AFTER I WOKE UP, I went next door into Sóla’s apartment to fetch Anaís’ ex-husband’s towel. Don’t ask me how it had wound up there, or why I was tasked with retrieving it. To make matters more bizarre, it was a cartoon beach towel, with Rupert’s image printed all over it.
It even said “Rupert” in bubbly white script scrawled across the bottom.
The strangeness of the situation didn’t end there, because I was in my underwear, a pair of comfortable navy blue boxer-briefs. I thought I could get in and out of the apartment without Sóla catching me. I knew the towel was in her bathroom on the shelf. Just in and out, while she was asleep. But I was wrong. When I came into the main room, Sóla was already awake, dressed in a glimmering silver dress and fixing her ears with shining silver ornaments.
There was a milky gray morning light in the room, and she stood facing a tall mirror. I stood opposite her, mostly naked. She combed her golden hair and observed herself in the mirror.
“But who is this Anaís, whose ex-husband’s towel you have been sent to fetch?”
“Anaís is a great writer. She is a woman who has led a colorful life, a life worthy of letters.”
Sóla put down her hairbrush and turned to me in that silver dress. She said, “But my life has been so boring lately. All I do is work and work. Nothing ever happens. I am either here or at the workshop. Always working. I would also like to live a colorful life, a life worthy of letters.”
At once, I swept her off her feet, carrying her toward the bed. Sóla gasped, but was soon purring away like a kitten. The bed had a canvas canopy around it, and I took her to the sheets.
Her dress jingled.
“Come, come,” I said. “Come to bed with me, Sóla. Let’s make your life a little more colorful.”
north! 