It almost went off last night. She was at party in the country club where Natalia Wolf lives. Two exits on the highway from Cascade Heights. She drank beer, a lot
of beer, all the beer. At four o'clock in the morning, she threw up. A few people were sick, not just her. Not Juani; he'd gone home early. She called Carlos, the “trusted” minicab driver, the only one “mummy” lets her call. Carlos had to carry her into the car. Not for the first time. Romina travelled in the back seat; it was hot and the smell of vomit overcame her. She asked Carlos to put on the air conditioning, but it didn't work, so she took off her shirt. “A bra is like a bikini, anyway,” she reasoned. She threw the shirt out of the window, to get rid of the smell. She looked down at herself. “Bigger than a bikini, in this case,” she thought. “And the guy's looking straight ahead, and who cares if I've got two non-existent tits.” She fell asleep. When they got to the entrance gates, the guard was alarmed and called her father. He warned him to be prepared, “Señorita Andrade has just entered the Club and is proceeding to your address, naked and apparently on drugs.”
“I didn't take drugs,” Romina said, when Mariana and Ernesto confronted her.
“The guard said you came home on drugs and naked.”
“In my bra, and not on drugs.”
“The guard says you were.”
“The guard is an idiot who's never gone anywhere near a joint.”
Ernesto slapped her across the face. She stumbled. But she was not drugged. She had drunk a lot of beer, for sure. But she doesn't do drugs. She has smoked marijuana two or three times, but the last time it affected her badly and she hasn't tried it again. Beer hits the spot, she doesn't need anything more. She likes gin, too. Not as much, but she does like it. Especially
the one Ernesto hides in the dresser in the living room. Vodka occasionally, rarely. Nothing else.
They're calling her to dinner again. Antonia says to come down, that “mummy is furious”. And “mummy” furious is a fearsome sight.
21
Some time after moving into Cascade Heights, Carla followed Gustavo's suggestion and signed up for the Fine Arts course which took place in the clubhouse, on Wednesdays, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Gustavo had been pressing her to do this for a long time. He was not concerned that his wife should develop any special talent for art â indications were that she had none â but that she should try to fit in and, as he put it, “make friends as a springboard to a new social life”. A social life that was different from the one they had come here to leave behind. El Tano had passed him the information about the course. Carla would have preferred to go back to Buenos Aires and finish her degree in architecture, but Gustavo was not in favour of this. “You'd have to make a gigantic sacrifice â you always found it hard studying for a degree. And when we have our first child, you'll drop out, I know you.” She knew that he could not promise her a child. And equally, finishing her degree was a promise she could not be sure of keeping.
While Carla scarcely knew two or three people, wives of Gustavo's friends, he was already totally integrated into the new community. It was easier for Gustavo: he liked sport, and in Cascade Heights that smoothes the path to friendships. Children also open doors. But they
had no children. Carla was very different to Gustavo â shy, withdrawn, almost frightened of people. On several occasions, acquaintances of Gustavo had tried to get her involved, inviting her to different events, but she always found an excuse to stay away. She only had two friends now, both from her school days. One of them lived in Bariloche, and the other, she didn't know where, because they had not seen each other since Gustavo argued violently with her husband â about what she no longer remembered. All the others were Gustavo's relations. Carla's reclusive tendencies had increased after a miscarriage ended her pregnancy at five months, the longest a baby had ever survived within her body and something neither of them wanted to talk about.
On Wednesday, at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, Carla set off for her first painting lesson. The teacher, Liliana Richards, also a resident of Cascade Heights, introduced her to the rest of the group. They appeared to have known each other all their lives, although Carla later found out that most of them had not been in The Cascade longer than two or three years. She knew some of the women by sight. She must have crossed paths with them in the store or in the restaurant at the clubhouse, because she didn't go anywhere else in the neighbourhood. She believed she may have had dinner with some of them, one night at the Scaglias' house. Liliana gave Carla a brief explanation of the methods they were using, emphasizing that in her workshop “these do not include patinas, découpage, or stencils, or any of those lesser techniques”. In her workshop they made “paintings”. And it surprised Carla to hear the word used. Carmen Insúa interrupted: “Oh, speaking
of paintings, you have to come and see the Labaké I bought, Lili.”
At the end of the class, one of the women offered her a lift home. Carla was the only one who had arrived on foot. Her house was just a few blocks away, and she would have liked to walk them, but it seemed impolite to turn down the offer. Her companion apologized for the state of the car, explaining that she had three children and might, any time now, decide to have a fourth. “What about you? How many do you have?”
“No, we don't have any yet,” said Carla.
“Better not leave it too late,” came the pronouncement, “because you never know how hard it may be to get pregnant.”
The following Wednesday, Carla began to draw on the canvas. She was finally beginning to feel some enthusiasm; in a few days it would be Gustavo's birthday and she thought that her first painting would make a very meaningful present for him. The teacher said that in the first instance she should let whatever she wanted flow out. And Carla could draw only stripes. The following Wednesday it was also only stripes, black ones in varying widths, that her classmates observed without making any comment. Beside her, Mariana Andrade was painting a still life. It was an illuminated table, covered with a tablecloth on which there were some apples, a bottle, grapes and a jar which was lying on its side but not spilling any liquid. It amazed Carla that someone could paint an apple that so closely resembled an apple.
Dorita LlambÃas, who had been working until that moment on her own canvas, apparently oblivious to her neighbour's progress, asked, “What are you copying
today, Mariana, a Lascano?” Mariana looked up with irritation and only then did Carla see the colour plate that was on her lap, from which she was working. Liliana looked closely at the plate. “That's not a Lascano. It's a bad copy.”
Now Carla felt ashamed to have judged Mariana's apple as being so perfect, when for the teacher not even the one in the original was good. Dorita called over from her easel, “Carla, since you don't know any of my previous paintings â come and tell me what you think of this.”
Carla went over and saw a kind of plain, on which the brush strokes were rather too apparent for her taste. Among the clouds one could make out the shapes of hands and feet, in different sizes. “I know, it's hellish: the same things keep appearing to me. Everything comes out with a surrealist slant. Because I don't feel the need to copy, do you understand?”
Carla understood and returned to her stripes. She stood staring at them. She wondered what they represented and why that was what came out of her, rather than feet and hands wrapped in clouds. She did not even know if what she was painting had any aesthetic value. Liliana had told her not to worry about that for the moment. But it began to dawn on her that this was in fact important and she was being patronized as a beginner. As Carla was mulling this over, Mariana said: “If I were you, I'd try a still life, an arrangement of fruit, or something like that. I don't know your house, but I doubt that's going to go with your living room.” She came closer and added in a low voice: “Look at Dorita, surrealism coming out of her ears but you wouldn't want to hang the result even in the lavatory.”
The following Wednesday was the day of the “painting girls”' monthly tea. It was Carmen Insúa's turn to host, and everyone was there. The class ended five minutes early, so that they could leave everything clean and tidy. Carla travelled in Mariana's car and they were joined by Dorita, whose SUV was having its three-thousand-mile service. They covered the six blocks almost in silence. Carla remembers only that one of the women said, “I hope that the tea
will
be tea.” And that the other said nothing, but made a reproachful gesture.
They parked behind Liliana's car, and the others parked behind them. Six cars and nine women, parking as close to the kerb as possible, hoping to avoid having their tea interrupted by security staff on account of one of them blocking the road.
The table was set and looked impeccable. A Villeroy Bosch service graced the white linen tablecloth. Sandwiches, nibbles and, on a hostess table to one side, lemon pie and a cheesecake. Beyond that there was a tray with glasses and two bottles of champagne in silver ice buckets full of crushed ice, which Mariana took pains to point out to Carla, with a disapproving sigh, as if she had guessed as much.
“Wouldn't you prefer something cold to tea?” asked Carmen, serving herself a glass of champagne. Dorita and Liliana exchanged glances.
“Hey, I love the painting. Very sober,” said Mariana, indicating the Labaké. And under her breath, Liliana said to Dorita: “Did the silly cow say âsober'? Can you believe it!”
“What do you think of it, Liliana?” Carmen asked anxiously. Liliana paused for a moment then said: “As a piece of work, it's fine. It's fine.”
Carmen seemed relieved and said, “Do you know the dealer told me it's already worth twenty per cent more than when I bought it?”
“Yes, that could be. There are some people who do inexplicably well out of very little. Perhaps he has a knack for striking rich seams, do you think?” said Liliana, inserting a canapé into her mouth.
“But didn't Labaké win the last National Painting Prize?” asked Carmen with some concern. “That's what they told me when I bought it.”
“And you think that's not fixed?” said Liliana. “Please pass the tea.”
Carmen appeared confused, as if there were something she would like to say, but the champagne prevented her processing the words. She opted to say nothing and pour herself another glass. Carla stood up and went to look at the painting. It was dominated by the colour ochre (identical in tone to that of Carmen's armchairs) which had been given an unusual texture and worked with hessian and other reliefs. Carla liked it, very much. It seemed to show three trees, bare but not dried-up, the roots of which plunged into the sand, where they met ears of corn and a very small canoe, and inside the canoe was a woman who was completely still, but alive. A completely still woman. And on the sand, two open ears of ripened corn. The woman in the canoe looked even harder to draw than the apple and, faced with the certainty that there were things she would never be able to do, Carla felt an urge to weep.
“Thank you very much for the tea. Next time let's do it at my place. And I loved the painting,” Carla said as she left. As Mariana started the car, Carla saw Carmen,
through the window, pouring the remains of the other glasses into hers and knocking them back.
“She's getting worse,” said Dorita. And Mariana heaved a sigh. “Do you know that she paid for that painting by selling all the jewellery Alfredo had given her?” Dorita added.
“No, seriously?” said Mariana. “What was she thinking of?”
“I don't know, I heard Alfredo nearly killed her.”
“Hardly surprising.”
“I liked the painting,” Carla felt emboldened to say.
“I don't know,” one of the others said. “I don't know anything about paintings. But I do know about jewellery. Did I tell you I sell jewellery at my house? You'll have to come round.”
Carmen wasn't present at the next class. Liliana asked if anyone knew where she was. Nobody answered, but everyone exchanged glances. Even Carla, so as not to be left out. Liliana judged her stripes canvas to be finished. Carla had started driving to the course. After this class, she loaded the painting into the car and drove the five blocks to her house, feeling tense, as though afflicted by a worry she didn't fully understand. Gustavo was not home yet. She took the picture to the storage room and found a chair to serve as an easel for it. She studied it. Gustavo's birthday was in a couple of days and Carla was not sure that this canvas was what he would have wanted to receive from her. And she didn't want Gustavo to be annoyed. Not any more. She tried adding one or two more stripes and thought of adding a touch of colour, but nothing convinced her. She cried. She went back into the house and looked up Liliana's telephone number in her diary. She asked if they could meet the
following morning. “Right then, come to the house at about nine o'clock, after you've dropped the children at school.”
“I don't have any children.”
“Oh â really?”
Carla drove to Liliana's house. She rang the bell and the Richards' maid invited her in. She took her to the living room and served her coffee. Liliana appeared a few minutes later. “My husband's birthday's coming up. I don't want to give him the same thing as usual â clothes he doesn't wear, books he won't read; this year I want to give him a painting. One of yours.”
Liliana looked surprised: in all her life, no one had ever bought one of her paintings. Not even a relative.
“He's been very supportive of this whole workshop thing, and I thought it would be a way to thank him for that. But I don't know if I'll be able to pay what it's worth.”