6

It was a typical Wednesday in August on the Caribbean, with a sleepy sea and a tenuous breeze for low-gliding gulls. Ana Magdalena Bach rolled a deck chair over to the ferry railing and opened her Daniel Defoe book to the page marked by the visitor’s card, but she could not concentrate. The card itself, with its particulars of the previous night’s man, couldn’t hold her attention either: he had a Dutch name and nationality, a commercial address with six telephone numbers, and a technical services business with headquarters in Curaçao. She read it several times trying to imagine the phantom of her happy night in his real life. However, since her encounter with the first man, she had taken the precaution of never leaving the slightest trace that could stir any suspicion in her home. So she tore up the card into minuscule pieces and tossed them into the seagulls’ complicit breeze.

It was a revealing return. From the moment she entered the house at five in the afternoon she discovered the extent to which she was starting to feel like a stranger in her own family. Her daughter had assimilated into convent life without losing herself, and she gradually became a less frequent presence at her parents’ table. Her son barely had any free time between his fleeting love affairs and his artistic commitments all over the world. Her husband, being both a workaholic and an inveterate flirt, had ended up only a casual guest in her bed lately. For her, however, the strangest paradox was discovering that she was losing the illusion of the island: among the men she’d tried by chance on her limited nights, there was no sure option. Still, her greatest anxiety was not her suspicion about her husband’s fidelity but her dread that he had a hunch about what she did on those few nights she spent on the island. For that very reason she avoided making comments about her annual trips so it would not occur to him to go with her, or so as not to arouse any male doubts, which are not easily provoked but almost always infallible.

There were simple years with no time or opportunity for betrayals or jealousy. She kept rigorous track of her cycles to allow for frequent lovemaking. They didn’t leave the city without her making sure she had condoms in her purse for unexpected occasions. This time, however, she felt a stab in her heart when he arrived home covered in such outrageous clues that they incited sudden suspicions not only of that year but of all the years that had gone before. She watched him, she examined the seams of his pockets, and for the first time she started sniffing the clothes he’d worn and left lying on the bed. Starting in May, however, a dream of the man from the year before shook her to her soul. The anxiety took her breath away. She cursed once again the moment she’d torn up his card, and now felt incapable of happiness without him, even if only on the island. Her restlessness was so obvious that her husband said without beating around the bush: “Something’s up with you.”

Her terror aggravated her insomnia until dawn, for she herself did not seem aware of how much she’d started to change since her first trips. She had never considered the risk of running into someone she knew from the island, until the dreadful night when her daughter’s godfather, Aquiles Coronado, had too much to drink at a wedding and dropped a few unfunny veiled comments that more than four of their table companions could have deciphered without much effort. On the other hand, one afternoon when she was having lunch with three friends in the city’s most prestigious restaurant, she thought she recognized one of the two men who were deep in quiet conversation at an isolated table. They had a bottle of brandy, their glasses were half full, and they seemed alone in a separate life. But the one in her line of vision had an impeccable white linen suit that fit him well, ash-colored hair, and a romantic pointed moustache. From the first glance she had the impression she knew him. But however much she strained she could not remember who he was or where she had seen him before. More than once she lost the thread of the animated chat with her friends, until one of them couldn’t contain her curiosity and asked her what was worrying her at the next table.

“The one with the Turkish moustache,” she whispered. “I don’t know why but he reminds me of someone.”

They all looked stealthily. “Well, he’s not bad,” said one of them without interest, and they resumed their chitchat. But Ana Magdalena was still so unsettled that she had trouble falling asleep that night and woke up at three in the morning with her heart bristling. Her husband woke up, too, but she managed to catch her breath and told him about a fake nightmare that resembled many other real and terrifying ones that used to wake her when they were newlyweds. For the first time she wondered why she didn’t dare do in the city what she did on the island. Here, she had the whole year available with daily and much more manageable opportunities. At least five of her friends had conducted furtive love affairs for as long as they’d had the energy and had maintained stable marriages at the same time. Nevertheless, she could not imagine any situation in the city as exciting or suitable as the island, which she could understand only as a posthumous scheme of her mother’s.

For several weeks she could not resist the temptation of encountering this man who would not let her live in peace. She returned to the restaurant at the busiest times, never missing a chance to drag a couple of floating friends along to avoid any misunderstandings about her solitary wanderings. She grew accustomed to confronting any men she found along the way with the longing or fear of finding her own. However, she needed no help at all when the man’s identity finally burst into her memory like a blinding explosion. It was the very man who on that first night of love on the island had committed the disgraceful act of leaving that twenty-dollar bill between the pages of her book. Only then did she realize that maybe she hadn’t been able to recognize him because of the musketeer’s moustache, which he did not have at the time. She became a regular customer at the restaurant where she had seen him, always with a twenty-dollar bill ready to throw in his face, yet she was increasingly less clear about what her attitude should be: the more she delved into her rage, the less the bad memory mattered.

However, when August arrived she felt more than strong enough to carry on being herself. The ferry crossing seemed endless as always, the same island that she’d so often dreamt of seemed noisier and even poorer, and the taxi that took her to the same hotel as the previous year’s almost went over the edge of a narrow mountain pass. The room where she had been happy was available, and the same doorman immediately remembered the guest who had accompanied her but could not find any trace of him in the files. She made an anxious tour of other places where they’d been together and found all sorts of aimless men on their own who would have sufficed to alleviate her night, but none looked good enough to replace the one she was longing for. So she checked into the same room of the same hotel as the year before and went straight to the cemetery for fear the rain would get there before her.

With scarcely bearable anxiety she retraced her every step to fulfill quickly and painlessly her annual routine up to her encounter with her mother. The same florist as always, older every year, at first glance confused her with someone else. She made a bouquet of gladioli as splendid as ever, but with enormous reluctance and at almost twice the price.

In front of her mother’s grave Ana Magdalena was shocked to find an unusual heap of flowers, rotted from the rains. Unable to imagine who had put them there, she asked the caretaker without the slightest suspicion, and he answered with the same innocence:

“The gentleman who always does.”

Her bewilderment grew when the caretaker explained that he had no idea who the unknown visitor could be. The gentleman might arrive any day of the year and leave the grave completely covered in those splendid flowers, the likes of which were never seen in a cemetery for poor people. So many and so expensive that it pained the caretaker to remove them if even the slightest trace of their natural splendor remained. He described the gentleman: about seventy well-lived years, with snowy hair, a senator’s moustache, and a cane that turned into an umbrella so he could remain absorbed in front of the grave while it rained. The caretaker never asked him anything and never told anyone about the wealth of the gentleman’s flowers or the size of his tips. He hadn’t mentioned it to her on her previous visits because he was sure that the gentleman with the magic umbrella must be a member of the family.

She swallowed her concern and gave the caretaker a good tip, overwhelmed by the blazing revelation that might explain all at once the secret of her mother’s frequent trips to the island, camouflaged as some business of hers that no one had a clear idea of and perhaps did not exist.

Ana Magdalena Bach left the cemetery a different woman. She was trembling, and the driver had to help her into the taxi because she could not control her body’s shaking. Only then did she understand her mother’s determination to be buried there, on an island she visited three or four times a year, when she learned she was dying of a terrible illness in a foreign land. Only then did the daughter glimpse the reason her mother had taken those trips the six years before she died. She considered that her mother’s reason—her mother’s passion—might be the same as hers, and surprised herself with the analogy. She did not feel sad but rather encouraged by the realization that the miracle of her life was to have continued that of her dead mother.

Overwhelmed by the emotions of that afternoon, Ana Magdalena wandered aimlessly through poor neighborhoods and somehow found herself in the tent of an itinerant magician who could guess with his saxophone whatever popular melody someone in the audience was remembering in silence. Ana Magdalena would never have dared take part, but that night she asked in jest where the man of her dreams was. The magician answered with an accurate imprecision:

“Neither as near as you wish nor as far as you believe.”

She returned to her hotel without having fixed herself up and with her mood dragging on the floor. The outdoor terrace was heaving with young people dancing, their hearts on their sleeves, to the music of a young band, and she could not resist the temptation to share the joy of a cheerful generation. There was not a single free table, but the waiter recognized her from previous years and brought her one as fast as he could.

After the first dance session, another, more ambitious band began to play Debussy’s “Clair de lune” in a bolero arrangement, and a gorgeous young woman sang it with love. Moved, Ana Magdalena ordered her usual gin with ice and soda, the only alcohol she still allowed herself now that she was fifty.

The only thing that seemed at odds with the mood of the night was the couple at the next table: he, young and attractive, and she perhaps older, but dazzling and haughty. They were obviously in a silent fight, exchanging ferocious reproaches that missed their mark in the uproar of the fiesta. In the breaks between songs they would pause intensely so they wouldn’t be overheard by nearby tables, but then renewed their fight with more momentum during the next piece. An episode so common in that anonymous world that Ana Magdalena didn’t take any interest, even as a sideshow. But her heart skipped a beat when the woman broke her glass on the table with theatrical solemnity and walked across the dance floor in a straight line without looking at anyone, proud and beautiful, through the crowd of happy couples who moved out of her way. Ana Magdalena understood that the fight had ended, but she had the discretion not to look at the man, who stayed where he was, undaunted.

When the official band finished their set, another, more ambitious band started with the nostalgic “Siboney,” and Ana Magdalena let herself get swept up by the magic of the music mixed with gin. All of a sudden, in a break between songs her eyes chanced to meet those of the man abandoned at the next table. She did not look away. He returned her gaze with a slight nod, and she felt she was reliving a distant episode from her adolescence. She was bewildered by a strange shiver—as if it were the first time—and the embers of the gin instilled in her a courage not her own to take it all the way. He got there first.

“That man is a swine,” he said.

She was surprised:

“What man?”

“The one who left you waiting,” he said.

It wrenched her heart to think that he was talking to her as if he could see her from within, and she answered him informally and sarcastically.

“From what I’ve just seen you’re the one who got the door slammed in your face.”

He realized she was referring to the incident that had just left him on his own. “We always end up with a tantrum like that, but it doesn’t last long,” he said. And he went on to his final point: “You, however, have no reason to be alone”. She wrapped him in a bitter look.

“At my age,” she said, “all women are alone.”

“In that case,” he said with renewed energy, “this is my lucky night.”

He stood up, glass in hand, and sat down at her table without further ado, and she felt so sad and lonely that she didn’t stop him. He ordered her a glass of her favorite gin, and for a moment she forgot her woes and went back to being the same as she was on other nights of solitude. She once again cursed the hour she’d torn up her last man’s card, and did not feel capable of happiness without him that night, even if only for an hour. So she danced purely out of apathy, but the man danced well and made her feel better.

When they returned to the table after a set of waltzes, she realized she didn’t have the key to her room and looked for it in her purse and under the table. He pulled it out of his pocket with a parody of a conjurer’s flourish and sang out her room number as if he were a roulette caller:

“The lucky number: three hundred and thirty-three!”

People at neighboring tables turned to look at them. She could not stand the vulgarity of the joke and held out her hand with a severe expression. He realized his mistake and returned her key. She took it in silence and left the table.

“At least allow me to accompany you,” he begged, following her blindly. “Nobody should be alone on a night like this.”

He jumped up from his chair, perhaps to say goodnight or perhaps to accompany her. Maybe he himself did not know, but she thought she could guess his intention. “Don’t bother,” she told him. He seemed overwhelmed.

“Not to worry,” she insisted. “My son would have pulled that same stunt when he was seven.”

She left decisively, but she had not even reached the elevator when she started to wonder if she hadn’t just snubbed happiness on the night she most needed it. She fell asleep with the lights on, arguing with herself about whether she should go to sleep or back down to the bar to confront her destiny. A recurring nightmare of her darkest hours had begun to perturb her when a few furtive knocks on the door woke her up. The lights were still on, and she was face down on the bed, on top of the bedclothes without realizing it. She stayed like that, biting the tear-soaked pillow so she wouldn’t have to ask who it was, until the person who was knocking stopped. Then she made herself comfortable in the bed, without changing her clothes or switching off the lights, and cried herself to sleep furious with herself for the disgrace of being a woman in a man’s world.

She had not slept more than four hours when a call from reception woke her so she wouldn’t miss the eight o’clock ferry. She got up determined to take the plunge she hadn’t known how to take during her bad island nights. But she had to wait two hours for the cemetery caretaker so he could inform her what forms she needed to fill out to have her mother’s remains exhumed. Only when she was sure it would happen, past noon by then, did she phone her husband and lie to him that she’d missed the ferry but would definitely be on the afternoon one.

The caretaker and a hired gravedigger disinterred the coffin and opened it with no compassion but with the artistry of a fairground magician. Ana Magdalena saw herself in the open casket as if she were looking in a full-length mirror, with a frozen smile and arms folded on her chest. She looked identical and the same age as on that day, with the veil and tiara in which she’d been married, the red emerald diadem and her wedding rings, just as her mother had stipulated with her last sigh. Not only did she see her as she had been in life, with the same inconsolable sadness, but she felt seen by her from death, loved and wept for, until the body disintegrated into dust and all that was left was the decayed skeleton, which the gravediggers brushed off with a broom and swept pitilessly into a sack.

Two hours later, Ana Magdalena took a final compassionate glance at her own past and said goodbye forever to her one-night strangers and to the hours and hours of uncertainties that remained of herself scattered around the island. The sea was an oasis of gold under the afternoon sun. At six, when her husband saw her walk into the house dragging the bag of bones matter-of-factly, he couldn’t help but be surprised. “It’s what’s left of my mother,” she told him, anticipating his fright.

“Don’t be scared,” she said. “She understands. She’s the only one who could. What’s more, I think she’d already understood when she decided to be buried on that island.”