I’m alive and in my underwear and my skin is yellow. I’m a heap lying on top of the bed, the dirty sheets. By the time I finally get up, my arms are covered in goose bumps. I open the wardrobe, put on a housecoat, and go into the kitchen. Armando is making coffee. His movements are slow, graceless. The way he holds the coffeepot, the way he turns on the gas, the way he strikes the match and holds it to the ring. He is so slow that his every action already contains within it its own repetition.
He looks at me and smiles and there is something in his smile that unsettles me. He asks me if I want coffee. I say yes, a little. I ask him how he slept and he says better than most nights. I ask him if he had a dream and he says no. He says this as if I already know, but how could I know something I have no reason to know? I don’t ask any more questions.
He hands me the coffee. The two of us go into the living room and sit in the mahogany rocking chairs. The back of one of them is broken. I turn on the TV. I like watching TV even when I’m not really watching or when there is nothing to watch. The handle of my coffee cup is broken. It’s tiny, the sort of handle you have to hold by slipping one finger through it, and people with fat fingers have to hold on the outside, using their forefinger and thumb as a pincer.
Armando rocks gently, but the chair rattles. When he thinks I’ve finished, he asks for my cup so he can wash it. I tell him I’ll do it. He goes into the dining room, fetches his shoes, his dark socks, his freshly ironed shirt, and comes back into the living room. Like most men who pride themselves on being well informed, Armando watches TV in the morning while getting dressed. It’s not yet seven o’clock. Already they’ve started broadcasting the same news stories they’ll be broadcasting for the rest of the day, the same news they’ve been broadcasting my whole life. The truth is, I enjoy it.
I take the two cups to the sink in the kitchen. Armando goes to our daughter’s bedroom to wake her. He hugs her. He always used to wake Diego more gruffly, though not without a certain tenderness. He’d jokingly bark military orders, calling Diego a miserable little runt, and drag him out of bed. I asked Diego and he said that’s not how they wake you when you’re doing military service, that he has no idea where his father came up with these orders.
I dry the counter, put the coffeepot in a corner behind the tub of dish soap. I look at my kitchen, at my domain. I start tidying up, even though the neurologist has advised me not to. There’s a secret force in the labors of a housewife. It doesn’t stultify you, I don’t care what people say. Arranging the plates in the draining rack according to size, storing the glasses upside down so they dry properly—I find these things calming.
My daughter says good morning and kisses my neck. Then she heads for the bathroom. Armando picks up his briefcase, his car keys and comes over to say goodbye. He lays his hands on my shoulders, squeezes them a little. He’s a handsome man. He has gray hair, a thick mustache, a husky voice. His nose is a little too thick, but his eyes are a deep, translucent black. His complexion is brown, a smooth summery skin.
Armando tells me I suffered tonic-clonic seizures last night. I ask whether he managed to soothe me. He doesn’t answer. He tells me to take it easy and urges me to hang up immediately if there are any more strange phone calls. I have no idea what expression is on my face, but Armando scoops me up and carries me back to bed.
María emerges from the bathroom, comes over, and lays a hand on my forehead. I feel fine, I say after a moment. Armando sets off for work. I relax. María bustles in and out of the room, brings me my pills and a glass of water. I look at my pale, wrinkled feet, then look at myself in the mirror. My face is angular, barren.
There is a deep furrow that traces the edge of one nostril and runs into my lip, cleaving it. My lips like a piece of dried fruit, the thick breath from my mouth, my quivering neck, the scream stifled by my skin. My bovine eyes filled with damp resignation.
Deep within the mirror, standing motionless, a few meters behind me, the silent silhouette of my daughter. I go back into the kitchen, take the cup with the broken handle, and put it in the trash. I take the coffeepot and pour the contents down the sink. I turn on the tap. Unfaltering, during this half hour, the TV news has continued to provide background music.