Eva Luna (24 page)

“How much do you want now?”

“Come by my office and we'll talk about it.”

Then Riad Halabí realized that there would be no end to the blackmail, and that the situation had reached a point of no return. Nothing could ever be the same again; people would make our lives impossible. The time had come to go our separate ways. That night, sitting beside the Arab fountain in his impeccable white batiste guayabera shirt, he told me just that, choosing his words with care. It was a bright
night and I could see his large sad eyes, two moist black olives, and I thought of the good things I had shared with that man: the card games and dominoes, the evenings reading my primers, the movies, the hours in the kitchen cooking. I realized that I loved him deeply, that I owed him everything. A gentle warmth stole through my legs, constricted my chest, made my eyes sting. I got up and walked behind the chair where he was sitting; for the first time in all the time we had lived in the same house, I dared touch him. I laid my hands on his shoulders and rested my chin on his head. For a moment impossible to calculate, he did not move; perhaps he sensed what was going to happen, and wanted it, because he took out the handkerchief he used in moments of intimacy and covered his mouth. No, not with the handkerchief, I said. I grabbed it and threw it to the ground; then I walked around the chair and sat on his lap, putting my arms around his neck, very close, and stared at him unblinking. He smelled of clean maleness, of freshly ironed shirts, of lavender. I kissed his smooth-shaven cheek, his forehead, his dark, strong hands.
Ayayay
, my child, sighed Riad Halabí, and I felt his warm breath on my neck, beneath my blouse. My skin prickled with pleasure, and my nipples hardened. I was aware that I had never been so close to anyone before, and that it had been centuries since anyone had caressed me. I took Riad Halabí's face in my hands and slowly drew him toward me until I was kissing his lips, a long kiss, learning the strange form of his mouth as fire rippled through my bones and sent shivers through my belly and thighs. Perhaps for an instant he struggled against his own desires, but immediately surrendered, to follow my lead and explore me in turn, until the tension was unbearable, and we drew apart to breathe.

“No one has ever kissed me on the mouth,” he whispered.

“Or me.” And I took his hand to lead him to the bedroom.

“Wait, child. I don't want to get you in trouble . . .”

“I haven't had a period since Zulema died. It was the shock, the schoolteacher says.” I blushed. “She thinks I will never have children.”

We stayed together that whole night. Riad Halabí had spent a lifetime inventing ways to approach a woman while that handkerchief covered his mouth. He was a loving and delicate man, eager to please and to be accepted, and he had devised innumerable ways to make love without using his lips. His hands, and all the rest of his solid body, had been refined into a single sensitive instrument tuned to giving pleasure to a woman who wanted to be fulfilled. That encounter was so momentous for each of us that it might have become a solemn ceremony; instead, it was smiling and joyful. Together we entered a private place where time did not exist; we spent delectable hours in absolute intimacy with no thought for anything but ourselves, freely giving and taking, two uninhibited and playful friends. Riad Halabí was wise and tender, and that night he gave me such pleasure that many years and more than one man would pass through my life before I again felt so complete. He taught me the multiple possibilities of my womanhood, so I would never compromise for less. I gratefully received the splendid gift of my own sensuality; I came to know my body; I learned that I had been born for that enjoyment—and I could not imagine life without Riad Halabí.

“Let me stay with you,” I begged at dawn.

“My child, I am much too old for you. When you are thirty, I will be a helpless old man.”

“That doesn't matter. Let's use the time we have to be together.”

“We could never live down the scandal. I've lived my life, but yours is still ahead of you. You must leave this town, change your name, get an education, forget everything that's happened to us. I will always help you—you're dearer than a daughter to me.”

“I don't want to go, I want to stay with you. Don't pay any attention to what people say.”

“You must obey me, I know what I'm doing. Can't you see that I know the world better than you? They would hound us until we were both mad. We can't live locked up here—that wouldn't be fair to you, you're just a child.” And after a long pause, Riad Halabí added: “There is one thing I've wanted to ask you for days. Do you know where Zulema hid her jewels?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Don't tell me. They're yours now, but leave them where they are because you don't need them yet. I'll give you money to live in the capital, enough to go to school and learn to make your living. That way you won't have to be dependent on anyone, not even me. You won't want for anything, my child. Zulema's jewels will be waiting for you, they will be your dowry when you marry.”

“I won't marry anyone, only you—please don't make me go.”

“I'm doing it because I love you very much. One day you will understand, Eva.”

“I'll never understand! Never!”

“Sh-h-h . . . let's not talk about that now. Come here, we still have a few hours.”

That morning we walked together to the plaza. Riad Halabí was carrying the suitcase of new clothes he had packed for me; I walked in silence, my head high and my gaze de
fiant, so that no one would know how near I was to tears. It was a day like any other, and at that hour children were playing in the street and the old women of Agua Santa had brought their chairs out on the sidewalk and were sitting shucking corn into pans in their lap. The implacable eyes of the town followed us to the bus stop. No one waved goodbye to me, not even the lieutenant, who happened to pass by in his jeep but turned his head as if he had seen nothing, carrying out his part of the bargain.

“I don't want to go,” I begged for the last time.

“Don't make this harder for me, Eva.”

“Will you come see me in the city? Promise me you'll come soon, and we can make love again.”

“Life is long, child, and filled with surprises—anything can happen.”

“Kiss me.”

“I can't, everyone is looking. Get on the bus and don't get off for any reason until you reach the capital. Once you're there, get a taxi and go to the address I wrote down for you—it's a boardinghouse for young ladies. The schoolteacher Inés called the woman in charge. You'll be safe there.”

From the bus window, I saw him standing with his handkerchief over his mouth.

*  *  *

I traveled, in reverse, the same route I had taken years before asleep in Riad Halabí's truck. Amazing scenery passed before my eyes, but I saw nothing; my gaze was turned inward where I was still blinded by the discovery of love. I knew intuitively that for the rest of my life every time I thought of Riad Halabí, my gratitude would be renewed—and, in fact, it has been so. Nevertheless, I spent those hours trying to
shake off the languor of thoughts of love and achieve the clarity of mind needed to review the past and take stock of the possibilities that lay before me. Until that day I had followed other people's orders, starved for affection, with no future beyond the next day and no fortune but my stories. It took a constant effort of imagination to fill in the parts of my past that were missing. Even my mother was an ephemeral shadow I had to sketch clearly in my mind each day if I was not to lose her in the labyrinths of memory. I recalled every word of the previous night, and realized that the man I had loved for five years as a father, and now desired as a lover, was lost to me. I looked at my hands roughened by domestic chores; I ran them over my face, feeling the shape of the bones; I buried my fingers in my hair and sighed, Enough! I repeated the word aloud: Enough, enough,
enough!
I took the paper with the name of the boardinghouse for young ladies from my pocketbook, wadded it up in my fist, and threw it out the window.

I arrived in the capital at a moment of turmoil. As I got off the bus with my suitcase, it was apparent that something alarming was happening: police were running down the street hugging the walls or zigzagging between the parked cars, and I could hear shots. When the bus driver asked what was going on, a policeman shouted for us to get away from there, someone was firing a rifle from the building on the corner. Passengers grabbed their bundles and ran in every direction. I started off in a daze, not knowing which way to go: I had recognized nothing about the city.

Outside the terminal, the atmosphere was heavy with tension; people were closing their doors and windows; shopkeepers were lowering the shutters of their storefronts; the streets were emptying. I looked for a taxi, wanting to get out
of there as quickly as possible, but none stopped, and as no other transportation was available, I had to keep walking in the new shoes that were torturing my feet. I heard a roar like thunder and when I looked up saw a helicopter circling in the sky like a disoriented fly. People were rushing by on every side. I tried to find out what was happening, but no one knew for sure: a
coup d'état
, I heard someone say. Though I did not know what the words meant, I kept moving by instinct, aimlessly, the suitcase growing heavier by the minute. Half an hour later, I passed a modest-looking hotel and went in, calculating I had enough money to stay a short while. The next day I began to look for work.

Each morning I set out filled with hope, and in the evening returned exhausted. I read the notices in the newspaper and went to all the places advertising for help, but soon learned that unless I was prepared to be a topless dancer or to work as a bar girl, the only available jobs were for servants, and I had had enough of that. More than once I was on the verge of calling Riad Halabí in desperation, but I refrained. Finally the owner of the hotel, who always sat at the door and had watched my comings and goings, guessed what my problem was and offered to help. He explained that it was very difficult to find work without a letter of recommendation, especially in these days of political upheaval, and he gave me the card of a woman friend of his. As I neared the address, I recognized the neighborhood of the Calle República and my first impulse was to turn around and go back, but then I thought better of it, concluding I had nothing to lose by asking. I never found the building I was looking for, however, because before I got there I was caught up in a street disturbance. A crowd of young people ran by, sweeping me along with them to a small plaza in front of the Church of the Sem
inarians. Students were brandishing their fists and yelling and shouting slogans, and I was in the middle of it all, without any notion of what was going on. One boy was screaming that the government had sold out to imperialism and betrayed the people; two others were climbing the façade of the church to hang a flag there, while the crowd chanted,
No pasarán, no pasarán!
Then soldiers came and fought their way through with clubs and gunfire. I started to run, looking for a place where I could wait until both the tumult in the plaza and the rhythm of my breathing died down. I saw that the side door of the church was half-open, and I ran straight to it and slipped inside. I could still hear the noise outside, but it was muted, as if happening in some distant time. I sat down in the nearest pew, suddenly weak from the accumulated exhaustion of the last days. I put my feet on the kneeler and rested my head on the back of the pew. Little by little I began to feel calm; it was peaceful in that dark refuge, surrounded by columns and immutable saints, cloaked in silence and coolness. I thought of Riad Halabí and wished I were beside him as I had been evenings in the last few years, the two of us together in the patio at sunset. I shivered at the memory of love, but immediately shut the thought away. After a while I noticed that the echoes from the street had faded and the light filtering through the stained-glass windows had dimmed. It must be getting late, I thought, and looked around. In a nearby pew I saw a woman so beautiful that for a moment I thought she was a divine apparition. She looked toward me and gave a friendly wave of her hand.

“Did you get caught in that mob, too?” the magnificent stranger asked in a subterranean voice as she came and sat beside me. “The whole city's in an uproar. They say the students have dug in at the university and troops have been
called out. This country's in a real mess, and our democracy won't last much longer at this rate.”

I stared at her, struck by her beauty, studying the sleek, whippet-like bone structure, the long slim hands, the dramatic eyes, the classic line of nose and chin. I had the impression that I had known her before—or, at least, dreamed of her. She stared at me, too, with a quizzical smile on her red lips.

“I've seen you somewhere . . .”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“Aren't you the girl who used to tell the stories? . . . Eva Luna?”

“Yes.”

“Don't you recognize me? It's me, Melesio.”

“It can't be. . . . What have you done?”

“Do you know what reincarnation is? It's like being born again. Just say I'm reincarnated.”

I touched her bare arms, her ivory bracelets, a lock of her hair, still with the feeling I was looking at someone from my own imagination. Melesio, Melesio! And all the good memories of the person I had known from the time I lived with La Señora came rushing back. I saw mascara-stained tears rolling slowly down her perfect face. I threw my arms around her and hugged her, timidly at first, and then with unrestrained joy. Melesio. Eva. Oh, Melesio!

“Don't call me Melesio—my name's Mimí now.”

“I like it, it suits you.”

“How we've changed! No, don't look at me like that. I'm not gay, I'm a transsexual.”