Her beauty had always frightened me. Her transparent skin seemed to me completely different from the opaque bodies that could be seen and touched in our neighbourhood. A smooth skin that I will not see again. And her eyes of water which seemed to go in as if they had the sky in them .I was near her very few times and even fewer the times I dared to tell her some words. But her and my classmates always thought there was something between us. Of course I encouraged that idea and I never tried to explain some wrong ideas they had. Martha made the newly born prestige of my loving biography appear much brighter. One thing which was favourable to me was that nobody knew a boyfriend of hers; as if she was an ugly woman, everybody used to keep far from her. I tried to spy her body very cautiously and I imagined it with a strange feeling of unexplained guilt. It seemed as if I was betraying her eyes, because ,when they looked, they made us forget that bodies existed. One day, without saying anything and with no explanation, she left the city. And "Martha" became a name that sometimes friends said just to know if I opened my mouth .Some of those suspicious must have grown and there will always be someone who will continue swearing that there was something between us.. Years passed by. Enough years to make me forget her. My life was quite far from everything that had represented my highschool life. I had inherited a forge where I had already started working when I was at school and that had kept me tightly close to the neighbourhood , the club canteen and the fishing trips .I didn´t know how it would be to have a boss because my father had never wanted to impose me this job, and Ididn´t have an employee, either, so I simply hit the iron without any fixed timetable. I had time to visit the bars and have any girl who wished to be with me .But noone was like Martha .I walked all around the suburb without making any noise and if somebody said a word against me , nobody would support it because I had always been a good neighbour. The only problem was that as I liked young girls under twenty, and every day there were fewer. When I was running after them, some things happened that nobody would believe but which prove that when referring to love events, the whims of the ones who have just celebrated their fifteen year old , occupy the first place.. For some months I had been thinking of leaving the forge. I thought I could have done it before. I had nobody to support and, besides I also had some money in the bank so with that and the money of my retirement I would be able to live quite well. The passed years had killed my illusions and I had no other ambitions. Friends? I had a few. Sometimes I was and at the same time I wasn´t with the ones of my neighbourhood. My classmates from highschool had become doctors and lawyers and I hadn´t seen them any more since they left to study in Montevideo. Two weeks ago exactly, a 4th grade classmate from highschool had invited me to his son´s wedding .Maybe he did it because that made him feel better: I had helped him to prepare the exams when we were in 2nd preparatory and when he had his house built I didn´t charge him anything for the front bars. The first problem was my clothes. I didn´t have a suit for I had never had to wear one. I had to buy a suit, a white shirt and a tie as well. When I looked at myself in the big mirror of the shop, I realized that my back was bent, my veins were quite visible, the hair on my chest was white, my tummy was fallen and I was bald. I didn´t forget the image of my whole body for the next few days. And I compared myself with the people of my age I was still seeing .They looked to me as if they were the same people from 40 years ago. My friend, who was always joking about my relationship with Martha, didn´t tell me she was coming. Maybe because nobody thought there might be any connection between me and a lady from the capital who was surely a rich man´s distinguished wife. She had only lived for a year among us. Luckily he didn´t do so because I would have spent fifteen days remembering the years that were still fixed in my dreams. The night of the party I found myself uncomfortable as I had feared before. I didn´t know where to sit, but finally I sat down at a table where there were the few ones who had gone without a partner. I was happily drinking whisky when I saw her. She was coming to me. She had recognized me and wanted to greet me. I stood up. She was bright, dressed in colours that made her different from all the others. But I was still standing when she walked past as if she hadn´t seen me; she had always done that before .I must have dropped my arms and my face must have become that of a foolish man. I trusted she would realize it was me and she would turn back. But nothing happened. I went back to the table where fortunately my glass was quite full. I couldn´t look anywhere else but the place where Martha had disappeared. I wanted to greet her even if I had to force the meeting. There she was, at the noisiest table, she was the centre of a group of boys and girls that turned around her.. I had my eyes fixed on her as usual. But when I compared her with the boys that surrounded her, I realized it wasn´t her. The one who was jumping and singing had to be her daughter. I had been incredibly silly. I returned to the table and I didn´t talk any more with those new friends who looked like penguins. When I became conscious, the room was almost empty and there was nobody at my table. I walked as I could, trying to reach the exit. There was a woman sitting at the table next to the one where the cake had been and where the newly-wed couple had also been. She was alone and downcast and she seemed familiar to me. Her figure was not clear because of her fatness. I also realized she had taken one of her shoes. I walked nearer and I recognized her eyes. It was Martha. She had a parrot throat. She smiled, perhaps remembering the stupid years when I had admired her. That´s why I stopped a few metres away from her and I looked at her, shamelessly as I had never done before. There was nothing on her that had withstood time. And because of her I had wasted my time , lying to my friends and all the other girls who had accepted me were much less than her for me. In endless lonely nights I had recognized she was the only woman I would have married. I left the room and waited for her to come out, standing in the opposite sidewalk. Trees, cars and sounds turned around me in the dim light of the dawn. Finally she came out alone, and while walking she took something out of her handbag and pressed it in her fist. She walked with difficulty, as a drunk or an old woman. She was an old drunken woman, with a face of dry land and a smile of a badly done cut. I threw myself over her when she was about to open the car door. She recognized me. But there was no time for words. I embraced her and I sank into her body, a long and enjoyable stab, from bottom to top. We were both standing, she was looking up while I was devouring the deep blue of her sky.
Translated by Teresita Barreiro
Teresita Barreiro, Salto 1948. Profesora en el Liceo Crandon (1966-1984), en el Instituto Cultural Anglo (1966-2001) y en Enseñanza Secundaria, en Uruguay, desde 1980 hasta la fecha. Se desempeña actualmente como subdirectora del Liceo Nº 1 de Salto