by Iosi Havilio
I peeked out. The armchair was destroyed and near the chimney there is still a hole today, about the size of a grapefruit, the source of which no one will ever guess. Jaime poked through what remained of the chair with the tip of the gun and discovered the decapitated rat in a corner. He was dripping sweat and I wasn’t sure that he hadn’t been crying a bit too.
Embarrassed, Jaime went to the kitchen to get a shovel without looking at me. He scooped up the animal, covered it with rubble and went out of the house with the shovel in his hand. He took it far away. And he stayed outside, he must have been thinking or smoking, because it took him half an hour to return.
I went back to the fireside and managed to revive the flames just before they went out. It was going to be a long night.
TWENTY-SIX
In the same way that Boca’s gruff shouts a few days ago had woken us to the fire devouring half the stable, not so much a loss for Jaime as a way to bury the horse for good, Eloísa was dragging us from our sleep by clapping her hands on the veranda. This time it was during siesta, a longer siesta than usual.
Jaime had brought out a box full of photos, which we had begun to look through as we lay on the bed. Old photos, almost sepia, from when the two Jaimes were young. At the racetrack, in the colony, at the stable door, by the side of the road. Jaime was a young man, not yet forty, with a moustache and ridiculous sideburns, his hair slicked back tightly with gel or pomade. He had an intense gaze, proud and macho. We came across a blurred photo of Jaime and a very pale woman with a kind face, raising their glasses in a restaurant with hams hanging down from the ceiling. Jaime and his wife, the wife he never mentions. He held the photo between his fingers for three long seconds without speaking. Perhaps he was waiting for me to ask about her, but the truth is I didn’t particularly want to find out. He kept passing me photos, in colour or black and white, every single one he had, photos of men posing with their arms around each other, Jaime in the middle, the countryside always there in the background. Afterwards, before he did, I fell asleep.
Eloísa clapped again and the echo of her hands colliding made the sheets vibrate. It was quarter to eight. Jaime stretched towards the window without getting out of bed, raised the blinds, and was met by Eloísa’s face in close-up at the window. A slightly out-of-focus Eloísa, seen through the mosquito net, tinted yellow by the light of the veranda. Poor Jaime, silently exasperated, flopped back onto the mattress.
‘It’s for you,’ he said, after a very theatrical pause.
I was always touched by the way that Eloísa, in spite of everything, in spite of herself, maintained certain customs of the countryside, such as clapping to announce her presence when she arrived at someone’s house. The thing is that Eloísa, deep down, was a simple country girl, and sometimes she forgot that.
I went into the kitchen, switched on the light, pushed open the door with my naked toes and felt the damp bricks of the veranda cold against my soles. Barely visible, standing with her back to me at the edge of the shaft of light, Eloísa lit a cigarette. Hi, she said and half turned, playing mysterious but betraying herself with that smile, crude, sweet and perverse all at once. She was wearing an outfit of black leather, half trashy, half cowboy, decorated with tassels, also leather, which fluttered at her sides. She liked me looking at her that way, with a mixture of amazement and complicity, and she widened her smile to reveal all her teeth, releasing a mouthful of smoke.
‘I’ve got the motorbike,’ she said. ‘Guido lent it to me for a few hours, until one.’
When I went back into the kitchen, Jaime was shaking up a fresh gourd of maté next to the kettle, which was engulfed in flames. Waiting for me to say something, playing dumb. I didn’t say anything, I went into the bathroom and peed quickly, splashed my face with cold water to wake me up, avoiding the mirror, and took two small jumps into the bedroom to put on the first thing I could find, without switching on the light.
‘You’re off out, then,’ Jaime confirmed, testing the maté with a few preliminary sucks at the straw.
‘For a while,’ I said, ‘just for a ride.’
And I added:
‘Her brother lent her the motorbike.’
Jaime overemphasised a sigh, his eyes loaded with irony, as if he were obliged to be happy about it too.
The motorbike’s headlight suddenly hit me face on. I felt my way forward a few metres, dazzled by the ring of light that refused to be eclipsed by my body.
‘Are you going like that?’ Eloísa complained from the darkness.
‘What do you mean, like that?’
‘With that blouse.’
‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘I don’t know, it’s a bit strange, a bit old.’
She was right, this fabric printed with red and yellow roses didn’t go very well with her attire. I hadn’t noticed, but now that I could see myself properly, it did look a bit strange, as if from another era, a bit American Midwest. Let’s go, I said, it’s night-time, who’s going to notice?
Eloísa offered me the only helmet she had. I put it on without thinking. We drove through the village at full speed, without exchanging a single word. I let her take me, putting my arms around her waist, my head compressed, my feet almost constantly in the air, unable to stay put on the footrests for long.
We came out onto the main road. Eloísa livened up. She drove safely, a bit madly, but safely. Several times she overtook the cars in front, so that those coming in the opposite direction flashed their lights at us. Pure adrenaline.
In the middle of nowhere, who knows where, Eloísa stopped the motorbike on the verge.
‘How’s it going? All right back there?’
I nodded the helmet. Eloísa took out a pre-rolled joint from one of the pockets of her leather suit. She looked like a guy.
‘Later I’m going to call Guido and tell him that we ran out of fuel and we’ve got no readies …’ she said, drowning the last word in a first noisy drag. ‘Then we can go home when we want.’
I laughed. I don’t know why. She did too. We smoked the joint in less than three minutes, without speaking. We were in a hurry.
The rest of the journey was a wild race, a race with certain obstacles that Eloísa took great care to avoid, as if it were a matter of life and death. Cars, lorries, barriers, traffic lights and even the signals of a policeman at a road patrol: Eloísa kept going, braking only when she had to, it was all a matter of looking ahead.
We went through the centre of Pilar in search of a bar that Eloísa knew. She had been there once, but she couldn’t remember exactly where it was.
‘Of course, I was very drunk when I left,’ she explained and let out a cackle as she turned to face forwards again.
Eventually we found it. The place was a long corridor: on the right, a string of tables seating two or three, on the left, a bar with a series of swivelling stools attached to the floor and, at the back, a circular dance floor. A blackboard announced happy hour until midnight. It wasn’t even ten, we had more than enough time.
‘Two fernet and cokes,’ said Eloísa without asking me.
There was a basketball game being shown on the telly, which, as we discovered later, was the world final. For a good while, as the drinks flowed, we followed the ups and downs of the game quite attentively and it turned out to be much more entertaining than I would ever have thought.
We got drunk quickly. Meanwhile, the bar emptied and, in less than an hour, filled up again with new people. Couples, groups of three or four boys, groups of girls, more numerous, up to five or six, mostly teenagers. Eloísa was excited by what was going on around her and didn’t ever call Guido to tell him about the bike. At some point, two lads of no more than eighteen approached us, without much conviction. Hi, said one. Can we sit down, asked the other. And Eloísa, who’s an expert in these things, sent them packing with three words: We’re fine, thanks, she said. The boys looked at each other, they laughed and left.
A few minutes before twelve, Eloísa dre
w a circle in the air around our drinks with her index finger, then pointed upwards. The barman understood immediately: another round of fernet, just in time to make the most of happy hour. The barman was almost completely bald, twice as old as the oldest person in the bar at that moment. Tanned skin, a ring through his left earlobe, bulging, green eyes, spanned by one single brow, and a faded denim shirt that he surely must have worn when he still had hair.
We spent a good while discussing whether Eloísa should stay in Open Door or move to the capital. Both options had their pros and cons. I was losing the thread of the conversation a bit. Every so often, the barman approached us, throwing some comment in the air for our entertainment. Initially Eloísa was aloof, but eventually, I don’t know exactly when, she began to laugh at the guy’s nonsense.
I went to the toilets to sober up a bit. I spent something like ten minutes sitting on a lavatory with the cubicle door locked shut. Three girls of fifteen or sixteen had installed themselves in front of the mirror to touch up their make-up, fix their hair and do some lines of coke. And they talked about it, about how they felt, about the drug, about what it did to you. One of them, the quietest, had never snorted cocaine. The other two convinced her with all kinds of arguments. That nothing bad would happen, that it was like a buzz, that she would feel different, really alert. I didn’t want to leave my cubicle. I didn’t want to see their faces, or surprise them, so I decided to wait until they left.
In the bar, Eloísa and the barman were arm wrestling. For an instant, I didn’t know whether to join them or keep going. I kept going. I sat on a chair near the entrance, next to a table filled with empty beer bottles. I needed some air. I closed my eyes for a while, without falling completely asleep. Until I fell completely asleep.
When I woke, the place was full. Around me, I saw only pieces of bodies, backs, arms, legs, all squashed up against each other, like on a Japanese metro.
I left the bar. It was gone four-thirty. The motorbike was still there, chained to a lamp post. I settled myself on the seat, resigned to giving her all the time in the world. But no: Eloísa appeared in a few minutes. She came from behind and covered my eyes with her hands.
Bet you can’t guess where I’ve been, she said, but I was too tired and left her hanging.
Without a helmet and the wind full in my face, the return journey seemed much shorter than the way there. At the roadside, a dense layer of mist overshadowed the countryside: pure phantasmagoria.
Arriving in Open Door, as the combination of the joint, alcohol and exhaustion was conspiring in my head and my only concern was finding something to swallow to lessen my headache and getting to sleep as soon as possible, Eloísa accelerated and turned round to give me a kiss. We were at the level crossing. She kissed me, and we went flying.
I opened my eyes, scratching at the dirt in the deep ditch. I was shaking. The first thing I saw were the giant silos silhouetted in the night, too close. I wanted to take off the helmet but I wasn’t wearing it. It was my head that weighed so heavily. I bit wet grass and filled my lungs with cold, corrosive air. I had the feeling that if I stretched out my arm I could grab the handlebars of the motorbike, fallen on the tarmac. The bike blocked my view of everything else. I pulled myself up slightly. What I hadn’t been able to see was two bodies. Two inert bodies, one close by, the other further away. Two bodies instead of one. The body closest to me began to move, right in the middle of the road, encased in black leather. The other raised its head and part of its chest above the edge of the ditch, in a perfectly straight line in front of me. Eloísa finished raising herself and sat where she was, her gaze lost in the direction of the colony. I brought my legs together very slowly and drew them in towards me, tentatively, as if they were someone else’s. My right knee was skinned to a fiery red. Now I understood the word burn.
We got up at the same time, lacking the courage to look at each other and, together, we approached the other, unexplained body. It was an older man, about Jaime’s age, or more. The little hair he had was tousled, his arms hidden under his chest, his shoes submerged in a pool of mud and his mouth half open in a rigid, disgusted grimace. Eloísa hugged me, sobbing, reminding me that she was just a girl.
The man was breathing. In truth, he was blowing and each gasp shook the blades of grass that were moulded onto his face. Suddenly he let out a thin whine followed by a convulsion. He opened his eyes. Two deep wells, injected with all the blood in his head. He stared at us, embarrassed. He was short and solidly built. He was in a bad way, on his last legs. He couldn’t have been drunker. When he tried to stand, he nearly lost his balance and fell. But he righted himself immediately, standing firm with his feet on the bed of the channel, and rummaged in his trouser pockets for a crushed packet of cigarettes, which he patiently moulded back into shape. He removed one, asked for a light with a clumsy gesture and took a couple of drags, looking around him aimlessly. Eloísa peeled herself off me, calm once more. The man was about to speak. Eloísa looked for her own packet of cigarettes, she asked me for a light as well and the two glowing embers gave us a little light.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Huret. Lunatics, work and play.
‘As far as the lunatics’ regime is concerned, it consists of mild and abundant food, agreeable work and recreation, walks, games in the open air, indoor games, theatre, dances, cinema, etc.
‘All the lunatics work according to their capabilities and skills, provided they wish to do so. They are not forced to work. They may be encouraged, where possible, with the promise of a reward to their taste, for example tobacco. And indeed work is one of the principal elements of the cure. Some occupy themselves making brooms, others apply themselves to carpentry; bricklayers work at their trade. A French gardener, also a lunatic, creates flowerbeds in front of our eyes. Blacksmiths, locksmiths, carpenters, tailors and bakers work from morning to night, some single-mindedly, others dreaming, according to the temperament of each.’
It was my birthday yesterday and Jaime gave me a Walkman. I wasn’t going to tell him, but later it occurred to me that perhaps it would improve the relationship and make him forget about the incident with Eloísa. And so it was. We need to celebrate, he said, with the widest smile I’ve ever seen on his face. He called the hospital and told them that he wouldn’t be going in because his lawnmower was broken. We got into the truck, crossed the village and joined the main road.
‘I want to apologise for the other day,’ says Jaime, ‘the thing with the girl, it was nonsense, you’re right, she’s just a kid, she can’t be more than fifteen, right?’
He spoke without looking at me, his fingers interlaced at the top of the steering wheel, eyes glued to the tarmac. He took advantage of a short silence to overtake a tractor that was driving with two wheels on the verge and the other two on the road, and concluded:
‘You get these silly things in your head and you can waste your whole life on this stuff.’ Jaime drove on happily, proud of what he had just said.
We must have covered about 20 kilometres when, after passing a deserted level crossing, Jaime left the main road. He turned onto a gravel track that opened up without warning on the left and in less than a minute we were surrounded by countryside. Still silent, biting back an anxious smile, he accelerated as much as the engine would allow, using the rattling noises to keep the surprise he’d prepared for me under wraps. We paused for a few seconds at the foot of a slope the truck struggled to climb and when we arrived at the top, an immense lake appeared in front of us, filling the entire landscape. Jaime relaxed, and I thanked him for the present with a kiss on the cheek. We went on a few metres and stopped next to a brick hut, as precarious as it was unlikely. I’ll be right back, said Jaime and reappeared a few minutes later with a bottle in one hand, half a loaf of bread and an extremely long salami in the other.
‘Local wine, farmhouse bread and handmade salami,’ he said, holding up our lunch on the other side of the window.
We ate our picnic by the lake and I told myself
again that, despite everything, he was a good man and if I wanted to I could still fall in love with him.
On the return trip, Jaime insisted on giving me a present.
‘I don’t know, I can’t think of anything,’ I said honestly.
‘There must be something, something you like or need.’
I indulged him and said that I wanted a Walkman.
‘To listen to music while I’m out walking,’ I explained.
For an instant, Jaime fell silent, as if I’d said something wrong, something offensive. But he quickly became himself again.
‘Let’s go to the shopping centre,’ he said, seriously, ‘they must have one there.’
After the shopping centre, we returned to the farm, made love and slept a long siesta that lasted until quarter to seven. I woke up suddenly, frightened. Jaime was sprawled across the bed, one foot imprisoning my right leg. The bedside lamp next to him was switched on. I extracted my leg carefully, trying not to wake him, and left the room with my sandals in my hand. On the kitchen table was a package that for a moment I didn’t recognise. It was the Walkman in its box, still wrapped and unused. It made me happy to think that it was still my birthday and that there was still time to visit Eloísa and tell her. She would surely suggest a toast, almost certainly with beer.
I’d had a nice day, better than I expected, especially since I hadn’t expected anything at all. I thought about the lake, the wine and the salami, the return journey, the trip to the shopping centre in search of my present, that fantastic hour spent comparing Walkmans, the cake and coffee in the food court, the cloud of dust raised by the truck as we passed the door of the shop, the afternoon of calm sex, Jaime’s expression, a smile on his face all day. I opened the box, discarding the instruction manual, and unrolled the headphone cables, connected it and switched it on. Nothing, not even a hum, utter silence. I pressed all the buttons without achieving anything. It took me a long minute to think of batteries. I checked in all the drawers. I found candles, rolls of tinfoil, red envelopes of rat poison, two identical lighters, a box with a few toothpicks, a load of corks, playing cards, bits of steel wool, screws, three loose cloves of garlic, a paintbrush, more poison and not a single battery. I was on the verge of giving up when I lifted my gaze and by chance saw a mini juicer, practically a toy, which Jaime had bought a few weeks ago for me to make orange juice. I dismantled it in seconds and took the batteries.
