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Fiction

The Schoolyard

By Mar Gómez Glez
Translated from Spanish by Sarah Thomas

That Monday, her classmates were playing dodgeball again. She watched them from the step, hoping that they would formally invite her, so that she could say no until they insisted, like her mother did on visits: “Would you like a little more cake? Oh no, no, no, thank you so much. Come on, a little more. Well, if you insist, maybe a small slice.” The girl enjoyed this kind of rhetoric, but the other schoolgirls didn’t appreciate its finer points. In the schoolyard everything was done crassly, as if the nuns’ teachings didn’t apply during recess. The inconsistency bothered her. If God wanted them to be discreet, how could she call attention to herself so that one of the team captains would pick her? She couldn’t figure it out. They should choose her, like God chose the Virgin Mary. Self-promotion would almost certainly entail committing some kind of sin. Her previous existence was much simpler. In the swing and sandpit area, they didn’t think about these problems. Over there she could do as she pleased, alone, without having to worry about etiquette.  Every so often someone would kick her while doing a somersault over the bar; well, she would kick somebody else later. The playground was always packed. The slide, the bridge, the seesaws, and the spinner made boredom impossible. Unfortunately that space was no longer hers, and ever since her schoolmates had embraced sports, she had been displaced.  Boredwith herself, she embarked on the climb up to the high school in search of her sister.  When she reached the gym, she passed by Marta, the new student in class B. No one had introduced them formally, but new girls always stand out, this one especially.  Marta was still as  solitary as on the first day. What school was she from? How did she spend her afternoons? Did she live in the neighborhood or much farther away? Before she reached the upper school, the teachers called the girls to line up.  Retracing her steps, she  passed Marta, still standing by the gym; the new girl followed, as if she’d been waiting for her.

The next day, Marta was waiting in the hallway so they could go down together. The old girl had been wanting to ask for a while why Marta didn’t shorten her uniform skirt like the other girls, who were already wearing theirs above their knees. It looked as though Marta had just bought it. When the girls started middle school, the skirt replaced the smock that the little girls wore. The fabric was still the same: an elaborate gray, white, and black grid, bordered by thin but equally regular navy-blue squares, worn with tights and a v-neck sweater. Marta must not have considered skirt lengths until that moment.

&Well, think about it. The other girls roll up the waistband so the skirt’s shorter. Sometimes so short you can see their underwear. Haven’t you noticed?”

Yeah. What do you do?” the new girl asked.

“Me? Nothing. It was my sister’s skirt and my mom already fixed it for her. See how this material is different from yours? Where did you buy it?”

“I don’t know.”

“They sell them at El Corte Inglés, but I like mine better.”

In her opinion, the older fabric was more elegant, because it had lost the stiffness that prevented the pleats from lying flat. She liked it that way. Marta agreed, monosyllabically. The veteran then recognized the awkwardness of the conversation; surely Marta couldn’t care less about matters of style. They changed topics, and chatted during the whole break. The old student enlightened the new one on her past entertainment in the sandpit, where she built tunnels under artificial mountains like an expert engineer. The hardest part was transporting water from the sinks to set the bridges. The most effective method, handed down for generations, consisted of holding the water in your cheeks. But you had to make sure to close your throat, because otherwise, when spitting into the hole in the mud, the water went down your throat and you ended up choking. She also recalled the swings, the euphoria and fear that first day that she hung upside down from the bridge, interlocking her feet in the iron rungs.

“Over there, where we line up?” Marta asked.

“Yeah. If you want, after school, when no one’s there, we can go. If the little girls aren’t there, the teachers don’t say anything.”

Both of them had outgrown the playground equipment, and even if they’d managed to hang from the rungs, they wouldn’t have had space to swing back and forth. In any case, Marta didn’t appear at the end of the day, and so as not to go down to the swings by herself, the old girl stayed at the entrance, jumping rope, until her sister picked her up.

On Wednesday the same scene repeated itself: the new girl was waiting for her in the middle of the hallway.  The old girl decided not to mention how she’d stood her up. 

“What do you think about the skirt?” she asked Marta.

“I talked to my mom. She said no, but I can roll it up, like you told me. Not today. Tomorrow. My mom got really mad. Especially at my brother, like something was his fault.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother. I have a brother and a sister.”

“My brother’s older than us. He studies a lot and my mom is always scolding him.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s stupid. She doesn’t understand him,” Marta said, and for a moment it looked like her mind went blank or had flown out through her ear, abandoning her there, between the classrooms and the schoolyard, leaving her staring into the space under the stairs. “My mother doesn’t understand anything. My brother’s really shy and if you knew him, you would see how good and affectionate he is. My mother won’t leave him alone. He almost never goes out, because every time he sets foot outside the house my mother loses it, even if he just goes to get a loaf of bread. Sometimes I think she’s crazy.”

“What’s your brother’s name?”

“Pedro.”

She imagined him with dark hair. Maybe because the only Pedro she knew had dark, curly hair. Marta wore her hair up in a ponytail. It was the same light brown shade as hers, but slightly darker, and definitely greasier. She wondered if Marta realized or if she didn’t wash her hair on purpose. She couldn’t ask that yet, they weren’t “close,” and it wasn’t the same as the uniform, or the mother. So sad about the mother. Poor thing, what must her mother be like for her daughter to say those things? Probably she didn’t teach her how to bathe properly and that’s why her hair was dirty.

“Hey! I’m telling you about my brother,” Marta said, chewing the syllables with resentment.

“OK, Marta, I don’t know him.”

“Yeah, but he’s my brother.” And she said it as if instead of “brother” she had wanted to say something else, or as if the three of them were part of the same family. Then, out of the blue, Marta asked if she’d ever had a boyfriend, if she’d done it. She couldn’t have felt more vertigo at that moment if an earthquake had opened an infinite pit beneath her feet. The end-of-recess whistle saved her from fainting, and each one made her way to her line in silence, class B and class C, like soldiers in different regiments. She couldn’t get Marta out of her head for the rest of the day. How did the new girl know? How many girls had done it? Maybe it was a normal thing at her old school, but at María Virgen Pura you didn’t talk about those things directly. You talked about hearsay, like have you seen that Marina Arroyo is getting boobs, or if you really need to do it to get pregnant or if a kiss is enough. She never told anyone. And besides, so much time had gone by that she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t even confirm that she had done it, really done it, and Marta’s curiosity posed a dilemma: on the one hand, the experience made her feel special, but on the other hand, maybe it wasn’t the best kind of “special,” and God and her mother would stop loving her.

At the next recess, Marta asked her to go with her to the bathroom and they shut themselves up in one of the stalls.

“Look, I shortened my skirt.” Marta lifted up her school sweater. “Good?”

They were so close that she had to crouch down to see it. She stayed down a few seconds, keeping still, unable to decide on the smell that came to her in waves; a mixture of lotion and urine, which on Marta’s skin took on the pink density of marshmallow candy.

“Yeah, now you can see your knees.”

“Should I pull it up more?”

“No, if you pull it up any more, it’s like you’re not even wearing it.”

“Good, because I can’t fold it over anymore without it getting really tight up here.”

She took her hand to show her how tightly it fit.

“You see?”

Marta had put the other girl’s hand under the waistband and she was touching her underpants with the tips of her fingers. The skin of Marta’s belly was very soft and under the pressure of the folded fabric, she could feel her stomach gurgling.

“Let’s go down to the yard,” the new girl said.

That day, instead of their usual walk through the fields, they sat on the stands watching the other girls play. The new girl’s satisfaction contrasted with the growing unease of the old one.

“They still might let us play,” she said to Marta.

“I don’t feel like it.”

Her negation was loaded with an extraordinary force, as if pronounced by a giant. Marta leaned back on her elbows, rhythmically lifting her legs. The repetitive movement slid her skirt down her thighs. She glanced sidelong at the downy hair, golden in the midday sunshine. The teachers on recess duty were approaching from the right.

“Let’s walk,” the new girl proposed.

When she stood up she could still feel Marta’s belly against her hand.

“I talked to Pedro about you.”

“Ah,” she replied, bringing her fingertips to her nose.

“Yesterday you didn’t tell me if you’d done it or not.”

Surely Marta was trying to intercept her gaze. She didn’t feel up to the contact and she turned toward the littlest girls, who were screaming around the spinner.

“Yes,” she finally whispered.

“What?”

“Yes, but a long time ago,” when I was little, she thought.

“How old were you?”

“I was three and he was four.”

“And who did you do it with?”

“With my boyfriend from back then, Francisco.” She had never talked about it before. It had been a long time since she mentioned that name, and its three syllables brought her back to a vague scene, a hazy place, which wasn’t part of her experience, but rather a movie or a dream.

“And what was it like?”

“I don’t really remember.”

They approached the swings. On the iron bridge, behind the slide, two girls were hanging upside down, showing their wool leotards and their four little hands sticking out from underneath their inside-out smocks.

“And where did you do it?” the interrogator asked.

“In bed.”

“In whose bed? Yours?”

“No…” and like a spark the image of the room leaped to her mind: the trundle bed to the right, her brother, Álvaro, and Laura standing, about to leave. “It was at his beach house. Francisco was my brother’s best friend and I became friends with his sister, Laura, but we don’t see each other anymore. During that vacation, we wanted to celebrate our honeymoon and we went to bed together.”

“But what happened?”

“That’s what happened: the honeymoon.”

With their backs to the swing set, they walked back toward the sports fields, speeding up their pace.

“Were you naked?”

“Yes,” she said, to give herself airs. She remembered Francisco’s warm body beside her, but not his clothing or its absence. She revisited the softness of the bed and the green lamp on the bedside table.

“And then what?”

“What?”

“What do you mean, what?” the new girl insisted. She wanted to know everything that happened in detail, that’s why they were talking about it. But the old girl didn’t know anything else. That was all, a honeymoon, like grown-ups. She was almost positive about them hugging, the kisses she didn’t remember, but she lied in the face of her opponent’s persistence, and the more she lied she more she sped up her pace, and the new girl had more and more trouble keeping up with her. Finally, Marta asked: “Did you touch each other?” And that was it. She ran away as fast as she could and hid in the gym, where she bit her nails until the end of recess. They never saw Francisco or Laura anymore. One day, after that summer, when the two families got together in Madrid, the kids decided to play boxing matches. She recalled the scene with exquisite clarity: first the boys fought, and the girls, their trainers, gave them last-minute advice like in the Rocky movies. The boys finished the fight practically tied, and in the end they declared Álvaro the winner by only a couple of points. Neither of the girls was particularly interested in fighting, but the boys insisted until finally the beasts were unleashed. After the first taps, the girls forgot all the rules. While one clawed at the other’s face, the other pulled her hair, and the closer they felt their opponent’s breath, the more weapons they found in their own bodies: first their knees and then their teeth, inflicting a deaf and blind pain that allowed each to concentrate only on her enemy. The boys went from surprise to laughter, then from amusement to fear. Unable to break up the fight, they forgot their friendship, rushing to their sisters’ defense, each to his own, faithful to the most primitive of all bonds. When the parents heard the commotion, they discovered four mauled children, with tears in their eyes and clothes ripped to shreds. The families grew distant.

Friday’s recess arrived without Marta waiting for her in the hallway. Surely the new girl was disappointed by her abrupt departure the day before. All right, back to solitude. Lazily, she let her classmates get ahead of her one by one. She didn’t feel like going down to the schoolyard and she went into the bathroom. Once she had pulled down her underpants, there was a knock on the door.

“There’s someone in here.”

“I know, stupid, open up. It’s me.”

She opened the door and Marta stared at her.

“You’re not gonna pee?”

With the other girl standing there she couldn’t pee, so she told her no, and the new girl asked her to move aside to take her place. A fine stream ricocheted off the porcelain.

“Yesterday I told Pedro what you said about the honeymoon.” Marta paused to wipe herself. If she had closed her eyes, she wouldn’t have seen the outline of Marta’s bottom, and maybe she wouldn’t have fallen silent while Marta told her that her brother Pedro wanted to meet her, because since she had experience and he was so shy they’d make a good couple. As long as she was up for doing it again. They left the sink area. She slid the pink soap between her hands until it turned white, squashing it again and again between her palms.

“Hey, I’m talking to you. You’d do it again, wouldn’t you?” Marta’s words not fazing her, she made more and more lather. “Answer me, because Pedro and I have it all planned out.”

She nodded, although she would’ve preferred to say no and have Marta disappear.

“We were thinking,” the new girl went on, “that we could do it for my birthday. That way my mom won’t suspect. We would have a little party in the living room with Fanta and snacks. Do you like Coke? We don’t. But if you like it we could buy Coke too. He would be so excited. You can’t even imagine.”

Marta grabbed the other girl’s still-soapy hands and pulled her downstairs toward the schoolyards. She felt like her body was leaking water, all of it from the palms of her hands, no longer soapy but rather sweaty.

“My brother would wait for you in his room. I’ll show you the way.” The hubbub of the rest of their classmates sounded in the distance. “If you want, I can tell him to get into bed before you come in. It’ll just be one night and you can do it with the lights off.”

At that moment, taking advantage of her hands’ dampness, she slid out of her captor’s grip and tripped on the last stairs. She broke her fall with her knee. It would definitely leave an ugly bruise. Marta ran to her aid, and when she had her very close the new girl whispered:

“My brother gave me money.” She slid her hands under the other girl’s armpits, bringing her to her feet and pulling her in close. “I have it upstairs. If you don’t think it’s enough I can get more.”

From that position, the old girl could smell the new one’s greasy hair, and some rebellious strands, escaped from the ponytail, tickled her cheeks. Marta squeezed her even tighter and she could feel her body throbbing.

“What are you girls doing?” the gym teacher asked. “Come on, go out to the yard.” She grabbed each one by the hand, led them to the dodgeball court, and put them on different teams without consulting the captains. Alongside her usual classmates, Marta seemed even stranger.

After dodging the first ball, the old student found the game simple and fun. On the next turn, one of her classmates eliminated Marta. The new girl beckoned to her as she left the court, suggesting she get knocked out too so they could meet off the field, but she lay low, staying in the game. On her next turn she grabbed the ball with newly discovered skill and fired it at other bodies that were less attentive or motivated than her own. She never spoke to Marta again, nor did she learn if the new girl had made the same proposal to other girls or just to her.


© Mar Gómez Glez. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2012 by Sarah Thomas. All rights reserved.

English Spanish (Original)

That Monday, her classmates were playing dodgeball again. She watched them from the step, hoping that they would formally invite her, so that she could say no until they insisted, like her mother did on visits: “Would you like a little more cake? Oh no, no, no, thank you so much. Come on, a little more. Well, if you insist, maybe a small slice.” The girl enjoyed this kind of rhetoric, but the other schoolgirls didn’t appreciate its finer points. In the schoolyard everything was done crassly, as if the nuns’ teachings didn’t apply during recess. The inconsistency bothered her. If God wanted them to be discreet, how could she call attention to herself so that one of the team captains would pick her? She couldn’t figure it out. They should choose her, like God chose the Virgin Mary. Self-promotion would almost certainly entail committing some kind of sin. Her previous existence was much simpler. In the swing and sandpit area, they didn’t think about these problems. Over there she could do as she pleased, alone, without having to worry about etiquette.  Every so often someone would kick her while doing a somersault over the bar; well, she would kick somebody else later. The playground was always packed. The slide, the bridge, the seesaws, and the spinner made boredom impossible. Unfortunately that space was no longer hers, and ever since her schoolmates had embraced sports, she had been displaced.  Boredwith herself, she embarked on the climb up to the high school in search of her sister.  When she reached the gym, she passed by Marta, the new student in class B. No one had introduced them formally, but new girls always stand out, this one especially.  Marta was still as  solitary as on the first day. What school was she from? How did she spend her afternoons? Did she live in the neighborhood or much farther away? Before she reached the upper school, the teachers called the girls to line up.  Retracing her steps, she  passed Marta, still standing by the gym; the new girl followed, as if she’d been waiting for her.

The next day, Marta was waiting in the hallway so they could go down together. The old girl had been wanting to ask for a while why Marta didn’t shorten her uniform skirt like the other girls, who were already wearing theirs above their knees. It looked as though Marta had just bought it. When the girls started middle school, the skirt replaced the smock that the little girls wore. The fabric was still the same: an elaborate gray, white, and black grid, bordered by thin but equally regular navy-blue squares, worn with tights and a v-neck sweater. Marta must not have considered skirt lengths until that moment.

&Well, think about it. The other girls roll up the waistband so the skirt’s shorter. Sometimes so short you can see their underwear. Haven’t you noticed?”

Yeah. What do you do?” the new girl asked.

“Me? Nothing. It was my sister’s skirt and my mom already fixed it for her. See how this material is different from yours? Where did you buy it?”

“I don’t know.”

“They sell them at El Corte Inglés, but I like mine better.”

In her opinion, the older fabric was more elegant, because it had lost the stiffness that prevented the pleats from lying flat. She liked it that way. Marta agreed, monosyllabically. The veteran then recognized the awkwardness of the conversation; surely Marta couldn’t care less about matters of style. They changed topics, and chatted during the whole break. The old student enlightened the new one on her past entertainment in the sandpit, where she built tunnels under artificial mountains like an expert engineer. The hardest part was transporting water from the sinks to set the bridges. The most effective method, handed down for generations, consisted of holding the water in your cheeks. But you had to make sure to close your throat, because otherwise, when spitting into the hole in the mud, the water went down your throat and you ended up choking. She also recalled the swings, the euphoria and fear that first day that she hung upside down from the bridge, interlocking her feet in the iron rungs.

“Over there, where we line up?” Marta asked.

“Yeah. If you want, after school, when no one’s there, we can go. If the little girls aren’t there, the teachers don’t say anything.”

Both of them had outgrown the playground equipment, and even if they’d managed to hang from the rungs, they wouldn’t have had space to swing back and forth. In any case, Marta didn’t appear at the end of the day, and so as not to go down to the swings by herself, the old girl stayed at the entrance, jumping rope, until her sister picked her up.

On Wednesday the same scene repeated itself: the new girl was waiting for her in the middle of the hallway.  The old girl decided not to mention how she’d stood her up. 

“What do you think about the skirt?” she asked Marta.

“I talked to my mom. She said no, but I can roll it up, like you told me. Not today. Tomorrow. My mom got really mad. Especially at my brother, like something was his fault.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother. I have a brother and a sister.”

“My brother’s older than us. He studies a lot and my mom is always scolding him.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s stupid. She doesn’t understand him,” Marta said, and for a moment it looked like her mind went blank or had flown out through her ear, abandoning her there, between the classrooms and the schoolyard, leaving her staring into the space under the stairs. “My mother doesn’t understand anything. My brother’s really shy and if you knew him, you would see how good and affectionate he is. My mother won’t leave him alone. He almost never goes out, because every time he sets foot outside the house my mother loses it, even if he just goes to get a loaf of bread. Sometimes I think she’s crazy.”

“What’s your brother’s name?”

“Pedro.”

She imagined him with dark hair. Maybe because the only Pedro she knew had dark, curly hair. Marta wore her hair up in a ponytail. It was the same light brown shade as hers, but slightly darker, and definitely greasier. She wondered if Marta realized or if she didn’t wash her hair on purpose. She couldn’t ask that yet, they weren’t “close,” and it wasn’t the same as the uniform, or the mother. So sad about the mother. Poor thing, what must her mother be like for her daughter to say those things? Probably she didn’t teach her how to bathe properly and that’s why her hair was dirty.

“Hey! I’m telling you about my brother,” Marta said, chewing the syllables with resentment.

“OK, Marta, I don’t know him.”

“Yeah, but he’s my brother.” And she said it as if instead of “brother” she had wanted to say something else, or as if the three of them were part of the same family. Then, out of the blue, Marta asked if she’d ever had a boyfriend, if she’d done it. She couldn’t have felt more vertigo at that moment if an earthquake had opened an infinite pit beneath her feet. The end-of-recess whistle saved her from fainting, and each one made her way to her line in silence, class B and class C, like soldiers in different regiments. She couldn’t get Marta out of her head for the rest of the day. How did the new girl know? How many girls had done it? Maybe it was a normal thing at her old school, but at María Virgen Pura you didn’t talk about those things directly. You talked about hearsay, like have you seen that Marina Arroyo is getting boobs, or if you really need to do it to get pregnant or if a kiss is enough. She never told anyone. And besides, so much time had gone by that she wasn’t sure. She couldn’t even confirm that she had done it, really done it, and Marta’s curiosity posed a dilemma: on the one hand, the experience made her feel special, but on the other hand, maybe it wasn’t the best kind of “special,” and God and her mother would stop loving her.

At the next recess, Marta asked her to go with her to the bathroom and they shut themselves up in one of the stalls.

“Look, I shortened my skirt.” Marta lifted up her school sweater. “Good?”

They were so close that she had to crouch down to see it. She stayed down a few seconds, keeping still, unable to decide on the smell that came to her in waves; a mixture of lotion and urine, which on Marta’s skin took on the pink density of marshmallow candy.

“Yeah, now you can see your knees.”

“Should I pull it up more?”

“No, if you pull it up any more, it’s like you’re not even wearing it.”

“Good, because I can’t fold it over anymore without it getting really tight up here.”

She took her hand to show her how tightly it fit.

“You see?”

Marta had put the other girl’s hand under the waistband and she was touching her underpants with the tips of her fingers. The skin of Marta’s belly was very soft and under the pressure of the folded fabric, she could feel her stomach gurgling.

“Let’s go down to the yard,” the new girl said.

That day, instead of their usual walk through the fields, they sat on the stands watching the other girls play. The new girl’s satisfaction contrasted with the growing unease of the old one.

“They still might let us play,” she said to Marta.

“I don’t feel like it.”

Her negation was loaded with an extraordinary force, as if pronounced by a giant. Marta leaned back on her elbows, rhythmically lifting her legs. The repetitive movement slid her skirt down her thighs. She glanced sidelong at the downy hair, golden in the midday sunshine. The teachers on recess duty were approaching from the right.

“Let’s walk,” the new girl proposed.

When she stood up she could still feel Marta’s belly against her hand.

“I talked to Pedro about you.”

“Ah,” she replied, bringing her fingertips to her nose.

“Yesterday you didn’t tell me if you’d done it or not.”

Surely Marta was trying to intercept her gaze. She didn’t feel up to the contact and she turned toward the littlest girls, who were screaming around the spinner.

“Yes,” she finally whispered.

“What?”

“Yes, but a long time ago,” when I was little, she thought.

“How old were you?”

“I was three and he was four.”

“And who did you do it with?”

“With my boyfriend from back then, Francisco.” She had never talked about it before. It had been a long time since she mentioned that name, and its three syllables brought her back to a vague scene, a hazy place, which wasn’t part of her experience, but rather a movie or a dream.

“And what was it like?”

“I don’t really remember.”

They approached the swings. On the iron bridge, behind the slide, two girls were hanging upside down, showing their wool leotards and their four little hands sticking out from underneath their inside-out smocks.

“And where did you do it?” the interrogator asked.

“In bed.”

“In whose bed? Yours?”

“No…” and like a spark the image of the room leaped to her mind: the trundle bed to the right, her brother, Álvaro, and Laura standing, about to leave. “It was at his beach house. Francisco was my brother’s best friend and I became friends with his sister, Laura, but we don’t see each other anymore. During that vacation, we wanted to celebrate our honeymoon and we went to bed together.”

“But what happened?”

“That’s what happened: the honeymoon.”

With their backs to the swing set, they walked back toward the sports fields, speeding up their pace.

“Were you naked?”

“Yes,” she said, to give herself airs. She remembered Francisco’s warm body beside her, but not his clothing or its absence. She revisited the softness of the bed and the green lamp on the bedside table.

“And then what?”

“What?”

“What do you mean, what?” the new girl insisted. She wanted to know everything that happened in detail, that’s why they were talking about it. But the old girl didn’t know anything else. That was all, a honeymoon, like grown-ups. She was almost positive about them hugging, the kisses she didn’t remember, but she lied in the face of her opponent’s persistence, and the more she lied she more she sped up her pace, and the new girl had more and more trouble keeping up with her. Finally, Marta asked: “Did you touch each other?” And that was it. She ran away as fast as she could and hid in the gym, where she bit her nails until the end of recess. They never saw Francisco or Laura anymore. One day, after that summer, when the two families got together in Madrid, the kids decided to play boxing matches. She recalled the scene with exquisite clarity: first the boys fought, and the girls, their trainers, gave them last-minute advice like in the Rocky movies. The boys finished the fight practically tied, and in the end they declared Álvaro the winner by only a couple of points. Neither of the girls was particularly interested in fighting, but the boys insisted until finally the beasts were unleashed. After the first taps, the girls forgot all the rules. While one clawed at the other’s face, the other pulled her hair, and the closer they felt their opponent’s breath, the more weapons they found in their own bodies: first their knees and then their teeth, inflicting a deaf and blind pain that allowed each to concentrate only on her enemy. The boys went from surprise to laughter, then from amusement to fear. Unable to break up the fight, they forgot their friendship, rushing to their sisters’ defense, each to his own, faithful to the most primitive of all bonds. When the parents heard the commotion, they discovered four mauled children, with tears in their eyes and clothes ripped to shreds. The families grew distant.

Friday’s recess arrived without Marta waiting for her in the hallway. Surely the new girl was disappointed by her abrupt departure the day before. All right, back to solitude. Lazily, she let her classmates get ahead of her one by one. She didn’t feel like going down to the schoolyard and she went into the bathroom. Once she had pulled down her underpants, there was a knock on the door.

“There’s someone in here.”

“I know, stupid, open up. It’s me.”

She opened the door and Marta stared at her.

“You’re not gonna pee?”

With the other girl standing there she couldn’t pee, so she told her no, and the new girl asked her to move aside to take her place. A fine stream ricocheted off the porcelain.

“Yesterday I told Pedro what you said about the honeymoon.” Marta paused to wipe herself. If she had closed her eyes, she wouldn’t have seen the outline of Marta’s bottom, and maybe she wouldn’t have fallen silent while Marta told her that her brother Pedro wanted to meet her, because since she had experience and he was so shy they’d make a good couple. As long as she was up for doing it again. They left the sink area. She slid the pink soap between her hands until it turned white, squashing it again and again between her palms.

“Hey, I’m talking to you. You’d do it again, wouldn’t you?” Marta’s words not fazing her, she made more and more lather. “Answer me, because Pedro and I have it all planned out.”

She nodded, although she would’ve preferred to say no and have Marta disappear.

“We were thinking,” the new girl went on, “that we could do it for my birthday. That way my mom won’t suspect. We would have a little party in the living room with Fanta and snacks. Do you like Coke? We don’t. But if you like it we could buy Coke too. He would be so excited. You can’t even imagine.”

Marta grabbed the other girl’s still-soapy hands and pulled her downstairs toward the schoolyards. She felt like her body was leaking water, all of it from the palms of her hands, no longer soapy but rather sweaty.

“My brother would wait for you in his room. I’ll show you the way.” The hubbub of the rest of their classmates sounded in the distance. “If you want, I can tell him to get into bed before you come in. It’ll just be one night and you can do it with the lights off.”

At that moment, taking advantage of her hands’ dampness, she slid out of her captor’s grip and tripped on the last stairs. She broke her fall with her knee. It would definitely leave an ugly bruise. Marta ran to her aid, and when she had her very close the new girl whispered:

“My brother gave me money.” She slid her hands under the other girl’s armpits, bringing her to her feet and pulling her in close. “I have it upstairs. If you don’t think it’s enough I can get more.”

From that position, the old girl could smell the new one’s greasy hair, and some rebellious strands, escaped from the ponytail, tickled her cheeks. Marta squeezed her even tighter and she could feel her body throbbing.

“What are you girls doing?” the gym teacher asked. “Come on, go out to the yard.” She grabbed each one by the hand, led them to the dodgeball court, and put them on different teams without consulting the captains. Alongside her usual classmates, Marta seemed even stranger.

After dodging the first ball, the old student found the game simple and fun. On the next turn, one of her classmates eliminated Marta. The new girl beckoned to her as she left the court, suggesting she get knocked out too so they could meet off the field, but she lay low, staying in the game. On her next turn she grabbed the ball with newly discovered skill and fired it at other bodies that were less attentive or motivated than her own. She never spoke to Marta again, nor did she learn if the new girl had made the same proposal to other girls or just to her.


© Mar Gómez Glez. By arrangement with the author. Translation © 2012 by Sarah Thomas. All rights reserved.

El Patio

Aquél lunes, sus compañeras también jugaban al balonvolea. Ella las observaba desde la grada con la esperanza de que la invitaran formalmente, para contestar que no hasta que insistieran, como hacía su madre de visita: “¿Quiere usted un poquito más de tarta? O no, no, no, muchas gracias. Venga, un poquito más. Bueno, si insiste, quizá un trozo pequeño”. La niña disfrutaba aquella retórica, pero las otras alumnas no apreciaban el refinamiento. En el patio todo se hacía a lo bruto, como si las enseñanzas de las monjas quedaran suspendidas a la hora del recreo. Le molestaba la incoherencia. Si Dios las quería discretas, ¿cómo podía llamar la atención sobre sí misma y que alguna de las capitanas la escogiese para su equipo? No lo veía claro. Debían elegirla, como Dios a la Virgen María. Casi seguro que con la autopromoción incurría en algún pecado. Su existencia antes era mucho más sencilla. En la zona de columpios y arena, no se planteaban estos problemas. Allí podía hacer sola lo que le viniera en gana, sin tener que preocuparse de la etiqueta. De vez en cuando alguien le pateaba haciendo la voltereta alrededor de la barra, pues bueno, ya patearía ella a otra. Las atracciones siempre estaban abarrotadas. El tobogán, el puente, los balancines y la rueda hacían imposible el aburrimiento. Desafortunadamente aquel espacio ya no le correspondía y, desde que sus compañeras abrazaron los deportes, se convirtió en una desplazada. Aburrida de sí misma, emprendió el ascenso hacia los patios superiores de B.U.P. en busca de su hermana. A la altura del gimnasio, se cruzó con Marta, la nueva alumna de la B. Nadie las había presentado formalmente pero las nuevas siempre destacaban, especialmente ésta que continuaba tan sola como el primer día. ¿De qué colegio vendría? ¿Qué haría por las tardes? ¿Viviría en el barrio o mucho más lejos? Llamaron a filas antes de que alcanzase el edificio de las mayores, y descaminando lo andado encontró a Marta en la misma pared del gimnasio, como esperándola. Cuando la antigua rebasó a la nueva, ésta la siguió sin disimulo.

            Al día siguiente, Marta aguardaba en el pasillo para que bajaran juntas. Hacía tiempo que quería preguntarle porqué no se cortaba la falda del uniforme como las otras novatas, que ya la llevaban por encima de las rodillas. Parecía que Marta la acabase de comprar. Cuando las alumnas empezaban el grado medio, en tercero de E.G.B., la falda sustituía al peto de las pequeñas. La tela seguía siendo la misma: una elaborada cuadrícula gris, blanca y negra, rodeada de finos, pero igualmente regulares cuadrados azul marino, en combinación con las medias y el jersey de pico. Marta no se planteó la longitud de la tela hasta ese momento.

            -Bueno, piénsalo. Lo que hacen otras es dar vueltas a la cintura y así les queda más corta. A veces tan corta que se les ven las bragas. ¿No te has fijado?

            -Sí. ¿Tú qué haces? –preguntó la nueva.

            -Yo, nada. La falda era de mi hermana y mi madre ya la arregló para ella. ¿Ves como esta tela es distinta que la tuya? ¿Dónde la has comprado?

            -No lo sé.

            -Las venden en El Corte Inglés, pero a mí me gusta más la mía.

            Desde su punto de vista, las telas antiguas eran más elegantes, porque habían perdido la rigidez que impedía a las tablas plegarse completamente, como a ella le gustaba. Marta asintió monosilábica. La veterana reconoció entonces la agonía de la conversación, sin duda a Marta, las disquisiciones estilísticas le traían sin cuidado. Cambiaron de tema, y charlaron durante todo el recreo. La antigua alumna ilustró a la nueva sobre los entretenimientos pasados en el campo de arena, en donde construía túneles bajo artificiales montañas, como la más experta de las ingenieras. Lo más complicado era el traslado del agua desde los lavabos para fijar los puentes. El método más eficaz, transmitido durante generaciones, consistía en aguantar el agua en los carrillos. Había que cerrar bien la garganta porque si no, al escupir sobre el agujero del barro, el agua se metía en la tráquea y acababas atragantada. Rememoró también los columpios, la euforia y el miedo del primer día en que se descolgó boca abajo en el puente, entrelazando los pies en los hierros.

            -Ahí, ¿dónde hacemos la fila? –le preguntó Marta.

            -Sí. Si quieres a la salida, cuando no haya nadie, vamos. Si no están las pequeñas no te dicen nada.

            Ninguna de las dos tenía ya cuerpo para el tamaño de las atracciones, y aunque consiguieran descolgarse entre los hierros, les faltaría espacio para balancearse. En todo caso, Marta no apareció al final de la jornada y, por no bajar sola a los columpios, ella se quedó jugando a la goma en la entrada, hasta que la recogió su hermana.

            El miércoles se repitió la misma escena: la nueva esperando en medio del pasillo. Cuando llegó a su altura, decidió no mencionar el plantón.

            -¿Qué has pensado sobre la falda? –preguntó a Marta.

            -Hablé con mi madre. Dice que no, pero igual le doy vueltas, como me dijiste. Hoy no, mañana. Mi madre se enfadó mucho. Sobre todo con mi hermano, como si él tuviese la culpa de algo.

            -No sabía que tuvieras un hermano. Yo tengo dos: Esther y Álvaro.

            -Mi hermano es mayor que nosotras. Estudia mucho y mi madre le está siempre regañando.

            -¿Por qué?

            -Porque es tonta. No le entiende –dijo Marta, y por un momento se quedó en blanco, como si le hubiese salido la vida por las orejas dejando al cuerpo abandonado,  allí, entre las clases y el patio, en mitad de una frase y con la mirada perdida en el hueco de la escalera.  –Mi madre no entiende nada. Mi hermano es muy tímido y si le conocieras, verías qué bueno y qué cariñoso es. Mi madre no le deja en paz. Casi nunca sale, porque cada vez que pone un pie fuera de casa, mi madre se desespera, y a lo mejor sólo ha ido por una barra de pan. A veces pienso que está loca.

            -¿Cómo se llama tu hermano?

            -Pedro.

            Se le imaginó moreno. Quizá porque el único Pedro que conocía tenía el cabello negro y rizado. Marta se recogía el pelo con una coleta y compartía el mismo tono castaño que el suyo, aunque algo más oscuro, definitivamente más graso. Se preguntó si Marta se daría cuenta o es que no se lavaba la cabeza aposta. Eso no se lo podía preguntar todavía, no tenían “la confianza”, no era como lo del uniforme, ni como lo de la madre. Qué triste lo de la madre. Pobrecilla, ¿cómo sería su madre para que la hija dijera esas cosas? Igual no le había enseñado a lavarse bien y por eso lo llevaba sucio.

            -¡Eh! Que te estoy hablando de mi hermano –dijo Marta masticando cada sílaba con resquemor.

            -Bueno, Marta, yo no le conozco.

            -Ya, pero es mi hermano. –Y lo dijo como si en lugar de “hermano” quisiera decir otra cosa, o como si los tres formaran parte de la misma familia. Entonces, sin venir a cuento, le preguntó si alguna vez había tenido novio y lo había hecho. Si en ese momento un terremoto hubiese abierto una fosa infinita bajo sus pies, no habría sentido más vértigo. El pitido del final del recreo la salvó del desmayo y cada una se dirigió a su fila en silencio, la B y la C, como soldaditos de distintos regimientos. Durante todo el día no pudo quitarse a Marta de la cabeza. ¿Cómo sabría la nueva? ¿Cuántas lo habrían hecho? Quizá sería algo normal en su antiguo colegio, pero en el María Virgen Pura no se hablaba directamente de esas cosas. Se hablaba de oídas, de que si has visto que a Marina Arroyo le están saliendo las tetas, o de que si realmente necesitas hacerlo para quedarte embarazada o basta con un beso. Ella nunca lo contó a nadie. Además había pasado tanto tiempo que no estaba segura. Ni siquiera podía afirmar que lo había hecho, hecho de verdad, y la curiosidad de Marta le planteaba el dilema: Por un lado, la experiencia le hacía sentirse especial, pero por el otro, igual aquella no era la mejor forma de “especial”, y Dios y su madre dejarían de quererla.       

            Al recreo siguiente, Marta le pidió que le acompañara al servicio y se encerraron juntas en uno de los retretes.

            -Mira, me he subido la falda –Marta alzó el babi. -¿Bien?

            Estaban tan cerca que para verla tuvo que agacharse. Aguantó unos segundos abajo, quieta, incapaz de decidir sobre aquel olor que le llegaba a ráfagas; una mezcla de suavizante y orina, que en la piel de Marta, adquiría la densidad rosa de las nubes de caramelo.

            -Sí, así se te ven las rodillas.

            -¿Me la subo más?

            -No. Si te la subes más, es como si no la llevaras.

            -Mejor, porque ya no puedo darle más vueltas sin que me quede muy prieto aquí arriba.

            Tomó su mano para enseñarle lo estrecha que le quedaba.

            -¿Lo notas?

            Le había metido la mano en la cinturilla y con la punta de los dedos le tocaba las bragas. Marta tenía la piel de la tripa muy suave y con la presión de la tela retorcida podía sentir los movimientos de sus vísceras.

            -Bajemos al patio –dijo la nueva.

            En aquella ocasión, en lugar de su habitual paseo por los campos, se sentaron en la grada mirando el juego de las demás niñas. La satisfacción de la nueva contrastaba con el desasosiego creciente de la antigua.

            -Igual todavía nos dejan jugar –dijo a Marta.

            -No me apetece.

            Aquella negativa iba cargada de una fuerza extraordinaria, como si la hubiese pronunciado un gigante. Marta se recostó sobre los codos sacudiendo las rodillas rítmicamente. El ímpetu del movimiento le deslizó la falda sobre los muslos. Ella miró de refilón el bello dorado que reflejaba los rayos del mediodía. Las profesoras de ronda se acercaban por la derecha.

            -Caminemos –propuso la nueva.

            Cuando se levantó todavía sentía el vientre de Marta en su mano.

            –Le hablé a Pedro de ti.

            -Ah –contestó mientras se llevaba las puntas a la nariz.

            -Ayer no me dijiste si lo habías hecho o no.

            Seguramente Marta trataba de interceptar su mirada. Ella no se sentía con fuerzas para el contacto y se volvió hacia las niñas de parvulitos que gritaban alrededor de la rueda.

            -Sí –susurró finalmente.

            -¿Qué?

            -Que sí, pero hace mucho –“de pequeña”, pensó.

            -¿Cuántos años tenías?

            -Yo tres y él cuatro.

            -¿Y con quién lo hiciste?

            -Con mi novio de entonces, Francisco -nunca antes habló del tema. Hacía años que no mencionaba aquél nombre, y las tres sílabas la transportaron a un escenario indefinido, a un lugar borroso, que no pertenecía a su limitada experiencia, sino a una película o a un sueño.

            -¿Y cómo fue?

            -No me acuerdo bien.

            Se acercaban a los columpios. En el puente de hierro, detrás del tobogán, dos niñas se balanceaban cabeza abajo, mostrando sus leotardos de lana y las cuatro manitas asomadas por la falda del babi vuelto del revés. 

            -¿Y dónde lo hicisteis? –preguntó la interrogadora.

            -En la cama.

            -¿En qué cama? ¿En la tuya?

            -No –como una chispa saltó la imagen del cuarto: la cama nido a la derecha, su hermano Álvaro y Laura de pie, a punto de marcharse. –Fue en su casa de la playa. Francisco era el mejor amigo de mi hermano y yo me hice amiga de su hermana, Laura, pero ya no nos vemos. Durante esas vacaciones, quisimos celebrar la luna de miel y nos fuimos juntos a la cama.

            -¿Pero qué pasó?

            -Pasó eso: La luna de miel.

            De espaldas a la zona de columpios, volvieron hacia los campos de deporte acelerando el paso.

            -¿Estabais desnudos?

            -Sí –dijo para darse importancia. Recordaba el cuerpo tibio de Francisco a su lado, pero no la ropa o su ausencia. Revisitó la suavidad de la cama y la lámpara verde sobre la mesita de noche.

            -¿Y entonces qué?

            -¿Qué de qué?

            -¿Cómo que qué de qué? –le insistía la nueva. Pues que le contara con detalles todo lo que pasó, que para eso estaban hablando del tema. Pero ella ya no sabía más. Eso era todo, una luna de miel, como los mayores. De los abrazos estaba casi segura, besos no los recuerda pero mintió ante la persistencia de su contraria, y a medida que mentía aceleraba la marcha y la nueva tenía cada vez más dificultades para mantenerse a su lado. Finalmente, Marta le preguntó: “¿Os tocasteis?” Y aquello fue todo. Salió corriendo lo más rápido que pudo y se escondió en el gimnasio, donde se mordió las uñas hasta el final del recreo. Ya nunca veían ni a Francisco, ni a Laura. Un día, después de aquél verano, cuando las dos familias se reunieron en Madrid, los chicos propusieron jugar a las peleas de boxeo. Ella recordaba la escena con exquisita nitidez: primero pelearon los varones, y ellas, sus entrenadoras, les dieron consejos de última hora como en las películas de Rocky. Los chicos terminaron el combate casi empatados, y al final dieron la victoria a Álvaro por puntos. Ninguna de las niñas tenía especial interés en pelear, pero los chicos insistieron hasta que desataron las bestias. Tras los primeros toques, las niñas olvidaron todas las reglas. Mientras una arañaba la cara, otra arrancaba el pelo, y cuanto más cerca sentían la respiración contraria, más armas encontraban en su propio cuerpo: primero las rodillas y después los dientes, infringiendo un daño sordo y ciego que sólo las permitía concentrarse en su enemiga. Los chicos pasaron del asombroso a la risa, y del divertimento al miedo. Incapaces de disolver el combate, se olvidaron de su amistad, lanzándose a la defensa de las hermanas; cada uno de la suya, fieles al más primitivo de todos los lazos. Cuando los padres escucharon el escándalo encontraron a cuatro niños magullados, con lágrimas en los ojos y la ropa hecha jirones. Después de aquello, las dos familias se distanciaron.

             Llegó el recreo del viernes sin que Marta la esperase en el pasillo, seguramente decepcionada por su abrupta huida. Bueno, volvía a la soledad. Dejó perezosa que sus compañeras la adelantaran una tras otra. No le apetecía bajar al patio y entró en el servicio. Cuando se bajó las bragas llamaron a la puerta.

            -Está ocupado.

            -Ya tonta, ábreme, soy yo.

            Abrió y Marta se la quedó mirando.

            -¿No vas a mear?

            Con la otra ahí se le cortaba el pis, así que dijo que no y la nueva le pidió que se apartara para tomar su puesto. Un hilillo de agua rebotó contra la loza.

            -Ayer le conté a Pedro lo que me dijiste de la luna de miel –Marta se interrumpió para limpiarse. Si ella hubiese cerrado los ojos no le habría visto el contorno del culo, y tal vez no se habría enmudecizo mientras Marta le contaba que su hermano Pedro quería conocerla, porque como ella tenía experiencia y él era tan tímido harían una buena pareja. Siempre y cuando ella estuviese dispuesta a repetir. Salieron a la zona de los lavabos. El jabón rosa le deslizaba por las manos hasta que lo volvía blanco espachurrándolo una y otra vez entre las palmas.

            -Eh, te estoy hablando. Repetirías, ¿verdad? –sin inmutarse por las palabras de Marta, ella cada vez formaba más y más espuma. –Contéstame que Pedro y yo lo tenemos todo pensado.

            Ella asintió, aunque hubiese preferido decir que no y que Marta desapareciera.

            -Pensamos –continuaba la nueva –que podría hacerse por mi cumpleaños. Así mi madre no sospecha. Tendríamos una fiesta en el salón, con fantas y gusanitos. ¿Te gusta la Coca-cola? A nosotros no. Pero si a ti te gusta podríamos comprar Coca-cola también. Le haría tanta ilusión. No te lo puedes imaginar.

            Claro que no podía. Marta le agarró las manos todavía enjabonadas y la arrastró hacia los patios escaleras abajo. Sintió que se le escapaba el agua del cuerpo y le iba todo a las palmas de las manos, ya no enjabonadas sino sudorosas.

            -Mi hermano te estaría esperando en el cuarto. Yo te mostraré el camino –El  bullicio del resto de compañeras se escuchaba a lo lejos-.  Si quieres puedo decirle que se meta en la cama antes de que entres. Sólo será una noche y lo puedes hacer con la luz apagada.

            Entonces ella, aprovechando la humedad corpórea, se deshizo de la mano captora y resbaló en los últimos escalones. Paró con la rodilla. Con toda seguridad le saldría un moratón muy feo. Marta corrió a su auxilio y cuando la tuvo muy cerca le susurró al oído:

            -Mi hermano me ha dado un billete –la nueva le pasó los brazos bajo las axilas para que se levantara-. Lo tengo arriba. Si no te parece suficiente puedo conseguir más.

            Desde aquella posición la antigua podía olerle el cabello graso y algunos pelos rebeldes, fuera de la coleta, le cosquilleaban las mejillas. Marta la apretó aún más y ella sintió su cuerpo palpitando.

            -¿Qué estáis haciendo? –preguntó la profesora de gimnasia. –Venga salid al patio –la adulta agarró a cada una de una mano y las llevó con firmeza hasta el balonvolea. Las colocó en distintos equipos sin consultar con las capitanas. Al lado de sus compañeras de siempre, Marta se volvía aún más extraña. Tras esquivar la primera bola la antigua alumna sintió que desaparecía, y el juego le pareció simple y divertido. En el siguiente turno, una de sus compañeras, eliminó a Marta. La nueva le hizo un gesto al salir de la pista para que ella misma buscase el golpe y se reunieran fuera del campo, pero ella se escondió en el bulto asegurándose un puesto, un lugar anónimo, pero seguro. En el siguiente turno agarró la pelota con una pericia desconocida y disparó a otros cuerpos menos atentos o motivados que el suyo. Nunca volvió a hablar con Marta, ni supo si la nueva le hizo la misma propuesta a otras niñas o solo a ella.

 

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