Cinnamon Air

I’m sitting in a wooden fold-out chair on the rooftop patio of JuanSe’s small apartment building in a cozy neighborhood in Montevideo. The afternoon sun warms the back of my bare arms where I have a blister from the fourteen kilometers I ran the day before. On the counter next to the outdoor grill are the remains of the delicious meat, cheese and vegetables the six of us ate to our belly’s content, murmuring que rico and es deliciosa all afternoon. On the wooden table to my left are our wine glasses, all that’s left of the six bottles of wine we drank while murmuring que suave and es riquisimo en serio. The birds sing happily and the breeze is light. It’s a perfect day for an asado.

Ignacio makes coffee for everyone and brings it upstairs in tiny painted cups and saucers. He invited me here to his friend’s house, and he stands now in front of the grill savoring his coffee and telling everyone that he’s put a lot of thought into it and that coffee is his favorite beverage, and to everyone’s disbelief, that he even likes it more than wine. I’ve been dating Ignacio for a little over three months. I’m leaving Montevideo in a month or so, and this is our first asado together. He embarrasses me by telling his friends that I told him he was too skinny and he should gain five kilos. I embarrass him by telling his friends that we danced bachata together. I know he’s not in love with me. He hasn’t asked me to stay.

Dessert is a delightful mixture of blueberries and strawberries with a scoop of cream flavored ice cream, a shake of cinnamon, and a sprig of mint. Antonio comes to the table to refill his bowl with berries and cream. I look down to my left and realize that cinnamon is floating towards me, about to cover my blouse. The wind has caught the cinnamon that Antonio shook onto his berries, and now it floats, suspended in the late afternoon sunlight, the particles drifting towards me. Antonio notices that I’m backing away and starts to swat the cinnamon air away from me. I start to giggle at the absurdity of the situation, and he laughs, too. We laugh and let the cinnamon air go.

We listen to jazz because it’s the only collection of CDs that JuanSe has. Ella Fitzgerald sings the blues in the background as German fingers through the Harold Bloom Shakespeare book that JuanSe gave Ignacio as a gift. Our content with the meal is profound, and we decide to share a cigar and drink a small cognac. My hands waver, and I spill a bit of cognac on my skinny jeans and tall boots. Carolina notices, and we giggle together. I tell her not to worry, that it didn’t happen, and we laugh again. I close my eyes as Ignacio massages my back and plays with the hair at the nape of my neck. The conversation turns to movies, and I fall once again into silence, not able to keep up with the Spanish banter. I feel the burden of my silence and my inability to express myself over these past three months or so. I know it has burdened him, too, and I wonder to what extent. I reach out and take his hand, caressing him and feeling his skin against mine. I turn to watch two boys playing on a patio two blocks down. They dip under the clothesline and chase each other inside.

I’m standing on JuanSe’s rooftop patio as the sun sinks lower in the sky and the breeze gets stronger. Ignacio stands next to me, noticing the change in temperature. “Todo cambia,” he says.

“Todo cambia en un momento,” I say.

The party winds down, and we carry the remains of our festivities downstairs, kiss JuanSe on the cheek goodbye, and carry the six empty wine bottles to the trash, slipping them to the side for the man with his horse and carriage to pick up tonight for his small income. We say goodbye to Antonio, German and Carolina on the corner, and Ignacio walks me to my bus stop. My bus comes too soon, and he kisses me softly saying quickly that we’ll talk later and maybe see each other later that night. But we don’t.

I’m walking from the bus to my apartment as the sky darkens. I have the sensation that there’s dust in the air, as if a nearby erupting volcano sprayed ash over the city. Suddenly I realize that it’s not dust in the air at all: It’s cinnamon. The air is full of cinnamon. The particles dance lightly all around me as I walk, sprinkling my neighbors’ gardens with their cinnamon fragrance, landing softly on a dog’s head, covering the streets with cinnamon confetti. I open my hands to catch some cinnamon air and smile to myself.