He opened his eyes and saw an unchanged Sara. Young Napoleon at the Bridge of Arcole, a picture postcard from the Louvre, Sara Klein, her hair combed like Bonaparte’s, the same profile, the same military-style suits and overcoats. Sara Klein, aquiline and dark-skinned—aguileña y trigueña—the description was practically a theme song. She was entranced by the Spanish Ñ.
“Mexico is an X,” Felix had told Sara when they were both still very young. “España is an Ñ. You will never understand the countries if you don’t understand the letters that characterize them.”
Sara, the young Jew, the only one of them who had not spent her childhood in Mexico, had learned Spanish as a young adult. She had grown up in Europe, unlike Ruth and Mary, who had been born in Mexico and were second-generation Mexican Jews. He wondered whether Mary was looking at him. And he recognized that something incomprehensible had happened. The rhythm, not only of the day, but of his life as well, had been broken the instant he entered the Rossettis’ house and saw Sara Klein standing motionless on a white rug.
At that moment, something changed in Felix Maldonado. He thought differently. He recalled forgotten associations, references to films, to history, to the present, everything that had to do with Sara Klein, the quintessential woman, untouched and untouchable, but at the same time the one most deeply wounded by history, the European girl who had known suffering Ruth and Mary could not even imagine. Auschwitz had real meaning for Sara. That was why he’d never been able to touch her. He’d been afraid he would add pain to her pain, that he might hurt her in some way.
“It wasn’t what they did to us individually. It was what they did to us as a whole. What happens to one person is important to everyone. Mass extermination ceases to be important, it becomes a question of statistics. They knew that, and that’s why they hid the individual suffering and glorified collective suffering. In the end, the most important victim is Anne Frank, because we know her life, her home, her family. They couldn’t reduce Anne Frank to a simple number. She is the most terrible witness of the Holocaust, Felix. A young girl speaks for everyone. A pit with fifty corpses has no voice. Forgive me for what I’m going to say. I envy Anne Frank. I was only a number at Auschwitz, one more nameless Jewish child. I survived. My parents died.”
The bubble burst as the tall, obese figure of Professor Bernstein approached Sara.
Mauricio and Angelica Rossetti, his hosts, came to speak to Felix, concealing their surprise that their guest hadn’t greeted them.
“Will we be seeing you tomorrow at the Palace for Professor Bernstein’s prize?” Rossetti asked in his deep-throated voice, but Felix had eyes only for Sara Klein.
The Rossettis introduced him to Sara: “You already know Professor Bernstein. What a shame Ruth isn’t feeling well.”
They introduced him to Sara Klein, and he wanted to laugh. He wrinkled his nose as if to pronounce “n-yeh,” and she remembered, and understood, the joke of their youth, araña, mañana, reseña, enseña, nuño, niño, ñoño, ñaña, ñandú, they laughed together, moño, coño, retoño.
Felix took Sara’s hand and said how fortunate it was that they had the whole evening before them. She hadn’t forgotten the terrible Mexican hours? And she replied in her husky voice, “I remember that everything is very late, very exciting, not like the States. What time is it?”
“Barely ten-thirty. We won’t eat before twelve. First, everyone has to drink a lot of whiskey to build up pressure. If not, the party’s a flop.”
“And then?” Sara smiled.
“We have to stay till five in the morning for the party to be considered a success. I’ve heard about hosts who swallow the key so no one can leave.” Felix stepped aside to include Bernstein in the circle. “Isn’t that right, Professor?”
“I guess so,” said Bernstein, watching the pair attentively, his eyes narrowing behind the thick lenses. “We Mexicans have a temperament for fiestas, music, and color. On the other hand, we are completely lacking in talent in the two most essential professions in the world today: film and journalism. What you said this morning as we were breakfasting together was right, Felix. You can’t understand what a Mexican newspaper says if you don’t have access to confidential information.”
“Who knows? That’s a Jew’s point of view, not a Mexican’s,” Felix said rudely. Why didn’t Bernstein go away? Why didn’t he leave him alone with Sara? Was he going to spend the whole evening hovering over them?
“You should know,” Bernstein replied. “You’re married to one Jew and in love with another.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Felix Maldonado reached out and yanked off the rimless eyeglasses, the two thick, naked lenses that seemed to float before the professor’s invisible eyes.
“I can’t believe it,” said Felix, examining the lenses. “The tomato sauce from breakfast is still here.”
Bernstein’s naked, astounded eyes swam in the depths of a personal ocean and then leapt nervously on deck like gasping fish. Contemptuously, Maldonado hurled the eyeglasses into the fire. Sara cried out, and Mauricio Rossetti rushed to the fireplace to rescue the glasses. Several guests, amused and alarmed, gathered around as Mauricio fished the eyeglasses from the fire with the fire tongs, and Sara stared at Felix with her cold diamond eyes and all the contradictions of her complicity. Felix looked at Sara, first to decipher and then to attempt to distinguish among attraction and repulsion, scorn, homage, and an urge to laugh. Pure perversity, Felix said to himself, gazing at Sara, as Mauricio rescued Bernstein’s damned eyeglasses from the flames that purified all things — conjunctivitis, secretions, and the morning’s tomato sauce.
Felix leaned close to whisper in Sara’s ear. “Darling, we must risk a change in our relationship.”
“It wouldn’t last,” Sara replied, hiding her ear beneath the crow’s wing of her hair. “I have already given you something I couldn’t give if our relationship changed. Let things be as they’ve always been. Please.”
“Are you trying to tell me that what we had is no different from what you’ve felt for other men?” Felix, nibbling the tip of Sara’s ear, enunciated this badly.
Laughing gravely, Sara moved her head away. That laugh was her hallmark.
“Our relation is unique. Do you expect me to be the same to all people if I’m to be totally different with you? Do you realize what you’re asking?”
Mauricio sent a servant to the kitchen to cool Professor Bernstein’s eyeglasses, then officiously stepped between Sara and Felix. “I must ask you to leave, Maldonado. Your bad manners know no bounds. You are in my home now, not your own.”
“What do you mean?” Felix caricatured surprise. “Don’t you always say ‘my house is your house’?”
I cannot understand your conduct,” Mauricio said coldly. “Perhaps the Director General will be able to explain it in the morning when I report to him what happened here.”
Felix laughed in Rossetti’s face. “Why, you fucking little gondolier. Are you trying to threaten me?”
“I beg you to reflect on your behavior, and conduct yourself in a proper manner, Licenciado.”
“Ass-kisser.”
“Who will help me evict this … creature?” Rossetti inquired of the amazed and obviously stunned guests.
The professor intervened between Maldonado and Rossetti. How different he looked without his glasses; his surprise evaporated, his normally suspicious and tense face acquired a kind of Yuletide good nature. Bernstein-without-glasses resembled a lovable old woodworker who’d lost his eyesight carving toys for good little boys and girls. The professor told his host that he’d been the one insulted, and begged him to forget the incident. Rossetti insisted. Maldonado had offended all his guests. “This upstart must be taught a lesson, Professor.”