No way to describe how warm and good her body felt saying goodbye on the steps. That soft belly of wheat. The cold high stars. Already that old lonesome feeling. I walked away, shrouded by the dark. A procession of pale ghosts slouching off to work. Heaviness in my own heart, too. The strange desolation of this being alive.
The night before was a pleasant first meeting: dinner, beers, sex. Her name was Dyan. I'd hitchhiked to the city to meet her and brought her fruit from the valley. Figs, lemons, almonds, sour grapes. Then, after all the tender promises and whispers, in the 5am darkness the crazy bitch (lying there with her eyes wide open, sighing through her nose) kicks me out, worried about her deadline in four days' time. No longer interested in sex (she'd come when I squeezed her breasts, not when we fucked), no longer interested in anything but worrying, worrying about her deadline, being left alone to worry. I left without saying a word. I told myself to let it go: in this life you attract what you deserve. She was a honey-skinned girl from Chile with bipolar disorder, vaguely communist ideals and the brightest eyes I ever saw. They had led me back to her place, believing we might fall in love. And then kept me there later, listening to the wind and her sighing in the dark, despite realising we never would. I stood by the big river. The cold water coming down from the hills. I thought of you. Of your eyes when you loved me. Drank a coffee. Wandered around. Bitter food that all tasted the same. Even the water had a taste of misery. I even gave pennies to the beggars; hardly looked at the pretty women passing by; sad clothes hung on the line; rows of yellow teeth biting into little petit four, old faraway eyes, sipping glasses of this or that, asking for the time, shuffling from one doorway to the next, saying words, "que calor, ay que rico, pero que bueno... que hambre, que linda, que lejos, que va..." Recycled love songs on the radio; the kind words of strangers on the bus enough to bring a grown man to despair. I thought of Liz again, perhaps to console myself, and watched the big river, the wide Genil, coming down from the mountains in the rain.
0 Comments
|
AuthorEnglish teacher from the UK. Living in Granada. Currently working in Doha. Archives
February 2022
Categories
All
|