Cover

Cover

Natural Histories

GUADALUPE NETTEL

translated from the Spanish by
J. T. Lichtenstein

Seven Stories Press

NEW YORK • OAKLAND

Copyright © 2013 by Guadalupe Nettel
English translation copyright © 2014 by J. T. Lichtenstein

Title of the original Spanish edition: El matrimonio de los peces rojos

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Book design by Elizabeth DeLong

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nettel, Guadalupe, 1973- author.
[Matrimonio de los peces rojos. English]
Natural Histories / Guadalupe Nettel ; translated by J. T. Lichtenstein.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-60980-551-7 (hardback)
1. Nettel, Guadalupe, 1973---Translations into English. I. Lichtenstein, J. T., 1986 II. Title.
PQ7298.424.E76M3813 2014
863’.7--dc23
2013050804

to Ale Oru and Pelo Pegado

All animals know what it is they need, except for man.

—Pliny the Elder

Man belongs to an animal species that when
injured can become particularly ferocious.

—Gao Xingjian

Contents

Contents

The Marriage of the Red Fish

War in the Trash Cans

Felina

Fungus

The Snake from Beijing

About the Author

About Seven Stories Press

The Marriage of the Red Fish

The Marriage of the Red Fish

Our last red fish, Oblomov, died yesterday afternoon. I had a feeling he was going to, having barely seen him move in his round fishbowl for some days. He didn’t leap either as he used to for food or to chase the rays of sunlight that brightened his habitat. It was like he was a victim of depression, or its equivalent in the life of a fish in captivity. I came to know very few things about this animal. Very few times I peered through the glass of his bowl and looked him in the eyes and when I did, it wasn’t for very long. It pained me to see him there, alone, in his glass container. I very much doubt he was happy. That’s what most saddened me when I saw him yesterday, floating like a poppy petal on the surface of a pond. He, on the other hand, had more time, more serenity to spend watching Vincent and me. I am sure that in his way he too felt sorry for us. You tend to learn a lot from the animals you live with, even fish. They are like mirrors that reflect the buried emotions and behaviors we don’t dare see.

Oblomov was not the first fish we had in the house, but the third. Before him there were two others of the same color, which I did observe, and which became a fascinating object of study for me. They came one Saturday morning, two months before Lila was born. Pauline, a mutual friend, brought them to us in the same container in which their successor was to die. Vincent and I were very happy to accept the gift. A cat or dog would have been a third wheel in our relationship and a nuisance in our apartment, but we liked the idea of sharing our home with another couple. Plus we had heard that red fish bring luck and in those days we were seeking any kind of talisman, be it animal or object, to temper our anxiety about the pregnancy.

We first placed the fish on a small corner table in the living room where the afternoon sun fell. We thought they cheered up the room, which faced the patio behind our building, with the quick movements of their fins and tails. I don’t know how many hours I must have spent watching them. A month earlier I had requested maternity leave from the law office where I worked to prepare for the birth of my daughter. It wouldn’t be forever, and it wasn’t uncommon, but still it troubled me. I didn’t know what to do at home. The too-many empty hours filled me with questions about my future. Winter was at its worst and just the thought of getting dressed to face the icy wind was enough to dissuade me from going out for a walk. I preferred to stay home, reading the newspaper or getting things ready for Lila’s arrival, turning the tiny study into a bedroom for her. On the other hand Vincent was spending more time in the office than ever. He wanted to make the most of these last few months to get ahead on his projects before the baby was born. Reasonable enough, but I missed him, even when we were together. He felt distant, lost in his busy schedule and in his professional worries where there was no place for me. Often, waiting for him to come home from work, I sat and watched the fishes’ sometimes slow and measured, sometimes frantic or terrorized comings and goings. I learned to tell them apart, not just by the nearly imperceptible differences in the colors of their scales, but by their behavior and the way they moved, searched for food. There was nothing else in the fishbowl. No stone, no cavity in which to hide. The fish always saw each other, and every act by one, every rising to the surface and circling of the glass, inevitably affected the other. Hence the impression of dialogue watching them gave me.

Unlike Oblomov, those fish never had names. We referred to them as the male and the female. Despite their strong resemblance it was possible to distinguish them by the robust build of the former and because his scales shined brighter than his companion’s. Vincent watched them much less, but they inspired a curiosity in him as well. I’d tell him of the things I thought I’d discovered about them and he enjoyed hearing about the happenings in the lives of the extended family staying with us. I remember one morning, while I was at the kitchen counter making coffee, he pointed out to me that one of them—possibly the male—had opened its fins and they now looked bigger, as if doubled, and full of colors.

“And the female?” I asked, coffeepot in hand. “Is she prettier too?”

“No. She’s still the same, but she’s barely moving,” Vincent said, his face pressed to the glass of the fishbowl. “Maybe he’s courting her.”

That day we went to the outdoor market on Boulevard Richard-Lenoir. A favorite weekend activity of ours. The snow had disappeared and instead of the eternal rain we could feel the sun’s presence in the sky. We enjoyed ourselves shopping, but the morning didn’t end on the same note. We were ready to head home, loaded down with bags of food, when I got the urge to ask if we could buy oranges and Vincent refused so sharply it felt like an insult.

“They’re so expensive this time of year,” he argued untruthfully. “We can’t afford it. It’s like you have no sense of the expenses we’ll have once the baby is born. You can’t go on squandering money like always.”

Maybe it was the hormones. Pregnant woman often get upset over nothing. But what’s certain is that in less than five minutes it felt like dark and menacing clouds had engulfed my life. All men cater to their pregnant wives’ wishes, I thought. Some people believe these inexplicable cravings in fact reflect the baby’s nutritional needs. What was wrong with Vincent? How could he just refuse like that to buy a few simple oranges? I tried to make it home without getting caught up in an argument. But after a few steps I had to sit down on a bench to rest. My coat didn’t close around me anymore and a sweater that to me seemed old and hideous was poking out from its black edge. I felt my eyes fill with tears. Vincent noticed as well but he wasn’t about to let it go.

“You’re impossible to please,” he said. “We came to the market so that you’d be happy and you get like this over something stupid. Unbelievable.”

It took a lot of restraint not to get up and go buy the oranges with my own money, but my happiness did not return the entire weekend. When we got home the male of the fishbowl still had his gills erect. His seductive behavior seemed arrogant to me. The female swam with drooping fins and her movements, listless compared to his, made me sad.

On Monday I left the house early. I sat down in the brasserie on the corner and ordered a tall orange juice. I also had a café crème and a croissant and paid with our joint credit card. Afterward I went to a bookstore and bought a novel, then spent an hour trying on clothes in the store on rue des Pyrénées that carries large sizes and found the perfect sweater to replace mine. I went back home midday, just before lunchtime. Once inside, I went directly to the living room and peered into the fishbowl, as if consulting an oracle: the male still had his fins unfolded but now his companion also exhibited a physical change. All along her body two dull brown horizontal lines had appeared. I cooked pasta with eggplant and ate it standing up, looking out the kitchen window at two workers doing repairs on the facing building. I then diligently washed the dirty pot and utensils. Afterward I went out for a walk through the neighborhood and ended up at the library. I felt a pull to go in, but it closed early on Mondays so I went back home and read my novel while waiting for Vincent. When he came in I showed him the lines on the female’s body, which had me a little scared. But to him they looked insignificant.

“Those lines are barely noticeable and I don’t think they mean anything. I’m not even sure she didn’t have them before,” he said.

We ate dinner in silence, reheated rice that had been in the freezer for months. Vincent did the dishes and went into the living room where he worked until dawn. Without a word to him I started putting up the teddy bear wallpaper border in the baby’s room, a chore we’d been meaning to do for weeks but that neither of us had gotten around to. I just wanted to take care of one of the infinite things we had to do. True, the result wasn’t as tidy as I’d wanted it to be, but it wasn’t disastrous either. Vincent, however, saw it as provocation. He insisted that I had intentionally put it up unevenly to make him feel guilty.

“You could have asked me to do it. I don’t know why you keep trying to be a victim lately.”

Tuesday morning we ate a breakfast of tea and toast like two polite strangers, but as soon as he left for work I went down to the brasserie full of resentment and had another orange juice. Then I walked to the library in a light rain. In my days as a student I had gone there often, but hadn’t been in a while. My office was on the Rive Gauche, and whenever some query arose that could not be answered from the Internet I would go to the National Library. Unlike that one, which was almost always empty, the library in my neighborhood was full of teenagers like the one I had been in high school: slightly older kids who spoke to each other by yelling and roared with laughter. People who ate in cafeterias and whose only concerns were passing their exams and making the money from their parents or the government last the month. Normally, or at least for the past few years, people of that age made me feel a certain condescension. So I was surprised that morning to feel envy. I was about to push open the main door when one of them, wearing a red and white scarf around his neck, bumped into my stomach.

“Sorry, ma’am,” he said, barely slowing down.

More than my pregnant state, it was his falsely contrite tone that made our age difference so obvious—to me anyway.

Once inside I headed toward the Natural Science section and found the Encyclopedic Dictionary of Marine Animals and searched for our fish. I discovered that they belonged to the Betta splendens species, also known as “Siamese fighting fish.” They are originally from Asia, where they often inhabit stagnant waters. Experts classify them as a labyrinth fish because of a rhizome-shaped bronchial organ on the top of their head that allows them to breath a small amount of air at the surface of the water. According to the article, one of their most notorious characteristics was their trouble with cohabitation. The dictionary did not abound in details about that or about how to look after them. If I wanted advice on their care I’d have to look elsewhere. It didn’t mention anything about the stripes that had appeared on the female’s flanks, either.

I looked at other books about fish and chose a few to bring home. I filled out the cards to sign up and check them out. As silly as it sounds, it thrilled me to be using the library again. It was raining hard when I tried to leave to go home, so I paused a moment by the bookshelves in the entrance where they had newspaper supplements and magazines from that month available to the public. I glanced over them, unable to make up my mind which to read. They were all there, from Magazine Littéraire to Marie-Claire. The cover of the latter displayed the title of an article that seemed to be speaking directly to me: Pregnancy. Why do they leave us right in this moment? I realized that the rain could last for hours and was contemplating going home anyway when my phone rang. Vincent, apologizing for being selfish. He had gone to the apartment so we could have lunch together. “I stopped at the trattoria you like and bought lasagna. I also got you oranges.” When he heard I was at the library he offered to come for me. We returned home arm in arm beneath his huge umbrella, blue with white clouds. The remnants of breakfast were still on the kitchen counter. Vincent took the delicacies from his bag and warmed them in the microwave. While we ate and he served himself two glasses of wine, I told him what I’d discovered about our pets. We laughed because they had been from Pauline and were as eccentric and complex as she. After lunch we made love. One of the few times we did during the pregnancy. It was a quick and tender fuck, but not without desire. Vincent said goodbye to me in bed with a kiss and went back to the office. A few minutes later, while getting dressed in front of the mirror, I noticed a brown line running straight down the middle of my stomach.

I spent the afternoon reading on the couch and watching the fishbowl. While they were not scientific works, the books I had borrowed from the library offered more practical information than had the Encyclopedic Dictionary. Both were intended for a younger audience, or at least one not very well versed on the topic. In one of them I found information on Betta splendens. Its author gave details about their care and reproduction; for example, he said the male’s expanding operculum indicated his desire to mate, and he can become violent if rejected. But that wasn’t the worst of it. The books described the fish as highly combative; it’s why they are commonly referred to as “fighters.” In some countries people even use them as fighting animals and enter them into a ring, just like how the Western world bets on cockfights. Reading this I felt something like embarrassment. The feeling you get when you discover the dark facets of those you know well without their consent. Did I really want to know all this about our fish? I realized I did. It was better to be aware and avoid any kind of accident, as far as possible. The book advised against having two males in the same tank, no matter how large. There was a better chance, on the other hand, of a male and a female surviving together, as long as they had enough space. Five liters, at least. I looked at our fishbowl; the amount of water was absurd. “When in distress or danger,” the author continued, “Bettas develop horizontal stripes, contrasting with the color of their body.”

When my husband came in, I had been asleep on the couch for over an hour. Vincent closed the books, careful to mark the open pages, and with caresses woke me up so I’d go to bed. But before going back to sleep, I tried to share with him what I had read about our fish.

“It’s dangerous to leave them in that bowl,” I said to him. “They could really get hurt. What if they kill each other?”

I made him promise to move them into an aquarium, with oxygen and some stones where they could hide when they didn’t feel like showing their faces. He humored me, amused.

“You’ve become obsessed with this,” he said. “When you go back to work you should specialize in animal rights.”

It was several days before we removed the fish from their container. Tense days for them but also for us, as Vincent didn’t relish the idea of cluttering our living room with an aquarium.

“It’s going to look like a Chinese restaurant!” he let slip out once, defeated and knowing full well there would be no negotiating on the matter.

I always kept an eye on them whenever I was home, as if with that look, severe and exact, an imminent confrontation could be averted. I of course felt solidarity with her. I could feel her fear and her anxiety at being cornered, feel her need to hide. Fish are perhaps the only domestic animals that don’t make noise. But they taught me that screams can be silent. Vincent adopted an ostensibly more neutral position, betrayed nonetheless by the humorous comments he dropped now and again: “What’s wrong with the female? Is she against reproduction?” or “Keep calm, brother, even if you’re getting impatient. Remember that laws today are made by and for women.”

Meanwhile the baby was floating in amniotic fluid inside my belly. At the last visit to the obstetrician we’d been told that she was “engaged” and that was what I was feeling in my hips. Sometimes, in the silence of the afternoon, I’d hear my sacrum bones crunching. The thirty-fifth week had passed. It was a question of days. The more I thought about it, the greater was my need for everything to be in order in the apartment, and in truth, everything was except for the relationship between our pets. So I insisted on buying the fish tank that weekend. The home we picked out for our Bettas was a green aquarium that could hold up to ten liters of water, as the book recommended, tall but narrow at the base so it would fit on our bookcase. It was Vincent’s idea to put it there, where it would take up an entire shelf but not a single centimeter of living room surface space. We had to relocate several adaptations of The Civil Code for the Siamese fighting fish who had thus far, perhaps aware of our peacekeeping intentions, remained calm. In truth I did relax when, after several failed attempts and a technician’s visit, the fish were settled in and the female had, at last, a cave she could hide in.

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