“When I had stripped naked, I lay down on the sand and challenged him.
“ ‘Come on, you strip naked now. Prove you’re a man!’
“ ‘Alejandra!’ he stammered, ‘What you’re doing is madness and a sin.’
“He repeated the word sin like a stutterer, several times, without taking his eyes off me, and I for my part kept shouting ‘you fairy’ at him, more and more scornfully, until finally, with clenched teeth and in a rage, he began to strip naked. When he was all undressed, however, his energy seemed to have drained away altogether, because he stood there paralyzed, looking at me in terror.
“ ‘Lie down here,’ I ordered.
“ ‘Alejandra, it’s madness and a sin.’
“ ‘Come on, lie down here!’ I repeated.
“He finally obeyed me.
“The two of us lay there on our backs on the hot sand next to each other, looking up at the sky. The silence was oppressive; you could hear the slap of the waves on the stones. Overhead, the gulls screamed and wheeled about us. I could hear Marcos’s labored breathing, as though he had just run a long race.
“ ‘You see how simple it is?’ I commented. ‘We could be like this all the time.’
“ ‘Never! Never!’ Marcos shouted, scrambling to his feet as though to flee from some terrible danger.
“He hurriedly dressed again, repeating: ‘Never, never! You’re mad, utterly mad!’
“I didn’t say anything but smiled smugly to myself. I felt all-powerful.
“And as though his words scarcely deserved a reply, all I said was:
“ ‘If you’d touched me I’d have killed you with my knife.’
“He stood there frozen with horror. Then suddenly he took off at a run, heading toward Miramar.
“I lay on my side and watched him disappear in the distance. Then I got up and ran into the water. I swam for a long time, feeling the salt water envelop my naked body. Every particle of my flesh seemed to vibrate with the spirit of the world.
“Marcos vanished from Piedras Negras for several days. I thought he was frightened or had perhaps taken sick. But a week later he timidly reappeared. I acted as though nothing had happened and we went for a walk, as we had so often in the past. Then all of a sudden I said to him:
“ ‘Well, Marcos, did you think about what I said about getting married?’
“He halted, looked at me gravely, and said to me in a firm voice:
“ ‘I’ll marry you, Alejandra. But it won’t be the way you say.’
“ ‘What’s that?’ I exclaimed. ‘What do you mean?’
“ ‘I’ll get married so as to have children, like everybody else.’
“I felt my eyes getting red, or else saw red. Before I realized what I was doing, I flung myself on Marcos. We fell to the ground, struggling. Even though Marcos was strong and a year older than I was, we fought as equals in the beginning, no doubt because my fury gave me added strength. I remember that all of a sudden I even managed to get him underneath me and knee him in the belly. My nose was bleeding, and we were growling like two mortal enemies. Struggling hard, Marcos finally managed to turn over, and a moment later he was on top of me. I felt his hands gripping me and twisting my arms like tongs. He gradually got the better of me and I felt his face coming closer and closer to mine until finally he kissed me.
“I bit his lips and he drew away, crying out in pain. He let go of me then and took off at a run.
“I got to my feet, but strangely enough I didn’t chase after him. I stood there petrified, watching him running off. I passed my hand across my mouth and rubbed my lips, as though trying to scrub dirt off them. And little by little I felt my fury rising in me again like water boiling in a pot. Then I took my clothes off and ran into the water. I swam for a long time, hours perhaps, leaving the beach far behind, venturing out into the open sea.
“I experienced a strange sensual pleasure as the waves lifted me. I felt at once powerful and alone, miserable and possessed by demons. I swam and swam till I felt my strength giving out, and then I began to stroke my way back to the beach.
“I lay resting on the beach for a long time, on my back in the burning sand, watching the seagulls soaring. Far overhead peaceful, motionless clouds made everything round about me seem absolutely calm as night fell, whereas my mind was a maelstrom agitated and rent by furious winds: looking inward, I seemed to see my consciousness as a little boat lashed by a storm.
“Night had fallen by the time I returned home, full of vague animosity toward everything, including myself. I felt possessed by criminal ideas. I hated one thing in particular: having felt pleasure during that fight and that kiss. Even after climbing into bed, lying on my back looking at the ceiling, I was still overcome by a vague sensation that left me trembling as though I had a fever. The curious thing is that I had almost no memory of Marcos as Marcos (in fact, as I’ve already told you, he seemed rather fatuous and dull to me and I had never felt any sort of admiration for him): what I felt, rather, was a confused sensation on my skin and in my blood, the memory of arms holding me tight, the memory of a weight pressing against my breasts and my thighs. I don’t know how to explain it to you, but it was as if two opposing forces were struggling within me, and this struggle, which I was at a loss to understand, tormented me and filled me with hatred. And this hatred seemed to be nourished by the same fever that made my skin quiver and was concentrated in the tips of my breasts.
“I couldn’t sleep. I looked at my watch: it was around midnight. Almost without being aware of what I was doing, I got dressed and climbed out the window of my room to the little garden below, as I had often done before. I don’t remember if I’ve already told you that the Carrasco sisters also had a little house right in Miramar, where they sometimes stayed for several weeks or spent their weekends. We were at that house at the time.
“I went over to Marcos’s house almost at a run (even though I had sworn to myself never to see him again).
“His room, on the upstairs floor, overlooked the street. I whistled, the way I usually did, and waited.
“He didn’t answer. I searched around in the street for a pebble, threw it through his open window, and whistled again. Finally he poked his head out and asked me in an anxious voice what was going on.
“ ‘Come downstairs,’ I said to him. ‘I want to talk to you.’
“I think that at that moment I still hadn’t realized I wanted to kill him, even though I had been foresighted enough to bring my little hunting knife along with me.
“ ‘I can’t, Alejandra,’ he answered. ‘My father’s angry enough as it is and if he hears me I’ll be in even more trouble.’
“ ‘If you don’t come down, you’ll be in far worse trouble still, because I’ll come up,’ I answered with calm, calculated spite.
“He hesitated for a moment, perhaps weighing the possible consequences for him if I carried out my threat to come upstairs, then told me to wait.
“Shortly thereafter he came down through the back door.
“I walked off down the street ahead of him.
“ ‘Where are you going?’ he asked in alarm. ‘What are you up to?’
“I didn’t answer and strode on till I reached a vacant lot half a block away from his house. He had followed along behind me as though I were dragging him along bodily.
“Then I suddenly turned around and said to him:
“ ‘Why did you kiss me today?’
“My voice, my attitude, something, I don’t know what, must have had its effect on him, because he could hardly get a word out.
“ ‘Answer me,’ I spat out at him.
“ ‘I apologize,’ he stammered. ‘I didn’t mean to ….’
“Perhaps he had caught a glimpse of the gleaming blade, perhaps it was merely the instinct for self-preservation, but at almost that same instant he threw himself on me and grabbed my right arm with his two hands, pressing down hard so as to make me drop the knife. He finally managed to wrench it out of my
hand and fling it far away among the weeds. Weeping with rage I ran off and began searching for it, but it was absurd to hope I’d find it in the dark amid that tangle of weeds. I then ran down to the beach, possessed by the idea of swimming far out to sea and drowning myself. Marcos ran after me, perhaps suspecting what I was up to. Suddenly I felt him strike me behind the ear, and I lost consciousness. I found out later that he picked me up and carried me to the Carrascos’ house, leaving me on the doorstep and ringing the doorbell until he saw lights go on inside and heard someone coming to answer, at which point he fled. If you think about it, this may strike you at first as a cruel thing for Marcos to have done, since it was certain to cause an uproar. But what else could he have done? If he had stayed there, with me lying there passed out at his feet at twelve o’clock at night when the old ladies thought I was slumbering away, safe and sound, in my bed, can you imagine the fuss there would have been? Everything considered, he did the right thing. In any case you can imagine the scandal I created. When I came to, the two Carrasco sisters, the maid, and the cook were all there hovering over me, with cologne, with fans, and I don’t know what-all. They wept and wailed as though confronted with a terrible tragedy. They plied me with questions, they screamed at the top of their lungs, they crossed themselves, they exclaimed ‘God have mercy on us,’ they gave orders, and so on and so forth.
“It was a disaster.
“And as you can well imagine, I refused to explain one single thing.
“Grandma Elena came out from the city, all upset, and did her best to get me to tell her what was behind the whole affair. I developed a fever that lingered on nearly all summer.
“Toward the end of February I began getting up and around again.
“I had become more or less of a mute and would say nothing to anyone. I refused to go to church, since the very idea of confessing the thoughts that I’d been having horrified me.
“When we went back to Buenos Aires, Aunt Teresa (I don’t remember if I’ve already told you about this hysterical old woman who spent all her time going to wakes and masses and was forever talking about illnesses and treatments)—Aunt Teresa said, the minute she laid eyes on me:
“ ‘You’re the very picture of your father. You’ll be a fallen woman. I’m glad you’re not my daughter.’
“I left the room boiling with rage at that crazy old woman. But oddly enough, my most violent rage was aimed not at her but at my father, as though those words of my great-aunt’s had struck me first, then headed straight for my father and hit him like a boomerang, and then finally come back and hit me.
“I told Grandma Elena I wanted to go back to the boarding school, that I wouldn’t sleep even one more night in that house. She promised to have a word with Sister Teodolina so that some way might be found to admit me before the school year started. I don’t know what the two of them talked about, but in any event a way was found to take me in at the school then and there. That same night I knelt at my bedside and asked God to make my Aunt Teresa die. I asked this of Him with fierce fervor and repeated it every night for several months when I went to bed, and also during my long hours at prayer in the chapel. Meanwhile, despite all Sister Teodolina’s urging, I refused to go to confession: my rather clever idea was to see to it that Auntie died and then go to confession, because (I thought) if I confessed before she died I’d have to admit what I was up to and would be obliged to stop praying for her death.
“But Aunt Teresa didn’t kick off. On the contrary, when I came back home during vacations the old lady seemed to be in better shape than ever. I should explain that even though she spent her days complaining and downing pills of every color imaginable, she had an iron constitution. She talked continually of the sick and the dead. She would come into the dining room or the parlor and say triumphantly:
“ ‘Guess who died!’
“Or, commenting on the person’s death with mingled self-pride and irony:
“ ‘Inflammation of the liver indeed …. When I told them it was cancer! A six-pound tumor, no less.’
“Then she would run to the telephone to pass on the news with that typical fervor of hers when it came to announcing catastrophes. She would dial the number and without wasting a moment’s time she would blurt out the news, in telegraphic style so as to reach the maximum number of people in the shortest possible time (so that no one else would spread the word ahead of her). She would say ‘Josefina? Pipo cancer!’ and then repeat the same thing to María Rosa, Beba, Nini, María Magdalena, María Santísima. Anyway, as I was saying, when I saw that she continued to be the picture of health despite all my praying, I began to take my hatred out on God. It seemed as though He had tricked me, and feeling Him to be in some way on the side of my Aunt Teresa, that old, ill-natured, hysterical woman, He suddenly assumed in my eyes qualities similar to hers, and my hatred of her caught Him on the rebound, so to speak. All my religious passion seemed suddenly to have changed poles, from positive to negative, though at the same time remaining as strong as ever. Aunt Teresa had said that I was going to be a fallen woman and therefore God thought so too, and He not only thought it but surely wished it to be so. And so I began to plan my vengeance, and as though Marcos Molina were God’s representative on earth, I imagined what I would do with him the minute I got back to Miramar. Meanwhile I got a few minor tasks out of the way: I smashed the crucifix over my bed to smithereens, I threw religious prints down the john, and wiped my behind with my communion dress as though it were toilet paper and flung it in the trash can.
“I found out that the Molinas had already left for Miramar and persuaded Grandma Elena to telephone the old Carrasco sisters. I left the day after, arriving about dinner time, and was therefore obliged to go on out to the Carrasco sisters’ estate in the car that was waiting for me at the station and didn’t have a chance to see Marcos that day.
“I couldn’t sleep that night.”
The muggy heat is unbearable. The moon, nearly full, is surrounded by a yellowish halo like pus. The air is charged with electricity and not a leaf is stirring: everything presages a storm about to break. Alejandra tosses and turns in her bed, naked and suffocating, tense from the heat, the electricity in the air, and hatred. The moonlight is so bright that everything in the room is visible. Alejandra goes over to the window and looks at her watch to see what time it is: two in the morning. Then she looks outside: the countryside seems to be illuminated like a stage set showing a night scene; the silent, motionless woods seem to harbor great secrets, the air is saturated with an almost unbearable scent of jasmine and magnolias. The dogs are restless; they bark intermittently and their answers back and forth fade into the distance and then return again, in wave after wave. There is something unhealthy in that oppressive yellow light, something that seems radioactive and malevolent. Alejandra is having difficulty breathing and has the feeling that the room is stifling her. Then on a sudden irresistible impulse, she climbs out the window. She walks across the lawn and Milord the dog hears her and wags his tail. She feels the wet contact of the grass, at once soft and rough, beneath her bare feet. She heads toward the woods, and when she is far from the house she flings herself onto the grass, spread-eagling herself. The moon falls full on her naked body and she feels her skin quiver where it touches the grass. She lies there like that for a long time: it is as though she were drunk, her mind focused on nothing in particular. She feels her body burn and strokes her hips, her thighs, her belly. As her fingertips barely brush her breasts she feels as though her skin were cat’s fur, bristling and quivering all over.
“Early the next day I saddled the little mare and galloped to Miramar. I don’t know if I’ve told you that my meetings with Marcos were always secret ones, because his family couldn’t stand me and I felt the same way about them. His sisters, above all, were two little feather-brains whose highest aspiration was to marry polo players and appear as often as possible in Atlántida or El Hogar. Both Monica and Patricia detested me and ran and tattled on me the minute the
y saw me with their younger brother. So when I wanted to get in touch with him I would whistle under his window when I thought he might be home, or else leave a message with Lomónaco, the bath-attendant down at the beach. Marcos was out when I arrived at his house that day because he didn’t answer my whistles. So I went on down to the beach and asked Lomónaco if he’d seen him: he told me Marcos had gone to Dormy House and wouldn’t be back till late that afternoon. For a moment I thought of going in search of him, but I didn’t because Lomónaco told me he’d gone off with his sisters and some girls who were friends of his. There was nothing to do but wait for him, so I left a message for him to meet me at Piedras Negras at six P.M.
“I went back to the Carrascos’ in a foul mood.
“After taking a siesta I set out for Piedras Negras on the mare and waited for Marcos there.”
The storm that had been threatening since the day before had been building up all during the day: the air had turned into a heavy, sticky liquid, enormous clouds had gradually gathered toward the west throughout the morning and like a giant, silently boiling, had blanketed the entire sky during the afternoon. Lying in the shade of the pines, nervous and anxious, Alejandra feels the atmosphere becoming more and more charged by the minute with the electricity that precedes heavy storms.
“Impatient at Marcos’s delay, I grew more and more annoyed and irritated as the afternoon wore on. Then he finally turned up as it was getting dark, earlier than usual because of the huge black clouds moving in from the west.
“He arrived almost at a run and I thought: he’s afraid of the storm. I still wonder today why I vented all my hatred of God on that unfortunate wretch, when all the poor youngster really deserved was my contempt. I don’t know whether it was because he was the sort of stuffy Catholic who had always seemed to me to be typical of that entire breed, or whether it was because he was such a good, decent person that the injustice of treating him badly seemed to me to be all the more heady for that very reason. It may also have been because he had something purely animal about him that attracted me, something strictly physical, of course, but nonetheless it set my blood on fire.