Relax. Get comfortable. Breathe. He speaks to me softly as he takes out his camera. I’m petrified.
Now, focus on one spot in your room, on the left. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Now breathe out. Again. Forget I’m here. With each exhale, I push the pictures further out of my head. They come back again. I exhale harder. I know he’s there. Thirty seconds, a minute, two. He’s quiet.
I just can’t forget he’s there. I think of stone statues, statues that time and water end up cracking, breaking off in pieces and disintegrating. Statues, white and smooth. Plastic ideals of perfection. Statues, on boats, in museums, pillaged. Destroyed. On display for old Englishmen with stiff upper lips—the statues are Greek. The Greeks are dead. What happened to the muses? Now take a deep breath, and as you exhale, turn around. Look at me.
Click. Click. Click. Rest your cheek on your arm. Back up a little. Breathe. I have trouble swallowing. I do as he says. I feel more naked than I am.
I can’t sleep. I listen to his breathing. When he took the last shot, I think I felt something. A pulse in my flesh. A fleeting moment of connection with the universe. Perhaps. My mind can tell me all it wants that my life’ll come back to me, I still won’t believe it. That quick flash? Maybe just a jolt, like when the hand of someone in a coma twitches when words of encouragement are whispered in their ear. He leaves tomorrow.
In theory, I’m here to sell tickets, or beer during intermissions, and to smile. Third shift, and I’ve barely sold anything. I start around 5, the shows start at 9.
The theatre’s almost empty. It’s way too early for the audience. It’s time for classes in the rooms on the second floor. The instructors run past me with stacks of paper under their arms. A man shows up, crying. He comes up to the front desk. I’m all alone. I don’t know him. He gives me a strange look. Sort of deranged. He seizes me by the hand, gets down on his knees, declares his undying love for me. He pulls me close. I resist, not knowing what to think. He’s insistent. I pull my hand away. He explodes, his veins inflate, he pounds on the counter and the sound echoes throughout the lobby. How dare I reject him, after all that?
I’m shaking. He bursts out laughing, winks at me. Hey, new girl. I had you there, didn’t I? He disappears, still laughing.
On that day in February, I let myself slide to the floor. The front door was wide open. It must have been minus 20 outside. My neighbour found me lying on the floor motionless. He wanted to call an ambulance. I said no, nothing the ER can fix. He set me up in the living room. Put a cushion under my head.
He came back later. He showed up with soup and tea. He didn’t say much. Or anyway, I don’t remember him saying much.
I’ve erased almost everything. From that week, that month, that life. I remember the neighbour. And the snowflakes falling all night long, glistening under the streetlights.
I counted them.
I guess I have trouble processing endings, goodbyes, loss. My arms are full of holes. When I lose people, I stare at my empty hands and my cold bed and I realize that part of me is missing. That I’ve given them something I won’t get back. No matter what I say. Even when I tell myself that I don’t care.
I do keep a part of them, too. But it isn’t enough. It’s just this sad, pathetic consolation prize for losers. Because there’s always someone else or somewhere else that matters more.
I wish they didn’t go to so much trouble to win over these pieces of me if they’re only going to leave in the end. Take one step toward me and I’ll believe you. You don’t have to say anything, I’ll believe you. Forget the agains and the alwayses. Whatever you do, don’t tell me you love me. I’ll get attached. You’ll leave.
The photographer said you need to make the most of fleeting moments, to cherish them for what they were. But what he didn’t say, what no one ever says enough, is that every dying moment kills a little. When there are too many, I get caught up in a crazy windstorm, hurled into the sand, the sky, the ocean waters. I end up damaged and drained and sometimes I don’t want to get back up again. I just can’t anymore.
The window in my room has shrunk. You can’t even see the sky anymore through our birdcages.
No one seems to have noticed me come in. I push doors open, walk down a hallway. The building is so strange. I’ve been told so many horror stories about hospitals that I couldn’t help myself. I go up, one floor is totally empty. There should be people. But there’s nothing, it’s abandoned. In one room, a bed, open closets, a Big Mac wrapper. I’ll catch TB if I stay. Or leprosy.
On the third floor, finally, some noise. Doctors and nurses, busy as bees, buzzing around… I don’t know who. Someone. I stand on the tips of my toes so I can see through the window. Some of the staff shift around, and I’m looking right at a man split down the middle, his jacket pulled up. His intestines spilling out over the side. Everyone’s clothes are stained. A nurse wheels over a bag full of blood that she plugs in near the disemboweled man’s head. The contents decant through a tube. The ECG looks dead. I’m hallucinating, my eyes aren’t good enough to see all the way over there.
There’s a smell, a potent mix of cleaning products and tissue fighting for its life. I can’t hold it together anymore. My imagination’s running wild. A stretcher rushes by, with a badly hurt child on it. The person pushing it gives me a look. What are you doing here, dumbass?
I should have gone with my gut and stayed home. It’s not that I don’t like Anke’s friends. That’s not it, I don’t know them. I don’t want to know them. I don’t even feel like drinking. The cat here is in the same boat. But he’s spitting on them. If you don’t have anything, we can lend you something. This ridiculous pink wig and these leopard-print leggings.
Cat, talk to me. Do you eat paper birds? You’re not answering me. I could go for some candy. Little rum balls from that bakery that’s closed on Sundays, to be precise. You know the one? You’re purring.
How many times have you died? Have you been to cat heaven? What’s it like? Are you a guy or a gal? Not that it matters, I meant no offense. I can tell your ego’s fragile.
You know how toast always falls butter side down, and cats always land on their feet? If I tie a piece of toast to your back, butter side up, and I throw you, what do you think’ll happen?
You’re gonna bite me, right, that’s what’ll happen. You a house music fan?
Doesn’t look like it. What are your thoughts on the Iran deal?
For a moment, I dreamed that the dog ran away. Better yet, ran away and got hit by a truck.
In the middle of the night, I happen upon a tired, quiet vendor who stands out from the shouting neighbours and the smell of fried food. Spread out in front of him are garlic, newspapers, porn DVDs, and toothpaste. I stop, hoping to see someone buy all those things at once. I’d follow them home, just because. I’d take down their address.
The vendor sighs without looking at me. He seems gentle. Shy, almost. Does he like those overly sweet croissants? He reminds me of the summer I almost sold hot dogs. The guy who would have hired me carried himself in the same kind of way. I wonder how my life would have turned out if I’d ended up selling hot dogs that summer.
On Sundays, vendors of all sorts set up shop in the street and a huge crowd of people swoops in to invade. To buy, but also to people-watch. Come on Chloé, you have to come. There are street artists, dancers, clowns. It’s full of junk, antiques, and clothes. From stuff you’d find in your grandmother’s trunk to amazing designers who’ll be big in Milan next year. You have to tiptoe around to avoid knocking over the books, or the huge piles of toy giraffes blocking the path. Not easy to find the perfect outfit in the chaos, but I have a seasoned pro with me.
Here, look, this would look good on you. Try it on. Yes, perfect. Take it. This too. The designer is so cool. He makes clothes with these huge wooden buttons on them. That one, though, too big, hangs all crooked. What�
�s most important is that your clothes fit you properly. You know what I mean? I’ve won a day of shopping with a personalized stylist. Two of them, actually. Adriana and Matías seem to think I’m behind the times.
They throw a bunch of clothes at me that I don’t even have time to look at. They’re on a mission of utmost importance: get Chloé dressed before she pulls out her Power Rangers shirt that smells like mothballs. Or worse, something from last season.
Adriana met a guy yesterday. Another one. He spent the night thinking she was great. She won’t call him. He won’t call her either. He flirted just enough to make her give in. She held him off long enough for him to take up the challenge. She tells me this as she rips the polish off of her nails. To play into this dance of bodies, you have to make this mutual pact—pretend it’s true, that it’s serious, but still accept that it’ll be over tomorrow.
Simple things always end up complicated. They’re scary. She must believe in the balance of the universe and convince herself that somewhere along the way, happiness leads to shittiness. So she pretends that the present is good enough for her.
Matías isn’t talking. He looks like he’s looking out for something, or someone, right in front of him. He hasn’t touched his juice. Without warning, he jumps behind us and crouches down to hide. He pokes his head out every fifteen seconds to check if he’s been seen. He looks ridiculous. I don’t know what he’s hiding from, but he’d be less obvious if he were jumping around waving a big red flag.
I like to think he’s hiding from a ruthless mercenary. Matías’s men, the few that I’ve seen, are straight out of a fashion magazine. When I see one, I have to repress the urge to reach out and touch him, scratch him, to see if the wax will pill on him, like those apples you buy out of season that are a little too red.
I never have time to get to know them enough to check, to scratch their arm and see what comes off, I don’t do it. The other morning, he locked one out. Poor guy came to see me to ask me to come down with him. I didn’t think to tell him that someday, he would find love.
The one standing in front of us is handsome, but not like a red waxed heart. He’s kind of scary, even though he must weigh 135 pounds soaking wet holding a brick. He scares Matías too, apparently. His nails suddenly dig into my shoulders. Matías whispers to us, that’s my ex, we’re still in love, but one of these days we’re gonna kill each other. Last time, at a party, he said he wanted to get back together, and we couldn’t keep our hands off each other and, at the end of the night, I went home with someone else without explaining myself. I never called him back, even after he left me 13 voicemails.
I burst out laughing. I can’t help it.
Matías and his blond angel. A cow being led to the slaughter, resigned, by a sadistic child wearing shorts and a striped shirt. A shiver crawls up my back as I watch them leave. I can still feel Matías’s nails digging into my neck and shoulders, his joints locked. I don’t know anything about their past, but I imagine it goes on and on, endlessly vindictive, with low blows, possessive love, jealousy, and tears, and a few good times sprinkled in. Because there has to be a reason it keeps going. They stay stuck on it, without really knowing why, and maybe they’re right.
Matías turns to us, pleading. We give him the nicest look we can, to encourage him. I won’t ever see the blond angel again.
I ran marathons every day down the long, dead-end hallways of my adolescence. When a boy got close and tried to love me, I pushed him away, trying to get out while I could. Love was the worst of all words. The word that didn’t forgive. The word that needed to be avoided at all costs if you wanted to stay alive. He must have been crazy, the boy who hadn’t learned that yet.
The boss keeps pacing back and forth between the theatre and the street. He doesn’t look at me as he passes by my counter. I try to capture his shitty attitude on paper. Make yourself useful instead of screwing around, come help us! I didn’t know helping build the set for the new play was part of my job description.
We have to take the seats out and replace them with these big cubes. They’re yellow and red, dirty, we’ll have to clean them too. The chairs fold up, take that end, we push them to a door, a new play, all set, bits of wood, cans of paint. ¿Venís? Apparently he’s physically incapable of not mumbling. I feel like taking his fat face in my hands and tickling him, but I’m not sure he’d appreciate that.
Emilio won’t stop fidgeting. It’s his play that’s being put on, the first he’s ever written and directed from start to finish. He’s worried about how the audience will react. He wants every single line to be understood, for them to feel the depth behind even the most trivial parts. Did he do a good job?
I don’t know if it’s because he feels bad about the set-up debacle, but the boss comes by my counter right before the play starts. Everything in order at the front desk? I saved you a seat if you want, on the left just as you come in.
It’s the first time I see something that someone I know has created, in a real theatre. And not just any theatre. I sit on one of the cubes that I busted my ass to set up and try to catch the audience members’ eyes as if to boast to them, you know, I know the director. Milking the fame he doesn’t even have yet. On the verge of giving up, a drink in hand, while a complete stranger gloats about their New York friend’s extraordinary exhibit, I’ll talk about how Emilio put on an experimental play at the Galpón that’s managed to redefine the essence of art. A magical evening, I have no words to describe it. A shame you couldn’t be there. His approach is fascinating. A triumph the likes of which we haven’t seen in years. I wouldn’t be surprised if this were to launch a brilliant international career.
I’ll emphasize the ‘a’ in ‘fascinating’ every bit as much as they stress the ‘x’ in ‘extraordinary.’
The scenes play out one by one, rhythmically. A woman runs from one end of the stage to another. The play takes place on all sides at once, sometimes right in the middle of the audience. Maybe the story is supposed to take place in the future? The people sitting on some of the cubes stand up, they’re actors. Others take their place. A guy I recognize from somewhere takes notes, holds his pen in the air when he isn’t writing. I don’t see Emilio, he’s probably backstage biting his nails. Funny idea, having people practically sit on the floor like that, on seats without backs.
A gong rings out, and six actors stand up, facing us in silence. They take off their clothes and throw them into the room. Their skin green under the white light. They stare at the audience for a few long, awkward minutes. Enough to create a palpable uneasiness that they stretch out even longer. A couple of soft coughs in the audience. An actor finally emerges from backstage, dressed as a robot. Another bang of the gong, and the six start acting again, naked, like nothing happened.
Emilio, the cast, the boss, their friends, they’re all here. The robot too. He’s cute underneath all that makeup. Very cute, actually. Even with the little bit of eyeliner left under one of his eyes. He asks my name, sits close to me, whispers sweet nothings into my ear. Ezequiel. I blush, I don’t know what else to do. Pitchers arrive, that awful server from the tea garden too.
¡Caaariño fue fantástico, estupendo! ¡Qué genio que sos! And she plants an obnoxious kiss on Emilio’s lips, leaving red marks behind. Speechless for a moment, he finally says gracias, Gloria. Gloria, right, that’s her name. She looks at me. Glares at me, more like. Finally she places me, I get a half-smile.
Gloria. She takes me back to that lily-scented garden. Cold, arrogant, feline. The only woman from this country that I’ve exchanged a few words with. Ezequiel fills my glass and taps me on the shoulder, ¿querida, te quedaste colgada? Yes, lost in thought. The air is heavy and dark. We raise our glasses. I like bars where everyone’s squished together.
How cold is it where you come from? I’m startled. Ezequiel’s hand slides onto my knee, even though he’s pretending to be passionately engaged in the co
nversation next to us. I wasn’t expecting Gloria to talk to me. Ezequiel has the name of a prophet.
A name that makes the room shake, that’ll end up in history books. Gloria is waiting for an answer, maybe she’s genuinely curious about my polar country? Where I come from, it’s so cold your nostrils stick together and, um, your eyelashes too. I point at my lashes. I confuse them with the word for eyebrows. She corrects me, another smile. I can’t tell if it’s forced or not. I think I’m gonna visit, one of these days. But I’m scared of the cold, and the bears. Are there a lot of bears? She mimics a bear.
Ezequiel suggestively whispers in my ear that Canadian bears don’t scare him, lets his hand slide up along my lower back and then goes over to join a group of friends who’ve come to congratulate him.
Emilio is beaming. The premiere is out of the way, he survived. I try to see if there’s anything left of his fingernails. There’s a constant swirl around him. Gloria throws a couple of looks his way. He’s busy holding hands with a girl I’ve never seen before. He pulls her onto his lap and says something in her ear. The bare shoulder of the girl right in front of his eyes. Her face gets closer and closer to Emilio’s. Is he only seeing Gloria?
To my right, a discussion gets heated. Alone among a bunch of strange faces, with the familiar ones all busy or gone, I have to be charming, brilliant, dazzling.
They single me out. I’m rich. Oh really. Life is so easy, isn’t it, far away from home. Throughout their conversation, my new friends keep saying, you know, for people like us in the third world. Ah, the third world. On the other side of the equator, the champagne flows like a river and people are so happy, sure. I can choose which country I want to live in. They talk about their poverty with an arrogance, a pride that’s hard to take seriously. There are poor people here. Too many of them.
In the End They Told Them All to Get Lost Page 5
