back from the rock that worried us, because some scoundrel, that’s what my dad said, some scoundrel in the boat might, I don’t know. My dad didn’t say what.
Anabela scoffed and turned her back on us. In fact, I think she had only asked for the sake of it, she already knew none of us had the nerve to swim that far. Not just because we were afraid of El Cerrito, but because of the awful punishment our parents had threatened us with if we dared go. And what about Anabela’s parents? Did she have their permission? It’s funny, because I had never thought about it before that afternoon. I had imagined she must have, or had imagined nothing at all. Nothing. Anabela was tall, and very fast, who could forbid Anabela anything? When I saw her walk once more to the water’s edge that afternoon, when I saw her move, I don’t know, in that way she had, I felt something tremendous there, between my stomach and sternum. Until suddenly Anabela heard a voice, and I heard that voice too and I realized it was mine telling her: I’ll go with you.
It was a burning sensation down there.
Anabela turned toward us in surprise. She shrugged, the light bouncing off her shoulders, I don’t know, like a beach ball, it rolled down her arms and all she said was: All right. Let’s go.
The others looked at me, I know for sure, with more envy than fear, and I even suspected one of them was going to tell on me to my dad. Was I doing the right thing? But there was no time for hesitation, because Anabela’s suntanned arm was already tugging at mine, her yellow down was guiding me to the sea, and her feet and mine made the pebbles crunch at the water’s edge, that was happening now and it was almost impossible to believe. Then I had the feeling I had been born and learned to swim and spent the summer holidays at that beach just for this, to perceive that moment, I don’t say experience it because in that instant it wasn’t happening to me, it was happening to somebody else. I saw myself take my first strokes behind Anabela’s thrashing legs, Anabela’s feet that went in and out of the water. My friends were yelling, it made no difference.
I don’t know how far we swam. The sun was blinding us, we could no longer hear voices from the beach, only the sound of the waves and the seagulls. We felt a mixture of cold and heat, the current was pulling us along and I was happy. When we set out, the first few minutes, I had only thought about what I was going to say to Anabela, how I should behave when we reached the rock. But then everything started getting wet, I don’t know, sort of going soggy, my head too, and I stopped thinking and I realized this was it, we were together, we were swimming as if we were speaking. From time to time, Anabela would turn her head to make sure I was still following her, and I tried to keep my head up high and smile at her, swallowing salty water, so that she saw I could keep up with her, although the truth was I couldn’t. We only stopped for a rest twice, the second time because I asked her, and I felt a bit ashamed. She floated and taught me how to play dead, she explained exactly what you have to do with your stomach and lungs in order to stay afloat, like a lilo. I thought I was no good at it, but she congratulated me and laughed like, I don’t know what, and I thought about kissing her and I laughed too and I swallowed water. That’s when I decided that instead of telling my friends how things had gone, instead of boasting about every detail, which is what I had planned to do at first, I wasn’t going to tell them anything. Not a word. I was just going to remain silent, smiling, triumphant, with a knowing look on my face, like Anabela, in order to let them imagine whatever they liked.
I don’t know how far we swam altogether, but El Cerrito was close, or it looked close. It was a while since we had stopped the second time. I felt exhausted, Anabela was relaxed. I was no longer enjoying myself, I had only one mission, to keep going, keep going, to push with my arms, my stomach, my neck, everything. That’s why it is so difficult to explain what happened, it was all very quick or very invisible. Every second stroke I rolled my head half out of the water, glanced at the rock and calculated how far we had left to go, and to take my mind off my tiredness I started to count Anabela’s fast kicks and my own heartbeat. It was because I was counting Anabela’s kicks, that I was so surprised when I paused for a moment, saw the rock ahead of me and didn’t see her. She was simply gone. As if she had never been there. I turned in circles a few times, arms flailing, swinging my head from side to side. I saw myself in mid-ocean, miles from the beach, still a long way from El Cerrito, floating in the midst of silence, with no sign of Anabela. And I felt, I don’t know, doubly frightened. Not just because I was alone. But because I realized that for a good while I had been counting my own kicks.
I cried out a few times, the way she had perhaps cried out when I hadn’t heard her or had mistaken her cries for seagulls, I don’t know. But crying out exhausted me as well, and it made my body ache. I realized if I wanted to have the slightest chance of reaching the rock I had no choice but to be quiet, calm down, stifle my terror and keep swimming. Move forward and keep swimming, nothing more. This time I didn’t count, I didn’t think, I didn’t feel anything.
I swam until I lost all sense of time, as if I were part of the sea.
By the time I reached the shore of El Cerrito, the waves were dragging me along almost with no resistance. My body was one thing and I was another, I don’t know. I don’t remember much about it. My head was spinning, I could hardly see, I was gasping so much no air came out, it only went in. My blood was going to explode, my arms and legs felt hollow or, I don’t know, like a deflated lilo. Sprawled amid the rocks, I heard voices approach, I saw or thought I saw several naked men around me, suddenly I felt like going to sleep, someone touched my chest, I was drifting off, air started coming out of my mouth, I made an effort, I opened my eyes and now, yes, I thought about Anabela, and how I had done it, how for once I had been good enough for her.
The air smelled of leather. A studied gloom made it difficult to see anything properly. Almost all the coats appeared to be in good condition. She steadied her glasses. She was thinking of her husband’s unpredictable taste, somewhere between conventional and whimsical. She felt an urgent need to smoke. That night, or tomorrow morning at the latest, her period was going to start: an insistent dagger below her navel and a feeling of irritation at everything were signs.
She took a brown leather double-breasted coat off the hanger. Scrutinized it for a moment. She hung it up again, took down one that was black and had a pointed collar. She hung that up too and took down another longer gray one with big padded shoulders. Too manly, she thought maliciously. Returning it to the rack, she reached for a dark suede jacket and looked at it approvingly: it was just right for her husband’s old-fashioned taste. She could picture it on him with amazing clarity, as if she had already seen him wearing it, as if it had always belonged to him. In fact, now she thought about it, the coat was almost identical to the one she herself had given him the Christmas before last. But that was impossible. She tried to make sure. She examined the lining, the buttonholes, the sleeves: they looked the same, but how could she remember the exact shape of the buttons, or the brand? It was the same size too, although her husband wore the same size as most men. She noticed that the elbows were not at all worn: it might be, it might not be.
She paused to think it over. How could it have ended up here? Why would her husband pawn his present from the Christmas before last? Things hadn’t been going so well over the past year. But they hadn’t gone that badly. Or had they? She tried to recall their most recent arguments. No, there must be other reasons. It could simply be that he hated the coat (how elegant, he had exclaimed, you can’t imagine how badly I needed one), or that he couldn’t find an excuse not to wear it, and so decided to sell it and later pretend he had lost it (it looks great on me, really great, he had insisted). But her husband hadn’t said anything about having lost the coat. And yet she had no recollection of ever having seen him in it either, except the day he had tried it on at home. She studied the coat once more, then put it back. It was that one. It wasn’t that one. She didn’t know if it was that one. She felt the dagger twisting in her stomach again, and a pain encircling her head and pressing down on her vertebrae. She had spent all day—all her life—on her feet. When had they last gone on a trip? A real trip, just the two of them? They hadn’t had enough money. Or, above all, any reason to go. But that dark suede coat, where on earth had it come from? She searched the inside pockets, hoping to find some evidence