Fish Soup. Margarita García Robayo

      Brígida had dense hair in her armpits, stuck together with white clumps because of the bicarb she applied to stop herself smelling. She smelled anyway. A cruise ship had come in and Brígida stopped by Gustavo’s shack for some oysters. It was Thursday. I didn’t have to go to the Institute on Thursdays, and since I wasn’t going out with Tony anymore, sometimes I went to visit Gustavo. I lounged in the hammock reading magazines in English, for practice.

      That Thursday, Brígida asked me the same thing she always asked me: whether I had a husband yet. No. If I had a boyfriend yet. I don’t know. And she laughed.

      Lately, Brígida was going around with a granddaughter in tow, who frowned at me, her lips pursed. I ignored her, flipping the pages of my magazine, yawning now and again. Lately, it was Olga who saw to Brígida: she dealt with the oysters, negotiated the price, gulped one down and then talked to her about the product as if she was an expert on the matter. Brígida didn’t like oysters, only once did I see her swallow one. She screwed up her face – you could really see her age then – and then she spat it out and said: that’s like chewing on a pussy.

      While Olga dealt with Brígida and I read in English and the granddaughter silently cursed me, Gustavo, at the worktable, told a story. The story would start with a precise anecdote and would end up god-knows-where. For example:

      When I lived in Valparaíso, father had various market stalls and he had me peeling prawns until my fingers were swollen. He taught me how to peel a prawn: you grab it firmly by the tail, carefully pull off the head so that that it doesn’t bring all the meat with it, and then you take off the legs. The shell comes off on its own. And you leave the tail.

      What do you leave it for? I interrupted sometimes, because if not, it would be like he was talking to himself, and I felt sorry for him.

      So that the shape of the animal stays intact, it’s more elegant like that.

      I don’t see anything elegant about it.

      All the flavour’s in the tail, that’s why you have to suck it.

      Suck it? Gross.

      The tail holds the elixir of the animal, the soul of the animal, the essence of the animal.

      Right.

      It’s all there: in the tail.

      Mm-hm.

      After a while, Olga also tried to get involved, but she would say things that were completely irrelevant. Things like: the day before yesterday I saw a group of gringos walking through the city centre, their legs were covered in pus-filled blisters. And, as nobody replied, she would get bored and grumble her way into the shack and switch on the little TV that her sister had sent over from Venezuela.

      And her in there and us out here.

      I opened a beer, fanned myself with the magazine. Later I opened another beer, and one for Gustavo. The sun would get really strong, and it was hard to find a position in the hammock where I wouldn’t be blinded it by it. Gustavo went on:

      …I remember that about Valparaíso, and I also remember Silvina. Silvina had thick, shiny hair that she wore in a high ponytail, and a colourful dress that she wore at weekends.

      Just one?

      I liked that dress because every time she wore it, she would bend down to me and ask, Do I look pretty, guagüita?

      Gua-what?

      Silvina was the last girlfriend of father’s that I met, because after that summer I never saw him again. He took a job on a ship and never came back. I went to Argentina.

      Why Argentina?

      Because that’s where mother was.

      Hadn’t she been thrown into the sea?

      …and once, father sent a letter, saying he was in Brazil, and that he had a girlfriend, not Silvina, but Mary-Erin, who was young and pretty.

      And where was Niní?

      …in the letter, father told me to get on a bus and go see him, that mother could pay for my journey and he would pay her back from there.

      Why do you always say mother and father?

      How else should I refer to them?

      My mother, and my father, like everyone else does. Otherwise you sound like a character in a badly dubbed movie: like when you say luncheon, or valise or stockings, or motorcar, or galoshes.

      I don’t say any of those things.

      Yes, you do.

      7

      My first flight was to Miami. It was the city’s busiest international route, and the most sought-after. I went for it, and I got it. I wanted to go to Miami because it was cheap to buy things there, the weather was good, and the men weren’t gringos. The young air hostesses didn’t like gringos because they were bad in bed; the old ones did, because they took whatever they could get.

      Do you know Miami? I asked Julián. He said he did, but I could tell he was lying. Julián was watching TV in our living room: there was a boxing match on. My brother was in the shower, getting ready to go to a party. My mother, on the phone to my grandmother: the cousin of a relative had died. My father had gone out to pay some traffic fines.

      Do you know Miami? I asked Gustavo. He didn’t reply. Olga snorted. He was drinking rum in the hammock, looking out to sea. Olga was grating coconut for a rice dish. She had a long white skirt and red knickers on, her tits spilling out of a tight, low-cut black Lycra top.

      I had gone to say goodbye.

      In Miami, I stayed in a hotel near the airport. I had already arranged for a friend of a friend from the gym to come and meet me. He was married but he turned up without his wife. Probably for the best, seeing as lately I had not been getting on with anybody’s wives: young air hostesses were notorious for spreading their legs in any airport toilet. Old air hostesses were notorious for spitting in the plane food, among other things. My colleague Susana said that the old air hostesses suffered from terrible flatulence – a result of so many years eating that shrink-wrapped food – which became uncontrollable at certain altitudes.

      This friend of a friend was called Juan, but he was known as Johnny, and he was a huge, green-eyed, mixed race guy. His car still had that “new car” smell. He took me out to eat some spicy food and then he took me for a ride along Ocean Drive. Before going back to the hotel, we went into a bar owned by Johnny’s friend – an associate, he said, then corrected himself: a buddy, and slapped him on the back. We drank Negronis. I’d never had a Negroni, but I didn’t say so. Do you like it? asked Johnny, and I nodded: I like strong drinks. He clinked his glass with mine and breathed into my ear, me like you, beibi.

      Johnny smelled of expensive cologne.

      I had to get back to the hotel by midnight because the Captain said he didn’t want any of us staying out all night. Our flight was at seven. Thanks, Johnny, I had a great time. He lunged in for a kiss, but I dodged it. Johnny wasn’t bad looking, but if he got his way now, I wouldn’t have anyone to call next time I came to Miami. I was planning to go to Miami often, until I found a way to stay there for good.

      When I got back, the rain started. Again, like it had not rained for years. Days and days of torrential rain, which meant we were unable to fly: the airport was closed, and I was bored, watching films about people who were happy for the first half an hour and who then got sad, and that’s what it was all about, getting over the sadness. Then something would happen, and they ended up even happier than they were at the start.

      I had moved out of my parent’s house months ago and was living with Milagros, a girl who sold alcohol in the duty-free shop and had put up a notice in the toilets: looking for a roommate, two-bed apartment near the airport. I liked the idea of living near the airport, so I could be 100% available for the airline. If someone was ill, I was there in five minutes to replace them. If a charter flight was leaving and they needed staff, I would volunteer myself. Every time a