Solitaire of Love by Cristina Peri Rossi

Author:Cristina Peri Rossi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Duke University Press
Published: 2012-05-07T00:00:00+00:00

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Awake at three o’clock in the morning, alone, without Aida. An evanescent rose-colored hue spreads across the deep black sky. I dress. Far away, next to her son, Aida must be asleep. No possibility of awaking her, of going to her house and climbing into her bed. In the street, a few lights are aglow. A single line of cars takes up every parking space. Like large, coriaceous insects that have invaded the city, they are asleep now, resting after their victory. Among them appear frail trees, like pikes of a retreating army. In the street, no one. Glowing bulbs illuminate a phantom curtain, an empty theater. Vips, the restaurant and store, is open, bursting with trumpery, like the night lobby of an airport, on a transoceanic flight. A few shoppers stroll among posters of old actresses, idle now, their beauty appearing somewhat fabricated, rather like cardboard. Marlene Dietrich and her long cigarette holder, her dissipated look of a bored woman, a woman who, although she has no illusions, arouses dreams in others. Rita Hayworth with her long, red hair, wearing a black dress and a brassiere that may be padded to emphasize her mammary glands. I move among foreign magazines, their covers nearly always the same: princes, tennis players, government officials. Aida is on none of them, although hers is the only likeness I want to see. Aida, her face always pale — a woman who doesn’t like the sun—with her morbose psyche. Aida, hair over her eyes, like a spaniel. Aida and the mystery of her wide, thin-lipped mouth with a slight declivity at its center. I wander among books of photographs, pictures of engines, of nostalgia: movies, furniture, perfume. Indifferent, distracted shoppers select elegant boxes of chocolate, they thumb through record covers, postcards. For Aida, who is not present, I buy a collection of prints, reproductions of works by Tamara de Lempicka. I know she loves those muscular, cold bodies, those black dresses with their fascist cut, that slightly sadistic (because it is unpossessable) beauty. Tamara de Lempicka always paints the same things: the marble beauty of bodies without souls, of nearly opulent but autistic bone structures. The Lempicka book (wrapped in black paper with a red floral design) under my arm, I go to the Vips bar. Solitary, abandoned patrons (do they all have an Aida somewhere, far away, sleeping alone or with a son?), extravagant in appearance, are drinking cognac or coffee, while they look down with brilliant or languid eyes at the black formica counter that shines like a mirror. A young man is here, wearing a leather jacket adorned with metallic jewelry, a mastiff on a chain lying at his feet. To one side, seated next to a redhead with a pink velvet skirt cut above the knee, I see a short, fat man with sagging flesh and small, dark eyes, drinking whiskey. I recognize Aida’s husband. He is drinking, head down, lost in thought. I go over to him, and I place the book of Tamara de Lempicka reproductions next to his glass.

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