Constancia and Other Stories for Virgins Read Free Page A

syncretisms, of political pastiche and migratory melting pots and maps stuck up with chewing gum, could I possibly understand?
    What could I tell him, I ask again, except, yes, Mr. Plotnikov, I agree, I will do what you say.
    â€”Very good. I thank you. I am too tired.
    With that, he bowed and walked stiffly away in the blazing sun to his house next to mine, near Wright Square.
    4
    Almost in spite of myself, I went into the house. I wanted to tell my wife what had happened. I wanted to tell her how deeply Monsieur Plotnikov had disturbed me, enough to make me take the unusual step of interrupting Constancia’s nap. I was beyond observing that tacit prohibition, so great was the turmoil my Russian neighbor had caused in me. But my astonishment grew when I realized that Constancia was not in her bed, that it had not even been slept in. The shutters were closed, but that was normal. And it would have been normal, too, if Constancia, finding she had to leave the house—I looked for her on all three floors and even in the unused cellar—had wanted to tell me she was leaving, but saw me in the rocking chair and, giving me a fond smile, went out without waking me. In that case, a note would have been enough, a few scribbled words, saying:
    â€”Don’t worry, Whitby. Be back soon.
    And, on returning, what pretext would she give me?
    â€”I don’t know. I decided to lose myself in the plazas. This is the most beautiful and mysterious aspect of the city—the way one plaza always opens onto another, like a Russian doll.
    And other times: —Remember, Whitby, your wife is Andalusian and we Andalusians don’t accept age, we fight it. Look, who dances peteneras better than an old lady, have you noticed?—she said, laughing, imitating a sexagenarian flamenco dancer.
    I imagined her lying down, nude, in the shade, telling me these things: Sometimes, on dog days like these—understand, love?—I go out looking for water, shade, plazas, a maze of streets, ah, if you knew what it was to be a child in Seville, Whitby, that other city of plazas and mazes and water and shadows … You know, I walk through the streets seeking my past in a different place, do you think that’s madness?
    â€”You’ve never tried to make friends here, you haven’t even learned English … Even my name gives you trouble— I smiled—
    â€”Hweetbee Howl— She smiled in turn, and then said to me:
    â€”I haven’t criticized your Savannah, we’ve made our life here, but leave me my Seville, at least in my imagination, my love, and tell yourself: It’s a good thing Constancia knows how to find the light and water she needs here in my own American South.
    I would laugh then, pleased to think that the South, the South with its names full of vowels—Virginia, Georgia, the Carolinas—is the Andalusia of America. And Spain, I tell her, as an old reader of Coustine and Gautier, is the Russia of the West, just as Russia is the Spain of the East. Again I laughed, observing to Constancia that only Russia and Spain had come up with the idea of changing the width of their train tracks to forestall foreign invasion; that is to say, the aggression of other Europeans. What paranoia—I laughed in mock amazement—what love of barriers, whether the steppes or a mountain chain: to be the others, Russians and Spaniards, unassimilatable to Western normality! But, after all—I defended myself against Constancia—perhaps normality is mediocrity.
    I think, naturally, of our neighbor, the Russian actor, when the conversation takes this turn. With the skilled touch of the bibliophile, I run my hands over the dark spines and gilded, dusty edges of the books in my library, the coolest and darkest place in the house on Drayton Street, and I secretly pride myself that the flexibility of my hand is a perfect reflection of the quickness of my sexagenarian mind. I was—I am—a