Her favorite was a dark brown little wolf her father had brought her from Germany. She called him Max. When her mother once asked where she’d gotten such a name, Carmen replied, “That’s what he wants to be called.”
In fact, sometimes it seemed that Max the wolf had his own life, and he’d pop up in the most unexpected places: in the kitchen knife drawer, under her parents’ bed, in the tub. At the same time, Carmen seemed to have a lot less of a presence. When she got home from school, she’d lock herself in her room with her stuffed animals and would have to be dragged out for dinner. When there were visitors, even children, Carmen would hide under the bed with her stuffed animals. As each day passed, she seemed to communicate more and more exclusively with them, delegating the role of spy in the outside world to Max.
If she had to communicate with adults, Carmen would do so representing the stuffed animals. She didn’t ask for chocolates for herself, saying instead, “Max wants some.” If she didn’t want to go see her grandmother, she’d offer that the bear or cow was sick as an excuse. (The wolf was the only one with a proper name but he never got sick.) Even in her letters to the Three Wisemen, she only asked for gifts for her stuffed animals. The one she wrote when she was nine years old went like this:
Dear Wisemen,
Please bring a scarf for the bear because he gets cold, and a hat for my giraffe who’s very tall and bumps her head on the ceiling, and a girl wolf for Max because he’d like to have little wolves, thank you.
Her mother was really upset by that letter. For her, there was nothing worse than being condemned to isolation, and the girl was bringing it upon herself. To try and combat it, she took Carmen on excursions to Costa Brava, the volcano at Olot, the steam baths at Montbui. She would add other kids to the trips, as many as possible, until she filled up the family car. When they got to each place, she’d let them out, like a pack of hounds, so they could run all over the grass and hunt bugs — basically, so they could show off that they were full of life. But it was useless when it came to Carmen. The girl behaved with a proper but distant chilliness. She obeyed orders but participated in the games without complaints or enthusiasm, as if she were tackling a school assignment that wasn’t too difficult. And she did this with her mind elsewhere — undoubtedly in her closet full of toys.
For her tenth birthday, her mother decided to try to use shock therapy. She organized the biggest party ever. She rented a local games place for kids and invited more than fifty people, quite a feat considering how few friends her daughter had. She bought the girl a pink dress and spent days teaching her how to look sociable and happy.
The day of the party, Carmen spent all morning consulting her stuffed animals about what to do. She’d gotten so enmeshed with them that their games were real meetings, with debates and turns to speak. That morning, a few of the animals suggested she get ill. Others, Max among them, advised straightforward insubordination: a refusal to attend.
But Carmen couldn’t do that to her mother. She’d seen her running around from one thing to another in preparation for days and knew how much this party meant to her. Besides, Carmen had developed a kind of protective shield that allowed her to function in the outside world in exchange for returning safely to hers, and she didn’t mind using it when necessary. Frankly, that was the safest bet because it guaranteed that, as long as she knew how to behave, nothing would change between her stuffed animals and her. So, against her toys’ wishes, she opted for the most diplomatic solution: she’d go to the party, then come back to her stuffed animal world, to hibernate until her next birthday.
The biggest surprise was that she actually liked the party. Busy with the trampolines and the rides, her guests didn’t torment her, and she was able to get over her fears and play some of the games too. Aware of her love of stuffed animals, and unaware of her mother’s worries, a few of the guests had given her stuffed animals as gifts: dogs, monkeys, chickens, deer. But, for once, Carmen was more interested in people and was able to have fun with them. That night, she came home with her heart swooning over her discovery of parties and her reconciliation with the world.
But when she went to tell her stuffed animals, they were no longer in her room.
Or in her closet.
Or under her bed.
Carmen looked all over the house. She rummaged through boxes. Peeked under rugs. Called aloud for each of her stuffed animals, especially for Max. Finally, fearing the response she already knew, she asked her mother what had happened to her friends. That’s what she called them, friends, as tears rolled down her cheeks. And her mother’s words hit her like anvils hurled down from the sky.
“You’re too big for such things, dear. It’s time you found other pastimes.”
The day she turned forty, Carmen opened her eyes ten minutes before the alarm and let time ease by until the moment to get up. When she was getting dressed before the mirror, she realized that wrinkles were starting to show on her neck, her armpits, and between her breasts. She felt as though her body came with an expiration date. To celebrate the passage of time with joy struck her as a supremely tasteless custom.
As the day went on, her colleagues behaved with studious normality, which only made Carmen more nervous. Every now and again they exchanged complicit looks amongst themselves and she was tempted to pretend she was getting a chill and just go home for the day. In the afternoon, a client approached to wish her a happy birthday and winked at her. Carmen felt as if the whole city knew, as if she were walking the streets with a sign on her forehead that said: Today I’m a year older.
After doing the day’s accounting and closing up shop, Jaime and Daniel turned off the lights and came out of the back room with the traditional muffin which was, in fact, Carmen’s favorite: apple and cinnamon. It had two candles stuck in it, shaped like a 4 and a 0, which tenuously lit the scene while her friends sang “Happy Birthday.” Carmen wished that everything would end right then and there and blew out the candles. But she knew the muffin would not grant her wish.
Due to the upcoming Holy Week holiday, they’d closed late, so they could simply change clothes and begin their noche loca, as Daniel had been saying with the heaviest gay accent he could muster. Then, the moment Carmen had been fearing finally arrived with a ta-daaa to spice up the occasion. Milena and Lucía presented her with her costume, the irrefutable evidence that there was no going back, that she’d spend the evening dressed as someone else, surrounded by faceless people.
The costume wasn’t even original. Worse yet, it was the most common of alclass="underline" the prostitute. “A hooker!” Daniel squealed. It included platform shoes and high multicolored hose, a leather miniskirt, and a black top, which left broad swatches of skin out in the open. The good part was that, at least out on the street, she’d have to wear a coat. The bad part was the rest of it.
Her friends were prodigiously inventive and, without exception, were all better costumed. Each one took his or her turn going in the bathroom and, upon coming back out in costume, received applause and jocular comments from the others. Daniel wore a tunic and laurels like Caligula, and Jaime was going goth, with a nail-studded collar and leather accessories. Milena was dressed as Little Red Riding Hood. Lucía was a cop. Carmen tried to maintain her composure but had the sensation that everything was happening a million light-years away from her.