31

IAGO

Saturn Day, the sixth day of the month of Uath

Saturday, May 19, 2012

I watched her disappear down the street, as proud as a queen unfazed by her possible fall. Fleeing from me, or who knows, perhaps from herself.

I expelled some of my warm breath and watched it form whimsical spirals in the freezing morning air. My hands sought out the warmth of the pockets in my leather jacket. The weather was unusually cold for May, but I knew all there was to know about the cold. When her figure finally disappeared around the corner of Lealtad and Calvo Sotelo, I went back into my building, sporting a half smile on my lips.

I reached the third-floor landing, my footsteps dragging from sheer exhaustion, and slowly opened my door. Everything was just as we’d left it: cushions scattered across the carpet, crumpled blankets on the couch. I had another erection as I recalled her at my feet. I got into the shower and masturbated furiously. I was going to be late. I rang my father’s cell phone.

“I’ll be heading your way in five minutes.”

“Judging by your voice, I’d say you haven’t slept much,” he said sarcastically. “Have you had a busy night?”

“It’s none of your business. I’ll see you soon,” I replied and hung up.

When I got to Hé ctor’s house, I found Jairo installed in a sofa in the living room, waiting impatiently.

“Tell all, Brother,” he fired off at me without even giving me time to sit down.

“There’s nothing to tell,” I shot back, distracted.

“Come on, man! I’m bored this morning. I want details,” he insisted, irritated.

“How did it go for you, with your select company?”

“Boring. Very, very tame,” he snorted, his expression revealing his disappointment. “Which brings us back to what started this conversation. Out with it, Brother.”

I considered for a moment. “It was good,” I conceded.

“About time. I was beginning to think you were losing your superpowers. And now the details, if you don’t mind,” he urged me impatiently.

“She’s good at oral play,” I was about to say. But I didn’t. I preferred to keep that knowledge to myself. After millennia of sharing bacchanals, initiation and fertility rites, threesomes, and group sex, there was nothing I couldn’t tell my family. And yet I didn’t want to expose Adriana to my brother’s lust.

My father and Kyra had just joined us. They made themselves comfortable on the sofas, pretending not to pay too much attention to our conversation.

“Can we get going with the business at hand?” Kyra interrupted.

Always so efficient , I thought with relief.

“No problem as far as I’m concerned. Bring us up-to-date on your conclusions regarding the Kronon Corporation,” I encouraged her.

“That’s where I was headed. Look, Iago, I’m sorry to have sent you on that trip, especially because of your painful amnesia episode, but I fear we’ve taken a risk for nothing.”

“You’re not convinced, Daughter?” Héctor interposed.

“No. I’ve studied the report they gave Iago, and there’s nothing to find. It’s my opinion that we shouldn’t go down that track; it would mean hunting among thousands of genes for the one that specifically causes telomerase to become active. And it’s just a theory. So this is our agenda for the next few months: we’ll finalize our conclusions regarding the antioxidants as planned, and at the same time I’ll visit a couple of gerontology labs. When we’re certain that Iago has recovered fully and won’t have another crisis for some time, we’ll send him off again to spy. You have to admit there’s no one to match him when it comes to acquiring confidential information. Are we all in agreement?”

To my surprise, all three of them meekly agreed—even Jairo. Had my amnesia been so worrying?

“If that’s it I’d like to go and play some golf,” said my brother, stretching himself like a cat. “Father, will you come with me today, or have you got some wild boar to bring down?”

“No, Son, today I’m going with you.” Héctor gave me a brief, resigned look as he put his arm around Jairo’s shoulder, and they headed off together, leaving me and Kyra on our own.

“Are you annoyed by the Kronon business?” Kyra asked me as soon as they’d gone.

“No, it’s just that I thought it was a good lead, too,” I replied, distracted by the view through the window to Los Peligros Beach. The morning mist gave it the appearance of an impressionist watercolor. Pure mysticism.

“But I have to admit that you’re right,” I continued, stifling a yawn. “It was a bit far-fetched.”

Kyra moved over to my side of the couch, and I could feel her scrutinizing me.

“Listen if you don’t mind, I’m going to go and have a sleep,” I said, standing up. “I’ve been awake for almost thirty hours.”

“Of course. Do you want to talk about anything?”

“No.”

Of course not.

I started the car, which I’d left parked on Cuesta de las Viudas, but I didn’t move off in the direction of Paseo de Pereda. I was exhausted, but I knew I wouldn’t sleep. As I headed for the museum, I couldn’t stop thinking about Kyra.

She had fallen for my deception, and none of them had realized it. A worrying idea had been spinning around inside my head these past few weeks since I’d returned from San Francisco and recovered my capacities. But how could I prove my theory? How could I investigate it behind their backs without any of them knowing?

A lie within a lie.

A cover-up within a cover-up.

If I wanted to carry out my research, I’d have to take the first steps well away from Kyra’s laboratory. I did not, in fact, want to find the longevo gene—the LGV , as Kyra and I referred to it—but I definitely had to assure myself that telomerase wasn’t the answer. If it was, I had to keep Kyra and, in particular, Jairo well away from it.

Finally, I reached a decision, took out my cell phone, and found the number I wanted. “Flemming? I think I’ve got something for you.”

I had set the ball rolling. Even I couldn’t imagine all the pieces that would fall as a consequence of that phone call.

Minutes later I was back at the MAC. I could see that there were hardly any cars in the parking lot. The museum was almost deserted after the previous night’s activity.

The sunlight was bothering me; my eyes were a disaster thanks to my lack of sleep. I parked the car and hunted for my sunglasses in the glove compartment. Barefoot, I climbed down to the rock ledge, maybe in the faint hope of finding Adriana there despite there being little chance of that happening. I really needed to think, and there’d be too many recent memories in my apartment to be able to think clearly.

Anyway, this place, just like Adriana, had something timeless about it, the only sounds those made by the waves endlessly coming and going. I sensed that we had started the drifting apart phase. I was expecting it, and that in itself hurt. I stayed there for some time, watching the spray, my mind blank, but then I was forced to stand up to avoid being soaked.

That was when I found it. There was something partially hidden in a bend in the cave. If Adriana had left it there, she’d had to climb up to reach that small opening. I went over to check it out and saw that it was a book, Miller’s Tropic of Cancer . I had read it when it was finally published in New York in the sixties, after the trial for immorality that kept it censored for thirty years. I recall it was deemed a scandal in New York, and it was precisely for that reason we progressive couples used to read passages from it in bed, out loud.

I leafed through the pages of that relic until a folded piece of paper was caught by the wind and blown toward the sea. I chased it, hurting the soles of my feet, and finally trapped it on the ground, flattening it with my hand and leaving it all wrinkled. I turned it over and was able to make out:

From: C14a3@gmail.com

To: MarcAlm74@yahoo.com

Hi Marcos,

I’ve finally sunk my teeth into your Tropic of Cancer ; I owe you one. It was really worth the effort. I’m sending you one of the weird ramblings that occurred to me as I was reading it.

Lots of love,

Dana

And there comes a night when everything is over, when so many jaws have bitten down on us and our flesh is hanging from our bodies, as if all the mouths had chewed it.

As if all the bodies had used it, as if all the consciences had judged us and we were left in darkness, deprived even of our shadows. And we painfully strangle our memories in the dark, one by one, but they never manage to die; they are supported by the memory of our worst moments, and they depart by taking advantage of our decadence. Cursed graze that burns; cursed mind that never stops thinking. Mirrors that don’t lie; doubts that torment; dictators who torture every hope on the rack. The crossroads approach, and it makes my head spin; we choose the path that allows us to sleep; we reject the tempting loophole. Lose yourself within the eyes of the one who deceives, or find yourself within those of the one who still loves you. The uncertainty of what hasn’t been experienced versus the certainty of the already expired. Merge the experiences; the game is as controlled as a fire. Feel the heat; feel the cold. Wager, then, on your own defeat.

Dana. So she signed herself Dana. That ancient Irish goddess my family had once venerated. We used to make offerings to her in the month of Aliso. Adriana had chosen her True Name, and I had discovered it. That was an excellent gift for any male of my clan. I stuffed the piece of paper in the inside pocket of my jacket. It was crinkled, and she would notice that if I put it back inside the book, and that was the equivalent of acknowledging that I had read what she had written, and that would undoubtedly make her feel too exposed. It was better this way—her not knowing that I knew. Hopefully the tender moment of questions and confessions would arrive someday.

Who was Marcos, and what had he done to deserve her kisses and her intimate messages? Her boyfriend, her friend, the guy with whom she’d gone into her apartment building? Clearly a confidant. I wasn’t jealous, because I didn’t own any part of her, but I was attracted by the idea of choosing to keep her secrets, too.

Was it perhaps vanity on my part to think she was talking about me? Was it my eyes she was talking about when she said they were deceptive? Was that what kept her distant from me—the lies, the deceptions? How could she have found out?

I had noticed her distance last night when she finally looked into my eyes in the Prehistory Hall. And I was on the verge of saying no. “No, Adriana, not like this. Not with that look in your eyes. Not without any explanations.” But what if there wasn’t another opportunity? What if she didn’t reconsider her choice? I’ve always favored making mistakes and then regretting them. Better that than spending the rest of my life wondering how her kisses might taste, or how her hair might smell at the break of day, or how strong the pressure of her embraces might be.

And so I left it at that. I left her to do whatever she had decided to do.

Maybe moving on in that way.

Because it had been sad—intense, profound sex, and yet despite that, sad. She had moved a chess piece, and it was easy to anticipate her moves; now she’d let some time pass. She would castle to protect her king. And unfortunately I sensed that there was nothing I could do about it. It was her game. She was making the decisions, moving the pieces. She had won that right.

And despite that, during the weeks that followed the Night of the Museums, there were days when I skipped protocol, and my hand caressed her hair. That was all I needed: to brush my hand over her smooth hair whenever our paths crossed in the deserted corridors of the museum, free of the eyes always watching our every move. Then I’d be left with the feel of that mane of hair, while the touch of my hand seemed to leave her undone.

Silk.

The softest, most exquisite silk.

I had no idea what Dana thought of my audacity; we never spoke about it. At times I imagined she was holding on to my hand with hers and allowing her gaze to linger on mine.

Silk.

There were nights—at that hour when we rid ourselves of our clothes and our obligations—when all I wanted was to get to bed, and I’d close my eyes and see her. Her face between my hands, her body between my legs, her fearless eyes holding my gaze. And I took pleasure in the memory and wanted sleep to bring her to me for a longer period, to bring back the immediate past, those not-so-distant days before she built the invisible wall that she didn’t allow me to breach.

A rock wall.

A wall of intangible but solid rock.

What was it that was keeping her away from me? How was I to clear up that mystery?