Collected Stories (6 page)

The swinging door opened. At that hour there was nobody in José’s restaurant. It had just struck six and the man knew that the regular customers wouldn’t begin to arrive until six-thirty. His clientele was so conservative and regular that the clock hadn’t finished striking six when a woman entered, as on every day at that hour, and sat down on the stool without
saying anything. She had an unlighted cigarette tight between her lips.

‘Hello, queen,’ José said when he saw her sit down. Then he went to the other end of the counter, wiping the streaked surface with a dry rag. Whenever anyone came into the restaurant José did the same thing. Even with the woman, with whom he’d almost come to acquire a degree of intimacy, the fat and ruddy restaurant owner
put on his daily comedy of a hard-working man. He spoke from the other end of the counter.

‘What do you want today?’ he said.

‘First of all I want to teach you how to be a gentleman,’ the woman said. She was sitting at the end of the stools, her elbows on the counter, the extinguished cigarette between her lips. When she spoke, she tightened her mouth so that José would notice the unlighted
cigarette.

‘I didn’t notice,’ José said.

‘You still haven’t learned to notice anything,’ said the woman.

The man left the cloth on the counter, walked to the dark cupboards which smelled of tar and dusty wood, and came
back immediately with the matches. The woman leaned over to get the light that was burning in the man’s rustic, hairy hands. José saw the woman’s lush hair, all greased with
cheap, thick Vaseline. He saw her uncovered shoulder above the flowered brassiere. He saw the beginning of her twilight breast when the woman raised her head, the lighted butt between her lips now.

‘You’re beautiful tonight, queen,’ José said.

‘Stop your nonsense,’ the woman said. ‘Don’t think that’s going to help me pay you.’

‘That’s not what I meant, queen,’ José said. ‘I’ll bet your lunch
didn’t agree with you today.’

The woman sucked in the first drag of thick smoke, crossed her arms, her elbows still on the counter, and remained looking at the street through the wide restaurant window. She had a melancholy expression. A bored and vulgar melancholy.

‘I’ll fix you a good steak,’ José said.

‘I still haven’t got any money,’ the woman said.

‘You haven’t had any money for three
months and I always fix you something good,’ José said.

‘Today’s different,’ said the woman somberly, still looking out at the street.

‘Every day’s the same,’ José said. ‘Every day the clock says six, then you come in and say you’re hungry as a dog and then I fix you something good. The only difference is this: today you didn’t say you were as hungry as a dog but that today is different.’

‘And it’s true,’ the woman said. She turned to look at the man, who was at the other end of the counter checking the refrigerator. She examined him for two or three seconds. Then she looked at the clock over the cupboard. It was three minutes after six. ‘It’s true, José. Today is different,’ she said. She let the smoke out and kept on talking with crisp, impassioned words. ‘I didn’t come at six today,
that’s why it’s different, José.’

The man looked at the clock.

‘I’ll cut off my arm if that clock is one minute slow,’ he said.

‘That’s not it, José. I didn’t come at six o’clock today,’ the woman said.

‘It just struck six, queen,’ José said. ‘When you came in it was just finishing.’

‘I’ve got a quarter of an hour that says I’ve been here,’ the woman said.

José went over to where she was.
He put his great puffy face up to the woman while he tugged on one of his eyelids with his index finger.

‘Blow on me here,’ he said.

The woman threw her head back. She was serious, annoyed, softened, beautified by a cloud of sadness and fatigue.

‘Stop your foolishness, José. You know I haven’t had a drink for six months.’

‘Tell it to somebody else,’ he said, ‘not to me. I’ll bet you’ve had
a pint or two at least.’

‘I had a couple of drinks with a friend,’ she said.

‘Oh, now I understand,’ José said.

‘There’s nothing to understand,’ the woman said. ‘I’ve been here for a quarter of an hour.’

The man shrugged his shoulders.

‘Well, if that’s the way you want it, you’ve got a quarter of an hour that says you’ve been here,’ he said. ‘After all, what difference does it make, ten minutes
this way, ten minutes that way?’

‘It makes a difference, José,’ the woman said. And she stretched her arms over the glass counter with an air of careless abandon. She said: ‘And it isn’t that I wanted it that way; it’s just that I’ve been here for a quarter of an hour.’ She looked at the clock again and corrected herself: ‘What am I saying – it’s been twenty minutes.’

‘O.K., queen,’ the man
said. ‘I’d give you a whole day and the night that goes with it just to see you happy.’

During all this time José had been moving about behind the counter, changing things, taking something from one place and putting it in another. He was playing his role.

‘I want to see you happy,’ he repeated. He stopped suddenly, turning to where the woman was. ‘Do you know that I love you very much?’

The
woman looked at him coldly.

‘Ye-e-es …? What a discovery, José. Do you think I’d go with you even for a million pesos?’

‘I didn’t mean that, queen,’ José said. ‘I repeat, I bet your lunch didn’t agree with you.’

‘That’s not why I said it,’ the woman said. And her voice became less indolent. ‘No woman could stand a weight like yours, even for a million pesos.’

José blushed. He turned his back
to the woman and began to dust the bottles on the shelves. He spoke without turning his head.

‘You’re unbearable today, queen. I think the best thing is for you to eat your steak and go home to bed.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ the woman said. She stayed looking out at the street again, watching the passers-by of the dusking city. For an instant there was a murky silence in the restaurant. A peacefulness
broken only by José’s fiddling about in the cupboard. Suddenly the woman stopped looking out into the street and spoke with a tender, soft, different voice.

‘Do you really love me, Pepillo?’

‘I do,’ José said dryly, not looking at her.

‘In spite of what I’ve said to you?’ the woman asked.

‘What did you say to me?’ José asked, still without any inflection in his voice, still without looking
at her.

‘That business about a million pesos,’ the woman said.

‘I’d already forgotten,’ José said.

‘So do you love me?’ the woman asked.

‘Yes,’ said José.

There was a pause. José kept moving about, his face turned towards the cabinets, still not looking at the woman. She blew out another mouthful of smoke, rested her bust on the counter, and then, cautiously roguishly, biting her tongue before
saying it, as if speaking on tiptoe:

‘Even if you didn’t go to bed with me?’ she asked.

And only then did José turn to look at her.

‘I love you so much that I wouldn’t go to bed with you,’ he said. Then he walked over to where she was. He stood looking into her face, his powerful arms leaning on the counter in front of her, looking into her eyes. He said: ‘I love you so much that every night
I’d kill the man who goes with you.’

At the first instant the woman seemed perplexed. Then she looked at the man attentively, with a wavering expression of compassion and mockery. Then she had a moment of brief disconcerted silence. And then she laughed noisily.

‘You’re jealous, José. That’s wild, you’re jealous!’

José blushed again with frank, almost shameful timidity, as might have happened
to a child who’d revealed all his secrets all of a sudden. He said:

‘This afternoon you don’t seem to understand anything, queen.’ And he wiped himself with the rag. He said:

‘This bad life is brutalizing you.’

But now the woman had changed her expression.

‘So, then,’ she said. And she looked into his eyes again, with a strange glow in her look, confused and challenging at the same time.

‘So you’re not jealous.’

‘In a way I am,’ José said. ‘But it’s not the way you think.’

He loosened his collar and continued wiping himself, drying his throat with the cloth.

‘So?’ the woman asked.

‘The fact is I love you so much that I don’t like your doing it,’ José said.

‘What?’ the woman asked.

‘This business of going with a different man every day,’ José said.

‘Would you really kill
him to stop him from going with me?’ the woman asked.

‘Not to stop him from going with you, no,’ José said. ‘I’d kill him because he
went
with you.’

‘It’s the same thing,’ the woman said.

The conversation had reached an exciting density. The woman was speaking in a soft, low, fascinated voice. Her face was almost stuck up against the man’s healthy, peaceful face, as he stood motionless, as
if bewitched by the vapor of the words.

‘That’s true,’ José said.

‘So,’ the woman said, and reached out her hand to stroke the man’s rough arm. With the other she tossed away her butt. ‘So you’re capable of killing a man?’

‘For what I told you, yes,’ José said. And his voice took on an almost dramatic stress.

The woman broke into convulsive laughter, with an obvious mocking intent.

‘How awful,
José. How awful,’ she said, still laughing. ‘José killing a man. Who would have known that behind the fat and sanctimonious man who never makes me pay, who cooks me a steak every day and has fun talking to me until I find a man, there lurks a murderer. How awful, José! You scare me!’

José was confused. Maybe he felt a little indignation. Maybe, when the woman started laughing, he felt defrauded.

‘You’re drunk, silly,’ he said. ‘Go get some sleep. You don’t even feel like eating anything.’

But the woman had stopped laughing now and was serious again, pensive, leaning on the counter. She watched the man go away. She saw him open the refrigerator and close it again without taking anything out. Then she saw him move to the other end of the counter. She watched him polish the shining glass,
the same as in the beginning. Then the woman spoke again with the tender and soft tone of when she said: ‘Do you really love me, Pepillo?’

‘José,’ she said.

The man didn’t look at her.

‘José!’

‘Go home and sleep,’ José said. ‘And take a bath before you go to bed so you can sleep it off.’

‘Seriously, José,’ the woman said. ‘I’m not drunk.’

‘Then you’ve turned stupid,’ José said.

‘Come here,
I’ve got to talk to you,’ the woman said.

The man came over stumbling, halfway between pleasure and mistrust.

‘Come closer!’

He stood in front of the woman again. She leaned forward, grabbed him by the hair, but with a gesture of obvious tenderness.

‘Tell me again what you said at the start,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’ José asked. He was trying to look at her with his head turned away,
held by the hair.

‘That you’d kill a man who went to bed with me,’ the woman said.

‘I’d kill a man who went to bed with you, queen. That’s right,’ José said.

The woman let him go.

‘In that case you’d defend me if I killed him, right?’ she asked affirmatively, pushing José’s enormous pig head with a movement of brutal coquettishness. The man didn’t answer anything. He smiled.

‘Answer me, José,’
the woman said. ‘Would you defend me if I killed him?’

‘That depends,’ José said. ‘You know it’s not as easy as you say.’

‘The police wouldn’t believe anyone more than you,’ the woman said.

José smiled, honored, satisfied. The woman leaned over toward him again, over the counter.

‘It’s true, José. I’m willing to bet that you’ve never told a lie in your life,’ she said.

‘You won’t get anywhere
this way,’ José said.

‘Just the same,’ the woman said. ‘The police know you and they’ll believe anything without asking you twice.’

José began pounding on the counter opposite her, not knowing what to say. The woman looked out at the street again. Then she looked at the clock and modified the tone of her voice, as if she were interested in finishing the conversation before the first customers
arrived.

‘Would you tell a lie for me, José?’ she asked. ‘Seriously.’

And then José looked at her again, sharply, deeply, as if a tremendous idea had come pounding up in his head. An idea that had entered through one ear, spun about for a moment, vague, confused, and gone out through the other, leaving behind only a warm vestige of terror.

‘What have you got yourself into, queen?’ José asked.
He leaned forward, his arms folded over the counter again. The woman caught the strong and ammonia-smelling vapor of his breathing, which had become difficult because of the pressure that the counter was exercising on the man’s stomach.

‘This is really serious, queen. What have you got yourself into?’ he asked.

The woman made her head spin in the opposite direction.

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘I
was just talking to amuse myself.’

Then she looked at him again.

‘Do you know you may not have to kill anybody?’

‘I never thought about killing anybody,’ José said, distressed.

‘No, man,’ the woman said. ‘I mean nobody goes to bed with me.’

‘Oh!’ José said. ‘Now you’re talking straight out. I always thought you had no need to prowl around. I’ll make a bet that if you drop all this I’ll give
you the biggest steak I’ve got every day, free.’

‘Thank you, José,’ the woman said. ‘But that’s not why. It’s because I
can’t
go to bed with anyone any more.’

‘You’re getting things all confused again,’ José said. He was becoming impatient.

‘I’m not getting anything confused,’ the woman said. She stretched out on the seat and José saw her flat, sad breasts underneath her brassiere.

‘Tomorrow
I’m going away and I promise you I won’t come back and bother you ever again. I promise you I’ll never go to bed with anyone.’