Wolfskin E-Book

Lara Moreno

• Herausgeber: Structo Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 390

Beschreibung

Sofía is thirty-five and her husband has left her. Her father died the year before, and her mother is living in the Canary Islands with a new partner. Sofía flees the city with her young son, seeking refuge in her father's house on the southern coast of Spain, where she spent summers as a girl. Her younger sister, with whom she has a close but uneasy relationship, joins her. Living together again, the sisters face their present as well as their childhood and tangled past.A novel from one of Spain's most remarkable authors, Wolfskin is an intimate meditation on ambivalence and motherhood, eroticism and disappointment, family violence and failure, and ultimately, the possibility—or impossibility—of living with those you love.'Lara Moreno writes with the austerity of a watchmaker: she gives you the impression that her prose reaches the reader after a thousand polishes, where the functionality of each word has been meticulously analyzed.' – Care Santos, El Cultural'Lara Moreno's prose disquiets the reader, not only for the strangeness of reality she describes, but through ellipsis, the gaps and the holes that complete the discourse.' – Sònia Hernández, La Vanguardia

Leseprobe

To Beatriz, my sister

Inhalt

Wolfskin

I used to sleep under a pile of stuffed animals that triggered my allergies. Sometimes, my eyes and nose would swell shut from the dust mites, but I slept buried among those felt sacks of synthetic cotton stuffing with plastic eyes and bushy whiskers because I was afraid. I was afraid, for instance, of the Holy Spirit: a grim dove with a dirty beak and sharp talons stealing into a dark hayloft, beating its menacing wings, robbing you of something very valuable inside, something irreplaceable. It was a threat, more than a mystery of faith. And when I thought about infinity, I experienced a vertigo that turned my stomach. Infinity was everything up above, it was us humans on Earth, plus the other planets, the stars, the universe, the widest black expanse, limitless, and there my mind would go, trying to grasp either the beginning or the end, I’m not sure which, but something forbidding that hurt my head because behind all that immeasurableness was God, the only theory, the only unknown, a truth that gripped me to the point of insomnia. I would lie very still between the animals, pull the sheet over my head, shut my eyes. Sleep wouldn’t come. My sister’s skinny little body rested silently on the other bed, her mattress free of stuffed animals, her breath inaudible. For a child, there comes a moment in the night when turning on the light is utterly impossible. My only salvation, the hallway: at the end, my parent’s bedroom.

Eventually, I would make up my mind and leap out of bed, leave the room, and creep barefoot down the hall, as if my little-girl feet might be heard on the tile. The trip was interminable—not because it was an especially long hallway, but because I wavered with every step, my figure in the middle of the night feeling its way forward, freezing myself in time, since at any given moment it was possible that I would be fine, everything would settle inside of me and maybe I could turn back, leave my parents undisturbed, not do anything unnecessary, return to bed and sleep until morning. But there was the open door to my parents’ room, the light from the moon or streetlamps filtering through the balcony curtains, the two nightstands and their books, my father’s giant body lying face-up, taking up all the space, his heavy breathing that wasn’t quite a snore which hung suspended within my own breath, a taut thread, a treacherous wingbeat, and my mother’s body beside him, forming a triangle in the corner of the bed, her hand bent at her shoulder. The smooth hand of a mother at rest.

With the finesse of an aerialist, every muscle strained, I would make my way around the big bed until I reached my mother’s side. I stood watching her, still and spectral. I didn’t dare do anything else, I didn’t whispermama or touch her arm, I just watched her, because my father and his heavy breath slept on the other side, and if my father were to wake with a violent start, sit up in bed and find me there—well, that was something that just couldn’t happen. Sometimes, I was very lucky. After a few minutes my mother would open her green eyes, startled by my presence—how did she know, as she slept, that I was watching her?—and mutter a few words, what are you doing there? a half-hearted scolding, and let me in under the covers. And there, between my parents’ bodies—so different, my mother’s and father’s—careful not to bat an eyelash for fear that time would reverse and I’d be sent back to my own room, I could finally sleep: uncomfortable, hot, still, until the next morning.

There is a small plastic horse in the corner of the modest fenced-in yard. It looks like it’s been there for eternity, yet it’s not actually old. That particular corner is the only part of the yard that has been conserved as a garden, that wasn’t sealed with cement and tile and made into a patio. Grass now grows in dirty clumps around the rocking horse. The grass has never been tended by a gardener, but, at one point, something like a lawn used to sparkle on sunny winter days.

Two sisters walk through the gate. They aren’t unsettled by the sight of the abandoned plastic rocking horse, blue and white. Maybe they’ve shut their eyes, maybe they’ve entered that space blindly. They know the way by heart. Nevertheless, one of them—the youngest—walks over to the corner, resolute, while the other woman unlocks the door. Without thinking, as if she’d planned it, she grabs the horse by one of its handles and lifts. The dirt stirs with ants and woodlice, the only damp spot in the yard. The woman exits back through the gate with the rocking horse on her back and drops it next to the dumpster on the front sidewalk. The plastic creaks, defeated by sun and heat. Unfettered by nostalgia, the woman enters the house and doesn’t look back.

Clothing and keepsakes have begun to pile up on the bed. Old pairs of dark trousers, hems hand-sewn and ironed, the crease on the trouser leg still intact. White shirts, an occasional light blue, winter plaids, fine-knit vests, leather belts, the changing shape of the buckle holes through the passing years. Thin socks, the elastic worn. A couple of jackets, no ties, a stiff raincoat, a thickly lined winter coat, mismatched pyjamas with pitiful patterns from the 1990s, white briefs, some of them with holes. The sorry trousseau of a man on his own. No jewellery. His wedding ring isn’t there, no pair of cufflinks with engraved initials, no little gold chain from his first communion. Sofía and Rita work thoroughly, impatiently. Almost everything they find they put in big plastic bags; sometimes one will stop to smell a piece of clothing, the folded cloth handkerchiefs, a throw pillow squashed down on the rocking chair. It all smells of dust, of damp, of closed rooms, but still, there’s a remnant of a memory, the presence of the man, a light whiff of cologne or aftershave.

Their father died a year ago. He was fortunate: it wasn’t cancer, nothing degenerative. A simple, efficient brain aneurysm felled him one June morning, just after breakfast. His overturned teacup had still been on the table. Instead of rolling to the floor, it knocked against the plate of toast and there it had remained: the butter knife on one side, a crumpled paper napkin on the other. The TV on. The windows open. The body on the floor, the leg of a chair pressing on his abdomen. He was like that for two days.

Sofía sifts through the books. Some she’s read or heard of, but others are new to her, likely purchased at flea markets or from big overstock warehouses. They don’t interest her. She puts them in boxes, without bothering to wipe off the dust. Nor does she look for any writing on the first pages, either: a date, a dedication, her father’s signature. He didn’t love books enough to write in them. She fills two boxes and seals them with packing tape, then places the few volumes she has set aside back on the bookshelf, next to some ugly, abstract porcelain figurines and framed photographs. She lays them facedown; they’ll divide them up later.

It’s beginning to get hot and Sofía is hungry. She goes through the rooms looking for her purse and finds her sister moving the kitchen furniture, coming and going with electric appliances covered in grease, a blender, a juicer, and dishrags, too, bought a decade before and never used. Are you hungry? Rita asks. I am, but I need to make a call first. Sofía finds her bag and goes outside. A green plastic table and two chairs sit next to the door on a little outcrop that can’t quite be called a porch. They’re dirty. The tabletop bears the marks of several glasses: fossils of fruit juice, a two-litre bottle, an inopportune whisky, red wine from the odd family meal. Sofía sits in one of the chairs and stretches out her legs, spreading her feet wide. She’s not sure if she’s tired, bored, or simply ill at ease. Practically nobody is on the street at this time of day, just the occasional car, someone coming home from work for a mid-morning break. The house is in an old development outside of town, on the way to the beach. Not a uniform group of row houses, but a development from the 1970s, made up of libertine, unaesthetic homes. But she likes it. Many of the neighbours have renovated the original structures, added another floor, a pool, raised the fences and covered them with ivy or bamboo cane. There had been other owners, but her father had left the house exactly as it was. He was responsible for that disaster of a yard, however, spreading cement over everything and laying tiles, just so there wouldn’t be anything to maintain: convenience over beauty. She likes the house anyway. It makes her feel uneasy, but she likes it. Deep down she doesn’t want to get rid of it; in the end, it’s the only place she has to go back to. She opens her bag and grabs her phone, dials. She takes a deep breath, she wants to sound calm and confident when he picks up, maybe even a little distracted. No one answers.

Hey, are you done? I’m ready to eat. A minute later, Rita finds Sofía in the same position, seated on the chair on the porch. Sofía turns, the phone still in her hand. She’s called twice more. Nothing. There’s no reason to be afraid, just irritated. No reason to worry. She shifts in the chair, looks at the sky. Rita observes Sofía’s hands lying tense on her lap. Yeah, all set. Let’s eat. Sofía pulls herself up, leaning her weight on the arms of the chair; her movements seem too slow, like something isn’t working right, like she’s aged. That’s how she feels, actually. Old.

She put the bag full of food she prepared the night before in the unplugged refrigerator when they’d arrived at the house, and now she takes it out. She’s starving. Resentment gives her an appetite. But Rita has other plans. She’s wearing her canvas sneakers and carrying her handbag, has put on lipstick. She looks at Sofía, surprised. Please don’t tell me you think we’re going to eat here, in the house. There’s nothing here, we’re emptying it out ourselves. Why would you want to eat here? Sofía knows Rita’s right: the normal thing to do is go out. I don’t know, because I don’t feel like wasting money at a restaurant. Because I made rice salad last night and that’s what I feel like eating. Yeah, but you make rice salad every night. Don’t you want to have lunch at one of the places on the beach? Sofía’s face is already darkening, her own particular shade of weariness. I’d rather eat here, but you go. Rita sighs, turns, and drops her bag in one of the rooms, takes off her shoes, wipes off her lipstick. She does want to go out, get some air. But she’ll stay. She’ll eat with her sister in the empty house and she’ll rush to finish packing so she can get out of that place before nightfall. Fine, we’ll eat here, but I’m not eating on the porch because it’s way too hot, and there’s no way I’m sitting at papa’s table or in one of those chairs. Move them and we’ll eat on the floor. I have to pee.

Sofía has always looked a little heavy next to her sister, though she isn’t, really. She’s not big-boned, not a robust woman. She’s tall, a little curvy maybe, but her curves are smooth, premeditated, as if they’ll stay in the same place forever. But since she’s the oldest, she’s bigger. She weighs more, it takes more effort for her to move. She’s always preferred to sit and watch her little sister—light, fibrous, lively, agile—dance around her, run down those sandy paths, almost flying. The wind carrying her off. It’s still like that, now.

They’ve moved the table where their father was eating when he died, and the chairs, too. Sofía has managed to find a decent, unstained tablecloth, because a plain oilcloth wouldn’t do. She spread it on the floor in the middle of the living room and set two pillows across from each other. Two plates, two glasses, a glass jug filled with tap water, two identical forks. In the centre of the tablecloth, her brown rice salad: carrot and brown apple, a little olive oil, salt and sesame seeds. Sofía no longer looks so defeated; this simulacrum of a picnic has cheered her. It wouldn’t have bothered her to eat at the table where their father died because she suspects that he actually died on the floor. In fact, it’s more likely that he died in the exact spot where her sister Rita now sits with her pretty legs crossed. Moreover, no one knows how long he was there, writhing on the verge of death. The doctors said no time at all, not even a second; he collapsed and it was over, but who knows, no one was there. No one came for two days. She’d like to tell Rita what’s just occurred to her, but now isn’t the time. Better to say nothing. Serve the salad. Eat.

And so they do. Sofía chews with the enthusiasm of a militant. Her eyes even shine. She’s forgotten the phone, the unanswered calls, the hot little restaurants on the beach, her father. She chews and swallows with concentration, she likes the taste of olive oil on the brown rice. She knows it’s good for her, good for the world. Rita watches her sister, her straight back, the solidness of her shoulders, her presence. She watches in amazement as she chews—a thousand and one times—those hard, bland grains of rice. Rita would almost say that the rice was raw, that Sofía took it out of the package like that, one handful then another and another, drizzled on the olive oil and there you go, lunch. She tries to swallow quickly, aided by big sips of water. This sisterly performance needs to end as quickly as possible. Her posture betrays her indifference. A somewhat despotic laxity, inherent to the eternal adolescence of her limbs, her delicate back, even her cheekbones and the high, clear reptilian forehead, beautiful, cold. She wants to wrap this all up. Sofía has proposed they rent the house out instead of putting it on the market, but Rita wants to sell, even though she’s not necessarily the one that needs the money. Sofía finishes her meal and looks directly at her little sister, sinks into her big eyes: grey, brown, changeable, set in their dark circles. The look lasts only a few seconds. Just an instant, when neither sister has anywhere else to be, nothing waiting for them in the world outside. It’s as if the years haven’t passed, or better still, as if the two sisters have arrived at the place where everything comes to an end and all that’s left for them to do is spread their wings. But this opportunity, it vanishes also.

It’s past midnight by the time the bus pulls into the silent station. Bus stations are all the same at that time of night, with their air of violence, desolation, freedom. The people passing through after midnight look like keepers of sacred stories, or tales of grief. The buses slumber like giant worms, the ticket counters are shuttered, time crawls on. Sofía leaves the station and breathes deeply. As she exits the bus bay, she feels like she’s gone back twenty years in time, back to when she used to make that trip on the weekends. She even hears the phantom wheels of the beat-up suitcase from her university days, rolling across the tile floor.

She’s carrying just a large handbag and a wrinkled jacket. It’s very late, but she had preferred to catch the last bus instead of staying and sleeping over in town. Her phone hasn’t rung all day. It doesn’t matter now, she’s almost home. She starts off in the direction of the bridge, but a hundred yards later raises her arm and hails a cab. She gives her address, and as the car accelerates, she relaxes into the seat, trying—yet again—to determine the appropriate feeling or posture required by the moment.

She takes a deep breath, inserts the key in the lock, opens the door to her apartment. A light is on in the living room. She leaves her keys on the table, hangs up her bag, takes out the plastic bag with the rice salad container—empty and washed already—and leaves it on the kitchen counter. The kitchen is tidy, nothing has been left for her on a tray, no plate set aside with dinner, just in case, no sign that anyone else has eaten, either. She lays her jacket on a stool and is about to sit down again, to think again about how she should compose her face, as if she hadn’t thought about it a thousand times already on the bus ride. She hears voices in the living room, a movie playing. The door is closed. She opens it.

Hey, how’s it going? Good, I’m watching a movie. How are you? Tired. I bet. How did it go? Did you guys finish? I don’t know, I’m not sure if we’re done yet. Is there anything for dinner? You haven’t eaten? It’s so late, why haven’t you eaten? I would have missed the bus. Well, you could have bought a sandwich at the station. I’d rather eat something at home, anything. We went out to dinner so there isn’t anything ready. Ah, how nice. Where? A new Greek place downtown. A Greek place? Why did you go out to eat? It’s Tuesday night. Yeah, it’s Tuesday, so? Well, I’m going to make myself a salad. There’s no lettuce left. Wow, okay. I guess I’m not that hungry anymore. Can I sit here a minute? Are you serious? Don’t start. What, I don’t know if you want me here, you were watching a movie. What’s that got to do with anything? Well, just that maybe you didn’t feel like talking. Oh, so you want to talk—you aren’t really asking if you can sit on the couch, but if I want to talk. I obviously don’t, and I don’t know why you’re asking. It’s almost one in the morning and I’m watching a movie and I have to get up early tomorrow and I’m tired, too. Yeah, I know it’s late, and it’s not like you were waiting up for me. Come on, don’t go there. I think I’ll go to bed now. You’re not going to finish the movie? No, I’m not going to finish the movie. And you don’t want to talk? There’s nothing to talk about, Sofía. I called you two or three times. I wasn’t paying attention to my phone, I had a lot of work and then we went downtown and out to dinner, I already told you. But you could have called me back. Shit, you left early this morning, not two weeks ago. Did you need something important? If it was important you would have left a message, right? I’m so tired of these conversations. I’m tired too, we’re both tired, and we’ve said that twenty times, we’re always tired of something. But I called you to talk to Leo and you could have at least picked up the phone. I’m not going to argue. Did you guys go out to dinner just the two of you? Sofía, enough. I told you, I’m going to bed. I told you I don’t want to talk. And I told you there’s nothing to talk about, so don’t even think about giving me a hard time just because the one fucking day you’re away I don’t return a couple of your calls. Eat something and go to bed. You’ll be with Leo tomorrow, just like every other day of his life. I’m not hungry. And don’t talk to me like that. Sofía, don’t cry, please, it’s so late. Don’t cry. Well, I had a hard day and now this. Now this, what?! I’m going to bed. You didn’t even ask me how it went. I asked you as soon as you got here, as soon as you came in the fucking door! No, you asked if we had finished, and I don’t know if we’ve finished, there’s a lot to clean, there’s a ton to do, it’s the whole house, and on top of it the market is slow and it’s going to need some work, I think quite a bit of work actually; I don’t know, I don’t know what we’re going to do, well, I do know, I suggested we rent it but she won’t, she wants to sell, so we’ll sell because I don’t have the money to buy her out—I’ll lose the house and that’s it. I think that’s good, you’ve only been going there because you’ve had to for years, and you could use the money. I could use the money? Not both of us? Well, I think you need it more than I do. Shit, Sofía, is this what you wanted to talk about? About the inheritance from your dad and stuff with your sister? Haven’t we gone over this a thousand times? No. No, we haven’t gone over it a thousand times, but actually I wanted to talk about us. About us? Ugh. I’m going to bed. I’m done.

It isn’t an option to chase him down the hallway. To follow him into the bathroom, watch while he brushes his teeth, pees. Go on at him as he puts on his pyjamas and gets into bed, rolls over, falls asleep, starts to snore. None of that is an option. She has to stay there, on the couch, sitting on the edge, with her straight, compact back, her hands on her lap, a pair of hands she won’t use to do anything daring. She isn’t crying, now. She stopped as soon as he told her to. Not out of obedience, but because deep down she really doesn’t feel like it. She doesn’t cry but she is hungry; she’s been hungry ever since she was in town and they left the boxes and bags organised and ready to be split up, donated, thrown out, passed down—locking up the house as they left. Rita brought her to the bus station and they said goodbye. She was hungry but she didn’t want to say to her sister, let’s have dinner together, it’s a beautiful night, June nights are always beautiful here. They said goodbye quickly; each was ready to go their separate ways. The sisters hadn’t really shared much, in the end. Hadn’t asked much. Neither had really wanted to know anything vital about the other at that moment in their lives, and the cordial, stifled conversation started to turn a little sour. Better just to get out of the car and walk with dignity to the platform, catch the last bus home.

Standing at the kitchen counter, Sofía wolfs down two bananas. Then she does something worse: she drinks a giant glass of whole milk, the milk she buys for her son. It’s been years since she drank a cold glass of milk, barely stopping for breath, standing before the open refrigerator door in the middle of the night. She doesn’t usually allow herself so much dairy, but she has absolutely no energy to fix anything else. She brushes her teeth and washes her face and finds a clean T-shirt in the basket of clothes waiting to be ironed. Leo’s room smells like Leo. Like sleeping Leo, spilled into sleep. Sweaty Leo, warm and sweet. She buries her nose in his neck and his hair and breathes until she’s dizzy. She picks him up carefully and moves him over, making space for herself in the little bed. Beside him, she falls right to sleep.

I remember it well. My sister and I clinging to the balcony railing, watching the dumpsters on the sidewalk just in front of the house. I could see over the railing, but my sister, who was quite little then, looked through the gap between the bar and the panel. I remember that it was in the afternoon, that it was sunny. I don’t know why, but in childhood the sun doesn’t seem as punishing. I’m sure it was hell on the balcony at that time of day and that our heads were roasting, but all that mattered was that we had to stay there, that we couldn’t move until ithappened. I remember the sun, but not the heat. This is what had to happen: we were to wait until someone took several of the toys next to the dumpster. They were on the sidewalk side so that passers-by could see they were still in good shape and usable. They could still be used, and they were in good shape. They were supposedly our favourite dolls.

My sister and I had been playing earlier that afternoon. I don’t remember what we were doing, but we weren’t in the playroom, we were on the rug in the living room, and there were toys scattered all over the floor. We started a fuss over something, we both wanted the same toy, and maybe, just maybe, one of us pulled the other’s hair, but I could be exaggerating. We might have growled and squealed—sometimes we behaved like little animals. At that moment, my father came home and saw us. It’s completely natural for siblings to fight, but my father couldn’t stand it. It was simply beyond him, as were other such natural things. From up above he separated us, brusquely, and asked what had happened. I suppose we sputtered something about the toys. The toys were to blame, not the simple fact of our coexistence. One wanted what the other had, something like that. I don’t remember the details. But I do remember exactly what happened next.

My father said: Go get your favourite dolls and bring them here. You’re going to put them next to the dumpster and then you’re going to stay on the balcony until someone comes and takes them. You are not to move until someone has claimed your toys.

We obeyed. We went to the playroom. My heart was clenched like a fist and I cried thick tears. I couldn’t stop thinking about my favourite doll of the moment. She was going to be taken from me; someone was going to carry her off from right under my nose. She was still new, a gift from a friend of my parents. She had blonde hair and bendable arms and legs and a bicycle she could sit on and pedal if I moved her. I could pose her wire limbs in any position and she was so entertaining with her bright-coloured clothes and little elfish face. I loved her. I looked for her in the playroom and took her in my hands. I wanted to pass out, but a young child doesn’t know that feeling, doesn’t even know how to faint, and so all I sensed was the trembling in my arms and legs and how frightened I was. My behaviour was straightforward, predictable. Do this and suffer for it, and so I did. Subtext didn’t exist for me as a little girl.

My sister’s behaviour, however, was staggering. Even now, I’m humbled by the memory and find it hard to believe. Even now, I struggle to understand how that sharp wasp-brain worked, that strange little bird: intelligent, calm, drama-free. She was very small. I don’t know how old we were at the time, but her body was thin, and her hair shone when she ran past me, flashing, leaving me dazzled and unsettled. I cried and hiccupped, clutched my blonde bicyclist. But not my sister. She entered the playroom, determined, without the slightest hint of suffering. Immersed in my own agony, I did stop briefly to think about her, about my little sister who at any moment would recognise the tragedy about to befall us. As I watched her climb up on a chair to reach one of the wide shelves of the bookcase, I felt pain, pain for her and pain for me, separate pain, because she was younger and was going to suffer, too. On tiptoe, she sped through her search of the dolls and the boxes, and from the bottom of one pulled out her “favourite doll”. This turned out to be a fairly large rubber cat, passing for one of the characters from The Aristocats. We never played with it. It came to us in a box of toys passed down from another child and—this I swear—we had never as much as touched it, not once. I didn’t even remember that it existed. A completely meaningless object. I stopped crying abruptly when I saw my sister serenely leave the room and go to where my father was waiting. I followed, carrying my beloved new doll. She was serious and calm. I was forlorn. We brought the toys outside and set them next to the dumpster. Then we went back inside to watch from the balcony.

It is—I repeat—staggering that my sister would devise that sort of scheme. I don’t understand where she got her cold-bloodedness, her common sense, the nerve to take the shortest route and avoid the pointless. She was so small. So intelligent. It never crossed my mind to trick my father, not even after I saw her do it. It would have been easy, of course: my father had no idea about our favourite toys. My mother might have, maybe, but it wasn’t our mother who was punishing us. Why didn’t I do it, too? Our father was satisfied with the big lesson he was teaching us. And it had worked perfectly—on me, at least. But on her? She had soared over it, smoothly, ably, a flying fish vaulting over an imaginary pole in the middle of a calm sea, avoiding authority. An elegant feat.

Sometimes I stop and consider why I didn’t tell on her. True, a shared punishment can bring siblings together and it’s easy to imagine that I stayed quiet out of simple loyalty. But I could be a petty child, and I wasn’t always loyal. I believe I didn’t give her away because I knew that she—a little thing, barely three feet tall—was teaching me an important lesson, too, one I still haven’t learned. I clutched the balcony railing and waited, tortured and terribly sad, for some strange girl to walk by the dumpster and carry away my doll. Beside me, her black hair shining more than ever, a stone in a river, polished and wet, my little sister watched the street, bored, impatient for someone to come and take away that junk already. My sister, skinny little thing, calm, silent, watching life go past.

Clouds on Friday morning. The city contains the June heat like a treasure it will hoard until it bursts. Sofía and Leo walk to school, hand in hand. The clouds aren’t the flat bands typical of summer, running parallel through the sky and forming aerostatic designs at sunset. Today, the clouds are heavy, white, laden with dirty water. Sofía is as half-asleep as Leo; she’s slept badly for three nights now. Last night she slept in her own bed, but the pressure not to move, not to touch, to breathe slowly and silently, was so great that she woke up with a cramp in her neck and back. Finally, it’s Friday. She’ll make a nice dinner and pick out a good movie. Maybe then they can finally chill out.

She says goodbye to Leo at the door to his school. He doesn’t complain, he gives her a hug and promises he’ll eat well and that at recess he’ll have the biscuits with no added sugar that he carries in his backpack, instead of the little industrial cream-and-chocolate-filled cakes his friends take for their snack. He doesn’t say that exactly, just: Yes, mama, I promise, and gives her a kiss and goes inside. Sofía watches him walk away and feels a stab somewhere in her body; it’s so fleeting, she can’t say where. It always happens when she sees her son from the back. Leo’s hair is black, like Rita’s. He didn’t inherit Sofía’s hair, which isn’t like anyone else’s. Hair made exclusively for her, the first in the family, hair the colour of dark wheat, wavy and coarse. Leo’s hair is fine and straight like her sister’s, but not as shiny, not a waterfall brilliant in the sun. He doesn’t look like Rita in any other aspect; he’s a mix of the two of them, Sofía and Julio. They both have full lips, a straight nose, a rather square jaw, dark eyes, cool and lively. Julio and Sofía look a bit alike, and this intrigued them when they met; another reason to think that they were destined to love each other. Now it’s deeply disturbing; each rejects the reflection offered by the other.

The clouds have held back the heat, suspended it in the air above. Sofía walks through the streets in the city centre, close to the school. She doesn’t feel like going home, doesn’t want to start work on anything. She sits in the plaza next to the new market, in front of the cinema, and orders green tea and a glass of ice. She doesn’t try to imagine how she will begin tonight’s conversation. She breathes through her nose, deep, feeling her ribs and belly and bladder expand, like they say to do in class. She only does this three or four times; she doesn’t really have the motivation. She drinks her tea and watches people: their skin still pale in June, their sandaled feet still pudgy from winter shoes, their faces. She wouldn’t mind running into someone, talking a bit. She gets up and goes to the bar and gets a newspaper. She looks over the headlines but sees nothing she wants to read and finally checks what movies are showing. It would be good to go to the movies, the three of them, on a Friday night. Even better, leave Leo with the babysitter, who they haven’t called in months, and go as a couple. In the theatre, in the dark, sitting together, watching the same thing, a ceasefire.

Back home, she makes the beds, takes the clothes off the line, puts them in the ironing room, takes a few mullet fillets from the freezer and puts them on a plate, showers, washes her hair well, conditions it, scrubs herself with an exfoliating sponge, removing the dead skin cells from her legs. She scrubs her belly, too, bulky around the belly button, and her arms, her ribcage. She scrubs her breasts less intensely, taking care not to brush the nipples. Her small, fair nipples. Two little coins. They didn’t really grow even when she nursed Leo, and afterwards they went right back to their usual shape, possibly the only things to have returned to normal. As she stands in front of the mirror and smooths on an ethanol-free lotion, she notices Julio’s toothbrush is gone. Her own toothbrush sits alone in the cup with the toothpaste and floss, next to the mouthwash. She feels a slight dizziness that lasts only a second or two, and remembers that today is Friday. Julio will go to the gym after work and must have put the toothbrush in his gym bag because maybe he’ll eat out today, maybe he has a work lunch. Julio is scrupulous about his teeth and he’ll certainly want to brush them when he showers after his workout so he’ll be clean and can show off that smile, those big, bright white teeth, rooted so solidly in his gums. That must be it.

On the big table in her workroom, Sofía spreads a pattern over the new fabric. She stares at it, then picks up a cold, pink piece of chalk and grips it between her fingers. Reinforces a straight line and a few marks. She looks closely at the fabric, which extends from under the pattern. And she observes the pattern, too, its whiteness, the markings, the masterfully traced lines. She stares intently, or is it with apathy? Her large, silver scissors are the best sewing scissors in the world. Julio gave them to her as a gift several birthdays ago, with other sewing tools of the highest quality, professional grade. Her toolkit for a new life, he and Rita called it. It had been her thirty-third birthday present. She grips the chalk between her fingers again and pulls the stool up to the table, threatens to make changes to the pattern. Her vision is blurry. The whiteness of the paper is now the cloudy morning sky, the airy sheet on the mattress, barren territory. Her eyes fog over. She stands and leaves the room.

Leo enthusiastically helps her set the table. He carries one thing at a time and limits himself to what is easiest: the silverware, the basket of spelt bread, clean cloth napkins, a candlestick with a new taper, water glasses, and the salad bowl, because he insisted and because it’s a wooden bowl. He walks very carefully down the hall from the kitchen to the living room and his mother helps him put it on the table and then places it in the centre. Everything is almost ready. The mullet fillets are waiting to be roasted, lined up on a board on the counter. You can wait, right, Leo? Or are you really hungry? I can wait. It’s nine o’clock, the sky isn’t yet dark. Sofía spreads butter on a piece of bread and gives it to her son. She tidies his hair again, gently, without hurting him. At nine-thirty she decides to roast some of the fish. Leo eats after his mother cleans the fillets of their curved, flexible bones, and watches a little TV, his eyes slow and tired. Sofía opens the bottle of wine chilling in the freezer. She pours herself a glass and drinks it quickly. At first, the cold wine isn’t pleasant in her throat, but she pours another glass and enjoys it. She tucks Leo into bed, fibs when she says she called his father and it turns out he’d forgotten he had an important work dinner. Cartoons are still on the TV. Sofía downs her third glass of wine and eats a little salad. Then she turns off the television and does everything one usually does when they’ve waited long enough to know someone isn’t coming home.

For the time being, calling him is not an option. It didn’t work that day she went to the town with her sister. It hadn’t worked when she told him off for not picking up the phone, for not calling her back. And although Sofía can’t say that this is the most drastic event to ever have occurred in their relationship—that wouldn’t be true—in some sense it is the sharpest stone, the best-aimed blow. On Friday, when she’d realised the reason Julio wouldn’t be home for dinner because he wasn’t coming home to sleep, Sofía went rigid. She drank, put the fish away in the fridge, hurt herself in front of the bathroom mirror—her jaw, her knuckles, her anger. But then she went to bed without thinking. She fell fast asleep on the wide, cool mattress where now she didn’t have to pretend, where she didn’t have to shift, to seek a reprieve or capitulation.

As soon as she wakes up on Saturday morning, she opens Julio’s closet. She didn’t expect to find it empty, of course, but how had it not occurred to her to look before? Why didn’t she check yesterday, when she noticed the missing toothbrush? Because it felt much better to imagine Julio with his bag on his shoulder, walking into the gym. Much kinder, more practical. Less cutting than the image of Julio picking out a few pairs of newish jeans, canvas sneakers, two or three shirts, underwear, jacket. She checks to see if they’re in the basket with the dirty clothes, in the stack of clothes to be ironed. They’re not, and she already knew they wouldn’t be because she remembers putting them away on their hangers, very recently. Her feet are cold on the tile, standing in front of the closet again. Her feet, the feet of a frog or a duck or a gecko, some kind of gelatine oozes from between her toes. Two shirts. Monday. Tuesday.

It’s still overcast and the city looks sad even though it isn’t a sad city, it never is, even when it rains, even when the hail falls furiously one or two days a year. If the mist descended far enough, perhaps it could be depressing in those peripheral neighbourhoods, the ones built with hollow bricks, the cars parked on an angle, the broad avenues. But it isn’t a sad city, though its light, its intensity, can be melancholy. And today is Saturday. It’s June, the sky is heavy, badly wounded. She and Leo are walking through an enormous park full of burnt geraniums. They pass families that look like they’re from another time, little girls in flounced organdy cotton dresses. They’ve brought rice to feed the pigeons. Sofía doesn’t want the pigeons to claw her son’s little arm with their sick, mutilated talons or peck directly from his hand. They throw the rice far away, big fistfuls of it, and the birds flock, a great hungry balloon. Later, they have lunch in a vegetarian restaurant. That evening, in the denuded gardens on the other side of the bridge, they sit and watch two couples dancing tango. The small stereo stirs the air with heart-breaking music and the clouds come apart in the sky. Leo is tired but hypnotised by the dancers. When the sun has almost set, he comes alive again and runs about, shyly approaching other children, climbs up on a bench, jumps.

Saturday happens. Her son’s companionship, her own calculated silence, the decision to make no plans, their solitude, the two of them alone in the city. If only every day was like that, Saturday repeated in perpetuity: a missing sense of urgency, the oppressive heat at midday, the pleasantness of a walk, of the parks, of not having to do anything. Not having to explain anything, or show fear, or peel off the shell. Not having to open the door to the chain of events that are about to unfold. Just walk, throw rice on the ground as the street birds attempt to kill each other over a bit of food. Let them have it, with their mess of feathers and cartilage. Sofía and Leo, removed from life’s violence: it’s just empty benches for them, gardens with geraniums and dissipating clouds.

Nevertheless, there is still the night and its terror. Sofía immobile on the couch, the boy already fed and asleep, the house tidied and ready to be buttoned up, shut down. And then the darkest hour comes and she twists and turns and her chest pounds and she can’t get enough air and her phone is in her hand and at last she dials. Damp eyes, tight jaw, tongue mashing against her incisors. He doesn’t answer. Like an automaton, she writes: why are you doing this to me? It takes a long time for her to fall asleep. She checks her phone as many times as her eyes will allow, turns off the light, doesn’t cry, then it’s over.

Sunday is another hue. The sky is empty and blue and it’s hot. Leo suggests they go to the beach. Why don’t they call his dad so he’ll come back with the car and bring them to the beach? That’s a wonderful idea, honey. But papa is pretty far away, he has to work all weekend, I don’t think he’ll get home in time. She tries to speak naturally, behave the way she’s seen so many people behave, in the movies, on TV, in the street, in her own family. Is this how it’s done? That’s a wonderful idea, honey. And she doesn’t stop moving: wipes down the counter one more time, and another, then a clean dish towel to dry, moves smoothly as if she were dancing. That’s a wonderful idea, honey, but we could also take the bus to the beach. It’s not that far. Yes, mama! A weight hangs from every one of Sofía’s organs, one of those round, polished fishing weights, and she wishes she could let herself just drop to the floor, right there in the kitchen, disconnect, that simple, as if she were dancing. No bus, no beach, no child. Go back to sleep, not wait to see what happens, not come up with a plan for her life while time passes. She leaves the kitchen, shuts herself in the bedroom. She calls Julio. Once, twice, three times, four, five.

They don’t go to the beach. Sunday turns out to be bright, sizzling. A pitiless Sunday that sweeps through the people’s bodies, hampers them from moving freely. They’ve come to a school friend’s pool. Sofía is sitting on the side, her shoulders and back burning, her forehead. She didn’t put on enough sunscreen. That never happens to her because she is careful. Obsessive. But she senses her skin getting red and isn’t capable of getting up to get the bottle of SPF 50. She can just about manage to stay close to Leo, so he doesn’t drown, to occasionally shout for him not to go too deep, bend down to adjust his water wings. The boy slips away like fish guts, wet and happy. She manages not to speak. She manages to remain on the side of the pool, feet in the water, shoulders broiling. She looks good, her face hidden by giant sunglasses.