Necropolis

by Santiago Gamboa

  As I was thinking this a doctor came out and walked toward me, Mademoiselle Vedovelli? I found it hard to look at him, my hands were shaking like wires, and he said, the vital signs are slow and there’s a loss of motor functions, but his brain is still working. In other words: your friend is in a coma. Now I need you to tell me exactly what happened, but I started crying again and said, he did it deliberately and it’s all my fault, I was unfaithful to him and he found out, that’s the truth, doctor, he’s been injecting heroin ever since I met him and he already had an overdose in New York a few months ago; he knew the right quantity to take to be safe, he wasn’t some street junkie, no, monsieur, he was a refined addict, believe me, but the doctor interrupted me and said, mademoiselle, don’t talk about him in the past tense, he’s still alive, and my hands started shaking again, the doctor had noticed that I was burying Kay, finishing him off, maybe because of his responsibility in my rape or because he had abandoned me, I don’t know, there are ways of hurting someone, resentment is the strongest thing that can unite two people, even two people who love each other and because they love each other they mistreat and destroy each other, which is something we have in our cells, like the need to reproduce or to feel pleasure, anyway, the doctor said that the best thing I could do was to go home, it was three in the morning, if there was any change they’d call me on my cell phone.

  I left the hospital and walked as far as the Gare d’Austerlitz. Opposite, I found a brasserie open and ordered a glass of Sancerre. Then I walked down to the banks of the Seine. It was raining and the brown water was churning under the bridge and I thought about how good it would be to jump, once and for all, to leave behind the contradictions and the guilt, which was like ivy that had attached itself to my skin and was about to choke me. I stayed there for a while; then I carried on as far as Bastille, which at that hour was full of drunken young people coming out of the boîtes de nuit on Rue de la Roquette, and from there to Rue Oberkampf, where the memories, Kay’s smell, and the most terrifying solitude were waiting for me.

  That night I couldn’t get to sleep. I drank part of a bottle of tequila and smoked a little grass, but they didn’t help. My hands were clammy with cold sweat and my heart was racing, so, in desperation, I had an idea to take myself away from the horror . . . I knew where the heroin was, so I prepared a line and snorted it, calculating half of what he usually took. Imme­diately the apartment disappeared, and so did Paris, and so did I, and at last I felt calm.

  I woke up the next day feeling strange. I was on the carpet, like my cousin Giorgetta, and I could see the view under the couch, which was something I’d never seen before. Dust, rusty springs, old cigarette butts and, right at the back, two tiny antennae, moving. It was a cockroach. I watched it tenderly and followed its rapid movements across the dust, and I said to it, little animal, help me settle a question, will you? The cockroach did an about-turn, retraced its steps, and stopped, moving its antennae, and I said, where do you think we go after we die? have you ever thought about that? The cockroach gave another complete turn and again stopped, this time closer to my face, and I said, do you think there’s life after death? do you believe in reincarnation and that kind of thing? and I said, I’d like to believe in something, I’d really like to believe that we get a second chance, and I mean that, my friend, sometimes our intentions are good but it’s the lack of experience that ruins us, or other people’s wickedness, oh, little animal, I don’t know if these things happen in your world, under the armchairs and in the drains, but I tell you this, that in my world wanting a little joy sometimes leads you to do harm, it’s hard to believe, I know, if you tighten a rope at one end it may break at the other, which is absurd but true, anyway, I’m boring you, I don’t know anything about you, I don’t even know if you have feelings, I’d like it if you did because I think you might understand me, right now I feel that I’m like you, that I’m walking in the dust and the rusty springs, moving my antennae alone, very alone in this world, just as you must be . . . The cockroach, disturbed by the air shifted by my voice, stood up on its hind feet, did an about-turn and scuttled off to the wall, and before I could say anything disappeared through a crack and I was alone again, so I dragged myself to the table, where the bag of heroin was, and prepared two more lines, and in this way three days passed.

  Every time I woke up, the anguish and the guilt overwhelmed me, they were waiting for me, like the couch and the dust on the floor. But what never came back was my friend with the antennae, which really upset me, and when the drugs were finished, there was a moment of anguish, but I overcame it and went to the shower, gave myself a good wash, dressed and went to my drama school, but unfortunately the door was shut, and I thought, what could have happened here? I started knocking, louder and louder, until somebody opened and said, it’s Sunday, mademoiselle, the school is closed. I stepped back, incredulous, as far as the curb. Something very bad might have happened if a passer-by hadn’t grabbed me by the arm and said, be careful, there are cars passing. I looked at him and realized that my brain was far away, I could see he was young, but I couldn’t focus on his face.

  Instead, I thought I saw Fito, my mother’s Mexican lover, a little devil leaping around me in a purple cape. I pushed him away, crying, let go of me! and ran to the corner, but no sooner did I take two steps than I bumped into a bicycle and fell to the ground. Another man approached, only now it was Stef, Kay’s brother, with the other rapists; I cried out desperately and hugged the bicycle to stop them hurting me, until some strong hands lifted me and I closed my eyes and lost consciousness.

  I woke up two days later in the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital. A fairly young doctor asked me how I was feeling and I said, where am I? what happened? He leaned toward my ear and said, you can’t continue taking so many drugs, young lady, you had the DTs but it’s stopped now, your blood test shows you’re new to this, so I’d like you to stay with us for a few days, because we don’t want you to relapse when you leave here, and I said, that’s good, I only want you to help me to call somebody; I gave him the number of the doctor in the other hospital, where Kay was, and when I called that doctor he said, there’s no change, he’s still in a coma, try to think of something else and I’ll keep you informed, and I replied, that’s what I’m trying to do, think of something else, but it isn’t easy, I’ll call again.

  I left the hospital two days later and returned home, but as I entered my throat filled up again with something sour and foul-smelling. I threw up in the bathroom, expelling a yellow liquid the smell of which made me retch even more, so I opened the faucet and put my head under it.

  Then I went to the drama school, looked for Petra, and asked him for money. He gave it to me in return for a blow job in the bathroom. He said he would like to see me in the evening sometimes. He was married but we could go to a hotel, and I said, sure, whatever you like, as long as you pay me. I gave him my cell phone number, returned home and called Joel, Kay’s dealer. I asked how much a gram of heroin cost and he said, for you a hundred and twenty euros. Bring me a gram and a half, I said.

  Four days later, I called Petra on his cell phone. I told him I urgently needed five hundred euros and he said, look, I’m just a university teacher. I told him he could save on a hotel if he came to my apartment. I opened the windows and took out the garbage, which was already reeking. In the refrigerator the tomatoes were growing fungus and there was some margarine that had turned green. I threw everything in a plastic bag and took it down to the trash. I looked for clean sheets and as there weren’t any I ironed one I’d been using for a while. I cleaned the bathroom.

  An hour later Petra arrived, gave me the five hundred euros and said, I don’t have much time today, promise me that for the same money I’ll be able to come here twice more. I said yes and lay down on the bed. I took out his penis and sucked it. Then I said: I’m your slave, do with me as you please. He sucked my clitoris and my anus and my tits, sodomized me, and finally came in my mouth. He went away well satisfied.
As soon as I heard him go out, I called Joel and said, bring me two grams, and on the way drop by a supermarket and buy ham, bread, and a Coke.

  Kay was still in a coma.

  I went to see him every two or three days, sat down beside him, and thought about the miserable life we had and how much I loved him. Being by his side, I remembered an old movie and decided to tell him the story of it, which I did to ease my guilt about the drugs and everything else.

  Time passed, and one day Petra approached me with rather an unusual proposition. A job for which I’d be paid a thousand euros, but I wouldn’t be told what I would have to do until I got there, and I thought, a thousand euros? who would pay a thousand euros for a fuck? what will it be? a gang rape, a lesbian scene, sex with a donkey or a chimpanzee? Anything was possible, but by now nothing fazed me anymore, so we went to a building in the sixteenth arrondissement, climbed the stairs, and Petra greeted an elderly lady in Romanian, but didn’t introduce me to her.

  We walked along a dark corridor and I started to notice strange things. Although the building was respectable enough, the apartment itself was old, with peeling walls; I wondered who the lady was and why we were there, but as I was about to ask, Petra looked at me and lifted a finger to his lips, quiet! he said, we mustn’t talk too much, you’ll see, it’ll be over very soon. We walked through a hall and reached a bedroom in which there was an adjustable bed, the kind you find in hospitals, and Petra said, if you don’t want to do it we’ll leave immediately, it’s something quite simple, a forty-year-old man suffering from Down’s syndrome, the lady is his mother, don’t make that face, there’s no danger, it’s only a mental condition. Like anyone who has a penis between his legs, he needs to find an outlet for his sexual impulses, and that’s why you’re here, if you accept the mission and the thousand euros.

  So I said, O.K., you want me to have sex with a mentally retarded man, is that right? Yes, said Petra. Alright, I said, but for a thousand euros I could only give him a blow job, it’s all a bit awkward, I’m young and it might affect me psychologically, so it’s going to cost more, and Petra said, O.K., wait, and he went to talk to the old lady. After a while they both came and asked me how much I wanted and I said, two thousand euros, not a cent less. All right, I’ll go and fetch him, said the lady. The thirty seconds it took for them to bring him were the longest in my life; at last he arrived and I saw him: a mongol with gray hair and squinty eyes. They had undressed him, and a nurse was nudging him forward. He was making these desperate sounds, and it was quite a while before I realized they were words and not just noise. He was also waving his arms and trying to hide his face in his mother’s breast. You can get undressed now, mademoiselle, we’re ready, said the nurse; as I started to take my clothes off, with my back to the group, I thought of Kay and of the scribbled note and I told myself that this was a punishment, and that after it I would feel clean again.

  A cry from the man brought me back to reality: I had taken off my panties and he had seen my ass. His mother and the nurse were struggling to subdue him. His penis was already erect, so I kneeled on the mattress, with my back to him, and said, I’m ready, but his mother whispered in my ear, wait a minute, young lady, I’m paying you two thousand euros, so you’ll have to do more than that, and she pointed at his penis. I understood what she wanted and moved my mouth closer to his body, which was hairless, like a giant baby’s, and started sucking, closing my eyes and repeating in my mind, I’m not here, I’m not here, but the man’s cries were fierce, as were his gestures. The mother and the nurse were finding it hard to restrain him. After a moment, the nurse touched my shoulder and said, mademoiselle, you can change position now, turn your back to him again. It would have been worse face to face, this way it was easier. They moved him closer, the nurse guided him, and they helped him put it in. Mother Nature did her job, since no sooner did he feel that he was inside than he began to rock backwards and forwards. It must be an instinctive reflex of the species, like sucking your mother’s breast, and so he went on for a while until his cries grew in intensity and he ejaculated outside of me with the help of the nurse, who had taken his member out first to avoid problems. Then he collapsed on the mattress, as if his muscles had deflated; within a few seconds he was fast asleep and snoring.

  They took me to another room with a bath, and said, please have a wash. If you want to take a shower there’s no hurry, take your time, when you’re finished come into the living room. By the time I was dressed, Petra was waiting for me with the money. Before we left, the old lady said, thank you, mademoiselle, if you like I can ask for you again in a month, and I said, ask for me, and I’ll tell you if it’s possible at the time. The woman handed over ten two-hundred euro bills and squeezed my arm saying in a low voice, I know this can’t be easy for a young woman, but you have to understand, they’re human beings, too . . . I understand, I said, I’ll wait for your call, and went back down to the street with Petra.

  The next day was Saturday so I went to the hospital, I had a tremendous desire to be with Kay. I told him everything in his ear, whispered to him that I had had sex with a mentally retarded man for money, although I didn’t tell him it was for drugs; I said it was to arrange our apartment, to fill the vases with roses and the closet with wines from Bordeaux and Burgundy and fill the refrigerator with vegetable, and fruit, which was what the doctor had said he would have to eat when he woke up, and I said, I’m preparing for your return, my love, I feel you close to me, I know you’re there, you just have to break one thin membrane, I can feel it, you come and I’ll be ready, and so Saturday went by with me lying beside him, I had managed to sneak in some of the drug, so I snorted it in small doses, just to keep calm, and I felt happy, I swear, very happy in that room with a view of a parking lot and the overhead section of the metro line that goes from Charles de Gaulle to Nation. Through the window I could see the train passing in the distance, surrounded by smoke from the chimneys, and I imagined anxious women traveling in those carriages, longing to get home and have sex with the men they loved and cry out with joy between four dirty, peeling walls; and I also imagined disillusioned young girls looking for some kind of direction in their lives, girls who might have been raped, and might be thinking and thinking and feeling abused and guilty, the poor things, some of them might well be savoring the idea of sticking a needle in their veins to escape this den of iniquity; some might be looking up at the sky in the hope of seeing an igneous ball that would destroy everything once and for all, devour the city in a hurricane of fire, the colossal towers leaning and falling in clouds of dust and terrified people running through the rubble, choked by the smoke and the waves of heat, pushed toward nothingness by the winds of destruction, yes, a few lost young girls must be thinking all that, and things even worse that that, which the mind did not dare imagine, let alone say; I imagined them coming and going in the metro trains I could see from the window, with Kay breathing artificially beside me, and I felt protected, as if the world and its miseries could not enter this little room that smelled of disinfectant, this room where death prowled.

  When dusk arrived I was filled with a sensation of emptiness and silence, so I went to the bathroom and set up my two gray lines on the wash basin, and when night fell I started seeing the lights and thinking again of my young girls, how many of them must be fucking their men, listening to music by the Fugees and drinking tequila or gin from a bottle, and how many were hugging a telephone that wouldn’t ring and they knew it, with the bottle of pills open and a bottle of Vittel ready to swallow the lethal, liberating charge of fifty sleeping pills; and there must also be happy women leading clean lives, writing doctoral theses with the remains of pizzas or Chinese food beside them on their desks, and women cooking and looking after babies and watching the clock, calculating how long the sliced chicken and the potatoes and the leeks have been in the oven, and as they look at the hands of the clock trying to imagine what metro station their husband has reached on his way home, and thinking all these things I fe
ll asleep, hearing these voices emerging from the lights of the suburbs, and when I opened my eyes again everything had already gone black and all that remained was the weight of the night, the oppressive darkness, and the silence, and I could almost hear Kay’s blood flowing in his veins and I started again to put a little powder in my nasal septum and already the night was going and when I opened my eyes again it was Sunday morning and a nurse was coming in to take his blood pressure, to give him injections and change the serum; this activity disturbed me, so I left the room with the hope that this week would be the last and that very soon Kay and I would be reminiscing about it over laughter and a glass of wine.

  I don’t know how much time passed, I really don’t remember, but one day the doorbell rang, and when I opened it, with my heart leaping at the idea that it was Kay, I gave a cry of surprise, because it was . . . my cousin Giorgetta! and I cried out because she had changed a lot: her pink cheeks had turned glassy, with just a little flesh left around the bone. I was pleased to see her and we opened some of the bottles of wine I had been keeping for Kay, until she said, listen, you wouldn’t have a little…? I handed her a syringe and my case, and immediately we had a fix, although I only snorted, and we spent the night drinking and doing drugs, talking about the divine and the human, with long moments of silence, and the next day, already recovered, she said, Sabina, I’ve come to stay, there’s no work in Rome and my mother can’t stand me, she’s put me in clinics three times, I can’t go back, I’ve been so alone, you’re all I have.

  I looked at her and said, then you don’t have much, almost nothing in fact, I don’t have a job, the money from my mother’s boyfriend isn’t enough to live on, I have to go out looking for work, and Giorgetta asked, intrigued, and what is it you do? I told her about the mentally retarded guy and she thought it was an excellent solution. Of course, she said, that kind of person has the same needs, dips his wick just like the others, only they pay more, help me to find something like that, but I said, you have to take care of yourself, Giorgetta, you mustn’t give the impression you’re a mess, this is done with the patient’s mother and a nurse, so image is important, know what I mean? It’s a medical matter, the crazy guy has sex with you, you empty his testicles, and then you go and change, just as if you were a physical therapist. The mother may even invite you to have a cup of tea.