Martutene

by Ramón Saizarbitoria

  At the hospital, he’s glad to see that a couple of colleagues have put relatives of theirs on his patient list and that he isn’t going to have a free moment all day. He’s proud to be the doctor of choice for other doctors, nurses, residents, and all of their relatives, although it does give him quite a lot of extra work. Even so, he can’t resist the urge to go by Lynn’s work area just before two o’clock, on the excuse that he has to look something up in the library.

  On the stairs he comes across Echevarría, the resident working in the neonatology department. He’s very angry, because Arrese wants to put all the research data together in such a way that the high infant mortality rates the hospital experiences for births taking place in the early morning will go unnoticed. To get rid of him, Abaitua says he needs an article from the library and wants to get there before the documentalist leaves. Echevarría replies that Lynn has just left, explaining in Spanish that she was feeling a bit under the weather—“Estaba un poco pachucha”—as if he suspected that Abaitua was looking for her; but he doesn’t mind.

  Abaitua goes along the path flanked by lilies and hydrangeas that runs from the clinic to the train stop. For a moment, blocked by the cypresses behind the building, the loud noise of the traffic stops, and he can hear the birds’ happy song. In the area to the right, where there are several abandoned-looking industrial buildings, there used to be kitchen gardens, back when he first started going out with Pilar. It was reputed to be fertile land, and it had a bitter smell of tobacco, because they used scraps and waste material brought over from the cigarette factory in Egia as fertilizer. The earth is black there, and the tar-covered barge across from the clinic, which was previously used as a jetty, is hardly noticeable there in the spot where the boys struggled to anchor it, on the curve of the river right where it disappears from view of the bridge and the road. At the time, he realized that they’d moved the barge to make it more difficult to reach—it would be impossible without using a skiff or sinking down up to your waist in the mud—but that hadn’t seemed suspicious to him.

  He can see the edge of the writer’s property. He goes through a small forest of reeds and comes out on the path that runs beside the railway in front of the house. It can be seen from most places in the area, at least the roof and the tower, but he doesn’t know if it’s visible from the train stop and decides to go there, with the sole objective of finding out. So he walks down and crosses the lines. The façade is easily visible from the first floor upward, as is part of the eastern side. He realizes they’ll also be able to see him, from the window of theirs that looks out onto the railway. He would particularly mind if Julia were to see him and think he was a dirty old man spying on young women.

  He spends some time sitting on the iron bench, he doesn’t know how long. Not many minutes, because only one train goes by, one from Irun to Madrid, a long-distance train that, naturally, doesn’t stop there. He starts to feel ashamed of himself, because he’s behaving like an adolescent—an old-fashioned adolescent, what’s more—and finally, when he starts crossing the lines again, he has to do so at a run, because he hears a train whistle approaching. The house’s iron gate is directly across the street from the bridge over the railway. He sticks his head between the railings and doesn’t see anybody there, but as the last rhythmic sounds of the train die away, he hears footsteps on the gravel. Then he hears Lynn’s loud, very apparent laughter. It doesn’t sound like a sick person’s laughter.

  Moving back toward the path to the clinic, he can see the bit of the garden Lynn is in, and at the same time, anybody could see him from the clinic building, including Pilar, of course, as he’s right out in the open. But it’s a very slight risk, and he’s not overly worried. Lynn is crouching down in front of a flower bed. She’s wearing gloves and seems to be weeding. She’s wearing an oversized men’s T-shirt that goes halfway down her thighs, and canvas shoes. The writer is standing next to her and moving his hands a lot as he talks. They remain like that for a while until eventually disappearing into the house.

  “Hi.” He was about to hang up when Lynn answered. He’d already called twice and had decided that if she didn’t pick up the third time, he wouldn’t call again. He can hear her panting as she says, “Great to hear from you.” She’s climbed the stairs from the garden and has had to run to get the phone. She says she thought it might be him.

  He says he’s sorry he’s made her run. He knows she’s wearing a men’s T-shirt. He thinks about telling her, saying that he saw her in the garden and had a strong urge to go up to her apartment—telling her the truth. He knows he won’t, but he doesn’t try to find any sort of excuse to justify his call. Nor does he need to; Lynn lets off a storm of words, doesn’t keep quiet a moment, as if she were the one who called him. She obviously thinks he’s nowhere close, and she tells him she’s been working in the garden, she’s planted some very pretty bougainvilleas. Then she talks about work. She’s seen some information in the data that’s been sent that doesn’t add up. She also tells him the resident’s complaint about the data being grouped all together instead of being put into categories, and several other problems, things Abaitua couldn’t care less about just then, until, all of a sudden, she says she’s not letting him talk and asks why he’s called.

  “To find out how you are. Echevarria told me you weren’t well.”

  “How nice!”

  She had a bit of a headache but it’s gone now.

  The sound of a freight train in the distance makes him keep quiet, and for quite a while.

  “What are you doing?”

  Obviously she’s heard the noise from the train and worked out that he’s close. He says he just left the hospital.

  “If you like, you can come over here for tea.”

  The anxiety in Lynn’s voice calms him down. He’ll drop by if she prepares something special for him. She says she’ll do her best. They agree to meet up in half an hour or so.

  She’s changed out of her T-shirt. Now she’s wearing a short dress with brightly colored flowers on a sea-blue background, and it makes her look younger. He knows that type of print is called Liberty, because he’s had ties made of it. They don’t greet each other with a kiss. She says hi and stands to one side of the doorway to let him through, but he doesn’t go in. He leans down to pet the cat, which has come out to greet him. It purrs and lays down at his feet. Lynn says, “Sometimes you can be quite obscene, Max.”

  She goes into the kitchen. There’s a large plate on the table with slices of ham carefully laid out on it, alternating with slices of brie, all arranged in a circle. All prepared with special care. She’s facing away from him, leaning down in front of a cabinet. Her hair is gathered up at her neck in a large leather clip. The curls on her neck are shiny, a reddish mahogany color. She turns toward him, perhaps feeling his eyes on her, to say that there’s only ham and cheese. She also has wine, and hopes that it’s good. He’s sure it is. She has a dish of almonds in her hand. Abaitua leans down, too, and holds her elbow to help her up. He decides not to suppress his arousal. He pulls her toward him and kisses her; some almonds fall to the ground. The girl moves away a little and moves her head back to be able to see his face properly, perhaps surprised by his passion, and says they’d better have their tea first. For a moment, he worries that she might think he’s overly lustful, only looking for sex to calm himself down, but even so, he quiets her by kissing her on the mouth, and he carries on kissing her until he hears the plate shatter against the floor. He moves to bend down, but this time Lynn stops him, pulling him against herself.

  “Just relax.” He gets excited when he hears that expression. She puts her hand on his chest and pushes him softly, making him take a step backward and sit down on the sofa. She’s kneeling down between his legs. She starts taking his belt off carefully, as if it were something he’d asked her to do, slowly but with determination. It isn’t easy for her to undo the inside clasp. The belt is only marked on one h
ole, the first one. He’s glad he doesn’t have a gut. Lynn strokes his belly, her hands look small on his pelvis.

  He feels a surge of arousal again when he sees that. He puts his hand down the front of her dress and moves the fabric aside to expose one breast. Very gently, very pleased, too. It’s a very serious movement, solemn, almost ceremonial. A small gesture of pain on her face when he squeezes her nipple, and relief when a small white drop comes out of it. He licks it with no trace of revulsion. She strokes his hair.

  He feels the warmth of her breath on his neck. She breathes slowly, as if she were asleep. There’s bright light on the ceiling, and the shadow of the top of a tree moving around. The cat purrs on the back of the sofa, and he feels its damp nose each time he stops petting it, asking for more. “You’re insatiable, Max,” he says, imitating Lynn, and she says, “How embarrassing,” with a trace of sleep in her voice. Her eyes are closed, her face calm. He’s surprised by the urge to kiss her. The girl moves up close to him, and he feels her warm chest. He closes his eyes too, even though he knows that images lying in wait for him from some corner of his subconscious, images he doesn’t want to see, will come at him from the darkness. In his house, too, there is full sunlight at this time of day, and Pilar normally takes great care to lower the blinds to keep the house in half-light. Half-light broken by the gleams from the blue engravings on the walls and from the glass coffee table Pilar does her sudokus on. Pilar must already be at home, or on her way back. He opens his eyes and hears the echo of a deep voice from the lower floor. Lynn says, “It’s Martin,” as if she’s read his mind. They both listen, but they can’t make out what he’s saying.

  Then she asks if he wants to have tea. He answers that it’s a bit late for that, even though he doesn’t know what time it is. He doesn’t want to know. He’s hungry, but he’d rather eat at home, even though it’s a pity, because she must have gone out to buy the cheese and ham and seems proud of the neat-looking plate she’s prepared. He repeats that he’s not hungry. The light is no longer so intense, but the shadow movements are livelier. Lynn, too, looks up at the ceiling. She says you can see the breeze. They keep quiet for a moment, until she stands up and says she’s going to get a beer.

  The same impression he always has: her body is more opulent when naked.

  Small perversions. A Franciskaner with a slice of lemon in a goldrimmed beer glass. She takes a long sip. Then she turns toward him. She puts her lips on his and fills his mouth with beer; it feels cold and warm as he gulps it down, and when he’s finished, he feels an urgent desire to drink more from her mouth. She takes another sip and he looks at her, like a thirsty dog watching his master fill up his drinking bowl. Once more, the beer feels cold and warm at the same time, and he wants to suck her all in. The bottle doesn’t last long, and he’s extremely aroused.

  Lynn says she’s going to put some music on, but she doesn’t get up. She sometimes plays music, but only to listen to, not to accompany other activities—she says it distracts her. She has never, or hardly ever, put it on to make love; sometimes she gets up from the sofa or the bed to turn it off, irritated. Abaitua likes household sounds. He doesn’t mind the echoes of the voices below, and strangely enough, the sound of the trains going by makes him feel he’s far away. Sometimes Lynn talks nonstop, jumping from one subject to another, until she realizes and then says, “I’m chattering like a magpie.” She says it only happens when she’s with him.

  Now, leaning on his shoulder, she looks at his skin, which the doctor doesn’t much like, and tells him about something she’s read regarding home births. She was surprised to learn that, according to the statistics, it’s a practice that stopped happening from one year to the next, and she wants to know if it was outlawed. He explains it to her. What happened was that after a certain point, children, regardless of where they were born, were allowed to be registered as residents of the town their parents lived in. Until then, as established by public health norms, children who were not born at home were registered as residents of whatever town the clinic they were born at was located in, which meant that many of them appeared to be residents of Donostia, and in order to avoid that happening, parents started saying that their children had been born at home. So in fact, parents from Hernani were working around the system to avoid their children having the dishonor of being Donostia residents, or parents from Hondarribia were trying to avoid having their children registered as residents of Irun, and so on; they would all just say they had been born at home, until the birth certificate law changed. So beware statistics.

  The girl is curled up with her back against him, and he holds her around the waist. He ignores the question she asks him about the medicalization of birthing, and because he can’t see her face, he finds it easier to tell her about tricylical antidepressants. Firstly, they are only for severe cases and they don’t affect normal people. What’s more, because they inhibit neoadrenaline reuptake, they can have major side effects, not just galactorrhea but also irregular periods, changes in libido, frequent urination, gynecomastia, pain on ejaculation, swollen testicles. And those are only the genitourinary effects. She turns around suddenly and looks at him as if not understanding. Then she laughs. “Do the testicles really swell up?” She stands up on the sofa, pretending to be frightened.

  The music she likes isn’t exactly avant-garde, and that suits him. Jazz and blues. She likes Bob Dylan more than he does. Because the stereo is up on a shelf, she has to stand on tiptoes to use it. She has strong calf muscles and very thin ankles. She’s told him it makes it difficult for her to walk. She has firm, round buttocks. When she comes back to the sofa, he says she’s robust, and she says he means fat. She curls up against him again, asking him to hug her. She’s cold. He caresses her. She says he has expert hands. No man’s caresses have ever aroused her as much. She stretches out, like a bow in his hands, she breathes deeply through her half-open mouth, twisting in the solitude of her absolute pleasure. She swears to him that nobody has ever aroused her as much.

  Abaitua would like to reply with some ironic comment. He doesn’t like compliments. He asks if she feels the need to flatter him, if she takes him for an old fool, and Lynn asks him in all seriousness if he thinks she has reason to do any such thing. He, too, admits seriously that she has no such reason. It’s true that a gynecologist of his age could be expected to have a certain degree of expertise, but he’s never thought of himself as being particularly gifted in that area, and the sex partners he’s had in the past have never given him any reason to think that he is. His sex life has been discreet. Perhaps more frequent than the average, but not incredibly so, at least not if you take into account the sexual explosion the country experienced at one point. Ironic reflections about Basques not having sex very often. The young woman is amazed that nobody before has told him he’s sweet and sexy. “Nobody’s ever told you?” she says again, and he says no, beginning to doubt whether it’s true or not. Nobody has ever paid him that compliment before. The girl, looking annoyed, says he hasn’t been properly appreciated—nobody has ever seduced her like this before. “Ikusten?” she says in Basque—“You see?” She takes his hand, and he meekly lets her lead. Just feeling his hand brush over her skin is enough for her. He keeps quiet, amazed by her arousal—she twists in his arms again, panting, her eyes flickering, literally going white, as if she were about to have a seizure—surprised, amazed by the spontaneity of this display of pleasure of hers, finally convinced that his hands do have some sort of power over her.

  The cat, lying on the back of the sofa, looks at them with curiosity. He tries to shoo it away, finding its constant gaze unsettling, but it jumps down and sits between them, sniffing at them with curiosity. The girl swats it away. “Get out of there, Max,” she says without opening her eyes, irritated. He’s never seen her looking angry before.

  They’re still lying naked on the sofa, even though it’s suddenly gotten colder. The cat jumps up again to the arm of the sofa, where Ab
aitua is resting his head. He pets it under its chin, and it starts purring immediately. More loudly than he’s ever heard it before. “He has miraculous hands, doesn’t he, Max?”

  “So tell me, do you believe me when I tell you that you drive me crazy?”

  He lifts himself up on one side, leans on one elbow.

  Yes, of course he believes her, he says as if it were part of a joke, even though he isn’t at all sure. She, too, sounds playful when she says he doesn’t have anything to worry about, there’s no reason for her craziness to cause any problems. It doesn’t put him under any obligation to her. She’ll be his wife, his friend, his lover, his something on the side, his companion—he can call her whenever he wants her around, she’ll come right away, she’ll take care of him if he’s sick, and stay by his side as he grows old. She’ll be responsible for him and take care of him until his death, because it’s a law of nature that he’ll die first, although that’s a long time off, because he’s strong. There’s no need for him to worry, and the only thing he’ll have to do is hug her from time to time. She takes ahold of his wrists and pulls them toward her until he has one hand on her hip. It’s only once in your life that you come across somebody and feel that that’s the person who will make your love come alive and that the love will last forever. She puts her index finger on his lips so he won’t speak. It’s got nothing to do with you, you’re separate from it. There’s nothing you can do about it. I knew it the moment I saw you—I’d never been as attracted to anyone else.