The Unknown University (25 page)

OCCASIONALLY IT SHOOK

The nameless girl spread her legs under the sheets.
A policeman can
watch any way he wants, he’s already overcome all the
risks
of the gaze.
What I mean is, the drawer holds fear and photographs and men who can never be
found, as well as papers.
So the cop turned out the light and unzipped his fly.
The
girl closed her eyes when he turned her face down.
She felt his pants against her
buttocks and the metallic cold of the belt buckle.
“There was once a word” .
.
.
(Coughs) .
.
.
“A word for all this” .
.
.
“Now all I can say is: don’t be afraid” .
.
.
Images forced up by the piston.
His fingers burrowed between her cheeks and she
didn’t say a thing, didn’t even sigh.
He was on his side, but she still had her head
buried in the sheets.
His index and middle finger probed her ass, massaged her
sphincter, and she opened her mouth but without any sound.
(I dreamed of a corridor
full of people without mouths, he said, and the old man replied: don’t be afraid.)
He pushed his fingers all the way in, the girl moaned and raised her haunches, he
felt the tips of his fingers brush something to which he instantly gave the name
stalagmite
.
Then he thought it might be shit, but the color of the body
that he was touching kept blazing green and white, like his first impression.
The
girl moaned hoarsely.
The phrase “the nameless girl was lost in the metro” came to
mind and he pulled his fingers out to the first joint.
Then he sank them in again
and with his free hand he touched the girl’s forehead.
He worked his fingers in and
out.
As he squeezed the girl’s temples, he thought that the fingers went in and out
with no adornment, no literary rhetoric to give them any other sense than a couple
of thick fingers buried in the ass of a nameless girl.
The words came to a stop in
the middle of a metro station.
There was no one there.
The policeman blinked.
I
guess the risk of the gaze was partly overcome by his profession.
The girl was
sweating profusely and moved her legs with great care.
Her ass was wet and
occasionally quivered.
Later he went over to look out the window and he ran his
tongue over his teeth.
(The word “teeth” slid across the glass, many times.
The old
man had coughed after he said don’t be afraid.) Her hair spilled over the pillow.
He
mounted her, seemed to say something in her ear before he plunged into her.
We knew
he had done that by the girl’s scream.
The images travel in slow motion.
He puts
water on to boil.
He closes the bathroom door.
The bathroom light softly disappears.
She’s sitting in the kitchen, her elbows resting on her knees.
She’s smoking a
cigarette.
The policeman, the fake policeman, appears in a pair of green pajamas.
From the hallway he calls her, asks her to come with him.
She turns her head toward
the door.
There’s no one there.
She opens a kitchen drawer.
Something gleams.
She
closes the door.

UN LUGAR VACÍO CERCA DE AQUÍ

«Tenía los bigotes blancos o grises» .
.
.
«Pensaba en mi situación, de
nuevo estaba solo y trataba de entenderlo» .
.
.
«Ahora junto al cadáver hay un
hombre flaco que saca fotos» .
.
.
«Sé que hay un lugar vacío cerca de aquí, pero no
sé dónde» .
.
.

AN EMPTY PLACE NEAR HERE

“He had a white mustache, or maybe it was gray” .
.
.
“I was thinking
about my situation, I was alone again and I was trying to understand why” .
.
.
“There’s a skinny man over by the body now, taking pictures” .
.
.
“I know there’s
an empty place near here, but I don’t know where” .
.
.

AMARILLO

El inglés lo vio entre los arbustos.
Caminó sobre la pinaza alejándose
de él.
Probablemente eran las 8 de la noche y el sol se ponía entre las colinas.
El
inglés se volvió, le dijo algo pero no pudo escuchar nada.
Pensó que hacía días que
no oía cantar a los grillos.
El inglés movió los labios pero hasta él sólo llegó el
silencio de las ramas movidas por el viento.
Se levantó, le dolía una pierna, buscó
cigarrillos en el bolsillo de la chaqueta.
La chaqueta era de mezclilla azul,
desteñida por el tiempo.
El pantalón era ancho y de color verde oscuro.
El inglés
movió los labios al final del bosque.
Notó que tenía los ojos cerrados.
Se miró las
uñas: estaban sucias.
La camisa del inglés era azul y los pantalones que llevaba
parecían aún más viejos que los suyos.
Los troncos de los pinos eran marrones pero
tocados por un rayo de luz se volvían amarillentos.
Al fondo, donde acababan los
pinos, había un motor abandonado y unas paredes de cemento en parte destruidas.
Sus
uñas eran grandes e irregulares a causa de la costumbre que tenía de morderlas.
Sacó
una cerilla y prendió el cigarrillo.
El inglés había abierto los ojos.
Flexionó la
pierna y después sonrió.
Amarillo.
Flash amarillo.
En el informe aparece como un
jorobado vagabundo.
Vivió unos días en el bosque.
Al lado había un camping pero él
no tenía dinero para pagar, así que al camping sólo iba para tomar un café en el
restaurante.
Su tienda estaba cerca de las pistas de tenis y frontón.
A veces iba a
ver cómo jugaban.
Entraba por la parte de atrás, por un hueco que los niños habían
hecho en el cañizo.
Del inglés no hay datos.
Posiblemente lo inventó.

YELLOW

The Englishman spotted him through the bushes.
He walked away, treading
on pine needles.
It was probably 8 o’clock and the sun was setting in the hills.
The
Englishman turned and said something to him but he couldn’t hear a thing.
It
occurred to him that it had been days since he’d heard the crickets chirping.
The
Englishman moved his lips but all that reached him was the silence of the branches
moving in the wind.
He got up, his leg hurt, he felt for cigarettes in the pocket of
his jacket.
It was a denim jacket, old and faded.
His pants were wide-legged and
dark green.
At the far end of the woods the Englishman moved his lips.
He noticed
that his eyes were closed.
He looked at his fingernails: they were dirty.
The
Englishman’s shirt was blue and the pants he was wearing looked even older than his.
The trunks of the pine trees were brown, but touched by a ray of light they turned
yellowish.
In the distance, where the pines ended, there was an abandoned car motor
and a few crumbling cement walls.
His nails were big and ragged because of his habit
of biting them.
He took out matches and lit a cigarette.
The Englishman had opened
his eyes.
He flexed his leg and then smiled.
Yellow.
Flash of yellow.
In the report
he’s described as a hunchbacked vagrant.
For a few days, he lived in the woods.
There was a campground nearby, but he didn’t have enough money for that, so he only
went to the campground to have coffee at the restaurant.
His tent was near the
tennis and handball courts.
Sometimes he went to watch people play.
He came in
through the back, through a gap the children had made in the tall grass.
There’s no
information on the Englishman.
Possibly he invented him.

EL ENFERMERO

Un muchacho obsesivo.
Quiero decir que si lo conocías no podías dejar de
pensar en él.
El sargento se acercó al bulto caído en el parque.
Frente a él no
brillaba ninguna luz, sin embargo advirtió gente mirando por las ventanas.
Las
pisadas del enfermero vinieron detrás de él.
Encendió un cigarrillo.
El enfermero
parpadeó y dijo si se lo podían llevar de una puta vez.
Apagó la cerilla con un
bostezo .
.
.
«No tengo idea en qué ciudad estoy» .
.
.
«La pantalla aparece
permanentemente ocupada por la imagen del muchacho imbécil» .
.
.
«Hace muecas en
las afueras del infierno» .
.
.
«Constantemente me toca el hombro con sus dedos
flacos para preguntarme si puede entrar» .
.
.
El enfermero se chupó los dientes.
Tuvo deseos de tirarse un pedo, en lugar de eso se acuclilló al lado del cadáver.
Gente desvestida acodada en las ventanas oscuras.
Sin sentir desde hacía mucho
tiempo una sensación real de peligro.
El escritor, creo que era inglés, le confesó
al jorobadito cuánto le costaba escribir.
Sólo me salen frases sueltas, dijo, tal
vez porque la realidad me parece un enjambre de imágenes sueltas.
Algo así debe de
ser el desamparo, dijo el jorobadito .
.
.
«Vale, llévenselo» .
.
.

THE MEDIC

An obsessive boy.
Actually, what I mean is, if you knew him you couldn’t
stop thinking about him.
The sergeant went up to the fallen shape in the park.
He
didn’t shine a light, but he still noticed people looking out their windows.
Behind
him came the medic’s footsteps.
He lit a cigarette.
The medic blinked and said if
they could finally just take the fucking body away.
He yawned, putting out the match
.
.
.
“I have no idea what city I’m in” .
.
.
“It’s always the image of that idiot
boy on the screen” .
.
.
“He makes faces on the brim of hell” .
.
.
“He’s constantly
tapping my shoulder with his skinny fingers to ask if he can come in” .
.
.
The
medic licked his teeth.
He felt like farting, he knelt by the body instead.
People,
undressed, leaning on their elbows in the dark windows.
It had been a while since
they felt any real sense of danger.
The writer, I think he was English, confessed to
the hunchback how hard it was for him to write.
All I can come up with are stray
sentences, he said, maybe because reality seems to me like a swarm of stray images.
Desolation must be something like that, said the hunchback .
.
.
“All right, take
him away” .
.
.

UN PAÑUELO BLANCO

Camino por el parque, es otoño, parece que hay un tipo muerto en el
césped.
Hasta ayer pensaba que mi vida podía ser diferente, estaba enamorado, etc.
Me detengo en el surtidor; es oscuro, de superficie brillante, sin embargo al pasar
la palma de la mano compruebo su extrema aspereza.
Desde aquí veo a un poli viejo
acercarse con pasos vacilantes al cadáver.
Sopla una brisa fría que eriza los pelos.
El poli se arrodilla al lado del cadáver, con la mano izquierda se tapa los ojos con
expresión de abatimiento.
Surge una bandada de palomas.
Vuelan en círculo sobre la
cabeza del policía.
Éste registra los bolsillos del cadáver y amontona lo que
encuentra sobre un pañuelo blanco que ha extendido sobre la hierba.
Hierba de color
verde oscuro que da la impresión de querer
chupar
el cuadrado blanco.
Tal
vez sean los papeles viejos y oscuros que el poli deja sobre el pañuelo los que me
induzcan a pensar así.
Creo que me sentaré un rato.
Las bancas del parque son
blancas con patas de hierro negras.
Por la calle aparece un coche patrulla.
Se
detiene.
Bajan dos agentes.
Uno de ellos avanza hacia donde está inclinado el poli
viejo, el otro se queda junto al automóvil y enciende un cigarrillo.
Pocos instantes
después aparece silenciosamente una ambulancia que se estaciona detrás del coche
patrulla .
.
.
«No he visto nada» .
.
.
«Un tipo muerto en el parque, un poli viejo»
.
.
.