THE INSANITY OF SANITY
(sanity needs help) 
Segismundo
Cormorán
1989, 1995, 1999
TRANSLATED BY CORRINE SMITH
& VICENTE SÁEZThis story won one national prize for short novel,
"Gabinee literario" 1999
A short novel
VICENTE SÁEZ VALLÉS
CORMORAN, 1995
The alias refers to a web-footed bird that lives near the sea. It is black or dark grey so that it looks like the shadow of a sea gull. Walking very badly but an excellent flier, the fishermen call it the “marine crow”.
REFERENCES:
The walls changed their sickly, pallor of jaundice when the keys jingled under the sack of Marisima. The window exchanged the translucent light with the ghastly view of the cloudy day. Bells chimed incessantly from the insistent teacher of the universe outside of the asylum. The nun gave orders with an expression that was reminiscent of that of a person who awaited freezing at the hands of the raw North wind. The pressure of the hall changed, the target guard mauled the lock and all were altered hearing the lashes of the air of the Moncayo.
It was still very early and no one said a single word, not even to answer the teacher's isolated greeting as she undid their scarves so that they might enjoy some warmth. However, when his smile received no response, he found the indifference almost aggressive.
Marisima seemed too young to fit the old woman’s garb. She was the tallest in the hospital. She only had to hold out her arm to guard Josemari, when she played basketball with the team of her brother-in-law's company.
Maika was the favourite intern of many doctors and of Marisima. She wasn’t affected by the hungry looks of the others, as they attempted to capture “teacher’s” approving tones. Her steps ensured their grovelling and were made all the more potent by the crucifix that hung around her neck upside-down, as a demonic symbol of her strength. The other nuns noticed and crossed themselves mechanically. When Marisima finally realised, she removed the crucifix and put it into a pocket.
There was immense commotion, everything topsy turvy, and the young teacher became frightened when he heard that Marisima would be the one conducting the tour of the asylum with his students. Trying to keep up with Marisima’s marathon speed, along with the uncertainty of destination, was a like a footrace that was lost but strengthened one’s resolve. Pepejuan was visibly shaken by the continual lack of appreciation. That day, he arrived at the sanatorium in a high state of anxiety, already apprehensive of the circumstances of the day. In reality, he didn’t have to worry because all he had to do was give facts.
- Are your students coming today? -Marisima asked, looking at the clock in the small grey landing of the white and black stairway.
- Yes... -a step - good... -another step - me, I thought... -Pepejuan cleared his throat..
- Mr. José -the nun interrupted- Get to the point! –Looking like a predator. Marisima stood in front of him so that he could look into her eyes, and even though she was taller, he could see the fire in them, like an outbreak of cholera.
- I’m so tired of trying to share some of my knowledge during their visits. I try to get through to them, but without success, telling them their co-operation is requested. They follow my directions very badly. Orders are orders for one in my position. Speak with Sister Alicia; she will tell you the same thing.
The corridors of the sanatorium seemed endless. Pepejuan thought slightly of the legs of Marisima, without lavicousness, that they should be enough to create a rustle when sliding over the solemn mosaic tiles. Sometime, around dawn, this sound was not heard by the crazy ones. Better for them because they had not yet lit the heaters. The tiles, squared, were lined up in a parade that even smelled old. The nun automatically walked towards Maika, a girl from the Basque country.
Sister Alicia could always find something nice to think about the disgusting hospital. The maximum thing to catch here would be tuberculosis but grey tuberculosis... Is there a tuberculosis that is not grey? It is foolishness to think about such a thing. "I am cold here", it is just that it is a such a cold place, a freezer.
- Hello! What have you lost there in that pile of papers? - This woman is coming on to me", Pepejuan thought also that saw a strange look in her eyes.
- Wait for me
in the office; the cleaning woman will enter there. I will be a while, because
I must have a word with the Galician guard.
Several patients have complained that he felt them up -Sister Alicia
was in motion. She was always
busy. She always had something to
say; she always had orders.
The first smile of the day came from those very dry lips of the woman with beer breath, in the very humid kitchen - maid of the bleach of last day and the nauseous memories of sawdust used in room 201 to clean the patient’s vomit. That scenario made him sick and he left, with very few hopes, to see Sister Alicia. She was the youngest of the nuns and seemed to him to be the nicest or the most normal of all of them. The mother superior’s office was wooden; a room that had a lot of filing cabinets of patients’ cases histories and confidential files. A lot of information stored, as always, with the neat appearance of things that the clergy archived with expert inexpertness. The clergy magnified everything: too much cleaning, too much perfume. Pepejuan thought at the same time that it was the most intrinsic and sure way of extending the cult, the sacred thing. The most curious thing is that they didn't seem to know to what to who to do or how to act once t he cult had surrendered. For that reason they deceived, they were deceived themselves and they hung on to their religious stereotype in order not to think there are too many excrements inside people, no matter how much incense is burnt. "I will assert my affective dependence by telephoning my GIRLFRIEND, since in the office no-one will be in the office to control how long, how many words, how much money...", sarcastically Pepejuan thought, or the unconscious said without conscience.
- I have not convinced her... but I don't believe that there are problems. Her biggest problem is herself.... -Pepejuan forcefully grabbed the headphones from his head because Marisima suddenly stood a foot behind him.
- Tell her that you will call her later. -Marisima whispered into Pepejuan’s ear, at the same time rubbing her enormous eyelids with great disdain.
- I will call you then... It -and smashed down the phone, with the expression of a boy that just got caught in a lie. He was afraid to look the nun in the eye (he knew that he had broken one of her orders), but they were not as wild as he imagined.
- I only tell you because Sister Alicia doesn't like it when the telephone is used during working hours. Don't get scared. I don't plan to say anything.
This softened the face of Pepejuan and eased the situation. He looked at her in astonishment, because she had loosened her long, blond hair. Marisima didn't notice that she was still wearing her night-clothes, which gave a tone between mocking and erotic to the discussion with the teacher. She was uglier than he would have thought, without her habit, but that riotous hair offered him a hidden charm of feminine ways that had a very strong attraction. Without knowing how to answer, Pepejuan tried to defend himself, adjusting his squared glasses nervously:
- It was an important call... - Marisima tossed back her head, laughing and served him a glass of mass wine, while pulling up the hem of her nightwear.
- Does this bother you? -the nun offered some muscatel to the atheist. This he refused and the server made herself comfortable in the sofa of the grey office, with the glass in her large hand. Inquisitively, she asked him:
- Don’t you have enough information in the clinical reports that we have given you? Why do you think that you are not allowed to use the telephone?
Pepejuan supposed that that sharp voice of mature lady came from someone who knew more than him. He was not embarrassed and he began to admire her sarcastic character. His girlfriend's beliefs prevented him from have the reverence for the nun that almost everyone else held and that incited him to attack:
- I believe I know what you think of me and I don't care. I think that Maika is important, and I’d like to help her ... –Marisima interrupted him:
-You are just like everyone else...- She sighed and she toasted him, sitting with her legs curled under her and finished the last sip of wine..
Pepejuan went to the darkest aspects in his mind, believing that they were close to those of the nun. He could not be objective and he hated that the clergy was in charge of the mental health others, since he considered its ideas and atmosphere were the main cause of the madness that occurred in education and culture. He was not very sure of his own thoughts but his GIRLFRIEND was.
The table of the office glittered and the air was filled with synthetic scent, having recently been cleaned with furniture polish. He didn’t know the detailed adventure of the table but he guessed that they had cleaned the room, the mystery revealed by the forgotten bottle of bleach, hidden in the corner, behind the door. The sun painted the floor with of sunbeams of varied lengths, creating symmetrical drawings. The forms corresponded with the rigidity of Pepejuan, although Marisima was obviously very relaxed. They were unaware that they were the same age. His black glasses and charming, good looks would have confused anyone that didn't know Pepejuan but there was no mystery about the nun. They had been together half a dozen of times and everyone thought that they hated each other. Both modelled their expression when they supposed that others would see. Both seemed to be the type of person that needed an enemy in order to survive. It was a continuous challenge for them to find agreement in any matter. However, there were many situations that through them together. He took the report of Maika:
- If it depended on me... –definitively, Pepejuan didn't respect the nun; she already knew it. He went to the door and caressed the aluminium handcuff, noticing that it was cold.
- Please, you already know that I cannot do anything.
- You have already decided -the educator of jeans interrupted.
- How do you want to tell the pupils that the patients don’t matter?-He half-opened the door. –I only want to show the apprentices of mental health, or the professionals, if that is the way you want me to call them, the possibilities of a patient like Maika, with a dark, incomprehensible medical history. Imagine if God actually speaks in ancient Basque? I have to see her, do you understand?
- Think for a moment that I am looking at your eyes. I even put myself in a lower position when I lie down on the sofa. I know you didn't still look at my eyes, and it is not so difficult.- She paused to lift her head and drink of her glass of wine.
"That girl must be an extraterrestrial because no matter how many tests are run by Dr. Tarr, we seem no wiser. They are just a lot of cables that doctors put in her head to survey her bowel. I have not slept all night while I worked and I have thought about Maika. She has a quality; you can look into her eyes –and her enormous body ran out of the office, head lowered, and for first time, she recited in very fearful and sincere voice:
- She is the only person who looks you in the eyes in this whole damned hospital...
She couldn’t get away quickly enough. She left the office before Pepejuan, taking enormous strides, and, he just as quickly, reached for the telephone to call his GIRLFRIEND again. The corridors were witnesses to the uneasiness of Marisima, with their monotonous colours that made her dizzy, as she ran to her bed. It occurred to her suddenly that she had left her bedroom door open but she made no attempt to close it. She wept.
Pepejuan thoughtfully, hung up and didn’t make his call. He didn’t dial any number. Instead, he compared the history of Maika to the others that had already been drawn from the file, starting with the fattest.
"They have conducted more than thirty tests on this eighteen- year-old Basque virgin. She has been in this hospital for six months showing symptoms of anorexia, severe autism, and hysterical behaviour. She possesses a rich vocabulary, like a scholar, but we don’t know anything about her. She’s either a very good fake or an extraterrestrial."
The situation was growing intolerable for the GIRLFRIEND. Her mood was very sarcastic as she took off the short gown after using the toilet, with a lot of light and something of foam. Her feelings were indecipherable to the OLD LADY who visited her from down the hall.
- Have you been resting?- The OLD LADY asked the GIRLFRIEND.
- Impossible!- the GIRLFRIEND answered, while she was thinking what sweater would go with her jeans.
- Look at my eyes, Susana –she went on interrogating and comparing her formidable forms with the GIRLFRIEND’S, a little less wonderful- do you love Pepe?
- I don't know. –and she looked at the other’s eyes and stopped to button her grey shirt – he depresses me.
The expression of the GIRLFRIEND changed to shy enthusiasm at being able to become intimate and trust someone who knew her boyfriend so well. The OLD LADY and her false understanding came along with the recently occupied apartment. It was already dark and the bulbs without hats created a thousand and one diabolical shades above or under the silhouettes of the two women. They were completely surrounded by cardboard boxes that were filled by a thousand things that they didn't coincide with their new use. Televisions, bottles of detergent, crackers, peaches, toys, shoes, paper, washers, buns, toilet paper, toothbrushes. They became papers, books, decorations, appliances, clothes. Everything had changed with this move. She felt a new independence and for the first time she was able to share her innermost feelings with the friend of her lover.
- My hubby will speak with him. Don't lie to Pepe. He is very nice...
- You aren’t helping me. Without me, he will be lost and I don’t know what to do. You don't understand. It will hurt him a very much and I know what it will do to him.
She made a gesture of crying and the OLD LADY hugged her. Her tears etched rivers onto her white dress.
The girlfriend, was just 30 and the woman, 50. They were the same height and they both had dark hair, styled into a curly short mane by a hairdresser. If they looked at themselves with the distortion of a fishbowl, with little light and from the back, surely, they could mistake one for the other. The OLD LADY was outfitted in a suit the colour of green apples and the GIRLFRIEND wore only a black bra and a thong of black lines. The OLD LADY had not the enormous breasts that the GIRLFRIEND had. They seemed mother and daughter, but only from a distance.
- Tomorrow, he will tour the asylum with his students and Rafael will go. I will ask him to talk to him.
- No, don’t -Susana screamed, as she wiped the lap of her shirt.
Pepejuan had guessed perfectly, fifteen months ago, about the relationship between Susana, his GIRLFRIEND, and the wife of the psychiatrist of the psychiatric hospital. He was also Pepejuan’s best friend, like a father, and had facilitated the youth's employment. It produced pain, a thousand thoughts that manufactured obsessions and they mortified the painful strategy, the stranger certainty of being humiliated, insulted once again: Susana didn't want him. How couldn’t she love him, knowing that he needed her?, knowing how Pepejuan wanted her? She told him more than once she wanted him. How could it be, then?
“Clearly, she told me those ‘I love you’ after one or another orgasm and those ‘I love you’s don’t count.”
He recalled, with a sense of mortification, how at eleven years of age he had to admit to himself, that trips to other galaxies were not possible in that moment. All the passion that he surrendered to the comics was fallow; it was false. It could not feed his fantasy. Pepejuan knew that he should destroy the hundreds of " Nautilius’s " that had docked in the port of his imagination. Perhaps it was the reason he was almost bald and he always had such a tight tight jaw. A psychiatrist advised him to get psychoanalysis, but he could not afford it. He didn't have the money. He never had money.
Something like a state of entropy, he was used to the indifference. As love unites, passion heats lovers to the boiling point, until they explode. Their atoms are dispersed and they reach chaos. In a sequential way, the steps make complete villainy of the destination. What cruel memory is kept by the molecules that know they will be destroyed? Nature follows its destiny.
- God only knows that we should recognise the way that we are since there are so very few truths. There are no big truths for us... -Susana, pensive, exclaimed while she stretched out the black bra.
- Do you always become so philosophical when you speak of your boyfriends? –the OLD LADY asked, cynically.
- Not always. I remember that at the beginning I had some really horny boyfriends that wanted me to speak of sex, when I still waited more fucking... -Both laughed hysterically and the woman smiled at her sweetly and she dried her tears.
- Come on! You are not so old as all that!
The OLD LADY made a pause to breathe and to feel triumphant of being able to enjoy an intimacy; of being involved in a strange complicity that challenged her fidelity to her husband, with a small friendship. She felt as if she possessed something uniquely hers.
- You know, I think that since you and I have known each other, you haven’t wanted your boyfriend like I haven’t wanted my husband.
And both continued laughing.
4. THE AUXILIARY NUN OF THE MIND
Marísima was very sleepy and only could only think of her first and only priority. She never thought about the hard stairs, damned stairways but she used to go up them in a perfect vigil; but after a watch like tonight’s, they seemed infinite. She knew that she would be able to fall asleep soon and she wanted to see Maika before surrendering to what she supposed would be happy dreams. Life had many ugly greys and the hope of seeing Maika offered her warmer tones. The halls seemed like strange brown lines on a clear green bottom that likened a dark road in the dark dimness of a mysterious castle charmed by the ghosts of those old youths. In those moments, she was completely relaxed; at other times, the maximum hopes of Marisima.
The lines:
"I could have sworn that they were parallel but they join. I can still admire myself even while I contemplate the stupidity of the obvious things. It is the best thing that I know to do, as all humans create pathologies for not feeling when it is necessary to work and they submit to the greatest stupidity of all: believing in Ethics. The master lines of our life, like the brown of the building of the crazy ones, converge this way in their terrifying replete corridors of well-known shades and of a nauseous smell of bleach (ammonia)."
The nun struggled to stay lucid. She knew that she could mistake one room for another. It was this way, with the all the being of her habit, and the hallelujah of her dreams. She had so much conviction that the rest of the nuns were jealous of her. She clenched her fists as if to fight her unknown enemy and immediately felt guilty at the violence within her, at being unable to accept the solitude. All the shame was in her fists.
When she went into in the room of Maika, the scarce light only allowed her to see the reflections of her hair like of golden fluorine. She came closer to the bed and she saw the opened eyes of Maika that became two oceans full with life. The nun felt exclusion. She knew that that exclusion was one of the consequences of resignation. She would say that she had changed out of respect to authority; but that was a falsehood. Maika had ended their relationship, and Marisima respected her for it, because she enjoyed the idea that there were no more human beings in her world.
" Let me see into your world..."!, Marisima thought, feeling her conscious emotions completely impotent. Maika smiled. Felinely, the nun’s frown puckered her face and the idea of the so-feared exclusion, the rejection, the ultimate failure, completely filled her with anger.
- Daughter mine!”. –No-one could attack the Servant of God for using profanity. Marísima steeled herself against the mental bolt of Maika.
She felt overwhelmed, with the most distressing and tired solitude of calling to the door of Maika. It was only her opportunity to be compared with the most professional and human of the field of mental health .
That thought wrapped her in the dimness of the soft grey sheets and she went to her frustrated rest. She stopped in the threshold and she saw, on the clean floor, the shine of a small golden object. With a groan, she bent over to pick up whatever it was. With the delicacy of the lack of sleep, and by touch , she managed to pick up a golden ring, cold metal that compelled her to think.
" Where could that have come from? Maika never wears jewellery.”
She put it in her pocket and when she removed her habit to lie down in bed, it jingled as it collided with her keys.
5. THE RHYTHM OF THE TYPEWRITER
Resigned and more asleep than awake, the young secretary of the psychiatric hospital, Susana, opened the heavy door of thick glass, concentrating not to break the rolling silence, and yawning scandalously. The light trembled in a worn-out, fluorescent fixture and the girl changed it on seeing it burnt out. Her face became hard and she began to think about a thousand causes of all the chaos that appeared to her soul, and her movements about the office accelerated.
The area was small. There was hardly place for two office tables, two typewriters and two metal closets full with papers, now on the floor. The confidential reports were strewn all about. On a small table, hidden in the semi-darkness, were a thousand wrinkled papers, turning the once useful office into chaos. The secretary's expression turned to one of mystery and panic, when lifting the grey forms with the letterhead of the hospital in black, she discovered some stains of dry blood. She screamed hysterically, and ran in long, sliding strides in search of authorities. The corridor echoed with the sound of her footsteps so that the direction of the source of the racket was indistinguishable.
She looked for some authority that would be able to take responsibility for the assault to the office of the hospital. It was very early, but they would not be able to take in the arriving students because practically all the medical files were on the floor. Anxiety left her breathless and she knew that the doctors would be useless in this situation. They only knew how to command respect and to do everything by the book, the book of greenish cardboard with dirty plastic that was the manual of the internal operations of the hospital. It was like the Bible to them, with leaves Bible-thin, and the small letters clearly stated... "Only doctors or psychiatrists will have access to the clinical reports of the internal patients and, only, if they request it in writing to the director." It was the law, the norms that were implanted in the brains of those that worked with other people's brains on countless occasions. They dealt with people, not only with organic systems.
The hustle and bustle made her nervous and her oily heels collided with the sad-looking figure of Pepejuan, who had just telephoned the object of his affections. The two ghastly trains of inertia of the soles of the secretary’s leather shoes, almost crashed right into him. In the dimly lit corridor, he had not heard her laboured breathing or seen her concerned look, as serious as his own, and full of silent scrutiny. It was as if a breach had opened up in the floor, in the two meters that they separated them, and it connected the two souls with the centre of the world, in the most narrow and infinite distance, at that moment. A thousand kettledrums sounded at the same time, like an orchestra accentuating the intimacies of a landscape that is being seen for the first time.
Pepejuan asked her what was wrong, but he was but he was too absorbed by his own problems, and unaware to of his own egocentrism:
- Pardon me!
- It was all my fault. Have you, by chance, seen Dr. Tarr or any of the bosses?
- No, I have not. I’m sure I will Dr. Tarr, the psychiatrict, when my students come. If you want, I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.
- No...! -she answered very quickly, provoking the curiosity of someone too paranoiac, and too obsessive to think that the negative response somehow had something to do with himself. Pepejuan was hurt by her abruptness and he looked, with certain inferiority, at the attractive feminine figure as she continued on her way, listening to the rhythm of her heels in the enormous tiled corridor. An impulse of pride incited him to to Pepejuán to scream:
- Sister Alicia is in her office!
- Thank you -the feminine voice tranquillised the pride of Pepejuan and it caused some nearly plaintive groans. A door opened up and an obese woman in old nightwear and grey hair pulled back into a bun, spit to the perplexed eyes of Pepejuan.
- They don’t know what they’re doing. They don’t know what they’re doing! They cram me of pills to sleep and they don't allow me to get a wink! I don't understand. Amongst their screams, the sounds of footsteps and the typewriter...
" Typewriter?- , Pepejuan thought.
He went to have a cup of hot coffee and a bun in the kitchen. He would clear up and speak with the cook; they always counted on his amusing jokes.
- A Catalan goes to the pharmacy to buy condoms and he pays with a large bill and the cashier asks him: “don't you have any change?”, and he answers “No, I’m still wearing last month’s. That is the reason I have to buy another."
- You are a pig. It is not very funny.
They were preparing a pile of salami sandwiches and boats of peaches and carafes of lemonade. The crazy ones were going on a bus excursion, a picnic, because today is the day of a certain saint.
- Pepejuan, don't look so ravenous because we know exactly how many there are and it is still early. –They all laughed.
- If you are the other kind of hungry, tell it to me, in my ear, and maybe I can help you...
- I’ll stay with the cook! I’m sorry, but today I am indigestible.
- Pretentious...! -They called him.
Pepejuan was grateful not to have to think of his GIRLFRIEND while he listened the bad joke. He found the coffee delicious and an obese woman told him, with the pot in her hands:
-So many nuns rather inhibit one. My boyfriend has brought me some really good weed. Do you want to try some?
- No, thank you. When I smoke dope, I get dizzy.
- Listen! –Said the shortest cook, the one with the brilliant mane – someone’s coming.
Indeed, Pepejuan heard the echoes of several heels, with errant rhythm and with growing volume. A freckled and redheaded cook laughed, showing her enormous teeth:
- The noise sounds like a typewriter, but I believe that they are the heels of that know-it-all secretary.
The four women dressed in navy cotton robes hissed to him. Suddenly, the ones of the corridor entered the brightly lit kitchen. The secretary, Susana, in the lead, leading with her breasts, and Sister Alicia close behind.
Pepejuan went to them and the nun spoke with Pepejuan in low voice. The secretary asked the stony faces of the auxiliary ones, with a false and sweet voice:
- How good it smells here! Is there any coffee left?
- With whom did you say that I must speak? -Doctor Tarr asked her while he gobbled the biggest piece of the exquisite croissant.
- You already know with whom, and hurry up...
- Don't force me... -the threatening tone was almost enough to make the woman angry.
Five people, three of whom were not invited, shared the conversation in the cafeteria of the department store. They didn't seem very delighted with her, and to the youngest one, they looked like another species. The first one, was a macaque rhesus of the size of a German tourist, whose body was covered with hair; the second was a white bear of the south with Argentinean accent and an Eastern European last name, and, there was also a gilded weasel that read romance magazines. The monkey folded his hands and coughed spasmodically before the sharp looks of the weasel.
- I don't know if you realise, but it’s already been one year since we’ve been to bed together. -The woman said, ironically.
- Some anniversary! A year without fucking.
- I don’t feel sorry for you. I know that you have been with the psychiatrist’s secretary.
- What are you saying? Are you insinuating that I have lover?
The woman’s comments caused the others to laugh.
- That sounds a bit naive. Come on! If we know, don’t you think everybody knows? It’s public knowledge.
- Yes, yes... Here is the evidence -the weasel said pointing to a colour picture of him with the secretary goddess in bed.
- The only thing that unites us is our son.
- Have you heard from him?
- He’s still a heroine addict. He’s in a treatment centre in the south of France. Don’t you even read the invoices that you pay?
- It seems silly- the RH macaque said in a pejorative tone. Do you know? I am leaving for the North Pole with the Pepejuan’s GIRLFRIEND.
- When?
- Next week... to Alaska...
- Why don’t you come to the Patagonia with me, doll -the bear whispered as he winked his eye.
- Is that the reason you want me to speak with Pepejuan?
- You are not so silly. The lover of Pepejuan’s Girlfriend is Canadian, of the French part, and she wants him to go on vacations with her.
- Why must I speak to him?
- She is bad. She wants to leave him but she doesn’t want to hurt him..
- If she doesn’t want to hurt him, then she doesn’t want to leave him.
- Well, excuse me, but she cannot leave the relationship.
- It is the same thing...
- It is not.
- All right! I will try. But I can’t promise you anything. You know how infatuated Pepejuan is and he’s completely dependent on his girlfriend...
- Thank you –and the woman got up and left.
The psychiatrist was taciturn and pensive. He finished his bourbon with ice and he got up from the table. The three animals were like zombies to him. They became gradually transparent and melted into Doctor Tarr's sad figure.
Suddenly, they found themselves looking at the crammed full pages of perfectly willing lines in several disconcerting arrays. The first psychiatrist found it to be the typical writing of a psychotic.
- Notice the syntax and the language that is used. Apparently, a series of mental disorders, characteristic of an evident psychosis; precisely, to separate a hostile reality, and, also, to repress a sexual desire, earlier translated inappropriately and without destination, and at the same time, pathological. -The gentleman felt a lot of satisfaction with those words and a smile of security was sketched on his face as he took his glasses from their brown case, and paused to suck on the end of one side of the frame. He made himself comfortable in the leather armchair and surveyed the looks of the other gathered professionals. He listened to the words of a thin-faced man, of red complexion and with a very tense neck:
- I don't see any evidence of psychosis.
They spoke and they discussed because they had been born to discuss. Their rigidities taught them to face those of some other opinions, always thinking that their own has more validity, in the most base and senseless way, as always among human beings. Pepejuan had been invited to the meeting as an onlooker. He felt inadequate, silly, disappointed; perhaps, because their point of view evidenced a maladjusted and brown reality, or maybe because he was the only one sitting in a grey Formica chair, the rest were siting in brown leather armchairs. He thought that his hopes for helping Maika were too high.
Doctor Tarr rubbed his fifty years of chin and he invited Pepejuan to give his opinion of the case. The walnut sheen of the round table reflected the educator's of jeans sudden red face and his simpleton’s look was enough evidence of the fear that was his at having his knowledge judged by the psychiatric doctors:
- I believe...
- Speak up, please. -those words sounded as a gong in the head of Pepejuan, witness of his shyness, of his repeated failures.
He looked at the mother superior and the thin psychiatrist and their faces were deformed into an amorphous matter that reflected the panic of his potential destruction, the possibility of complete loss that originates when one decides to speak. In that microsecond, reality adopted other references because all the people were deformed into an incoherent mash mass, in the greenish, brilliant tones of fluorine. Pepejuan awaited his personal moment of degradation, accentuated by his fear of public speaking, that always passed unnoticed or unconsciously. The deformed perception was prolonged by the concepts that he had sprouted roots, and with authentic panic he checked that his arms, his hands, his everything, was a mash cylinder that, secretly, returned to a plastic state, with soft sounds. Only in this way, could he understand the distorted realities to which he was expected to give form. He needed force, love, a power that offered him security to keep afloat the ship of his tryings, avoiding being shipwrecked in the seas of obscurity. Suddenly, a light, an inexplicable force took possession of him and he could explain his poverty, his minuscule being, creating security, and securing his confrontation. He could speak because the doctor smiled at him. The smile gave him the force, the smile gave him the security he needed.
- I believe that a diagnosis is not yet imminent. She has only been evaluated for an hour and a half. An insane person cannot be assessed just like that. Her autism doesn't have to be pathological, necessarily. If she tells such a dream as she says she had, it should be a message for all of us, a form of communication. When the blood comes, it seems to be a small accident, a small wound. Everything was disordered, but the leaves of the dream, appeared inordinately detailed, stapled and distributed in chapters. To make that up would have taken her some hours. She would have had to enter the office and to manage a complex electronic typewriter in how... It is necessary to build the history of Maika, and to check the hostile thing that is her atmosphere. My opinion is that there has been a shock, and this is the story that can tell you what it was and how you can intervene. I will pass it out to read:
"The following story is a true dream that I have divided into five parts, for easier understanding. Notice that is a novelised dream, epistolary, a letter:
“I write you again, with the hope that you will know how to understand the thoughts of sex that gag us when we try to speak them. The sexual distinction doesn't seem to be so important; not everything is a problem of hormones. It is an imaginary combat to the death between progesterone and lutetium bodies and testosterone (feminine and masculine, respectively); it would be stupid to say anything else.. The basic substances face each other: skin, blood, vocal chords, and genital apparatus. The truth is that we lose time, not so much for love, money or power, but for melanin, haemoglobin or progesterone. One thing is certain. We are all part male and part female. Why must all our illusions be to surrender or to possess, to be completely man or woman? You are a very intelligent woman, and you told me once at the beginning of time, in the humanity's beginning, animals could speak. Why did they stop speaking? What was the cause that they forgot how to speak so that they can no longer be understood? The blame is not necessarily because feminine words can be masculine and vice versa. I think the creator didn’t create the human species; what he created was men and women. That is all.
I would like to ask the animals why we speak of men and women, and not of males and females, since humans are also animals. You can only travel through time with a story; not with science, but with literature.
That is why a trial judge should be a kangaroo. Kangaroos are marsupial, animals that have an external uterus. It can investigate what happened in the beginning.
There was a natural elevation in the clearing of the forest. Hundreds of eager, orderly animals were congregated for an interesting session of the trial of men.
Light fell upon the evening of clean air. The sound of the sea commanded a faithful horizon, with the incessant murmur of the waves.
Nobody had enough honour to apologize. The trial was to give men and women equal status. When they had achieved their goal, the shift creator would know with whom he had to leave the keys. The maker had already ceased to exist in the face of the hypocrisy of
men. For this reason he should be the same creator, the one that assumed the responsibility of completing the condemnation.
- Who is the culprit
this time? He or she -asked the marsupial.
- The woman! The human
female! -All of the animals yelled out
unanimously with paws, claws, antennas, eyeteeth, horns, continuations, shades,
hardships, positions, orientations pointing at her.
- And... What is the
accusation? -The kangaroo gave a small jump while it took a giant candy
wrapped in red and white out of its pouch.
- To tempt the creator!
- The creator is still a
human being -the animal continued sagaciously sucking the candy, in the form
of a small candy cane- and the trial of the humans continues. It will be
necessary to expose these falsehoods because now he/she is the one that
destroys men, no matter how much he/she masquerades with masculine or feminine
myths.
The judge called upon a
very pregnant woman who was accompanied by two grumpy gorillas and always in a
bad mood. The district attorney was a vixen in a red coat;
the officer, a majestic rosy flamingo, as tall as the woman, led the
accused to the witness stand in the centre of
clearing, near to the judge. The defense lawyer was not present at the
proceedings because it was a sheep that had become the lunch of some wolves.
The kangaroo gave a blow with his mace onto a stump of an old walnut,
requesting order to a very riotous courtroom:
- With your leave,
lordship -said the intelligent vixen elegantly.
- Magistrate, please
listen! Cannot this trial be postponed since my lawyer is not present?- The
woman said, separating some hair of her face with an interesting expression.
The kangaroo extracted a
thick book and some glasses from his pouch. He put the glasses on, and thumbed
through the book, refreshing his memory.
With reaffirmation, he proclaimed:
- I am
not able to because the penal code prohibits explicitly, in a specific article,
that the accused, for whatever reason, may not suspend the hearings.
-
With your leave again, I hope there will be no further interruptions... -the
vixen looked at the accused girl , with sweet-toothed eyes and a cagey shine.
- The matter is simple. It is
that men and women are violating their instincts in a continuous manner.
The genetic library should be respected so that the natural order can
continue, guaranteeing the continuation of the species.
The
auditory applauded and they shouted the audacious words of the astute vixen as
she raised her front paws and smiled. Waiting for the commotion to subside and
after several blows of the crazy kangaroo to its stump, the vixen continued in
the silence that was created.
- The woman, the human female, the humanity, the understanding, represents the son's creation in her interior; as me, she is a mammal. But after gestation, the new being is born immature and defenseless before the elements of nature. It takes a lot of time for a human being to become independent. Lordship, animals all, I seek to demonstrate -the vixen raised her tail and she elevated her voice.
- That the man is a parasite of nature!
The animals murmured and they opened their eyes. The woman made fists of rage and false anger.
It was a moment that some lawyer would have screamed: “I protest!", but, as no one had pled, there was no scream at all.
The vixen broke the silence that had flooded everything:
- Lordship, I call on my first witness: that woman!
The girl, appearing resigned, was accompanied by the flamingo up to some rocks next to the judge's stump. He invited her to say something on a book, placing her right hand on it.
- Well, what do you think about what I have said?
- You are right. What has been said, I find certain. I find the conclusions a little insipid, but certain. -the woman was assured, calm. The silence became evident - But how can they condemn me for being what I am! It is like a lion asking for an opinion from the squirrel that it is planning to eat.”
Everything became pandemonium. The animals of the gallery, gathered in a semi-circle around the judge, waited openmouthed for their district attorney’s ingenious words.
- I have no more questions for this witness.
The confusion continued to increase. The judge made a gesture of announcing that he would retire to deliberate, but his efforts were pathetic. A beautiful girl, dressed in wide frock of white and blue pinstripes, sat down on the stump. Her belly showed an advanced state of pregnancy. She seemed about to begin labour. Young, with big black eyes and a long orderly mane which was turned up at the ends, like a quarter note, one could see that she had a beautiful figure. She crossed her legs and took a cigarette out of a pocket, put it to her fleshy lips, and lit the end.
- What... what is that vision? –The kanguroo exclaimed stuttering with awe.
- Which one? -the woman surprised all the animals of the forest without knowing reason. The animals screeched and shivered in their attempts escape. The young lady, bewildered and amazed, rotated her head, seeing the empty forest, full of strange sounds. She shook the wax match, to extinguish the flame and the kangaroo swallowed his alleviated saliva.
- Lordship, what has happened? Why have they all left?
The marsupial opened its eyes. It was immobile, rigid. It could not speak, and moreover, it wasn’t even aware of its petrified state. It jumped over the girl and it went away quickly as possible, like the others.
The girl was alone and taciturn, in the middle of the forest. She was sad that she had caused them all to leave. It all seemed a terrible enigma. She was accustomed to animals speaking and to be able to speak and to reason with them in return.
Dialogue had become a place to share points of view, of finding solutions. It was the first woman's trial ever conducted, and no one knows why the animals stopped speaking forever, or to this day.
My dear readers, I also lack an explanation of what happened to that first woman. It can be imagined that the creator ignored words when he separated man from the animals, humanity from nature. It is only an illusion, held by crazy ones, and that doesn’t count. It can be the knot, the bond between men and women, the meerest remains of what unites them and it is also the thing that separates them.
For that reason, the woman harbored some hope of being able to solve that enigma that separated humans from nature. It was gloaming and she stopped to stroll, without direction, in the labyrinth of the dark forest. She listened to the sounds of a fawn that she observed at distance. The excited woman thought of making a fire as a sign that would attract the fawn. The woman felt very unhappy in that solitude that alienated her: she could not speak (and it is already known that when a woman doesn't speak for a long time, she is capable of anything, even of making a fire, a job usually reserved for the men of the tribe).
She built a circle of large stones and sand. In the centre, she lay all the dry branches she had gathered under the sinister shades of the moon. She knew that the deer would come closer; but, as the fire crackled on some dry leaves that sparked, the deer escaped and the woman broke into tears, crying uncontrollably. When she calmed down, she understood that it had been the fire. The fire of a cigarette and that of a small blaze, they seemed the same. The woman felt an inopportune anxiety, as foreseeing that some change approached. She began to feel the punctures of a sharp pain that announced her son's imminent birth. With the strongest scream, she found the depths of her soul. She came to understand that her son was conceived to the light and the heat from a similar blaze to which she had just built.
In the feverish image of childbirth, distance was compared to the stars in the sky of a overcast night, with the distant points of other fires of the cabins and corners of the villages of the men, up in the hills, where they were safely settled in their perspective towns.
The fire, that that destroys, can, in turn, create. It is what separates humanity from the animals, or the inseparable sexes.
This is the narration of what always passes when contemplating a star, having a son or writing a letter.
-Kisses.”
Psychiatrist Tarr's face, his pain emaciating its features, showed the strain when he knew that his wife was not in their house and she had not slept in their bed. He had discovered her disappearance when he checked to see that his glass of liquor was in the same place as the night of his little dream. It was the ideal scenario to think and to not to think of the indifference; however, he put on the videotape of a pornographic movie. The atmosphere smelled close, but a rich walnut smell, armchairs skirting the living room in all the corners, the plateaus of strong glass, the yellow soft indirect light, the asparragus fern and leafy interior plants, the green carpet, the books, the giant screen of the television that showed two women making love voluptuously on a white bed, to American music of the seventies. He imagined his wife as the main character of the video (the dark-haired one with the large tits), and he became excited with vague memories of the malicious smile and the red complexion.
Suddenly, one of the girls in the movie arose from the bed, and moved towards the glass of the television, speaking to him in a soft voice and seductively offering him her hand:
- Come with me and we will have fun! -the psychiatrist didn't give notice her eyes, and, without thinking twice, he took her youthful hand and removed her dress. In that instant, he began to get excited and his bald patch and face acquired the typical red colour of sex. He was thrown onto the bed, and while the redheaded one undressed him, the brunette kissed his entire body. The doctor closed his eyes and succumbed to them his enormous member, grossly erect, as the two women grabbed it and rubbed violently. Suddenly, everything became red and in that light, the two women took Susana's form and his WIFE’S. He was afraid that when he checked the smiles of the two girls, they would be like two lionesses with sharp eyeteeth and superlative fingernails. They rushed at the doctor, and shredded him to pieces till everything was covered with his own blood.
- Do you have the data of the Rorschach test? -his wife told him while he was conferring with colleagues that his Argentinean accent was exaggerated.
Susana looked at her purple portfolio and adjusted her glasses. Her hair was tied back, held in a bun and all looked attentively at her neckline, rather than awaiting the secretary's words.
- No, it should not have been so strong. It doesn't sound like me.
- We have not conducted any tests. She has not spoken to us. It has been very laborious trying to figure out her history- he told Sister Alicia - we only have the medical part, that is to say, the analytical side, the physical exploration.
- And... How...?
- She is becoming anemic. That is because she won’t eat. There are no clues as to her sickness. She moves normally; she walks normally.
- And the catscan?- Doctor Tarr asked, musingly rubbing his grey beard.
- On Thursday, she will be taken to Zaragoza... Susana hastened to answer, as if hiding any connection with the psychiatrist.
- Good, I believe that we should wait before we speak any further on the subject –he was reminded that the director was the nun, Sister Alicia. He was an errand boy, no more. He was not the boss of anything, a fact especially painful for the psychoanalyst.
- We will dismiss for lunch and then he will explain further. –Sister Alicia said, authorizing all to leave the room. Pepejuan didn't know whether he should be nervous or proud or whatever. “He will speak, and then we will have an opportunity to ask questions.”
- More or less in one hour, here, then. I hope everyone will have read what little information we have.
“I don’t know how to explain it but Maika, herself, seems well . Her symptoms may be the result of her youth. Her mother was special. She was very young.
Her mother was young and the dream can be directed at her or....”
During the four hours of rigorous discussion that followed, the dream was reviewed once more. The meeting of the team of professionals implied that the case of the story Maika’s dream stupefied them all. This time, all was more tense and an audacious silence reigned within the office. Pepejuan learned quickly and he took a fluffed armchair leaving the designated seat of gray formica for Sister Alicia. All awaited him. They murmured until the most myopic psychiatrist asked him:
- What kind of shock?
Pepejuan thought and he took his time in answering. Anxiously, they showed fatigue and a certain anguish.
- If you remember, we are in a feminine hospital.
- A brilliant deduction, -replied SisterAlicia, eyes shining.
The GIRLFRIEND hugged her lover of half the afternoon and she had another orgasm without him even knowing it. It was blissful and carameled. She went to take a shower with Stravinsky playing in the background and she was surprised to see her nakedness in the mirror. She hadn’t realized how voluptuous she was, with curves so beautiful. Perhaps she was still excited; she didn't know. She only knew that she was proud of her body and she caressed it with her eyes, outlining her image in mirror. Then she looked at her lover in the bed. His chest ascended and it lowereded like jumping on a trampoline, memories of her childhood.
- If I jump with all my might, I will touch the sky and I will fly...
She stood up on her lover's chest for that reason. She wanted to fly, to ascend very high.
Then she tramped on the still sleeping boy's lungs, succumbing to each impulse with an intense assault. As if he were drowning, he expelled water like a geyser, a great ejaculation.
To the GIRLFRIEND'S surprise, the ogre in the eyes of Pepejuan puffed and he expelled more water. She was driven by the ogre's current to make more leaps into the air. Then she arrived to another country, the country of the sky, with a immense palace and bedazzling light.
She went for a walk amongst the clouds and came upon a man who was dressed in a sackcloth tunic. She whispered to him:
- Hello!
She discovered that the man that she was addressing was Pepejuan, himself, and surprisingly, she was happy to see him amoungst the clouds. Pepejuan had become five or six times smaller than the ogress, and she held him between her arms, as if he were a teddy bear that she could easily suffocate, so she threw him back onto the fluffed floor, of cotton.
- You have, you have very big eyes –Pepejuan commented ironically, as he viewed the naked GIRLFRIEND in enormous dimensions, accentuating her nakedness. From below, he could see the fleshier defects of her body, even the drops of humidity, of the shower, that he had not seen before that moment. He found the GIRLFRIEND'S nakedness nice, in a cheap exuberance when drinking of a drop of water that fell from her pubis and it seemed a puddle.
- A fly from here would be as large as a poodle... -Pepejuan had to scream forcefully so that his words would arrive with clarity to those auditory pavilions of the vaulted being.
- A pekinese would be more ugly. -The girlfriend annotated, following along with the joke.
A strident bellow in the distance caused the ogress’s look to solidify into fondness, a passion between two beings of very different size. The ogress heard the snores belonging to the ogre calling her.
The girl's expression wrinkled above the clouds.
The ogre's terrifying bellows became insistent, and sadly, she had to leave, without saying goodbye.
- I must leave.
More strident screams made him wake up. She was over the boy as he snored, and she mounted him.
The telephone on the little table rang. She remembered Pepejuan and became angry. She picked up the receiver and put it to her ear, as if still faking the dream.
- You again...
- I imagine that it will be the hospital...
- Why don't you ever flirt with damned, little Maika?
- I have the bathtub full with water. We can watch each other.
Excursions were meant to increase the environment of the mental patients. This time, they were going for a picnic. Everyone enjoyed the scenery, being able to touch the sky with their eyes.
They would travel in an old and noisy bus that was already waiting them in the driveway. A couple of dozen of interns followed the orders of religious instructors, but were more engrossed in what cards would go together in a game of solitaire. Pepejuan saw the uniformed figures of the crazy ones as prey in common prison. The same driveway from which they had all arrived, had then become unhinged. Now, he found this absolutely unacceptable. He had come to see that mental illness usually deprives persons of their will, and, in the psychiatric hospital, of their freedom, as well. This upset him, greatly.
The bus turned onto the road. The motor made a lot of noise. Some silly ones imitated it with their palms and and by blowing with their mouths, guberring against the dirty, red plastic seats. A nun requested silence, her voice filled with authority.. She never knew why she ordered them to remain silent. It couldn’t change anything anymore than it could keep the green from appearing, as the vines covered the road, aligned in grids and a stealthy sun floated into the windows. The grasslands and the adjacent hills arrived giving beauty to the landscape and sense to the color. The nuns were happier than the interns seemed to be, to be able to get outdoors. Marisima was sleeping, making amusing expressions to the delight of some young girls with short hair. Suddenly, the bus stopped. It braked sharply. There was a flock of sheep crossing the highway that the driver didn’t want to run over. The bus was surrounded by sheep, bleats, and a carpet of black shits that looked like olives.
They drove through a swamp surrounded by secrets of evolution impossible to believe for a person of the cloth. They were already beyond the acacia forest and the orderly rock formations. The day had been sunny, but when it darkened, the autumn signed its presence, and the wind and the cold invaded everyone.
Maika transmitted her love for Marisima through her hand. The clearing perspired with its own heat, with necessity, with reality, as the heavy bodies collapsed with more forcefulness than bodies of onion paper in the sea. The scenery was beautiful; their senses carried them along nature’s natural path. The hues of foliage in the three trees above them created a prism which blended the greenish colour with the sky and sun. The carpet of grass, the perfumed afternoon breeze, the silence of the machines, the protests of crows and goldfinches, the fresh temperature that was the precurser to the ice of the evening, the necessity that the bodies were narrowed in an infinite succession of caresses that they protected with the heat of life: the image of the fused bodies that all men should keep in some corner of their heart that it can be this way: human and animal in a recognition of love. Intimacy, what everyone needs to express, what we all long for and require, the way of expressing love and that, since it was a part of life that she could express, Maika’s love seemed to be at its limit. It was not so much the physical possession or the social rite of homosexual love between two women, that was the difference, but one of them was nun...! That iwas why Marisima had worried and decided to end any social involment with her. Maika knew that they had made their crazy world even more crazy, a world filled with the lunacy of the asylum. She wanted to see her life in the mirror of her eyes, already feeling love or life. Summing up that look, rejecting the world and its insanity and taking a conscious risk, she felt unique, with the repeated caresses: the text of the universe, as Marisima called it. The passport to the world of Maika and the republic of Marisima were smiles and a few words.
- Hug me! -Maika whispered into the excited lobe of Marisima, coming in close contact of her disordered brown mane.
The instants of Marisima whirled around: thoughts, questions, realities, and fantasies entwined in her skin and were wrapped in virgin wool. With her hand confused in that of Maika, she only thought of her desire to go to bed with her. What she wanted went against her total being. To respond to that blasphamy, to the distant world of her feelings, would make her marriage with God a total farce. She was in a mental clinic to give help to faded souls, and instead had absorbed all the human insanities herself. She could only smile as she came to realize the way that deadly ironic adaption is always ignored. Marisima had dreamt very much, as she worked at night. The dreams had accumulated without expressing themselves during days and days and, finally, found their explosion in Maika.
- But Maika, is love between women really love?”
- All love is important. Pollen falls to be assimilated into the earth. Feathers fall to settle smoothly into the earth, to be assimilated or not, but they also fall.
Marisima and Maika were quiet because they only needed their eyes to speak. They faced the dawn of a hope when their atmospheres became one. Their saliva mingled in the rhythm of their lips. With their kisses, they uncovered the magnetism, the unavoidable, senseless attraction; borne out of the mountains, of the grassland, of the forest. Their bodies began to approach the quickening violence of their lust. Maika unfastened her skirt and Marisima her bra. The intimate dance of the voluptuous sighs began and spasmodic movements touched the bowels of the two bodies, rubbing in ecstasy. Both managed to discover their pleasure, like a kind of immortal sense, and, although only they had only lifted their sweaters, it was a lot to feel the cold grass and to enjoy the skin of the other. Hands travelled along their entire bodies, as the two women moved away from the others, both patients and instructors. Marisima’s exaggerated orgasms didn't seem to be the resolution of a sexual union, savage and perfect. They happened one after the other, in the natural way, that had excluded all things living that had any relation to either of them. Their movements were abrupt and disproportionate as they lay on ground that, in the beginnings of the spring, seemed humid, but when changing position, was only cold. A brilliant and distant bell announced the allotment of food and the command sounded that all were to come together, in the center of the valley,in the vicinity of the bus. Ithe sound and the bottom fell out of her world as everything became liquid and formed a whirl in the drain of her existence, in perpetual precipitation. They started for the road, while straightening their clothes. Marisima cried spasmodically and Maika hugged her forcefully, caressing the nun's cheekbones. Near the clearing of the bus, Maika mumbled:
- You know a little more than what is my world... What do you think?
Marisima didn't say anything because they could already be seen clearly Already in view of all, Marisima felt target of tortuous looks. She felt near her breaking point, and she had let her desires become transparent.
An intern didn't know that the aluminum wrapping wasn’t to be eaten and Maika explained to her it with inappropriate sweetness as if she was a diagnosed person of galloping autism. Some were surprised, but a student nurse ran and grabbed Marisima by the arm, begging her relentlessly, to speak to some depressed people in the corner. Everyone else became quiet as she kept on urging, and Marisima saw that the one who never spoke to amyone was giving a lecture to the other depressed ones in the corner.
"Everyone knows that the Basque is not really crazy. We only call her crazy because she faces her desires, because she heals minds, because she is not of this world. If they knew that she is less crazy than the sane without hunger, not wanting anything that it is not socially acceptable, with suffering..."
They ate salami sandwiches and drank lemonade. They sipped peaches in syrup and a nun in a habit took out the guitar. Soon the chords of several mass songs filled the air. Maika smiled and clapped the loudest. Marisima felt an unpleasant cocktail between pain and sleep. Something jabbed her in her thigh pocket. It was her crucifix. She hung it around her neck and turned it around the proper way.
The field was wide. It took almost an hour to return, and they continued holding hands. The speech of the stream accompanied the fresh and green afternoon. Many clouds, a redheaded one, and a blonde, in the Pyrenees.
Maika had known this feeling before, the sweet yearning of love. She knew what to expect and what would be the outcome, always remaining faithful to the desire. “I would be prepared.” A prophet was announced and they both waited. The village was allowed to see, there, from a distance.
The sky threatened rain. This accelerated the steps of the two country girls. Maika had red hair and was freckled. She wore a small tennis skirt (in fact, she did play tennis), and a red cotton-sweater that had some words written on it in black: Moscow-80, something that had already happened. The birds screeched in the forest of their imaginations, the grass was high that autumn. The brunette had hair like black satin, shorter than Maika’s, and covering her forehead. They walked briskly, disshevelling their hair although neither one of them cared.
- From today, nothing will be the same.- Maika said - I wonder what this will do to my mother?
- Maika, stop. I must tell you something. – Only 100 meters of the first house of the town, the rhythm of their steps slowed.
Maika,worriedly, looked at Marisima’s eyes.
- What a face! What’s the matter, love?
The recently laid flooring still smelled new to Pepejuan.. He ate a segment of orange, aware of the collission of its coolness in his warm mouth. They had not yet moved all of her things. Pepejuan wanted to live with her, but she didn't want to live with him.
- Tomorrow, I have the practicum of the infirmary students in the women’s asylum. Well, I don't know why I don't just say my female students since they are all aunts. That is to say, I must get up early.
Pepejuan buckled up his fly before the GIRLFRIEND'S nudity.
- Is something wrong?
- Why do you ask?
- You sound so cold and disappointed.
- You guessed right. You always guess right.
The floor was not finished; everything smelled of plastic paint, so that Rafael's heart drank the liquor without ice and didn't even need to swallow. Her heels gave a rhythm to the girl as she looked for her panties:
- Oh! I’m late.
-If you’re with me, the others can wait, even your mother!
- But she has to go to the dentist.
He made a grimace of disapproval.
- I can’t believe that you are a psychiatrist and that you work in an asylum of women, with women and for women.
- Is your mother so crazy, also?
She thought she smelt a rat lot and she found her panties.
- Also?
- Oh silly! I was just kidding. What a face! You’re pouting!
María was on her way to chapel, to pray a while before starting work. She loved being a nun and to be able escape the complexities of life. She approached all questions entirely as they pertained to God, thoughts in uppercase, in printed letters.
The dimness of the marble altar, the scent of inscense and the creaking of the wooden floor, were all that Marísima needed.
A fellow nun, wearing glasses, whispered in her ear, almost celestially:
- I also have the night shift.
María was enormous, tall and big but well-proportioned. She got up from the couch leaving the nun with the face covered by shades. In the school, everyone all called her “Marisima" (an odd nickname, the superlative of Maria, in Spanish).
- Great -she said continuing to whisper - but you bring the pack of cards. Mine doesn't have the king of clubs.
- Well,
- What did you think?
- Why do you ask?
- You should see your face!
The OLD LADY wandered through the furniture section of the department store without seeing anything she liked, without knowing what she wanted. Desparately wanting to buy something, she continue to look.
- Excuse me! -she called to the bispectacled clerk in the green suit –how much does this dresser cost?
“Am I to be taken for some sort of idiot, perhaps to be bronzed as the older model? Why must I support my husband's infidelity if I don't condone it?”
The young man’s eyes began to sparkle because he knew that he would sell something and perhaps, the section boss could forget that little matter of his affair with the lady in the apple-green miniskirt who turned out to be the plant boss's niece. Even that she was left.
- This is a wonderful choice. It is a walnut dresser that is more than an antique. It is a work of art that reflects the style... -the OLD LADY interupted him abruptly:
- What a face! I don’t really care. I just want to know how much it is?
The air turned cool without being invited.
- Maika, look, I didn't know how to tell you this. I put it off. I rehearsed and I thought that it would harm you less, like removing a bandage from a wound, if I just did it quickly. Tomorrow, I leave for Zaragoza to study ‘social work’ at the university there.
Maika became petrified, looking at nothing, like a zombi. She walked very for a long time, stumbling, as rigid as a character in Frankestein movie. People of the town noticed the disharmony: the sweetest girl in the town, beautiful and soft, she became a being of another world. A gentleman in a corduroy hunting hat noticed her:
- Juani! Call the doctor. Your daughter seems half dead!