A Nostalgia for Desire

A mother, her daughters, and the age-old walls between them play out in this short story from Chile.

I spot the girls coming back from the beach, their skin smooth, a bit tight from the sun. I set out some milk and bread for them, and in my mind’s eye there’s a memory of tousled hair, the breeze on my face, that summery feeling of floating through life as someone else, wearing beauty like a fragrance. It feels like something that happened to a body that’s no longer my own. Like memories of trips I once took, the smell of a new city, the horns honking as if with an accent. Those differences are something I no longer notice, a tourist no more no matter where I go. My body now feels much the same regardless of where I am, retracting into itself like a snail, my day-to-day unaffected by where I am in the world.

“What happened to this body?” I ask.
There’s a tremble of the femur, an emptiness in the solar plexus.

My body now feels much the same regardless of where I am, retracting into itself like a snail, my day-to-day unaffected by where I am in the world.

The girls with their long hair and messy smiles rub vanilla-scented cream into their skin, bumble around the house, and talk excitedly, happy, about things they think I know nothing about. What does Mom know, they say, she’s clueless. Well, Mom’s not here, she dwells within her sagging skin, meanwhile they just get to live—life asks nothing more of them than that. I listen in on their conversation and my oldest says she met a boy, that she’ll die if she never sees him again, or something like that, while crying and laughing in exaggeration. You’re not going to die, I say softly to myself. Her sisters, trying to cheer her up, screech: I bet he calls you! And I, lying down, the light of the lamp shining on me, say even more softly to myself: he’s not going to call.

The answer floats up from the stiffness and silence:
“You’re nostalgic for what you no longer feel.”

It’s night now. My oldest anxiously awaits that call while the other girls paint their nails, brush their hair, and spritz themselves with perfume. Mom, they yell, we’re going out! A part of me hears them while the other is eager for them to leave. Home by midnight, I say, and don’t even think about drinking. And I know they’re rolling their eyes, but I don’t care. I stopped caring a few years ago when I realized I’d lost the battle, just like my mother back when I was that spark, an ethereal, flickering body always seeking to burn.

“But why?” I press.
“Because now you’ve seen behind the scenes,
how the curtain draws, the pretense of the costumes.”

They leave in a flurry of keys, shoes, and doors, and I fall into a half-waking dream. I see this beach from a few decades back; I see other men I nearly loved. Just the memory of that pulsing body feels like nothing more than an illusion, something that collapses before it ever exists. I see, now, your body over mine lit by that same muted light streaming in from the beach through the crack in the window. Drifting over to us are the carefree sounds of other young people living fully; we’re not the only ones, but we think we’re special, a feeling that lasts a long time. Every memory I have of you is on this beach, with that light moving into me. And now there’s nothing left to say. Sharing any more would be to tell a story, and I don’t want to dwell on our lifeless, drawn-out history. I’m interested only in having that light shining on me. The other memories can go, but here, in this body, that light must still be in there.

“But there must be something left inside, right?” I ask.
“You already know what’s left here: just an empty theater . . .
And it’s not a place you like to be.”

The girls must be at their party by now, nervous, shivering from the cold; but they won’t cover up because they’ll want their bodies seen. My oldest, naïve, will go looking for that boy, pushing her way through all the drunks. She’ll find him in that very state, reeking of alcohol, and he’ll give her a slobbery kiss. Regardless, to her that first kiss will seem sweet because desire always has a way of doing that.

But sooner or later that desire will also disappear.

As I sleep, half-awake, I dream that I crack open my thorax with a surgical crowbar.

As I sleep, half-awake, I dream that I crack open my thorax with a surgical crowbar. That’s where it should be, I whisper, into a black abyss, that wisp of desire. But my body is nearly empty, embalmed in a stable life. Nevertheless, I plunge my hands into the opening and dig around thinking I’ll find that night from the beach lying in there. I touch my insides, the warm blood, the organs and tissues, wondering if it’s still there inside. I don’t want to look and find that it’s gone; I fear that that would mean death. I palpate, everything throbs, warm. I don’t find it and resign myself to thinking: what does it matter? How important could it be, what this body can’t remember? A feeling of vertigo, a thrill for the soul; how much of those spasms is just simple chemistry?

“Close me up!” I say, “it’s best we don’t go in there.”

The girls arrive, boisterous. They laugh, cry; it’s all the same. At long last they fall asleep after talking excitedly—I could only hear the parts they shrieked. I think to myself: you’ll never see him again. The house creaks, the faucet drips, I close up my thorax and surrender fully to sleep. I’ll wake up tomorrow, scarred over. I’ll make breakfast for the girls and remain silent. I’ll tidy up, answer some emails, and remain silent. I’ll start the washer, dry the dishes, and remain silent. And you, you’ll ring the doorbell and pick up the girls, just like every weekend.

Translation from the Spanish