Maruxa Relaño

Three weeks ago, while we were doing our makeup in Inés’s room, I told her that one day I was going to kill Papá. Inés laughed. I was always killing off people with abuela’s little voodoo dolls and not one damn body ever turned up on the horizon. Or had “El Quishpe” actually gone and died from that invisible stab to his heart before our final exam? No. You see? In any case, Inés said that she only wished she had my guts, she hadn’t even dared to run away when the only boyfriend she’d ever had suggested it, and now it was too late because the character in question had turned into a zombie from an excess of adulterated coke; he’d even had a nasal septum made from the rib of a corpse so he could breathe again. Can you imagine? A freaking dead guy’s septum! That’s what I call being a card-carrying zombie. Wasn’t the septum actually metal? I heard it was silver or platinum, I replied, not to mess with Inés gratuitously, but because, quite frankly, it seemed much more futuristic to have some sort of chemical alloy in your body than just a simple graft from another human being. Inés said what does it matter, bone, metal or wood, the guy’s useless now. What we should do is plan our escape, go far, far away. With Mamá, I said, or at least with Nacho. With Nacho, of course, said Inés, who also loves him. I knew—I know—she loves him. On the other hand, she’s never really warmed to Mother.

And where would you like to go? I asked. Inés closed her eyes, sighed, said she’d always found Egypt intriguing. Egypt? Yes, the country with the fascinating name. Look at me, she said, take a good look at my profile. Isn’t my nose totally Egyptian? Thank God someone knocked on the door. Her housemaid was bringing us two hamburgers and two tall glasses of lemonade. She stood looking over our shoulders like a DEA agent. We tucked in, leaving lipstick marks on those big buns and on the edge of our glasses. We were facing a long session of Physiks and we needed to be ready to take on the enigmas of speed, mass, time, and light, a combination that left us feeling infinitely stupid. We did it, more than for the grade, to avoid looking bad in front of Marzziano, who had already given us a gazillion chances, because he swears that in order to understand those tiny levitating numbers above the letters, and the square brackets and roots and other psychedelic signs, all one needs is “intuition.” He doesn’t say “logic,” like in Philosophy. And it seems to me there’s something backwards about that. But, oh well . . . Before settling at the table in the garden, Inés headed to her bathroom. I’ll be right back, she said, and winked. I never say anything, I respect her. Her nose doesn’t look at all Egyptian to me, but I love her and would never lie to her. I heard her vomit for thirty-two seconds, then flush the toilet and brush her teeth furiously; maybe that’s why her gums are always bleeding, like a vampire.

I’m dying to have a bathroom of my own.

When Inés returned she said: “I bet you counted the seconds I spent ‘doing gargles.’” That’s right: “doing gargles” is what Inés calls her baffling fixation with fingering her tonsils until she gets an uncontrollable gag reflex. Then comes the vomit and that guilty joy that is slowly turning me into an accomplice to something worse, although I’m not sure what.

My obsession, on the other hand—counting time—is incredibly stupid, and that’s why I’ve only shared it with Inés, not Clarita. I count the important seconds, the seconds during which certain things take place or unfold, things that bring about a “radical change” (to use Papi’s lingo, which would be intelligent, modern language if it weren’t so fanatically social-Communist, Russo-proletarian). I don’t count, for instance, how long the word “equation” lasts or how long it takes Clara Luz to thread a needle to mend the dolls for her business, that doesn’t amount to a before and after in any significant way. I count other things that might seem irrelevant to someone else but that move life forward. Otherwise life would just be a ball of energy, a bland tumor like my father’s grease ball. For example, I know it takes three seconds to fill a glass, I know the little flowers that manage to survive in our patio (the ones grandmother calls “close-up-you-whores”) need seven seconds to turn into a closed fist, a whorled, tightly budded core, defending themselves from the sunlight.