“The Crazy Minstrel of the Still Waters be damned,” I said, remembering the scene at the home of The SuperFat Empress when I left and realizing, at last, that it had all been a joke on the part of my friends on Edessbuss; and although I was angry, I almost wanted to laugh.
“What did you say?” asked the mayor.
“Nothing, don’t worry, it has nothing to do with you,” I answered. “But tell me, why can’t one sell medicines here? To protect the local pharmaceutical industry?”
“No, no,” he stammered.
“Everyone enjoys good health?”
“No, no,” again.
“Religious reasons?”
“Please sir, I’m going to ask you—don’t be offended, will you?—I’m going to ask you to leave because I have a meeting in five minutes.”
I noticed another thing. How did the mayor know—aside from the fact that the bit about the meeting was nonsense—how did he know about the five minutes if he didn’t have a watch nor were there clocks in the office nor in the whole municipality, nor in the home of Señora Ribkamatia who was in all certainty his cousin as well? How did he know? But I let it pass.
“That’s fine,” I said, “I’m leaving. But I imagine that if I can’t sell medicines, I could sell iron fittings or plastic pipes or anilines.”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he said, and he pushed me toward the door. “I don’t know, we’d have to see if they authorized us.”
“If who authorized you?” I barked with the door already open and halfway into the corridor. “Aren’t you the mayor here?”
“Yes, of course I am,” the guy said, “tomorrow I’ll give you an answer, come back tomorrow, all right?” and he closed the door in my face.
Of course, I left, what else was I going to do? I walked all over the city, which didn’t take much time, looking at everything and remembering Edessbuss with fury and a little amusement, looking at the women’s long hoopskirts; the men’s clogs, smocks, and short pants; looking at a few who wore ruffs and plumed hats, others in cheap linen tunics and bare feet, looking at those who wore very short skins as their only clothing, all without knowing the reason for such a hodgepodge. They were probably foreigners. No one seemed very happy; not even the tourists, if that’s what they were. I calculated where so many people might fit, because the city was much more populated that it had seemed. I thought there were very few houses for such a quantity of people, but that wasn’t my affair. I wandered a little, concerned about the things that were my affair, because The Crazy Minstrel and The Splendorous Girl and The Empress and The Twelfth Knight had caught me in their snare but I didn’t plan on leaving without having sold something—even though in the end what I did was give something—and giving Ribkamatia time to prepare the meal which, since I hadn’t said anything, who knew if it would be meat or fish. In the middle of that, I came to the plaza and walked among the people who were selling things to see if there was some secret. If there was, I was going to find out: I have been buying and selling for twenty years and I know all the tricks. Almost all. I can assure you there was nothing unusual. They bought and sold as it’s done everywhere, but only there in the market. There were no other shops or businesses. I pretended I wanted to buy a belt, and after haggling for a bit in the best style, I asked the owner of the stall how one went about getting a sales permit.
“The mayor, I don’t know, you’d have to see if he can, I, of course, don’t know, you understand,” and he looked off in another direction.
I bought the belt from him, poor guy, in the end he was a colleague in unfortunate circumstances, and although the leather was shoddy and the buckle was twisted, he was asking peanuts. I paid and I went on walking, and on the other side of the plaza, I chose another stall at which to keep making inquiries. It was run by a girl selling lace, so beautiful. The girl, not the lace. She had chestnut hair tied in a bun at the nape of her neck and the prettiest ears I have ever seen—and look, it’s not easy to find pretty ears, it’s like with knees—and huge chestnut eyes and a spectacular figure evident under the long flowered skirt and very buttoned-up white blouse and the wide velvet belt with whalebone stays that was practically a vest tied with ribbons that crossed in front. I sidled up little by little and started looking at the lace, which interested me not one bit, until I got into a conversation with her and told her I was from elsewhere and what was her name and when I told her my last name she looked straight at me and said her last name was González, of course, and first name Inidiziba. I complimented her name and her eyes, and since I was there, her hands, too, but I couldn’t bring myself to mention the ears, not that I didn’t want to say something, but she didn’t seem inclined to give me an in. Finally, after a lot of feints and a lot of verse, when I was about to say to hell with her, I got her to agree to meet me that night. “What time tonight?” I asked her, and I remembered about the clocks, or rather, the lack of clocks.
“When it’s full night,” she told me, as if that meant anything, “in the garden at my house,” and she pointed out where that was and then she all but swept me out with the broom.
I won’t say no, a good cup of coffee helps to get through anything, even the mess with the González family, and this coffee is running neck and neck with that prepared by Ribkamatia González, I assure you, and that is saying a lot. And how she cooked. From the lace-seller’s stall I went straight to her house, where the table was already set. In the dining room and for me alone. I agreed to the dining room, although I was sure it was never used, but I refused to sit down unless she also sat down to eat with me. It was a splendid meal. Fish with vegetables. Simple, right? Let me tell you, it is like that, with the simple things, that you see the hand of the cook. A complicated dish is deceptive: at bottom there may be nothing more than a good recipe and a lot of patience. But if a baked fish with cooked vegetables is so good you could set it before His Most Serene Majesty the Emperor of China without danger of decapitation or hanging, then the cook is a sage and I tip my hat to her. I ate two helpings, I, who maintain that the best homage one can pay a meal is to leave the table hungry. And for dessert she served a sour cream with black sugar on top for which the Emperor would grant the title of Master of the Great Wall to anyone who gave him the privilege of tasting a mouthful. And I drank I don’t know how many cups of coffee. While she went to wash the dishes, I asked her if she didn’t have a newspaper to hand. She didn’t understand me. A periodical, I said, and nothing. I told her what a newspaper was. As was to be expected, there were no newspapers on González. I deserved it and I said to myself that I must remember, next time I went to Edessbuss, to take a few kilos of bonbons filled with laxatives. It wouldn’t be very subtle but it would correspond precisely to my mood and they, too, were going to deserve it, so there. So I went to take a siesta. I slept until six in the evening: I did have a watch. As I left my room, I heard Ribkamatia González talking with someone, with a man, in the front room, and it seemed to me that she was angry, very angry. I am discreet. Sometimes. I went back into the bedroom, I waited a few minutes, and then I came out again, making a lot of noise but you couldn’t hear voices any longer and she asked me from the kitchen if I wanted a little coffee. What do you think I told her? We sat down beside a window, I to drink coffee and she to sew, and she asked me how the matter of the sales had gone. Of course, during the meal I had been so busy praising the food that I hadn’t given her an account. I told her and I said we would see the next day, at the next meeting with the mayor. She sighed and said her cousin the mayor was a good person but he had no character, that’s why he was mayor. It seemed to me a contradictory observation, but I didn’t argue.
“It’s a real disgrace, Señor Medrano,” she said, “a real disgrace.”
“That your cousin the mayor has no character?” I asked.
“No, no,” she said without taking her eyes off her sewing. “I was speaking in general.”
More than discreet, I think I am opportune. That’s it, opportune. She was
quiet for a moment and I didn’t ask any questions because I sensed she was going to keep talking. She made a few stitches, cut the thread with a pair of scissors whose blades were very thin and very long, threaded the needle again and, of course, continued:
“Because, imagine everything one could do here, everything we could already have, because there’s no shortage of capable people, with those kids who sacrifice themselves studying, investigating, inventing and trying things in secret.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about and she assumed I did, and I didn’t ask that time either, not out of discretion but because I felt too peaceful and something was going to start to go badly if I stuck my foot in it.
“Lights,” she said. “Electric lights—even atomic ones—automobiles, airplanes, injections, submarines, telephones, television, hospitals, sewing machines, all of that. And the only thing we can do is learn they exist on other worlds, thanks to what the wayward youth are able to find out and make known in secret.” She looked at me. “They haven’t been in contact with you yet?”
“Who?” I asked, like an idiot.
“The Wayward Youth,” that time I heard it correctly, with capital letters.
She had gotten up to light two oil lamps.
“Ah,” I said, a little unsteady, more even than the lamps’ little flames. “No, no, not yet.”
She went back to her sewing.
“You’ll meet them. Poor people, they do everything they can.”
She sewed a while longer, not speaking, and I didn’t speak either. Afterward, she left the sewing and stood up. It was night, late at night.
“What would you like me to make you for supper?” she asked.
“Look, ma’am,” I said, “leave me something light prepared, because I’m going to go out now and I don’t know what time I’ll be back.”
“Ah,” she said, with a knowing smile.
Afterward I learned she had not been thinking about the girl with the lace or about any girl, but in fact about those very Wayward Youth.
“I’m going to make you a stuffed egg,” she said, and she went to the kitchen. A stuffed egg was taking my request for something light a little too literally, but it wasn’t a hen’s egg or an egg from an animal the size of a chicken, but a plasco egg. A plasco is an oviparous mammal similar to the farfarfa of Pilandeos VII, so imagine the size of that egg: I couldn’t eat even half of it. But of course; oh yes, I’d be pleased if you’d join me. No, gastritis, never. The day I get gastritis I’ll have to park the clunker for good. There are places where you can’t go around choosing your food: on Emeterdelbe for example, either one digests the damned pies, sede pies, felepés pies, estelte pies, resne pies, pies made out of anything you can imagine, always fried in pelende fat, or one starves to death. And on Mitramm you have to have an iron stomach to tolerate the meat of the. I beg your pardon? Yes, I imagine so, I was intrigued, too. So I told her so long and she went to the door to say good-bye, with her cheeks red from the heat of the wood stove. It occurred to me that she must have been a beauty when she was young, not so long ago, and I gave her an approving look and as she was no fool she noticed and she laughed at me. Maybe she also laughed because she liked me looking at her that way. I left. I crossed the plaza in which, although it was already night, there were an enormous number of people who didn’t seem to be doing anything. Everything was dark, save for a torch on a corner here and there. I carried a lantern and, of course, the Aqüivanida brake secured to my wrist. No, I call it the brake because of the effect it produces; they call it an apical molecular recensor, AMR. I arrived at the girl’s house, turned around, hopped over the wall and went into the garden. No one seemed to be there. It was a neglected garden, not like Ribkamatia’s, and I went behind a bush that was in urgent need of the pruning shears and waited. I almost fell asleep standing up. After half an hour, or more, I felt someone grabbing my arm. They must have crept up like a cat because I didn’t hear any footsteps. In my fright I didn’t manage to grab the lantern or the brake. But whoever it was let out a tsk at me: it was the beauty of the lace.
“Sweetheart,” I said, “you step with more care than a fat tightrope walker. I didn’t hear you arrive.”
She squeezed my arm again and went tsk and she led me by feel to a corner with a bench while I thought about how I should best begin, with the sentimental approach or with the clever questioning: it seemed to me best to combine information with pleasure. But it was no use on either front. On the pleasure side I couldn’t, I won’t even say take her to bed, which was what any normal guy would have wanted to do, I couldn’t even touch the little finger of her left hand, because she was sullen, distrustful, a little stupid, and she was afraid. And on the information side, for those same reasons, she didn’t want to tell me anything and she even suggested I was pulling her leg or wanted to make her fall into a trap. All I could find out was that she wouldn’t let me get close or extol my undying love and that she didn’t want to tell me anything because her grandfather, her grandmother, her great-grandfather, and above all her great-great-grandmother had forbidden it.
“Good lord!” I said. “What a long-lived family you have.”
She got mad. She got so mad she even made noise when she got up from the bench and she told me to leave immediately. I couldn’t convince her even by promising to maintain five meters of distance between us. Fine, I thought, to hell with her, her loss. I wasn’t even interested anymore, I wanted a woman but I wouldn’t have gone to bed with that fool for anything in the world. But I was more intrigued by the minute, and on that front, too, I had to go away hungry. The girl left me standing there and ran toward the house, and then I headed for the garden wall. And at that moment I saw we had not been alone: there was a great big woman with a viper’s face, who couldn’t be the great-great-grandmother because she wasn’t that old, close to the place where I had been hidden, and two guys, one old enough to be her grandfather and another, younger one, and the three were watching me with hangman’s eyes. I didn’t wait to find out who they were or what they wanted. I jumped over the wall and left with all the rage in the world. The houses were dark and closed up but the streets and the plaza were full of silent people who came and went or sat on the benches or stood on the corners and looked around. Ribkamatia had left a small oil lamp burning in the hall. I picked it up and went to the kitchen where I attacked the plasco egg which was delicious but was too much for me: I never eat to excess and especially not before going to bed. That might be why I don’t have gastritis. Then there was a noise of steps in the dark corridor and she appeared and said she had been waiting for me to set the table. I thanked her but told her she shouldn’t do so again and we sat down in the kitchen and unstuffed what we could of the stuffed egg. She was dying of curiosity but she didn’t ask me anything and I was in no mood to tell her about the let-down I had suffered. She made me coffee and I drank it and I felt better. I said I was going to bed and she stood up. I picked up the lamp and set off toward the bedroom. I opened the door, I wished her goodnight, and right there I did the best thing I had done in a long time: I lifted the little oil lamp to see her better and caressed her face with my free hand. She gave me a sweet smile. I don’t like adjectives but the smile was sweet, what can I say, sweet and placid. She opened the door to her room and I wasn’t going to be so slow-witted as to go into mine. Yes, I slept with her, in as much as I slept, which was just enough. No lace seller, no girl as splendorous as she might be, no amazon, no big woman bored with her old husband, no adolescent or queen of eight kingdoms or professional or slave or actress or hungry conspirator or anything, not one have I found, I remember no one who knew as well as she what a man wanted in bed—not a macho, a man. From what there was between the two of us those nights, we could have been married for years and years and could have gone to bed together hundreds of times, each one like the first or second time, and everything was always going to go well and there was nothing to worry about. Why is it that I don’t like to talk about her
much? It was almost dawn when I fell sound asleep and it seemed to me that not even five minutes had passed but it must have been late because the sun was starting to come through the cracks in the shutters when a noise and a shout woke me up. I sat up in bed and saw a guy standing in the open doorway, his face twisted and contorted with rage. Ribkamatia opened her eyes but she wasn’t frightened: she just looked at him as if to say ugh, here you come to screw things up again while the jerk breathed heavily with his hand on the door handle. She said very calmly:
“And now what is it?”
He insulted her at length but without using a single word the archbishop of Santiago de Compostela couldn’t have used on a Maundy Thursday afternoon. He reminded me of a priest who taught us religion when I was a boy. I was, as you will understand, at a disadvantage: naked, half asleep, in a strange house and a strange bed and without knowing what right the shouter had to come into the bedroom. I didn’t like him calling her filthy sinner and other things of a biblical ilk so I stood up and insulted him but without watching my language, on the contrary. The guy paid no attention to me, it seemed the issue was with her, and so much so that he came close to the bed and made a move to strike her. Oh no, my friend, in front of me, no: if someone wants to hit a girl and the girl is stupid enough to let him, it doesn’t matter to me, but not if I’m around, because then you’ve started something. I grabbed him by the shoulder, I made him turn around, and I landed a punch. He stumbled and came right at me. He was shorter and stockier than I, but if he was mad, I was madder. I landed a couple of good blows and faked with another to the face trying to make him cover so as to hit him in the gut, knock him to the ground and kick him in the head. Yes, I was furious and when I’m furious, I’m no gentleman in the ring. He was furious, too, obviously, but on the theological side, and there’s nothing like theology to sap the effectiveness of your punches, so I looked likely to win. He saw that and snatched up the long scissors that were on the dresser and lunged at me. He was no gentleman in the ring either, I am sorry to say, may he rest in peace. I grabbed him by the wrist, twisted it until it cracked, and took away the scissors. He threw himself on top of me—he didn’t lack courage—and I parried with my right but I had the scissors in that hand. I buried them up to the handle in his chest and the guy fell down. I was stunned. Even more so when I looked at Ribkamatia, thinking I would find her half fainting, pale and covering her mouth with her hand, and I saw she was just fine: irritated, I’d say, impatient, but not scared. I may have killed at some time or another, I’m not saying no and I’m not saying yes, either, but if I believe in anything, I believe in the non possumus. For a second, I shouldered all the sins of all those sentenced to eternal punishment, and the next second, when I looked at the guy dead on the floor, I saw him stand up, almost as if nothing had happened except for the scissors driven in at the level of his heart, and I saw how he yanked them out without leaving a hint of the wound, with no wound—do you understand?—and how he dusted off his shirt and pants and how he put the scissors on the dresser and left, looking backward and muttering things, more insults I think, although I didn’t hear him. The door closed and I sat down on the edge of the bed.
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