Read Online Your Face Tomorrow: Poison, Shadow, and Farewell by Javier Marías, Margaret Jull Costa - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Javier Marías, Margaret Jull Costa
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English people who have learned my language more from books than from speaking it, and whose Spanish therefore seems rather bookish. And so I got up and, before she could say 'Yes' or 'No' to my hint of an interrogative gesture, announced:
'I'm going to get a glass for myself, I'm ready for a drink now too.' And I then ventured the following warning or caution: 'Do you think it's wise to drink three glasses one after the other like that? That's drinking English-fashion, not like a Spaniard. Anyway, I'll bring a few snacks just in case.'
When I came back with my glass and a few olives and chips in their respective bowls, I caught her inspecting the run in her tights. In the corridor, before going into the room and almost hidden from view—I stopped and spied on her for a few seconds: one, two, three; and four—I saw her looking at it and carefully running her index finger over it (a finger moistened with saliva perhaps or a drop of nail varnish, which is what women used to apply to a catch in their stockings in order to stop a run, to see if the stocking would stay decent at least until they got home; although it was too late now to stop anything). When I rejoined her, she, with arms and legs crossed now, made no reference to this imperfection in her apparel, which was odd: it would have been the moment to express surprise and regret and, if she so chose, to apologize for the theoretically scruffy appearance the run conferred upon her, although it didn't displease me in the least or trouble me, I found it rather entertaining being able discreetly to observe its progress. I wondered how much longer she would keep up the fiction that she hadn't yet noticed, and why, since it was beyond concealment now. And for the first time that evening—for the first time ever—it occurred to me that not only did she not exclude me, but that, without a word or a touch or a look—although she looked straight at me when she spoke, as if there were nothing more to that look than her explanatory, neutral remarks—she was telling me that what did finally occur could occur, quite a lot later and when I was no longer expecting it, despite our insistent nearness in my bed, which was not that big: the opening of silk or nylon as a simile or promise or sign, its steadily growing length and width, the fact that she did not try to stop or remedy it by going to the bathroom and taking off her tights and even changing them (I know women who always carry a spare pair in their bag, Luisa is one of them), allowing the run to continue to grow and expose an ever larger expanse of thigh and soon, possibly, the front part of the calf, for which I've never known the name, if it has one, perhaps shank or shinbone, but neither word seems quite right; that area, of course, was covered by her boots, although her boots had opened fleetingly too, been unzipped, as soon as their drenched owner had arrived and sat down; yes, the run in her tights was like a zipper without teeth, uncivilized and autonomous and uncontrollable, with the added rogue element of being a thing that can be torn, except that this was a tear in which neither my hand nor anyone else's was intervening, the cloth was coming apart of its own accord, while still clinging to the leg, covering and uncovering at the same time and pointing up the contrast, the unveiled flesh advancing in both directions, down and up, and we men know what lies hidden at the top of a long female thigh. (I would accidentally see it myself—a dark triangle—in the ladies' toilet of a disco, where a woman would say to me with great self-confidence: 'You come and see.')
I felt slightly ashamed, almost embarrassed, when I realized I was having these thoughts, that I was thinking them. They were entirely inappropriate, they had taken me pretty much by surprise, and the worst thing is that once an idea gets into your head, it's impossible not to have had it and very hard to drive it out or erase it, whatever it might be:
'I'm going to get a glass for myself, I'm ready for a drink now too.' And I then ventured the following warning or caution: 'Do you think it's wise to drink three glasses one after the other like that? That's drinking English-fashion, not like a Spaniard. Anyway, I'll bring a few snacks just in case.'
When I came back with my glass and a few olives and chips in their respective bowls, I caught her inspecting the run in her tights. In the corridor, before going into the room and almost hidden from view—I stopped and spied on her for a few seconds: one, two, three; and four—I saw her looking at it and carefully running her index finger over it (a finger moistened with saliva perhaps or a drop of nail varnish, which is what women used to apply to a catch in their stockings in order to stop a run, to see if the stocking would stay decent at least until they got home; although it was too late now to stop anything). When I rejoined her, she, with arms and legs crossed now, made no reference to this imperfection in her apparel, which was odd: it would have been the moment to express surprise and regret and, if she so chose, to apologize for the theoretically scruffy appearance the run conferred upon her, although it didn't displease me in the least or trouble me, I found it rather entertaining being able discreetly to observe its progress. I wondered how much longer she would keep up the fiction that she hadn't yet noticed, and why, since it was beyond concealment now. And for the first time that evening—for the first time ever—it occurred to me that not only did she not exclude me, but that, without a word or a touch or a look—although she looked straight at me when she spoke, as if there were nothing more to that look than her explanatory, neutral remarks—she was telling me that what did finally occur could occur, quite a lot later and when I was no longer expecting it, despite our insistent nearness in my bed, which was not that big: the opening of silk or nylon as a simile or promise or sign, its steadily growing length and width, the fact that she did not try to stop or remedy it by going to the bathroom and taking off her tights and even changing them (I know women who always carry a spare pair in their bag, Luisa is one of them), allowing the run to continue to grow and expose an ever larger expanse of thigh and soon, possibly, the front part of the calf, for which I've never known the name, if it has one, perhaps shank or shinbone, but neither word seems quite right; that area, of course, was covered by her boots, although her boots had opened fleetingly too, been unzipped, as soon as their drenched owner had arrived and sat down; yes, the run in her tights was like a zipper without teeth, uncivilized and autonomous and uncontrollable, with the added rogue element of being a thing that can be torn, except that this was a tear in which neither my hand nor anyone else's was intervening, the cloth was coming apart of its own accord, while still clinging to the leg, covering and uncovering at the same time and pointing up the contrast, the unveiled flesh advancing in both directions, down and up, and we men know what lies hidden at the top of a long female thigh. (I would accidentally see it myself—a dark triangle—in the ladies' toilet of a disco, where a woman would say to me with great self-confidence: 'You come and see.')
I felt slightly ashamed, almost embarrassed, when I realized I was having these thoughts, that I was thinking them. They were entirely inappropriate, they had taken me pretty much by surprise, and the worst thing is that once an idea gets into your head, it's impossible not to have had it and very hard to drive it out or erase it, whatever it might be:
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