The sauna on a Tuesday

What exists in the dry room, members' club on Turiassu Street, men's and women's sides divided by a wall of glass block:

A cedar-lined room with three tiers of bench. An electric heater with stones. A fifteen-minute sand timer screwed to the wall beside the door. A thermometer reading ninety-two, which according to Aldo from maintenance has read ninety-two since 2019 regardless of the temperature.

A laminated notice: Towel compulsory. Do not pour water on the stones. Maximum 15 minutes.

A bucket with a ladle, which exists in spite of the notice.

Who uses the dry room on Tuesdays between one and three in the afternoon:

Sueli, 71, who stays seven minutes and leaves. Ricardo, the club's swimming instructor, who comes in after the eleven o'clock class and sleeps sitting up. And, since March, a woman whose name neither of them knows and whom reception has on file as a member since 2019, individual category, paying by direct debit.

Her name is Iara. She works from home and picked that slot because it is the slot with nobody in it.

What Iara knows about Ricardo up to the twelfth of August:

That he has an anchor tattooed on his right forearm, badly done, probably old. That he smells of chlorine even after showering, which is a property of people who spend four hours a day in a pool. That he folds his towel in three before sitting down, always, and that this is either a compulsion or training.

That he has never spoken to her.

What Ricardo knows about Iara up to the twelfth of August:

That she sits on the middle tier, never the top. That she counts the fifteen minutes by the sand timer and not by a clock, and that when the sand runs out she turns it over and stays another fifteen, which is against the laminated notice. That she has a scar about eight centimetres long on the back of her left thigh, white, old, the kind that comes off a motorbike exhaust.

That he has never spoken to her.

Tuesday, the twelfth of August. Inventory of what happens between 13:40 and 14:10:

13:40. Sueli leaves. The glass door closes on its damper, which is faulty and takes four seconds.

13:41. Two remain in the room.

13:47. Iara turns the timer for the first time.

13:48. Ricardo says that's against the rules.

13:48. Iara says the rule belongs to the club and the timer belongs to her.

13:49. He laughs. It is the first thing the two of them have exchanged in five months of Tuesdays.

13:52. He moves from the top tier to the middle one. The middle tier is two metres ten long. He sits a metre twenty from her, which is a distance that means nothing and which both of them measure.

13:55. She asks about the anchor. He tells her: nineteen years old, a port town, a bad night, and the man who did it is in prison now for unrelated reasons.

13:58. He asks about the scar. She tells him: exhaust pipe, 2004, riding pillion, and the rider was her boyfriend at the time, and she stayed with him another year after that, which is the part she thinks is worse.

14:02. The sand runs out again.

14:02. Nobody turns the timer.

What changes position in the room between 14:02 and 14:10:

His towel, which goes from under him to the top tier.

The distance on the bench, which goes from a metre twenty to nothing in two movements, and the second movement is hers.

His hand, which stays fifteen seconds at the height of her knee without closing, waiting, and which only closes when she puts hers on top of it.

Both of them, who come off the cedar bench because cedar at ninety-two degrees is a physical impossibility, and end up on the boarded floor near the door, which is the coolest part of the room and is still hot.

The bucket with the ladle, kicked over, which doesn't spill because it is empty.

What does not change position:

The laminated notice.

The timer, with all its sand at the bottom.

The thermometer, at ninety-two.

Sound inventory, 14:10 to 14:26:

The electric heater, cycling on and off about every ninety seconds with a metallic click at each end.

The pool on the other side of the glass block wall, with the two o'clock aqua class, which is a loud class and which that day was particularly lively for reasons nobody inside the room will ever discover.

Breathing. Two kinds.

Nothing else. Neither of them said one word in sixteen minutes, and neither of them will afterwards be able to say whether that was because of the glass block wall or for some other reason.

14:26.

The faulty damper starts giving on the other side of the door. It takes four seconds, which is time enough for two people to get back onto separate tiers, and that is precisely what they do, with a competence that frightens them both.

In comes Aldo from maintenance, in shorts and a club polo shirt, holding a screwdriver.

He says good afternoon. He says he's here to change the thermometer, which has been broken about six years and which they have finally approved the money for.

He climbs onto the top bench with the screwdriver.

Iara is on the middle tier with her towel where it should be, looking at the empty timer. Ricardo is on the top tier, the other end, towel folded in three.

Aldo says the new one is digital.

He gets the top screw out. Then he starts on the bottom one, which is