A Change of Skin by Carlos Fuentes Page A

could close yourself off from the persistent sounds of the sea and the night with its crickets and mandolins and give yourself completely, taking completely. The depth of your relationship was between only the two of you and meant nothing that could have meant anything to anyone else, nothing that could explain the world or speak even one word. Nevertheless only there, hidden between Javier’s arms, Javier hidden in the darkness of your open flesh, did the world become orderly and serene. For you were neither of you asking for anything. You were both simply grateful. Grateful for the heavy August heat, almost tangible, for the thick scent of hyacinth, for the heavy bed that would never lose the smell of the lambskins the fishermen who usually occupied the cabin slept beneath, for the tactile closeness of the tile floor that retained the warmth of afternoon, for the weight of your two bodies above all; for without this diffuse denseness of feeling and smell and hearing the other, the cool and sufficient isolation of each in the very union of love, could not have happened. Thus as you came together you remained apart, maintained that essential distance that permits us to see and respect each other, the distance which is maintained by being broken in the fusion of sex, yet is not broken. Like wealth, this had value only if it was spent. The way to preserve it was to use it. And so you needed to remain yourself, he himself, not to plunge into the maze of entire oneness, both then and during the winter when the townspeople brought fish and resinous wine and goat’s cheese and olives and the wind sounded ragged and gray and now and then a mountain of water would fall upon the pebbled beach and you and Javier would hide in the cabin and listen to the wind on the tiles of the roof and with gaiety and excitement pretend a fear that would draw you closer, give yourself to hours of long, unforeseen, always surprising caresses and kisses, each embrace longer, everything unnecessary suspended, everything alien to the hours of your love removed as you lay together in front of the fire on the lambskins on the damp tiles looking up from time to time at the old beams beneath the roof that challenged and withstood the storm. And during the day Javier lost himself in thought, walking the wet beach in his turtleneck sweater and corduroy trousers, and then sat to write at the pine table that faced the sea, and you went out so as not to distract him. Barefoot, with your trench coat soaked, you would walk beside the sea and discover that in Greece the sea is not another face of the earth because there is no separation here between earth and sea, one does not go into the sea, there is no line of demarcation to pass, no frontier, no rupture. The quiet green sea remembers summer and rejects no one. It seems another, softer, sweeter land across which one can walk while the liquid earth rises and envelops but does not drown. A sea so calm. A sea that is faithful, always present, always real. A sea that wets your face with its spray and makes your tanned skin and your blond hair lustrous as you walk possessed by the sea and by the man who has brought you here, who has come here to write, to free himself from destructive denials, elegant demands. Who sits at his plain table writing and therefore also struggling with reality in order to deform it, reform it, assert it, make it clear, make it speak. And you ran to him when he finished his morning’s work and appeared in the door of the cabin; ran to him while his forehead was still feverish from concentration, and then behind you, as you lay beneath him on the lambskins joining him in an act that was sufficient in itself, the sea could be heard and could be named with the words that remained always outside and behind, the words that could be spoken only to the extent that your love and pleasure could not be spoken. And the world also had a name and belonged to both of you because you possessed it