1.
The perfect couple
Stranded on the pavement, surrounded by soybeans, cows and Rosa's screeches, I tried to concentrate on the phrase of my new psychologist: sound has no matter. These are those ideas that sound so good when they say them to you, but then they become meaningless in a second. They disappear like cotton candy in the mouth. The first stage we were slow and in a row. Leo snorted and talked to himself. I can't believe it, I knew it would be like this, we never do this again. I stretched my legs up the glove compartment and checked the phone to see if Julián's email had reached me. Received. Unread. Everyone. At Dolores's grill we ate meat, fries and had coca-cola. Leo put Los Redondos and then Bochatón. Spam. Eliminated just in case. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. Julián's mail didn't come in. Rosa threw a tantrum because she dropped her lollipop and I decided to give her her first gum. Daughter, you cry one more time and get out of the car. I thought I'd write him an e-mail and tell him that I wanted to come back and that maybe we could do the Sheraton baby plan, as he had called it. Leo's bad mood grew inside the car. I wrote and erased. Log out and log in. Nothing.
We arrived at night, with Rosa asleep. We put it in the middle of the big bed and lay down with our clothes on, one on each side, like animals in a burrow.
Only in the morning I could see the apartment better, white leather furniture, minimal environments, symmetrical decoration, everything was dissonant with the forest environment and blue sky. The rooms did not have blinds or black out. I spent the early hours of the morning walling up Rosa's windows with garbage bags and packing tape. Although she was already four years old, her sleep was still intermittent, I was worried that the sunshine at dawn would wake her up. The repetitive activity and the sound of the tape peeling off, like a creak forward, with echo and promises, reassured me; I broke it with my mouth and cut my skin, I ran my tongue over my lip, which was salty and hot meat. The first night that Rosa slept in her room, despite all the forecasts she woke up at six o'clock, and while Leo snored, we played animal memotest on the frozen porcelain floor. In the middle of the morning we took a nap. Rosa entangled in my body; her head on my chest, her hand on mine, her legs bent and nested in my belly. We woke up happy and lukewarm.
Dad and Mom were already settled in a huge house with a grill in the woods. Marina with Richard and the twins, in an apartment near ours, but nicer and bigger. Dad had two tents rented at the Santa Clara spa, where there was a pool of murky waters with children running along the slippery stone edges, always about to have an accident, which Marina called the Peronist pool. And a restaurant with fresh fish.
We immediately entered the classic routine of family vacations on the coast: heavy bags, towels, wind, sticks, mate with churros filled with dulce de leche, popsicle ball and lush roasts. And the tapiocas: tiny aguavivas that get into your genitals and leave your skin burning for hours. And the schedules: when we were all ready to go to the beach with the gear loaded, the shiny faces of protector and a basket of food, it was already twelve noon. I couldn't stand Leo, Leo couldn't stand Mom, Mom couldn't stand Marina and Marina couldn't stand anyone, but she pretended that everything was perfect. My sister, sheathed in a white robe and black glasses, dedicated herself to saying that everything worked out for her and looking to the side when one of her children hit Rosa. Every now and then he said: men are like that, very physical. That summer she was obsessed with redecorating her house, she had no other topic of conversation. I wanted to renew everything. Change your Scandinavian style furniture for a new restauration style. I had carried decorative magazines, showed me photos of antique tableware with white patinas and wondered insistently if I liked them. I didn't expect my opinion, just to confirm yours. My sister was the only adult company I had, Leo and Dad spent it on the shore with the children and mom wouldn't step on the beach. I walked in havaianas along the wooden walkways avoiding all contact with the sand, I moved slowly, imitating those women who advance as if on a conveyor belt.
One morning on the beach I asked Marina to take a picture of me in my red bikini and sent it to Julián in an email with no subject. I sat on a chair in the tent with a book and regretted not bringing headphones. In addition to the usual bowling music of the parador, there was a coordinator of children's activities who used a microphone and could not control the children's screaming. On our left landed a large family, they all had curlers, tails like cushions and brown skin. The mother made them enter the tent, sheltered from the sun that was incandescent, put in the center a bag of chizitos one meter in diameter and gradually took out more things: candy, chips, coca-cola. The noise of the soda cans opening, the cellophane of candy, the laughter, everything sounded amplified in the tent next door. Do you like this distressed chestnut brown Chesterfield armchair or do you like it better in chocolate chestnut brown without spending? , Marina told me as she paraded identical images in front of my eyes. On the other side, two young girls wearing triangle bikinis wore protective, whom men and women could not help but look at. At dusk, the slow procession of families carrying bags, mates and babies, as if all that were inexorable, made me imagine accidents, conveyors, slaughterhouses, gas chambers. Veins, scrolls and feet covered in sand were like needles in my brain.
The shore was war. The wind lifted the coarse sand that hit my ankles. I preferred the hot flash of the tent and Living magazine. Rosa, when I was away, played happily with Leo, but if I entered his field of vision, I would immediately issue a complaint. The water is very cold, the sand is very hot, the living waters are very lively. He asked me for food or something from the tent and I obeyed. Leo, who speaks little but hits the mark, always says that when he was a boy his parents gave him orders and now his daughter gives them to him.
The shore and the nights were exclusive and privileged territory of dad and Leo. They had obtained a giant metal shovel to bury the boys in the sand. The show attracted children from the neighboring tents and at the end of the afternoon they had a kindergarten. The twins monitored the activities and gave orders to the rest of the children. Leo was the god of the sea, on the second day he was already tanned with that velvet gold and spent more time in the water than outside, he almost always messed with Rosa, despite the red flag.
Dad and Leo made a perfect couple. The two of them could have gone on vacation alone, to a big house in the woods with boys and girls. They were like a small company, they had rented a freezer and loaded thirty kilos of meat, achuras, tablecloths, wooden plates and tramontinas into the Volkswagen. Wine glasses and two boxes by Luigi Bosca. And the bottles of Colman's mustards, essential for dressing cold meat the next day. Mom made a fuss at the last minute and started screaming that to move she preferred to stay at home. The first afternoon Dad and Leo went to Pinamar to get special firewood and eucalyptus that we burned at sunset.
At last one morning Julián's e-mail arrived. He said he had been ill and he was working out an interpretation that his bronchitis was due to the anger that he had been falling in love with me. The email ended with the idea that the best thing was to never see each other again. How unhappy. Hardly anything had happened between us.
The last night was the big celebration. It was fresh, the children fell down and Dad's good mood was as unbearable as it was contagious. Marina did the exotic salad show and Richard did not fail his intuition to arrive when everything was ready. I set the table: cloth tablecloths, nice crockery, white daisies that I cut from the garden and arranged in jars; and I sat down with a glass of wine to talk with my mother, who as usual was willing to pay attention to me after marking her book by bending the tip of the sheet. The clicks of fire and the sweet smell of roasting meat announced good things. There were heart gizzards, pork sausage, entails, juicy roast strip and pork breast for dessert. When we finished, Dad pushed his plate forward and put on his glasses. Richard asked her if she was going to tell us what the secret of a long and happy marriage was, and mom started shaking her head and lifting plates. He abhorred public expressions of affection. Dad was brief: we shook hands and crossed the river, it wasn't always easy, there were hard times, but we never let go of our hands.
We were dancing around a campfire that Leo made on the grill with logs and leaves. When the fire weakened, he put on a green camperon and disappeared into the forest from where he returned with more dry branches, which he accommodated and shielded with dedication until the flame burned again. Marina jumped like in an aerobics class and mom did her famous Cleopatra steps. A thousand hours, The blonde moron, Fanky, Dark beaches. Dad was watching us sitting on a high stool, he had that glassy look of a happy old man. Leo was radiant, with an energy that lately only appeared when we were with more people.
We couldn't go home because a storm broke out. The wind began to hit the glass windows with fury and, although we were several blocks from the beach, it was filled with sand everywhere. Dad decreed a curfew. We split up to sleep in the big house, Leo and I had to throw ourselves on a mattress in the room where the children were already sleeping. Deep, out-of-step breaths didn't let me fall asleep. At dawn I met Mom in the kitchen, we made tea and criticized Richard standing next to the fridge. Mom always knew when she didn't have to ask me about something and yet we never lacked a topic for conversation. We could talk about the most trivial things or the most controversial things with the same enthusiasm. We were happy to hear each other and all the choreography of the talk. I thought about telling him that I had felt something in my tit while I was showering the day before coming, but I preferred not to say anything, it was easier not to talk about it and pretend that it didn't exist. Outside a white cloak lined the roads and turned the town into a lunar landscape. There was the buzzing sound of the wind, far away, in retreat.
The next day we learned that the storm had been what is known as waterspout: the sea advanced towards the houses, roofs blew up, glass burst and cars were buried under the sand. The storm had passed, but it was going to take a long time to repair the damage. In the morning, the men went to help and a few hours later they formed a transitional community where everyone laughed while working, sharing a coke, a fernet. Leo commanded a team that spent the whole afternoon restoring the spa, his amateur carpenter skills positioned him high in the social group. The spa was razed, the tents were broken and the windows of the restaurant shattered. Leo said we couldn't leave, that we were going to stay one more day to lend a hand. He asked me to cook something for the snack, to take it to the school in Santa Clara and to collect clothes, books, everything I could get. With Marina we organized ourselves and with what was in the three houses we made several puddings, two biscuits with dulce de leche and some chocolate chip cookies. Rosa wanted to help us, Marina sat her at the counter and was giving her small tasks to entertain her. Dad separated into boxes some provisions he had brought: oil, soda, noodles. We discussed the relevance of sending mustards or not. Mom took care of gathering everyone's clothes and filled two suitcases.
At dusk, to distract the boys, Richard proposed to take them for a ride in his truck and I went with them. At the last moment Leo climbed, jumped into the box with agility, surprising us all. Rosa was standing ahead, playing with the wind, every so often she turned around to check that I was there, looking at her, we communicated with smiles. She looked like another creature of the place, with her wild curlers, red lips and tan skin of that impossible color, just like Leo's. We got off in some pastures that reached our waist and walked to the stables. A pawn who greeted Richard with a hug from old friends proposed that the boys give sugar cubes to the horses and Rosa was the only one who wanted to try. Leo carried her to upa and convinced her, she stretched out her arm, opened her small hand and when the animal ate it remained motionless while pursing her face a lot, holding her tickle. Later the pawn told us that there were several horses known as Arabs, which are distinguished because they are difficult to tame and have the highest pain threshold.
We returned the next day, there was no traffic and as soon as we got into the car Rosa fell asleep soundly. Behind us the sun began to set and the light became coppery and enveloping. We talked about our daughter, about dad's childhood joy, about how tired we were, and we agreed that we didn't want to keep coming to the coast. The following year we could go south. Then we were silent and I wrapped my hand in her hair. Leo looked at me from the side, he was always good at looking from the side, much better than looking straight ahead.
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