The Weight of the Heart

by Susana Aikin

  I can’t say when I fell asleep huddled in my armchair. I only remember the image of Marcus watching the fire before I could no longer keep my eyes open. It was late morning when I woke up. The sun poured in through the huge French windows, tickling my face. Someone had wrapped me in one of the blanket throws we kept on the sofas. Marcus was gone. On the chimney mantelpiece was a note written in his clean, precise handwriting. Keep the car until Monday. And thank you for the brandy.

  * * *

  I follow Delia and Constantine down into the kitchen, where the ceremony needs to take place. After carefully closing all doors, they ask me to stand facing the altar, just a few feet away. To the side, Constantine starts lining up items on the counter: a cigar, one of the liquor bottles, a bunch of tree branches covered in thick green leaves, matches, and finally, an egg I see him take from a padded pouch in his backpack.

  He catches me looking at him from the corner of my eye. “Don’t worry about any of this. Just relax. It will be over quickly,” he says.

  I close my eyes and wait for them to begin.

  CHAPTER 13

  First softly, and then steadily louder, I hear Delia intone a song. After a moment, I realize she’s reciting an Our Father, but in bizarre deep singing tones that remind me of a blues song or a spiritual ballad. I feel her circling around me and as I open my eyes, Constantine hands her a lit cigar, and taking it daintily with her right hand, she puts the lighted end inside her mouth and starts puffing out smoke all over my body. I am surprised at how nimble she seems as she slithers around me, now spraying me with a mist of cheap-smelling whiskey from her mouth, now going back to the cigar. In between puffs and sprays, she returns to her singsong prayer. I close my eyes once more, mostly as a defense against the alcohol spray, and now I feel something small and hard pressed against the top of my head. I can sense Delia’s smooth cold hand behind it, and realize it’s the egg I saw before on the counter, which is now being rolled down and rubbed against the back of my head, shoulders, spine, and finally all over my body. She rubs the palms of my hands with it and makes crosses over them. Then Constantine approaches from behind and strikes my shoulders with the bunch of branches, sweeps them heavily over my back and legs in downward motions. My flesh tingles under the feeling of soft whipping. A fragrance of something like eucalyptus is given off as the leaves beat on my skin, saturating my nose and lungs. The swishing sound fills my ears. For the first time in hours I feel light and relaxed, as if a weight has been lifted. Delia has stopped singing. I hear a snapping sound and watch her as she empties the content of the egg into a tall glass of water, a strange gray mass of mucousy matter that flops into the clear liquid and sinks to the bottom of the tumbler.

  “Good, good. But not enough. Not enough,” I hear Delia murmur, and she avoids my gaze when I eye her quizzically. Instead she seizes the branches from Constantine’s hands and takes over the sweeping and striking over my body, chanting loudly again. Exasperated, I close my eyes again and yield to the gentle flogging that is now making my skin flare up and itch.

  * * *

  “Take me to the mountains,” I said when I returned the car keys.

  Marcus tilted back in his chair and eyed me through a new pair of thin gold-rimmed glasses. “Would your father approve?”

  “Who cares about that?”

  “You’re aware there’s a company policy against employees seeing one another after office hours?”

  “No one has to know. Take me. Please.”

  Meanwhile, Father had returned on Sunday night and, after finding out what had happened in his absence, organized nothing short of an inquisition tribunal in order to question everyone and decide how to best discipline those responsible. Francisco and Lopez were fired, but everyone else in the office got a bonus in addition to their salary as a reward for the wait.

  Father thanked Marcus, who had stubbornly defended Francisco until the end, and after seeing him out his office door, he turned to me. “Anna, you did very well, I’m proud of you.”

  “Without Marcus, I couldn’t have done much. He saved the day,” I said.

  “I don’t believe a word of that! Of course, it was his duty to help you. Anyway, how did you get home? I see your car was being repaired at the workshop over the weekend.”

  “Marcus took me,” I said, and blushed.

  Father searched my eyes. “I hope he conducted himself as a gentleman.”

  “He did,” I said, and changed the conversation. Father had a fine nose for smelling out situations. I didn’t want any more attention drawn to Marcus.

  * * *

  The week’s wait was excruciating. Early Saturday morning, we met at one of the city exit roads to the sierra and drove in his car north to Navacerrada, one of the skiing resort areas closest to Madrid. The peak winter season was over, and it was easier to find solitary trails away from the trodden paths, after the snow had thawed. We drove up steep, winding roads surrounded by tall pine forests until we came to an open patch where it was possible to leave the car. Above us, the overcast sky was threaded with darker strands of heavy, leaden clouds. I wasn’t properly dressed. I had no good hiking boots and my jacket wasn’t even waterproof. We started on a trail ascending among pine trees and oaks. Marcus pushed ahead and I watched his strong legs pounding on the dirt path strewn with pine needles and granite shards. I followed his steps, dazed at the beauty of the forest and the crisp cool air that poured elixir-like into my lungs. Marcus waited when I fell back, and offered his hand when boulders hindered the trail. After a couple of hours we reached an open area of grasslands, an undulating sea of green sprinkled with lilac crocus flowers, the last haven at the foot of the sierra’s summits. I threw myself on the grass, exhausted. Marcus brought out sandwiches and a water bottle from his rucksack. I lay surrounded by the pungent smell of juniper bushes, knowing I wasn’t hungry for sandwiches. I reached for Marcus’s head with both hands as he kneeled down to offer me water, and pressed my lips against his. Our bodies mingled on the pasture. Eagles cruised above our heads toward the mountain peaks.

  But Marcus pulled away. “You’re so young!”

  “No, I’m not! I’m nineteen,” I said, annoyed. “You’re twenty-six, not that much older.”

  “My age cannot be compared to yours.”

  “Why is that? Because you were bullied in school?”

  We were kissing again. Slowly at first, pecking at each other’s lips and then with increasing hunger, while my body, caught between the cool plush grass and Marcus’s warm pounding torso, thickened with desire.

  Cold raindrops started falling on our hands and faces and, looking up, we saw the sky begin to darken as it prepared to downpour. We rushed back to the path, but the rain started drumming down around us, hard and freezing. We found shelter under rocks and waited for it to abate. I was soaked and shaking from the cold. Marcus held me tight as we squatted on the soft mossy ground and listened to the rain ravaging the forest.

  It tapered off after a while, and we got up and continued on our way. Fog had engulfed the woods, and the smell of ozone bounced off the earth and the resinous trunks of trees. Marcus’s warm hand held mine as we traversed the damp veil of mist that hung over the path. If only this were unending, I thought, if we never got back to the car, or to the city, or the office. If only this moment could be frozen in time.

  It was already dark when we reached the car. We drove down the road and stopped at a large stone restaurant and hotel. A huge fire blazed in the bar lounge. Very few customers were around, and the barman explained that their television set was down, so everyone had gone elsewhere to watch the soccer match. We ordered coffee and brandy and sat by the hearth, warming up and drying off our boots and jackets.

  “Let’s get a room,” I said.

  Marcus was silent for a beat. “Have you even been with a guy before?”

  “I’ve probably had more lovers than you.”

  He smirked. “You’re used to having everything you want, aren’t you?”
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  I stood up. “Look, if you don’t like me enough—” I made to leave, but Marcus pulled me to him and pressed his face against my belly.

  The room was small. Dark red curtains draped a narrow window, matching the frayed counterpane on the bed. On either side of the metal headboard stood dim bedside lamps. The smell of mold hung in the air. The barman, who doubled as hotel manager, made excuses for the chilled room temperature and switched on an infrared electric heater in a corner on the floor.

  As soon as the man stepped out, Marcus turned to me. “This is not the place where I’d ever want to make love to you. Let’s split.”

  “What does the place matter?” I said, burying my head in his chest. “You and I are the only thing that matters.” Our bodies pounded, pressed against the chilled wall.

  “You know this will change everything, don’t you?” he whispered.

  “I want everything to be changed.” I knew the room would disappear the moment our lips fused again, the moment our bodies lay enfolded in each other’s arms under the cold sheets.

  I had been with other men, or other boys, to be more precise—Miguel and a couple others from the school—but nothing had prepared me for this encounter. I shivered as Marcus undressed me under the covers, warming me up with his hands and blowing hot breath onto my skin. I wanted to fondle him, but his nudity intimidated me. I didn’t know how to start on his chiseled shoulders, his slim hips, his huge, beautiful cock.

  I’d never seen such a male body. It felt smooth and elastic as he lay over me and engulfed me in a mélange of deep caresses. My own frame felt lightweight and elusive as he pushed through my tight tissues. I knew then that whatever sex I’d had before hadn’t resolved my virginity, and that here I was being laid open for the first time, to be properly deflowered by my mountaineer lover. I surrendered to the mixture of agony and ecstasy, swayed by waves of bliss streaked with pain, while Marcus stifled my moans with kisses.

  I remember reaching a threshold, a point where my flesh relented into a feeling of gushing abandonment. I opened my eyes. My mind flitted above the bed now encircled by the pink glow of the bedside lamp like a halo. I looked at Marcus, as we lay still, panting against each other. For a moment we swam in each other’s gaze, drunk with the briny smell of love. Everything felt blurred, all matter around me seemed to be fading away, save for a smoldering point deep inside my belly where Marcus was locked in. I held my breath and clutched him tighter. I didn’t want this to ever end. But ripples of unbearable pleasure were already bursting all over me. I blacked out for a few seconds.

  When I came back, Marcus pulled out of me.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, confused, my mind hovering over my engorged body.

  He lay on his back, breathing heavily. “No one’s ready for babies here.”

  “I told you I am on the pill.”

  “I’d need hard proof of that.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  He drew me back to him, hugging me into his chest. “We’re together now. I don’t want any worries to come between us.”

  But a worry, like a tiny dark shoot, was already budding in my mind.

  How would Father take this?

  * * *

  The following week at the office was surreal. I was so sore that I walked around dragging my feet. My mind kept flying back to the mountain hotel, playing and replaying every word, every glance, every second of our lovemaking. Worst of all, my womb turned every time at the sight of Marcus, or my nose detecting his body scent of mud mixed with musk, driving me insane. I had to rearrange my desk so as to be completely out of range from him. We had agreed to keep our escapade a secret, to pretend we were still cordial coworkers with nothing else going on. I tried challenging myself to act the role of the hidden lover, but I was terrified of Father finding out about us. Marcus was right. Everything had changed.

  The office was busy after Father’s return. Following the recent purge, everyone went about business with more diligence than ever. Things were back on track, and Father was intent on reorganizing the whole operation for increased efficiency. Sales and contracts skyrocketed once more. Confident of my reliability after my performance during his absence, he began to push me into more advanced responsibilities. But I knew he was always watching me, and his shift toward a cooler, more distant manner with Marcus was the sign that, if he didn’t suspect much yet, he was preparing for that battle.

  Why did he have to be so controlling? Couldn’t he just leave us alone to pursue happiness whichever way we chose to? Why was he threatened the moment any of us showed signs of independence? We were women now, not little girls—did he feel we would desert him the moment we hooked up with a lover? Or did he want us to live eternally in his shadow?

  Marcus and I continued to see each other on the weekends. I made out to join a trekking club that got together weekly in Guadarrama for trips. Every Saturday we would meet early and drive up to the mountains, hike up the trails and explore valleys and forests, and then find a small hotel to make love in all night long. Sometimes we would just have sex all weekend, leaving our room only for brief café or restaurant breaks when we were famished. We couldn’t get enough of each other. Our bodies seemed to be made for one another. Just embracing was like entering a droplet of shared perception where we breathed together, climaxed together, dreamed together. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night and stared at the silhouette of his warm body sprawled on the bed beside me, wrapped in deep sleep, and felt he was just an extension of my own pulsing veins, of my own rhythmic breathing. And wondered how I had lived all my life without him.

  There soon came a moment when we couldn’t bear to be apart from each other. Then weekends led into furtive meetings during the week. Marcus’s apartment wasn’t a good option; he lived too close to the office and I was afraid we might be seen together. So I started sneaking him into the garden late at night, and we fucked like fugitives under the willow tree or at the far corners of the pool, always in areas steeped in shadows. I lived in a cloud of crazy bliss.

  But not everyone was fooled by my secrecy.

  “I know you’re shagging,” Silvia said one afternoon we happened to come across each other in the bathroom. “I know, ’cause your boobs have changed.”

  “Really?” I tried to sound detached.

  “Boobs change shape when they get sucked on all the time.” Silvia always made raunchy comments as her own peculiar way of bonding with women, comments that would have made me laugh in the past, but now felt vulgar, disgusting. I knew she was dying to get the gossip about my lover. I wondered if she suspected the truth.

  “I’m just working out at the gym,” I said in a cold voice. She gave me a look but didn’t say anything else. She knew I had been lost to our former girlie camaraderie after the mutiny incident. When she left the bathroom, I felt like crying. Was my love with Marcus just another one of those seedy, venal affairs of adultery and fornication with which the infamous office legends were packed?

  It was true, though, that my body had changed. I had lost weight and my waist had become very slim, whereas my breasts had filled out and my hips broadened. When I looked at myself in the mirror I saw a woman now. My face had opened with ripe, smooth cheeks and full lips, and my body was curvy and bold. Even my eyes had lost their round, childlike outline and elongated into almond shapes. I knew my new beauty was the doing of Marcus’s lovemaking. Every time he held me in his arms I could feel his tenderness shaping me, perfecting me, making my every cell bloom.

  But Marcus was growing more and more unhappy about our underground arrangement. He wanted us to be in the open, and we bickered about it all the time.

  “I don’t have a problem talking to your father up front. There’s nothing wrong about being together,” he would say, vexed.

  “No, no, please. Let’s wait for the right moment. Please.” These conversations were torture; I just wasn’t ready to face my fears. But Marcus wouldn’t let up. He wanted, at least, for us to g
o to beautiful hotels, amazing spas, and similar spots. But most of the time we ended up in smaller, grungier places with spare, ugly little rooms and creaky beds, choices apparently forced by my paranoid obsession to hide from Father. I guess I had been traumatized by the way he had acted in the past when he found out my sisters had lovers. He had been ruthless, brutal, even lethal. I now sensed the same sort of danger lurking around me—I felt under constant surveillance, closely observed, and it paralyzed me. I was not only afraid for Marcus, but also for myself. But I couldn’t put my finger on the exact source of my resistance to break away and leave behind everything that tied me to my father. There was a part of me that was stupefied.

  At work, Marcus and I continued to go about each other stone-faced and courteous to the point of chilled etiquette. The Anna of the tattletale eyes died as I perfected my craft of masking my real self day to day, of hiding my pounding heart while, buried at my desk among paperwork, I thought of Marcus and his sweet lips brushing against my nipples or the way his hands wrapped around my waist as he penetrated my body.

  In order to hide my consuming passion, I started making superhuman efforts to learn the business, forcing myself to come up with the most effective solutions to problems, with the most creative marketing action plans. I was suddenly the most enthusiastic trainee the office had seen. It was just a strategy to distract everyone’s attention from what was truly eating me alive, but it bore good fruits in time, revealing my aggressive saleswoman’s skills, by which I ended up being able to sell a donkey not just to Gypsies, but to my own father.

  Julia also detected my change and made me confess the whole story.

  “Why are you hiding? What do you have to lose? You don’t need to live in the house, now you have my apartment. You don’t need to work for him; it would be his loss anyway.”