A Dead Man's Travail

by Susana Pagano

  Hortensio puts the notes away and as he is leaving, Natalia asks him, have you heard anything of your brother yet?

  ⎯ He was gonna call you sometime soon so’s you wouldn’t worry about him.

  ⎯ He’s in hiding, isn’t he?

  ⎯ Why do you say that?

  ⎯ Nothing ⎯ Natalia is pensive for a moment. ⎯ Go on, off you go. Later on the traffic on the motorway is gonna be impossible.

  Natalia continues the horrible job of washing the breakfast dishes as Hortensio leaves; she lets out a worried sigh. Kids are a calamity, she thinks to herself. What a beautiful day, she says out loud as she looks through the window at a piece of unexpected blue sky. That’s unusual! Blue sky like that in Mexico City is enough to give you goose bumps.

  The whole day the heat is unbearable. The perspiration pours off Natalia and she fans herself between one customer and the next. The twins run to the storeroom and come back to the counter with a kilo of rice, a carton of milk, a six pack, five bottles of Diet Coke for the blonds at number seven, two hundred grams of ham and a piece of cheese for the German, a packet of cookies and some Delicados cigarettes for Florencia.

  ⎯ Hiya, mamita, Are you gonna come and have coffee this evening at Los Bisquetes?

  ⎯ You’re on, see you at ten thirty and the new one, it’s really nice.

  ⎯ Why so late?

  ⎯ Remember, I close the store at ten and still have to do the accounts, do the reconciliation, that is.

  ⎯ Ok, but don’t take long and bring along the twins unless you want them to see Lolo plastered.

  ⎯ Is he drunk already?

  ⎯ He’s smashed ... for a change.

  At two in the afternoon, the heat is worse than hell itself. There’s not even one miserable fan to make them feel better, refreshed. Natalia’s blouse is soaked in perspiration and sticks to her chest as a trickle of sweat runs down her back, tickling her as it goes. She wipes her forehead with a paper napkin. This is unbearable, she thinks aloud.

  She decides to go for a walk in the park along Cuauhtémoc Avenue, perhaps she’llget some relief under the shade of the trees.

  ⎯ Make sure you give the right change, girls. And you, Ricarda, get that look off your face or you won’t even sell chewing gum on the street corner.

  ⎯ I’m Natalita, mamá.

  ⎯ It doesn’t matter. And no flirting. I’ll be back, I won’t be long.

  Even though it’s Saturday, the traffic is even worse than during the week. It must be to do with the car-not-in-use-today policy and, because it’s a Saturday, everyone is out driving and the traffic jams are terrible. Natalia feels suffocated by the petrol fumes from the buses, the frenetic tooting, the screeching of breaks and the “fuck your mother, asshole” insults that follow: TURU RU RU RU. Inside the park everything is more peaceful. It’s like crossing a concrete border - smog indexes, the traffic and the collective hysteria. The sky is still blue and there is not a cloud to be seen, nor the brown, thick scum from the smog. She sits on a bench and watches the loving couples, the carts with hot dogs and the ones with shaved ice with syrup, the men selling balloons, the stalls selling fruit, hot cakes with cajeta, jam or chocolate, the children on their tricycles, bikes, skate boards and those new skates with four wheels in a row. I don’t know why they don’t fall and smash their faces with those damned things!, thinks Natalia, as she buys some shaved ice with redcurrant syrup. She has never liked any other flavour. Ever since she was a girl she chose red currant when her papá used to buy her shaved ice and a balloon in the plaza in the pueblo. The balloons aren’t the same as they used to be. Now they’re aerodynamic, they have metallic colours and pictures of Batman, or silk flowers inside – God knows how they do it - , or photos of the Lion King, Aladdin and the pretty little princess, and Beauty and the Beast. Those Walt Disney movies are lovely - all about love and kindness. But those other ones, the ones about death, violence and hate, I don’t like those, they enough to kill a dead man.

  In the distance she sees Ernestina in her typical, crazy, circus outfit. Well, she is crazy after all, isn’t she? Poor Tinita, what will be her destiny?, she asks and then laughs at her own silly, trite question. Tinita has no destiny, she thinks. It abandoned her like a fistful of waste in the rubbish and it left her there, in the midst of all the shit. Tinita doesn’t know the difference between good and bad, both are the same to her. I feel sorry for the poor wretch.

  Ernestina walks quickly to the other side of the park, lost in thought. Something important is developing in her confused, fearful mind. When she gets to the edge of the park, she turns and comes back at the same hurried pace; she has to be on time for her meeting with the Public Prosecutors Office; she has to tell them something important and here is no time to lose. She has found Colosio’s assassin, the same one who murdered Posadas and Ruiz Massieu, and who raped her just a few moments ago.

  Natalia observes Ernestina from a distance; she is frightened by the faraway look in her eyes, the way she is trapped in her own mind and pursued by demons. Ernestina sits on a bench, totally exhausted; she is panic stricken after walking this far and doesn’t know whether to keep going as far as the Plaza de la Constitución or to continue walking and not go to her appointment. Maybe it would be better to give herself up to the police and tell them everything: that she tried to poison Zedillo; that La Paca foretold a dark future for her; that Salinas hit her and made a hole in her head out of which her ideas escape; that the Legionaires of Christ put a bomb in Los Pinos that will blow up when the President goes for a dump. She doesn’t notice that she’s crying. Tears roll like little waterfalls down her cheeks.

  An elderly gentleman, a good Samaritan, comes closer to offer help. Can I do anything for you, señorita? Natalia watches all of this from a distance, and continues to suck on her red currant ice. Ernestina looks at the gringo in terror; she doesn’t understand his question as she never learnt English. She sobs convulsively, like a little chilanga from Mexico City, lost in the middle of Manhattan. This is the man she has been running away from for a long time; he is the one who has hit her every time she has found the tiniest mistake in his spy missions as she has checked the country’s secret files. Ernestina grabs at her hair as if to tear it out and lets out the most desperate cries. The elderly gentleman is as frightened, perhaps even more so, than she is, and stays riveted to the spot, petrified. Natalia throws the ice to one side and rushes over to Ernestina and puts her arms around her or, rather, tries to.

  ⎯ Don’t worry, señor, it’s alright. She is my niece; I’ll take care of it. You can go now, it’s OK.

  ⎯ But, what’s wrong with her? Is she ill?

  ⎯ Yes, señor, I’m going to take her home, but she’ll be OK once she’s had her medicine, don’t be concerned.

  ⎯ I may be of help, if you wish, this young thing obviously does not have Jesus Christ in her heart. I could read a passage from the New Testament, which ...

  ⎯ No, señor, thank you very much; right now is not a good time to be talking to God.

  The elderly gentleman with the kind face looks at her as if to say, here is a heretic who will never be saved. He turns away very offended.

  Natalia continues to hug Ernestina, who clings to her with all her might, crying and shouting all the while.

  ⎯ Calm down, Tinita. I’ll take you home. There, there, it’s alright.

  The onlookers begin to gather around the two women. Natalia wishes the earth would open up and swallow them both; that they could disappear in a puff of smoke; that she had not have taken it upon herself to respond to Ernestina’s shouts; that she had gone back to the store as if nothing had happened. More onlookers keep arriving. One woman comes over intending to help as it is clear that Natalia cannot control her niece’s desperate cries. She decides against it when she recalls that the strength of someone who is mentally ill is the same as that of thirty men.

  Florencia arrives, pushing and elbowing her way through the crowd. She is hot from running and looks
worn with worry and the fright her daughter has given her. At that precise moment, Ernestina manages to get away from Natalia and throws herself on the ground, kicking and punching the air; she rolls in the dirt spitting screams and foaming at the mouth as if she was having an attack of rabies. Natalia and Florencia between them manage to get her up, but cannot get her all the way back to the house.

  What the hell are you all looking at? – Fear is making Florencia furious, more so than the presence of the onlookers around her daughter-. Instead of standing there like idiots, either help or get lost - the best way to be of help is not to get in the way.

  ⎯ Call an ambulance, says someone.

  ⎯ Florencia, I’m gonna go and find Francisco and call Tinita’s doctor.

  ⎯ Go for it, sis, but get a move on.

  ⎯ Better go and get the crazy doctor ⎯ there is muffled laughter.

  Florencia is furious; she gets up and with one punch sends the author of the insult flying.

  ⎯ Ok, which one of you’s next? Get outta here, you bunch of morons.

  Florencia is left alone with her daughter, who is still rolling around in the dirt and banging herself against the tree, the bench, the bush and everything else within reach. Ernestina’s shouting is getting on Florencia’s nerves, and she looks around in turmoil. Natalia comes hurrying back, perspiring from the heat, which hasn’t abated at all.

  ⎯ I couldn’t find Francisco anywhere but I spoke to the doctor ... an ambulance is on its way.

  ⎯ Ambulance? What for?

  ⎯ Stop kidding yourself, Florencia. This child needs to be admitted.

  ⎯ Again?

  ⎯ Just look at her. You aren’t able to control her by yourself and you can’t count of Francisco for help.

  ⎯ Ernestina’s shouts die down for a moment. The two women manage to sit her down on a bench, each one of them on either side of her. They try to calm her down. Ernestina sobs, then closes her eyes and seems to calm down a little. She opens her eyes again and they are filled once more with the anguish and horror of the unknown. In another fit of hysteria, she hits Natalia on the nose and makes it bleed - she has bruised Florencia’s arms and legs before.

  ⎯ Fuck, Ernestina, that’s enough!- Florencia is getting desperate and doesn’t know what to do. At last the ambulance arrives. In a moment, two men have Ernestina in a straight jacket; they put her into the ambulance and take off at full speed amidst the stares of the onlookers, the terrifying shrieking sound of the siren and its song of death.

  For those last few seconds of lucidity, Ernestina could see Ramiro in her mind as clear as day; she could smell his sweaty body and the caresses that would never again be repeated, the kisses that he would no longer give her. Under her fingers she could feel his smooth, brown, tattooed skin, the coarseness of the hair on his chest and legs. With her whole body she felt the shivering that comes before complete surrender. Once again she felt the scorn that comes with betrayal - the feeling of shame and humiliation-, and she knew without a shadow of doubt, that this journey into the world of dreams and illusion would be the definitive one, a journey of no return into the interior of her mind and her demons.

  66

  I’m glad you don’t need me here, señor detective, ‘cause I have to go outta town. After having given death the slip so many times before, the Grim Reaper decided enough was enough and he took my mamá boots and all. The poor old thing didn’t even have time to say goodbye to us. Well, she had spent her whole life saying goodbye to everyone, even to her thirteen dogs and fifteen cats. How do you think she died, the old rascal? She didn’t die as she would have wished - of a heart attack or diabetes or a stroke or kidney stones. When she was in Acapulco soaking up the sun for her rheumatism, that damned hurricane Paulina came and dragged her from Puerto Marqués to Pie de la Cuesta, Who would have thought? But that’s what happens when you try to ignore death. Now my brothers and I have to go to Acapulco to collect what’s left of her. They only found a finger with her wedding ring on and the scapula that she always wanted us to bury her with. Fortunately, a few days earlier she’d had the holy oils, as she did every week just in case. I’m gonna take my daughter, Lucero, with me because of the Strangler; let’s see if it gives her a reality check and she stops whoring around.

  I’m trusting you‘ll find Don Lolo’s murderer. I suggest you don’t take your eyes off Aguinaldo Misiones. He’s going around saying he’s gonna move away from the barrio, supposedly ‘cause he can’t stand the thought of Lolo Manón being murdered in the same apartment building as his. Who knows what guilty secrets he’s carrying around, the sly bastard. See you later, señor detective, it was a pleasure meeting you and I hope my statements have been helpful.

  67

  I’m sorry I’m late for the appointment, Señor Solicitor, but lately I’ve had one problem after another. Ever since my husband’s death, everything has turned to custard. The expenses of the funeral were so high, I’m up to my eyes in debt. People don’t understand how expensive dying is and my savings have all gone in a blink of an eye. But tell me, Señor Solicitor, what can I do for you.

  No. I have no idea who that person is. I’ve never seen him before in the barrio and the name doesn’t ring a bell. Let’s see, let me have a good look at the photo. I think I need glasses, ‘cause I can’t see his face very well. It’s a bad photo? No wonder; I didn’t think I could have gone blind from one moment to the next. He looks very young, a bit scruffy though.

  Look, this building is here, I mean, there, on Mérida Street. The building was very damaged in the earthquake, which is a real shame, ‘cause it was really beautiful. I remember how it was before the earthquake. A friend of ours used to live there; the apartment was huge and had very high ceilings. She went to live in Guadalajara after eighty five. I can’t blame her, just about the whole family was buried when the tenement building in Orizana collapsed completely. There were no survivors.

  Actually, now that I’m looking at it again, I have seen that young tramp before. The guy doesn’t bother anyone; he just spends the day lying on the street with his bottle of aguardiente. The poor thing’s brain is a bit addled from too much booze and drugs. Sometimes you see him wandering around talking to ghosts. But, as I said, he doesn’t bother anyone. He’s not one of those rude drunks always looking for a fight, who spend the whole day being a nuisance. Everyone in the barrio knows him, but only in the sense that we see him day or night lying asleep on the sidewalk, just like here in the photo. I feel sorry for the poor guy. His life must be pretty awful.

  68

  Horrific Murder

  Victim dies with 18 stab wounds

  By Virginia Morales

  Mexico City. – The home of a decent family was tainted with blood, when the head of the household met his end at the point of a kitchen knife. It was first thought that this had been a suicide, as there were few signs of violence at the scene of the crime. However, an autopsy indicated that the very large amount of alcohol found in the blood of the deceased would have prevented him from even holding up the lethal weapon.

  THE HEINOUS CRIME

  Lorenzo Manón Martinez was found by his wife, Natalia Madera de Manón in the lounge of his home. His body was found propped up in a relaxed position against several cushions. The bloody scene was a cruel blow for the newly widowed Señora Manón, and for her daughters Natalia and Ricarda, who also witnessed the terrible scene.

  The Attorney General’s office has taken over the investigation, which has so far drawn a blank in clarifying the course of events. Nonetheless, the characteristics of the crime appear to indicate that this could be the work of Los Podridos, the heartless gang responsible for numerous atrocities, relieving whole families of their belongings, murdering a number of young women in the Ajusco, and raping a whole community of older people living in a retirement home.

  This recent murder adds to the growing list of crimes in our country. Will this new attack on social harmony be solved by the police? Or will this homicide be jus
t one more of those catalogued as “unsolved”.

  69

  I can’t say I suspect anyone, Señor Solicitor, ‘cause I haven’t the slightest idea. Maybe I’m a bit slow, but I can’t think of anyone who’d have had a reason to get rid of my primo. Valerio Cuadra? Nah! He’s as gay as they come, he doesn’t even figure. On the other hand, they do say that faggots are very passionate and can do the most horrible things when they get possessive; but I don’t think that’s what happened. Aguinaldo Misiones? Let me think. No, no I don’t think so, ‘cause the three of us were friends. Florencia? How could you think of such a dreadful thing? Florencia may be bitter, but she’d have to be crazy to commit murder and have it on her conscience. Jaime Cocinero? It’s likely, ‘cause he missed out on being a be a father-in-law and ended up a loser, who knows? Me? Hey, listen, d’ya think I’m stupid? Do you think that if I’d killed Lolo, I’d be sitting here listening to this rubbish? I’d have cleared the hell outta here, I’m not an idiot.

  And don’t even mention the name of my daughter. She’s the only decent thing that ever happened to me on this crappy planet in danger of extinction. And, yes, she is my daughter, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says. Anyone who dares to say otherwise to my face had better watch out, ‘cause I’ll thump him. Ernestina may be a bit loopy loops, but she isn’t capable of doing something as idiotic as killing her own uncle; she loved him heaps. In fact, I still haven’t told her about Lolo so as not to upset her. Aside from that, Ernestina was in the hospital when he was murdered, and she’s still there. It was that time in the park when she started screaming ‘cause someone was going to harm her – as usual. Tinita doesn’t start to scream like mad just for the fun of it. If she screams, it’s for good reason - for example, a man with antennas on his head and claws for hands, who wants to stone her like she was an adulteress; or a troop of Salvation Army soldiers chasing her to disfigure her face with acid; or a swarm of wasps that want to devour her, leaving only her bones behind. She doesn’t scream for nothing. Wouldn’t you scream if something that bad happened to you? Actually, she doesn’t tell me what’s going on in her head, ‘cause as you know, she doesn’t talk to anyone, but I get a pretty good idea from the way she screams.