The Plimsoll Line (13 page)

My mother gave me a competition swimsuit; Sandra and Claudia, a tattoo. That was the best. We went to a tattoo parlor, and I chose a red drawing of a dragon. I thought Antonio would like it. Sandra wanted me to have it put on my shoulder, but I said I would look like a sailor. Claudia said the best place was on my ankle. I had it put on my back, under the nape of my neck, that way, with my hair down, it can’t be seen. I suppose today was important, but I don’t feel anything special
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Monday the 9
^th
.

I sometimes remember things. Today, for example, I recall my first memory. Why does one remember such things on certain days? I wonder if there’s something that triggers such memories. I don’t know. What I do know is that in this memory, I’m throwing stones into the river next to my father. I can see him, dressed in a jacket and tie, standing on an orange digger. I don’t know what such a large, flame-colored machine is doing in my memory, but the fact is it’s there, and my father is standing on it, looking very elegant, like he was about to go off to a wedding banquet. I’m on the riverbank. I don’t know what river it is, but there are green rushes, and dragonflies flitting over the surface, and pebbles on the bank. My father jumps off the orange-colored machine and comes toward me, I can see his large hand coming closer and stroking my face, he bends down, picks up a very flat stone, and throws it at the water. The stone skips across the surface. He encourages me to do the same, and I do. There we are. I don’t know for how long, perhaps a few minutes, hours, or days, because time is lost in the memory, like the light reflected on the dragonflies’ wings, and the drops of water exploding on the surface. It’s a good memory, my best memory. One day, I asked him what we were doing there, why we went to that river, what he was doing standing on a digger. He looked at me, thoughtfully, and said he didn’t know
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Thursday the 21
^st
.

I passed my driving test. On the first try. Claudia and Sandra came with me to my appointment for the driving portion. I’d like to have a motorcycle, but I know my parents don’t even want to consider such a possibility. They had an argument last night
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Friday the 18
^th
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The fact is I’d only ever kissed a few boys, little else. Over summer vacation last year, I went a bit further. It was with an English boy, Peter, I met on the beach. We swam together for a while and then chatted by the seashore. On the last day of vacation, we went for a walk. We had a pizza and then went to a club. He drank loads of beer and I downed shots of apple liqueur. After a while, I felt pretty dizzy, but I danced much better, and Peter looked very handsome. We kissed on the dance floor. We went outside. I could feel a weight in my head, sweat on my neck, and Peter’s hand grabbing my waist. We ended up lying on the beach, next to the sea. I remember the black water and white foam. There were stars. I asked him if he could tell the difference between the stars and the planets, but he was much more interested in sticking his nose down my cleavage. We kissed lying down, he caressed me and started to undress me, his wet hands covered in sand and rubbing my breasts. He’d pulled down his pants, and his butt shone white in the moonlight. Suddenly I had the impression this wasn’t what I wanted, his breath stank of beer and cigarettes, his face was contorted into an ugly expression. He panted on top of me, laboring away, like a chimpanzee. I felt something moving inside my stomach, like I was flying on a plane. I didn’t want to see his butt, so white it resembled a cheese. That’s what I felt. So I pushed him away. He looked at me uncomprehendingly. All I wanted was to get the sand off my body. I walked to the edge of the water and vomited. He said something in English I didn’t understand, but by the time I’d recovered, he was already walking off, kicking the sand
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I don’t know if I want to make love to Antonio. He keeps saying we should, but I’m a little afraid. I talked to Claudia about it yesterday. She said if I really loved him, there shouldn’t be any problem, but I think she just said that to calm me down
.

Tuesday the 20
^th
.

I would have liked to have had a brother or sister. I think about it sometimes. I would like there to have been other voices at home, someone to talk to, though brothers and sisters, it would seem, don’t talk to each other all that much. They quarrel when they’re kids and then meet up from time to time, like my father and Uncle Óscar. I know my parents tried to have kids for years, then I turned up, out of the blue. When I’m older, I’d like to have lots of kids and lots of cats. Claudia has two older brothers, and Sandra, a little brother. They envy me because I have a very large bedroom all to myself, but there are times, like today, when the house is silent, like it’s holding its breath, and outside, the forest also seems to be waiting for something. There’s a strange sense of anguish that merges with the smell of the green tea my mother prepares at all hours because she says it has antioxidant properties and prevents cancer. Perhaps I should talk to her. Tell her what I feel (but what do I feel?). I don’t know what she feels, either. I wonder if she would be happy somewhere else, if instead of living here with a husband called Gabriel and a daughter called Laura, she lived somewhere else, on the coast, next to the sea, for example, and was married to another man, somebody nice and romantic, who looked after her and made her feel wanted. Unique. Does she ever think about it? Does Mom regret her life
?

Thursday the 11
^th
.

My parents have gone. My father had to attend a conference in Sweden. Then he planned to take a few days’ vacation. As a girl, my mother traveled to lots of countries. Her father was a diplomat, her mother’s family owned a shipbuilding company. She says she was very happy. My father, however, hates traveling, change. He needs routine, like the fish in the pond. My mother doesn’t talk much about her parents, though I think she misses them. She never stopped wanting to travel, even after her parents died in a plane crash in Tenerife. I don’t remember them at all
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Friday the 12
^th
.

It’s wonderful being home alone. I got up early, fed Polanski, and then went to school. When I got back, I ate whatever I felt like, which is to say, not very much (I think I’m getting a bit fat). I studied math and then went to swim at the pool—the water underneath me, like a liquid whale, the water’s volume and my own body on top of that transparent, blue mass. In the evening, my parents called. They were in Stockholm. They’d had smoked herring for dinner. They sounded happy. Tomorrow, Antonio’s coming to spend the day at the house. Butterflies in my stomach
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Sunday the 14
^th
.

I am no longer a virgin. The whole day passed very slowly, like each minute was leading up to this event. I noticed it as soon as Antonio arrived. There was a kind of invisible tension between us. Polanski arched his back and hissed at him. I’m glad the cat can’t talk, because I promised my parents I wouldn’t bring Antonio here. He liked the house a lot, he looked at the paintings and furniture and whistled in admiration. Then I took him for a walk around the local area. We took the path through the forest. We bought cigarettes at the gas station. Jeremías stared at Antonio distrustfully, like he was a delinquent. I almost burst out laughing. “Everybody here seems to want to protect you from me,” he said. We crossed the Roman bridge, and I showed him my favorite spot. The poplars are yellow now, next to the stream. It’s so pleasant there, it’s difficult to find a better place, but I don’t think Antonio knew how to appreciate it. What’s more, he scratched his cheek on a branch. He’s clearly never set foot in the countryside before. Grandpa would have laughed at him a lot. We gathered chestnuts and in the evening roasted them in the fire. Then we watched a horror movie. I squeezed his hand a lot, and he laughed when he saw how I covered my face every time the murderer jumped out with a chainsaw. Polanski gazed at me from the floor with wide-open eyes, like he could sense something was about to happen. At the end of the movie, Antonio started kissing me on the sofa. I felt this is what I had been waiting for, this and what followed, whatever it might be. I just let myself go, without fear. We went up to my bedroom, taking off our clothes on the stairs. I removed the teddy bears from my bed, and then his body was on top of mine, and his saliva, and his soft skin. It hurt, but less than I had imagined. I felt him shuddering inside me, and then a warmth in my belly. I clenched my teeth. His body shook like a reed. Then he fell to one side. I felt like something was biting me between my legs, then nothing, and a tiny little wave of heat. “Is that it?” I thought. Antonio kept his eyes closed for a while, facing the wall, then lit a cigarette. He was naked, and his breastbone stood out on his chest. I asked him if he loved me. He said of course he did. Why else would he be there? Now that I think about it, I was rather disappointed. It wasn’t what I expected, or like in those movies when two people moan and seem to be having a great time and to love each other a lot. But it was nice to doze off together and to feel that I had changed and was different. It was an important day. Tomorrow I’ll have to tell Claudia all about it
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Monday the 15
^th
.

Smoking. Thinking about Antonio. How good it is to be home alone
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Tuesday the 16
^th
.

My parents got back this afternoon. They didn’t look well. When they behave like this, I think I hate them. Perhaps if I did something serious, they would wake up—I don’t know, set fire to the living room, for example, or my father’s library, or behead the hydrangeas . . . I’m sure they’d send me to see a shrink
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Saturday the 27
^th
.

Polanski catches a moth that was sleeping on the curtains. He tortures it slowly on the floor. The moth tries to escape, shakes its one wing, but only manages to turn around in circles. He looks at it without much interest, his pupils dilate a bit. He jumps on top of it, then chews it and shakes his head until the moth disappears between his sharp teeth. My mother went to spend the afternoon in town. Dad asked if I wanted to go with him to the gas station to buy the newspaper, like when I was a child and Jeremías would give me sweets. I said no, I had to study for my next math exam. Mom was late coming back from town. She was wearing her blue dress. It looks really good on her, and she only wears it on special occasions, like when she had to pose for the portrait in the living room. She wears that dress because she thinks it makes her look young and pretty. Perhaps I should talk to her. Or to them both. But what would I say
?

Sunday the 28
^th
.

Haven’t heard from Antonio
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Monday the 1
^st
.

I tried calling Antonio several times, but only got his answering machine. I spent the day walking around the city. I didn’t feel like seeing anybody. I sometimes have the impression that the three of us—Mom, Dad, and I—do everything we can to not see each other, to not have to talk. The three of us are running away. That’s my impression, at least—a structure that is slowly dissolving. And nobody does anything to stop it. The city had withdrawn into itself, like me, under a sky that seemed to have been made out of dirty plaster. Despite the fact that spring has arrived, it snowed in the mountains. Everybody’s talking about it. With the cold, people have turned in on themselves and are oblivious to everything. Having wandered through the arcade in the plaza, I went into a bar to have some coffee. The owner was arguing with his wife about an order that hadn’t arrived. I took some photos of myself in a photo booth. When I saw them, I said to myself I was changing a lot. I didn’t look too bad, all things considered. I think I’ve lost a bit of weight. I’ll give one to Antonio. On the way home, I thought I saw my father. At least, the car was the same as his, an off-white BMW. He was stopped at a traffic light, but somehow didn’t look like himself. I banged on the glass of the bus window. He didn’t see me. How strange it is to watch somebody outside of their normal context, while they’re working, or walking down the street on their own, or out shopping. Seen like this, he looked like an interesting man, his hands resting on the steering wheel, with his sharp profile and straight nose. His eyes were squinted in concentration, like he was listening to the news on the radio. A normal guy, in a normal city, for whom, no doubt, things weren’t going too badly
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Thursday the 12
^th
.

It’s like he’s evaporated. Claudia says I should forget about him. I have a knot in my throat. Over lunch, I told my father I’d seen him in his car. “That wasn’t me,” he said, “I have a class then, where else would I be?” My mother looked at him over the rim of her glass. Then she asked me,“You also have a class at that time, what were you doing on a bus?” I suddenly felt the blood rushing to my face, and I stood up from the table. “You’re a couple of idiots.” That’s what I said
.

Wednesday the 26
^th
.

Study, I have to focus on studying. Claudia insisted I should forget all about Antonio. It may be for the best, but I can’t get used to the idea of not having him by my side. Sandra just shrugged her shoulders, the dumb idiot. She’s done something to her face, she has fewer pimples now. I miss Grandpa. I’d like him to be near, right here, next to Polanski. Just going for a walk would help to clear my thoughts, just seeing him walk. Where is he, what’s he thinking? I sometimes imagine he no longer has a face, or a body, or glasses, because he no longer needs them, and I suppose he’s watching us, just like the light piercing the mist at the moment. Perhaps Polanski can see him and that’s why he sometimes mews while staring up at the ceiling, like there was something there. Study, I have to study more. An hour each day, in the afternoon, after lunch. Then I can go and swim for a while. I’d like to dream of water
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