Winter Journey

Two Minutes

he blew out the smoke, satisfied. See? Nothing happened. Being unfaithful is easy: two minutes, bing bang, and you've committed adultery. No angels were going to descend blowing trumpets of doom, obviously. And this man she hardly knew had a body like a model's, from all that yogurt.

"Why's your stomach so flat?" She said it in a friendly way, now that they'd gotten to know one another.

"1 get a lot of exercise. And you shouldn't smoke."

He exercises. He takes care of himself. Unlike Ricard and me. The time comes when you just let yourself go and stop worrying about looking good, because the other person doesn't even expect it.

"1 have to go."

"Wait two minutes. Do you think I'm pretty?"

"1 sure do," lied the yogurt man.

A world-class orgasm her first time out, even though Neus had warned her that if she ever did it, she'd be more afraid than excited. Afraid that Ricard would find out, afraid of committing a sin, afraid of who knows what, of having it show afterwards when she went out, yes, but not of an orgasm, no way. And look what happened, and with the appliance repairman, who was an athlete, very sweet and strong, an animal. Why should she be afraid? She didn't owe Ricard anything, they didn't love each other. But if this was the day he decided to come home at the wrong time? No, in twelve years he'd never done that.

"You know what? Maybe you should leave."

The man got right up and allowed the woman, who was lit up like a torch, to look him over. Poor thing, he thought, but hey, a screw in the middle of the morning is always nice. He pinched her cheek, for something to do, so she could keep looking at him, and started to put on his clothes.

"Here," she said.

And she paid him for the repair plus a huge tip. He thought, Should 1 write it on her forehead or what. But he decided to pretend he hadn't noticed and put the money in his pocket. He'd take Katty out to dinner.

"What's your name?" Still in bed, anxiously rubbing out the just-lit cigarette in the ashtray, yearning, resisting the impulse to say, Come every day and take a look at my washer. In response, he kissed his index finger and smiled, as he'd seen Cindy Crawford doing on the cover of an American magazine. Acting the tough guy, he left without looking back. He picked up his toolbox and opened the door, hoping that no one would come along and make him feel uncomfortable. He closed the door softly and thought for a moment about the unknown woman he'd left in a strange bed. He didn't feel sorry for her. Or for himself either: he supposed he could become a professional gigolo, but rejected the idea with an embarrassed smile. Out on the street, he lit the cigarette he'd been wanting for a long time, wondered where the hell he'd left the van, and went through his list of addresses to figure out the best route to make up for the lost time. He stepped off the curb just as a silent limousine was approaching. Some car, he thought. Inside the endless limousine was a snooty chauffeur, with a gray uniform and an unfriendly face, and far behind him an impressive dark woman, very dark, like Naomi Campbell. The would-be gigolo thought he'd be glad to go to her house and service all the washers that needed it.

The chauffeur with the crabby face had to slow down because a man with a cigarette in his mouth and a toolbox in his hand was right in the middle of the street, staring open-mouthed at his client.

"Where the hell are you going? Watch what you're doing!" he yelled angrily. Then he looked in the rearview mirror at the Queen of the May to make sure she hadn't heard him swear. No, she was in her own world. Or not, because she looked up and, without raising her voice, despite the distance and with the impressive authority that emanated naturally from her wealth and her beauty, she told him to stop at the corner where the jeweler's was, two hundred yards farther on, and wait for her there.

"1 can't park there," he said as he confirmed that the guy with the cigarette was still looking at them, made smaller by the rearview mirror, with his mouth still open and a cloud of smoke around him. Well, looking at the car or at Srta. Blanca; nobody ever looked at him.

"Do it somehow. It'll just be a couple of minutes."

The Queen of the May had two minutes to go into the jeweler's, smile, brush off three clerks, insist that Sr. Laporte come out of his office, tell him she'd just acquired the Buzi, 102.3 carats, say she was leaving a photograph of the stone (1 suppose you've heard about Buzi and Ezequiel, Sr. Laporte) and he should start thinking about a gold necklace worthy of holding that wonder of nature and sublime testament to the skill and sensitivity of its cutter, and she'd come back someday when she had time. And she'd still have twenty seconds.

"Two minutes," said Srta. Blanca as she got out of the car. The chauffeur decided to double park, because trying to get that dinosaur of a car into the space available was risky. He got out of the car and eagerly patted the pocket of his uniform; he was smoking too much. He lit the cigarrette almost passionately. He took in the abundant, endless smoke throught the hole left by his broken tooth and felt better. And, out of habit, he looked at his watch to see how long the two minutes she said she needed would take.

"No way. You have to drive on."

The chauffeur looked up and saw one of those traffic wardens whose job it is to tell people how to park.

"It'll only be two minutes," he said, as he took the second puff.

Nothing irritated her more than servants of millionaires who defended their bosses as if they were family. And especially today, with that big Norwegian truck unloading paintings in front of the Fundacio, surrounded by an army of security guards with guns, like her, but without the moral superiority conferred by the city government. She tsk-ed and repeated, in the same tone, so you could see she was fed up with the whole thing:

"No way. You can't park here."

"What do you want me to do? Put it in my pocket?"

"That's your problem. Or I'll give you a ticket. It's up to you."

"So how about that truck?"

"It's making a delivery."

She watched as the flunkey thought about it, sucking hard on his cigarrette and looking at his watch as if searching for a solution.

"If she doesn't see me when she comes out, she'll give me hell."

"1 already said that's your problem," she replied, looking disgusted. "Find a parking garage."

"Where do you think I'll find one for this thing?" He pointed at the limousine with the gesture used by fishermen to show off the big fish they've just caught. "Really, it'll only be two minutes."

To calm her increasing irritation, she took out her book and prepared to write a ticket.

"Fine, here we go."

And she went towards the front of the car to look at the license plate. The chauffeur, now looking even crabbier, threw down his half-smoked cigarette and got into the car. Without taking her eyes off the license plate, she heard the angry slam as he closed the door. Good, he got it, she thought. She stepped back to keep him from running her over and acted like she was going to solve some other problem. As she watched the ridiculous limousine drive away, she smelled the cigarette, still burning on the ground. She went into a doorway, looked around, made sure there were no robbers or mafiosi or art traffickers bothering the guards around the Norwegian truck, and decided there was no danger. She lit a cigarette with practiced hands and started smoking, careful to hide the crime with her body. A two-minute break. Four puffs later, a gorgeous dark-skinned woman came out of the jeweler's across the street and looked around indignantly. it looked to the traffic warden as if she were waiting for a taxi. That's her problem, she thought. And she kept puffing on the clandestine cigarette and thinking that Carles was acting more and more uninterested, maybe… No, because they say a woman can tell right away if a man's being unfaithful and 1 haven't noticed any signs. But the thought irritated her. Then she noticed the blue car. Parked in an exit, for God's sake. She hated having to put out the half-smoked cigarette, but this guy wasn't going to get away without a ticket.

"God damn it," he said when he got close enough to see the traffic warden putting a ticket on his windshield. He came up, breathing hard. "Hey, it's only been two minutes," he complained.

"Nobody's ever been parked for more than two minutes," she said coldly. "You're blocking an exit."

"Damn it, 1 was…"

"Look, that's your problem. I'm just following the rules."

That was what really got him: saying it was his problem to run around all morning, make thirteen visits in two hours, spend a fortune on parking, leave the car in a spot for a minute, meet with a chatty client and, boom, a ticket. Shit.

"You know what I'm going to do about my problem?" said the potential heart attack as he grabbed the ticket. The cop stood waiting for the man to get it out of his system. Which he did by crumpling up the ticket and throwing it to the ground. Which is just what Caries would have done. Exactly. The man couldn't believe his ears when she said, with a smile:

"Fine. But I'll write you another ticket for littering."

That was too much, damn it all. He got in the car and, unconsciously, avoided slamming the door so the harpy wouldn't write him a ticket for making noise on the street less than three hundred yards from a hospital. He turned the key without worrying whether the cop was picking up the ticket and smoothing it out with her hand, or taking out her gun and pointing it at his goddam neck. He almost ran into a limo that was double parked in front of him. He put on his blinker and swung out and Shit, shit, shit. He had to slow down even more because there was a huge truck just… That's really a pisser, why don't they give him a ticket? Swearing under his breath, he stopped at the light, which was red. Mad about everything, he banged his hand on the steering wheel and the horn sounded, clear, ironic, and perfectly illegal.

Though she had good vision, most of her teeth, and legs that still worked just fine, what she couldn't do was break into a run in the middle of the crosswalk. So she thought, 1 don't care, make all the noise you want. And she looked defiantly at the nervous man who was putting one hand out the window of a blue car and drumming his fingers on the side as he lit a cigarette with the other hand. He was the one who'd honked, as if she couldn't see that the walk sign was still lit. Slow and steady wins the race.

She immediately forgot about the rude guy and started window shopping, which was what she liked to do when she walked home on that side of the street. Look at that dress. Not at my age. 1'd like to find out what it costs, but I'm embarrassed. 1 can say it's for my niece. And what do they care, anyway? She saw a traffic cop writing something by a car and thought maybe she was giving somebody a ticket. If it weren't for my age, 1 would've gotten my driver's license long ago, she thought. And she kept walking so she could get home, because one thing she'd never done was smoke out on the street, it wasn't appropriate at her age. But another really nice dress caught her eye. No, she wouldn't dare wear that, at any age. They wear them really short these days. But it sure was pretty. She looked up and was startled; a shadow was reflected in the glass of the window. The shadow of a man with a dark beard who was singing the slave chorus from Nabucco very softly in a deep voice. The shadow thought, That old girl's scared. Right away he forgot about the old lady, who had continued on her way, mumbling about her fantasies, and concentrated on the window. Suggestive feminine apparel. The green dress wouldn't look good on his wife; she's too big in the waist. He corrected himself a little bitterly: her waist is getting bigger every day. Silvia could wear it, though. Everything looks good on her. He looked at the price. Good Lord. Good Lord. He didn't know if he could indulge without his wife getting suspicious.

Regretfully, he turned away from the window. Then, to his annoyance, some uniformed guards motioned him off the sidewalk because workmen were unloading wooden containers from a truck. Paintings, he thought. They were taking them into the Fundacio. It irritated him to have to step into the road because of the delivery. He should keep the exposition in mind. He should keep all kinds of things in mind, now that even his times with Silvia were starting to acquire a patina of boredom. And he began to sing very softly in his baritone voice a fragment from one of the songs from Winterreise, the one that said, Eine Strasse muss ich gehen, / Die noch keiner ging zuruck,' which made him feel sad. In front of him, an impressive limousine came up fast and quiet out of nowhere and had to stop at a light thirty yards farther on. The man with the dark beard and the baritone voice took his key ring out of his pocket and with practiced fingers sorted out the right key before he got to the door. He began whistling his stair-climbing melody (the adagio from Dvorak's American Quartet), as he did every day of every year. He took in the Thursday smell of oven-baked rice and thought it was lucky his wife was such a good cook, if nothing else.

"Hi," he heard from the back of the apartment, "what are you doing home so early?"

"Hey," on his way down the hall, "did the guy come to fix the washer?"