while the women are sleeping

[savait]

 I didn’t believe him. Inés’s ideal beauty was resting, her eight rings on the bedside table, her voluminous breasts safely under the sheets, her breathing regular, her identical lips half open like a child’s, her hairless pubis leaving a slight stain, that strange nocturnal secretion women make. Luisa was asleep, I had seen her, her fine-featured, open, and as yet unlined face, her restless eyes moving beneath her eyelids, as if they couldn’t get used to not doing at night what they did during the day-unlike Inés’s eyes, which were probably quite still now, during the sleep she needed to maintain her immutable beauty. Both were sleeping-that’s why they hadn’t come out onto their balconies. Luisa hadn’t died in my absence, however long it had been. Instinctively, I glanced up toward the rooms, toward my balcony and toward all the balconies, and on one of them I saw a figure wrapped in a sheet toga and heard it call to me twice, say my name, as mothers say their children’s names. I stood up. But on Inés’s balcony, whichever it was, there was no one.

While the women are sleeping by Javier Marias, The New Yorker

I only managed to scan this while on my redcurrant puff-binging break, but long story conversations are my absolute favourites. it's almost like spying on a couple through their window across the road going about their daily lives, but with sound.