The Scroll of Seduction (4 page)

T
he nuns would never approve of what I was doing. Not even Mother Luisa Magdalena, my friend and protector, would understand my friendship with Manuel. That Sunday was not the first I had spent with him. I had seen him two or three times before the end of the previous school year and then several more after my summer vacation. We usually met at the Prado Museum, which I was used to visiting every Sunday. He would wait for me at the entrance, smoking and reading the paper next to the statue of Velázquez.

I had told him about my Sunday visits to the museum when I wrote to him after our chance encounter. “Most Sundays I go to the Prado around eleven o'clock,” I wrote, perfectly aware of what I was insinuating.

The first time I saw him there I was wearing a new, plum-colored wool cape. On my way to the museum, I wavered between being sure he'd be there and fearing he might not have taken my veiled hint; I felt different–more mature, more womanly. I know I was giving off a different air because of the way men looked and smiled at me. Some didn't hold back even if they were in the company of a woman. Instead, the surreptitious exchanges seemed to add to their excitement. They flirted with me while they continued talking or hugging the women they were with. I was shocked by how experienced they seemed in their duplicity. I thought about my father. All week I had been distressed by the revela
tion of his infidelity. His ghost and the ghost of my mother had taken new life in my mind, as if every conversation and gesture of theirs stored in my memory were suddenly infused with new meaning. I was so mortified to have gained this knowledge now, when it could do no good, that I kept imagining I was living those memories anew, except that now I was scolding them, warning them of the price we would all have to pay for their marital crisis. And even though to a certain extent it helped me to appease the impotence I felt for having been an ignorant spectator to the drama, my effort to relive the past was choking me with all the words I wished I could have said to avert the tragedy. I felt hurt, tense. Perhaps that's why I told Manuel about it.

When I saw him, waiting for me by the Velázquez statue, I felt flushed. He walked over to greet me as if it were the most natural thing in the world. We had a long talk while we strolled through the gardens on Paseo del Prado. Queen Juana's jealousy must have been like my mother's, I said. He looked at me. He would have to tell me the whole story, he said. It was long and complex, it would last through many Sundays. After the summer vacation, I said. Once the school year started again, there would be no lack of Sundays.

 

I FOLLOWED HIM DOWNSTAIRS. HIS APARTMENT WAS LOCATED IN
Malasaña, one of Madrid's older neighborhoods. San Bernardo was one of the only wide streets in the area. Farther ahead it gave out to the Gran Vía. To get to his apartment one had to go up a narrow set of stairs, past a wrought iron entryway. Manuel had told me that the buildings on either side had once been part of a palace that belonged to one of his ancestors. He said he divided his time between that apartment and his aunt's house. She needed his company as much as he needed his solitude.

 

THE BUILDING'S AGE EXPLAINED THE BIZARRE PARTITIONS THAT
its current inhabitants had installed to make better use of the high ceilings. Manuel's apartment, for instance, must have once been a huge salon with very high ceilings, but now it was a split-level. The door, entryway, bedroom, and bathroom were on the lower level, which was so
dark it needed artificial light even in the daytime. From there, going up another short staircase and a trapdoor one came out onto a bright, well-ventilated room that functioned as living-dining and study room with a tiny well-stocked kitchen. The French windows opened out onto a balcony where pots of hanging geraniums sat atop a row of phone books stacked one on top of the other. It was a very pleasant surprise after the gloomy downstairs area. The room smelled of tobacco. There were many books stored in antique bookshelves, a comfortable-looking sofa against the wall, a work table with a typewriter, and on the walls, beautiful old maps and manuscripts. Models of delicate sailboats were set up in different places, and there were also odd-looking mobiles made of scrap metal. Pushed to one side of the dining table there was always an unfinished jigsaw puzzle.

I had never been to Manuel's bedroom until that day. It was clean and tidy. He had a beautiful, mirrored armoire with volutes and rosettes carved into the wooden doors. His bed had a silk bedspread with orange and black diamonds, the night table, the lamps were tasteful and exquisite, most likely objects inhereted from his ancestors. He went to the armoire and took out a dress, which he laid delicately on the bed. As if it were a task requiring all of his concentration, he carefully pulled it from its protective case and frowned, examining it, before smoothing out the slightly wrinkled skirt. Where on earth did he get it? I wondered, gaping. It was sumptuous: alternating red and gold silk panels, a narrow waistline trimmed in delicate velvet ribbon, and a wider version of the same trim on the rectangular neckline. A row of tiny black buttons ran down the front of the bodice.

Manuel lifted the hanger up and turned toward me. Like a couturier with his mannequin, he held it up to me, squinting for the full effect.

“This was worn with hoops called
verdugos,
to accentuate the hips,” he said, apparently satisfied with his visual inspection, “but we won't bother with those, partly because I couldn't make them and partly because you wouldn't be able to sit down in them.”

“Are they like a corset?”

“Not exactly.
Verdugos
were bell-shaped extensions, worn around
the waist and tied through the legs, so that when the dress fell it created the illusion of very wide hips. I'll help you get changed, if that's all right.”

He means I should take my clothes off, I thought, staring at him, not saying a word. In my late childhood I had gone through a phase filled with elaborate, strange fantasies where, either imagining myself to be an Egyptian slave or an Aztec princess, always these rough, violent men would force me to get undressed. I would kick frenetically, fighting and struggling against them, but in the end, when my captors took me out to a plaza and exhibited my naked body before a frenzied crowd, I would get inexplicably aroused. Whether I was dragged by huge, fierce guards or tied to a post like Christ on the cross, as soon as I pictured myself naked I would feel tremendously powerful, despite being the victim. I would imagine those scenes as I showered, before I went to school. Sometimes I envisioned lecherous hands grabbing at me while I squirmed and protested, at others I would glare at them, proud and haughty. Unable to imagine the sexual act, my fantasies would climax when the hero rescued me, pulling me to his chest and covering me up with his cape. I got the same sort of thrill playing hide-and-seek with my cousins in the empty rooms of my grandparents' house. They would catch the oldest two or three of us girls and push us under the beds and touch us
down there.
For years I was convinced that
down there
hid the precise spot that connected all the fibers of my being, the magnet that kept me grounded, the place that was pulled down by the force of gravity like an invisible beam of light shining from inside me down onto the ground. I understood why my mother was so worried that something might obstruct it. Maybe it was the fear of us being catapulted into space, having lost our bearings, that made my cousins act so fast and snatch their hands away so quickly, as if the soft smoothness between our legs might burn them.

“Let's try it on,” Manuel said, his back to me now as he unbuttoned the dress from its hanger, which was hooked over the armoire. “It's going to fit perfectly. Let me help you.”

Manuel carried on with the determination of a robot programmed to perform a task. Possessed and obsessed, he seemed already to have
been transported to another reality. Maybe that was why I was finally able to submit to the game without too much bother. I felt like I was with a scientist attempting to enter a parallel time; like a character out of some fantastic, far-fetched tale.

“You can leave your underwear on, but take off everything else. I'll slip the dress over your head. There's no zipper, logically.”

Facing me, standing at the foot of the bed, he stared at me without malice. I was looking at him too, my back turned to the mirror where just a minute ago I'd seen my face, my cheeks blushing slightly. I was planning to tell him to look away while I got undressed, but instead I started to unbutton my top. I unzipped the suit pants I was wearing. The silk lining slipped down my legs, rustling softly. I pulled down my stockings and slipped them off. I could feel my heart pounding in my belly. I proceeded to stand up and take off my white blouse. When I took off my bra, he was still staring at me with that guileless expression.

“Ready.” I smiled, cupping my hands over my breasts. “Hurry up so I don't catch a cold. It's freezing in here.”

It took a second for him to react. He took down the dress as if he'd had to complete a thought before he could do anything else.

He walked over to me.

“Raise your arms,” he said.

I stuck my head through the neck hole. Manuel was standing very close to me. His cold hands brushed against me. For a few seconds all you could hear was the sound of the material slipping over my body. I felt myself starting to get wet between the legs. It was such a luxurious feeling, to abandon myself to this game, and each touch of the dress against my skin was like a pebble falling into a pond, sparking off countless shudders. I thought it was funny, the way my childhood fantasies were coming to life. I hadn't felt vulnerable when I was nude. It seemed more like my skin was a magnetic field, charged with fluid energy. Even though it was a new feeling, my instincts recognized it.

Manuel leaned over me and said that now he'd have to button up the corset. I thought he would be clumsy, but I made no effort to help him. “Let's see,” he said, “one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.” His long, slender fingers turned out to be very nimble, ably
slipping each button into the piping buttonholes. The dress had wide sleeves, and the narrow bodice fit me perfectly. He stood back to look me over, head to toe.

“I won't go overboard and try to make you wear the steeple headdress. But we'll have to put your hair up. Do you happen to have a barrette in your purse?”

I said I did and he ran to get it. I heard him bound up the steps two by two. I looked at myself in the mirror.

I had become a character from another time. A Spanish princess from the days of the reconquest of Granada, the discovery of America. As girls we always played make-believe and pretended to be princesses. This is a game, I told myself. It's just that this one is about one princess in particular. I pulled my hair into two sections and held it back behind me to see the effect. Better. Long hair hanging down over my shoulders lowered my status. I looked more like a lover than Philippe the Handsome's wife. He came back with my purse, and I pulled out a brush and barrette.

“Let me do it,” he said quickly. “Tell me if I hurt you.” And he started to brush my hair, straightening it, and then slowly, gently pulling it back. Touching my ears and neck every once in a while, he slowly braided my hair and then secured it with the tortoiseshell clip.

Instantaneously, I looked completely different. Dignified. Elegant. Finally Manuel looked at me, and we smiled into the mirror. His eyes came back to the present. He took my hand and twirled me around and then went to the far side of the room to look at me from afar and get the whole effect.

“Extraordinary,” he said. “Welcome to the Renaissance.”