What We Become

by Arturo Pérez-Reverte

  “Over there, a block away,” he went on, “is El Puentecito, the local café where my father sometimes took us to lunch on a Sunday, when business was good.”

  “What did your father do?”

  “Different things, none of them successful. He worked in factories, owned a scrap yard, transported meat and dry goods . . . He was one of those men who are born unlucky and never manage to escape their fate. One day he grew tired of trying, and went back to Spain, taking us with him.”

  “Do you feel nostalgic about your old neighborhood?”

  Max half-closed his eyes. He could easily conjure images of games played along the banks of the Riachuelo, among the derelict, half-submerged boats and barges, pretending he was a pirate on the murky waters. And secretly envying the son of the man who owned the Colombo limekiln, the only boy who had a bicycle.

  “I feel nostalgia for my childhood,” he said. “I guess the neighborhood doesn’t matter so much.”

  Mecha walked on again, and Max followed suit. They drew close to the bridge at the end of the street, where the distant lights gently illuminated the tram tracks.

  “Well”—her tone was one of compassion and perhaps condescension—“your origins were noble, however humble.”

  “Humble origins are never noble.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  He laughed between clenched teeth. Almost to himself. Closer to the water, the chorus of crickets and frogs on the riverbank was almost deafening. The air was damper, and he noticed that she was shivering. She had left her silk shawl behind in the warehouse, draped over the back of her chair.

  “What did you do after that? . . . After you returned to Spain.”

  “A bit of everything. I was in school for a couple of years. Then I left home, and a friend found me a job as a bellboy at the Ritz Hotel in Barcelona. Fifty pesetas a month. Plus tips.”

  Mecha Inzunza, arms folded, was still shivering. Without a word, Max took off his jacket and placed it around her shoulders. As he did so, his eyes wandered briefly along her long, exposed neck beneath her bobbed hair, silhouetted against the hazy light on the far side of the bridge. For an instant, he noticed the same glow reflected in her eyes, which for a few seconds were very close to him. He noticed she had a pleasant smell, despite the smoke, the perspiration, and the stuffiness of the bar. A smell of clean skin and perfume that hadn’t quite faded.

  “I know everything about hotels and bellboys,” he went on, fully regaining his composure. “You have before you an expert in mailing letters, working nights while resisting the lure of nearby sofas, running errands, and trudging ’round foyers and lounges calling out, ‘Señor Martinez, to the telephone.’ ”

  “Goodness.” She seemed amused. “A whole other world, I imagine.”

  “You’d be surprised. From the outside it’s difficult to see beyond the two rows of gold buttons, or the none-too-white jacket of a waiter who serves cocktails and keeps his mouth shut.”

  “You worry me. . . . You sound positively Bolshevik.”

  Max roared with laughter. He heard her laugh, too, beside him.

  “It isn’t true that I worry you. But I ought to.”

  Mecha Inzunza’s white glove, which she had folded and tucked into Max’s top jacket pocket when he went to dance tango with the blonde woman, shone in the dark and seemed to establish an almost intimate bond between them, he reflected, a kind of silent collusion.

  “Believe it or not,” he continued in a lighthearted tone, “I am also an expert on tipping. . . . Because of your social position, you and your husband are used to giving tips. But you are doubtless unaware that there are one-, three-, and five-peseta guests. All those who see themselves as blonde, brunette, tall, short, industrialists, salesmen, millionaires, or civil engineers are unaware that this is how hotel employees actually classify them. Imagine, there are even people in rooms costing over a hundred pesetas a day who tip ten centimes. . . .”

  Mecha did not reply immediately, but seemed to reflect about what he had said with absolute seriousness.

  “I imagine that for a ballroom dancer, tips must be important, too,” she said at last.

  “Of course. A lady who is happy with a waltz can slip a banknote into your jacket pocket that covers your expenses for the rest of the evening, or the entire week.”

  He couldn’t help a note of bitterness from creeping into his voice as he explained this: a touch of resentment which, he thought, he had no reason to conceal. She seemed to be listening very carefully, and had noticed it.

  “Listen, Max . . . unlike most people, men in particular, I have nothing against ballroom dancers. Or against gigolos for that matter. . . . Even in this day and age, a woman dressed by Lelong or Patou can’t possibly go to restaurants or balls unaccompanied.”

  “Don’t feel you need to humor me. I have no illusions. I lost them long ago in cold, damp boardinghouses with threadbare blankets, and only half a bottle of wine to keep me warm.”

  A moment’s silence followed. Max knew what the next question would be an instant before she uttered it.

  “And a woman?”

  “Yes. Sometimes there was a woman as well.”

  “Give me a cigarette.”

  He took out his cigarette case. There were three left, he calculated almost by touch.

  “Light it for me, please.”

  He did so. By the light of the flame he could see that she was looking straight at him. Still dazzled by the glow after he blew it out, he took a few puffs on the cigarette before placing it between her lips. She accepted it without resorting to her cigarette holder.

  “What attracted you to the Cap Polonio?”

  “The tips . . . And a contract, of course. I’ve been on other ships. There is a good atmosphere on the liners going to Buenos Aires and Montevideo. The journeys are long and the ladies want to enjoy themselves on board. My Latin looks and the fact that I can dance tango and other fashionable things helps. And languages.”

  “Which other languages do you speak?”

  “French. And a smattering of German.”

  She had discarded her cigarette.

  “Even though you started out as a bellboy, you are a gentleman. . . . Where did you learn your manners?”

  Max burst out laughing. He was watching the tiny dying ember at her feet.

  “From illustrated magazines: reading about the wider world, fashion, high society . . . looking around me. Observing the conversations and manners of those who possess them. The odd friend occasionally advised me, too.”

  “Do you enjoy your job?”

  “Sometimes. Dancing isn’t only a way of earning a living. It is also an excuse to hold a beautiful woman in your arms.”

  “And are you always so immaculately turned out, in a tailcoat or tuxedo?”

  “Of course. Those are my work clothes.” He was about to add: “for which I am still indebted to a tailor on Rue Danton,” but stopped himself. “Whether I am dancing a tango, a fox-trot, or a Black Bottom.”

  “You disappoint me. I imagined you dancing lewd tangos in the seediest bars in Pigalle . . . places that only come alive after dark, when whores, ruffians, and villains parade beneath the street lamps.”

  “You seem familiar with the ambience.”

  “I already told you La Ferroviaria isn’t the first shady place I have visited. Some people describe it as getting sordid pleasure from living dangerously.”

  “Or as my father used to say: ‘He became a lion tamer and was eaten by his pupil.’ ”

  “A sensible man, your father.”

  They walked back slowly the way they had come, toward the street lamp on the corner of La Ferroviaria. She seemed to move slightly ahead of him, head bowed. Enigmatic.

  “And what does your husband think?”

  “Armando is as curious as I am. Or almost.” />
  Max considered the implications of the word curious. He thought of that Juan Rebenque fellow, standing in front of their table with the swagger of a dangerous, malicious thug, and the cold arrogance with which she had accepted the challenge. He thought, too, of her hips sheathed in her fine silk dress, gyrating around the ruffian’s body. “It’s your turn,” she had said defiantly, deliberately, when she came back to their table.

  “I know Pigalle and those places,” said Max. “Although as a dancer I worked elsewhere. Until March I was at a Russian cabaret called Le Scheherazade in Rue de Liège, in Montmartre. Before that at the Kasmet and the Casanova. And at tea dances in the Ritz, as well as in Deauville and Biarritz during the high season.”

  “Excellent. You seem to have plenty of work.”

  “I can’t complain. Tango has made it fashionable to be or to look Argentinian.”

  “Why did you end up living in France rather than Spain?”

  “It’s a long story. It would bore you.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Perhaps I would bore myself.”

  She stopped in her tracks. The electric street lamp now illuminated her features a little better. Clear-cut lines, he noticed once again. Extraordinarily composed. Even her most banal gestures had the casual gracefulness of a master’s sketch.

  “Our paths might have crossed there,” she said.

  “It’s possible, though unlikely.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you on the ship: I would have remembered you.”

  She looked straight at him, without responding. A duplicated image in her steady eyes.

  “Do you know what?” he said. “I admire the ease with which you accept being told you are beautiful.”

  Mecha Inzunza remained silent for a moment, her eyes still fixed on him. Only now it seemed that she was smiling: a faint shadow bisected by the light shining on one side of her mouth.

  “I understand your success with the ladies. You are a handsome fellow. . . . Doesn’t having broken a few hearts, whether of older or younger women, weigh on your conscience?”

  “Not at all.”

  “You’re right. Remorse is unusual among men when money or sex is the object, and among women when there is a man involved. . . . Besides, we are less appreciative of gentlemanly behavior and sentiments than men might think. And we often show it by falling for ruffians or ill-mannered louts.”

  She walked up to the bar’s entrance and paused, as if she had never opened a door herself.

  “Surprise me, Max. I am patient. Capable of waiting for you to astonish me.”

  Mustering every shred of his composure, Max reached out to open the door. Had he not known that the chauffeur was watching them from the car, he would have tried to kiss her.

  “Your husband . . .”

  “For God’s sake. Forget about my husband.”

  Max’s recollections of the night before at La Ferroviaria accompanied the swish of the blade on his chin. He had not yet shaved the patch of foam on his left cheek when there was a knock at the door. Heedless of his appearance (he was dressed in trousers and shoes, but with only an undershirt on top, and his suspenders were hanging down at his sides), he went to open it, and stood clutching the handle, mouth gaping.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  She wore a loose-fitting casual dress, with a straight cut, a blue-and-white polka-dot scarf, and a cloche hat that framed her face. She was gazing with amusement at the razor in his right hand. Then her eyes moved up to meet his, first taking in the undershirt, the suspenders, and the remnants of shaving foam on his cheek.

  “Perhaps this is a bad time,” she said, with disconcerting calm.

  By then, Max had regained enough presence of mind to respond, murmuring an apology for his state of undress before ushering her in. He closed the door, left the razor in the washbowl, pulled the coverlet over his unmade bed, slipped on a collarless shirt, and hitched up his suspenders, trying to think quickly and to calm himself as he did so.

  “Forgive the mess. I had no idea . . .”

  Mecha Inzunza had not uttered another word and was watching him tidy up, apparently relishing his embarrassment.

  “I came to fetch my glove.”

  Max blinked, not understanding.

  “Your glove?”

  “Yes.”

  Still flustered, he finally realized what she meant and opened the wardrobe. The glove was still protruding from the top pocket of the jacket he had been wearing the night before. Next to that hung a gray, three-piece suit, a pair of flannel trousers, and the two evening jackets, a tuxedo and a tailcoat that he wore for work. There was also a pair of black patent leather shoes, half a dozen ties and pairs of socks (he had darned one of them that morning using a maté gourd), three white shirts, and half a dozen starched shirtfronts and cuffs. That was all. In the wardrobe mirror, Max noticed she was studying his movements, and felt ashamed that she should see how few clothes he owned. He made as if to put a jacket on over his shirt, but saw that she was shaking her head.

  “Please, there’s no need. It’s too hot.”

  Closing the wardrobe, he went over and gave her the glove. She took it with barely a glance, holding it in her hand as she tap-tapped the fingers lightly against her leather bag. She remained standing, deliberately ignoring the only chair in the room, as composed as if she had been in the lounge of a hotel where she was a regular guest. Glancing around her, she took in every detail: the sun slanting through the window onto the chipped floor-tiles and the battered trunk plastered with labels from ocean liners and the odd third-rate hotel offering full board and lodging; the Primus stove on the marble-topped chest of drawers; a shaving kit, a tin of tooth powder, and a tube of Sta-Comb brilliantine arranged next to the washbowl. On the bedside table beneath a kerosene lamp (the electricity at the Caboto boardinghouse was switched off at eleven at night) were his French passport, a book of matches from the Cap Polonio, and a wallet, whose meager contents (seven fifty-peso and three twenty-peso notes) were, thankfully, thought Max, not visible.

  “A glove is important,” she said. “It shouldn’t be abandoned without good reason.”

  She continued to look around her. Then she removed her hat very calmly, even as her eyes appeared casually to alight on Max. She tilted her head slightly to one side, and once more he could appreciate the long, graceful outline of her neck, which seemed even more exposed.

  “An interesting place we went to last night . . . Armando wants to go back there.”

  With some difficulty, Max returned to what she was saying.

  “Tonight?”

  “No. We have to attend a concert this evening at the Teatro Colón. . . . Would tomorrow suit you?”

  “Of course.”

  Mecha Inzunza sat down on the edge of the bed with perfect poise, ignoring the empty chair. She was still clasping her glove and hat, and a moment later she laid them to one side, together with her bag. Her skirt had ridden up, revealing more of her long, slender legs beneath the silk stockings.

  “I once read something about women losing their gloves,” she said.

  She seemed genuinely pensive, as if she had never given the matter any thought before.

  “Two gloves isn’t the same as one,” she went on. “Two would be casual neglect. One is . . .”

  She left her words hanging in the air, fixing Max with her eyes.

  “Deliberate?” he ventured.

  “If there is one thing I like about you, it’s that you could never be accused of being stupid.”

  Max held her bright gaze without flinching.

  “And I like the way you look at me,” he said softly.

  He saw her frown as though considering the implications of his remark. Then Mecha Inzunza crossed her legs, placing her hands on either side of her on the coverlet. She seemed vexed.r />
  “Really? . . . You disappoint me.” There was a note of coldness in her voice. “I am afraid that sounds conceited to me. Inappropriate.”

  This time he did not respond. He simply stood motionless before her. Waiting. After a moment, she shrugged indifferently, as one might give up faced with an absurd riddle.

  “Describe how it is I look at you,” she said.

  Max smiled suddenly, with apparent candor. This was his most winning expression, one he had rehearsed hundreds of times in front of mirrors in cheap hotels and seedy boardinghouses.

  “It makes one pity men who have never been looked at that way by a woman.”

  He could scarcely conceal his dismay when Mecha Inzunza rose to her feet, as though ready to leave. He tried desperately to think what he had done wrong. To discover the offending word or gesture. But instead of collecting her things and leaving the room, she took three steps toward him. Max had forgotten that he still had shaving foam on his face, and was surprised when she reached out to caress his cheek, and, scooping up a blob of the white froth with her forefinger, deposited it on the end of his nose.

  “You make a handsome clown,” she said.

  They flung themselves at each other, without preamble or hesitation, violently, stripping off anything that got in the way of the skin and flesh, finding their way to each other’s body. As they drew back the bedcover, the woman’s scent mingled with that of the man’s smell left on the crumpled sheets from the previous night. An intense battle of the senses followed, a lengthy clash of pent-up passion and desire, unleashed mercilessly on both sides. Max had to summon every ounce of self-discipline as he fought on three fronts to maintain the necessary calm, controlling her responses, and muffling her cries so as not to alert everyone else in the boardinghouse to their tussle. The patch of sun from the window had slowly moved until it framed the bed, and from time to time they would rest their exhausted tongues, mouths, hands, and hips, drunk on the other’s saliva and smell, their mingled perspiration gleaming under the dazzling light. And whenever that happened they would peer at each other with defiant or astonished eyes, amazed by the ferocious pleasure enveloping them, panting like a couple of wrestlers pausing during a bout, the blood throbbing in their temples, only to hurl themselves at each other once more, with the hunger of someone finally able to resolve, in an almost frenzied way, a complex personal vendetta.