_3. Yvonne
The way it works, I discovered, is without transition. One moment I was looking out through Mercedes’ eyes, and the next I was glancing back at her as Yvonne. It was really very unsettling. In a flash I was speaking French without effort, not the heavily accented variety that my former hostess attempted. And from my new seat I could see how Carlos managed the way he did, with that gleam in his eye for every woman but his wife. There must have been a time he looked at her like that.
Oddly enough, now from outside, they seemed a couple like any other: used to each other and posing a more or less unified front to the world. But Yvonne was innocent compared to me. Besides, she was charmed by Carlos. The entire evening she didn’t see their coming separation.
Anyway, Yvonne had her own worries. After six days she still didn’t know if it had been a good idea to accompany Serge on his trip to Mexico. Were they happily married? In fact, they were officially married for only a year, but they had been together long enough to leave a fifteen-year old son at home alone. Serge’s first wife wouldn’t give him a divorce at the time, and then finally she died when her daughter by him was grown. Usually, Yvonne or her husband stayed home when the other went away on business. But she had never seen Mexico and always meant to, and who knew if she would get there on her own. She thought, too, it might be good for their marriage—even if, as he had warned, she did not see him each day until the evening. It was the last night of their trip, and Mexico at night had done little to make him more romantic.
That was the hardest part for me: to make a transition where there was none, or barely the slightest bridge, a grazing of eyes, two gazes become for a moment one. The shock on being overcome by the rush of new memories, embedded imperceptibly in the skin, to know suddenly her whole life. At the same time, I can’t describe just how sensual it all was, slipping into a new body. To feel her smoky voice rising through me, to flex the muscles in my legs, to comb my fingers back through short hair, place hands upon my slender waist. I remembered a Frenchwoman with a voice like that in a movie once. Or was it Mercedes who saw the movie?
Yvonne didn’t like to travel so much. But every season she was going to a conference somewhere in Europe; plus, she had to move all over the Paris area for her research, and then weekends at their country house. By studying marginal populations as she did, the immigrants and nomads, she had become like a nomad herself, seldom staying in one place for long.
Well, I could have told her a thing or two about nomads! Except I was traveling blind: that’s the difference, I guess, when you have your own life, like Alma did in Tlatelolco, at least you think you know what’s going to happen next. How could I count on any certainty as to who I would be tomorrow?
No, I wasn’t a parasite, not exactly. I thought of myself rather as a squatter, a visitor, an uninvited guest. I left no mess behind me—of course, I could not verify that—and I persisted in the belief that I might have some influence, preferably on the side of wisdom gained. What I came to understand, however, was that despite all the advantages of my station, the small matter of choice was apparently denied me. As a traveling soul I had vast possibilities, it’s true, but deciding whom to inhabit next was not one of them. It was merely an accident that I was Yvonne.
. . . . .
The way it works, I discovered, is without transition. One moment I was looking out through Mercedes’ eyes, and the next I was glancing back at her as Yvonne. It was really very unsettling. In a flash I was speaking French without effort, not the heavily accented variety that my former hostess attempted. And from my new seat I could see how Carlos managed the way he did, with that gleam in his eye for every woman but his wife. There must have been a time he looked at her like that.
Oddly enough, now from outside, they seemed a couple like any other: used to each other and posing a more or less unified front to the world. But Yvonne was innocent compared to me. Besides, she was charmed by Carlos. The entire evening she didn’t see their coming separation.
Anyway, Yvonne had her own worries. After six days she still didn’t know if it had been a good idea to accompany Serge on his trip to Mexico. Were they happily married? In fact, they were officially married for only a year, but they had been together long enough to leave a fifteen-year old son at home alone. Serge’s first wife wouldn’t give him a divorce at the time, and then finally she died when her daughter by him was grown. Usually, Yvonne or her husband stayed home when the other went away on business. But she had never seen Mexico and always meant to, and who knew if she would get there on her own. She thought, too, it might be good for their marriage—even if, as he had warned, she did not see him each day until the evening. It was the last night of their trip, and Mexico at night had done little to make him more romantic.
That was the hardest part for me: to make a transition where there was none, or barely the slightest bridge, a grazing of eyes, two gazes become for a moment one. The shock on being overcome by the rush of new memories, embedded imperceptibly in the skin, to know suddenly her whole life. At the same time, I can’t describe just how sensual it all was, slipping into a new body. To feel her smoky voice rising through me, to flex the muscles in my legs, to comb my fingers back through short hair, place hands upon my slender waist. I remembered a Frenchwoman with a voice like that in a movie once. Or was it Mercedes who saw the movie?
Yvonne didn’t like to travel so much. But every season she was going to a conference somewhere in Europe; plus, she had to move all over the Paris area for her research, and then weekends at their country house. By studying marginal populations as she did, the immigrants and nomads, she had become like a nomad herself, seldom staying in one place for long.
Well, I could have told her a thing or two about nomads! Except I was traveling blind: that’s the difference, I guess, when you have your own life, like Alma did in Tlatelolco, at least you think you know what’s going to happen next. How could I count on any certainty as to who I would be tomorrow?
No, I wasn’t a parasite, not exactly. I thought of myself rather as a squatter, a visitor, an uninvited guest. I left no mess behind me—of course, I could not verify that—and I persisted in the belief that I might have some influence, preferably on the side of wisdom gained. What I came to understand, however, was that despite all the advantages of my station, the small matter of choice was apparently denied me. As a traveling soul I had vast possibilities, it’s true, but deciding whom to inhabit next was not one of them. It was merely an accident that I was Yvonne.
. . . . .