Part 13 (2/2)

'You're mad.'

'Maybe. But it makes sense. Have you ever stopped to think about the feelings of the men you've been to bed with?'

'Yes, I have. They were all insecure. They were all afraid.'

'Worse than afraid, they were vulnerable. They didn'treally know what they were doing, they only knew what society, friends and women themselves had told them was important. s.e.x, s.e.x, s.e.x, that's the basis of life, scream the advertis.e.m.e.nts, other people, films, books. No one knows what they're talking about.

Since instinct is stronger than all of us, all they know is that it has to be done. And that's that.'

Enough. I had tried to give him lessons in s.e.x in order to protect myself, now he was doing the same, and however wise our words - because each of us was always trying to impress the other - this was so stupid and so unworthy of our relations.h.i.+p! I drew him to me because - regardless of what he had to say or of what I thought about myself - life had taught me many things. In the beginning, everything was love and surrender. But then the serpent appeared 275 and said to Eve: what you surrendered, you will lose.

That is how it was with me - I was driven out of paradise when I was still at school, and ever since then, I have been trying to find a way of telling the serpent he was wrong, that living was more important than keeping things to yourself. But the serpent was right and I was wrong.

I knelt down and gradually took off his clothes, and I saw his p.e.n.i.s there, sleeping and unresponsive. This didn't seem to bother him, and I kissed the inner part of his legs, starting at his feet. His p.e.n.i.s slowly began to respond, and I touched it, then put it in my mouth and - unhurriedly, so that he wouldn't interpret this as: 'right, get ready for action!' - I kissed it with all the tenderness of someone who expects nothing in return, and for precisely that reason I got everything I wanted. I saw that he was getting excited, and he began to touch my nipples, circling them with his fingers as he had on that night of total darkness, making me want to have him again between my legs or in my mouth or whatever way he wanted to possess me.

He didn't take off my jacket; he had me lie face forwards, with the upper part of my body bent over the table, and my feet still on the floor. He penetrated me slowly and unhurriedly this time, no longer afraid of losing me, because, deep down, he too had realised that this was a dream and that it would always be a dream, and would never become reality.

276 At the same time as I felt him inside me, I was aware ofhis hand on my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, my b.u.t.tocks, touching me as only a woman knows how. Then I knew that we were made for each other, because he could be a woman, as he was now, and I could be a man, as when we talked or when we initiated that joint search for the two lost souls, the two missing fragments needed to complete the universe.

As he simultaneously penetrated and touched me, I felt that he was doing this not only to me, but to the whole universe. We had time, tenderness and mutual knowledge. Yes, it had been good to arrive carrying two suitcases, ready to leave, and to be immediately thrown to the floor and penetrated with a kind of fearful urgency; but it was good too knowing that the night would never end and that there, on the kitchen table, o.r.g.a.s.m wasn't a goal in itself, but the beginning of that encounter.

He stopped moving inside me while his fingers worked quickly and I had one, two, three o.r.g.a.s.ms in a row. I felt like pus.h.i.+ng him away, for the pain of pleasure is so intense that it hurts, but I resisted; I accepted that this was how it was, that I could withstand another o.r.g.a.s.m or another two, or even more ...

... and suddenly, a kind of light exploded inside me. I was no longer myself, but a being infinitely superior to everything I knew. When his hand took me to my fourth o.r.g.a.s.m, I entered a place where 277 everything seemed at peace, and with my fifth o.r.g.a.s.m I knew G.o.d. Then I felt him beginning to move inside me again, although his hand had still not stopped, and I said 'Oh G.o.d', and surrendered to whatever came next, Heaven or h.e.l.l.

It was Heaven. 1 was the earth, the mountains, the tigers, the rivers that flowed into the lakes, the lakes that became the sea. He was thrusting faster and faster now, and the pain was mingled with pleasure, and I could have said: 'I can't take any more', but that would have been unfair, because, by then, he and I were one person.

I allowed him to penetrate me for as long as it took; his nails were now digging into my b.u.t.tocks, and there I was face down on the kitchen table, thinking that there wasn't a better place in the world to make love. Again the creak of the table, his breathing growing ever faster, his nails bruising me, my s.e.x beating hard against his, flesh against flesh, bone against bone, and I was about to have anothero.r.g.a.s.m, and so was he, and none of this, absolutely none of this was a LIE!

'Come on!'

He knew what he was saying, and I knew that this was the moment; I felt my whole body soften, I ceased to be myself- I was no longer listening, seeing or tasting anything - I was merely feeling.

'Come on!'

And I came at the same moment he came. It wasn't eleven minutes, it was an eternity, it was as if 278 we had both left our bodies and were walking joyfully through the gardens of paradise in understanding and friends.h.i.+p. I was woman and man, he was man and woman. I don't know how long it lasted, but everything seemed to be silent, at prayer, as if the universe and life had ceased to exist and become transformed into something sacred, nameless and timeless.

But time returned, I heard his shouts and I shouted with him, the table legs beat on the floor, and it didn't occur to either of us to wonder what the rest of the world might be thinking.

And suddenly he withdrew from me and laughed; I felt my v.a.g.i.n.a contract, and I turned to him and I laughed too, and we embraced as if it were the first time we had made love in our entire lives.

'Bless me,' he said.

I blessed him, not really knowing what I was doing. I asked him to do the same, and he did, saying, 'blessed be this woman, who has loved much'.

They were beautiful words, and we embraced again and stayed there, unable to understand how eleven minutes could carry a man and a woman so far. Neither of us was tired. We went into the living room, he put on a record and did exactly as I had hoped: he lit the fire and poured me some wine. Then he opened a book and read: 279 A time to be born, and a time to die; A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stonestogether; A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; A time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; A time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; A time of war, and a time of peace.

This sounded like a farewell, but it was the loveliest farewell I would ever experience in my life.

I embraced him and he embraced me, and we lay down on the carpet beside the fire. I was still filled by a sense of plenitude, as if I had always been a wise, happy, fulfilled woman.

'What made you fall in love with a prost.i.tute?'

I didn't understand it myself at the time. But I've thought about it since, and I think it was because, knowing that your body would never be mine alone, I had to concentrate on conquering your soul.'

280 'Weren't you jealous?”

'You can't say to the spring: ”Come now and last as long as possible.” You can only say: ”Come and bless me with your hope, and stay as long as you can.”'

Words lost on the wind. But I needed to hear them, and he needed to say them. I fell asleep, although I don't know when. I dreamed, not of a situation or of a person, but of a perfume that flooded the air.

281 When Maria opened her eyes, a few rays of sun were coming in through the open blinds.

'I've made love with him twice,' she thought, looking at the man asleep by her side. 'And yet it's as if we had always been together, and he had always known my life, my soul, my body, my light, my pain.'

She got up to go to the kitchen and make some coffee. That was when she saw the two suitcases in the hall and she remembered everything: her promise, the prayer she had said in the church, her life, the dream that insisted on becoming reality and losing its charm, the perfect man, the love in which body and soul were one and the same and in which pleasure and o.r.g.a.s.m were different things.

She could stay; she had nothing more to lose, only an illusion. She remembered the poem: a time to weep, and a timeto laugh.

But there was another line too: 'a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing'.

She made the coffee, shut the kitchen door and phoned for a taxi. She summoned all her willpower, which had carried her so far, and which was the source of energy for her 'light', which had told her the exact time to leave, which was protecting her and making her treasure forever the memory of that night. She got 283 dressed, picked up her suitcases and left, hoping against hope that he would wake up and ask her to stay.

But he didn't wake up. While she was waiting for the taxi outside, a gypsy was pa.s.sing, carrying bouquets of flowers.

'Would you like to buy one?'

Maria bought one; it was the sign that autumn had arrived and summer had been left behind. It would be a long time now before the cafe tables were out on the pavements in Geneva and the parks were full once more of people strolling about and sunbathing. It didn't matter; she was leaving because she had chosen to leave, and there was no reason for regrets.

She got to the airport, drank another cup of coffee and waited four hours for her flight to Paris, thinking all the time that he would arrive at any moment, because at some point before they fell asleep, she had told him the time of her flight. That's how it always happened in films: at the last moment, when the woman is just about to board the plane, the man races up to her, puts his arms around her and kisses her, and brings her back to his world, beneath the smiling, indulgent gaze of the flight staff. The words 'The End'

appear on the screen, and the audience knows that, from then on, they will live happily ever after.

'Films never tell you what happens next,' she thought, trying to console herself. Marriage, cooking, children, ever more infrequent s.e.x, the discovery of the first note from his mistress, the decision to confront him, his promise that 284 it will never happen again, the second note from another mistress, another confrontation and this time a threat to leave him, this time the man reacts less vehemently and merely tells her that he loves her. The third note from a third mistress, and the decision to say nothing, to pretend that she knows nothing, because he might tell her that he doesn't love her any more and that she's free to leave.

No, films never show that. They finish before the realworld begins. It's best not to think too much about it. She read one, two, three magazines. In the end, they announced her flight, after almost an eternity in that airport lounge, and she got on the plane. She still imagined the famous scene in which, as she fastens her seatbelt, she feels a hand on her shoulder, turns round and there he is, smiling at her.

Nothing happened.

She slept on the short flight between Geneva and Paris.

She hadn't had time to think about what she would tell them at home, what story she would invent, but her parents would probably just be happy to have their daughter back, and to have a farm and a comfortable old age ahead of them.

She woke up with the jolt of the plane landing. It taxied for a long time, and the flight attendant came to tell her that she would have to change terminals, because the flight to Brazil left from Terminal F and she was in Terminal C. But there was no need to worry; there were no delays, and she still had plenty of time, and if she wasn't sure where to go, the ground staff would help her.

285 While the pa.s.senger loading bridge was being put in place, she wondered if it would be worth spending a day in Paris, just to take some photographs and be able to tell people that she had been there. She needed time to think, to be alone with herself, to bury her memories of last night deep down inside her, so that she could use them whenever she needed to feel alive. Yes, a day in Paris was an excellent idea; she asked the flight attendant when the next flight to Brazil was, if she decided not to leave that day.

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