By Lucas Rodríguez Schwarzenberg
Nico took off his wet T-shirt and hung it from one of the side rails, then tapped his pecs a couple of times, trying to match the rhythm of the song that was playing in his head. When he opened a side pocket of his sport bag, he noticed that his deodorant was missing. Cristián lent him his, provided he didn’t empty it. As he covered himself in an aerosol cloud, Nico resumed talking: “So, my mum is making me go see this Shrink. You know that I don’t really believe in that stuff. Far as I know, you’ve got to be a bit crazy first. So unless we’re talking about my skills on the field, I think I’m quite sound, know what I mean?”. There was only one person left in the dressing room apart from the two of them. A skinny guy with a padlocked beard, a Donald Duck tattoo over one shoulder and other physical characteristics that were not in any way related to the position in which he played. “So I arrive at the shrink’s office, with no intention of going in. Knock on the door and man, this gorgeous comes out. Amazing, perfect 10. She was dressed in a long skirt and one of those manly jackets, so I couldn’t really take a look her body, but I’m guessing she was fit as fuck. What a woman, man!”. Cristián listened carefully while sitting on a bench, flanked by Nico’s sports bag and pile of clothes. His eyes were wide open and the pupils dilated like those of a child capturing something foreign or forbidden. He nodded and pronounced short monosyllables, still somewhat muffled by the weariness of the match, trying to keep Nico focused. The absolute lack of interest in the anecdote that the Donald Duck tattoo guy showed undermined the focus of his narrator. “The shrink lady tells me to come in, so, so nicely. I mean… I’ve seen her just a couple of times, so I’m not sure if she’s nice because that’s her job or because… you know”. Patting his chest again, Nico laughed very loudly. Cristián laughed with him. They managed to get the man with the tattoo interested in them, even if it was only to find out why they were shouting inside a dressing room. “She always makes me sit in this white, awfully comfortable, peanut shell shaped padded sofa. If I didn’t had her in front of me, I would surely fall asleep. But she, Amanda, that’s her name, is one of those shrinks that tries to speak as little as they can. Not that I have a problem coming up with something to say or anything”. They laughed again, but the tattoo guy was on his way out. “I’m telling you now: in three months or less, ill manage to score the shrink. Just in time for spring. You can write that down. As I’m called what I’m called and that I’ve done what I’ve done that I’ll manage it”. As he finished closing his sports bag, Nico rested one hand on Cristián’s shoulder and told him they should go have some drinks, get rehydrated before moving on to the club.
They took a table in a corner, next to the little window that Nico opened in order to smoke without having to go out, a privilege that he had earned in exchange for his loyalty and one or two mentions of the bar in his populous Instagram. The half-liter glasses arrived filled with piscola and left empty as if one were necessary to get the other. After deciding which club they would go later, the two friends went silent. In the background there was a song by Guns ‘n’ Roses. Cristián hummed it, searching the place for someone who would notice what he was doing. Nico played with an empty cigarette box, checked his pants, took out and put his phone away repeatedly. Only when the waitress walked past them did they manage to put an end to the silence. A few months ago, inspired by both a resounding victory on the field and an unusually prophetic binge, they had invited the waitress to sit down and have a drink with them. The blunt manner in which she refused the invitation, shaking her head violently, guiding a hand to her chest as if they had caused an obstruction to her aorta, complicated their interactions for the next four months. Placing Nico’s shrink on the throne that the waitress had vacated was the ideal therapy to get past the uncomfortable impasse, especially since she had no intention of resigning and they had no desire to find a new bar. Nico spoke excitedly about Amanda, about how he made her laugh with his anecdotes, to the point that on many an occasion she abandoned her inquiries to ask for other stories, go on tangents and in the end, get to know more about his life. “I’ve even told her about football, our team and the league. She wanted to know in which position I played. Know what I told her? Goalscorer!”. Cristián was shocked: there was a possibility that Nico had included him in his stories. Being part of the imaginary that was conjured up inside the psychologist’s office made him feel close to her. In the unlikely, but not impossible, scenario that he got to meet her one day, Amanda, that woman with a name composed almost exclusively of letters A, something that gave her an air of supreme femininity, would know that he was Christian, Nico’s wingman, the one who was always there for him. He tried to think of some subterfuge by which to find out about his existence in the story. It occurred to him to ask if he had talked to Amanda about the time they met. Nico nodded, but in a dark and abrupt manner, as if a sunny day had gone cloudy. “She seems to enjoy most of all the stories from when I was a kid, like pre school young. I hardly remember anything from that time. Maybe my parents splitting up, first day of school and that’s it, so I don’t know how much she can get out of them. When I told this to her, she smiled, but in a strange way. She’s got a beautiful smile, but i didn’t enjoy it that time. Then she said something like ‘There’s as much in what is kept as what’s been said’. Something creepy like that”. Just mentioning that moment made Nico feel what he had felt that afternoon. In front of him, Cristián, leaning on the table, his thick eyebrows placed as containment barriers, the same Cristián to whom he always gave advice and marveled with his stories, now pressed him for an answer. In desperation, Nico suggested that they ask for the check. Pulling out his phone, he made Cristián realize that if they didn’t leave soon, they wouldn’t make it to the club. When he was asked until what time they could get in, he answered an hour that was nearby but easy to catch, and completely fictitious.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The shrink’s office was completely silent. Nico roamed his gaze over the shelves, noticing one by one the little ornaments, almost all of them travel souvenirs. Neither the miniature replica of a mohai, the ekeko doll or the ultra-trite reproduction of the Eiffel Tower served as a distraction. Amanda’s presence, sitting with one leg over the other a little more than two meters away from him, made Nico jump from pleasure to terror, from being in front of someone who marveled him to realize that it was a predator. She moved her foot with a slow, confident rhythm, an elegantly plain leather sandal hanging from the tip of her toe. Nails painted pale calypso. She wore her hair up except for a couple of strands that fell over her ears, the soft silhouette as captivating to Nico as the first time he saw it. A noise from the exterior distracted her; spring was settling in. Looking back at him, she smiled, leaving that expression fixed on her face until it had lost any comforting quality.
Both of the times that she had tried to ask him if he would rather put aside the issue of his parents’ divorce, Nico had interrupted her, reassuring loudly that it was all right. ‘There’s as much in what is kept as in what’s been said’, that treacherous mantra that Amanda liked to employ, constricted his brain. Desperate, Nico began to digress. His words sounding to him like those out-of-tune trombones that came out of the mouths of Charlie Brown’s parents. Her interventions seemed like icy air drafts loaded with eloquence. “Well, I don’t know if anything I’ve said has been of any use to you. I mean, of course it does, you’re an amazing specialist”. Nico realized that he had closed his eyes only when he finished saying that phrase, squeezing them tightly as if he were afraid to witness the effect of his words. Amanda nodded, thanked and stared at him, resuming the task without uttering a word. While Nico was trying to kick off an anecdote that had already been told, Amanda let her hair down: leaving the colet in her mouth, she began to tie it in a different style. She did it with serenity, dedicating several seconds to each of the twists, turns and gestures. By the time Nico got to a joke, she took the opportunity to take out her phone and use it as a mirror.
Nico felt all his ideas coming together. The hurricane of concepts and words that cluttered his head disappeared as if it had never been there. He felt the muscles in his neck tightening in a similar way to when he got fouled playing soccer. The office vanished from his sight. The only thing he noticed was Amanda in the center, the total lack of attention she showed towards him making her flare up like crimson steel. “I don’t know why I e-e-even try to tell you stuff, you never listen to me”. Still holding the colet in between her lips, Amanda replied by lifting her shoulders. “Do you care about anything I say? Or anything that I go thru?”. She told him that as a matter of fact she didn’t, but because of her work she had to pretend to care. Nico felt that he was losing control over parts of his face, as they began to tear, shiver or contract out of his control. “You know what? Talking to a woman is a waste of time. You don’t care about anything, you lack any sense of humor… you’re all a bunch…”. Amanda urged him to finish his sentence. Nico was unable to. “It’s just that I no longer understand what’s this all about. You shrinks are a strange bunch. The other doctors, you go to them and they get you fixed. They’re the experts so they’re the ones doing all the work. With you I’m just paying… my mums paying, for me to carry the load. And that shit’s wrong. I don’t feel I’m doing a thing. But she insists that I come here. I’ve told her a thousand times that I don’t get anything in return, but she never listens to me. With her I’ve never had an opinion. So, shit, what can I do. I came here to be listened to but you also… see what I mean!”. Amanda swore that she was listening to him, she had only got up so she could reach for the tissues. Nico went on, even faster and at an even higher volume: “You’ve been pressing me for ages with this remembering my infancy thing, but it’s like you don’t realize that I can’t do it because I don’t remember shit. But you don’t seem to care. You keep insisting and insisting and insisting. If I wasn’t able to do it the first time, not because I try again its gonna come out. I don’t like it when that happens. I go on my day without a hitch, there’s nothing I can’t get done. I get approved in the courses, I’m well known at uni, I score in the field. I’m so successful, I can go on without having to think on this stuff. But then I come here, start talking about all this, and I get the feeling that you don’t give a damn about the things that make me happy, you only care about the ones that upset me. And I don’t want it. I’m not gonna feel bad on purpose. I’m not coming back here to see you anymore because you only mistreat me. You’re a mean person, you hurt me”.
His nose was burning and his ears were ringing. Nico held his head in his hands, as if it were something heavy that was about to fall. It took him several seconds to feel the caresses on the side of his face, the perfume struggling to ascend through his congested airways. He barely noticed another body settling in next to his. The kisses came to him like an echo. As he was reciprocating the caresses, he began to regain control. He had gotten what he wanted, but at too high a cost. Amanda’s hair between his fingers felt as soft as he had always imagined, her body as sculptural or even more so, but Nico knew he would never be able to evoke them. They would go to the chest along with the rest of his most intense memories, which would then be buried under the layers and layers of empty, exaggerated or fabricated anecdotes that he told every day to Christian and the rest of the world.
But that’s the way it was. It wasn’t easy being Nico. No one knew it better than him.
Tres páginas y media 