The Infinite Plan (24 page)

“I don't know what the quality of my soul has to do with the perfectly natural fact that I don't like to see other men's hands between your legs!”

“A typical remark of an underdeveloped foreign culture,” Samantha retorted, impassively sipping her celery juice.

“How is that?” he asked, nonplussed.

“You're like those Latinos you grew up with. You should have stayed in the barrio.”

Gregory thought of Pedro and Inmaculada Morales and tried to imagine them naked in a hot tub with their neighbors, mutually groping for Self and Consciousness. The mere idea vented his rage, and he burst out laughing. The next Monday he told Carmen, and across two thousand miles heard his friend's uncontrollable laughter; no, no such modern innovations had reached the ghetto in Los Angeles, much less Mexico, where she was living.

“Crazy, they're all crazy,” was Carmen's assessment. “There's no way you would catch me parading naked in front of someone else's husband. I wouldn't know where to look, Greg. Besides, if men try things when I have my clothes on, imagine what would happen without them!”

“Don't be too optimistic, Carmen. No one would give you a second glance.”

“Then why do they do it?”

I did not feel at home anywhere; the barrio where I had grown up belonged to the past, and I had never put down roots anywhere else. There was very little left of my family; my wife and daughter were as cool to me as my mother and sister had been. And I missed my friends. Carmen was on another planet; I couldn't really count on Timothy, because Samantha bored him, and I think he tried to avoid us; even Balcescu—always so close to being a caricature that he was nearly impervious to change—had done a turnabout and evolved into a kind of holy man. He lived in the midst of acolytes who worshiped the air he breathed, and from seeing himself reflected in the mirror of those adoring eyes, my bizarre Romanian had come to take himself seriously. Along with his sense of humor, he seemed to have lost interest in inventing exotic dishes and cultivating roses; we had very little in common anymore. Joan and Susan were as delightful as ever, with the delicious scent of herbs and spices still clinging to their skin, but all their time was devoted to their causes: the feminist struggle and the culinary chemistry of their vegetarian recipes—they were expert in disguising tofu so that it tasted like kidney pie. I hadn't made any friends in law school. We were fiercely competitive, all of us absorbed in our own plans and ambitions, our eyes glued to our books. I had lost my taste for meetings and had even shoved my political and intellectual interests into the background. It would have been difficult to explain to Cyrus that where I was, the only problem that confronted the left was that no one wanted to occupy the right. When I went home at night I was bone tired; on the way I would toy with the possibility of taking a detour and wandering off toward the horizon, like my father when we were traveling the country without a fixed itinerary or destination. The chaos of the house got on my nerves—and I'm not a fanatic for order, to say the least. I suppose I was drained by studying and work; I have little doubt I was not acting like a good husband and that was why Samantha put forth so little effort. At times we seemed more like adversaries than allies. In such circumstances you become blind, you don't see any way to get out of the dead-end street you're on, you think you're stuck forever in the same meat grinder and that there's no escape. When you get your degree, it'll be different, Carmen would console me long-distance, but I knew the degree alone would not cure my problems. I faithfully watched a television serial about a clever lawyer who regularly gambled his reputation, and sometimes his life, to save an innocent man from jail or to punish a guilty one. I never missed a program, hoping that the protagonist would restore my enthusiasm for the law and rescue me from the terrible boredom it inspired. I had not begun to practice, and I was already disillusioned. The future looked very different from the adventure I had imagined in my youth; the last push to finish the race was so tedious that I began to talk about giving up law school and devoting myself to something different. Boredom, Timothy Duane assured me, is nothing more than anger without passion. According to him, I was angry with the world and with myself, and not without reason: my life had not been a bed of roses. He advised me to get rid of complications—beginning with my marriage to Samantha, which he considered an obvious mistake. I refused to admit it, but nonetheless a moment came when at least in that regard I had to admit he was right. It was at a party like so many we went to during those days, in a house like any other house—broken-down furniture, Indian rugs covering the stains on the sofa, posters of Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara alongside embroidered mandalas from India, the same couples, the men not wearing socks and the women not wearing bras, cold food and pieces of cheese growing more rancid as the hours went by, too much to drink, cigarettes and such poor-grade marijuana that the smoke drove away mosquitoes. The same interminable conversations as well: the latest seminars on the primal scream, in which people yelled to rid themselves of aggression; or the return to the womb, in which the naked participants assumed the fetal position and sucked their thumb. I never understood those therapies and never tried them; I was sick of the subject, sick of hearing about the multiple transcendental changes in the life of everyone I knew. I walked out to the terrace to drink alone. I admit I was drinking more every day. I had given up liquor because it triggered my allergies and, between swollen mucous membranes and a terrible tightness in my chest, I could scarcely breathe. I soon discovered that wine produced the same symptoms but that I could consume more of it before I felt really sick. Some hours before, I had had a shouting match with Samantha, and I was beginning to admit to myself that our marriage was rolling toward the edge of a precipice. I had been driving into the garage when I saw a neighbor walking toward me, leading Margaret by the hand—my daughter was barely two. I think this is your child, he said, not bothering to veil his censure or his contempt. I found her wandering a couple of miles from here; to have got that far she must have been walking since morning. I picked her up in my arms, trembling. My temples were throbbing and I could scarcely speak when I confronted my wife to ask her where she had been when Margaret got out of the house and why she hadn't realized the child had been gone so long. She planted herself with her hands on her hips, as furious as I, alleging that the neighbor was a bastard who hated her because her cats had eaten his canary, that she didn't owe me any explanations, that after all she didn't ask me where I had been all day, that Margaret was very independent for her age and that she didn't choose to watch her like a jailer or tie her up with a rope the way I did with the children I looked after, and she kept yelling until I couldn't stand any more and left the room, slamming the door. I took a long cold shower to try to stop imagining the many accidents that could have befallen Margaret in those terrible two miles, but it hadn't done the trick, because at the party I was still extremely angry with Samantha. I carried my wine out on the terrace and fell into a chair, in a foul humor, a little drunk, and sick of the deadly dull music from Katmandu I could still hear from the living room. I was thinking how much time I was wasting at that boring party; my bar exams were coming up in a week, and every minute was precious. About then Timothy Duane came outside and when he saw me pulled up a chair beside me. We didn't have many opportunities to be alone. I noticed he had lost weight in recent years and his features had become deeply chiseled; he had lost that air of innocence that despite his posturing had been a large part of his charm when we first met. He took a glass vial from his pocket, sprinkled cocaine on the back of his hand, and noisily inhaled. He offered me some, but I can't use it: it kills me; the only time I tried it, I felt as if an icy dagger were buried between my eyes—the headache lasted three days, and the promised paradise was nowhere in my memory. Tim told me we'd better go inside because they were organizing a game; I told him I wasn't interested in seeing everyone bareassed again.

“This is different. We're going to trade spouses,” and he insisted we go inside.

“You don't have a spouse, as far as I know.”

“I brought a friend.”

“She looks like a whore to me, your friend.”

“She is.” He laughed and dragged me back into the living room.

The men were gathered around the dining room table; I asked where the women were and was told they were waiting outside in the cars. Everyone was a little tense, slapping each other on the back and making double entendre remarks that were rewarded with great guffaws. Someone explained the operating principles: no turning back, no regrets, and no switches. They turned out the lights, dumped all our car keys on a tray, someone stirred them around, and each player chose a set at random. I was foggy from all the wine and too stunned to rush toward the tray like everyone else but not, after the lights came on, too blurry-eyed to see my key chain in the hand of a rather portly and pedantic dentist who was something of a minor celebrity because he pulled teeth with Chinese acupuncture needles in the feet as the only anesthesia. I picked up the last set of keys, wanting instead to grab the dentist by the shirt and flatten his nose with one of the never-fail punches Padre Larraguibel had taught me in the patio of Our Lady of Lourdes Church, but I was deterred by the fear of looking a fool. Everyone headed toward the cars, laughing and joking, but I went into the kitchen to clear my head under the cold-water faucet. I poured the dregs of some coffee from a thermos and sat on a kitchen stool to think back on times when life was simple and everyone understood the rules. After a while I became aware that my partner from the draw was standing before me, a pleasant freckle-faced blonde, the mother of three children and an elementary school arithmetic teacher, the last person with whom I would ever have thought of committing adultery. I've been waiting a long time, she said with a timid smile. I tried to explain that I didn't feel very well, but she thought I was avoiding her because I didn't find her attractive; she seemed to shrink against the door-jamb like a little girl caught doing something she shouldn't. I smiled the best smile I could, and she came to me, took my hand, helped me stand up, and led me to the car with a blend of delicacy, modesty, and determination that disarmed me. She drove us to her house. We found her children asleep in front of the television and carried them to their beds. She put on their pajamas, kissed their foreheads, pulled up the covers, and stayed with them till they fell back asleep. Then we went to her bedroom, where the photograph of her husband, dressed in his graduation gown, presided over the chest of drawers. She said she was going to slip into something more comfortable and disappeared into the bathroom while I turned back the bed, feeling like an imbecile because I couldn't stop thinking of Samantha and the dentist or wondering why the hell I couldn't relax and play these games like everyone else and why they made me so angry. The blonde returned without her makeup and brushing her hair; she was wearing a strawberry-colored quilted robe that was perfect for a mother who gets up early to prepare breakfast for her family but less than appropriate for the circumstances. There was nothing seductive in her behavior; it was as if we were an old married couple getting ready for bed after a hard day at work. She sat on my knees and began to unbutton my shirt. She had a friendly smile, a turned-up nose, and a fresh aroma of soap and toothpaste; I was not even slightly aroused. I told her she would have to forgive me, but I had drunk too much and felt ill from my allergies.

Finally I said, “The truth is that I don't know why I came. I don't like these games—I don't like them at all, and I don't think Samantha likes them either.”

“What do you mean?” and she burst out laughing, obviously amused. “Your wife goes to bed with several of your friends, so why don't you have a little fun too?”

Those were bad days for me. My life has been a series of stumbling blocks, but now, at fifty, when I look back and weigh various struggles and mishaps, I believe that period was the worst; something fundamental in my soul was forever twisted, and I was never again the same. I suppose sooner or later we all lose our naïveté. That may be for the best; I know we can't go through the world as complete innocents, defenseless, with our nerves exposed. I grew up as a street fighter. I should have been tough from the beginning, but it wasn't that way. Now that I have circled around sorrow, time and again, and can read my life as a map drawn with wrong turnings, now when I haven't a trace of self-pity and can review my life without emotion because I have found a certain peace, all I regret is the loss of innocence. I miss the idealism of youth, the time when there was still a clear dividing line between good and evil and I believed it was possible to act in accord with immutable principles. It wasn't a practical or realistic posture, I know that, but there was a pure passion in that intransigence that still moves me when I find it in others. I can't say at what moment I began to change and become the hard man I am today. It would be easy to attribute everything to the war, but in fact the deterioration began earlier than that. Or I could say that it takes a stout dose of cynicism to be a lawyer; I don't know a lawyer who isn't cynical to some degree, but that, too, is only half an answer. Carmen says I shouldn't worry, that no matter how skeptical I am, it will never be enough to get along in this world, and that I am just trying to be difficult, that despite appearances I am still the same rough and bellicose, if softhearted, animal she adopted for her brother many years ago. I know myself, however, and know what I am like inside.

Colleagues, women, friends, and clients have betrayed me, but no betrayal ever hurt as much as Samantha's, because I had not expected it. I have been suspicious ever since and am never surprised when someone disappoints me. I did not go home that night. I removed the arithmetic teacher's strawberry-colored robe, and we grappled awhile in her marital bed. She must not hold a very fond memory of me; I'm sure she expected an imaginative and expert lover, but she found herself with someone eager to get the thing over with as quickly as possible. Afterward I put on my clothes and walked to Joan and Susan's house, where I arrived at three in the morning, on my last legs and with obvious signs of being drunk. I kept my finger on the buzzer for several minutes, until they both answered, barefoot and in their nightgowns. They took me in without a question, as if they were used to receiving visitors at such an hour. While one fixed me a cup of herb tea, the other improvised a bed on the living room sofa. They must have put something in the tea, because I awoke twelve hours later with the sun on my face and my friends' dog on my feet. I think my youth ended during the hours I was asleep.