Un Amor: A Novel

I

Nightfall is when the weight comes down on her, so heavy she has to sit to catch her breath.

Outside the silence isn’t what she expected. It isn’t real silence. There’s a distant rumbling, like the sound of a highway, although the closest one is regional and three kilometers away. She hears crickets, too, and barking, a car horn, a neighbor rounding up his livestock.

The sea was nicer, but also more expensive. Out of her reach.

And what if she’d held on a little longer, saved a little more?

She’d rather not think. She closes her eyes, slowly sinks into the couch, half her body hanging off in an unnatural position that will soon give her a cramp if she doesn’t move. She realizes this and stretches out as best she can. Dozes.

Better not to think, but still the thoughts come and slide through her, intertwining. She tries to let them go as soon as they appear, but they accumulate there, one thought on top of another. This effort, this drive to release them as quickly as they come, is itself a thought too intense for her brain.

When she gets the dog, it will be easier.

When she organizes her things and sets up her desk and spruces up the area around the house. When she waters and prunes—everything is so dry, so neglected. When it gets cool.

It will be much better when it cools.

The landlord lives in Petacas, a small town fifteen-minutes away. He shows up two hours later than they’d agreed. Nat is sweeping the porch when she hears the Jeep. She looks up, squints. The man has parked at the entrance to the property, in the middle of the road, and makes his way over, scuffling his feet. It’s hot. It’s noon and already the heat is intemperate.

He doesn’t apologize for being late. He smiles, shaking his head. His lips are thin, his eyes sunken. His worn coverall is grease stained. It’s hard to gauge how old he is. The wear and tear isn’t to do with his age, but with his tired expression, the way he swings his arms and bows his knees as he walks. He stops in front of her, puts his hands on his hips, and looks around.

Already getting started, eh? How was your night?

Fine. Mostly. Too many mosquitos.

You’ve got a gadget there in the dresser drawer. One of those repeller things.

Yeah, but it didn’t have any liquid in it.

Well, sorry, kid, he spreads his arms wide. Life in the country, eh!

Nat does not return his smile. A bead of sweat drips from her temple. She wipes it with the back of her hand and, in that gesture, finds the necessary strength to strike.

The bedroom window doesn’t close correctly, and the bathroom faucet is leaking. Not to mention how dirty everything is. It’s a lot worse than I remember.

The landlord’s smile turns cold, disappearing gradually from his face. His jaw tenses as he readies his response. Nat intuits that he is prone to anger and wishes she could backtrack. Arms crossed, the man contends that she came to see the house and was perfectly aware of its condition. It’s her problem if she didn’t pay attention to details, not his. He reminds her that he came down—twice—on the price. Lastly, he informs her that he will be taking care of all the necessary repairs himself. Nat doubts that’s a good idea, but she doesn’t argue. Nodding, she wipes away another bead of sweat.

It’s so hot.

You going to blame me for that, too?

The man turns and calls the dog that’s been scrabbling in the dirt near the Jeep.

How’s this one?

The dog hasn’t lifted its head since it arrived. Skittish, it sniffs the ground, tracking like a hound. It’s a long-legged, gray mutt with an elongated snout and rough coat. Its penis is slightly erect.

Well, you like him or not?

Nat stutters.

I don’t know. Is he a good dog?

Sure he’s a good dog. He won’t win any beauty contests, you can see for yourself, but you don’t care, do you? Isn’t that what you said, that you didn’t care? He doesn’t have fleas or anything bad. He’s young, he’s healthy. And he doesn’t eat much, so you won’t need to worry about that. He’ll scrounge. He looks after himself.

Okay, Nat says.

They go inside the house, review the contract, sign—she, with a careless scribble; he, ceremoniously, pressing the pen firmly to the paper. The landlord has only brought one copy, which he tucks away, assuring her that he’ll get hers to her when he can. Doesn’t matter, Nat thinks, the contract has no validity whatsoever, even the listed price isn’t real. She doesn’t bring up the problem of the window or the bathroom faucet again. Neither does he. He extends his hand theatrically, narrows his eyes as he looks at her.

Better for us to get along now, isn’t it.

The dog appears unfazed when the man returns to the Jeep and starts the engine. The animal stays in the front yard, pacing and sniffing the dry dirt. Nat calls to him, clucks her tongue and whistles, but he shows no sign of obeying.

The landlord didn’t tell her the dog’s name. If he even has one.

She’d be hard pressed to come up with a convincing answer if asked to explain what she was doing there. That’s why she hedges when the time comes, babbling about a change of scenery.

People must think you’re crazy, right?

The cashier smacks gum as she piles Nat’s shopping on the counter. It’s the only store in a few-mile radius, an un marked establishment where foodstuffs and hygiene products accumulate in a jumble. Shopping there is expensive and the pickings are slim, but Nat is reluctant to take the car to Petacas. She rummages in her wallet and counts out the bills she needs.

The girl from the shop is in a chatty mood. Brazen, she asks Nat all about her life, flustering her. The girl wishes she could do what Nat’s done, but the opposite, she says. Move to Cárdenas, where stuff actually happens.

Living here sucks. There aren’t even any guys!

She tells Nat that she used to go to high school in Petacas, but she dropped out. She doesn’t like studying, she’s crap at every subject. Now she helps out in the shop. Her mom gets chronic migraines, and her dad also does some farming, so she lends a hand at the store. But as soon as she turns eighteen, she’s out of there. She could be a cashier in Cárdenas, or a nanny. She’s good with kids. The few kids who ever make it to La Escapa, she smiles.

This place sucks, she repeats.

It’s the girl who tells Nat about the people living in the surrounding houses and farms. She tells her about the gypsy family squatting in a dilapidated farmhouse, right near the ramp for the highway. A bus picks up the kids every morning; they’re the only kids who live in La Escapa year-round. And there’s the old couple in the yellow house. The woman is some kind of witch, the girl claims. She can predict the future and read your mind.

She’s a little crazy, so it’s creepy, the girl laughs.

She tells Nat about the hippie in the wooden house, and the guy they call The German even though he isn’t from Germany, and Gordo’s bar—though to call the storehouse where they serve up bottles of beer a bar is, she admits, a bit of an exaggeration. There are other people who come and go according to the rhythms of the countryside, dayworkers hired for two-week stints or just the day, but also whole families who have inherited houses they can’t manage to sell and who live somewhere else half the year. But you never see women on their own. Not women Nat’s age, she specifies.

Old ladies don’t count.

During the first days, Nat gets confused and mixes up all that information, partly because she’d listened absently, partly because she’s in unfamiliar territory. La Escapa’s borders are blurry, and even though there is a relatively compact cluster of small houses—where hers is located—other buildings are scattered farther off, some inhabited and others not. From the outside, Nat can’t tell whether they’re homes or barns, if there are people inside or just livestock. She loses her bearings on the dirt roads and if it weren’t for the shop—which sometimes feels more familiar to her than the house she’s rented and slept in for a week—as a point of reference, she’d feel lost. The area isn’t even very pretty, although at sunset, when the edges soften and the light turns golden, she finds a kind of beauty she can cling to.

Nat takes her grocery bags and says goodbye to the girl. But before she exits the shop, she turns back and asks about the landlord. Does the girl know him? The girl purses her lips, shakes her head slowly. No, not really, she says. He’s lived in Petacas for a long time.

But I do remember seeing him around here when I was little. He always had a pack of dogs and a really bad temper. Then he got married, or got together with someone, and left. I guess his wife didn’t want to live in La Escapa—can’t blame her. This place is worse for girls. Even though Petacas is nothing special—I wouldn’t want to live there either, no way.

She tries to play with the dog, tossing him an old ball she found in the woodpile. But instead of catching it and bringing it back, the dog limps away. When she crouches down next to him, putting herself on his level so he won’t be afraid, he skulks off with his tail between his legs. The dog is a piece of work, she thinks, a real rotter. Sieso, they’d call him in the part of Spain she comes from. It seems a good a name as any—after all, she has to call him something. It certainly describes his surly nature. But Sieso is as inscrutable as he is unsociable. He hangs around, but it’s like he wasn’t there at all. Why should she have to settle for a dog like that? Even the little dog in the shop, an extremely anxious Chihuahua mix, is much nicer. All the dogs she meets on the roads—and there are tons of them—run over when she calls. A lot of them are looking to be fed, of course, but also to be pet; they are nosy and curious, wanting to know who this new girl in the neighborhood is. Sieso doesn’t even seem interested in eating. If she feeds him, great, and if not, that’s fine too. The landlord wasn’t kidding: the animal’s upkeep is cheap. Sometimes Nat is ashamed of the aversion she feels toward the animal. She asked for a dog and here he is. Now she cannot—must not—say—or even think—that she doesn’t want him.

One morning at the shop, she meets the hippie, as the girl called him. Now she languidly waits on them both, smoking a cigarette with no sense of urgency. The hippie is a little older than Nat, though he can’t be more than forty. Tall and strong, his skin is weathered by the sun, his hands broad and cracked, his eyes hard but placid. He wears his hair long in a terrible cut and his beard is on the reddish side. Why the girl calls him hippie is something Nat can only guess. Maybe it’s his long hair or because he is someone who, like Nat, comes from the city, a stranger, something incomprehensible for anyone who has lived in La Escapa since childhood and can only think of getting away. The truth is, the hippie has lived there a long time. He is, therefore, nothing novel, not like Nat. She observes him from the corner of her eye, his efficient movements, concise and confident. As she waits her turn, she pats the back of the dog he has brought with him. She’s a chocolate Labrador, old but undeniably elegant. The dog wags her tail and noses Nat’s crotch. The three of them laugh.

What a good girl, Nat says.

The hippie nods and holds out his hand. Then he changes his mind, withdraws it and moves in to kiss her. Just one kiss on the cheek, which causes Nat to remain with her face tilted, waiting for the second kiss that doesn’t come. He tells her his name: Píter. With an i, he specifies: P-í-t-e-r. At least that’s how he likes to spell it, except when he’s forced to write it officially. The less one writes one’s real name, the better, he jokes. It’s only good for signing checks at the bank, for those thieves.

Natalia, she introduces herself.

Then comes the obligatory question: what is she doing in La Escapa? He’s seen her out on the trails and also saw her tidying up the area around the house. Is she going to live there? Alone? Nat feels awkward. She would prefer that nobody watch her while she works, especially without her knowledge, which is inevitable because the boundaries