13

SHE CONTINUED CALLING ME FUENMAYOR, and I went on calling her Fauriel. If, in Maryse, I had seen a mother and a friend, in Fauriel I saw myself. We were like a mirror for one another; in front of the other, we were what we were.

From the beginning we agreed not to speak of our respective pasts. It was my idea; it would have disappointed her to know that I hadn’t been born in Havana. I limited myself to telling her that my baccalaureate degree was a fake and that my name was Enriqueta. Her legal name was Raymond Fauriel. She had been raised as a boy. Her father, who had already fallen ill at the time of her birth, recorded her at the Civil Registry as a boy so that she could learn a trade and thus assure the family’s subsistence. At nine years of age she began working as a blacksmith’s apprentice. Her employer, an old friend of her father’s, permitted her to attend school. Later, she won a competition that allowed her to continue her studies in Lille and to receive a small stipend that she sent home to her mother. Finally, she had been selected as a “state student.”

After the “Night of the Napkin”—the name we had given to the night we had revealed our common secret—I managed to persuade her to move in to my apartment and to stop working at the farm. It was not easy to convince her. Though her smile and cheerful disposition were genuine, she was accustomed to solitude and an independent life. She was like a bird, one of those sparrows one sees in the parks, flitting from here to there, ever restless and sociable, that, though appearing to relish the display of its vivaciousness, at twilight becomes invisible, disappearing to some unknown retreat. In order to ease her conscience, we agreed that, in exchange for the room and board I offered her, she would see to the cleanliness of the apartment and my clothing and help me with my studies and any other matter that might arise. I, of course, was thrilled with the arrangement: not only would Fauriel keep me company, but her intelligence, pleasant temperament, and common sense had already persuaded me to extend my wholehearted friendship. Right away I noticed that she accepted her fate with less resignation than I accepted mine. Early in the morning, from my room, I would listen to her grumble as she stood before the mirror darkening her eyebrows and staining her face with the dye she bought at a theater supply shop. Given that she’d grown up as a boy, there was nothing in her body’s movements that would give her away. Her breasts had barely developed; they were small and flattened; her mother had fashioned a tight-fitting bodice that she’d worn under her shirt, beginning before she’d even reached puberty. She made fun of her breasts, calling them her “fried eggs.” She told me she wasn’t a virgin, but she gave no further details, and I didn’t ask for them. For reciprocity’s sake, I told her that I wasn’t a virgin either. When I asked her if I gave off the impression of being a man, she said yes, but added, laughing, that some considered me a bit effeminate. We compensated for our agreement not to speak openly of our pasts by candidly sharing the events of the present. In our nightly conversations we did not hide any of our opinions, sorrows, joys, and problems. We agreed on a great many things. We both hated the war and had republican leanings, although we differed on one important point: Fauriel was a Jacobin. Finding it difficult to hide it from her, I spoke of my passion for Bousquet and of my nights of espionage against the wall that divided our apartments. This confession seemed to annoy her. In her mind, not only did Bousquet lack in physical attractiveness, he was a blithering idiot besides.

“I can’t figure out how you could lose your head over that fop. You’re an intelligent woman, Fuenmayor.”

I was tempted to tell her my Apollo story, but I thought better of it: once I’d opened a small chink into my past, I’d run the risk of revealing my true identity.

“I have my reasons. And anyway, emotions have nothing to do with intelligence.”

“I’m not so sure,” she said with an impish smile.

Bousquet returned more fresh-faced and beautiful than ever. It was as though proximity to his father’s factory had somehow conferred upon him the look of a porcelain doll. He was thrilled to learn that Fauriel had moved in with me, and invited us to dinner at the café that very evening. He had gone to Limoges to consult with his father. He had wanted to be clear as to what was expected of him at the Paris office. After dinner, as though they were topics of great interest, he began to tell us about his brothers’ enormous incomes and what they did with all that money; about their wives and children, their houses and furniture and his father’s highly prized plate collection.

“My Uncle Achille used to collect spoons,” I said, to say something. “Silver spoons. One of them came from a tea service that belonged to Marie Antoinette.”

“Silver spoons, how fascinating!” exclaimed Bousquet. “People from Havana have refined tastes,” he added. “We receive many orders from there. Although now, with the war. . . . Well, everything will sort itself out.”

“I’m a collector too,” said Fauriel, and, seeing her seriousness, I settled in to listen to one of her jokes. “I’ve sometimes been tempted to collect something different, but something that’s also within my reach. I’d like to have time to walk through the Bois de Boulogne; I could start a collection of Parisian flowers, like the one old Rousseau is said to have had. But in the Faculty, the only thing that’s free are the cadavers and, aside from the fingernails, they really don’t offer much that would be practical to collect. Perhaps locks of hair, no?”

“You collect the fingernails of dead people?” asked Bousquet, his eyes widening in disbelief.

“Only from the thumb on the right hand,” replied Fauriel, holding up her thumbnail. “They vary a great deal in shape, thickness and size. For example, yours, Fuenmayor, is quite wide, but yours, Bousquet, is very elongated. Did you, by any chance, suck your thumb as a child?”

“Well, no, not that I can remember,” said Bousquet. “The only bad habit I had was picking my nose.”

I gave Fauriel a kick under the table. It irritated me that she was pulling my Greek god’s leg.

“I’ll tell you what I read in an old treatise on palmistry that I found, covered in dust, in the Faculty library. According to those initiated in that arcane art form, in addition to what the lines of the palm reveal, there are messages locked away in the wrists, the phalanges, and the knuckles, as well as in the fingernails and fingertips. Of course, since I needed to study for our pathology exam, I only read carefully the part about the fingernails, since that interests me the most.”

“Palm reading strikes me as a gypsy artifice,” I said in order to shift the conversation away from the topic of fingernails. I suspected that Fauriel was up to something, and had chosen Bousquet as her victim. “Astrology is different. There are some who believe it to be a science. Nostradamus! Am I right?”

“Yes, of course . . . Nostradamus,” said Bousquet.

“I don’t share your opinion,” said Fauriel. “Twins are born in the same place, at the same time, under the same astrological sign and under the same planetary configuration. Their destinies ought to be identical, but they aren’t. What’s more, the Greeks, the very same ones who taught us how to think, attributed very different characteristics to Apollo and Hecate.”

“Well, yes, that’s true, quite true,” agreed Bousquet. “They are very different.”

“Fingernails, however, are unique. They are strictly individual. Flexible, pink fingernails speak of good health; corneous nails of old age; colorless nails of ill health. Naturally, these are just generalizations. A closer look would offer a good many more details. Country folk, for example, have thick and blackened fingernails; washerwomen frequently have quite brittle nails. . . . Let’s compare our own nails. What do we see? To begin with, my nails lack the elegant half-moon near the cuticle that yours both have. This indicates that I worked with my hands as a child. But there’s more: the palmistry treatise contends that it’s possible to read the future in the right thumbnail, even for left-handed people such as myself. And the most amazing thing of all is that I’ve been able to confirm it.”

“Incredible!” exclaimed Bousquet.

I slid my hand under the table and pinched Fauriel.

“And so, my friends,” she continued, undaunted, “I have observed that the fingernails of cadavers accurately reveal the way in which each individual died. This sent me back to the library to copy the pages that refer to fingernails and their relationship to the thumb, which is the most difficult part to learn because there are so many different types of thumbs.”

“Do you mean to say that you have learned to read fingernails?” asked Bousquet, intrigued.

“My friend, I can read your future as easily as if I were an Israelite prophet. A good future, I might add. But bring your hand closer. I’ll tell you things you’ll tell your children one day, your grandchildren even, since your life will be as long and prolific as the biblical patriarchs’.”

Taking advantage of the fact that Bousquet’s gaze was riveted on his thumb, I knocked my glass of wine over on the tablecloth.

“Oh dear, look what I’ve done!” I said, as Fauriel winked at me almost imperceptibly and shot me a quick smile.

“Go on! Go on!” demanded Bousquet impatiently, once the waiter had mopped up the tablecloth with a napkin and refilled my glass.

“Well, as I was saying, your life will be long and happy. You’ll have six, maybe seven children, all sons.”

“That would be very good. It would guarantee the longevity of the business, Bousquet & Sons. Will my wife be rich?”

“Rich,” Fauriel said soberly. “But, wait! . . . Something interesting! You’ll marry a foreigner. . . . A Spaniard? It could be. . . . Parbleu, a woman from the tropics! It could even be a woman from your hometown, Fuenmayor,” she added, looking at me.

“From Havana?” asked Bousquet.

“Quite likely. I see a fortress at the entrance to a bay that corresponds with Fuenmayor’s description of the famous Castillo del Morro.”

“But how can you see a castle in my fingernail? You wouldn’t by any chance be pulling my leg, Fauriel?” said Bousquet in a distrustful tone.

“I see the castle just as a fortune teller would. It’s a mental image, something like a memory of the future, though that doesn’t make it any less exact. Don’t forget that we’re treading among the magical pages of chiromancy. And it’s not that I’m guilty of immodesty, but the fact is, as I studied the treatise, word for word, I felt myself confronted by a great truth,” she said grandiloquently, her chest puffing up. “Then, I read in an endnote that a very small number of readers, under condition they’d been born for the occult, could successfully practice palmistry using the treatise as a guide. This has been the case with me,” she added, offering us a smile as modest and cheerful as a bouquet of violets.

I don’t know the details of how the farce continued. Under the pretext of going to the lavatory, I left the table for a good quarter of an hour. When I returned, Bousquet’s eyes and rosy cheeks reflected the most complete satisfaction.

“You missed the best part,” Fauriel told me, an innocent expression on her face. “Bousquet will meet his bride in Limoges. Most likely she’ll have gone there, while traveling in France with her parents, to pick out a new porcelain table service for the family. The old one will be missing several pieces due to violent causes, perhaps a hurricane or an earthquake. This will happen within two years, three at the most. We will no longer be at war with Spain and Bousquet will get married in Madrid, where his fiancée’s family has a palace. Can you guess what the girl’s name is?”

Furious, I glanced at Bousquet’s hand and said: “Enriqueta!”

“Mon Dieu!” exclaimed Bousquet. “That’s exactly right! Have you also studied the treatise?” he asked me. I nodded and, taking Fauriel by the collar of her frockcoat, lifted her from her chair.

“Let’s go! Don’t forget they are waiting for us at the theater on the Rue de Temple.”

“I’d love to go with you,” said Bousquet, standing up, “but I also have a date. Quite the delicacy! Fourteen years old and with a backside straight out of the renaissance!” Putting on his hat, he added: “My father collects plates, your uncle, spoons, and you, Fauriel, dead people’s fingernails. Do you know what I collect? Nights of pleasure!”

Scarcely speaking, we left the café and walked to the river.

I was furious with Fauriel and, passing by Le Coq Audacieux, I took her by the arm and led her inside. We sat down and I ordered a bottle of wine.

“Do you know what?” I said huffily. “You are sticking your nose too much into my business.”

“Yes,” she replied.

“What do you mean yes?” I protested. That was the last response I’d been expecting.

“Well, yes. I realize that. What do you want me to say? That I’m very sorry, that I won’t do it again?” she said, also ill-humored. “Don’t you see that I’m doing you a huge favor? I want you to realize, once and for all, that Bousquet is an idiot, almost certifiably so. He’s not worth your wasting your time thinking about him, spending hours with your ear to the wall and snooping from the window. You’re not even sleeping with him! So what are you after, why are you so desperate to run on home so you can listen to his obscenities while you tickle yourself? Come on, Enriqueta, you’re a full-grown woman. Free yourself of Bousquet once and—”

“Fauriel,” I interrupted her. “You just called me Enriqueta.”

“Did I?”

“My God, this is the last straw! You’re jealous, Fauriel! You’re jealous of Bousquet!”

She downed her entire glass of wine in one gulp and served herself another from the bottle on the table.

“Perhaps, Fuenmayor, perhaps. But I’ll tell you: before the ‘Night of the Napkin’ I already valued your friendship a great deal. Do you know why? Because, despite being rich, you treated me as an equal. You never sought to humiliate me with your generosity; it wasn’t a hypocritical gesture to allow you to feel superior to me. Then, when I left my man’s face in the café, you didn’t hesitate to take me home with you. You took care of me without asking a single question. And while I, lying in your bed, asked myself if the fact that you knew I was a woman would break the bonds of our friendship, you appeared before me naked so that I might see how God had made you. Yes, you revealed your secret to me, and you did so without thinking of the consequences. At the time, I was so surprised that I couldn’t fully comprehend your lovely gesture. But later that night, after you’d gone to bed, I realized that you’d done it to protect our friendship. And that is something, Fuenmayor, that I might not have done for you.”

“Come on, Fauriel, please! If you go on like this I’m going to start crying!”

“I’m almost finished. I just wanted to say that since that moment we’ve lived almost as sisters. So much so that the only thing standing between us truly being sisters was for me to tell you about my life. The suffering of my childhood, my frustrations, my efforts, my hopes. I know that you would also tell me of your life. . . . ”

“Of course I would, Fauriel,” I said, moved, interrupting her once again, taking her hand and squeezing it tightly as if to say that nothing and no one could separate us.

“And that moment of truth,” she continued, “so important to me, was just about to arrive, Fuenmayor. It was almost here when that idiot Bousquet suddenly reappeared. What are our evenings to be like now? One needn’t be a palm reader to know that we’ll eat every night with that stupid Don Juan and then, while I study or read or water the plants or heat water for tea, you’ll go into the other room to listen to him make love to some poor seamstress or unfaithful wife. ‘I collect nights of pleasure!’ he says so proudly, that halfwit. And you, my lost sister. . . . ”

“Please, Fauriel, enough! I’m begging you. It isn’t necessary—”

“Yes, it is necessary!” she said, tearing her hand from mine and pounding the table with her fist. And a new Fauriel appeared before me. Her eyes blazed, hard and flashing, her face a tight ball of deep resentment. “It’s necessary for me! Today I need to say what I feel! At least today, goddamnit! I’ve spent twenty years being someone I’m not! Let me be myself this one night!” she said, completely overcome. She took another long drink of wine and this appeared to calm her somewhat. “We were talking about Lacloche the other night. Well, I’ll tell you. I’m in love with him. Yes, I love him. And not in the base way that you love Bousquet. I love him because he’s decent, intelligent, and generous. He has beautiful eyes. When he’s deep in concentration a little dimple appears on his chin. It pains me that he thinks I’m a man. You have no idea how much it pains me. But despite everything I’m in love with him and I desire him. How can it be? I think it’s because I felt myself loved from within my disguise. Me, who nobody loves. I know, it’s not easy to explain. . . . Another day. Anyway, I’ll tell you something I’ve kept hidden from you. I had sex with him. Do you want to know how we did it? Like buggerers. We did it standing up. We scarcely fit in the latrine. It was half-dark and smelled terrible. I lowered my drawers and leaned over the best I could. Five minutes, Fuenmayor, five minutes at the most. Five minutes standing up in a latrine reeking of shit. And that was that! But that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that we went back to the latrine a few days later. There was a puddle of urine on the floor, dirty paper. He couldn’t do it. I kneeled in the puddle. I kissed him. He couldn’t. We both left there humiliated. What can I tell you? This sort of thing is not new for me. But since that day he has avoided my gaze. I’ve lost him, I know that already. It’s the story of my life, Fuenmayor. It’s always been this way. And all I can do is go on living the lie. But I swear to you, Fuenmayor, there are nights when I can scarcely resist the urge to put on a dress and go out whoring in the street. And don’t think I haven’t done it, either. The last time they beat me, tossed me in a coach, and threw me away like a worthless piece of garbage in the Bois de Vincennes. I’m tired of being a man, Fuenmayor. I try to put on a good face, to go on fooling myself, to make it all into one big joke. Oh, how nice Fauriel is, how clever! How funny that Fauriel is! But I’m tired. I know this comes as a surprise to you. And just imagine it, here you are, thinking you need me, when really it’s I who needs you. You can’t imagine how much it means to me to be able to talk with you, woman to woman, even if it’s only for two or three hours. It means I can be myself, speak in my real voice, tell you that I’m in love with a man. And please don’t think that my intention is to stick my nose in your business, as you’ve accused me of doing, simply for the pleasure of doing it. If you had an actual relationship, even with that fool Bousquet, I’d understand. But it hurts me to feel abandoned for a fantasy, for a fucking wall,” she said bitterly. Then, resting her elbows on the table and dropping her head into her hands, she added: “I’m going back to the farmstead, Fuenmayor. I’m going back. You can have Bousquet and his harem’s orgasms all to yourself.”

“Come on, Fauriel, don’t be silly.”

“Yes, I’m going back. And it’s not that I don’t appreciate what you’ve done for me. How I wish I could repay you for it! It’s just this wretched poverty! Don’t you see? I’m the product of poverty! Had I not been born poor I could be married to someone, have someone’s child!” she wailed.

She spoke for a good while longer, piteously vomiting across the table the accumulated bile of twenty years spent masking her true self. But as much as I felt for her and wanted to keep her by my side, I was incapable of completely renouncing my connection to Bousquet; it was, quite simply, something dark and remote that returned to me unbidden, infiltrating my desire.

“I can’t promise you much, Fauriel. But I can assure you that the majority of our nights will be yours and mine alone,” I offered as a means of compromise. “And I’m not just saying that to placate you, to stop you from going. It’s that now, more than ever, I want us to be true sisters. I have also kept things hidden from you. I’ll tell you everything, Fauriel. Everything. Perhaps it’ll be for the best.”