We arrived at her house by the ministry of foreign affairs, a set of weird huts that look like an army camp. Her house is in one of those side streets of Najlaot, behind the restaurant called Imma, which means mother.
“In what language do you write?”
“In Hebrew. Well, Hebrew and Spanish. And a little in English.”
“And not in French?”
“No, not in French, not yet, although back in the day I wrote some French poems, I think I could if I really wanted to.”
“Well, then bring me something in Spanish, because in Hebrew I am not going to understand a thing.”
“Don't worry about it, it's an easy Hebrew, I don't write in a very complicated style.”
“I prefer in Spanish, I like the language better.”
I remembered the first time I went out with Gabrielle, I wrote her a poem in French. After that, she didn't want to see me for six months. I don't know if it's because the poem was so bad or so good. Whichever it was... six months...
I find it a very good idea to read a short novel to her. I have a half-finished one that I could add to this book and that way, poof, I already have a few more thousand words. A writer shouldn't think this way, but what do you want, to fill a book or to write it. I don't know. What I feel is an enormous urge to write and to be prepared to conquer Spanish Literature, once my novel sells a lot, I must already be prepared to attack with a lot of novels. But this is not a war... Who's speaking? Who said that? It's me, myself, the writer against himself, the silly one against the serious one, the story teller against the one who wants to save the world through his stories, that last one that no longer exists. Now we get to the music of David Munyon, I hear his songs ringing in my ears. We are in her house. A badly furnished house, a student apartment or of someone who doesn't want to stop being a student. I should be elsewhere, writing other things.
“What are you thinking about?”
“About how beautiful you are.”
She smiles.
“Do you want tea?”
She serves tea on a table in the tiny room, there are two chairs around, or something that looks like a chair and armchair, half-broken, from used furniture stores, or gifts from friends.
“Help yourself, make yourself comfortable. I'm going to take a shower and come back then we'll drink tea.”
I knew she would be back with a black robe with nothing underneath. I saw it in her eyes at the station, I knew those eyes, I knew them and I had already almost forgotten them. It didn't surprise me, but I wasn't expecting it either. Perhaps I was hoping for a surprise.
“You like men.”
“Who doesn't?”
“Well, but you like them a little more.”
She comes closer to me and kisses me. I remember that need to dominate the situation and not be swayed. I let her. Suddenly an idea goes to my head, that this may be a kind of adultery, and what if she lied when she told me about her abortion, what if she had a daughter instead of an abortion and left her in Paris at her sister's or aunt's, or someone adopted her, maybe she's the daughter of my wife, I should ask her for her name, but I don't. It is the same hand and the same feeling that has never changed, the same as when Gabrielle touches me, either the first or the second, the young or the adult. I immediately have a boner, as if it were an order. The Gabrielles wishes are a command to my cock.
Now she touches it, smiles, “I like it, it's big,” she kisses me on the mouth but not a deep kiss, she goes down on me for a moment, not very convinced, she's not nervous, she does it calmly, but quickly she takes off part of the robe and I see her right side and just like that, half naked, she climbs on top of me and moves up and down, screaming “oui, oui, oui,” and then she tells me that she likes my cock, “j'aime ton sexe,” which means, I love your penis, my cock and my sex, the way I make love but also my penis, all my male penis. Then she shuts up, she stands up and grabs my hand to take me to another tiny room in which lies a hard mattress. She throws herself on it, raising her hands and inviting me to penetrate her face up, but I turn her around and put her on her feet, this is what you love most, I don't say it, and I penetrate her from behind and there we both come at the same time, her screaming, “bring me the wine,” I don't know why, I lie down for two seconds and get up and I come back with the bottle of wine and two glasses, but we need a corkscrew she doesn't know where it is.
“It doesn't matter, put the bottle in bed,” the bottle, I lie down and start falling asleep, I don't remember very well when I took my pants and shoes off, I still have my sweatshirt on, and she says goodbye.
“What? Goodbye?”
“It seems a little exaggerated to sleep together the first night, and with a married man...”
“I never said that I was married.”
“You didn't need to.”
“Tomorrow we meet at four, and you read me your story.”
“It's a novel.”
I have no choice, I look for the boxers my mother-in-law gave me and I can't find them. In the end I find the pants, I wear them without boxers and then the socks, which my mother-in-law also gave me (she's very creative for gifts), then the Paul & Shark jacket that I bought in Turkey without knowing that it was so chic and that it was worth a fortune, although maybe it's a fake, and that it’s normal to have navy blue on one side and beige on the other and I leave.
It's only 12:30 a.m. and I decide to go back home. In my house everything seems fine, Gabrielle is asleep and did not take advantage of my absence to go see a lover, a lover I've suspected existed for a few months, or years, or forever, because I cannot believe that a woman who had many lovers before marriage becomes a saint after the wedding, or maybe because I'm just a jealous asshole or because I don't see that our sex has been fulfilling her for a while now. You see, if I was more literary, there should be a surprise here and the arrival of the husband and the finding of a man coming down the stairs, or lover in bed, but these things only happen in books. Especially in the bad ones.
At 2 p.m. Gabrielle Jr. calls me, that's how I start calling her, and she asks if I'm going at four and tells me not to forget the story.
“The short novel.”
“Alright, whatever. Whatever.”
“Wha´ever.”
I ask her to give me her address, but she refuses. I ask where she got my telephone number, I don't recall giving it to her.
“You're an idiot, I called from your cell to mine while you were in the bathroom and got your number.”
“And I thought that I was the intelligent one.”
“Everyone does it.”
“Are you going to give me your address or what?”
“You have to find the house.”
I make a few laps around the restaurant and I have some difficulties locating myself between the old streets with the old houses, but eventually I get there right on time, at four o'clock. I am punctual although I don't try to be.
I knock on the door, but she doesn't answer. I knock again. Nothing. I call her cell.
“Yes, you're very punctual, I'll be right there, wait up, I went out to buy eggs and milk.”
“Liar.”
“Ok whatever, I'll be right there, five minutes.”
It takes her fifteen minutes and she comes back with a bag of some supermarket. I can see that she had been to the hairdresser. She dressed well.
“You brought your story.”
I am tired of telling her that it is a short novel. She kisses me on the cheek. I try to get to her mouth, but she doesn't kiss me on the mouth.
“Yes, but you want it so much. The truth is I don't like reading aloud, I get bored, if you want I’ll leave it and you read it when you want.”
“No, no, no way, I want to hear your voice.”
She turns the key twice in the lock.
“Alright. Ok. I'll read it to you.”
You can't say no to a new woman, although she's only a replica of the other, made in China. Today you can copy anything, even women. A clo
ned woman. Cloned. But she looks very good. I feel like doing her again. I tell her.
“Not today,” she says as if nothing had happened. As if there were no yesterday, or tomorrow. “Not today. Today story, today Literature.” That happens to me for saying that I'm a writer. “I'll make tea and we'll sit down to start our literary evening.”
“I've been told that it's very common in Germany, not here.”
She comes back a few minutes later with the tea, the memory of yesterday gives me a boner, but I cool down quickly thinking about the tractors of a kibbutz.
She serves me tea.
“It's funny, I brought the last thing I wrote, and it's kind of funny because, it's a story where in the middle someone tells another story, but I'm thinking that if I write our encounter one day it'll be a story in which someone tells a story about someone who's telling a story.”
“Interesting.”
“Well, the truth is it's not completely done yet. It needs some adjustments here and there.”
“I'm listening.”
I start reading.
The bus
1.
When the shooting occurred I was asleep, the shooting woke me up, so I couldn't say who took the shot. Later, it was said that it was Queta, who was sitting to my right, more or less in the middle of the front of the bus, in the photo it must be the sixteenth or fifteenth seat, but I didn't see her. The pistol wasn't hers, it was Domingo's, he was sitting in the front, that I'm sure of, at the entrance of the bus because he considered himself some sort of a king, in front of all the front people, although the one who's most in front was the driver even if he doesn't count, or maybe that was already clear that he didn't count.
Then I was asleep and suddenly I heard a bang, not like in the movies where it sounds like an echo, it was more like a sharp blow against a piece of wood and then screams, but I remember waking up from the shot and then I heard the screams, women's screams, and then someone said that they deserved it because they smelled bad, they were the ones in the back, I knew that the joke, or what began as a joke, or what seemed to have started as a joke, or whatever it was, was going to end badly. Very badly. And then I thought to myself, this is finishing bad, but it was only the beginning.
It's very difficult to say where things began although, by the sight of it, we know where it all ended, and now I'm telling you the story. The bus left the station at about nine thirty at night, it left a bit late, which was a common thing on this line, it was the line of the two seas, it went from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, passing through four or five countries, depending on the hour at which it left. I was already prepared to sleep through the night, it was my fourth time on this line and I was going from one sea to the other, so I had 36 hours of travel left, stations, passengers who go up and down, sometimes drunk people, and also smells. The bus was full. There was even a couple who came at the last minute and asked the driver if by any chance somebody got confused and hadn't made it. Something that often occurred. No, the bus was full.
For some reason the delay sparked lively discussions among some of the passengers, I recognize them now but at that time I didn't know who they were. The one who complained the most was a guy called Severio who was behind me, behind the back door of the bus, that was behind me, there on the stairs leading down was the can, well, the bathroom, if it sounds better, but everyone called it the can on this bus, not everyone, no, there was this girl, Aurelia I think, she said restroom. When all the people in front began to say that the can was theirs, she said the restroom, I don't know why but that's how it went, all the others very quickly said the word can.
Severio then complained about the delay, and the girl who was in the middle seat at the end of the bus said they weren't here to hear his complaints, she was very rude about it, I must admit, not to put all the blame on Severio.
“If you're not happy, rent a helicopter, you wuss!”
“You're the wuss, stupid bitch.”
There are two versions here, they say that it was Severio who said stupid bitch, but he has strictly denied it.
To be honest, I couldn't quite say who it was.
“Find someone else to call a stupid bitch,” the woman said, “fucking fag.”
“So what? What does it matter to you if I'm a fag or not?”
Apparently this Severio guy was gay and didn't understand very well that the lady was not talking about his sexual preferences, but only about his insults.
“And anyway, you sadomasochistic old pussy sucking lesbian, I didn't say you were a slut, someone else did, I just want the fucking bus to leave.”
They started a whole debate about whether it was him or another passenger who said it, and there were already supporters on both sides until the driver came and asked them to be quiet to take off. Everyone stopped talking.
But two minutes after we took off, we started hearing them shouting again, but I no longer understood very well, because other people were speaking next to me, mixed with the noise of the bus and the traffic.
You don't know what will define your future, or yes, maybe you do, but you're not fully aware of it. I could have picked a back seat but I didn't, you can say it's a coincidence, but you can also say that even if it is one, I got the right seat, and for that I deserve a prize. At least that's what I think.
“Please, Mr. Dospasos, this is not a philosophical debate, we want to know what happened on the bus for thirty hours, and not what you think, try to give us some information.”
“But can I know why you're talking to me from behind this window where I can't see you, can't you or someone else sit in front of me and talk like a normal human being? I prefer a woman, yin and yang reasons, more balance, you know.”
“You, sir, decide nothing in here, we decide what you must do and how you must do it.”
“It's just very difficult to speak to someone without seeing their face. I am not a robot. And I hope you aren't either.”
“Keep telling the facts and with less philosophical thoughts.”
The first two hours of the trip went by with many people going to the bathroom, more than usual. Although you can't rely on my knowledge of what is normal and what is not, but on other trips it was very similar. Although perhaps they were fewer. Someone said that he had to go before someone else.
“What for, because you got a pretty face?”
“Well yeah, because that's how it is.”
And then someone got in the way and said the expression, for the first time, the new expression, or the old expression that now became a new one.
“Because he's a front guy.”
I think Caro said it, he was sitting in the front row and was waiting for his turn to go to the bathroom.
“What do you mean by that?”
“What I just said,” Caro answered, “that we are sitting in front and that we are front people and for that reason we have the right to go to the can before y'all.”
Caro was a tall, muscular man, and nobody wanted to argue with him.
“So now you go and sit, and you let my friend from the front use the can and then I go, and you sit in your place until we finish and then you can enter.”
“I hope the two of you are not going to shit for hours and are only going to pee.” he said it in a somewhat humorous tone, but Caro took it very seriously.
“Look, motherfucker, if we want to take a dump we take a dump and if we want to piss, we piss, now sit in your place before I shit on you.”
The guy who had a weak voice didn't continue the argument. Maybe he thought that Caro was drunk and he didn't urgently need to use the bathroom and he only did it to pass the time or because he didn't stay seated. I was trying to fall asleep, but I was just above the bathroom, it wasn't an easy task. Despite how tired I was feeling.
And then, they invented another expression, the back people. Uceda said it, a teenager who was sitting next to me.
“It's just that those back people smell really bad.”
“They
do smell bad,” Ofelia said, she was in the seat in front of me. “They smell very bad,” she added.
“And they are bad.”
“Very bad.”
“And the best thing would be not to let them use the can. They must have all kinds of diseases.”
After that, I fell asleep until I heard the shot.
2.
And then, well, before, before I heard the shot, I was dreaming. I dreamed that my girlfriend had a testicle, and in the dream that wasn't what I thought was weird, what seemed odd was that she didn't have two, and someone was explaining that it was strange that she had one, it was on the right groin and it was pink, the dream was in Hebrew, I spoke Hebrew with her, and she told me they wouldn't understand, but does it matter that testicle is written with an ע when it's actually with an א and I started laughing in my dream.
“Mr. Dospasos, we are not going to repeat it a thousand times, your dreams don't interest me, they don't interest us, we want information.”
“Ok, ok I get it, but I remember, the dream is over now, it is part of the information, of what I lived.”
“No philosophy nor dreams, we're not talking about this kind of information and I believe that you understand me.”
“Yes, It's over.”
And so I started laughing in the dream, well at least that's what I hope happened, although sometimes I really laugh in my sleep, that's what my girlfriends have said, and then I heard the shot and I woke up.
It was nighttime and I must have slept two or three hours, and in those three hours I don't know what happened but what is certain is that everyone spoke about back and front people, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It had become part of the vocabulary of the population of the bus. I don't know if you understand, what seemed a joke at first was now a reality. And after the shot I think everyone on the bus woke up, or most of the fifty-something passengers, they were very loud. Well, they got very loud after a twenty-second moment of utter silence. As if it was lightning followed by thunder. The shot was the lightning and then came the thunder and the noise from everyone.
The thing is, Tuval had the gun in his hand but he was looking in the direction of the driver, he was standing near the can, next to where he was sitting before, but his body was headed toward the driver and the corpse was behind him. He said that he hadn't used the weapon and that it landed into his hands when he left the restroom, it landed, but nobody gave it to him. The dead guy was at the end of the bus, it was a young fifteen-year-old boy, his last name was Cash, he was previously sitting in the penultimate row, on the right side of the bus. He was next to Urgen, a girl who said she didn't know him. According to her, she woke up after the shot. Some said that the person responsible was the owner of the gun, Domingo, who now held it in his hands, and he said that it wasn't him, that he was also sleeping, and since he had the gun in his hands nobody dared to argue with him. And somebody said that it was one of the back people, that they were closer to the dead guy. And besides we already know that the back people are bad.
The Expelled Page 2
