— What’s wrong?
— Nothing, Nula says, I was thinking that you and Lucía are a perfect match, and I’m absolutely sure you’ll end up together.
— Seriously? Riera says, his smile full of suggestion, clearly signaling that in the words Nula has just spoken there are numerous, darkly hidden allusions that to him are more amusing than offensive or worrying. And suddenly he stands up and shouts to Diana, who sits several meters behind them, sketching under the umbrella:
— Should we take a swim?
Nula laughs, defeated. He realizes that Riera has wanted to demonstrate to him, through his attitude, not only that his allusions aren’t a threat to him, but that he can do things that are even more disturbing, something which translated into words would look something like, Anyone who would suggest to me that the relationship I have with my wife is perverse should know that I would be more than happy to have one even more so with theirs.
— Sit there for two more minutes without moving from those positions and I’ll accept, Diana says without looking up, because she’s finishing the sketch of them from behind, sitting in their chairs under the pavilion, near the empty table. They freeze for a minute more or less and finally Diana shouts, Done!
She closes the pad and the pencil box and, standing up, heads toward the pavilion.
— Immortalized, she says when she passes them on her way to drop the pad and the pencils in the straw bag. Nula and Riera stand up and start to unbutton their shirts, removing them almost simultaneously, as though they’d been competing to see who could take theirs off first. Riera leaves his on the back of his chair, but Nula folds his carefully and puts it in the bag, where Diana is dropping the leather band that she’s just removed from her wrist. Go ahead, I’ll be right there, Diana says, and Nula understands that, though she already has her bathing suit on, she doesn’t want to undress in front of them. The two men walk toward the pool, and only when she sees them standing with their backs to her, at the edge, looking at the water, does Diana remove her dress and her sneakers and put them in the bag. When she reaches the pool, Riera is already in the water, but Nula has waited for her at the edge. When she sees her arrive, Lucía, who is standing in the shallow end, opens her arms to receive them, shouting, Come in, come in! Diana and Nula dive in to the deep end, and Diana, swimming under water, moves toward Lucía, but by the time she surfaces Lucía’s enthusiasm seems to have vanished. They stand there motionless, without knowing what to say, in the four o’clock sun that projects unstable sparks on the water disturbed by the movement of the bodies that have just dived into it and which continue to move and twist inside it. Lying on his back, Nula observes the completely empty blue sky, almost the same color as the water, possibly a bit lighter due to the intense light of the sun, which, though it’s not visible to him in the portion of sky framed by the courtyard, the trees, and the house, flows ceaselessly in the April afternoon, as hot as any January or February. The serene stillness of the blue sky contrasts with the sparkling undulations of the water, and Nula concentrates on that contrast, telling himself that it only exists within the human incapacity to perceive with only our sight the prevalence of that same agitation in what, because of that same optical illusion, its earlier observers named the firmament.
Sitting up, he sees Riera swimming, with vigorous strokes, toward the women, and, submerging, he does the same, but under water. When he reaches her, he wraps his arms around Diana’s waist and lifts her, as he emerges, his head pressed against her firm, naked back. Diana protests, laughing, shaking her arms and legs, and Nula drops her loudly into the cool water. When his attention returns to his friends, he realizes that Riera and Lucía are kissing and caressing each other openly, intensely, without false modesty, and, at least apparently, with the world around them forgotten.
— A beautiful reconciliation scene, he whispers to Diana, taking the opportunity to nibble softly on her ear. In fact, the caresses to which Riera and Lucía have abandoned themselves have given him a sudden erection, and, trying to calm down, he wonders if that hadn’t been their primary motive. Under the swimming trunks, his penis engorges slightly, but remains a soft thickness that sticks, agreeably, to the skin on the inside of his thigh. If they were alone he’d convince Diana to make love. He’d put it in her right there, in the water; it would be easy to lift her up and make her cross her legs around his back, pull his shorts halfway down his thighs, and, pushing aside the tiny bottoms that Diana has on, when his penis was hard enough, penetrate her. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d done it in the water: they’d done it once in the river, two or three times in the bathtub, even with the discomfort, and one night in a hotel pool in Córdoba. He’d lower her bikini top and suck her tits, harder than Lucía’s despite her two maternities, and better shaped than Virginia’s, whose taste and consistency he still has in his mouth, or rather, which are still so present in his memory than they seem to persist in his senses. Though Diana is next to him and their bodies are almost touching, the scene that he imagines has erased her presence, and while the physical attraction that it evokes is more distant than her real body, it has a mythic perfection, sheltered from all contingency, that magnetizes him, heats him up, and blinds him. He’s become so excited that he submerges himself again in order to see if the cool water will remove that turbulent fantasy, but when he’s under water he can’t resist the temptation to fondle Diana’s buttocks, but then he sees that Lucía and Riera’s hands, under the water, are grabbing each other’s crotches. Curiously, rather than excite him like the apparently passionate caresses to which they’d abandoned themselves did a moment ago, this detail calms him down immediately, as if the sexuality that seemed, as he grew excited, to exist only for himself, concentrating in his body all the desire of the universe, was now revealing its pedestrian vulgarity in showing that it was shared by others. He will have to live through more experiences in order to understand that it’s the desire of the other and not our own that creates pleasure, and though he doesn’t yet know this, he still hasn’t reached full adulthood.
— We have to separate tonight; I — persona non grata at my mother-in-law’s — am staying at a hotel, Riera says, as though in apology, but they remain intertwined, their arms around each other’s waists and their free hands submerged.
— Legally you continue to be husband and wife, Nula says. You have every right.
— Of course, Diana says. And even if you weren’t.
Gutiérrez, in a white undershirt, shorts, and sandals, appears suddenly at the edge of the pool.
— The younger generations seem to understand each other well, he says affably. You’re not plotting against you elders, I hope.
But there’s a hint of doubt in his words. Nula thinks that the familiarity among the bathers, who only met this morning, doesn’t quite make sense to him. Actually, Nula doesn’t know if Gutiérrez’s confusion is real, or if he, who has at his disposal every element of the situation, is projecting ideas onto him. Lucía stares at the surface of the water with a conventional smile, but Riera and Diana exchange pleasant looks with the owner of the house, who, seen from below, is amplified by the perspective, and he offers the four of them a welcoming expression that contains more than a poolside afternoon cookout in the country. Nula believes — hopes — that Gutiérrez is able to understand everything, and though it was Lucía and not himself who on Tuesday night said that they didn’t know each other, he feels guilty about what happened. With him, the lie seems more absurd and superfluous than immoral.