See you soon, she told the old woman, whispering gently in her ear, so as not to startle her, I’m taking some time off, we’ll see each other again next week. The woman rolled over and looked at her in shock, her irises cloudy, almost blind. Dinora took the opportunity to adjust the linty pillow. It’s my head, my head has always been too heavy; it ruins everything, joked the old woman. Will you read to me again before you go? she beseeched her from the land of the sleeping pill, something short? A poem? The Poet; they had nicknamed the old woman the Poet. Until recently, she used to recite poems at the retirement home’s social evenings, decked out like a king cake. She’d never had children, but received a good pension, which was used to feed three or more residents at the home, in addition to what she herself requested of a nephew who’d been appointed her executor: diapers, medicine, medicated creams, extra money for the holidays. Dinora chose a colorful volume from the battered bookcase, which contained a number of duplicates, and opened it at random: it was the first of the old woman’s only two collections of poetry. Dinora sat down in the worn green armchair next to the bed and read: Brief love, so bristled in the spine, so finger-like we lose ourselves and I can no longer find you save by rising from the cetaceans, heading to the depths, to the clairvoyant remnants of myself where our groin is traversed by the low moon of the wound itself. Dinora was unable to comprehend this level of hermetism, but she imagined it must be beautiful because it mentioned love. Is it one of mine? Dinora nodded. I don’t remember it, said the old woman, I’ve lost the ability to retain things, she said, holding out her hands. It’ll come back to you, Dinora consoled her, taking a quick look through her bag. Everything was packed. Are you leaving me all alone? I’ll be back as soon as I can. She wasn’t going to tell her about the man, about her inappropriate happiness, about the enormous lake she would be seeing for the first time in her life. Take care and come back, the old woman appealed to her, like a mother, because all of this will soon be yours, and she pointed to the little mountain of books on the nightstand and beyond. The old woman said farewell while clinging to Dinora’s wrist with a bird’s claw. She was forced to extricate herself gently but firmly, holding her smile until she had crossed the threshold. Now who’ll put up with her? said the cleaning girls. You’ve left her on the brink of tears. Preciado was looking for you, he wants to buy you dessert. Are you going away for the weekend with the married man? Dinora’s smile turned into laughter as she stepped through the safety of the main entrance. She would take a shower, scrub her skin thoroughly to remove the smell of antibiotics, before replacing it with a herbal or sea-scented fragrance.
It was a matter of a night and a day to exchange the view of the ever-gleaming, snow-white furnishings of the home, the dark peaks encircling the port city, for the elevated and joyous scenery of the lake and an attentive contemplation of the backbone of the cordillera, capped with cold.
As soon as the three in the boat reached a point by the steaming banks of the shore, they dropped anchor. Dinora rejected the idea of wearing a life jacket, launching herself into the water to illustrate her bravery. She imagined that her lover would say she wasn’t capable of many things, that she needed him for small stuff like pulling her dress off over her head, chopping meat up into small pieces, pulling her shoelaces tight and taking the lids off jars with the strength of his fingers. She drew a lot of pleasure from feeling herself incapable and in need of him. With every small obstacle Nahím helped her overcome, she would nurture his admiration and affections, for he was almost twice her age. She felt an urge to wrap him in a tight embrace, but this was impossible with Nahím’s daughter there, watching her every movement with those mistrustful eyes.
She swam out a little, gasping in that icy plain, which yielded if she exerted pressure with her legs. She believed she’d never had a talent for anything until she began reading to the old people and cozying up to the bodies of older men. But clinging to her lovers, now there’s something she was good at. Nahím, on the other hand, had told her he believed there were sensations that were exclusive to romantic love, yet Dinora knew this was not the case. It was perfectly possible for two strangers to feign love, arriving at the incandescent point of longing looks simply by means of friction. She swam out a little further, panting, her head tilted to the side, adapting to the cold liquid that stretched toward the luminous confluence of titanic peaks, over which a handful of birds was flying. She kicked hard, moving forward with resolve. When she turned her head, she realized that the small launch was far away, and that Nahím was calling to her and waving his arms. Ahead of her, the vague constructions in the distance had become clear: a resort with bright-white walls, and, to the sides, more modest buildings, surely serving as holiday chalets for wealthy tourists in the warmer seasons. No family would come to the lake at the beginning of winter; but they weren’t exactly a family.
Only a few feet away, a group of water birds observed her curiously. These were perhaps a dozen ducks, with gray plumage that blurred into the dun-colored horizon. Their ruffled feathers and half-open beaks were a wild welcoming committee. As she swam in the mist like just one more of them, she became aware of her lover losing dimensions behind her. The nearby shore insinuated itself like a genuine promise, while the distant man yelled something incomprehensible. She had lost her bearings as the mist rolled in. Things looked white and vaporous up ahead, and also behind her. She imagined herself swimming to the other shore and heading for rocky ground, then reaching the main road and making signs at the first driver who would return her to the city and the everyday.
Come back, she could hear, come back! A foot away from her head were the ducks with their spongy breasts. Come back, come back, Nahím was calling. Then she turned around and swam, taking long, vigorous strokes away from the sun. The water had become freezing quickly, and would soon be impossible to bear. As she neared the launch, she was mindful of the small sharp propeller, idly swallowing and regurgitating water. Nahím was a shadow of firm flesh that flickered on and off when she screwed up her water-logged eyelids. She placed her foot on the steel ladder and propelled herself upwards, drenching him as she rose. Where were you going, Princess? he asked her. Did you wear yourself out? He wrapped a towel around her and rubbed her shoulders vigorously, to the point of mussing up the fine blonde hair that made her seem even younger than she was. The girl looked on, steady and disapproving, from the middle of the boat. She too had been preparing to throw herself in the water, but Dinora’s attack of disobedience had stolen her thunder, and now swimming would be difficult, for she would be floating among great clouds, impossible to get too far away.
Will you tighten my lifejacket, papá? she asked Nahím. And he took a break from his romance to pull hard on the orange vest, ensuring it was securely fastened. The girl passed by Dinora without looking at her, descending the ladder without making a sound or a splash. Now it was her turn to be the center of attention in her father’s eyes. Nahím and Dinora sat in silence on the deck at the rear of the boat, submerging their legs until they vanished just below the knee. In the distance, over toward the port, the mist had forced the rest of the boats to turn their lights on, the lake now resembling a small sky full of equidistant stars. Dinora’s gaze became lost once more in the bosom of the mountains. It was then that she remembered a story she’d read aloud about sirens who entangled their victims in their hair before dragging them to the depths to perform a dance to the death, just like crocodiles. This image coincided with the dark head of the girl, bobbing in and out of the water without becoming disoriented. She’s a little fish, said Nahím. Everything alright, my love? It confused her that he employed the same terms for his daughter as he did for her. Pay attention to me, she thought, placing a hand on his grizzled beard to draw him into a kiss. She felt his cold nose, his tongue moving deeply in and out, caressing her palette and making her shiver. The persistent attention of the girl who was floating and submerging prevented them from getting intimate. It would have been wonderful to spend those days alone, but she still did not have the authority to meddle in a father-daughter relationship. Not yet. She placed her icy hand on the flesh of his knee, feeling an urge to ask him: what have you done with your whole life that I don’t know about, that you haven’t told me?
In the early darkness, the terrain beside the lake seemed to her like a barren landscape, and, at the same time, the illusion of another possible life in the halo of the full moon. This was her first trip with the girl, and Nahím had rented a two-room lodging in a tourist complex he’d visited before, when his family wasn’t broken. After the fun in the water, they returned to the cabin hungry and numb with cold. They opened two tins and heated up some spicy chickpea soup. The girl was first to point out that there were traces of previous guests in the cabin, bringing a comb with a clump of pale hair she’d found on a chair in her room to her father’s bedside. Dinora discovered Clopán, tablets for seasickness, in the bathroom cabinet, and then, on one of the kitchen shelves, a half-drunk bottle of golden liquor. What should we do with these things? asked Nahím. They resolved to call the hosts first thing in the morning. A careless guest had left in a hurry, and the proprietors had not done their share of the cleaning. Exhausted as they were, they decided to go straight to bed and take advantage of the morning to head out in the boat, cross the channel between the mountains and make for deeper waters. It would be the first time she had tried fishing. She was excited that Nahím would be guiding her beginner’s steps, and that she could play ditzy or smart as the mood took her.
The room temperatures weren’t regulated, and this awakened a sneezing fit in the girl that kept Nahím occupied in the other bedroom for almost forty minutes. Dinora knew that she would be more tolerant of the child if she looked less like her mother, with those languid eyes observing every little thing. However, she exercised control and patience, acknowledging that this was just the way things were. They would have more children, focusing the father on something other than his exclusive care for the girl, who would learn to temper the tyranny of an only child. The future was yet to happen to them. Do you want to go and read something to help her sleep? asked Nahím, and Dinora shook her head. She could remember only comforting stories for old people, nothing to pique the interest of a near-pubescent girl.
Around midnight, they drank the entire contents of the bottle discovered on the shelf, becoming giggly and drowsy, and then got into bed, lying down on their sides, face-to-face, and beginning to give each other small pecks on the lips, aware they couldn’t take things any further than hand games. The covers were filled with a heavy down, which kept them warm while also restricting their movements. Dinora enjoyed watching how her lover’s expression, almost permanently tense, softened when he slept, taking at least ten years off him. Then tell me something, Nahím asked her, but before she could even begin, he drifted off, with Dinora left to go over the happy events that had befallen them in their brief time together. She felt the first twitch of her legs while drowsing on Nahím’s chest, startling them both. Did you dream you were falling? he asked her. Dinora shifted her head and then burrowed down again in the same warm spot on the mattress. Hold on, said Nahím, leaving a hole between them on the mattress, I’m going to check on the girl. Dinora nestled in the pleasantly warm residue of her lover. She buried her nose in a spot where the odor of chlorine was more bearable, slipping away on the dark flow without realizing.
It was a movement like scampering beneath the sheets, as if something cold had gripped her and was tugging at her. Drowsy, she thought of some animal intruder large enough to haul her legs with its body, and yet the pull on her ankles soon reminded her of the sensations caused by a strong current of water. The stuffing in the duvet turned to liquid, and then the thickness of the mattress gave way, submerging her. Without intending to, she had entered the sea of night. I’m dreaming, she told herself, this is just a very damp dream. In this realm of new knowledge, she understood that all the world’s water was connected, from the tears of lesser creatures, passing through other minor bodies of water, to the frozen seas of the Arctic, which grow terribly bored in their stillness. She perceived that the whole world floats upon a tense membrane, soaking it up, awaiting the moment to abandon resistance and sink to the bottom. Within the liquid frame of her bed, the atmosphere was serene, as though inside a tank, but Dinora made an effort to dive down further, managing to gain a few feet, despite being as weightless as the ducks on the lake. She looked up toward the translucent ceiling, lightly illuminated, and witnessed how, though his side of the bed had lost consistency, Nahím was still suspended several feet above, absorbed in his own dream, floating belly up. Then she experienced the same treacherous impulse she had that morning: to swim, to swim far away from the body she adored.
Carried through darkness by the powerful liquid current, it took her some time to adapt to that turbid universe. She was excited by her new aquatic freedom, but also terrified at not being able to orient herself within that night that was the sea. The area of the bed she shared with Nahím in the small mountain cabin was a bluish shimmer on the surface, like a flame in the air above her head. Dinora believed she would be able to recognize him among many similar men, and yet, following the curves of her desires, she allowed herself to be led deeper and deeper by the natural flow, to a new area of dense consistency where the temperature was even warmer. She seemed now to understand how the subterranean swells worked, near the beds. Very close to the surface, the stemmed water was tepid, but, as you moved toward the incommensurable, that oceanity, it became fast-flowing and abyssal. Without losing a sense of where she’d left Nahím, she allowed herself to be carried along to another overhead tank, from which a far warmer, rosy light came, swimming in circles toward it, wondering what its occupant would say on seeing her appear, breaching the tranquil surface of the sheets.
She emerged again into the icy opacity of the mountain by the lake, waking up in the bed of her future step-daughter. They were very close together, covered by the same heavy duvet, sharing the deep sleep of the early hours. Dinora became aware of their proximity as never before, gazing at the girl with the confidence of knowing herself unobserved. The kid was beautiful, with that unkempt hair like a tree line emphasizing her angular face, beautiful to a degree that only a little girl who is loved can be. From the half-open mouth of this adored child, a warm breath escaped. Nahím’s daughter was a small wild animal on the brink of taking flight, and he would surely go after her, abandoning Dinora. Perhaps, with a little willing, she might learn to care for the girl; perhaps, given time, a subtle tolerance would develop between them, something vaguely akin to those family tensions that are ever-present, yet bearable as a result of such regular contact on holidays and birthdays. All this depended on a divorce that hadn’t even begun. I was married when you met me, Nahím would remind her, as if their love affair had depended solely on her feminine resolve. Away from the bedroom, her love faced considerable challenges, and, of course, there was the girl.
What a dream! she told herself. I must have been sleepwalking. I need to get back to the other bedroom, but it’s so cold! The thought that the kid might wake and find her lying beside her in such an intimate way, so unbearably inappropriate, was worse than stepping barefoot on the ice-cold wooden floor. Finally, she emerged from under the covers, kicking them off with determination. She returned to her bed, hopping as if walking across something very hot. Looking over at the windows, it seemed she could make out a gold-tinged light beyond the maternal breasts of the mountains—perhaps dawn was on the point of breaking, or else it could be the circulation of freight trucks carrying dairy cattle and wood to the south, and yet the moon was still up. The wind had abandoned its attempts to get inside the cabin, and now, with no hope of destruction, swirled above the lake, where not one boat could be found to meet its challenge. Further away, on the shore with the holiday village, a distant light was still on, opposing the darkness.
Dinora entered the shadowy room in which Nahím was sleeping face-up, his chest exposed, like a drowning victim. She slipped under the thick duvet and clung to her lover’s body in the hope of warming herself in his protection. Wake up, she said, shaking him, I’ve got something to tell you. But he’d been irrevocably spirited away to some other place, leaving nothing but his softened beauty. Maybe it would be better to stay awake and watch the sunrise, she told herself, yet she had no idea what time it was. Agitated as she was, she assumed it would be impossible for her to sleep. What could it mean to dream about water? she asked herself. The blame lay with the powerful sensations awakened by the lake, that desire to swim off into the mist, surrounded by a procession of lakeside animals. As her eyelids became heavy with sleep, Dinora felt again that she was sinking. With the sensation of a current abducting her beneath the bed, she submerged once more into the night, turning into another droplet in that hermetic sea.
With relief, she realized that she didn’t need to hold her breath; in the flux she inhabited beneath the bed, there was absolutely no need to take in air or breathe. Diving down toward deeper regions with a little more confidence than on her previous incursion, she was revitalized by the icy currents. The waters she moved through in wonder contained no detritus or turbulence. Above her head, more and more warm and luminous spaces were opening up, like other possibilities, other celestial bodies, other lives with their respective sleepers. She was gazing in fascination at the incommensurable when she became aware of an aquatic procession passing beneath her feet. They weren’t fish, but looked more like limp strands of seaweed, touching one another with languid movements, advancing with the slowness of blind creatures. After a few moments’ contemplation, the forms she thought she’d glimpsed in the distance changed, as often happens with clouds, and she believed she could make out the lean skeletons of cetaceans. Then she became convinced they were the bodies of women or scrawny old men, transparent, as if their flesh and bones had been softened by years of submersion in alcohol. It was a ghostly shoal, dazed and bewildered, heading who knows where. As she watched, the slimy contours of the aquatic shadows changed again, and, in the distance, it seemed to her they took the form of a large thicket of pale branches, charting an erratic course.
Dinora assumed that, if moved by dreams, those waters could not be so tranquil or free of nightmares. She realized she was no longer too sure where she’d left Nahím, whether to her left or someplace behind her. Her boundaries had collapsed. All the illuminated openings now resembled his, for strange golden reverberations had begun to appear on the light side of their surfaces. Perhaps it had been the glow of dawn she had seen in the distance. As her certainties abandoned her, she noticed she began to feel an urgent need to take in oxygen. All the confidence she’d experienced at the beginning of her latest incursion vanished, her chest pounding wildly. With no assurances, she swam hard, until she heard the sound of churning water and kicked out, moving her body in the direction of the nearest illuminated point, hoping that Nahím’s love would survive a fresh test and that she might run aground on him once more. With this hope, she swam vertically, emerging into what she believed to be the new day.
The chemical, vinegary odor to which she had awakened in that room, similar to that of medications used for fighting off infection, reminded her of a vague odor from her childhood, during the time of her severe throat inflammations. The blankets were much lighter than those of the cabin. And yet she was covered with a throw. The air was no longer cold. The light she had been tricked into following to the bedroom was coming from the golden lamp on a reading table. She sat up, finding beside her the scrawny body of an old woman with hair braided and twisted into two small buns. A ruined collection of skin and bones that she did not immediately recognize. In a second, the Poet had rolled over onto her ribs, wrapping her arms and legs around Dinora with the strength and devotion of an eager lover. And, no matter how hard she shook, no matter how hard she wriggled like a fish out of water and lashed out with her elbows, Dinora could not free herself from that conclusive hold, deprived of voice and breath in that embrace. The only things left to her were her desperate eyes, the eyes of a sacrificial maiden calling out to a moon that was vanishing behind the head of the rising sun. A look that ricocheted from one side to the other. Moving from the greenish walls to the worn armchair, the liquid sedative in amber bottles, the stand of moth-eaten books. Suffocating on top of those scattered items that someone had promised would one day be entirely hers.
