This Translation Tuesday, we bring you an understated comedy of modern manners from the pen of Isaura Contreras, translated from the Spanish by Janet M. Izzo. As the on-again, off-again relationship between Mat and Sara blooms into anticipated parenthood, their coworkers Pablo and Lidia watch first with amusement, then anxiety. Their own relationship, so secure in comparison to Mat and Sara’s initial misfortunes, begins to seem stagnant and decayed in the face of the other couple’s renewed affections, and the prospect of new life. Will they reconcile themselves to their differences, or end up like the formerly-single Mat, whom they once so smugly counseled? If nothing else, the story is guaranteed to amuse anyone who has been forced to endure the antics of baby-crazed friends—read on!
Pablo and Lidia had started seeing each other the year before they saw Mat arm in arm with Sara, who had arrived at the office just three months earlier. They were both glad that Mat was dating someone after the tumultuous breakup with his fiancée. Nevertheless, they couldn’t help but wonder what Sara saw in him, even though they considered Mat a dear friend. Sara was clearly kind and attractive, candid and sweet, compared to a resentful and hostile guy, who took advantage of any opportunity to bring to light others’ misfortunes. Pablo and Lidia disregarded these embittered episodes, keeping in mind the four years they’d known him, especially the compassion that suddenly surfaced after the wedding was canceled. Mat, once recovered from the shock, described in a surge of sincerity, the painful weeks he searched for her without success. Pablo and Lidia rehearsed their best lines and witnessed how he recovered his arrogant walk. They discussed the huge favor they could do for him if they only dared, as good friends, to give him advice. Pablo would tell him how girls should be treated, with signs of affection and attention to small details, with compliments every morning, noticing their different hairstyles and the color of their eye makeup. All activities that, punctually and purposefully, he had managed to accomplish in his own relationship. Lidia would also tell him that it is important to put arrogance aside, to stop being explosive and antagonistic, authoritarian and worried about appearing sensitive. She would tell him that relationships are like plants that need to be watered, day by day, with care and devotion.
When Pablo and Lidia discovered them hand in hand in the company dining room, they were astonished. Lidia said nothing to Pablo but felt this could only be explained by the fact that Mat was good in bed, not because he was attractive, not at all, much less pleasant. Lidia then thought of Pablo, strong and handsome, of the nightly encounters that turned into loving embraces watching old movies, knowing they were meant for each other. Pablo couldn’t control his curiosity and asked Lidia if Sara seemed stupid to her because, although he hadn’t talked much with Sarah, he had observed that she was aware enough to have noticed Mat’s personality. To tell the truth, Sara was more than intelligent, Lidia declared. She had lived in three countries and spoke four languages because her mother was from Switzerland. They even had summer plans to travel and show Mat those places. Pablo couldn’t believe it. They both agreed that their friend would have to behave better himself this time around.
Months passed, Mat and Sara arrived home from their trip, they spoke about their experiences. He complained about everything, especially the food. Sara ingratiated herself by recreating the scenes of Mat meeting each member of her family. Did you meet her family? Pablo asked, opening his gray eyes wide. Her grandmother adored Mat, she cried when he left. Pablo hadn’t yet met Lidia’s family, they lived ten hours from the city, they never had time, and, although Pablo was more than prepared for the meeting, he had left Lidia the freedom to decide. He also left the decision to live together in her hands, she preferred being independent, and needed time to take that important step, and marriage was just a procedure. Pablo consented without questioning, he knew that Lidia’s customs were different, that he also admired her way of thinking and loved her so much that he was not going to argue over the small things despite how much he wanted to live with her. There was nothing to complain about. They had routines that they followed seamlessly every week. To sleep together on Saturdays, prepare breakfast, do their exercise routines, clean the house a little, work a few hours, go grocery shopping. Exercise more and get back to work. On Sundays, they would often take a walk holding hands, to visit a new neighborhood in the city or a nearby park. Once a week they went out for a date, dressed in elegant attire, appreciating each other even more, they treated themselves to a lavish dinner, they ordered a bottle of wine that they almost always finished and returned home eager to make love. They made love with passion, tenderness, and great caution, because Lidia clearly was not yet planning to have children. So they were also surprised when just four months later, Mat and Sara told them the news that they would be living together, for a very special reason. They had rented a two-bedroom apartment in a quiet neighborhood near work. They shared the news at lunch, when Lena and Román, a young couple also from their office, were eating with them. In addition to their animated congratulations, the question surfaced regarding when Pablo and Lidia would take the big step. They smiled.
Pablo and Lidia followed their daily routine, their daily phone calls, Pablo’s compliments. They were aware that Mat and Sara sometimes argued, that she often cried in the bathroom at work, hurt by insults that couldn’t disguise Mat’s former arrogance. He teased her for her diet, it bothered him that she spent hours painting her nails or straightening her hair. He was so inconsiderate, never helped her prepare dinner and discouraged her from going out with her friends. Pablo and Lidia laughed as they shared these details, minor details they themselves would never experience. Pablo, emotionally intelligent, as Lidia often called him, enjoyed a weekly game in which they would sit at the table and, in the kindest way possible, disclose events in which they had unintentionally hurt each other. Perhaps they were truly perfect, or perhaps they had a silent agreement to keep those details to themselves, details which were not important, not important at all, especially for Lidia because habits are not exactly defects, and despite everything, she still enjoyed the days when they walked hand in hand, and he whispered made-up songs in her ear. To tell the truth, he sang songs so ridiculous that sometimes she didn’t know how to react, and in the end, she laughed gratefully because that was better, or at least easier, than what she had before. On those dates, when her legs trembled and the exchange of glances between them created a flare of passion so strong she opted to remain silent and, a few hours later, to say goodnight, unable to bear so much beauty and wonder. And Pablo, had he always been so admirable? so simple? Maybe he was avoiding telling her that he was beginning to resent her lack of attention, that she didn’t fix her hair for him or put on makeup. He didn’t blame her for her unshaven legs, he was the one who told her she didn’t deserve to suffer like that, and Lidia never did it again, and he loved her just the same, or even more than his first love.
On the day of the baby shower Mat was dressed in baby pajamas and had a giant pacifier hanging from his chest. Everyone from the office watched him move back and forth across his yard serving hors d’oeuvres. That day Pablo and Lidia arrived at the party with forlorn faces. A couple of hours earlier, Pablo had to wait forty minutes for her to iron the third blouse she eventually wore. Before Pablo could even object, she hastened to mention that she appreciated his candor and self-confidence, but please, everyone has noticed the shabbiness of your torn shoes. Not to mention that in the store they argued because Pablo felt it unnecessary to buy a toy that they, within a year, would no longer use and chose a pack of cards on sale with names and drawings of animals. Lidia couldn’t bear to take the wrapped present and leave it on the gift table, she gave it to him. Pablo took her by the arm, was she angry about something? Lidia with an averted gaze pulled free, watched him walk away and nonchalantly put the little box next to the large, decorated bags. From afar she saw Pablo’s dirty, torn shoes, she wanted to run. Then Sara, like a princess, beautifully dressed in a long white dress, approached to give her one of those kisses on her cheek that, no matter how strange, filled her with true peace. And there she was with those golden curls, with her blue eyes and a huge smile, hugging her tight in her arms, and Lidia could smell the freshness of her perfume, the softness of her skin and her beautiful slippers. It’s going to be a boy, and his name will be Matías. Lidia couldn’t understand that perfect smile, while Mat, with a foolish face, pestered the guests at the tables with jars of baby food. She wanted to take her by the hair and tell her to look at him carefully, but her fingers would have found the softness of fine hair, lost within the roots of her tiny skull, and in her gaze, nothing but Lidia’s sad, brown eyes. Then she smiled back at her, told her that it was a beautiful name, like everything she chose, like her dress, her shoes, and perhaps even her husband. And Lidia left, fleeing from the wake of that perfume. She looked around, hoping to find Pablo, to reprimand him, she wasn’t sure why, or maybe yes, because he had left her alone, while one by one he greeted the guests at the party as was his most polite custom. She poured herself a drink, hid in the corner observing him, his straight bearing, his strong legs, his soft face, looking directly into the eyes of unknown people as he shook their hands. He presented himself to them, with his generous conversation, while Lidia only wanted to flee, fly over the rooftops, contemplate everything from afar, like a balloon that had been released. But it’s true that she did imagine it sometimes. Yes, it would be nice to have a son, if he looked like him and woke them up in the morning perhaps crying, very hungry and Pablo, oh magnificent Pablo, would surely take care of him, he loves children. And she even feared that today, precisely tonight, full of desire or out of pure imitation, he would ask for a son, or a daughter, like her, with those deep, dark eyes. And perhaps moved, out of sheer compassion, she might accept.
Mat, with his baby food the color of vomit, approached Lidia extending his spoon. No one at the party had guessed the flavor, only Pablo, brilliant Pablo. Everyone turned their attention to her, looking at her anxiously. She had to get it right, if she did, it meant they were ready. She closed her eyes as the taste of chicken liver penetrated her tongue, she had no doubt. And from her pasty mouth, she all but let out a scream: Beef soup!
A boo . . . from the audience. A simultaneous moan from Pablo. Both Mat and Sara corrected her at once. They lost. They lost. Chicken liver.
Lidia sighed, she smiled resignedly. She didn’t possess a mother’s intuition.
The group dispersed, they would measure Sara’s waist with toilet paper.
Pablo approached her to offer a kiss of consolation, to ask with tender reproach if she really couldn’t tell chicken from beef. Lidia with a seductive laugh, destroying the illusion that they were always of the same mind, assured him she could not. And in that very moment, fleetingly triumphant, she raised her glass, toasting and celebrating the birth of a baby that was not her own.
Translated from Spanish by Janet M. Izzo
Isaura Contreras is a Mexican writer. She has published two short novels (La casa al fin de los días, 2007; Cosecha de verano, 2010), a children’s book (Un día en Kilimanján, 2012) and a monograph (Alejandra Pizarnik: Diarista, 2022). Isaura has been a grant recipient for novel writing at the State Fund for Culture in Mexico and a beneficiary of the Banff Center grants to carry out a writing residency in Canada. She is the winner of the Rosario Castellanos National Short Novel Award for Cosecha de Verano. In 2023 Isaura was selected to be part of an International Non-fiction Anthology, Desmadres, in Argentina. She has published essays and short stories in Revista de la Universidad de México, Luvina, Tierra Adentro, Literal Magazine, Párrafo Magazine and Words Without Borders. Her novel Summer Harvest, translated by Rebecca Bowman, was published in 2024. She is an assistant professor of Latin American literature at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Janet M. Izzo is a professor, author and literary translator working from Italian to English, and Spanish to English. She has a Ph.D. in Italian Literature and Language, New York University (NYU) and is a Fullbright Scholar. She has translated The Coaxing of Our Ends, by Luigi Ballerini (Edizioni Essegi, Ravena, Italy, 1990) and La Torre dei Filosofi: Dialogo di Luigi Ballerini e Remo Bodei, by Luigi Ballerini, Remo Bodei and Eliseo Mattiacci (Edizioni Essegi, Ravena, Italy, 1989). She translated and subtitled the “Rome” section of the film Night on Earth, directed by Jim Jarmusch (Locus Solus, 1990) and has subtitled video documentaries on Art History and Art Conservation for Treccani Educational Publishing Company in Milan. She also translated the Sardinian novel Sos Sinnos, by Michelangelo Pira (1993), into English from the original Sard. Her novel, Serenade, was published in 2024, by Brac-a Brac Press. She currently lives in New York and Guanajuato, Mexico.