Waves of Satin By Giovanna Rivero Santa Cruz Translated by Kathy S. Leonard

        It was a question of time. Many things in life were a question of time. As a little girl she used to sit on the short walls that surrounded those identical American-style houses. While swinging her legs in childish inertia, inelegantly, ungainly, wearing patent leather shoes, her socks mended at the heels, she would take the trouble to count the seconds–one, two, three, four–and sometimes she repeated them to see if they would stop–one, one, one and a half, one and three-fourths... But no. Time was like a ruthless giant who stomped on youth with his huge strides and there was nothing you could do about it. Then there were the shy buds that appeared on her chest, and a flowering of her pubis that revealed the silent and telling passing of the days–one, two, three, four, four and a half… Things that were ending, that had to end, were a question of time, like love, or like death itself. The cold operating table where the anesthesiologist sweetly sang the backwards countdown to sleep, a hymn of abandonment: at the count of ten you will fall deeply asleep. Hypnosis of our daily routine, swinging legs in silent impatience. Nine, ten, eleven, thirteen, twenty. She had also learned to walk in strides. She could see herself, acting in imagined plays, like a street artist, wearing huge wooden legs, scurrying up and down the streets, spinning in dangerous pirouettes while juggling flaming torches hoping to extract a few coins from the drivers who pounded their horns, desperate to move, counting the seconds that it takes the traffic light to change from red to green. Yes, she had taken strides. “It seems like just yesterday that you got married and already you’re getting a divorce,” her mother had said to her, although she had not wanted it to sound like that, like a reproach. Thirty, thirty-one, thirty-five years old. Forty, forty-three capsules. What she needed was to be able to encapsulate time. But time only became encapsulated in a routine. Arriving at the hotel punctually, putting on her apron, her ridiculous cap, that for some strange reason made her feel sexy, perhaps some forbidden movie she had watched between her fingers, the closet door ajar, while her mother received male visitors in her bedroom. Room five, room six, third floor, fourth floor. Time was encapsulated there, where the blue sheets were put on every Tuesday and the towels were changed only on Thursdays. She liked Wednesdays because that was when they put on the satin sheets, a hotel promotion: “Mid-week luxury at half-price.” And on Wednesdays the couples arrived, sucking on each other’s necks like thirsty vampires, avoiding the sun, their skin disintegrating in the darkness. And every Thursday morning she collected the invisible cells strewn on the satin sheets. And she waited for Wednesdays, for the cold, smooth contact of those sheets. It was a question of time. But time also grew weary, it became tired of itself, it could no longer stop or continue, it pressured some part of its own body. It pounded its temples, its internal clock, where the minute hand accused the numbers relentlessly. She only wanted to lie down, anywhere, perhaps on some bed, still warm from the bodies of those wandering vampires. Why not? Sleep, and let time pass as it pleased, let it grow old alone, so it wouldn’t need to touch people’s faces, to leave its terrible prints. Wasn’t time enough for itself? The same as a glass of water quenching its own thirst. It’s sad to drink a glass of water, transparent glass, transparent water. But drinking a glass of water little by little, counting the pills that travel through the esophagus toward some part of the body and into the bloodstream, hypnotizing the muscles, that was a question of time. She threw herself face down on the unmade bed and closed her eyes; she then began to move her legs, lifting them, riding a bicycle, until she could no longer feel her own movements and it seemed that the satin sheets had melted into silky waves, where absolutely nothing counted. At the count of ten you will be asleep, she told herself softly. She felt slightly nauseous, perhaps from the capsules that she had swallowed. It forced her to change positions, to curl up her legs, as if she were cold, rocked on the waves of satin. Waves of satin.

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Programs in Creative Writing and Translation     ■     Department of English     ■     University of Arkansas      ■     Fayetteville