Rage (25 page)

When seven days had elapsed since Rosa and Joselito,
together with the Blinders, had left the house, he took
up a position near the garage, desperate to hear the
sound of the car motor on its way home, bringing his family back to him. He was growing weak, he'd lost
weight and his chest was burning. He slept on a carpet
on the floor. His throat seemed to have closed over
and he could scarcely swallow at all. His muscles were
quivering here and there, all up and down his body, like
nervous currents of light amid the serene darkness of
the house.

One morning the dawn chorus of the birds on his
window sill awoke him: they were squabbling. Then he
observed that the noise of the traffic was considerably
louder than that of the birds, and yet it seemed to him
that it was the birds' squabbles he had first been aware
of. Would he have heard the Blinders even if they had
arrived? The disappointment at their non-appearance
had intensified the burning sensation in his chest, and
the blockage in his throat. He had spent a week on the
ground floor; he needed to get back upstairs.

After a few hours in the attic he felt better, as if the
time spent at ground level had harmed him in some
way. That evening he went downstairs to make himself
some soup. Then he decided to go back upstairs, but
only as far as the third floor. He settled himself down in
an armchair and began to drink his soup. His mind was
a blank and his gaze was lost in space. At that moment
the telephone rang. The soup plate slipped through
his fingers and rebounded across the floor, spilling as
it went.

It was the first time in a week someone had rung the
phone. Most likely the few friends that the Blinders still
retained knew that they were away from the house and
would be back today. From then on the phone started
ringing on a number of occasions: it was only the
phone on the third floor, never the one in the kitchen,
which rang. In all the time he had been in the house, he had never heard that phone ring once... When the
answerphone cut in automatically, the person at the
other end hung up. Could it have been Rosa? Was there
any logic at all in imagining that Rosa was fantasizing
about him being there in the house and was calling him
from time to time, without the least expectation that he
would actually pick up the phone, but byway of sending
out a greeting?

He gathered up the fragments of the broken soup
plate, plunged one hand into the rubbish bag, making a
hole in it, and inserted them into the bottom of it... just
in case. A nauseating stench emanated from the split
bag. When he came to tie it up again, he saw that the
scratches in it were now wider than ever: on one side of
the bag there was now a split as broad as a handspan.
His own hand and forearm, once inserted into the
rubbish, smelled like something dead and decaying. It
was a miracle to find them still attached to his body.

He took a bath, like one of those medical "immersion
baths". At one point he submerged his head in the
water and heard a dripping... puck... puck... puck...
puck... He remained submerged until he had to come
up for air. Then he noticed a little crack in the ceiling,
from which thick drops of a dark and viscous liquid
were falling in a rhythm which grew to a crescendo
as they crashed into the water. On contact, the drops
spread out, staining the water red. Blood. Was he
hallucinating? He squeezed his eyes tight shut and
when he reopened them, the crack was still there. But
now it had increased in size and the blood was dripping
from various different points at the same time... He
stared fixedly at it, until the crack disappeared and the
water appeared clear once more. When he decided to
get back out of the bath, he realized he had lost all his agility: he had the sensation of having aged fifty
years in fifty minutes. He got to his feet, dried and
dressed himself, but each of these actions demanded
the strength of Hercules.

Then, all of a sudden and at last, a half-hour later, it
was as if absolutely nothing had occurred.

He was utterly exhausted and running a high temperature. He crawled in the direction of light and air,
then sat down on the floor, one arm extended towards
the window. He closed his eyes and fell asleep. The
telephone resumed its ringing... When it stopped, he
was under the impression that some idea or other had
escaped from his head, or perhaps it was a memory,
or a thought, he couldn't be sure. But he somehow
reached the conclusion that this was something which
was occurring with increasing frequency: little jumps
or connections inside his mind departing one after
another endlessly. He spent a long while trying to follow
the shape these thoughts were assuming, as if they rose
and fell, isolated and disconnected. An initial thought
was continually unable to access the next or relate to it:
he thought in bubbles.

Something caused him to open his eyes. It was already
night now, but it wasn't really night-time. There were
seven, eight, maybe ten rats on the staircase, some of
them clinging to the wall, others being a little more
adventurous in coming forwards... He wanted to get up
but was incapable of moving: his body was as heavy as
if he were still asleep. He slid along the floor. The rats
scarcely budged. Only when he banged with the palm
of his hand did they vanish as if by magic. Finally he
succeeded in getting to his feet. He went to his room,
entered it, and locked the doorfrom the inside, stretched
himself out on the bed and, despite the tightening in his throat and a body riddled with cramps, he went back
to sleep again.

35

"Rosa..."

"Maria, my love!"

"How lovely that..."

"I've missed you!"

"...you're telling me..." Maria's voice sounded
feeble.

"You've no idea what a good time we had... the best
you could possibly imagine!..."

"And Joselito?"

"He went crazy! He was scurrying here and there like
a wind-up toy, there was no way of stopping him at all!
Just the same, we didn't get to the beach all that often.
We must have gone there four or five times, one day
on and the next off, because I stayed back at the house
with those people, helping out Estela, a really fantastic
young girl who works there for them. We became great
friends, and I'll tell you all about it later... But Joselito,
yes, Joselito went to the beach every single day. When
I didn't take him there, he went with the Senora. You
can't imagine how brown he now is!"

"Did you build the castle with him?..."

"I built thousands with him!"

"And with the..." - here he had to swallow hard - "the
moat?"

"That as well. But he spent most of the time playing
ball. What a great way of getting him to amuse himself!
I swear that just to see him... You were so right, I was
bound to love it there."

"You see?..."

"Why are you talking like that?"

"What do you mean, `like that'?"

"Like that. Is something wrong with you?"

"No... I've got a bit of a sore throat..."

"Did you get someone to look at it?"

"No, it's nothing, it'll soon get better... Go on, tell me
more about it..."

"I thought about you every single day. I thought
how great it would be if I'd known the phone number
there in advance, so that you could have called me...
or if I knew your number... I talked a lot with that girl
Estela... All the time, really, I so wanted to talk about
you and... You've no idea how horrible it is not to be
able to say anything to anyone, because on top of it
all... well, as I told you just now, I missed you so much,
oh I don't know... maybe it was because we'd talked
of going to Mar del Plata, the two of us together, so
often..."

"We'll get to go there..."

"...and they had an amazing seaside villa there, in a
wood too, you've no idea how pretty it was. And the
town centre, oh my God! I've never seen a town centre
like that before. It's just like you told me it would be:
a real anthill. On the beach or in the town centre,
wherever you set foot, there were a million other feet
next to yours. Maria?"

"Yes?"

"I brought you something back."

"What?..."

"A present. I've brought you back a present."

"Thank you, Rosa..."

"Two presents, in fact."

"There was no need..."

"I brought you a box of chocolate alfajores, made by
Havanna, the best brand. Also a lovely necklace, with
lots of little coloured stones. I know there's no way of
telling when I can give it to you, but all the same it shows
I was thinking of you and... Well" - she laughed a little
- "if I end up eating the alfajores with Joselito, I'll still
hang onto the necklace for as long as it takes. You're
going to like it, just wait and see..."

"Thank you."

"I remember how you told me one day you liked the
way necklaces could look on a man, that time we saw
those guys wearing the beads... What a bad cough you
have, Maria! Are you smoking heavily at the moment?"

"I don't smoke..."

"Have you given up?"

"I did some time ago... But tell me about Joselito...
Did he sleep beside you?"

"All the time. The only problem is that he doesn't want
to speak. He's hopeless! The one word he keeps saying is
`mama'. He uses it with me and with any man he meets
- he doesn't call other women anything. And what about
you? Tell me something about yourself now..."

"Nothing..."

"Haven't you got anything at all to tell me?"

"I love you, Rosa..."

"Did you miss me?"

"I missed you and I love you... both things are true..."
he added. Just then he saw Senor Blinder coming up
the stairs.

It was the work of a single instant: everything happened
all at the same time. At precisely the moment Maria saw
him, Senor Blinder called downstairs, without pausing
on his upwards journey (and without giving him any
time at all) :

"Rita, come on, hurry up - please!"

Maria hung up at once.

He put down the phone and, with the last remaining
shreds of energy, got himself up to the attic. His legs
would hardly react any more... Going upstairs was like
scaling a mountain... He went into his room, closed
the door and sat down on the floor, his back pressed
to the wall. He was sweating profusely and his hands
were trembling. He was sure that Rosa had heard Senor
Blinder perfectly clearly.

So he sat down on his bed and waited...

He felt weak and nauseous. It was very hot weather,
that much he knew, but although he had put on his
trousers and both his shirts, he was shivering with cold.
In fact he could scarcely breathe... He had nothing
more to give... He slowly turned his head and looked
towards the window... He looked up at the light...
heard the sounds of the street... He estimated it must
be six or seven o'clock in the evening. Any moment now
the darkness would begin to close in.

36

Rosa sported a deep tan. She had cut her hair back
to her shoulders, and had put on some earrings with
pale-blue stones in them, and which made her look
younger and happy, although right now she was feeling
dumbstruck. Her eyes were blacker and shinier than
before and her nose had peeled a little with sunburn.
Her eyelashes looked wet, as if they retained something
of her last plunge into the sea.

Although more than a day had gone by since her
return, she still hadn't resumed wearing her uniform. She was wearing a one-piece outfit in the same colour as
her earrings, and was as barefoot as he was.

It was nine o'clock in the morning. Rosa was standing
stock-still beside the door. She had frozen into an expression of astonishment, both hands over her mouth. Maria
had only to look at her to register that Rosa had been
staring at him for a good while before he had managed
to open his eyes. And she still couldn't believe her own.

Maria parted his parched lips to say something, but
lacked the strength: so he closed them again, in a smile.

"Oh my God..." murmured Rosa, her hands still over
her mouth.

Her hands were also deeply tanned, with the nails
closely clipped and varnished, shining like mother-ofpearl. Around her neck was a necklace of tiny manycoloured stones. Maria realized this was the necklace
she had told him about the day before, her present
to him. Staring at one another like this was the first
contact between the two of them, other than the sound
of their voices, for years now. The recognition of her
necklace was another, perhaps even more significant
than the previous one, for it established a relationship
between the two of them, over and beyond that of
looking.

Rosa took a step forwards. Then she stopped again.

"Maria..." she said.

Another five paces further, one after the other, as
if she were counting each one, until she reached his
side. She held out a hand but, before she could touch
him, she backed off again as far as the door, where she
stopped. She was crying soundlessly. Joselito came into
the room, running clumsily, then steadied himself by
grasping the folds of his mother's skirts, as if he had just
landed safely after jumping off a precipice.

Then he saw Maria, seeming more pleased than
surprised.

"Mama!" he addressed him.

"Hola..." whispered Maria. Sojoselito hadn't forgotten
him.

Then, all of a sudden, Rosa ran over to the bed and
embraced him.

"I knew... I knew!..." she said. "I knew... Oh my God,
how long have you been here?"

"For ever..."

"And how come you never told me any of this?"

Maria smiled at her.

Rosa placed her hand on his forehead:

"You're raving!"

She looked wildly around her, towards Joselito - who
had settled into tearing apart a best-seller - as if Joselito
might be able to do something to assist her.