Luz comes too often, unlocks the door with this particular sound, wakes me up, lines our shoes up in the entrance because it’s neater, finishes up the dishes that are lying around. My room smells like mold, both before and after she comes.
There are two spiders now, Betty. Are you feeling the pressure?
I open my bedroom door and see them all below. They don’t realize I’m watching. The funniest one is Matías. He lives here too. “Lives.” He’s barely ever here. I always wonder if there’s life behind his closed door. I’ve watched him a few times. It seems like he doesn’t know I exist, or he forgets. When the others aren’t here, he chain- smokes and talks to himself while he reads the paper. Today he’s pacing back and forth between the kitchen and dining room, naked, reciting something like he’s trying to memorize a script. The dog follows him along, scraping its little claws against the floor.
I approach, hesitant. Emilio barely lifts an eyebrow, still half-asleep. He must be wondering why I’ve come out, all of a sudden. He lives in the living room, on the couch at all hours.
I should have eaten in the kitchen. Now I have to start some kind of conversation. I have nothing to say. I’m just sitting there with my bowl of cereal. I don’t have the words. He’s going to think I came to get something. Or that I’ve gotten lost. I’d look even weirder if I turned back without saying a word.
The beast is at the bottom of the stairs, waiting to jump me. It growls, drool dripping from the side of its mouth. It stands on its hind legs, jumps around all over the place. I scream, tell it to get lost and wave my arms around. But this dog only speaks Spanish, and not very well at that. Often, I stay upstairs just so I don’t have to deal with it. It doesn’t belong to anyone. It doesn’t have a name. Shut up, dog. Chill out.
¡Cállate! It listens to Emilio. It’s afraid of him. Me, not so much.
Emilio shows up with eggs wrapped in kraft paper. I point at the eggs; he doesn’t understand. ¿Dónde, um. ¿Dónde comprar? He smiles and finishes my thought: ¿Huevos frescos?
He starts talking. Realizes it’s no use, half of it goes over my head. Scribbles a map on a sheet of paper, full of arrows and street names. He writes Mercado at the corner of two streets I don’t know. I’ve never ventured out that far.
I wander in circles, I can’t find it. Mercado. Are we talking about the same thing? I go around the block again. A woman steps out of what looks like a ramshackle warehouse with a bag of vegetables. Seems weird to hide a market like that. I go inside. Live chickens, dead pigs. Their eyes fixed on me. I keep going. Bags being weighed and exchanged. How do they understand each other? Last time your strawberries were no good, try to pull that with me again and I’m taking my business elsewhere. And your wife?
I want cucumbers. Zanahoria? Concumbre? I think they’re asking me how many. Dos. I signal with my hand at the same to be sure. She fills a bag, weighs it, adds more. What is she doing? Two, I said two! The scale says two kilos. I give up. I pay her.
In the middle of the market, old people sit at a café. They comment on the horse races on TV as they sip their espressos. The first nods his head and makes little noises with his mouth. Tut tut. The other keeps going no, no, no—not raising his voice, but sounding exasperated. The first puts his head in his hands, gets frustrated. They’re insulting each other now, maybe. The second slams a bill down on the counter. ¡Paco! A third, who was hanging around nearby, grabs a stool, steps between the first two. And things get heated. No es eso. ¡Escuchame! They’re not watching the horses anymore, they could be talking about anything. A woman wearing heavy makeup, with a tiny dog, stands in the corner, not talking to anyone. Just looks at her dog. That looks like a rat.
The bartender has seen worse. He’s not interested in the witch, or the rat-dog, or the blasé old gamblers. He spins a bottle opener between his fingers, focused on the screen, takes forever to come see me.
He doesn’t know this is my first smile.
I’m jotting down words, phrases, and expressions that I hear in this big notebook I just bought. The ones I hear, that I repeat to myself, that I’ve already caught and that I’ll forget. But there are words that bounce off of me, that refuse to enter my brain. Gracioso. Gra-cio-so. Graaaaaaaa-ciooooooo-soooooo. Dame un traigo. Trago? Traguo?
When Adriana talks on the phone, she parks herself on the couch with her feet up on the table, the phone wedged between her shoulder and ear. She floods whoever she’s talking to with a cascade of words as she paints her nails. This ride could easily last an hour. She giggles. Wriggles about so much that the person she’s talking to can probably feel it on the other end. Her voice like a roller coaster scattered with laughter. After her nails, she fixes her hair. And by the time she’s ready, it’s dark out.
At the grocery store, I stand for a long time in front of the wall of names I don’t understand. Too many bottles, too many choices. I can’t decide, I pick up the first thing that comes to hand. We’re celebrating Emilio’s birthday tonight. The big 3-0.
I hide in the corner, between the table and the wall. If I’d wanted to disappear completely, I couldn’t have done a better job. Matías is chatting with people at the other end of the living room. From where I’m standing, it looks like he’s getting worked up over just about everything. But that’s just the impression I get from a distance. He probably doesn’t even know I’m his new roommate.
The apartment’s full of people. Everyone interrupting each other, yelling, brushing up against me without noticing I’m there. I eat some olives.
You’re not supposed to talk with your mouth full. Emilio introduces me to Alberto, Claudia, and Beatriz, who leave me right away. Then he leaves me too. These olives are great, I say to no one.
Alberto and Beatriz start arguing across the room. Are they a couple? Were they a couple? They burst out laughing. I polish off the olives.
Cubes of cheese are piled up next to the empty bowl. Ham cubes, too. Everything in cubes, like in space. An aspiring suitor appears at my side. Will he save me?
In slow and simple Spanish, he sums up what’s happening for me. A certified interpreter from normal Spanish to simpleton Spanish. His hair is greasy. La chica allá, la colorada, sí. Es la ex de Emilio. Una locura. He waits for an answer, a signal from me to go on. What does he want me to say? She’s crazy, I get it. The ex is crazy.
I’m struck by these insane urges to suck off a gun barrel.
Whose finger is on the trigger? Jude Law’s.
You know what, Betty? I’m not getting up today.
No one’s explained Luz’s schedule to me. The others always make sure they’re out when she comes. It’s only with the sound of the front door opening, that specific noise her keys make in the lock, that I know it’s a cleaning day. I grind my teeth. I brace myself for the worst.
Sometimes, I watch her work. I go down to the kitchen, and I tell myself that I am, that we are, exploiters. And that watching her is taking part in that exploitation. She turns to me, shoots me a maternal smile. Impervious to my victimization attempts. Protecting me, rather, from this cruel world. Me, the poor child who doesn’t understand a thing. ¿Un té? I can’t even muster a thank you.
I’ve had enough. My head is exploding. Give me a hammer, something.
The marble is colder than the rest. Harder, too. With my hair undone, starfished out on the floor, I don’t care. I thought there was nothing here. I didn’t look properly. A can rusting on some branches and a little pile of leaves. I wonder how they got there. Brought by the birds, I imagine. Letting their piles of shit fall as they fly by, that dries all around me, in matching tones on the old marble. I think of all the piles of shit that I’m not seeing.
Any curious onlookers watching from their windows must be eating this up. Too rare a spectacle in this courtyard that’s usually empty: this intruder sprawled out on the ground with her hair full of cat piss. Normally
, in these indoor courtyards, you should be wearing your best clothes. Or what’s left of them.
From here, I can see the sky—no birds. I can see the stone arches over the windows, all the same, all in a row. Something medieval about their style. Or antiquated, rather. I live in a roman amphitheatre. In a cheap imitation of a roman amphitheatre. What luxury.
The gladiators will come through the door to fight in the arena. Come on, come get me. Release your horses, wave your clubs, your metal skirts. Show no mercy. Put on a show for everyone watching, with dried-up spit on your clothes, fight for me. Come on in, gentlemen. Show me the sacrifices you’re prepared to make. Gladiators to the core. And me at the end of the sword. How far will you go?
I want to see blood. In my honour.
Diesel makes me think of a communist state.
Sometimes I can’t see at all. The bus in front of mine spits long streaks of black smoke that enters through the open windows and envelops the passengers. My nails are always black with pollution, I can never get them clean. It’s a smell that sticks to the city, to the skin. That condemns us.
Car horns blare and the bus almost flips over. A horse and buggy cut us off. I grip my seat with both hands, stuck between rows of strangers. The bus crosses an avenue built for military parades.
I’d rather tell myself that it’s for a queen, a majestic royal procession. From times when having a horse was a sign of wealth. The whole city would follow and throw confetti. Or flowers. Flowers are better.
A dead-end street. I tell myself that there have been blazing infernos, ambushes, deaths over there. And a child sitting on a pile of debris, holding a flag. No. He’s in another story. Many try to escape. The smoke suffocates them. Carnage. Another sharp turn, I fall onto a new neighbour. Perdón. No reaction.
Anyway, I’m just a foreigner.
Sometimes, when the apartment’s empty, I’ll go into the kitchen. A stove, a fridge, counters, shelves. I open doors and find plates, rice, boxes of cookies. It looks like a normal kitchen. But all the things in there feel threatening, they kick me out.
There are moments, sometimes even whole minutes, when I can understand without having to translate. It’s sort of subconscious. Their lips will move, they’ll make sounds and, in my head, words will arrive and form images that make connections. But if I stop to try to make sense of the mechanism, I lose everything. Their sounds become abstract noises again and line my brain with tones and accents that pile up, waiting to be put to use.
The notebook is starting to fill up with words I’m afraid I’ll forget. Or the common words that have nothing to do with anything. Sábana, bolsa, grifo, medias. But I rarely read over the first few pages. I guess deep down I do know the older words.
Hunched over a stack of paper, Emilio briefly waves his hand to let me know not to disturb him. The TV’s still on, but he’s turned the sound off. The more focused he is, the closer his ear moves to his shoulder.
What is he working on that makes him twist his neck up like this?
He takes a sip of the cold coffee on the table next to him. It’s probably been there since yesterday. The carafe glued to layer upon layer of sticky circles. Never a full circle, more like three quarters of one. He scribbles all over a page, draws some arrows on it, throws it away, picks it up again.
I used to have a brain. There was a time when I ripped my hair out over things. As I watch him, I realize I’ve forgotten how to do it. The attention span of a goldfish is eight seconds.
One of these days, I really need to find something to do.
I go out and buy one apple and two celery stalks. I add them to the fridge next to my pitiful yogurt and little chunk of cheese, all alone among the other vegetables. Alone up against everyone else’s vegetables.
The people in the cafe are so beautiful and chic. I sit and order tea and little almond cupcakes that are served in porcelain dishes. The garden smells like lily of the valley, vines crawl up the walls, you’d think I was in a rich fancy country. Tables surrounded by wrought iron chairs painted in all these different pastel colours. Colours that clash just enough for me to tell myself that they picked them on purpose to look like candy.
I pull out a notebook that I don’t write in. I’m too busy letting myself float. The only detail that stops me from getting carried away with the dreamy ambiance of this garden is the smell. Lilies are my grandmother. The times I spent at her house climbing trees, swinging, building myself little forts, setting traps all over the yard. Ironically, the smell of lilies always made me sick. It smells too strong. It creeps up your nose.
The garden is populated by couples. Twos, all completely engrossed in being together. Come on baby, open your mouth, here comes the airplane. The spoon stays suspended in the air while the mouth waits, open, stupid, for the hand to feed it. Airplane noises as it waits. The mouthful ends up missing its target, falling to the ground. Little cream cake stain on the lawn. All that’s missing’s a poodle to complete the perfect picture of successful lovers. They look at the lost bite and laugh. If I were them I’d be ashamed. They start again. Open your mouth wide, darling. Wider. Even wider. What’ll they do next, bottle feed each other?
I breathe.
The waitress gives me a strong feeling of déjà-vu. Tall, thin. Her enormous glasses slide down her nose. She pushes them up with her index finger. With this jaded, exasperated, too-cool-for-you look on her face. She’s wearing bright pink leggings and a grey low-cut top. Where have I seen her before?
Restless kids run between the tables. Their mother angrily calls them back to order. I give her a sign with my head that I don’t care if these kids are acting like kids. She doesn’t smile at me.
Putting faces to memories, places, eras, makes me feel like I’m untangling the plot of my life. Like I’m giving breath to the pictures that cross my path. They become more real, more dense.
Gloria. That’s her name.
Ya nos vimos, ¿no? She glares at me like I’m an insect, then turns around and leaves.
I have seen her before. I live in a box, I should be able to figure out where I’ve seen her.
You know Emilio? She drops my fork, apologizes. I live with him. She composes herself. Ah, the Canadian.
I’m fascinated by the speed at which a few magic words take us from the realm of insects to the human world.
When night falls, steel shutters roll down over windows, garage doors, and storefronts. Everything is double-locked. And the streets empty. Taxis, multiplied by darkness, wait by doors to shuttle partygoers from one haunt to the next. They say this city is all about going out. I think it’s all about staying in, about secured interiors sheltered from the demons roaming the streets.
In a city where everyone’s crazy, clearly there are more ghosts hanging around.
Señorita, ayúdeme. It isn’t a question. The old lady orders me to take her bags. Yes, you, right now. She’s gotta be like a hundred years old. Her hand is limp, clammy. I help her up the stairs. In her other hand, she holds a cane.
As soon as she gets the chance, she starts whacking my ankles with it. Hey! With no explanation. Faster? Slower? Come on, she calls to me, her workhorse. And cracks her whip. Her cane calibrated to sting just enough to get me going. Vicious old hag. Maybe she’ll spend days after this recalling her triumph. Maybe she reels in a different prey every time, and really she’s a professional sprinter. Her door moves further and further from sight, almost disappears from my field of vision, más allá, más allá. That’ll teach me to want to be nice.
Behind some furniture in the living room, I find some photo booth pictures. Emilio and Matías and a girl I don’t know striking silly poses, dressing up, frowning, hugging and kissing.
These pictures always look like they’re witnesses to the perfect summer day. The kind of moment that we’ll forever regret having missed out on. Friends or lovers, crammed in
to a booth with the curtain drawn, taking the time to create a memory they’ll be able to keep, that marks an era.
In high school, you had to collect them, and show them off. Whose faces did you manage to shove yours between? I remember ordinary moments that we tried to transform into extraordinary memories. I’ve always been jealous of pictures I’m not in.
The beast found a bone. It runs through my legs, head first into the wall because it’s too dumb to stop in time. It picks it up again, growls, barks, follows me everywhere drooling, making weird noises as it gnaws on it. It’s probably telling itself a story where it’s the hero. It’s found the Bone. El Bone. And it won’t come back down to earth as long as there’s some of it left. Stupid fucking dog, let me go! What idiot let this thing into the apartment? One of these days I’m gonna grind it up into sausages.
Emilio in the kitchen, wearing an apron. Dirty dishes piled up all around him. Luz will be happy tomorrow. I didn’t know you could cook. If I could cook! I taught the Italians how to make pizza. Adriana’s in a good mood. Emilio’s acting all flirty. Even Matías is here. I decide to stay. I have to start living a little.
In the End They Told Them All to Get Lost Page 2
