it, not to feel any pleasure and on top of it all, What day is today? The twenty-sixth? Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine … does this month have thirty-one days?
“Max, does this month have thirty-one days?”
“Come here, Bunny, I want your mouth.”
I open my arms. He falls onto my chest. Yes I love you. So. To get rich. Get rich. You were once and nha-nha was too. I’d like to try it may I? Lena said she’d loan it to me she’s sweet Lena. Generous. She offered to come with me and hold my hand. The scaly one wants a virgin. He’s had his fun with every whore in town but when it comes to. Bastard. All right. If you really insist, I’ll become a virgin. What if I asked him to loan me the yenom? Why not. Doesn’t a girl have the right to ask her fiancé for a little loan? I’ll tell him it’s for an urgent operation and he’ll ask me what operation there’s nobody in the world who can ask more questions. He’ll ask me and I’ll say I need to have my tonsils out my tonsils are rotten my appendix is rotten ah how depressing. And this one here who doesn’t resolve anything.
“I’m cold, Max, cover me. Cover me, love,” she said. She shivered beneath the young man’s body. “It’s freezing.”
He found the woolen blanket among the tangled bedclothes and pulled it up, covering his head. The ends of the fringe reached Ana Clara’s shoulders. He closed the opening of the tent in up-and-down movements that grew faster and faster, reaching a sharp rhythmic pitch. He poised himself above her, then fell downward in a series of convulsions that made the cover slide off them in shallow folds. From underneath him came a fragmented sob, almost a wail.
“Bunny, Bunny, I love you.”
She pushed back the fringe of the blanket and turned her face to the wall, rolling her hair around her finger.
“So good, love.”
“Let’s get married. Bunny? Let’s? I want to get married immediately, hanh? What about it? A great idea, right, Bunny?”
“Yeah, yeah, let’s.”
He kissed Ana Clara repeatedly on the mouth, tenderly straightened her disheveled hair, and rolled off her body as if he were rolling off a sand dune. He lay down on his belly, his face buried in the pillow, one arm hanging down. His hand touched the rug, searching as cautiously as a spider, with two blind fingers stretched out like wiggling antennae. They went around the ashtray where the cigarette still burned; then, inspired, they drew back and found the glass. As he took a gulp, whiskey ran down his chin.
“Eeeh, Bunny, I’m all wet, quick, wipe me, I’m all wet.”
“I’m the one that’s wet. What time is it?”
“Have to look. You remind me of Mademoiselle Germaine after us with her little gold watch, time for this, time for that. ‘Maximiliano, tu es en retard! Tu es en retard!’”
“Did you go to bed with her?”
“She was our governess, Bunny.”
“So what?”
“She was horrible looking, all bones and freckles with her hair always standing on end, look, like this,” he said holding his fingers up perpendicular to his head. “The way she walked was exactly like the watch, tick, tock, tick, tock. Her hair was like this, look!”
Ana Clara was staring fixedly at the ceiling, stroking her abdomen.
“Yeah, I see. Lorena’s governess was English. Nha-nha-nha-nha. She said she learned to write better in English because of the governess living on the ranch. She looks like an insect. Besides, it’s all gone, isn’t it? There you are. Isn’t it all gone? There’s no more ranch nor governess nor anything. Finished. What’s left of the money Mama’s boyfriend takes charge of. Good for him.”
“Loads of money. I discovered something, it’s easy to have either loads of money or nothing, hanh? Isn’t that fabulous? Yiiipeeeee!”
“When she puts on those glasses she looks like an insect wearing glasses. And she doesn’t even need them, it’s sickening. Nha-nha-nha. You remember her? That real skinny girl. Both of them envy me because I’m beautiful, elegant. Magazine covers. So. The nha-nha buys thousands of dresses, her mother sends her bagsful of clothes. For what? She doesn’t wear any of them, she only wears those slacks and nha-nha blouses. That’s how she talks, squeaky, nha-nha-nha. Her brother’s a diplomat. He sends her thousands of things too. Does it do any good? Shit, if I only had half that wardrobe. Super-chic.”
“The communist?”
“You’re getting it all mixed up, the communist is the fat one from the Northeast. This is the skinny one, the intellectual type. Insect-ish.”
“Are you sad, Bunny? Cheer up, love, cheer up. I really wish people would be happier, it’s so good to be happy. In the street you see everybody so sad, why are people
