A desperately unhappy woman pining for her ex-husband visits a solipsistic, lonely poet. In turns funny, intriguing and menacing, today’s story translated by Patricia Dubrava is a surreal love triangle.
“Forgive the mess. I didn’t know…” Lopez said to his guest after switching on the light.
She observed the room while he closed the door and locked it with his key.
“No worries.”
The living room was full of household objects and cardboard boxes of all sizes, some big file cases. There was a computer, many CDs scattered on the rug, a CD player, a black sofa, an exercise machine and a stationary bike. A large aquarium with a variety of fish commanded the top of one cabinet.
While he took his sport coat and her jacket and purse to the bedroom, she continued looking around: in contrast to the floor, the walls were bare; a bookcase stood beside the sofa; topping a stack of magazines was one about fish.
Lopez returned quickly.
“Wouldn’t you like to sit down? Amanda? Your name’s Amanda, right?”
“Isabel.” She corrected him, sitting on the sofa. “But it doesn’t matter. I’m not famous like you, so my name can easily be forgotten.”
“I’m not famous,” Lopez refuted, with a certain melancholy. “I have my readers, but they are few. Can I offer you a drink?”
“Rum, please.”
“I have whiskey.”
“You don’t have any rum?”
“Yes, but look, you just have to try this whiskey.” Lopez went to search for the bottle among his cardboard boxes, anxious to please the woman. Meanwhile, she settled back on the sofa and kicked off her shoes. She sighed, a sound between weariness and boredom. Lopez went to the kitchen and got a container of ice. Then he came back and went on talking while putting things on the table. “I bought it in Las Vegas, O.K.? It’s Scotch. And you know what it cost me? Twenty bucks, isn’t that a bargain?
“I want rum.”
“But look, listen to me, won’t you?” insisted Lopez. “This whiskey is a steal.” He poured a glass and offered it to her.
Isabel didn’t want it.
“I’m not interested in bargains. Do you have rum or don’t you?”
Lopez took a swallow from the glass she’d spurned and put it down on the table.
“O.K., O.K. I was only trying to be nice.” He began again to search among his boxes. “But that doesn’t matter to you, right? You want rum.”
“Don’t talk to me like that. We just met.”
“O.K. I’m not saying anything. I never say what I ought to say. I should keep quiet and everyone would be happy.” Lopez at last found the bottle of rum and went to the kitchen. Isabel heard him open and shut the fridge and from there he continued, in a louder voice so she could hear him. “Do you want it with Coke?”
“Yes and lime. If you have…”
“Of course I have some. You think I’m lacking anything in this place? You think because I’m a poet I don’t spend money on the necessities?” Lopez returned to the living room. He brought a liter bottle of Coca Cola and some sliced limes. He sat on the rug, in front of Isabel. He seemed sad. “It’s what everyone thinks.” He took a large swallow of his whiskey.
“I didn’t mean that. I’m sorry.”
“Ah, don’t worry about it. You think I was angry? You think I’m crazy enough to get angry over nonsense? Well I’m not, O.K.? The poet Lopez still is not crazy. I’m only a bit worried about my family…”
“Your family?”
Lopez got up from the floor.
“I’m referring to these children. He made his way to the aquarium. “Come here, please. I want you to meet them.”
“I can see them from here.”
“No. But look, come over. I want to present them to you. O.K., as you like. You’ll see them later.” He continued talking, his back to Isabel, while she drank her Cuba libre. “How was your day, huh? We’re hungry, right? Of course, if we haven’t eaten today.” He sprinkled fish food into the water. “Isn’t that delicious? I know you love it. And do you know it cost less than five bucks? A deal, right? But look: Alfonsina III follows the family tradition. Shit. I’ll grab her right now. Let’s see, where’s my net? We can’t have her floating there; it’s dangerous. They think of nothing else, but killing themselves…”
Isabel got up at last, curious: “It committed suicide?”
“Yes, just look at her: she stuck her head out of the water and breathed air until she exploded. That’s how they do it. They don’t want to live in this shitty world. And do you think it matters to the others? Do you see them grieving by any chance? Of course not. Alfonsina III was a poet, a poetical oscar: she ended bursting like a rat and everyone happy, right? That’s life.”
“Where do you get such foolishness?” More than a question, it was an expression of disgust.
“All my oscars have ended the same; the three I’ve had were named Alfonsina and the three burst like poisoned rats with air or by jumping out of the aquarium. Destiny of a visionary, right? Of a poet. What do you think?”
“But that one going past is the same, isn’t it? Isn’t it an oscar?”
“Certainly not. You don’t know anything about fish, do you? To confuse an oscar with a goldfish…that one is Mayakovsky II. Mayakovsky I committed suicide when we were still in the other house.”
“The rest…”
“The rest are also poets, that’s what you wanted to know, that’s what was worrying you? Fine, I’ll introduce them to you before you begin to distinguish between them. Look, the bettas, those two that are isolated, are called Baudelaire and Rimbaud. They are cursed fish, understand? Dangerous poets for the consciousness of the aquarium. Warriors of the word.”
“And this pretty one?”
“Which?”
“This one here.”
“Don’t touch the aquarium!”
Isabel reacted instantly to his exclamation. She withdrew offended, turning her back.
“Sorry, sorry, Isabel. It’s just that fingers leave marks, you see? It’s a lot of work to clean them off. Come here,” he took her arm anxiously, with sadness. “Look, you see how the fingerprints stay?”
“I’m going to make myself another Cuba, if you don’t mind my soiling your glasses.”
Lopez ignored the comment. He attempted to continue talking about the fish as if nothing had happened.
“You like this one, huh? It’s a guppy. If you like fish, I can entertain you, look. Her name is Christina Georgina. My guppies also have the names of poets, you see? This is Milton, who is blind; he lost his vision fighting with Lugones, in spite of the fact that neither of them are fighters. Lugones felt guilty afterwards and committed suicide. That’s how life is for us…”
He stopped his discourse when he realized that Isabel, seated on the sofa with her eyes closed and the glass in her hand, didn’t seem to be listening. He took a couple steps toward her. “I’m talking to you, Isabel, don’t you care? Yes, I understand: my conversation bores you, right?” He sat on the sofa, next to her. “It’s my fault. We just met and well, you accepted my invitation to come here, to my house, the home of a single man. I know that when a woman does that she wants something else, other attentions,” he embraced her. “Come on, we’ll go to the bedroom.”
Isabel pulled away, irritated. “Hey, stop. What’s wrong with you?”
“You wanted to have a fling, didn’t you?”
“No!”
“Then why did you want to come here? I’m a single older man. You wanted to make fun of me, did you?”
“No!”
“Everyone thinks they can make fun of the poet Lopez.” He finished his whiskey and poured another.
“I didn’t want to make fun of you.”
“Did you want to have an adventure?”
“Well, yes, but…but now no. I’m married: look at my ring…”
“You’re lying! It isn’t true!” Lopez got up and kneeled on the rug. He buried his face in the seat, near her thighs. “Why is this happening to me? I knew it, I knew that things weren’t going to change…”
Isabel finished off her Cuba and served herself another. “Where’s the bathroom?” she asked.
“At the end of the hall.”
Isabel disappeared in that direction. When she came back, she said: “I felt very alone, very…I needed company. I never want to go home now…because no one’s there. Everything is a mess, dirty dishes, clothes piled on the bed…my husband left a month ago…he left me…”
“Life is full of shit,” Lopez commented without lifting his head.
“I don’t want to wait for him, don’t want to keep thinking he’s going to come back…it hurts me. So I try to escape. You don’t know what it’s like…to stay at work as late as possible, inventing tasks, trying to act as if everything’s fine, the marriage is fine. Until everyone leaves and it isn’t possible to continue resisting…then to drive home, carelessly, with no love for life, to see if maybe an accident happens and everything could be over. To get home and find no one. To know that there, packed away, are the mementos of your wedding: the photos, the license, the vows—proof that you were married. You were married.”
Interested, Lopez lifted his head to hear better and made himself more comfortable. Isabel began to stroke his hair.
“And then to go to sleep in a bed which for a month has not been made or changed, which still smells like him…” she smiled. “Our bed is very big and pretty, round,” she drew the form and size with her hands, dreamily—“My mother gave it to us along with the other bedroom furniture, when we got married…”
“Why’d your husband leave?”
“I don’t know…he says that…”
“Wait, I have to go to the bathroom. Then you go on telling me.”
Isabel remained alone, with her Cuba and her memories. But she picked up the thread of her story immediately:
“He said he left because my family meddled with us too much,” she continued when Lopez returned, “but it isn’t true. My mom only wants to help us. She gave us the bedroom set, right? She paid for an extra night at the hotel where we spent our honeymoon. And she admires Fernando a lot. He’s a musician. A pianist. Mom always talks about him and goes to his concerts.”
“And what did she say about the separation?”
“She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know anything. She thinks everything’s fine. I told her Fernando is on a concert tour. Just last night she called to say hello.”
“Why don’t you tell her?”
“Perhaps because I still hope that things will resolve, that he’ll come back. That’s what I do every night: wait for him,” she began to cry. “I put on my prettiest nightgown, the one he likes most and get in bed. I hear a car pass on the street and imagine it’s him. Fernando doesn’t have a car: he doesn’t like them; but it is already late, so he has to come in a taxi. Or someone has to bring him. But that isn’t going to happen, it isn’t going to happen. I know him. That’s why I didn’t want to go home today. That’s why I wanted to have…an adventure…to feel like I can still enjoy myself, that I’m still attractive and…I hate him. You don’t know how much I hate him!”
Her Cuba was gone and she made herself another one. Lopez also got another drink.
“Why did you pick me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you like me? Did you like the poet Lopez?”
“I don’t know, maybe. In any case, it wasn’t that. I saw you there alone, like me…”
The two of them remained silent for a long moment, drinking. Lopez looked at Isabel for a long time and asked her a sad question:
“You no longer want to have an adventure with me?”
“No. Not now…I feel very depressed,” she sighed. “Do you have any cigarettes?”
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Lopez got up to search among his boxes. He began to stagger.
“I don’t smoke any more. I quit the day of my wedding…but now I feel like having one.”
Lopez offered her an open pack he found among his things. She took it and stopped to examine it before taking out a cigarette.
“You smoke?” she asked him.
“No, look, it’s just that they were really cheap in Las Vegas and I thought: it would be worth the trouble to have them in the house. And see, now…”
Isabel smiled bitterly.
“You like cheap things a lot, don’t you?”
“No, please. I knew you were going to say that. You were afraid to say it before, right? You think it’s because I’m a poet. All poets are Vallejo, right? We all go around collecting bottles thrown in the gutter.”
Isabel felt an anguished impulse to embrace him and gave him a hug.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that, I didn’t want to hurt your feelings. It’s just…for a moment I thought that I…was included in your bargains.”
“Go on. And they say that poets are sensitive. No one understands us…”
They fell silent. Lopez began to caress Isabel’s knees, with neither lust nor tenderness, distractedly.
“Wouldn’t you like to take off your stockings? You’d be more comfortable.”
Isabel pushed his hand from her legs.
“Better if you go on teaching me about your little fish.” She got up. “Come on, why not? Show me.”
“No,” Lopez tried to resist her, but Isabel took him by the hand to the aquarium and began pointing without touching the glass.
“What’s this one’s name?”
“Dante,” Lopez seemed embarrassed. Isabel, on the other hand, appeared entertained.
“And this one that looks hunchbacked?”
“Juan Ruiz.”
“And those don’t commit suicide?”
“No…listen, Isabel, listen to me. I feel stupid. You must think I’m crazy or full of manias or…”
“No! You’re not stupid.”
“Those creatures are the only things I have in the world, you see? They’re the only ones who keep me company and pay attention to me. Look at them: I do no more than bring my hand near them and they are happy. You think people are like that with me? Never, Isabel, never. I lived eight years in a prison: horrible. I left my youth there; I couldn’t have friends, relationships with other poets, connect with the world, even less…”
“Why were you in jail?” Isabel asked, suddenly nervous.
“Well, it was as if I were in jail, understand? I was married to an ogre of a woman; everything was forbidden with her: having friends, writing poetry, daydreaming…”
Isabel took him by the hand, leading him back to the sofa. “Come, tell me about it. We’re going to fix ourselves another drink, O.K.?”
“I’m already past my limit, I think. I’m not a man of the world: never had the chance to learn.” He paused, watching as Isabel poured, changed his mind. “Fine, make me another, please.”
“Aha, I’m listening,” Isabel invited him to go on. But he had become sad and said nothing more.
“How long have you been divorced?” she asked him.
“We separated two months ago. Then I took that trip to the United States. I wanted to travel. While I was with her I never could. I wanted to have fun, to see entertaining places: I went to Las Vegas. Two weeks. Then I came here. I just finished moving in.
“I noticed,” said Isabel, smiling. Seeing that he continued being dejected, she lit another cigarette. “I’m going to the bathroom,” she said, and when she returned she began to talk about herself again.
“I also have nothing. Not now. You saw my car; it’s new. My house is mine and it’s beautiful, wood-paneled walls and a terrace and the studio where my husband worked…but none of that interests me. What I want is far away…so…I have nothing, you see? I am worse off than you.”
“Have you tried to talk to him?”
“Many times.”
“And no results. Not a bit of hope?”
“If I had hope I wouldn’t be here.”
Lopez went back to caressing her legs, absently. He took a swallow of his drink and asked bluntly, “Is he a good lover?”
“Marvelous.” Isabel sighed. “He’s a marvelous lover.”
“He knows how to do a lot of things, right? Tell me what he does to you. I want to learn.”
Isabel took his hand off her legs and got up, sighing.
“Fernando…where are you? Where are you, my love?” She began to caress her arms, her breasts, dreamily. “Fernando…”
“Listen, don’t do that. Please…”
Isabel went on, ignoring him: “Fernando…”
Lopez got up abruptly and grabbed her arm. “Stop, or I won’t be responsible.”
Isabel stopped.
“What are you trying to say?”
“You’re done teasing me, you hear? You wanted to come here. You have to satisfy me.” He tried to kiss her.
“Let me go!” Isabel gave him a hard push, causing him to fall to the floor. She grabbed the bottle of rum and blandished it over him, ready to hit him with it.
Lopez tried to get up, clumsily. He suddenly felt very drunk.
“Nothing matters to me, get it? I lived nearly a decade in the hell of a miserable marriage, what could jail matter to me? Tell me, what could a jail do to me? I’m capable of anything.” But he wasn’t convincing; he sounded like a bad actor. His angry tone converted into a tone of defeat and then, yes, he was convincing. “I can’t even scare you, see?” He hung his head. “Look how you have left me: I am trembling with desire. I can’t take it any more, Isabel. I’m dying for a woman, to have the body of a woman in my arms, doesn’t matter who, one hour, just a little while…with my wife almost never…but you don’t care, you aren’t just anyone…you are young and beautiful…a princess…stay with me, Isabel. It doesn’t matter that nothing happens now. Only tell me that you’ll stay with me. Give me a chance.”
Isabel appeared to calm down. She put the bottle back on the table, opened it and served herself a little. She also lit a cigarette.
“Stop tormenting yourself,” she said, exhaling a long breath.
Lopez began to drag himself along the rug as if he were wounded.
“What does that matter to you? What do you care about the luck of a poet? I’m going to end like Alfonsina III: burst like a rat, hanging from a rafter and everyone happy…”
“I’m going. Would you get me my purse and jacket?”
“No. I don’t want you to go…I’m not going to get you anything.”
“Keep them, then…” she turned to the door and tried to open it. “Give me the key, please.”
Lopez got up. “Don’t leave.”
Isabel, menacingly, extended her hand. “Give me the key.”
“O.K, fine. But wait, I’ll get your things.” Lopez went to the bedroom. Isabel, meanwhile, tried to calm down, went back to the coffee table and took a generous drink of the Cuba she’d left there. Lopez went to the bathroom first, took a while, then came back with her jacket and purse and a small black address book.
“Will you give me your telephone number?”
“Of course not,” Isabel responded, yawning. She had begun to feel sleepy. And a little drunk.
“I have an idea,” Lopez said, suddenly enthusiastic, without following up on the phone number. “Do you know where your husband is?”
Isabel yawned again and took the last sip of her Cuba, finishing it. She didn’t pour another.
“I suppose at one of his friend’s houses. Why do you want to know?”
“Why do I want to know? Listen, dummy, I can call him, tell him that you had an accident and I brought you here, that he should come…”
“You’re crazy. Open the door, will you? I want to go home…”
“Wait, listen to me.” Lopez sat next to her again. “Can I serve you another drink?”
“No. What I want is to be in my bed, I’m tired.” She began to snivel like a child but didn’t get up from the sofa. “I’m so tired and I don’t want to be with a madman…”
“Fine, I’m going to have another. With Claudia never…” He poured another. “We have to make a plan. Look, we’ll make a list of his friends. Then we’ll start eliminating them. We’ll be left with the nearest, put in order of probability, what do you think? Then I can begin to call them…”
“They’re going to swear at you. It’s four in the morning.”
“No. Listen: I say it’s urgent, something serious, that I must speak to Mr. Fernando…What’s his last name?
“Castro,” Isabel began to yawn again, uninterested in the conversation and too tired to insist on leaving. She put her legs up on the sofa and rested the back of her neck on the sofa back, closing her eyes.
When she opened them again, a few hours later, she found Lopez sleeping on the rug, at her feet. His mouth was open and he breathed deeply without snoring, like a baby. It stirred a certain tenderness to see him like that.
She went to the bathroom to wash her face and straighten up a little. She sighed tiredly.
She didn’t want to wake the poet, but didn’t feel like waiting until he woke on his own, to hear his idiocies again, have breakfast with him…Can’t be helped, she thought. In the bedroom she found the keys in his coat pocket, which he’d tossed on the unmade bed.
He didn’t hear her leave.
In the elevator, she hesitated an instant, considered returning to the apartment to leave him a goodbye note. It seemed horrible to just go, like a thief. Besides, he’d asked for her phone number and she didn’t want to give it to him because she was angry. But why not? Perhaps they could be friends, meet one day for coffee at a decent hour. No! she exclaimed silently. To listen to all that craziness about the sad luck of poets and fish…No!
In the street it was dawning. In front of the building, Isabel found her car, wet with dew and bathed in the pale early morning light.
(If she had returned to leave Lopez her number or a goodbye note, Isabel would have realized that Mayakovsky II had just jumped out of the aquarium and could have saved him from dying. But she didn’t know. She never again saw or heard of that man or his fish.)
Translated from the Spanish by Patricia Dubrava
Agustín Cadena was born in Ixmiquilpan, Hidalgo, México. He currently teaches at the University of Debrecen, Hungary. Essayist, fiction writer, poet and translator, Cadena has won national prizes for short fiction and poetry. His twenty-eight books include collections of short fiction, essays and poetry, three novels, and four young adult novels, most recently Fieras adentro (2015) and La Casa de los Tres Perros (2017). His work has been translated into English, Italian and Hungarian. Cadena blogs at elvinoylahiel.blogspot.com
Patricia Dubrava taught writing and Spanish at Denver School of the Arts, and currently teaches writing at University of Denver. She has two books of poems and one of stories translated from the Spanish. Fifteen of her translations of Agustín Cadena’s stories have been published, most recently in Mexico City Lit, Exchanges, Fiction Attic, and Numéro Cinq (2015—2016). Her translation of a Cadena story was a finalist for Lunch Ticket’s Gabo Prize (June, 2017). Dubrava also translates Mexican writer Mónica Lavín and blogs at www.patriciadubrava.com
*****
Read more translations:
- Translation Tuesday: “wrong connections” by Andra Rotaru
- Translation Tuesday: “Initials” by Xurxo Borrazás
- Postmortem: A Poem by Maya Tevet Dayan