Conditions for the Revolution

He could smell the aroma of Mara’s body; she smelled different, different from all the others. Quique remained on the bed. Isn’t imagination something? thought Quique. Everything is there and not there at the same time, todo paasa y tooodo queeda, pero lo nuestro es pasar, pasar haciendo caminos, caminos sobre la maaar. Suddenly something in Quique darkened, as if storm clouds were reflecting on the brown waters of his understanding: what a proletarian organ, the ass, the organ you sit on, and even though it seems to work and have working-class awareness, it’s really just waiting to die. I should say something, he said to himself, I should say something so it doesn’t look like we’re alone.

‘Hey, Marita, did your mom tell you that Rodrigazo and I went to the same high school?’

Like in a soap opera by Manuel Puig, Mara folds a piece of clothing and lifts a face devoid of expression. Her mind is filled with images and memories that she could have lived, or not: in the mental films we call thought, memory and imagination are usually the same operation. Rodrigazo must be Silvia’s ex. Silvia was a friend of Cris’s from college who was kidnapped in Campo de Mayo and now lived in Spain. Mara had never met her, she only knew her as another chapter in her mother’s never-ending story: Imagine, poor thing, they had killed her lover, her comrade in the struggle, and she was locked up there, they only took off her hood to stick some crap into her mouth or so she could kiss him – him and only him. She was a lovely girl, a cute little blonde, not very tall, but very pretty. Well, what happened was that Jaguar Gómez took her for his lover and, well, you can imagine, there was no way out of it. He was a dark, ugly guy, very hairy, with one of those Andean faces that make you just want to run away the minute you see them, but that Jaguar, he was fierce, you’d shit your pants just looking at him. Besides, he was the big boss of the task forces, so you can imagine how powerful he was. And with him all gung-ho, you couldn’t say no to him; you had to do everything he said. Believe me, Mara, if I had had to sleep with a guy like that to save you and your brother, I would have done it, don’t you doubt it for a second.

Mara closed the bag with a tug, frightening away images.

Meanwhile, Quique hovered over her with two expectant arms, like a goalkeeper waiting for a penalty kick.

It would have been easy for Mara to get rid of that walking, trouser-wearing symptom of her mother’s depression. Cris would never have tolerated him making a move on her daughter like that; spite would have swept her up in waves of fury that Quique (half drowned, adrift) would be unable to surf; wipe him out, make him disappear forever, John Doe, kaput. But Mara didn’t feel like doing her mother any favours; she didn’t want to get that close to her. Her most recent Oedipal pretext, Horacio, was a journalist friend of her mother’s. Horacio had written for the magazine Fierro for a while; with the return of democracy he got a post as Inspector of Potholes and devoted himself to investigative journalism. One night in her room, after having sex with him, Mara made a brusque movement and kicked him out of bed, literally. The guy ended up on his knees in front of her, exposed and vulnerable. Mara sat up calmly, without looking at him, and lit a cigarette.

‘Why did you do that?’ he asked.

‘Because I felt like it,’ she answered.

He gave her a slap that sent her cigarette flying, and she stood up furious, her nostrils defiantly flared. He slapped her again; then she ran into the master bathroom and pulled the bolt across. She curled up beside the bidet and waited. She was waiting for him to come looking for her, to kick down the door amid hissing threats; when she sat on the cold floor she realized she was all wet. Then she heard the elevator grille open and close.