origins.
Oriana’s previous existence is not registered in that report alone. Her true history is also known by some adult Oriana who is crouched within that child Oriana who stretched out her arms to me so that I could protect her. That older woman is determinedto come back to the surface and transform my loved one into a normal, orthodox, uninteresting being, one of those millions that stroll along the streets with their jeans pressed so closely to their buttocks that you might presume they had a secret to conceal and didn’t want it to come out. Pretending they have some sort of real enigma in there, between their skin and their clothing, something that might be worth exploring. Normal: someone with a past, with a mask, with a piece of lipstick. A person like you, Doctor, like Enriqueta, like Tristan Pareja.
I am going to prevail against her.
My sex suggests to me that she is in there, preparing her revenge, watching the almost-five-year-old Oriana from a corner in her brain, from a curtain, from the corrupt camera of a pair of concealed eyes in there. Watching me as I listen to her Evelike mewls of pleasure, watching us make love, lying next to us in bed, lying on her back when Oriana gets on top of me, planning the merciless day when she will again take by assault the face that once belonged to her.
I will not allow her to interpose her memories between us.
It is a decision I made Saturday at dawn, the first morning that we shared. That was when Oriana’s hand awoke my shoulder, and the lips of Oriana in my hair and Oriana’s body in the sheets, and she asked me something that I myself, with all my prophetic inclinations, would have been unable to predict:
“Hey, who are you?”
And as I was in no condition to answer, she said, “I’m almost five years old,” with that shine in her eyes that indicates that there is no double-dealing in her of any sort. “You can call me Oriana. I think that’s my name.”
And then, as I was still stupefied, still silent:
“Will you take care of me? ’Cause there are some men who are looking for me … Somebody told me that I had to hide.”
So this woman, Doctor, not only has stopped growing in order to remain forever on the threshold of her five years of age, not only does not retain in her memory her real name, who her parents might be, and where she was born, but does not remember what just happened to her yesterday. For once, I didn’t mind if somebody didn’t recognize me: she treats everybody the same way. Nobody has a permanent face in her world, a world where someone like me cancompete, can triumph. Her eyes went blank when I mentioned Patricia’s name, when I asked her about the games we had played the preceding night.
Sunday morning was a repeat performance of Saturday. Except that I was the one who woke her this time, anxious to find out if the miracle would continue, and once more, “Hey, who are you?” and again the same voice introducing itself as if we had not already spent two long days of loving together, “I think my name may be Oriana,” and again, “What are we going to play today?” and “Watch out, there are some men who are—” and then I knew, I knew that if we were to stay together, it was absolutely essential to destroy any chance that the woman who had once occupied that body should come to disturb us.
I am going to keep her forever, Doctor.
Because if I had to present myself to her all over again on Saturday and Sunday and yesterday and today, her fingers, conversely, still knew me, her skin had not forgotten my touch. In her hands and in the permanent sanctuary that she offered me, there remained the wisdom from the days we had lived; and there, as well, shall be deposited the different identities that I will bestow upon her.
I need nothing more in the universe: Oriana, because of her unanchored memory, that double amnesia of hers, Maravelli, is a perpetual adventure. That she should not have the slightest idea of who
Oriana’s previous existence is not registered in that report alone. Her true history is also known by some adult Oriana who is crouched within that child Oriana who stretched out her arms to me so that I could protect her. That older woman is determinedto come back to the surface and transform my loved one into a normal, orthodox, uninteresting being, one of those millions that stroll along the streets with their jeans pressed so closely to their buttocks that you might presume they had a secret to conceal and didn’t want it to come out. Pretending they have some sort of real enigma in there, between their skin and their clothing, something that might be worth exploring. Normal: someone with a past, with a mask, with a piece of lipstick. A person like you, Doctor, like Enriqueta, like Tristan Pareja.
I am going to prevail against her.
My sex suggests to me that she is in there, preparing her revenge, watching the almost-five-year-old Oriana from a corner in her brain, from a curtain, from the corrupt camera of a pair of concealed eyes in there. Watching me as I listen to her Evelike mewls of pleasure, watching us make love, lying next to us in bed, lying on her back when Oriana gets on top of me, planning the merciless day when she will again take by assault the face that once belonged to her.
I will not allow her to interpose her memories between us.
It is a decision I made Saturday at dawn, the first morning that we shared. That was when Oriana’s hand awoke my shoulder, and the lips of Oriana in my hair and Oriana’s body in the sheets, and she asked me something that I myself, with all my prophetic inclinations, would have been unable to predict:
“Hey, who are you?”
And as I was in no condition to answer, she said, “I’m almost five years old,” with that shine in her eyes that indicates that there is no double-dealing in her of any sort. “You can call me Oriana. I think that’s my name.”
And then, as I was still stupefied, still silent:
“Will you take care of me? ’Cause there are some men who are looking for me … Somebody told me that I had to hide.”
So this woman, Doctor, not only has stopped growing in order to remain forever on the threshold of her five years of age, not only does not retain in her memory her real name, who her parents might be, and where she was born, but does not remember what just happened to her yesterday. For once, I didn’t mind if somebody didn’t recognize me: she treats everybody the same way. Nobody has a permanent face in her world, a world where someone like me cancompete, can triumph. Her eyes went blank when I mentioned Patricia’s name, when I asked her about the games we had played the preceding night.
Sunday morning was a repeat performance of Saturday. Except that I was the one who woke her this time, anxious to find out if the miracle would continue, and once more, “Hey, who are you?” and again the same voice introducing itself as if we had not already spent two long days of loving together, “I think my name may be Oriana,” and again, “What are we going to play today?” and “Watch out, there are some men who are—” and then I knew, I knew that if we were to stay together, it was absolutely essential to destroy any chance that the woman who had once occupied that body should come to disturb us.
I am going to keep her forever, Doctor.
Because if I had to present myself to her all over again on Saturday and Sunday and yesterday and today, her fingers, conversely, still knew me, her skin had not forgotten my touch. In her hands and in the permanent sanctuary that she offered me, there remained the wisdom from the days we had lived; and there, as well, shall be deposited the different identities that I will bestow upon her.
I need nothing more in the universe: Oriana, because of her unanchored memory, that double amnesia of hers, Maravelli, is a perpetual adventure. That she should not have the slightest idea of who
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