I would lie awake at night and listen to my Sofia struggle for breath. Sometimes she would ask me to do her in with a pillow. She would tell me she couldn’t take it anymore, that her whole body was killing her.
My Sofia’s body was a marvel on the outside. I would tell her to think of her body as something I could enjoy, something intended for me, something that she had to put up with for a greater good.
Part of the greater good turned out to be Teddy. I never caught them in the middle of each other, but I know what I know.
I only once tried to make love to Tanya.
There was nothing about Teddy that should make anyone want to run away with him. He never once stumbled into his bathroom, looked into the mirror and wanted to kiss himself. I can promise anyone this much.
I never watched Teddy do his work in the field. If I was at his place during the day, I was either spying on his parents tangled up in the living room or looking through the pictures next to his bed.
My Sofia and Tanya and Teddy and I all grew up together, which only means that for a while there we attended the same schools, spent a certain amount of time and anguish together in close proximity.
When I look out the window I see no one almost all the time. Once in a while, I imagine someone coming up the walk. Usually it is my Sofia, under a parasol, aiming to take advantage of me.
The school was populated with the kinds of horrible people you find all over.
The pills in the medicine cabinet are painkillers and sleeping pills. This is because I am in a great deal of pain and can’t sleep, very like my Sofia, if she is still alive.
I remember being out there after school, waiting for my Sofia. I wanted to walk her home, see her to the door. Otherwise, the neighborhood kids, my school chums, would chase her down and do unspeakable things to her. I heard them planning to do this during lunch.
Teddy was the worst of these hooligans, the ringleader.
I would see them hiding in the bushes as we walked past, hoping to catch her alone, take advantage of her poor peripheral vision, spring an ambush on her.
Because we are talking about truly horrible people here, like my school chums, we have to make ourselves clear. Truly horrible people aren’t horrible because they take things the wrong way, but it doesn’t help matters, but what would I have to gain, in the end, after all is said and unsaid, done and undone, what’s in it for me, pointing all of this out, going on the record as it were, making myself clear, understood, being as I am here, alone and surrounded.
Everyone always took what I said about Tanya the wrong way.
My Sofia surrounds me all the time, even though she is not here anymore. She always takes things the wrong way or used to take things the wrong way back when she was around to take anything at all.
My Sofia, I do not know where you are, but I pray for your ambushed soul.
Whether you are dead or alive, Sofia, I do this for you regardless.
In that moment, as I’m about to open the medicine cabinet and swallow all of the painkillers and sleeping pills, I think of my Sofia and Tanya, who might someday see me on the boulevard, who might someday return and who’d want to touch the hem of my garment, tuck a tassel of hair behind my ear, who’d want to kiss me on the mouth as well, good God.
I think of the mother who nursed me, the father who schooled me, the brothers and sisters who bathed and dressed me. These were only sometimes horrible.
I think most of them are dead now.
So many people are either dead or gone. What I mean is, they either died or they left when everyone else started dying off.
The night I tried to make love to Tanya started with a light supper prepared by my Sofia. She made a traditional dish that all of us enjoyed, that took hours to prepare. When I say all of us, I mean my Sofia, Tanya, and me. Teddy wasn’t invited.
While my Sofia was clearing the table, I said something to Tanya about her eyes. Tanya liked it when people talked about her eyes. I compared her eyes to something beautiful, like a red-tailed hawk or the trumpet of the archangel Gabriel. She told me to go on, so I said something about her legs, said they were like the delicate trunk of a shapely willow tree. This is when I put my arm around her and kissed her neck and slipped my hand inside her dress. I think she moaned and told me to stop it. I asked what was wrong with her. I asked her, What can we do? and this is when she stuck me with a butter knife. She made a big production of calling out my name and saying, How could you?
My Sofia was in the kitchen doing the dishes and dancing a tarantella. She always danced a tarantella when she did the dishes. After she heard what Tanya said, she came running in from the kitchen and asked how could I over and over.
By this time, Tanya was storming out the front door and slamming it behind her. The way she looked in that sundress, it was always a pleasure to watch her storm out a door.
I think I told my Sofia it was a misunderstanding and that I didn’t mean it, that there was nothing to it, that I got too much sun and then I think I said something about Teddy the cripple. This is when she told me to get out, that I wasn’t Tanya’s idea of a handsome man, that she never wanted to see me again.
My Sofia had said this to me before, that she never wanted to see me again.
Still, this was the last time I saw any of those people.
Like most, I am human and do all of the human things. I shave and shower and feed myself regularly, every day, if I can manage it. I sometimes like to slip my hand into the dresses of good-looking women. This does not make me horrible. I also look out of windows and blink my eyes. I wait for people to come back, for someone to walk up the walk, under a parasol. I hold doors open for people. I say please and thank you.
I look out the window and see people coming to and fro or I imagine this. None of them are my Sofia or Tanya. Not even Teddy the cripple limps by in my imagination.
I think about addressing the ones I do see from my window, announcing to them that they are horrible people, saying that they should’ve moved away or died like everyone else, like my Sofia or Tanya, that they should stop talking about what happened, that I shouldn’t be the subject of gossip and insinuations, but what will become of me then, how will I be remembered the world over, my good name ruined, besmirched, and for what purpose and to what end? I think about my legacy and those few who surround me here. I see my reflection in the window, and yes, I want to kiss myself.
My Sofia would kiss me square on the mouth at a moment’s notice if given even half a chance, if she were even half-alive and had half a heart left inside her.
Let me make myself clear. The streets are almost always empty. I look out the window and I blink my eyes. I see nothing, no one, almost always. These days the silence coming from outside is disquieting, which is funny, now that I think of it, how silence can be disquieting. Once in a great long while I’ll see someone or imagine such. Most of the time it’s my Sofia or Tanya. When you don’t see anyone for a long while, your mind can play tricks. I guess this has gone on for a while now, not seeing anyone out the window and my mind playing tricks. It’s hard to know how long. I didn’t mark the date when everyone left, but when I look in the mirror, I see new wrinkles and a cluster of gray hairs.
When everyone who didn’t die comes back, I’m sure they will have trouble recognizing me, what with the wrinkles and gray hair.
The one who won’t have any trouble recognizing me is my Sofia. My Sofia would know me anywhere, I’m almost sure. At night we would sometimes sit on a sofa together. I would watch something on television and she would watch me watch the television. When I asked her why, she said it was because I was fascinated. I asked her if she meant fascinating and she said no.