Authors: Carmen Posadas
It is too hot for him to think much more, however, and his eyes wander from the printed word over to the calves of Ana Fernández de Bugambilla, who is lying beside him gleaming from head to toe with Ambre Solaire SPF 15. Her body still exudes the scent of their siesta-hour sex from a few minutes earlier, and Sánchez abandons his reading to caress his favorite contour, the smooth hollow where her lower back curves into her buttocks. She turns, submissively, a perfect little cat who knows just how to feign divine satisfaction:
“Daaarling . . .”
3. Ana
The latest bikinis are nothing but a nuisance when it comes to sunbathing and swimming. At least this is what Ana Fernández de Bugambilla thinks. Perhaps Grace Kelly or Rita Hayworth—or any other woman from the days when women sacrificed all in the name of fashion—endured such discomfort without complaint, but not Ana. Wires are everywhere, digging into her ribs in a very admirable attempt to accentuate her nonexistent cleavage. Then, a bit further down, she wears a pair of micro-shorts covered by a tiny skirt, which takes years to dry when wet, threatening its mistress with, at best, a terrible cold and, at worst, an case of cystitis. The result, however, is stunning: luminous bikini, shapely legs, stomach, chest, neck (all held very tensely so as not to encourage the formation of wrinkles), and, finally, the face, which is hidden by a pair of extremely dark glasses that, if nothing else, prevent the outside world from reading her thoughts.
“Oh, the depths to which you have sunk, Ana,” she tells herself with a newly acquired bitterness. “Good Lord, the things you do when you let your hair down,” she would say to herself if she were to analyze all the unthinkable transgressions she has committed in the few months since her marriage dissolved. But philosophical analysis is not her style. She is far better off not thinking, not drawing any conclusions, because an explosion of thoughts might lead her to wonder something along the lines of:
“Good Lord, what on earth am I doing here at L’Hirondelle d’Or with a man like Antonio Sánchez?”
No, no. Too much thinking is an unpleasant and dangerous activity, as unpleasant and as dangerous as the exercise of trying to analyze oneself with the cold perspective of an outside observer. Because when we indulge in the audacity of philosophizing, we run the risk of looking at ourselves from the outside, of staring with shock at someone we never thought capable of such shameful behavior. This logic is precisely what keeps Ana from thinking about what has just happened only a few moments ago, during siesta time. Some things are better off forgotten. Like the image of two bodies writhing in a tangle of damp bed sheets and Ana telling herself,
Oh, it’s so hot, it’s so hot . . . don’t look, Ana, don’t look at that messy, sticky clump of hair, don’t look at that drop of sweat rolling down his nose and hovering at the tip, threatening to fall off . . .
Oh, gravity can be so very cruel to faces when they are distorted by desire, and the face that gazed down at her during siesta time was most definitely cruel and ghoulish: bulging lips, veins pulsating at the forehead, and then that droplet of sweat, poised less than an inch from her own lips.
I don’t want to swallow it,
she had said to herself.
Good Lord, no. I must figure out some way to turn around, turn my face away . . .
After that, a change in position: Ana on all fours, Ana astride a greasy body:
. . . Oh, there must be some place for me to look. Maybe I should just shut my eyes so I don’t have to see anything.
It just didn’t seem possible—was that really Ana perched doggy-style, back arched, whispering silly things she must have heard in some movie? A couple of gasps (
Should I say this or that? Will that sound all right?
) followed by, “Oh, yes, yes, give me more, like that, like that! Yes, yes!” And then more gasps. Good Lord. Much better not to think, not to remember anything. And she remembers nothing, except for the one sentence that sums it all up:
“Oh, the depths to which you have sunk, Ana.”
She and Sánchez are inside the solarium, where the mud baths are administered. As such, the Ambre Solaire SPF 15 isn’t really necessary, nor is her haute couture bikini—any old rag would have done just fine for the solarium. In places like this, nobody ever stares at you. Nobody cares enough to check out their fellow hotel guests smeared with dark mud as they walk back to their lounge chairs, where they spread their arms and legs wide open, as per the instructions of the mud-treatment supervisors. A giant cupola, exactly like the glass dome that crowns the winter pool, protects the guests from the outside world. To the left sits a hot-water Jacuzzi, and to the right, thick bubbles of red clay come gushing out of a pool or a fountain of some sort. Ana wouldn’t dream of going near the thing, for she has no desire to look like those Germans frolicking about like red-faced pigs in the mud, even if smearing yourself with mud is part of the ritual here.
Relax your body and mind, don’t think about anything at all,
she tells herself. But it is so unbelievably hot, and the flickering reflection of the fountain dances above on the glass cupola, as do the rather odd-looking shadows of the people down below. First there is Antonio Sánchez, then Bernardo and Bea, and just a bit further away, Mercedes Algorta, who greeted them most amiably before settling down on a lounge chair at the other end of the solarium. Everyone is spread out, separated by the silence, and nobody says a word. Their shadows may come together on the ceiling, but not down here, thank God, Ana thinks as she looks upward, not daring to look down, left, or right, not even now, when it is all over. She has passed the siesta test with her lover, and she is finally free to relax in the mud room in her underwire bikini and her dark sunglasses that make her inscrutable to all. The moment is tranquil, but Ana still cannot bring herself to look toward her left, for she is deathly afraid of seeing Sánchez, of seeing his feet resting atop the lounge chair next to her, and especially of seeing that big toe of his. He has just slathered mud all over his body—not the red variety but the black mud, which is purifying, vitamin-enriched, and highly restorative. The pasty potion covers him from thigh to foot—all the parts that Ana does not want to see. The one thing, however, that has escaped the mud slick is his big toe (
Why?
she wonders.
For what disgusting reason?
). It is a tall, proud, naked protuberance. It is capped by a thick, dark toenail that hypnotizes Ana as it moves back and forth—for some reason she cannot tear her eyes away from the frighteningly hornlike nail that rises to attention as her lover (
My lover. Good Lord, this man is my lover
) turns the page of the newspaper he has been reading for over half an hour. Once again he stops at page 25, the science section, and he reads the item:
“When four rats (or five at the most) are trapped in a box together, each one will keep his distance, trying not to invade the territory of the others.”
4. Bernardo
The lounge chairs are lined up along the perimeter of the mud baths, like the keys of a grand piano. The majority are white (that is, empty); only five are black (occupied). Every so often a waiter comes around in response to a request or to place a tray of honey-colored drinks garnished with a sprig of something—mint, possibly—on the low tables nearby. The silence is all-encompassing. One lounge chair is set apart from the rest. On it Mercedes Algorta flips through a magazine. A bit closer to Ana and Sánchez, Bea and Bernardo recline. Bea is currently executing a series of extremely challenging abdominal exercises. Next to her, Bernardo Salat snoozes away.
The heat doesn’t do him justice. In colder weather, dressed in street clothes, Bernardo exudes a kind of dignity that the heat de-nies him. Now, his damp hair sticks to the back of his neck and there is a white, hairless region extending from his knees down to his ankles, revealing the merciless nature of knee socks—only the very best and most expensive kind have such a curious depilatory effect. The truth is, he looks an awful lot like a half-plucked chicken. But there he is dozing away, oblivious (or trying to remain oblivious) to the bathers and their flirtations. His sunglasses are reflected on the ceiling as two luminous, immobile blobs; he wishes his thoughts were as faint. After all, this isn’t the time to think about anyone or anything outside of this place. No, no—nothing faraway; nothing related to work or family. He should just think boring, trivial thoughts. Yes, that is indeed the best antidote for all concerns, not to think. But not thinking proves practically impossible. He opens an eye to find one leg leaning at a sharp angle in one direction and the other stretched out in front of him, affording him a bird’s eye view of his lower body. “Nice bathing suit,” he says to himself. His suit is covered with zebras: red zebras, blue zebras, white zebras. He then thinks about how it was his wife who gave it to him the day before as he was leaving for the airport, but he avoids any further reflection on the topic because he recognizes the early formation of a nagging thought and wants to suppress it before it can evolve any further. “Items of clothing cannot speak,” he assures himself. “They do not tattle, nor do they run around telling stories at random.” Of course, it
does
make him feel guilty that he is using his wife’s gift for a lover’s tryst. It feels as if he is tempting fate.
Bernardo changes positions. That is the way nagging thoughts are when you try and relax. Just when you want to think about nothing but trivial things, they bombard you with the most inconvenient ideas.
Let’s see: golf. That is a fine topic. Sánchez’s putt, his drive, his swing . . . Bernardo needs to think about something completely irrelevant. Like teeing off with Sánchez—a pastime he doesn’t particularly enjoy, confirmed once again earlier this morning out on the course. No, no, it doesn’t entertain him in the least. Antonio S. is an important man, intelligent even, but as a golf partner he’s a pain in the ass. “You can really tell,” Bernardo said to himself, “that he’s a newcomer to the sport, because he embraces it with the fanaticism of the recent convert. He is so tireless, so persistent, my God, it’s enough to drive a person mad . . .”
This, as it turns out, is not a very pleasant thought, but it
is
something to occupy his head for a while.
“Now, remember. Above all, above everything else, no matter what happens over these few days, you absolutely must tolerate this, Bernardo.”
This is what he says to himself. And then, just as a pleasant wave of sluggishness washes over him, almost putting him to sleep, he is assailed by another stream of uncomfortable thoughts that have been waiting around for just this kind of defenseless moment. First thought: They picked the wrong hotel. That is problem number one. But it won’t do them much good to turn around and leave, not at this point. Nor does it seem wise to concoct a bizarre story for the benefit of the casual and potentially nosy observer.
We are all stuck here together,
he thinks. After packing the zebra swimming trunks that his wife, Myriam, gave him, he comes all the way to this godforsaken hotel with Bea, his lover, and the first person they run into is Mercedes Algorta, his wife’s first cousin. How on earth will he be able to prevent her from mentioning the coincidence when she returns to Madrid? He can just picture it: “Guess who I ran into in Morocco? You’ll never guess . . .” Shit. There is nothing worse than getting yourself exposed on account of an old, worn-out love affair, a passion that ended ages ago. Oh, Bernardo . . .
The African sun burns hot even in October, even though they are not in the great outdoors but rather inside a giant greenhouse, in a big glass box that has them all trapped inside: Sánchez, reading his newspaper; Ana, trying hard not to think; Mercedes, dozing away. All of them are just sitting around doing their own thing, which is one of the great advantages of visiting a spa hotel. Body-worshipping, Bernardo muses, is the only social activity that allows a person to say nothing, to feel no obligation to chatter away constantly. What a relief, he thinks, because it is so hot he can’t bear the thought of having to talk to Sánchez about golf or Bea about much of anything. Unnecessary Bea. But undumpable as well. Love takes up where knowledge leaves off, someone once said, but Bernardo knows better. After several years of extramarital affairs, he has finally come to the conclusion that habit is what keeps things going between two people: habit, unfulfilled promises, and all the stupid sweet nothings people say in bed, sentiments that last no longer than an erection. Sentiments that he usually forgets by the time he gets into the shower. But they are so true, so heartfelt during that brief interlude when all romantic lies are true.
Real romantic love can only be true in fleeting moments,
he thinks.
I love you
now,
I need you
now . . .
it all happens in instants.
Who was the naÏve person who came up with the idea that romantic feelings could produce eternal truths? A fool, no doubt.
Bernardo tries to peer out above his motionless body, toward the far end of the Jacuzzi, above the mud pools. Look, look at the multicolored zebras, he tells himself: Some of them are blue; others red. They seem so innocent all wrinkled up like that from the water.
What a lovely pair of bathing trunks,
he thinks.
5. Bea
Lying face-up in her lounge chair, her arms stretched out wide and her legs tense, Bea idly thinks of a friend she hasn’t seen in ages, J. P. Bonilla. Physical exercise is so good for the mind: It organizes the thoughts, and butt-lifting repetitions help, with their very useful, military-style cadence: one, breathe in; two, breathe out. Very slowly now, once again: one, breathe in; two . . . As she does this, Bea thinks about J. P. Bonilla and his voice, which she heard on her answering machine just minutes before she left Madrid.
“Come on now, what’s the big deal? It’s just a goddamn telephone message,” she tells herself, but she cannot deny the fact that she is definitely intrigued, because it has been no less than three years since she last heard that voice. And that can only mean one thing: money.