One Out of Two Read Free Page B

to our aunt.”
    “You’re right, we should tell her where we’re living.”
    Time passed: one day, under their front door: the twins found a large, lovely orange envelope. It was undoubtedly a letter from … They opened it and read: “You’re invited to the wedding of my son, Benigno; my boy is getting married. Both of you should come, we’re throwing a big shindig. I suggest you do your hair differently: for example, one could wear it down, and the other, piled on top of her head in a tower. And don’t dress the same, and don’t stick together the whole time. Take my advice. There’ll be many single men and you might just catch one. No matter what, I’m sending you my blessings, and remember, we always have a big bed for you in my house, because: things are better around here, not like before, now we even have enough money to travel. Anyway, it would be our pleasure to welcome you into our home again. Fondly, your aunt who misses you, Soledad Guadarrama.” The date of the wedding was written along the bottom of the blue card, especially for them … In four days’ time.
    At this point—we should get our bearings—the Gamal sisters were rapidly approaching their forty-second birthday. Across their foreheads and under their eyes, down their necks and along their eyelids, clear ridges had appeared, as if some phantom fiend visited them at night and sculpted their slumbering countenances, and while they were at it, their bodies, with the clear intention of making them look more alike: making them one—poor things—: as if life were pure and vain idealism, for the number two can never be one. Whatever the case, and as for their sameness, we could wax eloquent, speak of dimensions and analogous depths, but …
    Constitución and Gloria found in that invitation—by all measures, kind—the key to their perhaps most deeply buried preoccupation: “There’ll be many single men.” Such crass nonsense because: after reading this refrain, the twins saw each other and themselves differently, and from that moment on the ambiguous gift of looking so much alike began to make them uncomfortable. They could not both go to Nadadores.
    No matter how badly they now wanted to look different, even with makeup, each on her own: without agreeing or intentionally seeking obvious contrasts: no: their identity was fixed, it was a curse and that was the end of it and nobody knows why. That is: in the past they’d tried: if one dolled herself up, the other wouldn’t; if one wore a dress, the other would put on trousers … But folks aren’t so easily fooled: even if they managed it in Sacramento or Cuatro Ciénegas, or even here, in Ocampo: they were recognized: on the bus, but more to the point: their luck in love was limited to much-too-furtive glances: from the absentminded. Which is precisely why they never went to dance parties: moreover, they were so unsightly that nobody ever chose them, not even the drunks. Hence, their path was narrow and grew ever narrower as the years went by … What horrors! a knife’s edge, a distant glint, and maybe unnecessary.
    Then that wedding: an opportunity, an illusion, a short vacation, a break from the routine, even if this marvel of meticulousness was a source of pleasure. Which is why they didn’t have the slightest remorse about being slackers because from seven in the morning till seven at night—twelve full hours of toil, well, except an hour and a half to rest, figured into the schedule and offering concrete benefits, lest we think otherwise: the midday meal, washing up then lying down on different beds: sleeping soundly for fifteen or maybe ten minutes: power naps—every day except Sunday their customers arrived with their fabrics and left satisfied, their garments packed in bags with handles—paper bags—that the twins used because they happened to like them. Though lately, they had so many people traipsing through their door that they were falling behind, so rather than fail