Click the logo to download the Festival Author Booklet including excerpts and biographies.Click the logo to download the Festival Author Booklet including excerpts and biographies.
I have a lover twenty-four years older than I am who has taught me two things. One, that there can be no true passion if one does not cross some limit, and two, that an older man can only offer you his money or his sympathy. Rex does not give me money or sympathy. That is why he says that our passion, which has transcended limits, is in danger of beginning to extinguish itself at any moment.
First night: Before meeting him, I had attended two book presentations and nothing had ever happened, which is just so many words, because actually it’s when nothing happens that things are really happening. And that time they happened as follows: I was alone, in the middle of a crowded room, asking myself why I had decided to torture myself that way, when I realized that Rex, a famous writer I knew only by name, was seated next to me. When the first participant’s reading was over, I applauded. Next thing I knew, Rex raised his hand, rebuked the participant, and took his seat once again. With very few variations, this was the dynamic of that presentation: papers were read, followed by applause, and Rex either praised or destroyed the speaker, always commenting with quotes from one of the great figures he kept handy.
Someone read, Rex criticized, another read, Rex criticized, I applauded. If minimalism is foresight and the reduction of elements to their lowest possible number of variables, this was the most minimalist presentation I had ever been to. The penultimate presentation by a feminist author having ended, Rex criticized, I applauded and went to the ladies room. I heard him say that human stupidity could sink no lower. When I got back, before the event had led, I noticed that Rex had his hand on my chair and was distractedly coning with someone. When I pointed to the place where I’d been sitting— which his autonomous, palpitating hand now guarded like a crab—Rex looked me in the eye and said, “I put it there to keep it warm.” Two hours later we were making love, frantically. That’s what they say: “frantically.” Also: “madly.” In love, borrowed phrases are everything, and you can never be sure saying what you want when you love. But, when you want with all your heart not to be there and cannot do it, what do you say then?
Third night: The first thing I must admit is that I don’t know very well what nihilistic decadence consists of, because before meeting Rex I had not thought about it. According to him, the term defines Generation X, the most decadent and luckless generation of this century, to which I unfortunately belong. But if I wanted to follow the plan of action I should follow according to Rex, I could regret one act: having sat next to him, such a famous writer, at a book citation. The golden rule among people who attend this kind of event is no one should get involved with anyone else, and that friendships, if any developed, should be based upon the purest self-interest (I give you, you give me; I introduce you, you introduce me; I read you, you read me) or total disregard. Rex says that any relationship that isn’t a result of alcohol is false.
Tenth night:
This had been going on since the first time, but I had forgotten to mention it. We were in the climactic moment, making love frantically, as I have said, and suddenly the room was full of visitors. The first to arrive was She of the Extremely Narrow Waist. Rex began talking about this old lover of his because my posture reminded him of her. She was decisive, ardent, and a brunette. You had to grasp her tightly by the waist because if not she was likely to fall off. “Like this,” he said, squeezing me. “Oh, how that woman could move up and down,” he added, while holding on to me, nostalgic. But after a while, he pointed his index finger and warned me:
“Many may imitate her, but no one can equal her, no one.”
And, sunk in this reflection, he went to pour himself a whiskey. After a few minutes during which I, who had also lapsed into a kind of dream state, was pondering the great passion between Rex and me, he broke the silence:
“She could squat perfectly,” he said, referring to that other woman, “Look, I get goose bumps when I remember it.”
It was true: the sickly white skin, untouched by the sun for years, had little pointy lumps all over it.
“Like a flesh piston,” he said, as if in a trance, “up and down, beside herself, over me, emitting impeccable cries.”
According to Rex, that squatting woman’s performance art was excellent. She made him reach the heavens, without any exaggeration, six times. The very day she gave herself to him, before leaving, She of the Extremely Narrow Waist asked him to make love to her from behind.
“She wanted to make me an offering,” Rex explained, “a gift.”
After this confession, which seemed quite strange to me, there was another silence. I thought Rex’s story was an indirect way of asking me for something, so I wrapped my arms around a pillow and offered myself, on my hands and knees, with my back to him. “Don’t move,” he said, and in a few seconds I saw a camera flash. I waited a bit longer, but nothing happened, and after a few anxious moments, I heard someone next to me snoring.
***
About Rosa Beltrán
Rosa Beltrán is the author of the novels La corte de los ilusos (Premio Planeta, 1995), El paraíso que fuimos (Seix Barral, 2002), Alta infidelidad (Alfaguara, 2006) and Efectos secundarios (Mondadori, 2011). Other works include short fiction collections Optimistas, (Aldus, 2006), Amores que matan, Joaquín Mortiz (1996) and the books of essays Mantis: sentido y verdad en la cultura literaria posmoderna (UAM, 2010) ans América sin americanismos (UNAM, 1997).
In 1994 she was recognized by the American Association of University Women for her essays on writers in the 20th century. In 1988 she won the National University Prize for Young Academics in the area of creation and in 2011 the Reconocimiento Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz through la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Rosa is licensed in Hispanic Language and Literatures through UNAM. She received her master’s and doctorate in Comparative Literature at the University of California, Los Ángeles. She is a post-graduate full-time professor of Comparative Literature at UNAM and has served as coordinator of the Comparative Literature Department there as well.
