You have to concentrate, her expression says; he can hear her and knows that he has to search for the right words, find them in his mind and say them aloud. He knows they are there, in his brain somewhere, but he can’t find them. Then the man grabs the girl by the wrists. His face has been transfigured, as though flames burning inside him had scorched half of it while leaving the other half cold—glacial, really—and when the two sides met they morphed into some unreadable inkblot. He becomes furious, lifts her into the air by the shoulders like a rag doll and hurls her violently to the floor. The girl lies there, facedown with her nose bleeding, blood forming a small pool and staining the floor. Then she reaches her fingers out toward the darkness where the boy who is Gonzalo is hiding, touches the tips of his shoes and thinks she must teach him to tie his own laces. You have to remember; say the words, her eyes implore. But the boy’s feet step back, disappearing into the darkness. And then the boy remembers the words and tries to say them. But nothing will come out of his mouth, no matter how hard he tries to shout.
Gonzalo opened his eyes and thought he was going to die. Not at some vague point in the distant future, not a long time from now, but right at that moment. He put a hand to his chest, trying to calm the panic of the little boy who appeared in dreams each night to the adult he had become. He looked at the digital alarm clock: 3:20 A.M. Lola was asleep in a fetal position at the far side of the bed, in voluntary exile on the edge of the mattress, as was her custom every time they argued. She was breathing steadily, lips slightly parted, right elbow beneath the pillow and the left one tucked between her knees and stomach. Gonzalo stroked the curve of her back through her nightgown. He could count her vertebrae. She stirred, and he took his hand away.
Gonzalo went downstairs to the kitchen without turning on the light, feeling his way around the furniture. He still wasn’t used to the new layout. The storage room was full of moving boxes yet to be opened, things that weren’t strictly necessary for day-to-day living and that Gonzalo had promised to sort through as soon as he found the time. Lola often accused him of being a hoarder, and it was true that many of those things he no longer used, but he couldn’t bear to part with them.
On one of the boxes he’d written in marker: LAURA’S THINGS. Lola was pestering him to get rid of her clothes and personal belongings. He turned on a lamp and sat on the floor to sort through the books, her baroque music collection, some stationery and office supplies that Luis hadn’t wanted. A few of those things still smelled like his sister, there was a slight trace of her perfume.
The cremation had been a sorrowful affair, almost pathetic. It was hard to understand how some people lived to a hundred without even trying, while for others each minute is an epic struggle, Luis had said, and Gonzalo agreed. Cremation wasn’t what he’d expected. Nothing like the funeral pyre of Hindu rituals, and certainly no Viking ship set ablaze with the hero sent out to sea. It was all so clinical: a sort of chamber that looked no different from a bakery oven or a butcher’s storeroom. They explained that the coffin, sans crucifix, was completely degradable, as though being eco-friendly was a top concern at a time like that, as though it mattered that the dead produced no pollution. One button raised the coffin to the oven door; another button ushered it inside, where the crackling of a furnace could be heard, although no flames were visible. A worker closed the door and handed him an oval-shaped nugget. It was made of some indestructible material and had an ID number etched into it to avoid possible mix-ups. When he received the ashes, this number would prove that they belonged to Laura. In ten thousand years, when there are no more ashes or remains, he thought, people will wonder where their ancestors’ bones are. And on archaeological digs they’ll find thousands, millions, of stones like this.
There had been a downpour during the service, one of those furious summer storms, and it destroyed the beautiful wreaths that Luis had bought for the hearse. Gonzalo’s contribution had been one made of tulips—he knew his sister loved them—with a gold sash that read: From your brother and mother who love you. But his mother had obstinately refused to even approach the open casket in the funeral parlor to say goodbye. In her black mourning dress she stood, stoic and absent throughout the ceremony, and when Luis approached, she hardly deigned to look at him. Despite Gonzalo having held an umbrella over his mother’s head to protect her from the rain, she’d caught a cold and had a slight fever, which at her age could be serious. Her only reaction to anything was when she caught sight of Chief Inspector Alcázar, standing alone, off at a distance.
“Who’s that?” she asked, squinting.
“Laura’s partner and boss.”
Later, when Alcázar came over to give his condolences, his mother refused to speak to him.
“It’s been a long time, Esperanza.”
“Not long enough, as far as I’m concerned,” she retorted, turning her back.
Gonzalo was shocked. “You know each other?”
Alcázar looked at him like he was an idiot. “Like wolf and sheep.”
On the drive back to the residence, he asked his mother what the inspector had meant by that, but she refused to answer. At no point on the way home did she mention Laura’s death or funeral. She did, however, note that it was a shame her dress had gotten ruined in the rain.
Alcázar’s words were still swirling in Gonzalo’s head, like food that won’t go down.
“Aren’t you coming to bed?”
Gonzalo could see Lola’s body silhouetted through her nightgown in the light. She wasn’t wearing any underwear. It was an erotic vision, yet somehow vague and distant. He got a nostalgic pang, but Lola’s impenetrable expression made clear the distance between them.
“I couldn’t sleep and didn’t want to wake you by tossing and turning.”
Lola picked up on her husband’s despondent look, and then saw what was in his hands. She’d sensed an undercurrent of resentment between them for some time now, something slowly eating away at the foundations of their relationship. And she knew it wasn’t just the imminent merger meeting with her father.
“Nightmares again?”
Gonzalo nodded, although he didn’t tell her that this time his sister’s face had been replaced by that of the tattooed redhead.
Lola gave the open box a look of appraisal. She’d never liked her sister-in-law, and that wasn’t going to change now that Laura was dead. It was unnecessary and would have been hypocritical, and although she hadn’t said anything to Gonzalo in order not to hurt him, she had trouble understanding his overnight devotion to Laura. They’d never spoken about her in the past and she didn’t see why he was suddenly so affected. She knew it was cruel of her to think like this, but the truth was that Lola detested everything about Gonzalo’s family: all the stories about his father, his mother’s arrogant disdain when, on rare occasions, she came to visit. The woman acted as though by virtue of her father, Lola and all those of her class were to blame for her misfortunes, real and invented. But what irked her the most, and scared her as well, was the way Gonzalo seemed to change when surrounded by his family, to become someone who made her uneasy.
“She was a great collector of words,” Gonzalo said, stroking the binding of an old Russian-Spanish dictionary.
“Excuse me?”
“Laura. She’d catch them midflight and write them all down in a little cloth-bound notebook she kept in her purse. Then she’d repeat the words over and over, like she was chewing them up, or trying to tame them.”
“What kind of words?”
“Wild ones. She’d look up the meaning of a word in the dictionary and underline it in fluorescent highlighter. And then, if she ever looked it up again and saw that she’d already highlighted it, she got mad, like a little kid.”
“I didn’t know that,” Lola said, touching his head lightly, as though she’d already done all she could to console him. Gonzalo blinked hard, as if he’d just had a terrible realization.
For a few seconds he gazed at his wife’s face, sounding her out.
“The truth is I didn’t know much about her either. Ten years of not speaking is a long time.”
“It wasn’t your fault. She was the one who pulled away.”
Gonzalo nodded mechanically, not actually feeling the truth of those words. He gazed at Lola’s profile, as if attempting to make sure she wasn’t lying. The lamplight reflected on her face made it look hazy, like a profile you see through the window on a rainy day.
Lola smoothed her hair and pressed her hands to her cheeks.
“I think I need some coffee.”
She made it in silence; it had been years since she’d made Gonzalo coffee or fresh-squeezed orange juice, stirring in a spoonful of sugar. Gonzalo sat, his mind blank, watching her bustle about the kitchen. Then she came and sat down next to him with a steaming, invigorating cup.
“Have you spoken to Javier lately?”
“I’ve at least tried,” Gonzalo replied, looking at his wife, waiting for her to go on.
“I’m not sure, but recently I’ve found money missing—not much, just small amounts, but it’s been happening regularly. I asked him about it and he got furious.”
“Not surprising, if you accused him of being a thief.”
Lola looked at her husband like he was impossible. It was so difficult to get Gonzalo involved in anything, especially if it had to do with his son.
“I didn’t accuse him of anything, I just asked him about it, and not because of the money but because I’m worried. He’s been acting strange these days, sad and absent. I went through his things.”
Gonzalo gave her a disapproving look. “What were you expecting to find?”
“I don’t know—drugs maybe, anything. Do you know what he said to me after dinner? That as soon as he turns eighteen he’s leaving home forever.”
“Everyone feels the urge to go somewhere at eighteen. He’ll get over it.”
“You shouldn’t talk like that about your own son. It doesn’t make you sound like a very good father.”
Gonzalo glanced at his wife. Sometimes he had the urge to tell her what he’d seen that morning eighteen years ago. But mentally he always tiptoed back down the stairs without a sound, as he had that day, as though nothing had happened. As though that door had remained closed.
“What kind of mother does it make you sound like?”
Lola picked up the empty cups and dumped them in the sink.
“The kind who will do what’s necessary to keep her family together. You should get some sleep. Tomorrow’s your meeting with my father, and the old man will take full advantage if he sees you off your game.”
Siaka’s black skin turned miraculously yellow in the glow cast from each streetlight as he walked beneath it. Dogs barked as he passed the vine-covered walls. He could see almost no house lights through the windows, just illuminated gardens and swimming pools. What Siaka liked about the night, what he’d always liked, was the feeling that the city belonged to him, had been built just for him. Especially in the wee hours before dawn, when the dim light just began to peek over the hill against the horizon. At night the lawyer’s house looked different, as though buildings, too, needed to close their eyes and rest lazily. He sat on the ground and leaned his back against the low wall across the street. A pleasant breeze carried the scent of jasmine and pine. Maybe I’ll have a house like this one day, he thought, though in truth Siaka preferred hotels. Nothing compared to the feeling of not being tied down to anything, the feeling that whatever you want is yours at the push of a button. The rich, in general, were not very attractive. Perhaps that was why they bought big cars and big houses. So that rather than look at them you looked at what they possessed.
He was tired of this life and determined to change it, to take charge. The time had come. He was planning to return to Zimbabwe. Siaka had saved up some money and his aunt had written, telling him of an old building complex in Chizarira National Park that for a reasonable price could be turned into a tourist hotel. A hotel with pristine flags. Laura had promised to help with his papers, help him change his identity, give him a past he wouldn’t have to feel ashamed of when he returned home, maybe a university degree. Why not? Something no one would bother to check. His father would have been proud of that: the first in the family with a degree, and from a European university at that. But Laura was dead. Like Zinoviev, like the boy. All of them dead, except him.
The deputy inspector had been right when she said there were many ways to kill a childhood. He was familiar with several of them: a father who beats the crap out of you for no reason; an older sister who gives you to her boyfriend to rape you; a militiaman who hands you a Russian assault rifle and makes you fire on villagers; a few drunk soldiers who force you to rape a dying woman. And none of these was really any worse than sitting in a Mercedes on the lap of an obese old man who wants a blow job, or being forced to fuck a girl at a luxurious mansion while party guests—men and women in elegant suits and expensive jewels—gather around the bed and ogle in sickening titillation. Day after day, hour after hour, childhood flees from these horrors, taking refuge in a memory, in games played by Lake Kariba, in nursery rhymes and cartoons. Only by keeping the memories alive can you continue believing that you’re still human.
Siaka let the breeze flow across his open legs and for a moment wondered what it would be like to have dreams come true. Not to borrow them for a few hours or days but to own them, take possession of them, reclaim them from the world. It would be better, he thought. A better world.
The lights went out in the lawyer’s kitchen and Siaka contemplated the fresh graffiti on the wall. Everything we do has consequences, Gil. And you’re going to pay them.
“A nice desideratum,” he murmured. Siaka liked that word; the deputy inspector had taught him how to pronounce it.
Luisa knocked on the door and entered without waiting to be called in, exuding an air of efficiency. It was Monday, another life. Gonzalo appreciated the fact that she didn’t look at him like a cripple. She’d offered her condolences for Laura’s death, brought him a strong coffee and a painkiller, and begun working as usual.
“Don Agustín is waiting for you in the boardroom.”
“You’re calling him ‘don’ Agustín now? He was ‘stupid old jerk’ until Friday.”
Luisa didn’t bat an eye.
“It’s quite likely that when you emerge from that meeting it will be as part of Agustín and Associates. I’d like to keep working with you, and if I have to get down on my knees in order to do it, as long as it’s nowhere near that man’s crotch, then so be it.”
Gonzalo smiled at Luisa’s impudence. He liked people who didn’t beat around the bush.
“I might put up a fight. Maybe I’ll manage to keep us independent.”
Luisa shot him a dubious look but had the good taste to keep her mouth shut.
“One more thing. You asked me to find out who rented the apartment on the right. The hottie with the butterfly wings is named Tania something-or-other, her last name is unpronounceable.”
“Akhmatova, like the poet,” Gonzalo said, reading off the card Luisa held out.
“She’s a photographer, and despite looking like a Slavic model and having tits to die for, she’s an incredibly nice young woman. She told me if I ever needed her services, she’s got a little studio at this address. I’d say she’s not married, or at least she doesn’t wear a ring, and that she’s foreign, though that much you could guess by her name. It’s funny, she asked me about you, too, and I didn’t even mention you.”
Gonzalo blushed slightly. “What did you tell her?”
“What could I tell her? The truth: that you’re a lawyer of no means, boring, in terrible shape, half blind, you work too much, and are a little stingy when it comes to your assistant’s wages.”
Gonzalo smiled. Luisa’s impertinence,
if nothing else, served to ease the tension in his shoulders before he confronted his father-in-law. He took the business card without really knowing what he was going to do with it and adjusted his tie and jacket perfunctorily.
“Here we go.”
The boardroom had been designed to intimidate visitors. This was one strategic advantage that Agustín knew how to make the most of. When he had important business to conduct, he’d summon the other party to his office and await him in his presidential armchair, pretending to be preoccupied by some document he held before him. On this occasion, however, as he awaited his son-in-law, his preoccupation was not feigned. He’d spent a good deal of his weekend studying the documents relating to ACASA, one of his biggest clients. The project they had in mind would yield several million in profit if he could play his cards right. The problem was that, in an ironic twist of fate, the foundation on which the entire project hinged was about to walk in the door.
Agustín set his glasses down on top of the documents and took a sip of whiskey, contemplating the portrait of his daughter and grandchildren. He’d never liked Gonzalo. The very first time Lola brought him home, Agustín knew that this timid-looking boy would never have the strength of character to give his daughter what she deserved or even form part of the family. He had the kid checked out and learned that he was the son of a Communist who’d disappeared in 1967, when Gonzalo was a boy. The mother was of Belorussian descent and half crazy, and his sister had been in Afghanistan during the Soviet conflict, writing articles of dubious intent. That fact that Gonzalo had gone to a Claretian boarding school until he was sixteen was a point in his favor—not quite a Jesuit university like the one he himself had attended, the one that Javier had already been admitted to for next year, thanks to his patronage—but he’d been expelled for discipline problems. When they first met, Gonzalo was in his last year of law school at the Universidad a Distancia, working part-time jobs as a waiter and warehouse assistant.
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