BY LINDA WILGUS
Before I see the woman, I see the towel: a blue and white striped affair, blowing at a ninety degree angle in the wind. My hand trembles against the glass as I lean in to get a better look. A trail of footprints leads from the water to where the woman stands silhouetted against a daybreak sky the color of sand crocuses. She’s bent slightly at the waist and her legs are angled, too, like a compass, and her bottom and the lower half of her back together form an upturned apple with two dimples at the top.
The wooden blind, torn loose from the hook again, rattles against the windowpane. No woman from these parts would disrobe on a public beach with such stark abandon, nor is she generally able to claim such hips. Those of us who have lived here for generations tend to be stalky in our youth and acquire more of the cushioning they call ‘matronly’ with each successive kid until we approach forty in a soft, rounded buxomness most of the men in the town appreciate. Jorge likes my fullness and I like that he likes it, but standing by the window in the windswept light I wish I could hold the apple-dimpled lines of the woman down on the beach.
Beyond her, the sea churns up foam sculptures. The season is young; the town only hints at the shoddy glamour and package holiday atmosphere of the summer to come. In these quiet days before the crowds, the village belongs to the fishermen who bring in the sardines late afternoon, displaying them on ice and selling them straight from their boats, the wooden crates spilling scales and fins while the gulls hurl themselves at the deck in violent pleas. The woman on the beach is an anomaly. Who goes swimming in this weather?
I watch the woman dry off her cropped black hair and then wrap the towel around herself. Turning away from the surf, her gaze rises along the dunes until she’s looking directly at the window. My breath somersaults. I draw back in the shadow behind the clatter of the blind. Jorge snores in the bedroom, a precious hour before the alarm; Isla and Gabriella still curled beneath their duvet nests, too. When I dare to look out the window again, the beach stretches bare but for the line of footprints leading away from the shore to where the parking lot crests against the dunes. You don’t even have to pay yet, it’s that early in the year.
From the parking lot the woman, unseen, illusory, trails the empty street down to the house, climbing the peeling stucco steps and moving through the hall until she crawls, at last, into my head; her wide hips and beeline waist spitting nonchalance all over my thoughts of breakfast, Jorge, the kids, work; her angel-wing shoulders mocking the necessity of grocery shopping.
#
All through the day I linger near the window. The twin screens of the computer glow behind me. The brochure awaits my editing, but the landmarks in the photos grow towering legs and strapping hips; the summer hues a coat of bronzed paint. Outside, a beach comber hits the sand, followed by dog walkers and a man with too much facial hair and cut-off jeans, carrying a kite shaped like a dolphin.
When my alarm goes off the next morning, Jorge groans and I tell him I want to get some work done before breakfast. I wait at the window and she reappears, wrapped only in the towel. The light turns from granite to violet to rose-tinted fire as the woman swims. She emerges from the surf like a Gaudi building become flesh.
Watching, I want to be her. I want her hips to be my hips and her small, pointed breasts to be my breasts. I imagine they would barely fill out a B cup bra and try to picture what they would look like in my own elephantine lingerie. I want to run my hand along the line of her back and the apple-round curve, tracing the dimples and, afterwards, taste the salt on my fingertips. The marbles of antiquity used to make me feel this way, long ago; Artemis, Athena and Aphrodite cast in sinewy stone. What did their hard, round breasts feel like? Had the artist felt them? I imagined chipping at the stone, molding the muscle. I wanted to kiss their busts, but the velvet cord of the museum kept me at bay.
When the woman leaves I turn away from the window. Have other eyes tucked behind other windows beheld the vision?
Munching on his galletas María at breakfast Jorge asks if I am I well; I look feverish.
#
Every day for two weeks I rise early and watch the woman on the beach swim and dry herself down. My mind burns. Perhaps I could casually run into her, as she dresses in the parking lot by her car? Strike up a conversation? Or I could approach her on the beach, pretending to be out for a walk. Why don’t I have a dog? A dog would’ve been perfect. What other reason to walk on the beach at such an hour?
Towards the end of the second week, I settle on a note. While she’s swimming I’ll run down to the beach and leave it on her towel. Eccentric thing to do, but also noncommittal: she can ignore it if she likes. Plus, it gives me an out. I can pretend the note isn’t mine. I picture the confrontation; the woman, her hair still wet, her hips encased in a pair of cargo shorts or maybe hidden under a cotton summer dress, yet trembling and shouting ¡Auxilio! ¡Policía! I cringe, but the idea of the note lingers.
It’s like climbing a mountain, writing this note. The air feels thin; the height makes me dizzy. My hand shakes when I sign my name. I want to tell her I adore her; that I long to talk to her; I want to explain I don’t mean it in the way she might think. I’m married, after all. I only want to get to know her and, who knows, maybe become her friend, if she’s new in town and could use a friend, or even if she’s only on holiday, it may be nice to know somebody local. I could show her where everyone buys their fish, the freshest at the best price, and she could come for dinner and bring her husband if she has one or if she doesn’t, she could come alone. The note, when it’s finished, reads: ¿Café? Vivo muy cerca. Carrer de Santa Ann. Número 44. María Francesca. I fold the paper twice and hide it between some books in my office.
#
The next morning, I dress very quietly. I stand by the window until the woman arrives. She drops the towel and walks, naked and bold, into the water. Stuffing the note into the pocket of my jeans, I slip outside, leaving the door open a crack. I fly down the steps, barely looking where I place my feet. I do not look at the woman as I trip down the sand. She must see me, my nerves shuddering inside. The sand is still damp and grey from the night. When I reach the towel, I set the note on top and fold over one end so it won’t blow away. The breeze grabs the sleeves of my shirt, making them flap like a seagull, yet I linger, unable to withdraw my hand from the fabric that touched her skin. Then, without looking up, I turn away from the sea and run back. By the front door I stop, spluttering. What have I done? I want to snatch back the note, but I’m sure she has seen me, sure she’s left the water and is reading it as I stand here.
Maybe she won’t come. The relief will be followed by days in which I’ll retrace my steps; the idiocy of the plan plain on the wall. Or maybe she will come and I won’t answer the door. Or I will go out and stay away, let Jorge answer the door. But wait, he would recognize my handwriting if she showed him the note. Ask the questions I dread: Who is this woman? Why did you invite her?
I take off my sandals and wipe my feet on the mat inside the door before returning to the window. Downhill, the beach swells empty onto the rippled sand exposed during low tide. She could be here any moment. I head to the hallway, listening for a knock, but all’s quiet. I wait. Not long now, I’m sure, before Jorge’s alarm.
I am about to return to the living room when I hear it: lights steps; a lighter knock. Maybe I’ve imagined it. I open the door to check and there she stands, not in shorts or a summer dress but in long, loose cotton trousers, the kind tourists like to wear along with a shirt tie-dyed in unripe olive. Her wet hair is sticking up like I pictured it and up close I can see her teeth tucked inside her smile are uneven and my heart stretches sideways, stretching and dimpling just like her face. The marble of long-ago statues fades; she is warm, flushed, real.
“Maria Francesca?” the woman says full of unrolled Rs.
“Yes.” It’s a whisper, if you can call it that. I try again. “Yes.”
She holds up her phone screen, Google Translate showing my note on one side and the translation in English on the other. Her smile widens. Her face suits her shape; high cheekbones, broad features; and that smile, liquid salt and grinning sunshine. “Yo…” she searches, “recib…” then simply holds up the note. “¿Café?”
“Yes,” I say, motioning for her to come in. Without my asking she takes off her espadrilles and puts them on the shelf beside the other shoes.
I lead her into the kitchen. The nerves dance; it’s only now she’s here that I realize I never really thought she’d come. She says something but it’s in English; I reply but she doesn’t understand. Our languages circle one another like dogs about to wrestle or maybe mate; why, I think, why, did I not study more in school? But we have phones. I take mine off the charger and pull up Google. In the Translate window the speech I have rehearsed lights up: I’ve seen you swim. I work early. It’s still cold. I thought you might like a coffee to warm up.
The woman folds her legs under her on the plastic kitchen chair. I don’t know how the legs fit. She types and then shows me her screen: I’ve seen you at the window. Every day. I didn’t wave. I didn’t want to embarrass you.
Our conversation becomes a staccato music piece; some modern concerto, disjointed yet harmonious, the notes clanging against the kitchen walls, where the clock seeps towards breakfast. Her smile’s the only constant. Alice, her name is, and she is travelling around Spain, making things – what things? – of fabric. Of wool, for the markets. “Voy,” she says. “Mañana. I leave.”
Jorge’s up: the melody of his bathroom routine joins our tune; the clearing of his throat followed by the spitting in the sink, the flush of the toilet; the shower running.
Alice’s eyes question me. “My husband,” I say, hoping she is not perturbed.
When Jorge enters the kitchen shiny, his beard is trim and his eyes are full of the kind of melancholic charm that made me fall in love with him twenty years ago. The girls, in cropped hoodies and jeweled jeans, follow on his heels. Curiosity trails surprise; “Una amiga mía,” I mumble red-faced in spite of myself, and “¿Listas para el desayuno?” I get out the bread and ham and cheese, pour the orange juice into glasses. I feel Jorge’s eyes on my back as I set the breakfast table for five.
#
Alice eats with us; biscuits, sandwiches, jam, toast, which I don’t always do, but she’s English, so she must want toast. I wish I had tea but she drinks the coffee like it’s water. Jorge gives up on the conversation with Google. He stares at me, then at Alice. His face draws tight. Something snaps and cuts inside me and my chest aches. Dull, hollow. Part of me wants to push Alice out the door; the other part cannot wait for Jorge and the kids to leave.
Twenty minutes later the door shuts behind them and Alice and I are alone in the sudden hush. We go into the living room and sit across from one another in the leather butterfly chairs by the window. The sun skips in, throwing splotches of light onto the tiled floor. Down on the beach, a dog has escaped its leash; the owner chases after it, shouting into the wind.
The music has ceased: we have nothing more to say. Alice and I sit and look at each other, smiling, not speaking; not awkward, nor strange. The tight-wound nerves coursing through my veins have mellowed into soft complacency. I could sit here for the rest of the day just looking at her face. After a while she glances down at her hands, almost as though she has grown shy. I follow her gaze. My phone’s on the kitchen table so I try on my own: “You… tocas piano?” I indicate her fingers, resting on her knee.
The smile shines. “No. I don’t play the piano.” She searches and finds the word guitarra.
“Good,” I say. “Guitarra is good.”
She gets up. She’s going and it’s like water slipping through my fingers.
“You go? Now? No more coffee?”
She says yes, she must go, but I can come to dinner, tonight, in her caravan. The phone’s back in her hand now. . . “Before I leave tomorrow.”
She’s going and her espadrilles cradle her feet. They have long laces, which she winds around her ankles and then she’s standing with one foot already on the top step outside when she leans in and kisses my cheek. Her face hovers close for two sunscreen-scented seconds. “You come tonight. Si?”
She moves down the street, hips swaying inside her harem pants.
#
The rest of the morning I try to focus on the brochure, but every so often my hand escapes the keyboard and I find my fingers searching my cheek.
Jorge comes home for lunch. He sits at the kitchen table hunched over his salad and spears his olives onto his fork with quick little jabs. He doesn’t ask, ¿Cómo te va hoy, mi amor? like usual. He doesn’t ask about Alice or why he hasn’t heard about this friend before. In fact he says hardly anything, when normally he likes to talk, about his co-workers at the office and what we might do on the weekend and the game of football they’ve got on for Thursday and why do we have to have a slumber party for Isla’s birthday, do we really want five giggling girls staying up all night? On and on and on. But today he only looks up once and asks, “¿No estas comiendo?”
I cannot imagine eating. “No tengo hambre.”
In the silence that follows I open my mouth five times without a sound coming out. At last, the words roll out when my back is turned to him: Alice has asked me to come to dinner tonight. In her caravan.
“¿Alice, tu nueva amiga?” Jorge says to my back.
“Sí, ella..”
“¿Y te vas?”
I open the fridge and take out the leftover paella from the night before. If I add bread and salad, it’ll be enough for Jorge and the girls. I hold the Tupperware out to him, but he doesn’t take it, so I set it on the kitchen counter.
Jorge gets up and puts his plate in the sink. His motions are clipped and stiff. He gets his jacket and shuts the front door without kissing me goodbye.
Once I’m alone again I flit from room to room, unable to draw a breath that dips below the top of my lungs. Every room is filled with photos: Jorge and I on holiday in Paris, posing in front of the Notre Dame; the girls in their school pictures, smocked and brushed and beribboned; Mother and Father, looking stately at some city function. I go to my wardrobe and try to settle on a dress for the evening, but the patterns and colors blend until I can no longer tell them apart; the clumps of fabric one enormous, kilometer-long dress, flamboyant and treacherous in its scope.
The beach slumbers in the late afternoon sun. There are many footprints now: men, women, dogs’ paws in a wide circle; small tracks spaced far apart where a child broke into a run. I think about Jorge coming home and the girls finishing their homework and all of them sitting down to their heated-up dinner, the girls asking Jorge about the new friend and Jorge unable to explain.
I go to the front door and hover in the hallway; twice I open it, once I make it all the way down the steps and into the street before I flee back inside. Gabriella texts that she and Isla are hanging out with friends til later. I start to make the dinner. Something that wouldn’t have worked in the microwave: sardines, bought the day before - got to use them up, they won’t be any good tomorrow - fried in oil, with lemon and bread. Jorge comes home. He glances at the contents of the frying pan and, brushing my hair aside, kisses the back of my neck. After that he disappears into the living room to read the news on his tablet.
“¿Estas comiendo aquí?” he says, coming back in when I set the table for four.
I turn to face the stove. The sardines gleam likes oiled jewels. I want to wipe my eyes but Jorge will notice. “No tengo ganas de salir.”
Jorge smiles. “Esto me hace feliz, María.” He pours two glasses of Rioja and, leaning against the counter, hands me one.
I wait till he has left the kitchen before I get a paper towel for my face. The wine goes down well. I have another glass, this one a little fuller. After Jorge and the kids have eaten, I tell them I want to get some fresh air. My stomach clenches at the thought of Alice, waiting in the caravan, two plates of – what? Something English? Or something Spanish, for me? – growing cold.
Why did I not think to get her phone number? I could’ve texted her, at least. Made up some excuse. But any excuse would only accentuate the truth. I leave the house in a cloud of agitation, picturing the streets leading to the entrance of the campsite. “There’s only three caravans,” Alice had typed. “I’m in the one near the pool.”
I imagine knocking on her door, Google Translate explaining for me. The food would be cold but we wouldn’t care.
The sand is smooth under my bare feet. I bury my toes in the low tide ripples and the surf washes over them.
#
The next morning, I am at the window even earlier than the past few days but her elongated apple-shape never materializes. The beach sighs; the gulls scream.
Before I realize it, I’m hurrying down the street. The morning barely blushes. From the bakeries comes the smell of fresh bread. Sometime during the night, it rained. The pavement glistens under my feet; each step breaks against the walls of the houses.
The beam across the road onto the campsite is still lowered; the reception closed. I shoot past the building and take the path to the right. Number fourteen is an empty patch of brown, flattened grass, tire marks pressed into the ground, puddles. A spigot slowly drips beside the road. On top of the near hedge, as though put out to dry and forgotten, lies Alice’s striped towel.
I pick it up and carefully fold it. Maybe she’ll come back for it. Maybe she left it on purpose. Maybe…
After a while, a middle-aged man in a black leather jacket approaches. “Are you looking for the English girl?” His accent is different from Alice’s. German, maybe?
“She… aquí?”
“She left. Very early. Said she had to get to San Sebastián. You a friend of hers?”
“San Sebastián?”
“This morning. Are you her friend? Amiga?”
I shrug. “No, a… una conocida mía.”
#
On my way back I picture the journey on the bus, no, the train; the sun on the dusty windows; the graffiti in the stations. I watch my feet walk the unfamiliar streets, searching for markets; in one, I spot Alice bent over a case with handmade headbands and fabric bracelets the colors of her smile. I press her towel to my face and breathe it in.
Gravel crunches underfoot as I cross the empty parking lot and step out onto the beach. The sun is low in the sky, pushing silver onto the sand and stewing the foam in small, rushing rivulets. I begin to walk toward the water, pulling my tank top over my head and letting it fall as I go. My skirt hits the sand next, then my bra, which takes a little fiddling because one of the hooks is broken. I’m nearly running now; the bra goes. My underpants – black lace, picked with care in the idle space between hope and regret – I let drop approximately where Alice used to dry off. Kneeling, I place the folded towel on top of them. And then I’m free and running, the wind rubbing my drifting limbs; the sand caressing the flesh between my toes; the sea, marble-cold, taking hold.
Linda Wilgus’ work has appeared or is forthcoming in, among others, J Journal, Zone 3, Reed Magazine and The Bitter Oleander. A graduate of the University of Amsterdam, Linda hails from the Netherlands and lives in Cambridgeshire, England, where she shares a house on a village green with her husband, three children and dog.
Process Note: Much of my fiction springs from a single image or a single line of dialogue: in this case, the picture of a woman, naked, on a beach. As I contemplated this woman, the threads of setting and language became woven into the fabric of a narrative which explorers both the difficulties of communication across language barriers as well as how, sometimes, the dialogue between two people can transcend the use of language.