Temptation

Months ago I was in Uruguay.

I finished

, the latest novel by Jonathan Franzen, eating a ham and cheese sandwich at a waterfront cafe.

I remembered the night when, with my friend E., we went to a bar in the center of the small Argentine city where we lived.

She was several years older than me.

I was 13 and she was bloodthirsty.

She asked him about sex, about menstruation.

E. answered me with red cheeks.

I never knew how to excuse that embarrassment: she made me angry, she asked her worse.

I was long-suffering but hardened, and I discovered silly things all the time: the taste of dark chocolate or sabayon ice cream, which I then consumed for months.

One summer I discovered the unique toasted ham and cheese sandwiches they made at a bar.

One night I went with E., but there was no room and we ended up in another one that we didn't know.

We ordered two toasties.

The boy warned us:

"They are very big".

I told him, with solvency, to bring both.

After a while she came back with a tower.

Each sandwich was the size of two tiles and cut into eight pieces.

The disproportion was total: two girls, a wall of flour.

My friend and I started laughing.

It was a laugh like a disease, like slipping into disaster without being able to stop, like having convulsions.

The waiter looked at us with obfuscation as we cried and coughed.

Our stomachs ached, we were contorted with tears.

It was a terrifying happiness, something monstrous.

We had to take a taxi to go home because we couldn't walk.

Years later I moved to Buenos Aires and she moved to a smaller town where she committed suicide.

I never had friends like her again.

Perhaps I never laughed like that night again.

In the Uruguayan bar,

50% off

Exclusive content for subscribers

read without limits

subscribe

I'm already a subscriber