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that she liked him and wondered if I enjoyed teaching him English. I
said that I did. Did I know much about him, she asked. Had I been in his
house, for example, or met his family? I said I had not been to his house,
but I knew that his family was rich, that they had their own tennis court
and swimming pool and that his father had been involved with Peron.
Had it ever occurred to me, she asked, that he was homosexual? I had
never heard her say the word before, and she pronounced it as though she
had recently learned it. She looked at me sharply. I looked straight into
the glass of the window and saw her shape in the armchair. No, I said to
the glass, no, it had not occurred to me. Well, I think he is, she said,
and I think it is something you should consider before you become too
friendly with him.
I stood up and walked through to the bathroom. I closed the door behind
me as though someone were following me. I wet my hands and my face and I
stared into the mirror. I stood up straight. I was breathing heavily. I
looked at my own eyes and then turned and opened the door. I did not stop
walking as I began to speak; she watched me, her expression defiant,
unafraid, her duchess look, and that made things easier. I was tired of
her acting high and mighty.
Jorge is not homosexual, I mimicked her accent as I spoke. I am the one
who is homosexual and I always have been. She did not flinch; she held my
gaze. I stood still.
Like you, I said, I thought he was too, indeed I hoped he was. But we
were both wrong, weren't we? By this time I was standing in front of her,
shaking. I felt like kneeling and burying my face in her lap but I could
not do that. She smiled and then shook her head in wry amusement.
Somewhere in her expression there was utter contempt. She sighed and
closed her eyes and smiled again. It has been so difficult for me, she
said, and now this, now this, now this. She stared at herself stoically in
the polished glass of the window. I stood there in silence.
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