Antagony by Luis Goytisolo

Author:Luis Goytisolo [Luis Goytisolo]
Language: eng
Format: epub

LUNASOL.

Gather up the papers, hide them in the drawer, wash your slightly sweaty hands, run a comb through your hair. Rosa was already dressed to go out, reading on the terrace, indifferent to the splendors of the dusk settling across the bay, on the horizon, to the geometrical delirium of television antennas rising above the terraces and rooftops; the novelty of it all, now seen too many times to be exciting.

Now, let’s go get some dinner. And after dinner? Take advantage of the fact that the people from the yacht were out of town, and take a little stroll, have a drink anywhere and come back early, as long as we don’t run into some acquaintance, Walter and Krista, or The Greek, and then it all gets messy. Or, more probably, succumb to that inertia that it’s still early, about what the fuck to do at that hour, now back at the motel, drop in at our friends’ apartment, to chat for a while, attracted—the verses of “Adiós Pampa Mía” ringing out like a clarion call—by the pleasure of psychological conjecture, trapped by guesses inside the guessing game. Meaning: to show, in the course of the dialogue, not so much the true personality of those present or of third parties, let alone oneself, as much as to demonstrate one’s own penetrating psychological insight, one’s own speculative ingenuity. Like the other night. We’d arrived perhaps a bit earlier than normal and in the garden we ran into Carlos junior all ready to go out, perfectly dressed up to hang out with his people, as he likes to call them, meaning, his crowd, his inner circle. He greeted us pleasantly, warmly, relaxed, almost as if he also considered us part of his set. He’s waiting for you all, he said, and, indeed, there he was, already settled in on the porch, next to the drinks already being served. We argued once more about who was more properly whose guest, if they were Rosa’s and my guests, or if we were their guests. She took a while to join us; finally she came out wrapped in a white Russian bathrobe, after having taken a swim. After dinner? I felt sticky, she said. Besides, that stuff about getting a cramp is just a lie concocted by parents. She snuggled into the folds of her robe, curled up on the chaise longue as if a bit drowsy. Now that I remember, she said, this afternoon, taking a siesta, I had a very pleasant dream. I wouldn’t really know how to describe what was happening; I just remember that it was very pleasant. No comment more opportune for him to immediately pour himself another whiskey; surely some romantic story, he said. The porch: the glasses, the Siamese cat rubbing itself against the chaise longue, those tacky lawn chairs, the same as the ones on the terrace at our apartment, the ones that made Pompey exclaim: What are these machines? And the gecko motionless beneath the porch

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