One
THE WOMAN WHO was not Blanca came down the hall toward Mario wearing Blanca’s green silk blouse, Blanca’s jeans, and Blanca’s ballet flats, her eyes narrowing into a smile as she reached him—eyes the same color and shape as Blanca’s, but not Blanca’s eyes. She welcomed him home in a tone so identical to Blanca’s that it was almost as if she really were Blanca, and she stooped a little to kiss him because she was slightly taller thanhe was, just like Blanca. But instead of the daily absentminded brush of her closed lips against his, she opened her mouth to Mario’s tongue, and he, startled by this unanticipated ardor, didn’t respond in time.
In the warmth of her breath and the brief, carnal softness of her lips he felt as if he’d gone back in time to Blanca’s first delicious kisses, now identical, but falsified with a flawless or almost flawless precision that made everything all the more unreal. He was grateful for the touch of those long, soft hands even though they weren’t Blanca’s hands, the odd way she had of putting her arm around his waist as she led him toward the dining room, as if he, its owner, didn’t know his way around the apartment where he’d been living for some time before he met Blanca, or as if the apartment, too, were a precise replica of something that had been lost: the apartment, the pictures in the hallway, the dining room furniture that Blanca objected to, and rightly so—when Mario bought it he’d had pitifully bad taste—the tableclothembroidered by Mario’s mother or grandmother, the dishes, the steaming bowls of a soup just cooked by the impostor or near-double of Blanca who’d taken it off the stove and served it when she looked out from the balcony and saw Mario crossing the street toward the apartment building. (But Blanca, the real Blanca, the one from before, might never have looked out from the balcony to see if he were coming.) The soup smelled better than ever, Mario thought almost remorsefully, noticing for the first time not that he was beginning to give in, but that the possibility of giving in existed, comprehending with melancholy and relief that he wouldn’t be able to keep up this suspicious hostility, uncompromising vigilance, and desperate solitude forever. Unlike Blanca, the woman now sitting across from him didn’t dab her lips with the corner of her napkin after each spoonful, didn’t raise her eyes in silent reproach if he made the slightest noise as he ate his soup, and didn’t sit motionless without saying a word until he realized it was time for himto bring the tray with the main course and fresh plates and silverware on it from the kitchen.
Blanca would never have lit a cigarette before clearing the table, much less settled down on the sofa to watch TV without first straightening up the dining room and cleaning the kitchen until it was spotless. In fact, Blanca hardly ever watched TV, nothing but the news and a strange late-night program with jumpy images and a heavy-metal sound track called
Metropolis
, which once ran a piece about the painter she’d just broken up with when she met Mario. Sure of herself and fraudulent, dressed in Blanca’s own clothes—the silk blouse that had almost exactly the same feel as her skin, the jeans so tight they made her seem taller and more curvaceous—the woman who was not Blanca leaned back on a wide black leather pillow and watched television, her feet now bare, Blanca’s flats lying on the floor next to the sofa. She was smoking a cigarette or rather just holding it, having forgotten it so completely that if Mario, with deft and steady fingers, hadn’t taken it from her just in time shewould have burned herself or spilled ashes all over the rug, perhaps damaging it. Wary, always on the lookout for signs of imposture, Mario studied her feet that, though often a little the worse for wear, were long and delicate with a faint blue tracery of veins in the instep. This time he was surprised to
THE WOMAN WHO was not Blanca came down the hall toward Mario wearing Blanca’s green silk blouse, Blanca’s jeans, and Blanca’s ballet flats, her eyes narrowing into a smile as she reached him—eyes the same color and shape as Blanca’s, but not Blanca’s eyes. She welcomed him home in a tone so identical to Blanca’s that it was almost as if she really were Blanca, and she stooped a little to kiss him because she was slightly taller thanhe was, just like Blanca. But instead of the daily absentminded brush of her closed lips against his, she opened her mouth to Mario’s tongue, and he, startled by this unanticipated ardor, didn’t respond in time.
In the warmth of her breath and the brief, carnal softness of her lips he felt as if he’d gone back in time to Blanca’s first delicious kisses, now identical, but falsified with a flawless or almost flawless precision that made everything all the more unreal. He was grateful for the touch of those long, soft hands even though they weren’t Blanca’s hands, the odd way she had of putting her arm around his waist as she led him toward the dining room, as if he, its owner, didn’t know his way around the apartment where he’d been living for some time before he met Blanca, or as if the apartment, too, were a precise replica of something that had been lost: the apartment, the pictures in the hallway, the dining room furniture that Blanca objected to, and rightly so—when Mario bought it he’d had pitifully bad taste—the tableclothembroidered by Mario’s mother or grandmother, the dishes, the steaming bowls of a soup just cooked by the impostor or near-double of Blanca who’d taken it off the stove and served it when she looked out from the balcony and saw Mario crossing the street toward the apartment building. (But Blanca, the real Blanca, the one from before, might never have looked out from the balcony to see if he were coming.) The soup smelled better than ever, Mario thought almost remorsefully, noticing for the first time not that he was beginning to give in, but that the possibility of giving in existed, comprehending with melancholy and relief that he wouldn’t be able to keep up this suspicious hostility, uncompromising vigilance, and desperate solitude forever. Unlike Blanca, the woman now sitting across from him didn’t dab her lips with the corner of her napkin after each spoonful, didn’t raise her eyes in silent reproach if he made the slightest noise as he ate his soup, and didn’t sit motionless without saying a word until he realized it was time for himto bring the tray with the main course and fresh plates and silverware on it from the kitchen.
Blanca would never have lit a cigarette before clearing the table, much less settled down on the sofa to watch TV without first straightening up the dining room and cleaning the kitchen until it was spotless. In fact, Blanca hardly ever watched TV, nothing but the news and a strange late-night program with jumpy images and a heavy-metal sound track called
Metropolis
, which once ran a piece about the painter she’d just broken up with when she met Mario. Sure of herself and fraudulent, dressed in Blanca’s own clothes—the silk blouse that had almost exactly the same feel as her skin, the jeans so tight they made her seem taller and more curvaceous—the woman who was not Blanca leaned back on a wide black leather pillow and watched television, her feet now bare, Blanca’s flats lying on the floor next to the sofa. She was smoking a cigarette or rather just holding it, having forgotten it so completely that if Mario, with deft and steady fingers, hadn’t taken it from her just in time shewould have burned herself or spilled ashes all over the rug, perhaps damaging it. Wary, always on the lookout for signs of imposture, Mario studied her feet that, though often a little the worse for wear, were long and delicate with a faint blue tracery of veins in the instep. This time he was surprised to
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