Free A Change of Skin by Carlos Fuentes Page A

push Javier to the side of the washbasin. You turn on the water.
    â€œIs there any hot water in this hole?”
    You dip your fingers into the gush of rust-colored water.
    â€œCold. Of course. What can you do? Give me your razor, Javier.”
    â€œWe looked at each other. I saw her dark eyes, her eyelids long and thick as an Oriental’s, her orange lips, the deep hollows in her tense cheeks, the lightly tanned skin…”
    You cock your arm over your head and begin to soap your armpit.
    â€œI held her in my arms. I could see her then and forever.”
    â€œForever?” You furrow your brow with concentration and scrape the razor carefully across your armpit. Javier embraces you around the waist. He touches your breasts. “No!” he says sharply. “I tell you it’s all over, past and gone, done for! There’s no going back to it. That record has finished. There’s someone I’m trying so hard to forget.… ” “Javier! Damn it, you’ve made me cut myself!” You put your fingers to your armpit and show them smeared with blood. “Give me some of that cologne.”
    â€œI went back to the table where I had left my glass. I couldn’t find it. I looked exactly where I had left it, but it wasn’t there.” He empties a squirt of cologne into his hand. “And then I looked, standing there, motionless, for the girl…”
    â€œPlease, Javier, hurry. I’m bleeding.”
    He rubs cologne in your armpit. The armpit of Señora Elizabeth Jonas de Ortega.
    â€œOuch! It burns.”
    â€œI tried to find her among the couples who were dancing slowly to the music of a new record. I remembered her waist, her cheek, the lobe of her ear, her smell. I remembered that we hadn’t spoken, that I had not said a word, that it was over, gone…”
    â€œJavier, please get back out of the way and leave me in peace.” You begin to soap the other armpit. Javier leans against the wall. A wall of unevenly set tiles that here and there were once plastered. A plus in application, you grade him silently. F minus in conduct.
    â€œNo, it wasn’t like that, Ligeia. Not like that. I’ve been lying.”
    Singing softly, “You don’t know how happy I am that we met,” you shave yourself. “I’m strangely attracted to you. There’s someone I’m trying so hard to forget. Don’t you want to forget someone too…”
    â€œListen, Ligeia. Will you promise to be quiet and listen?”
    â€œI think it’s starting, Javier.”
    â€œWhat’s starting?”
    â€œMy period, dope. See if we brought some Kotex among your medicinal treasures.”
    Javier opens the little leather case again and searches through the cotton, the adhesive tape, the gauze, the bottle of iodine.
    â€œNo, we didn’t bring any.”
    Angry, you stop and stare at him. “No Kotex? Go on, make poetry of that.”
    â€œYou should have taken care of it. You know…”
    â€œBut we didn’t forget any of that crap for your nerves. The pills that merely poison you more.”
    He grabs your shoulders. “I’m a sick man. I need my medicine.”
    His hands are hurting you and you make a face but go on calmly: “Bullshit, my love. It’s all in your mind. Every doctor tells you that. It’s all…”
    â€œThe doctors don’t know everything!” he begins to shake you violently.
    â€œJavier, you’re hurting me.” You relax, let yourself go limp.
    â€œI know when I have a pain and when I don’t have a pain!”
    â€œAll right, Javier, of course you know.”
    He releases you finally and you squeeze yourself with your arms.
    â€œGive me a little of that cotton, Javier.”
    Javier carefully pulls loose a handful of cotton and gives it to you. He leaves the bathroom and in the mirror you see him go to the bed and lie down. When you too leave the