Rage

by Sergio Bizzio

  "I don't want an argument..."

  "I do! By this stage I absolutely do need an argument!"

  "Then have it with yourself. If you want to argue with me, first go and pull the chain. I want to take a shower."

  "Unbelievable."

  "My opinion entirely."

  "What's your problem with Ricardo, what's up with you? He's your daughter's husband! He's been married to her for nine years, he hasn't just parachuted in from the skies above. You know him. You know what he's like. The other fellow... well, all right he really was an idiot."

  "But he's the children's father..."

  "Only of one of them!"

  "The best one of them..." Senor Blinder said in a low voice.

  "You're so unfair," his wife reproached him. "Those children are also your grandchildren."

  "I've nothing at all to say about them! What does bother me is seeing how they put that lad down. It annoys me. What do you want me to do? Esteban loves him, he's his father and needs to see him... he has the right to see him..."

  "He's a drug addict."

  "That's a lie!" announced Senor Blinder. "They want to get rid of him. Hans would never touch drugs!"

  "Come off it, Marcos... he was put in prison, in Holland too. You know perfectly well that you have to be in possession of a pretty large quantity to get put inside in a country like Holland, don't you, eh?"

  "They framed him."

  "That's his story..."

  "And I believe it. It's political. Politics is the same the whole world over."

  Senora Blinder made a suggestive pause.

  "They released him. They must have their reasons," went on Senor Blinder. Under the Argentine military dictatorships he had endlessly reiterated his ideas based on no more than "they must have their reasons"; now the country was a democracy, he was saying "they must have their reasons". Denial of personal responsibility as superior mental entelechy.

  Senora Blinder had lost her appetite for an argument. She marched out of the bedroom and did not return, but Senor Blinder and Maria heard her pull the chain. Maria was convinced that Senora Blinder had given in to her husband through a process of attrition, while deeming it impossible to deal with a man like him. He was also certain that Senor Blinder loathed her, even if not quite as much as she detested him.

  14

  When Alvaro arrived, Maria was hidden in the kitchen annexe, observing a conversation taking place between Esteban and Rosa. It was eleven o'clock at night. The Blinders had finished their dinner and were taking their coffee in the living room, while the younger children were playing Tetris on a laptop.

  Esteban had installed himself in the kitchen. Every time Rosa returned from the dining room (she went to and fro bringing back dirty plates and setting the table for the midnight toast), Esteban exchanged a few words with her.

  Maria monitored the two situations at first hand, slipping from the kitchen annexe (where he could overhear without watching the exchanges between Esteban and Rosa), to the first floor (from where he could both watch and hear - at least in part - the scene involving the Blinders). He recognized a degree of complicity between Esteban and Rosa, in consequence of something that must have occurred quite a while back when Esteban was only ten or twelve years old; the issue was that now the lad was rather more grown up, he seemed set on converting complicity into union. And Rosa was leading him on, laughing under her breath and agreeing with whatever he said.

  Despite his jealousy, Maria stayed watching the scene being played out by the Blinders. Alvaro absorbed all his attention. He despised him. Alvaro was unusually - miraculously - sober, and to begin with, Maria found it hard to single him out: his voice sounded like someone else's.

  The first thing Alvaro did was to serve himself a brandy.

  "Have you eaten?" enquired his mother.

  "Like a pig," replied Alvaro.

  He explained he'd been to dinner at the house of a group of Alcoholics Anonymous members, and laughed as he related how they'd chased him around the table in order to gain access to his hip flask. They'd got hold of it. It now seemed, however, as if he was overcoming this setback with a vengeance: inside of ten minutes he'd downed two glasses of brandy. Protests from his mother and sister ensued, then faded to silence between the first and second glasses. They knew him, and there was nothing to be done.

  Half an hour later Alvaro had regained his customary tone of voice, discussing English football in short sentences, emphasizing the word hooligan, which didn't bother Ricardo, but did bother his father. Senor Blinder just sat there, his mouth open and his gaze fixed on an indeterminate point between his wife and daughter, who were leafing through a photo album.

  It was midnight. Christmas Day. Everyone rose and filed into the dining room. Alvaro wobbled over to the table in a series of zigzags; Ricardo uncorked a bottle of champagne while his wife shook their daughter, who had fallen asleep. Esteban reappeared just a minute before midnight, following Rosa, bearing a tray with the glasses on it. Senora Blinder invited them to clink glasses with her; afterwards they were free to do as they liked.

  "I told Claudia I'd come round to celebrate a bit at her place..." said Rosa.

  "If you want, you can phone and wish your mother a merry Christmas..." offered Senor Blinder.

  "Thank you very much, Senor. I'll ring her in a moment."

  Maria took the opportunity offered by the toast to go to the kitchen and help himself to dinner. Tonight he was generous to himself: he took several pasties, a large slice of roast meat, potatoes, ham, bread and a banana. He'd eaten nothing for the entire day. As he was about to withdraw he spotted a couple of empty wine bottles on the sideboard, sitting next to a half-dozen unopened bottles. Would Rosa notice if one went missing? Most likely she wouldn't; he took a bottle and set off for the attic. He carried the bottle in his left hand; in his right he bore the plate with everything else on it, including a knife and fork.

  Once in his room, he levered the cork out of the bottleneck with the knife, took a small sip of wine from the bottle, swilled it around his mouth, and swallowed it.

  "Merry Christmas," he told the rat, and took a larger swig.

  Next he settled himself down to eat. His plate held a heap of muddled food: the ham beneath the roast, with a pasty in the middle, the potatoes on top of the banana, altogether the result of too much hurry. He picked up the piece of ham and raised it to his lips. It was difficult to swallow. He was hungry, but Alvaro's presence effectively shut down his windpipe. In so far as he had managed to retain Alvaro in his line of vision, he hadn't taken his eyes off him for a second; he'd stared at him from the shadows with such fixation, it seemed extraordinary that Alvaro hadn't noticed him.

  He set the plate down to one side and pushed himself back on the bed with his heels, so that his back was shoved up against the wall. He felt nauseous. An electric shiver which ran downwards from his shoulders and another which rose from his waist met in the pit of his stomach, as if that were where his rage and his relaxation had chosen to clash. He half-closed his eyes.

  Then he heard a car horn, the voices of kids on the street, and felt his eyes must have closed in sleep a long, long time ago. He was confused. The rage he'd experienced towards the foreman that distant afternoon was as nothing compared with what he now felt towards Alvaro, and he wondered how he could have fallen asleep. He recalled having put a scrap of ham under the wardrobe for the rat... He had barely drunk a few sips of wine... He shook his head, and rapidly descended to the first floor.

  He had no idea of the time, but it had to be late: there was no one in the dining room, and the lights were turned off on the ground floor. He ran towards Rosa's room. He didn't dare open her door, but either heard - or believed he heard - her breathing, and knew she was asleep in there.

  The night had closed in; not a ray of light infiltrated from outside. Maria felt his way across the room from memory, reaching the Blinders' bedroom, and half-saw two motionless mounds in the bed, each completely separated
from the other.

  The kitchen clock showed twenty past three in the morning. He returned to the living room. He was tired, as if the hours he'd spent asleep had worn him out. He collapsed into an armchair.

  On Alvaro's last visit, Maria had overheard him saying that it was now six months since he'd had a cigarette. Yet there was definitely the smell of nicotine in the air. He leaned slowly forwards and felt around several butts in an ashtray on the rattan table. All had been smoked down to the filter except one. He picked it up and, rolling it between his fingers like a blind man, noted there was still an inch or two of cigarette left, and that it hadn't been stubbed but left to burn out: the paper was smooth, without rips in it. He lifted it to his lips.

  He didn't think of smoking it there. He put it between his lips intending to feel its shape, but what he felt was more nausea: the filter was still wet with Alvaro's saliva. He let it drop, curling his fingers in disgust, anxious only to cease physical contact with it.

  Suddenly he was aware of heavy breathing, almost snoring. He got up, then froze to the spot. A man was asleep in the armchair opposite him. He was at least five yards away, across the rattan table, all of a heap, his head lolling to the left. On the back of the chair, somewhat to the right of his head, his coat was dangling; one of the coat sleeves rested on his leg.

  Maria hauled himself up an inch at a time, and went over to the armchair; the minute hand on the kitchen clock moved faster than he did.

  It was Alvaro. Maria controlled his own breathing. Since the man was so undeniably Alvaro, he was on the point of leaving, but decided to give him another chance: he leaned forwards and put his hands to his throat. Alvaro shrugged his shoulders as if some minor nuisance - a fly, a draught - were bothering him.

  Maria applied more pressure. Then Alvaro opened his eyes and saw a totally nude stranger with his hands around his neck. The mixture of sleep, alcohol and the oddity of the situation raised a vague smile. He attempted to stand, but Maria knelt on his legs, immobilizing him, and increased the pressure on his throat.

  "Hello," he said.

  He pressed so hard he could hear the sound of small bones breaking.

  His attention was caught by Alvaro's docility, his utter lack of resistance, as if he were in a deathly trance, while preferring to believe he were only in a dream. A few moments later, Alvaro closed his eyes and his face disappeared. Maria assumed his face had turned so black that it had faded into the darkness. Then he suddenly released the pressure.

  He was sweating. A bead of perspiration dropped from the end of his nose; his hands and his arms were trembling. Now that he had killed Alvaro, he loathed him even more.

  He remained some time kneeling on Alvaro's legs, reproaching himself for having lacked the presence of mind to tell him that the man in the process of killing him was Rosa's boyfriend. Finally, he got up and went to sit down on the sofa. He was exhausted.

  "Right," he told himself, "what next?" He could open the kitchen door and take the keys, so the Blinders would assume the murderer had entered the house from outside, at some unknown hour of the night... perhaps seeking Ricardo's dollars, or Senora Blinder's jewels... He rejected the idea immediately: it was too risky to go into Ricardo's bedroom and steal the dollars, and the same applied to Senora Blinder's jewels. He lacked enough information on Alvaro's relationships with his family, or even outside of it, to try and fabricate the scenario for a crime of passion. In any case nobody would believe for more than a minute that Ricardo or Senor Blinder would be capable of murdering him: neither man had sufficient strength to strangle Alvaro, no matter how drunk he was. No one had the least suspicion as to his own presence inside the house either, so no one would be looking for him. In all likelihood, the police would convince themselves of either the one or the other of the two options he had already come up with, whether he left the doors open or not. Whichever it was, they would go over the house with a fine toothcomb, and they might even set up a base there, which would mean him expiring of thirst or hunger if he weren't discovered beforehand. The Blinders might even decide to decamp to a hotel, or to stay with friends, revolted or terrified by the murder. Then what would become of him... or of Rosa?

  All this flashed through his mind in the space of a sigh. In fact, from the time he collapsed onto the sofa till the point when he got moving again, some five or six minutes had elapsed. He'd done no more than recover his breath and his strength: now he knew what he was going to do, he had no need of further thought. He had had an idea and, to judge from the speed with which he wiped the sweat from his body, it was a work of genius.

  He went upstairs to his room.

  On hearing him arrive, the rat jumped off the bed and lazily, confidently, headed for the cupboard. Maria picked up the plate of food he'd left on the bed a few hours earlier and left the room again.

  He still had enough nerve to make a detour to the kitchen to check the time on the wall clock. He had been under the impression that day was dawning, but it was five in the morning. The sky had cleared, admitting a fraction more light, that was all. He had plenty of time before day broke. Nonetheless, he was worried by the difference between his perception of time and reality; he could have sworn that no more than a few minutes had gone by.

  He set down the plate on the rattan table. Next he picked up Alvaro's body, dragging it from the armchair and depositing it face upwards on the sofa. He had often heard comments on the media about the deadweight of a corpse, but Alvaro's body could not have felt lighter to his touch. He sat down beside him and took a piece of meat from the plate and put it into his own mouth. He chewed it. Then he spat the masticated meat into his hand, pushed it into Alvaro's mouth, and used two fingers to force it into the bottom of his throat.

  He repeated the operation until no more meat remained on the plate. Then he added the pasty, a small quantity of ham and the bread.

  He had stuffed him like a turkey.

  It only remained for him to hope that, if the following day there were any doubts as to the cause of Alvaro's death (asphyxia through regurgitation, or choking on his own vomit) and someone decided to visit the Alcoholics Anonymous group with whom he'd dined on Christmas Eve, this menu would fit the bill.

  Apart from that - and it was fortunate that this was the case - Maria had lost all remnants of hunger. In fact, he felt fully satisfied. He got up, picked up the plate (nodding with approval to observe that at least the banana was still left for him) and disappeared into the darkness.

  15

  The first thing he did when he woke next day was to breakfast on the banana. Then he ran his tongue over the plate to lick up the remains of the meat and a plumflavoured sauce, while conducting one of his imaginary conversations with Rosa.

  "To please other people, there's no need to be beautiful but to be horrible."

  "Why?"

  "What do you mean, `why'? Think about it a minute. You have to say what others want to hear, you have to smile at everyone you meet, you need to be impersonal, transparent and a whole heap of other things too, all horrible. And all to what end? In the end you die. We all die. Have you never thought that when you die, and all those you know die, nothing will be left of you, not even a memory?"

  "You're being very profound..."

  "No, nothing profound about it, it's a cliche. What happens is that people don't want to see it. Some because they can't and others because they see it but... What took place between you and that fellow?"

  He was about to reply in Rosa's voice when he heard it for real:

  "Maria!"

  His breath was cut short.

  He cautiously left the room, confirming that nobody else was in sight, and slipped as rapidly as possible downstairs towards the kitchen. On his way down he heard Rosa's voice again, repeatedly calling his name, now from the little garden adjoining the tradesman's entrance.

  There was no one in the kitchen. The outside door was open a crack. Maria went over to the window and looked outside. The street entrance with its gr
ille was also open, but Rosa was not to be seen anywhere.

  A minute later, Rosa came in from the street. She was agitated, as though she'd been running. She shut and locked the street gate and walked back indoors: she looked grief-stricken. Maria saw her coming and hid himself behind the wall by the kitchen annexe. It wasn't a very safe place, for if Rosa decided to go and fetch something from the dining room, he'd have no escape route onto the corridor or the staircase without being seen. But Rosa sat down at the table, laid her head on her folded arms, and started to cry.

  Maria watched her for a few moments. Then he retreated slowly towards the staircase, and ran upstairs rapidly to find the telephone. He had a million questions to ask her.

  "Rosa?" he said as soon as she picked up.

  "I saw you, I called you, and you behaved as if you couldn't hear me!" said Rosa all of a rush, her voice breaking. "Why do you do this to me, what happened to you, what made you change like this? Why are you playing games with me?"

  Maria comprehended she must have caught sight of someone resembling him outside on the pavement. She had called him, run after him for a few yards - perhaps as far as the corner, but not much further, taking into account that she had left the house open and empty - shouting after him without getting an answer.

  "It wasn't me you saw."

  "You behaved like you were distracted, you saw me calling you but pretended you couldn't hear me!"

  "It wasn't me, Rosa. You confused me with someone else."

  (Sobs.)

  "Tell me, how am I dressed?" asked Maria. At that moment, he was wearing nothing except his shirt (he had cleaned himself up a bit that morning).

  "All in blue."

  "See? I'm not wearing anything blue."

  "And how am I supposed to know if you're lying or not, when I can't see you?"

  Maria thought for a second.

  He was on the point of saying something like "just believe me" or "why would I lie to you?" when Rosa asked him another question: