He lies in bed wearing only his underwear. He knows that he and Araceli are going to have a grand time. He will fuck her hard, really hard, and will imagine he is fucking Maryam for the first time.
chapter ten. the naked maja, or la petite mort
The Centro Vasco is an old Basque restaurant on Reforma Boulevard that had its heyday in the sixties when everyone acknowledged that it was the best restaurant in all of Guatemala City. Now, in 2008, it is a place for viejos rucos — old codgers — who are still impressed by waiters in tight black jackets, white long-sleeve shirts with cuff links, string ties, black vests, and matching shiny pants. There are little ceramic oil and vinegar sets on the starched white tablecloths, and furniture that is meant to be Spanish but has actually been transported from a San Marcos province farmhouse. The salt and pepper shakers are Tyrolean, made of wood, and have cranks.
It is actually an ideal place for them to meet for lunch because no one Maryam or Guillermo knows would eat there now, with so many new gourmet options in Guatemala. The paella is overcooked and salty, the cod tastes like clods of white flour, and the oily red peppers that the restaurant had once been famous for taste artificial, straight from a bottle. Maybe the restaurant has never been good and had only been a kind of novelty of Spanish cuisine back when going out to eat in Guatemala City meant hamburgers, steak, or an occasional chapin meal.
* * *
Friday is a lugubrious day, with low clouds and a constant cold rain. Guillermo pulls into the parking lot of the restaurant and scans the entrance for valet service since he has forgotten to bring an umbrella. Instead he sees a handful of cars in the dirt lot. He is sure that one of them is Maryam’s since he is — at least according to plan — ten minutes late, and he expects her to be like her father, who is very punctual.
He parks his BMW next to a blue Hyundai Accent whose chassis is half underwater. There’s a man sitting in the car texting on his phone. When Guillermo opens his car door, their eyes meet momentarily.
As Guillermo steps out, his shoes sink into a puddle of mud, which rises over his soles. He walks to the entrance door on his heels, pulling up his pants legs, cursing the weather, the choice of restaurant, the lack of valet service. . He hates not having everything under his control. Before pulling back the restaurant’s heavy door, he wipes his shoes clean on the towels piled high on the entrance mat.
To his surprise, Maryam is not there. He takes a four-top corner table and waits. The waiter comes up, asks how many people are eating. Guillermo raises two fingers into the air. Then he asks what kind of Scotch they have, and when he learns they only have the scandalously bad Vat 69, he orders a double highball. He downs his drink quickly, sucking on the ice cubes and then munching on the stale cashews and peanuts served on a chipped little plate.
The minutes crawl by like snails. The waiter who served him the drink comes by again and puts a dish of dried sausage on the table, and two salad bowls holding the obligatory iceberg lettuce chunks with spicy tomato dressing on top. Guillermo orders a second drink and texts Maryam a curt message: What’s up?
It is only one fifteen p.m., but Guillermo is about to fester. He texts a second message, ??!!??!! less than five minutes later, but again receives no reply. The Scotch arrives and he takes it down gulp by gulp. He is thinking that as soon as Maryam shows up, he will have to give her a good dressing down and explain to her the rules of the game.
Guillermo asks the waiter if anyone has called the restaurant and left a message for him. The man simply raises his eyebrows as if he has just been spoken to in Tagalog or Mandarin. He does not seem to want to understand.
Guillermo is fulminating internally. He considers his options: order a third drink and get truly soused, or simply leave.
He looks around the restaurant with its framed posters of bullfighters, the erstwhile Picasso drawing of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on horseback, Goya’s La maja desnuda, Velázquez’s Las Meninas, and Dali’s The Persistence of Memory, which after two drinks is possibly the worst painting he has ever seen in his life. He shakes his head at the half dozen winebotas with their absurd red rings and shrunken black penis spouts dangling from the walls. Dirty chandeliers with low-watt bulbs hang above each and every table — he is sure they were purchased from his father’s store fifty years earlier.
What the hell is he doing here waiting like a stupid old secretary for her boss? What is he waiting for?
He decides to call Sofia Muñoz. He leaves her a message on her cell phone to meet him at the Stofella at precisely six p.m. This is the first time he has ever left her a voice message. It is a risk since she is married to an insurance agent who might know how to retrieve her messages. Guillermo doesn’t care. He does not want the day to go totally to waste. And he will have to leave the Stofella at exactly seven thirty p.m. because he is meeting his children across the street at Tre Fratelli for dinner and then going to the nearby Oakland Mall to see the ten o’clock showing of Kung Fu Panda.
He puts a five hundred quetzales on the napkin dispenser and walks in a straight but lumbering line toward the front door. From the corner of his eyes he sees his waiter begin to approach him, then angle over to the table, probably to examine the bills.
As he starts to push on the door, someone pulls it open. It is Maryam.
“What the fuck,” he says as he crashes into her.
She keeps him from falling, but he is annoyed for having lost his balance. Before he can express further displeasure, however, she kisses him on the lips and whispers in his ear, “I’m sorry. I was running late. The rain, the traffic, my car stalled, I forgot my cell phone, please don’t be angry—”
“I’ve been waiting for you,” he says huffily, pulling away from her. Her lips taste of mango chapstick. His head is spinning.
“Yes, I know.” She tries to grab his hand, but he impulsively pulls back. “I’m not really that hungry,” she says to him. “Can we go somewhere else?”
She is wearing gray woolen leggings and a matching gray sweater top. A maroon skirt, more for show than comfort, hugs her hips. A knit scarf is tightly wound around her neck. She’s holding an umbrella and sporting yellow Hunter rain boots.
“Sure,” Guillermo says. She hooks her arm into his and they leave the restaurant. It is still raining, so he borrows her umbrella and goes to get his car — she’ll leave her Mercedes in the lot — while she waits for him under the overhang.
As they drive away, he notices the car beside his put on its lights. It is the blue Hyundai.
* * *
At the Stofella Guillermo gets his key at the reception desk while Maryam waits by the elevator. As soon as they walk into room 314, she takes off her clothes and throws herself stark naked on the bed. She closes her eyes, letting out a childish little giggle. Her ample breasts flop to the sides of her chest.
“I’m waiting for you,” she says.
Her undressing has happened so fast that Guillermo doesn’t know if he is pleased or upset. This is not how he had planned things would play out. Instead, he struggles to take off his shoes (still stained with mud), his brown suit, his brown tie, his cuff-linked white shirt, his T-shirt — like a college sophomore.
Because Maryam is ten years younger and is married to a much older Lebanese Arab, Guillermo has imagined that Samir is the only man she has ever slept with. He assumes that though she has sensuous qualities, she will be shy in bed and terribly inexperienced. But already she has outflanked him.