3

When she disembarked on the island she saw her taxi was more dilapidated than ever and decided to take a new, air-conditioned one. Since she didn’t know any of the hotels apart from the one she always stayed at, she instructed the driver to take her to the new Carlton, a precipice of gold-tinted glass she had watched going up among the iron crags on her last three visits. It was not possible to find a room she could afford in the August high season, but they gave her a discount on an ice-cold suite on the eighteenth floor that overlooked the circular horizon of the Caribbean and the immense lagoon as far as the mountains. The price was a quarter of her monthly teacher’s salary, but the splendor, the silence, the springtime climate of the vestibule, and the solicitude of the staff infused her with a feeling of security that she surely owed herself.

From three thirty in the afternoon, when she arrived, until eight o’clock that night, when she went down for dinner, she did not have a moment of calm. The gladioli at the hotel’s flower shop looked splendid, but they were ten times the price, so she settled for the florist from her last couple of visits. The florist was the first to warn her about the new tourist cemetery, which was advertised as a garden of native flowers with music and birds at the edge of the lagoon but in which they buried the bodies vertically to save space.

She arrived at the island cemetery after five, when it was less sunny than in other years. Some of the tombs had been emptied, and beside them lay the debris of shattered coffins and odd bones among piles of quicklime. In her last-minute haste she’d forgotten her gardening gloves and had to clear the grave with her bare hands while giving her mother a summary of the year. The only good news belonged to her son, who in December would have his debut as a soloist in the Philharmonic Orchestra with Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme. She performed miracles to save her daughter’s reputation without mentioning her religious vocation, which would not have endeared her to her mother. Finally, she tightened her heart into a fist and confided to her mother the tale of her previous year’s night of free love, which she had reserved just for her, and just for that moment. She told her she knew neither who he was nor what his name might be. She was so convinced that her mother would send her a sign of approval that she expected it instantly. She looked up at the ceiba in flower, its repeated clusters blowing in the wind; she saw the sky, the sea, the Miami-bound plane more than an hour behind schedule in the incessant sky.

When she got back to the hotel she felt embarrassed by the state of her clothes and dust-covered hair. She hadn’t been to the hairdresser’s for a year, since her hair was fine and manageable, and she had adapted to its character. A pedantic and fawning stylist, who should have been called Narciso rather than Gastón, received her with all sorts of tempting suggestions about her hair’s possibilities, and ended up giving her a sort of grande dame chignon like she did herself (with less rhetoric) for her society evenings. A maternal manicurist repaired her hands with vanity balm after their battles with the cemetery stubble, and she felt so good that she promised to return the following year on the same date and attempt a change of style. Gastón explained they would charge it to her hotel bill, apart from the ten percent tip. And how much would that be?

“Twenty dollars,” Gastón said.

She twitched at the inconceivable coincidence that could only be the sign she was expecting from her mother to cauterize the aftereffects of her adventure. She took out the bill that had been burning in the bottom of her purse all year like the eternal flame of the unknown lover and handed it to the hairstylist with delight.

“Spend it well,” she said happily: “It comes from flesh and blood.”

Other mysteries of that extravagant hotel were not so easy for Ana Magdalena Bach. When she lit a cigarette she set off a system of bells and lights, and an authoritarian voice told her in three languages that she was in a nonsmoking room. She had to ask for help to discover that the same card that opened the door also turned on the lights, the television, the air-conditioning, and the ambient music. She was shown what to type on the electronic keyboard of the round bathtub to regulate the erotic and clinical settings of the jacuzzi. Mad with curiosity she took off her clothes, which were drenched in sweat from the sun at the cemetery, put on the shower cap to protect her hairstyle, and surrendered herself to the whirlpool of foam. Happy, she dialed her home telephone number, and shouted the truth to her husband: “You can’t imagine how much I miss you.” Her boasting was so vivid, he felt her arousal right down the phone line.

“Damn,” he said, “you owe me one.”

When she went down for supper it was eight. She thought of ordering something to eat by phone so she wouldn’t have to get dressed, but the charge for room service convinced her to eat downstairs in the café like one of the masses. The black silk sheath dress, too long to be in fashion, went well with her hairstyle. She felt slightly helpless with the neckline, but the necklace, earrings, and rings with faux emeralds raised her morale and magnified the brilliance of her eyes.

She finished her ham and cheese sandwich and coffee quickly. Overwhelmed by the shouts of tourists and strident music, she decided to go up to her room to read John Wyndham’s The Day of the Triffids, which she’d been meaning to get to for more than three months. The calm of the lobby revived her, and as she passed the cabaret a couple of professionals caught her attention dancing to the “Emperor Waltz” with perfect technique. She stood in the doorway, absorbed, even after the couple finished their exhibition and the dance floor was invaded by the regular clientele. A soft, virile voice close behind her woke her from her daydream:

“Shall we dance?”

He was so close that she could pick up the tenuous scent of his fear behind his aftershave. Then she looked at him over her shoulder and gasped. “Sorry,” she said in a daze, “but I’m not dressed for dancing.” The reply was instantaneous:

“You are the one wearing the dress, señora.”

The phrase impressed her. With an unconscious gesture she patted her body with the palms of her hands, her clear chest, pert breasts, bare arms, to make sure that her body really was where she felt it to be. Then she looked at him again over her shoulder, now not to see the owner of the voice but to take possession of him with the most beautiful eyes he would ever see.

“You are so kind,” she said charmingly. “Men don’t say things like that anymore.”

Then he stepped up beside her and reiterated in silence, with a languid hand, his invitation to dance. Ana Magdalena Bach, alone and free on her island, gripped that hand as if it were the edge of a precipice, with all her body’s energy. They danced three waltzes in the old style. She assumed from the first steps, judging by the cynicism of his mastery, that he was another professional contracted to brighten up the tourists’ nights, and she allowed herself to be swept around in circles of flight, but she kept him firmly at arm’s length. He said, looking into her eyes: “You dance like an artist.” She knew it was true, but then she knew he would have said it in any case to any woman he wanted to take to bed. During the second waltz he tried to hold her tight against his body, and she kept him in his place. He took the hint and upped his game, guiding her by the waist with his fingertips, like a flower. She responded as an equal. Midway through the third waltz she knew him as if she always had.

Never had she imagined so handsome a man with such an antiquated look. His skin was pale, his eyes ardent beneath luxuriant brows, his jet-black hair slicked down with a perfect center part. His tropical ecru silk dinner jacket tight around his narrow ribs completed the image of a dandy. Everything about him was as false as his manners, but his feverish eyes looked eager for compassion.

At the end of the series of waltzes he led her to a secluded table without warning or permission. It was not necessary: she anticipated everything and was delighted when he ordered champagne. The dimly lit ballroom was made for pleasure, and each table had its own atmosphere of intimacy. They rested during a session of salsa, watching the frenzied couples, because she knew that he had only one thing to say to her. It was quick. They drank half a bottle of champagne. The salsas finished at eleven, and a fanfare announced a special presentation by Elena Burke, the bolero queen, exclusive and for one night only on her triumphant tour of the Caribbean. And there she was, dazzled by the lights amid thunderous applause.

Ana Magdalena reckoned the man was not over thirty, because he could barely lead a bolero. She guided him with serene tact, and he picked up the steps. She kept him at a distance, not for decorum this time, but so as not to give him the pleasure of feeling the blood in her veins feverish from the champagne. But he forced her, gently at first, and then with all the strength of his arm around her waist. Then she felt on her thigh what he had wanted her to feel to mark his territory. She sensed the weakness in her knees and cursed herself for the beating of the blood in her veins and the impossible heat of her breathing. However, she managed to pull herself together and refused a second bottle of champagne. He must have noticed, as he invited her for a stroll on the beach. She hid her displeasure with a compassionate frivolity:

“Do you know how old I am?”

“I can’t imagine you are any age,” he said. “Just as old as you want to be.”

He hadn’t finished speaking when she, fed up with so many lies, delivered an ultimatum to her body: now or never. “I’m sorry,” she said as she stood up, “I have to go.” He leapt up in confusion.

“What happened?”

“I have to go,” she said. “Champagne doesn’t really agree with me.”

He suggested other innocent plans, perhaps not knowing that when a woman leaves there is no human or divine power that can stop her. He finally gave in.

“Will you allow me to accompany you?”

“Don’t bother,” she said. “And thank you, really, for an unforgettable night.”

In the elevator she was already regretting it. She felt a ferocious self-loathing. But it was offset by the pleasure of having done the right thing. She walked into the room, took off her shoes, flopped onto her back on the bed, and lit a cigarette. The smoke alarms went off. Almost at the same moment there was a knock on the door, and she cursed the hotel where the law persecuted guests even in the privacy of the bathroom. But it wasn’t the law knocking at the door, it was him. He looked like a figure from a wax museum in the semidarkness of the corridor. She stood staring at him with her hand on the doorknob, without a pinch of indulgence, and finally let him in. He strode in as if into his own home.

“Offer me something,” he said.

“Help yourself,” she said breezily. “I don’t have the slightest idea how this spaceship works.”

He, however, knew it all. He dimmed the lights, put on some ambient music, and poured two glasses of champagne from the minibar with the mastery of a stage director. She went along with the game, not as herself but as the protagonist of her own narrative. They were drinking a toast when the phone rang. She answered. A hotel security officer explained very kindly that nobody could be in a suite after midnight without registering at reception.

“You don’t have to explain, please,” she interrupted, embarrassed. “Forgive me.”

She hung up the phone, her face bright red. As if he’d heard the warning, he explained it away with a facile reason: “They’re Mormons.” And without further ado he invited her to the beach to watch the total lunar eclipse in an hour and fifteen minutes. This was news to her. She had a childish passion for eclipses, but all night she had been struggling between decorum and temptation, and could not find a valid argument to make up her mind.

“There is no escape,” he said. “It’s our destiny.”

The supernatural invocation dispensed with her scruples. So they went in his luxurious camper van to watch the eclipse from a tiny bay hidden in a grove of coconut palms with no sign of tourists. On the horizon they could see the distant brilliance of the city, and the sky was diaphanous and full of stars, with a sad and solitary moon. He parked in the shelter of the palm trees, took off his shoes, loosened his belt, and reclined his seat to relax. Only then did she discover that the vehicle didn’t have any seats apart from the two front ones, which turned into beds at the flip of a switch. The rest was a tiny bar, a stereo system playing the saxophone music of Fausto Papetti, and a minuscule bathroom with a portable bidet behind a crimson curtain. She understood instantly.

“There won’t be an eclipse,” she said.

He gave his word that he had heard it on the news.

“No,” she said. “You can only have an eclipse when the moon is full, and we’ve got a waxing quarter crescent.”

He remained imperturbable.

“Then it must be solar,” he said. “That gives us more time.”

There were no more formalities. They both now knew what they were doing, and she knew it was all she could have expected from him since they danced that first bolero. She was astonished by the magician’s mastery with which he removed her clothes piece by piece, his fingertips barely touching her, like peeling an onion. At his first thrust she felt herself die from the pain and an atrocious shock as if she were a calf being carved up. She was left breathless, drenched in icy sweat, but she appealed to her primal instincts to not feel inferior or let herself feel less than him, and they threw themselves into the inconceivable pleasure of brute force subjugated by tenderness. She never worried about finding out who he was, or even tried, until some three years after that brutal night, when she recognized him on television in a composite sketch of a sad vampire sought by police forces all over the Caribbean: a swindler who pimped helpless widows, the probable murderer of two of them.