Carnality, page 11
* * *
—
It is Mercuro who wakes her. Today, he tells her, he is feeling good. He has slept well and not thought about Penelope, Soledad, or Carnality. She gives him a tired but encouraging nod. He does look different. As though the sea air has already done him good, even though they’ve yet to leave the hotel. He says he just wants to take things easy today. No museums, churches, or local artisans, the kind of things you might want to see as a tourist.
“No, I don’t want to,” she says, “not the least bit.”
She puts on a bikini and her dressing gown and they go and eat breakfast by the pool. She orders a coffee and a croissant. She thinks the waiter glanced very briefly at her belly when she ordered the croissant. She allows the fat to bulge even more in defiance. You just keep staring, she thinks at him. Then she looks at the Spanish women. Slender, elegant, wearing expensive bikinis and jewelry. They talk in high voices to their husbands, and their husbands respond contentedly, although in monosyllables. You can see from the men’s faces that they are happy with their wives, proud of them, satisfied with them as well. They exude a relaxed masculinity, the kind of masculinity men give off who have happy wives, a lot of sex, and nothing to ruin their day. She is feeling embarrassed about herself. She is embarrassed she has not managed to become better than she is. It’s impossible to look at those women without thinking of Miranda. Their laughter reverberates around the poolside. She, on the other hand, is invisible to everyone, even to Mercuro, who spends most of the time just staring straight ahead. She sits there in silence and eats her croissant, slightly anxious that Mercuro will suddenly say something about her body, because that is what Spanish men have a propensity for doing when you least expect it.
The hours pass. They have lunch and then dinner. Afterward they go to bed. In the night she is woken by Mercuro screaming in his room. She puts on her dressing gown and goes in to him.
“What’s the matter?” she asks, giving him a shake.
“I was dreaming about Lucia,” he says.
“Dreaming what?” she asks.
He tells her that in the dream he was walking down the stairs of a darkened house, knowing there was someone standing at the bottom and it was almost certainly her. In the dream he was aware that he was dreaming. Which is why he said: “You can’t kill someone in a dream. You might die in the dream but not in real life.” Then he heard her voice from the darkness: “Do you know how many people suffer heart attacks in their sleep and die? It often happens because of something that frightened them in a dream.”
He says he will never be able to sleep again. She lies down behind him and hugs him from behind. He gets hold of her hand and strokes it.
“It’ll all be okay,” she whispers and moves in even closer. “It’s all going to be fine, perfectly fine.”
* * *
—
The next morning they are woken by someone knocking on the door. It’s Johnny. He has shaved and put on a white short-sleeved shirt. He appears to have shaved his skull as well and put cream on it, because it is shinier than last time.
“Are you up yet?” he asks. “I thought we could go on a trip.”
He sounds as though they’ve been friends for ages and turning up and knocking on their door was perfectly natural. She doesn’t like him now; she can see his shirt is too short and the fat bulges out beneath it. He’s wearing tube socks and sandals. You can do that in Sweden, but not in Spain. Dressed like that, you’ll be an object of ridicule here. She watches Mercuro look Johnny up and down; his eyes stop at the tube socks. It is then she feels an ache in her groin and remembers the previous night. She turns toward Mercuro and smiles. She wants to say: You’re not impotent at all, but she can’t with Johnny standing there. Instead she says that they’ve made plans of their own and they don’t want to go anywhere, just stay here at the hotel.
“There’s nothing to see here,” Johnny persists. “We’ll go somewhere else instead. I’ve rented a car.”
“What kind of car did you rent?” Mercuro asks.
“A Lexus.”
“Wow,” Mercuro says. “In that case let’s go and find a little cove.”
“Exactly what I was thinking,” Johnny says. “I was thinking just that. I’ve packed a picnic and some other stuff. We’ll have a great time.”
Mercuro turns to her and brushes a strand of her hair off her face.
“What do you think, mi vida?”
She is so pleased to be addressed that way, she immediately responds that she’d like to go for a drive and see something of the island.
* * *
—
They pack their bathing things, make their way downstairs, and then drive off in the car. Mercuro and Johnny sit in the front. She is on the rear seat with the picnic basket; she put what was left over from yesterday’s supper into it as well: melon, ham, muscat wine, and bread. In Spain they drink and drive, so a glass of wine on the coast ought not to be a problem. So there it is: the basket, sitting rather obtrusively beside her. All packed and ready to go, sort of. The fat on her thighs shakes as they drive over gravel roads. She should have worn long trousers. Thin linen trousers. She gazes out at the countryside. It is scorched and brown. There are cattle on the hills. She looks at Mercuro from behind, thinking of last night. She can see the sheen on Johnny’s skull. Johnny accelerates, and Mercuro looks out the window. The cattle are standing still on the scorched hills.
They arrive at a little bay, park the car, and get out; they’re sporting large round patches of sweat on their backs despite the air-conditioning in the Lexus. They walk down to the beach, which is full of people. Young people are lying behind large rocks, snogging. They find a spot and unroll the beach mats Johnny bought along. She takes off her clothes and is not pleased to feel Johnny’s eyes on her body. I was someone completely different once as well, she would like to say. The bikini is an old one in a brownish shade. She should have bought a new one before she went on a trip with two men. The blue stretch marks on her legs come from valves in the veins leaking, the doctor says. The blood can work its way down but not up. Getting a tan could improve things, the doctor also said, it helps conceal the color. She looks around the beach. Despite all the pretty women there, Mercuro really does seem to have eyes only for her.
“A drop of wine?” Johnny asks, opening the basket.
He gets out the bottle, fills the glasses, and hands them over. She is thirsty, and the wine feels rough on her throat in a good way.
“A bit more, please,” she says, and holds out her glass.
Mercuro raises his glass in a toast to her.
“Do you want to do some snorkeling?” Johnny asks.
She shakes her head. Her body is not going to be walking across this beach.
“What about you, Mercury?” he says, waving the goggles.
“Why not?”
Mercuro and Johnny get up and walk toward the water. She watches them glide back and forth, their snorkels sticking out of the water like drinking straws. They hang on to the side of a rock for a while and raise their goggles to talk. They disappear after that, pop up again, talk some more, and then go back under the water. She stays where she is, looking out at the sea, filling herself with light. An African man in an orange sarong comes walking along the beach. He is carrying women’s clothes, thin beach dresses, and scarves in one hand and a tray of jewelry, sunglasses, and postcards in the other. He stops in front of her.
“Madame?” he says.
She shakes her head. “No,” she responds in English. “Nothing.”
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“What do you mean?” she asks in Spanish.
In the same language he replies that she looks sad.
“No,” she says.
She isn’t sad. Just happy. This is what she looks like when she’s happy.
“Just keep calm, madame,” he says in English.
“What do you mean?”
“Just keep calm, madame,” he says again. “Just keep calm and don’t worry.”
He walks on and the orange sarong flaps behind him in the breeze. She is waiting for him to turn around, when she will yell, Just keep calm about what? But he doesn’t. He keeps going, finally vanishing behind a large rock.
It isn’t long before she sees them reappear—Mercuro and Johnny—moving toward her out of the water. Mercuro is holding something that hangs down from his hand like the hair of a gorgon. People are staring at him and pointing. He looks happy. When he is only a little way off, he lifts it up and calls out to her: “I caught it with my bare hands.”
He swings the octopus back and forth in front of her. She has never seen him smile like that. The Medusa’s hair keeps wobbling. Chilly, pink flesh.
“Can you eat it?” she asks when they get to her.
“A delicacy,” Johnny says.
“So eat it then,” she says lifting her chin at him.
“What?”
“You’re the one in the know. Eat it. Have a taste. If it’s such a delicacy.”
It’s the wine bringing out the devil in her, as well as the fact that she ought to be on her own here with Mercuro and not with someone like Johnny. They’re a couple now. After the night, the incredible night they just spent together, they are a couple. Johnny looks away from her and at Mercuro. Then back at her again. She gets to her feet, unconcerned about her body, standing in front of him with her arms crossed across her chest and her chin raised.
“Eat it,” she says.
“Is that an order?” Johnny asks.
“Yes,” she says.
“And what’s going to happen if I don’t?”
“Nothing. I’ll just lose all respect for you though.”
She laughs, and Mercuro laughs with her. Johnny’s face has turned grim. He takes the octopus from Mercuro. He holds it up in the air. And then slowly lowers it toward his face, opening his mouth and allowing one of its tentacles to drop inside. He closes his mouth around it and before he bites down he turns his head a little to look at her. Then he raises the octopus again and she can see that the arm has been shortened. Johnny is chewing.
“Bravo,” she says and claps. “Bravo.”
He does it again. Once, twice, until he has chewed off an entire arm. She feels slightly sick.
“You can stop now,” she says.
“So now it’s my turn to give the orders,” Johnny says and chucks the maimed octopus onto the sand.
“How do you mean?”
“You gave me an order. And now it’s my turn.”
“But that was just for fun.”
“This’ll be just for fun as well.”
She looks at the dead octopus. The suckers are glistening in the sunlight. Mercuro gives her a thumbs-up. Is he drunk as well?
“Okay,” she says. “What do you want me to do?”
“Walk naked across the beach.”
“Never ever.”
“Do it.”
“I’ve got a complex.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
There, now she has said it. And now they can lay down their weapons because the power struggle is over. She has grown old and ugly and she suffers from a complex. She’s lost whatever points she had as a woman. He’s the winner. He’s still a man, after all.
“You can have one more glass of wine,” Johnny says. “Then you’re going to take off your bikini and walk up and down. Slowly, you’ve got to walk slowly. No jogging.”
“I really don’t want to.”
“Oh come on. You’re never going to see any of these people again. What have you got to lose? Put yourself out there. People who take themselves too seriously are so stuck-up.”
Stuck-up. What a word. A word typically used by self-important people. She gulps down what is left in the glass, gets to her feet, and takes off her bikini. She even hurls it away from her.
“You don’t have to do this,” she hears Mercuro say in Spanish.
She starts walking. She passes them slowly, the bodies. One by one. She can see their faces turning toward her out of the corner of her eye. The silence. The offended, shocked silence. Stomachs, hair, limbs. Burnt skin and lips sticky from ice cream. There’s not much beach left now. So I’ll just have to turn around then. Go back the same way. Here I am, this is my body. The wreck. Not that it matters, because of the kind of rush that comes over you. Once you’ve kept walking for a bit, you really don’t feel as ugly as you thought you would. You may not feel attractive but not that ugly either.
When she gets back to them she lies on her towel without bothering to put her bikini on. Bare-assed, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“You never thought I’d do that,” she mumbles to Mercuro in Spanish.
“No,” Mercuro says. “I didn’t.”
Is he looking at her thighs? It doesn’t matter if he is. She parts her legs a little. Look, for all I care. The wine and the sea are pounding in her ears. Soon afterward she falls asleep.
* * *
—
She is woken by a man’s voice she does not recognize. Mercuro is asleep on the towel beside her. The sun has gone behind a cloud, and the beach has begun to empty. A man who must be a police officer is speaking in Spanish to Johnny while pointing at her.
“No comprendo,” Johnny says with a grin. “No comprendo, no comprendo. No hablo español.”
The policeman says he wants to see their passports.
“Una cerveza por favor,” Johnny says to the officer, with a grin still plastered across his face.
She gets to her feet, about to sort out the situation in Spanish. Then she realizes she is naked. She wraps herself quickly in the towel and then slips on her beach dress.
“Problem?” she says in Spanish to the policeman.
“Not naked here,” he says in English. “Now have to follow me.”
Indecent exposure. You’re being arrested for indecent exposure. Who’d have thought? Talk about being a prude.
“Hang on, hang on,” she says to the officer, “I’ve done nothing.”
“Now you come with me,” he says, pointing officiously.
She wakes Mercuro up and, while he starts talking with the policeman, pulls on her panties. In her bag she finds a cap she puts on her head. Mercuro tells them they have to accompany the officer to the station. They can explain everything calmly once they’re there and after that they’re bound to be allowed to go back to the hotel. They pack everything up. They follow the policeman to the parking lot. People are staring at them; they can hear laughter and murmuring. She just wants to go back to the hotel and lie on the sofa and look at the tops of the pine trees moving in the breeze. Take a painkiller, go down to the pool, and after a while have a gin and tonic and fall asleep in the cool of the evening, and then wake up and have sex with Mercuro in the hotel bed. And not have to go to some police station with a clown like Johnny at any event. The policeman tells them to follow his car. They drive back out onto the scorched roads. Johnny is humming at the wheel. She is in the rear seat once again with the picnic basket. They follow the police car along the dusty road. The cattle have gone, and the hills look as though they are waiting for rain to fall. You can hear the crickets. She looks at her mobile to see if there is a text from Miranda, but the screen is empty. Her flesh is wobbling against the seat, and she is sweating again. She looks at Mercuro from behind. Everything is spinning. Everything feels odd. She is far from home.
But when they drive out onto the island’s main road, Johnny executes a sudden twist of the wheel and, instead of following the police car, they turn onto a small road on the left.
“Let’s give that bastard the slip,” he yells, and he presses the accelerator to the floor.
“Are you out of your mind?” Mercuro shouts.
Johnny laughs out loud.
“Fucking fascist bastard,” he yells. “If you’d just put a bullet in the brains of people like that, you could have avoided that whole Franco farce in this country.”
“What the fuck do you know about it?” Mercuro yells. “What do you know about anything, you fat anemic idiot? My grandmother’s entire family were executed in their living room by Republicans. Republicans, do you get that, you bastard? You think this was your war and you can come here and play the hero, but you haven’t got a clue. Piss off back to your igloos and shut the fuck up.”
For a moment Johnny appears to be at a loss after Mercuro’s outburst. The car slows down and he takes one hand off the wheel to run it over his bald head. She gets the sense he is going to say something but then he spits out of the open window and accelerates again. She looks back but can see nothing because of all the dust that has risen in a cloud behind them.
Johnny has evidently managed to shake off the police because they find their way to a small bay with some motorboats hauled up on the shore. Johnny leaps out of the car, grabs one of the boats, and yells at them to join him.
“Quick,” he shouts, “Hurry up, this one’s got the key in, can you believe it? Come on, hurry up, we can make it.”
He pulls her in, and she sits in the middle of the boat. Mercuro appears to have been exhausted by his outburst and allows himself to be steered passively toward the prow. Once they’re on board, Johnny runs around and undoes the rope and casts off. It all happens so quickly she has no time to think about any of it, nor does Mercuro. They just sit there, being taken for a ride, and it is only when they have got some way out to sea that it dawns on them they should not have followed Johnny’s orders. They keep checking the shoreline but fail to see any policemen. Mercuro tries to get Johnny to turn around but to no avail. They keep going for half an hour, an hour, ninety minutes. She falls asleep for a bit. When she wakes up, Mercuro has her in his arms.
