R. Russell Traducción: Jorge Javier Romero Andalusia

ANDALUSIA

I could never get enough of the juice that ran down my chin from the peach I shared with my sister one Saturday morning in July when the sun cleared the steeple and poured heat over us both as if it had been pierced, and the women shopping in the market agglomerated around us, and the sellers hollered prices too fast to understand. She wore my old white shirt that was too small for her, the neck gapped open and I felt embarrassed but didn’t know why when a blue-black strand of hair fell down the front of her shirt and the man with the rabbits in cages –Dutch Lops – leaned forward to look as she leaned down to look at them. The lame boy with the crutch in the square offered us his upturned palm and she gave him our last peseta but it didn’t matter, we had enough, the peach was so ripe the flesh was orange and our hands were sticky until we rinsed them in the fountain and she took mine in hers and said, “Here, let me” the water so cold it stung but her fingers warmed mine and that fragrance in the sunlight now always hers. “I don’t want to go back”, she said, “Not yet”.

—R. Russell