Women

By: Linda Villamarín

We pass each other every day, but I don’t know the name of any of them. 

First, there’s the shortest one, with the face of a child and probably the same amount of free time as one. I think she’s my age three times over, even though her lively eyes say the opposite. You can see that she lived long enough to now start living in the lives of others.  She’s exhausted her own topics, so she goes from house to house asking about someone else’s life, always politely and courteously but with the brazen hunger of gossip. Life has taught her that there are no endings in stories. Omnipresent woman, not a day or place goes by that I do not see her. In the bakery, in the cheese shop that closes early, in the big market where everyone goes, in the other bakery, and at the bus stop. I get the impression that she owns the neighborhood, and every morning she makes her rounds, ensuring we don’t do anything without her knowing first. 

One day, I ran into her in front of the elevator in my building. I’d just moved in and didn’t know of her yet. My cousin was standing next to her, waiting for me. Because I thought they’d come together, I gave her a big hug. I could feel her jasmine perfume and see her hidden grey hair up close. My cousin looked at me without understanding my affections and the three of us got into the elevator. She got off on the fourth floor and my cousin and I went on to the tenth. Only then did I understand that they didn’t come together. Now she tells the neighbors that the woman who lives on the tenth floor (referring to me) is very tender and friendly. After that day, I  avoid her all the time, but she’s inevitable, and every day without fail, I run into her, only I do not hug her anymore. I formally greet her and then look away. 

*** 

Then there’s the lady who sells the salads next to the butcher shop. She doesn’t have a tent. She just stands in the doorway, right where the raw chicken legs and pounds of beef dripping with blood are delivered. There, without much ado, she puts up a wooden table and on it prepares the salad that’ll be taken away in little closed, plastic bags, giving a touch of neatness to the scene. She has very black, short hair, a scowl, and a white apron smeared with what looks to be tomato juice. She stands with her chest out and her chin up like a high-ranking officer. Next to her table, there’s a plastic chair for her but she never sits down. I suppose she feels she must guard her vegetables with zeal as if someone is going to take them and run away, which I doubt very much will happen. 

In front of her, but already in the street, the avocado master stands. A man in his fifties with a straw hat and a gray shirt, open enough for us to see the shape of his belly button. He has the ability to sell avocados that look beautiful on the outside but are rotting on the inside. Every single one of them. Like many of us at our worst. He and the salad lady talk all morning. Since I’ve been in quarantine and nothing has been happening in my life, I’m inspired by the gossipy neighbor to dare to say that they are lovers. Or maybe she uses him to make one of the butchers jealous, the one she might actually have or want to have a relationship with. In that corner, among the metallic smell of blood, the utensils used to murder the skinny pigs, the damaged avocados, the dry eyes of dead cows in the dirty display case, and the love trio with the butchers, this woman is unaware that she is the protagonist of the most dramatic scene in the whole neighborhood. 

Finally, there are the bakers, the beauty queens of the neighborhood. First, there’s the matron who carries the wad of bills in her apron, her voice emanating a sweetness that does not match her face. She seems to have an unbreakable character.  She’s the mother of queens. We don’t know if there are three or four yet. They seem to be interchangeable in behavior and looks. Half the neighborhood secretly plans their imaginary wedding with any one of them, and I include myself on that list. The truth is that they’re very pretty, they always have hot bread, and at any time of the day, they are smiling. Not a smile of cordiality or of work well done, but rather a smile of love,  of dedication, of a commitment that is above all else. 

The bakery is always full for obvious reasons, although I get a strong feeling that they never close. I arrived late at night in a taxi once, barely conscious, and the bakery was still open. I’m almost certain that none of them are from this world or that they’re always smiling because the air in the ovens leaves them in a trance from the beyond. It’s contagious, no wonder the whole neighborhood loves them. They should set up their own psychological office where the four of them get together in each session to listen to your problems while they offer you hot bread and smiles.  

The omnipresent neighbor, the salad commander, and the bakers. They could dominate the whole world if they wanted to. Maybe they already do. 

I don’t think any of them know my name or that I secretly observe them and use them as inspiration for my writing evenings. If they knew, they wouldn’t smile at me as warmly as they do. The gossipy neighbor would have already told the whole neighborhood.  The one with the salads would join the lord of the avocados to only sell me bruised produce. The bakers would never smile at me again, and that would hurt me more than the rest.

These neighborhood women owners and ladies of the world, wise and beautiful, whose daily behavior has begun to turn around my anxiety to write about them. If you understand the motivations of the heart and the disorder of obsessive love, you will know that it’s me who returns to them and who secretly seeks them out just to know that they are still there.  Because they are an insufferable blow of inspiration.