A Sweet Scent of Death

by Guillermo Arriaga

  On one of those many nights, Red Papadimitru made a remark that stuck in the Gypsy’s mind. ‘Some women,’ he explained, ‘are just bodies and others are people.’ Someone pointed out that the distinction was infantile, that one way or another every woman was both a body and a person. Under the influence of a generous flow of whisky, Red clarified: ‘Look, there are women you get into the sack, bang, and it’s over, they slip by without a trace, forgotten the next morning. They’re what I call bodies. On the other hand, there are women you can lay all your life and never finish making love to them. They’re an endless handful of surprises. That’s the kind I call a person. The first, you drop without wanting to know any more about them. But the others stay with you no matter how hard you try to get them out of your head.’

  Red’s explanation was received with whistles, applause and insults. He was accused of being a stud, a hayseed, a show-off, and a son of a bitch. The uproar had no effect on him; he just continued as always.

  The Gypsy was so impressed by the man’s ideas that he turned them over in his mind all night. He wondered if, from a woman’s point of view, there were men who were just bodies and others who were people, and what happened if a man-body met with a woman-body, or a man-person with a woman-body and vice versa.

  The following day he tried to show off the Greek’s theories to his schoolmates, as if they were his own. It had not occurred to him that they might be turned against him until one of his schoolmates said: ‘Then your mother is one of those body-women, because as far as I know your father screwed her for nothing and dropped her with you on the way.’

  The Gypsy went livid with rage while his companions made fun of him. He tried to get even with his offender who, rather than face him, ran all around the schoolyard shouting, ‘Come and see the son of a body-woman, come and see him…’ Ashamed, the Gypsy left school and never went back.

  He never returned to the joint either, and always hated the memory of Red Papadimitru. It gave him some satisfaction years later to learn that he had been found dead on the dock with the upper half of a tequila bottle jammed in his stomach, the work of a local prostitute: a body-woman.

  He had not recalled the Greek’s theories until that Tuesday afternoon, on his way to Ciudad Mante, when he realized that, no matter how often he made love to Gabriela, there would never be an end to it. He could kiss her from head to foot without ever being satisfied, lick every inch of her skin and find a different flavor in each one. It was then, he thought, that he understood the Greek captain, that his remarks had not been mere male bravado, but the clumsy ruminations of a man who, obviously in love, was trying to distinguish his beloved from the rest of her kind.

  5

  When he reached Ciudad Mante, he drove across the city from one end to the other until he reached the exit for Ciudad Victoria. The rural police headquarters was located in the last house, almost on the highway.

  He knocked on the door, which was opened by a sleepy cop in rumpled clothes reeking of beer.

  ‘What’s up, Gypsy? Come on in; the captain’s in the bedroom.’

  The Gypsy was in the habit of showing up once a month to pay his dues. He enjoyed a good reputation in the force as a reliable smuggler who paid up regularly and, except for his frequent troubles with married women, was never involved in brawls or disputes. He found Carmelo Lozano playing dominoes with three of his subordinates in a back room. Beside his chair lay several empty beer bottles of different brands, a bottle of cane liquor on the table next to a plate containing the remains of tacos. The room was lit by a bare bulb spotted with fly-shit. Bare to the waist, with a wet red rag over his shoulders, Lozano told the Gypsy to take a chair next to his.

  ‘Give me a minute,’ he said. ‘Just let me block this guy’s boxcar and I’ll be with you.’

  While the game went on, the Gypsy noticed two dead deer hanging from a beam in the patio.

  ‘We confiscated them from some poachers,’ explained Lozano. ‘Tomorrow we’re going to barbecue them. Wanna join us?’

  ‘Na, I’ve got things to do,’ answered the Gypsy, his eyes on the captain’s dominoes.

  Lozano turned one face up and spun it on the table. ‘With this one I’m out,’ he said.

  And so it was. Another player put down a double four and the captain played his last, a four-two.

  Lozano stood up and stretched till his hands touched the ceiling. ‘Shuffle the pieces,’ he ordered, ‘while I see what my friend here wants.’ He took a pull at the bottle and offered it to the Gypsy. ‘What brings you here?’ he asked.

  ‘Life, Captain.’

  Lozano grinned.

  ‘And what else?’

  ‘I’ve got business in Loma Grande and I heard there was trouble there…What do you know?’

  ‘A girl was killed.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ interjected the Gypsy.

  Lozano went right on: ‘And the whole village is in an uproar.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Enough to do you in, if you show up.’

  ‘Why me? I’ve got nothing to do with anything.’

  Carmelo stretched again and dropped heavily into the chair. ‘Vibes, my friend, vibes.’

  He began another game.

  ‘And what business do you have pending?’ inquired Lozano.

  ‘I’ve got to collect some debts.’

  ‘Collect them another time.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be paid tomorrow.’

  Lozano picked up seven dominoes, straightened them and put them in numerical order. ‘Will you look at this lousy hand,’ he said, showing it to the Gypsy. Raising his head, he looked at his opponent: ‘Who opens, you or me?’

  The other man laid down a double three.

  ‘I think you’ve got a thing going with some dame over there and you’ve got the hots.’

  ‘There’s truth in that, but I’m really going to collect the money.’

  ‘If you want my advice, friend, don’t go into the village. Honestly, they’re mad as hell.’

  ‘I just want to go and get paid. I’ll be there and back on the same day.’

  Lozano made a gesture of disapproval and slammed a domino on the table. ‘Pass,’ he said.

  The hand went around and the captain passed again.

  ‘Christ, pay attention to what I’m doing,’ he reproached his partner.

  ‘Next time around,’ answered his subordinate nervously.

  Lozano wiped the sweat off his face with the rag on his shoulders and took another pull at the bottle.

  ‘OK, Gypsy, do what you want…just don’t come around crying to me afterwards.’

  The game ended with Lozano and his partner losing by twenty-five points.

  ‘Shit,’ grunted Carmelo as he began to mix the dominoes again.

  The Gypsy rubbed his hands tensely on his trousers. ‘How about lending me a pistol, Captain? Just in case the worst comes to the worst and some nut in the village goes haywire,’ he said, thinking of Pedro Salgado.

  ‘No way,’ exclaimed Lozano immediately. ‘Who do you think I am? Furthermore, what do you need it for? Don’t they say that you have the hide of a buffalo?’

  ‘Yeah, but even cats run out of their nine lives.’

  The captain turned to the Gypsy with a steady look.

  ‘What are you afraid of, my friend? Didn’t you say you have nothing to do with the matter?’

  ‘And didn’t you say that things at Loma Grande are serious?’ answered the Gypsy calmly. ‘I want the pistol just in case.’

  Lozano seemed satisfied with the answer and changed his tone. ‘I won’t lend you one,’ he said, and before the Gypsy could object, added, ‘I’ll sell it to you.’

  ‘How much?’ asked the Gypsy without hiding his satisfaction.

  Lozano gave his three subordinates a look of complicity, and answered: ‘Two thousand five hundred.’

  ‘Shit, Captain, I could buy a shotgun for that.’

  ‘That’s the price, take it or leave it.’

>   The Gypsy put his hand in his pocket and felt the two thousand he had earned selling those tape recorders.

  ‘I’ll give you one-five.’

  Lozano picked up his seven dominoes and, without taking his eyes off them, responded: ‘I’ll meet you halfway, two thousand two hundred.’

  ‘One-seven.’

  ‘One-nine and that’s as far as I’ll go.’

  ‘Done.’ The Gypsy took out his wad and counted out the bills on the table.

  ‘There it is.’

  The captain picked them up calmly and without counting stuck them in his shirt pocket.

  They began another game and finished it, followed by another and another, without Lozano making a move. Impatiently, the Gypsy objected, ‘What about the pistol?’

  Feigning surprise, the captain answered: ‘What pistol?’

  The Gypsy groaned with anger and disappointment.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Captain…don’t give me that…’

  ‘So help me, friend, I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Lozano, looking inquiringly at his men. ‘Do you know what he’s talking about?’

  The three cops shook their heads, smiling discreetly.

  ‘You see, we don’t know anything about a pistol.’

  The Gypsy knew that when Lozano played dumb, there was no way around him.

  ‘You’re really going to take me for it?’

  Carmelo Lozano put a domino down in the middle of the table.

  ‘Double five,’ he said, wiping his face with the damp rag again, and patted the Gypsy on the knee.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong, friend. I’m not cheating you, I’m helping you.’

  ‘Screwing me out of my money?’

  ‘No,’ emphasized the captain, ‘because the money you gave me is an advance on your dues, so beat it before you distract me and make me lose.’

  The Gypsy was about to object, but Lozano cut him short: ‘That’s it, out! Because if you don’t get out of here right now I’ll charge you and lock you up.’

  The Gypsy no longer insisted, but left the police headquarters in a rage. The captain had skinned him for almost two thousand pesos with no effort at all.

  He drove back across the city to the highway to Tampico, and parked on a side road. He got into the back, spread out a pad and a couple of sheets, and lay down to sleep. His mind was made up: trouble or not in Loma Grande, with or without a pistol, he was going to get Gabriela the following day.

  Chapter XV

  One Night Before

  1

  ‘The Gypsy is in Los Aztecas.’

  The news reached the village via Guzmaro Collazos, who had just arrived on the bus that stopped at Loma Grande on Tuesday afternoon, on its route around El Abra—El Triunfo—Plan de Ayala—Niños Héroes—Los Aztecas—Ejido Madero—Díaz Ordaz—Canoas—Graciano Sanchez—Ejido Pastores—Loma Grande—Santa Ana—El Dieciocho—Lopez Mateos—Ciudad Mante.

  ‘How do you know?’ asked Amador Cendejas.

  ‘I saw his pick-up in front of the rooming house,’ answered Guzmaro, trying to revive one of his turkeys that had nearly suffocated under two sacks of sugar.

  Marcelino, still angry from his argument with Justino Téllez, snapped, ‘And you spilled the beans, didn’t you?’

  ‘There you go again,’ whispered Justino so only those around them could hear.

  Guzmaro stopped blowing into the failing turkey’s beak and answered belligerently: ‘Don’t give me that shit, Huitrón. I’m no fag to be going around with gossip.’

  ‘Well, you’re the only one who left town after we figured out it was the Gypsy who killed the girl.’

  So it was. That morning Guzmaro had cycled over to Niños Héroes to buy his turkeys. Leaving his bike with a cousin, he had come back by bus so as not to have to carry the birds.

  ‘Well, I tell you, I never saw the Gypsy. All I saw, passing by, was his pick-up.’

  ‘We’ll see about that…’ mumbled Marcelino.

  Guzmaro made no further response to the provocation. The turkey had died in his hands and he didn’t know what to do with it.

  Knowledge that the Gypsy was close to Loma Grande excited a general impatience to kill him. Sotelo Villa proposed they go to Los Aztecas and lynch him. But Justino Téllez put a stop to it.

  ‘That’s not our business,’ he said. ‘It’s up to Ramón.’

  When Ramón returned from slaughtering the bull, he was eagerly awaited by the rest of the village men, who wanted to know how he would react to the Gypsy’s presence only a few kilometers away. They pressured him in various ways: some making him repeat his vow to take revenge; others, the more aggressive, like Marcelino Huitrón and Sotelo Villa, urging him to go to Los Aztecas that very night, to get even. Confused, Ramón was at a loss to answer them, but Jacinto Cruz came to his aid.

  ‘A good hunter lets his prey come to him, he doesn’t go chasing it,’ he said calmly.

  The saying angered Marcelino Huitrón. ‘What if he doesn’t come?’

  Justino Téllez interrupted without letting Jacinto respond, ‘How many times do I have to tell you, Marcelino, that the Gypsy will be back?’ he growled irritably.

  ‘And how many times do I have to ask how the hell you know that?’ Marcelino challenged him.

  Justino rose from his chair, leaving his beer on the table and, facing Marcelino, said, ‘Because a man with a clean conscience has nothing to fear,’ and without further explanation turned and left.

  The others were stunned; only Ranulfo Quirarte understood the delegate’s remark perfectly. Obviously, Justino was as aware as he that the Gypsy was innocent, and others might know it as well as they. Ranulfo quailed at the feebleness of his lie. If Ramón did not kill the Gypsy, which was quite likely, the Gypsy would find out who had falsely accused him of the crime, and make him pay for it. There was no longer any way he could back out or undo the charade he had invented. Somehow, he had to ensure the Gypsy’s sentence would be executed: it was his only hope.

  He slipped nervously away from the crowd, to lie low at home and wait.

  Night fell. Most of the crowd went home, leaving only a few in the shop. The atmosphere was heavy with the conviction that events would erupt at any moment.

  Jacinto was convinced of it. He pulled Ramón aside. ‘You’ve got to be prepared,’ he told him, ‘because the Gypsy won’t be long in coming.’

  Taking the ice-pick from his sack, he made a few passes with the sharpener. ‘Ready,’ he said, and handed it to Ramón, who took it with some reluctance.

  ‘Don’t think about it, just kill him without thinking about it.’

  Ramón studied the point glinting in his hand. The time had passed for trial thrusts into the carcass of a dead animal or further blather. The wait for the moment of truth had begun.

  Chapter XVI

  The Last Chapter

  1

  He woke a little before dawn to the racket caused by a flock of blackbirds in the huisache over his pick-up. He had slept peacefully in spite of his anger at being swindled out of his money by Carmelo Lozano and the anticipation of soon having Gabriela Bautista in his arms again. Not even the overpowering heat shut into the airless cab of his pick-up had spoiled his rest.

  The Gypsy opened the hatch, startling the entire flock into clattering departure. He stuck his head out to breathe the cool morning air and found it rank with the smell of burnt sugar cane. Sitting on the ice-chest, he put on his sneakers and got out of the cab. He could see the hump of Bernal Hill outlined against the morning shadows on the horizon. He would be crossing it before long.

  He lit the portable primus stove to heat water for coffee. There was no hurry. He had to give Gabriela’s husband time to leave for the cotton fields; by eight o’clock, his rival would be well away from Loma Grande. He made coffee with five teaspoons of sugar and one of powdered milk, the way his mother had done when he was a kid. She was convinced the sugar gave him energy and helped him grow faster.

  Finishing the
coffee, he sucked the juice out of two oranges, rinsed the coffee cup and poured the gas out of the stove into a glass jar. A coyote trotted past him, the two eyeing each other without fear or alarm as the animal went on its way.

  On the radio, Tampico was broadcasting ‘Good Morning Rancheros’. Two sleepy announcers were faking sparkling dialogue on the subject of letters received from ‘faithful listeners’. After reading each one and praising the unqualified benefits of Bayer agricultural products, they announced the correct time.

  When the Gypsy heard that Bayticol was the best remedy for ticks and that it was 7.15 a.m., he decided to depart. He put the stove into its case, rolled up the pad, folded the sheets and took an orange out of the ice-chest to suck on the way. Switching on the motor, he let it warm up, and then turned the wheel to back out onto the highway towards Tampico. He would reach his destination in forty minutes.

  2

  The first to witness his approach was Pascual Ortega, who recognized his pick-up in the distance, descending the slope from the dirt road to Number Eighteen. He studied the black dot on the road and, when he was sure who it was, left the pair of horses with which he was plowing his field, and lit out for the village.

  Torcuato Garduño was loading sacks of corn onto a mule in his yard when he heard shouting. He climbed to the roof of his house to see Pascual desperately jumping furrows and yelling at the top of his voice, ‘Here he comes, here he comes…’

  Torcuato raised his eyes and spotted the pick-up heading toward the village. ‘Holy shit,’ he exclaimed.