Rage (17 page)

"But promise me something first. When you return
next year, we'll move on from all this."

"I promise."

"Swear to me, by God."

"Come over to me, and stop right here..."

At that point, Maria heard the voices of the younger
children approaching, and scarcely had time to conceal
himself. His heart was pounding heavily, with what
sounded like an echo, so it seemed as if he had two
hearts rather than one.

The children came running down the corridor.
They were uttering hysterical shrieks. At once Esteban
emerged from the room, adjusting his belt: he looked
pale and scared. The children swept him along ahead of
them. They didn't seem surprised at having bumped into
their big brother so suddenly; instead they were anxious
to free themselves from him and carry on zooming
around. But Esteban grabbed them with one arm and
shook them violently. He was on the point of ordering
them to leave immediately when Ricardo unexpectedly
appeared. He came along roaring like a beast, with his hands extended like paws and a monstrous expression
on his face.

Esteban saw him and smiled.

"I caught them!" he said, feigning he was joining in.

Ricardo shrugged his shoulders and let his arms fall
to his sides.

"What on earth are you doing up here?" he asked.

"I'm allowed to take a turn about the house?" replied
Esteban.

Ricardo considered for a moment.

"Come on you lot, the game is over," he said slowly.
"We're going."

"Already?" asked Esteban.

"Yes, already," his father told him.

It was an order.

Esteban joined his brother and sister in an ill-tempered
huff, with an expression of a man sorely interruptus on
his face.

Ricardo tracked them with his eyes as the three of
them passed him by, heading for the staircase. Then
he followed them down, with little tight steps, like an
animal herding its young.

19

"Rosa, it's me..."

"Ah, Maria..."

"All well?"

"How do I know..."

"What's up?"

"Just about everything..."

"Tell me about it..."

"No, leave it out..."

"Come on, tell me, my love, don't be an idiot! What
happened to you?"

"Where are you?"

"Don't start over with that..."

"The Senores' children were staying here with their
own kids, I'm not sure if I told you the last time we
spoke, but..." Rosa interrupted herself.

"But?..."

"Nothing, that's all. I've no idea what I was going to
tell you..."

"Was there some problem?"

"Who with?"

"With them? Or with one or another of them, I don't
know..."

"No..."

"From the way you put it, it seemed as if there was.
You're not going to tell me that one of them made a pass
at you?" persisted Maria. Rosa changed the subject.

"Do you know what I wanted to tell you? That the other
day I was outside the house and all of a sudden I turned
round and... you won't believe this, you'll think I've gone
crazy... it seemed to me there was someone upstairs, in
one of the rooms, on the top floor, a person..."

"So what?" asked Maria after a pause. "No doubt it was
somebody from the house..."

"Well yes, possibly," said Rosa, suddenly deflated. "I
went straight upstairs but I couldn't find anyone at all...
There was a rat there, though, you know? Yuck - and
I've gone and forgotten to put some rat poison down."

"You'd put poison down to catch a rat?"

"The Senora told me to. Seems fair enough. If I
spotted one, it can only be because there are more. And
that's the first time I've ever seen one. When I first came
to work here, I thought the place would be full of mice, but apparently not. That's the first time I've ever seen
one. No, that's a lie, there was one other occasion. But it
was a really long time ago... Maria, why don't you come
over here? Where on earth are you?"

This time it was Maria who changed the subject.

"And the fat guy you told me was pursuing you last
time we spoke?" he enquired.

Once more Rosa switched the topic of conversation:

"Oh you've no idea: last time the phone kept being
engaged and I went upstairs to see if I'd replaced the
receiver properly, and when I touched it I found it was
all warm! Or tepid, as if someone had just been using
it... As if someone had been using it right up until the
time I got there..."

Maria felt gooseflesh prickle his skin. He glanced
rapidly around him, looking for a cloth or a napkin
he could use to hold the earpiece from now on, by way
of forestalling Rosa's assumptions, should it cross her
mind that it could have been him using the phone, and
that she should go upstairs and check whether it was
still warm or not. But there was nothing lying around
he could use to wrap the receiver in. The house seemed
as stripped bare as he was. For the first time since
he'd been living there, he observed that the principal
materials used to build the villa were marble, wood and
metal. The only fibres in sight were in the carpets and
curtains. Exactly the opposite of his own home, where
there were rags and scraps of fabric lying all over the
place...

He was left no option but to hold the receiver between
two fingers, his index finger and thumb, as if the phone
were suddenly on fire or had changed into an object of
disgust.

"Aren't you being ever so slightly paranoid?"

"Yes, it's possible... I don't know, it seemed to me..."

"It's so incredibly hot, if you think about it..."

"Only not here. Here the heat only comes with the
autumn. Do you know that out to sea... I read it the
other day in Selections... do you know why the sea is cold
by day and warm at night?"

"Why?"

"Because the sun warms it up during the day. Then
it gets late. The sun stays there all day warming and
warming it up, and you get to feel the benefit at night.
Because at night the same thing happens. At night the
water cools down little by little, and you can feel it's
properly cold by the next day."

"Have you ever been to the coast at Mar del Plata?
It's incredible that I've never even asked you that
before..."

"No. And you? I've never asked you about it either..."

"Yes, I went there once, quite a while ago. It's really
pretty there."

"I guess you've been and taken a photo with those two
big polar bears you see on the way into the resort..."

"They're lions. Sea lions. No, I never took a picture,
I didn't have a camera. It was because I didn't go
there on my holidays: I went there to work. We built a
skyscraper over thirty storeys high, thirty-five maybe, I
can't remember now. A real monster. God it was hot!
When you looked down from on top, it was like being
on top of an anthill!"

"And on Sundays? Did you also work on Sundays?"

"No, on Sundays I actually got to go to the resort.
Once you went down into it, it didn't seem like such an
anthill. You got used to it."

"And was I right or wrong, about when the water got
cold?"

"Sometimes it did. One Sunday it was, another not so
much. Do you know who I saw there one day?"

"Was it Cristian Castro?"

"No, unfortunately. It was Juan Leyrado. He wore a
little beret and sunglasses, and he had a belly, bulging
eyes, a T-shirt, I don't know what else. He looked like a
Martian, but I still recognized him. And another time I
saw Adolfo Bioy Casares, I don't know if you're familiar
with him..."

"No...,,

"He's a writer. How strange you not knowing who he
is: he's a very famous author. I've seen him in a heap of
photos."

"I didn't realize..."

"That's a pity. You see someone like that and you recognize a gentleman, a dandy, a real senor. I mean it
seriously, he's a proper intellectual. Now, if I'm not mistaken, he's dead... But on that occasion he was there,
sitting by a canvas windbreak, watching the people go by,
dressed to the nines, and with a hat, you ought to have
seen it. Even at a hundred yards, he looked something
else. And guess what - I pass by and I take a look at him,
and the guy takes a look back at me, then sweeps off his
hat and greets me!"

"Did he know you?"

"No of course not, how could he? Don't be ridiculous.
But he looked at me and tipped his hat at me, I swear to
God. And from that very moment I loved him. I don't
usually like to speak in such terms, but yes: I loved him.
And then I was left there just thinking... Don't you think
that the government will have to make itself responsible for writers and for their children's future? What
I say is - what would it cost the government to put half
a million pesos in the bank for its artists, so they could write away quietly, without worrying about the future?
What's half a million to the government? Nothing, no
more than loose change. I did the sums. The State gives
them some spare cash, and they deliver a book. What
do you think?"

"What do I know about it? We're here breaking our
backs all day long too..."

"But that's not the same, my darling: we're the working
class."

"Ah well, all the more reason, then. Why would the
government be about to award money to artists so
they can dance the night away on a stage, and not give
us - the workers - anything at all, having to dance to
their tune morning, noon and night. On top of which,
nobody even thinks of applauding us!"

"Rosa, I don't feel like an argument..."

Silence.

"One day I'd love to take you to the Mar del Plata..."
said Maria.

Another silence.

"Hello?" asked Maria.

"Where are you?"

"You've already asked me that a thousand times over,
Rosa. And I've already told you I can't let you know.
You'll just have to get used to the idea that I am where I
am... that I love you just as much as ever... and... well,
you know how things are."

"No. That's just it, I don't."

"Tell me about the big guy. Who is he?"

"No one. It doesn't matter. That's enough."

"Are you annoyed with me?"

"No."

"It sounds to me as if you are."

"Are you in prison?"

"No."

"I can't believe what you're putting me through... and
I'm getting really tired of it."

"Don't say that, my darling!"

"But Jose Maria, what do you want me to say to you, if
you won't tell me anything?"

"Don't call me Jose Maria: it sounds as if you don't
know who I am. In any case, you aren't offering me any
explanations either..."

"What am I not offering you any explanations about?"

"I asked you about the fat guy - and nothing. You tell
me absolutely nothing. Who is he?"

"You come and visit me here, and I'll tell you."

"You know, you're a really good negotiator! You should
be a lawyer, you should."

Silence.

"Withdraw what you said about being tired of me."

"I never said that I was tired of you. You misheard
me. I told you I'm beginning to tire of this whole novel
you're spinning me."

"Me too. Would you prefer it if we hung up?"

"You want to hang up?"

"I asked you first..."

"If you want to hang up, then do so," said Rosa after
a pause.

And after another pause, Maria hung up, offended.

20

He didn't call her again until the end of the summer. Throughout those months he lived like a recluse
(which is really saying something, referring to someone
as reclusive as he), in a miniaturized version of a world of normal activities. Gymnastic exercises, reading books
and, best of all, his nocturnal excursions in search of
food were still his major pastimes: he suspended his
walks, stopped taking an interest in movements around
the house, avoided listening in on the Blinders' conversations and concentrated all his efforts on not knowing
anything about Rosa's life, just as if he wanted to forget
all about her.

He was wounded. The image he had in his head of
Alvaro raping her tortured him... The fact that Esteban
was on the point of making out with her (probably for
the second time), also that the "big guy" or the "fat man"
was still calling her and presumably meeting up with her
on the street pained him, but he was most of all hurt by
the tone in which Rosa had addressed him during their
last conversation, a dry tone that deliberately excluded
him.

Why had she spoken to him in that manner?

Whereas it was true he never told her where he was,
it was also true that she had her suspicions that he was
a prisoner, when he kept calling and swearing his love
for her. Did his voice and his vows not affect her, were
they stripped of all meaning by the simple lack of his
presence? How come she could fall for Cristian Castro
without ever having met him, and be unable to feel the
same for him? He was pretty sure that if Cristian Castro
suddenly appeared and told her: "Stay faithful to me for
the next twenty years, and I'll come and collect you when
my career is over," she would have been absolutely true
to him.

He couldn't exactly ask her direct, precise questions;
nor had she ever offered any sign of confiding the
secrets of her private life in him. In one sense, she was
deceiving him. She said she was in love with him, but she hadn't said a single word about Alvaro raping her,
or about Esteban's seduction, even about the "big guy"
and his intentions. On the contrary: she was always
avoiding them and pushing them aside. Were he really
a prisoner, as she assumed, was that sufficient cause, in
no more than a couple of months, for her to entertain
at least three suitors, including one rapist?

It pained him to be unable to say that he was living
with her...

Finally, one afternoon, he realized what that tone
was in Rosa's voice, which had so offended him. Rosa
addressed him like that because she had grown used to
those mysterious little chats with him, not because she
either didn't desire or didn't care for them. But then,
just as he was disposed to forgive her and call her up
again, he looked out of the first-floor window and saw
Rosa downstairs with Israel.