Almost Never: A Novel by Daniel Sada, Katherine Silver

release of the lips—cheerfulness at last! right? or not? In their heads—there?! Ipso her sweetheart asked: Why are you crying? and mechanically Renata answered: Sometimes I’m quite a crybaby. You’ll soon get to know me … I ask only that when you see me like this you don’t pay any attention to me; though where to look and what to say at that moment that would be appropriate: Demetrio tried. The surroundings themselves seemed discrepant: the trees in the plaza: witnesses, just like the little people in the distance: brute curiosity scattered about, which the suitor found intriguing, even more so upon seeing a young boy (head slightly bowed) just leaving the stationery store. Would he come straight over to the bench? It would seem so, because as soon as he touched Renata’s arm, he practically issued an order: Your mother says you should go home. Renata jumped up as if spring loaded: Good-bye, Demetrio. Write soon. The end. So had passed one hour of sacred love. Not even time for her to ask him: When will you return? and for him to answer: In a year. Nothing, not even an encouraging finale, a hope-infused warmth. Nothing, then, except the parting of a sweetheart who had wagered her paltry pleasure on the clock. One hour … how dear. A disappearance that inspired growing desire. Nothing fascinating and unforgettable, or maybe a little, but—insipid? As he walked away her sweetheart thought about the three days it would take him to get back to Oaxaca. He thought of the hour—annual?—supreme and pale, a bobble melting into the distance. He thought about the stack of circumstances that would arise throughout the year, and to top it off, he had to find a nook in his brain for the idea that the sacred was unattainable. God was in a different sphere—likewise, true love, as was everything truly paradisiacal. Sex, on the other hand, a caprice. Ease at the expense of false loving … Pretense-sex, see-through-sex … But worthwhile love was nothing more than the dark and daring work of rodents, restraint, struggle—a nuisance or courage? Upon his arrival at his aunt Zulema’s house, the strange suitor cut loose. He could hardly believe what he had just experienced. The aunt—no need to guess—made herself comfortable: listening with lively astonishment … Yes! with a sarcastic look on her face she would listen to a story imbued with exasperation, and nothing he came up with could unhinge her psyche; a psyche quite seasoned in such scabrous affairs; an old maid’s psyche that surely did not reel in anticipation of hearing graynesses over blacknesses and who would offer her point of view—knowingly—as soon as her nephew unloaded. Half an hour of contradictiousness: a rude concoction of rage and desire, and the culmination—here goes!: You’re going to have to work very hard to get what you want from that woman; it wouldn’t make any difference if you lived in Sacramento. That’s our way around here. I could tell you a dozen love stories from this region, and the most thankless thing about them is that they are all the same. You’ll have to decide for yourself if you are going to stick with it or give it up. What I can tell you is that once Renata becomes yours, she’ll stay yours forever. She will never marry another even if she is widowed, even if he looks exactly like you. Understand that! She’ll be faithful to you for as long as she lives, and what’s more: it will be eternal love. She’ll put up with you even if you make her suffer. I swear to it! You could be a drunk, a murderer, a thief, even a deadbeat and a grouch, she’ll stay with you no matter what. But in the meantime, you’re going to have to suck it up. All that was some sort of poultice, a conceptual compress that would be dangerous to remove. A fairly heavy flagstone, a simile of unconditional love. A fruit that’s never too cloyingly sweet. Or also a torso taut with muscles and veins, or a stigmata that never decays. But most evident