LIKE CAT AND DOG
THE PLACE LOOKS different with her in it. I hardly recognise it. Her presence transforms it. Either that or I was shit-faced the first time I came in. Though what with the weed and the bottle of Legui I’m not exactly sober right now. I’m feeling more cranked than chilled to tell the truth.
‘Come in,’ Yanina says, half asleep.
I follow her down the dark hallway. She is framed, silhouetted by the bluish glow from the far end. Her generous hips and her drooping shoulders. Her loose hair. She’s wearing a baggy T-shirt as a nightdress. Her feet are bare. Her soles slap against the floor with every step. The glow is from the TV. She’s watching a black-and-white movie starring Libertad Lamarque that’s old as the hills. She goes over and turns down the volume until the dialogue is an almost inaudible murmur.
‘You still up?’ I ask. ‘Don’t you have to be up early for school tomorrow?’
‘No. Teachers’ strike.’ She clicks her tongue. ‘I couldn’t sleep …’ She blinks at me repeatedly. I notice that.
She sits in a chair facing the TV, curls her legs under her and pulls the T-shirt over them. It’s a fraction of a second, that’s all, but for that fraction of a second she gives me a flash of her thighs, the curve of her arse, her bare hip that knocks me out. She takes a cigarette from the pack of Lights on the table and sparks it up. She takes a deep drag, blows out the smoke and hugs her knees like she’s still cold.
‘What was it you wanted to say to me?’
No beating about the bush. Straight to the point. So straight it unsettles me. Something and nothing. What am I supposed to say now?
‘Lots of stuff, Yani,’ I say, bringing a cigarette to my lips. ‘I don’t really know where to start.’
I sit down at the table opposite her and she picks up a digital watch hidden behind the ashtray and peers at it in the glow from the TV.
‘Start wherever you like, but get a move on, it’s late. My old man’s going to roll in any moment.’
‘I doubt it, the bar is rammed …’ I say, playing for time. ‘He’ll be a while yet.’
She frowns, sucks on her cigarette and says, ‘Whatever, Gringo. He doesn’t like me letting people into the house, and I don’t want to take the risk. He can be very overprotective …’
‘What is it, Yani? Does he hit you?’
This catches her off guard, though that wasn’t my intention. I said it without thinking. The answer’s obvious. Yani stares at me, her eyes huge and round as a dog that’s been beaten slinking back to be petted. She pushes a lock of hair behind her ear and stubs her cigarette out in the ashtray.
‘No, but sometimes …’ She looks away.
She’s scared. I realise that. Farías the fat fucker probably beats her all the time. I’m sure he does. It’s obvious. You can smell fear, and I can feel her fear prickling my nose. There’s an awkward silence. This isn’t how I wanted things to go. The whole thing is getting away from me. I clear my throat and light another cigarette.
Yanina stretches out her legs and stares at them for a moment. I lean over the table and stare at them too. They’re beautiful. Especially her knees. Her ankles are covered with tiny red marks. Insect bites. Mosquitos, maybe, or fleas, I don’t know. But I love them. They’re so delicate. She slowly puts on her slippers and gets up.
‘You fancy sharing a mate –?’
‘Sure,’ I say before she’s even finished the question. She could offer me cyanide and I’d still say yes.
I get up and follow her into the kitchen. She turns the light on, puts the kettle on the stove. It’s just as filthy as it was the other night, but a little tidier. There are no burnt saucepans in the sink and the table has been more or less cleared. Yanina reaches up to take down the mate gourd and the yerba mate from a shelf. I make the most of the opportunity to appraise her arse. I can see she’s wearing a thong under her T-shirt. I’m shocked. I’m also horny as hell. Up to this point I’ve behaved like a perfect gentleman, but I don’t know how much longer I can hold out. She gives me a sidelong glance. She knows. Least I think so, because I see her smile with her eyes. She packs mate into the gourds and brews it the Uruguayan way, adding cold water first. She strains the gourds in the sink, turns on the tap and lets the water run. The kettle is whistling by now. Before she turns it off I suggest, ‘Why don’t we add a little something?’
‘Like what?’ She looks at me like a naughty little girl.
‘I don’t know, what you got … ?’
‘Let’s have a look …’ She opens the fridge and stands, staring into it like it was a window at night or a cave filled with shadows. Inside, it’s darker than a wardrobe. Unless I mistake, I’d swear it was empty last time.
‘You OK with gin?’ she says, turning her body, one hand still on the door of the fridge.
‘Perfect. Bols?’
‘No, Llave.’ She bends down, takes out a litre-and-a-half bottle and hands it to me. It’s warm.
‘You keep that thing turned off to save on electricity or am I confusing a cupboard with a fridge?’
She laughs. And everything’s fine between us.
‘No, it’s on the blink,’ she says with an irritated gesture.
I take the top off the bottle, take a sip of the gin and hand it back to her.
‘Yech … the Llave’s a little bitter. Why don’t we sweeten it up a bit . . ?’ I suggest.
‘Hang on, let me see. I think there’s honey somewhere …’ She puts the gin down next to the mate and starts searching in the cupboard under the counter. After a while, just as I’m getting impatient and about to tell her not to bother, she stands up again, triumphantly brandishing a bottle.
‘Found it!’
She unscrews the cap and tries to push a spoon into it, but she can’t. The honey is too old. It’s crystallised.
‘Let me have a go,’ I say, seeing her give up.
I go over to the counter and the scent of her skin hits me like 220 volts. The smell is both fresh and intense. I take the bottle and hold out my hand for the spoon. She presses it against my palm but doesn’t let go. I close my fingers around the spoon, and around her fingers. Yanina lets her fingers stay in mine for a moment and our eyes meet.
I carve out a little nugget of honey and let it drop into the gap between the damp yerba and the silver straw, the bombilla. Yani does the rest. She adds a large splash of gin and pours on the hot water.
‘Help yourself,’ she says and passes me the gourd.
It’s steaming. It’s fucking amazing. I can feel it warming my whole body.
‘So, what’s it like?’ she asks impatiently.
‘Lush. Really lush,’ I say smiling, staring at her eagerly. I’ve never been this close to her.
I hand back the mate and our fingers brush again. Accidentally or on purpose, makes no odds. She puts another splash of gin in, tastes it. She likes it. She brews another one for me and moves a few inches away. As a precaution. Our fingers are like bare wires, sending out sparks every time they make contact. Live and earth. Difficult to tell which of us is carrying the electrical charge. Doesn’t matter.
I lean back against the counter and feel the .38 dig into my kidneys. It’s so well holstered, I didn’t notice it till now.
As I drink the last of the mate, sucking on the bombilla until it whistles. I nod towards the fridge.
‘Are you going to get someone to come and look at it?’
‘They already did … It can’t be fixed, we’ll have to get a new one,’ she sighs.
‘So how do you manage?’
‘I don’t …’
From the look on my face, Yani can tell what I’m thinking. With all the cash Fat Farías spends on wine, you’d think he could buy her a new fridge, even a second-hand one.
‘The old man says he’s got three fridges at the bar so he doesn’t need another one …’ she explains.
‘No offence, Yani, but Don Farías sounds like a bit of a Neanderthal.’
‘A bit?’ she says a
nd laughs again, but half-heartedly. Almost bitterly.
I change the subject. We talk about the movie with Libertad Lamarque, about insomnia, about the yowling of cats on heat … anything. Anything as long as there’s no mention of Fat Farías and his bar. The old man’s bar is the eye of the storm. Hers and mine. And just now, we don’t want to deal with it. The mate is too good to ruin it. So good we keep adding more water. At this stage, we’ve brewed every ounce of flavour from the yerba, and keep adding a little something until we’ve gone through a quarter of the bottle of gin. Yanina’s eyes are shining. Her cheeks are flushed.
I put the mate down on the counter and, without warning, grab her round the waist and pull her to me forcefully. She doesn’t resist, and I bite her lips. Yani’s tongue is dancing in my mouth. It tastes of gin, of tobacco, of plums, of cough mixture, of rosemary … and lots of other things I couldn’t begin to explain. But most of all, it tastes of desire. I slip my hands under her T-shirt and run my fingertips over every inch of her arse. She gets goosebumps. Our breathing accelerates. She pulls up my windcheater and my T-shirt, feverishly. Desperately. I cross my arms and pull them both over my head in a single movement. Time is speeding up. Or we’re speeding up. I put a hand on the small of her back. I lift her up, turn round and set her on the counter. While I pull the front of her T-shirt over her head and hook it round the back of her neck like a striker celebrating a goal, Yanina unbuckles my belt and opens my fly. The .38 falls, slides into the turn-ups of my jeans and drops to the floor with a sharp clatter.
‘Stop, stop … did you hear that?’ She’s nervous.
‘I didn’t hear anything, Yani,’ I lie.
I bite her nipples and she takes my cock in both hands and aims it at the centre of the target like it’s her own personal toy. She pulls hard, like she’s going to rip it off. With my index and middle fingers, I pull her G-string aside and trace the outline of her lips. Warm and wet. My fingers slip lazily in, opening a path. And I’m inside her. A journey into space. The final frontier. Now she’s the one biting. My earlobe. And she’s growling. Her tongue is tracing a song in saliva in my ear. I hang onto her hips like they’re the anchor for a paper boat in a raging storm. Out of sight of land. On an open sea, one that does not close. The only way is in. And I’m inside her. But the sudden contractions of her pussy as it grips me tight bring me back to earth. She whimpers and digs her nails into my side. Now I’m a trigger. The pain subsides. And I bite. I bite the dust, the last reflex of a man who’s been shot.
I give up. I rest my forehead in the cleft between her breasts. The sweat from her skin revives me. She wraps her arms around my shoulders and covers my neck with little kisses. I listen as she gets her breath back. Then with a thrust of her hips, she expels me.
‘Just look what you did to me, Catwoman,’ I say, showing her the scratches down my side as I pull up my pants.
‘What about you, you little dog?’ she says, sticking out her lower lip.
There are small purple bruises where I sank my teeth into her. One of them has produced a pearl of blood.
She pulls down her T-shirt and straightens her hair. With the toe of my shoe, I push the .38 under the cupboard. And we pick up the conversation as though we’d never left off.
‘He thinks I’ve got the makings of a madame … he wants me to look after his shit.’
‘Who? El Jetita?’
‘Who do you think … ?’ she says, irritated.
‘I though El Negro Sosa took care of the girls?’ I say.
‘Don’t talk to me about that slimy bastard. Hijo de puta. He scares the shit out of me. He and El Jetita both want to fuck me.’
‘What does your old man say?’
‘Nothing. He agrees with whatever they say, like he owes them something …’
‘Money?’ I guess.
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘What was the deal they were doing with the police commissioner from Zavaleta?’
‘He’s agreed to turn a blind eye until Charly and El Jetita sort out the turf war. After that he’s planning on charging them both a “free trade tax”. That’s what he called it. Can you believe that?’
‘This turf war, people are going to get shot, Yani,’ I warn her. ‘If you stay on at the bar, you could get caught in the crossfire.’
‘Sure, I guess, but what do you want me to do?’
‘Get the fuck out of here,’ I say.
She looks me in the eye. And the pool of fear in her eyes threatens to drown me. Our faces are inches apart.
‘What about papá? I’m just supposed to abandon him?’
‘He’s a big boy, isn’t he? He knows what he’s getting himself mixed up in –’
‘What they’re getting him mixed up in,’ she cuts in sullenly. ‘They set things up. El Jetita and all the guys who hang around with him, like you and your friend Chueco for example.’
‘I’m not involved in any of this, Yani! Get that into your head …’ We’re like cat and dog now. The harmony that was between us is completely fucked. ‘And just so you know,’ I add, ‘I’m getting out of here. I’m heading up to the Delta.’
‘What are you going to do up there?’ Her tone is softer.
‘I don’t know. Whatever. Something will come up. If you want to come with …’
Yanina suddenly laughs, but it sounds forced. She’s scared. She wasn’t expecting me to come out with something like that.
‘And I’m supposed to just quit school when I’m about to graduate?’
‘No … ask for a deferment and do your exams up there.’
She seems like she’s thinking about it, but she doesn’t look too convinced. She frowns and gets down from the counter. I get dressed. I bend down, pretending to tie my shoelace and grab the strap.
‘You make it sound so easy, Gringo, but it’s not that simple …’ she murmurs like she’s talking to herself.
I don’t say anything. And she says it again, her eyes vacant.
‘It’s not that simple …’
I take this opportunity to slip the gun into the back of my jeans without her noticing. But Yani’s quick. She wises up. And the look she gives me says it all.
RIDDLES
THERE ARE THINGS about Mamina I don’t understand. All the pointless work she does, for example. But her attitudes too, the way she reacts … The more I know her, the less I understand. Right now she’s scrubbing the doorstep like she does religiously every other day. Come rain, thunder or hail she scrubs that little patch of concrete until it’s spotless. And today’s the day.
I listen to her fill the bucket from the outside tap. I watch her through the tiny kitchen window. Through the fog. She splashes out the water and scrubs with her brush. She’s stick-thin and getting thinner by the day, getting smaller and more stooped, and still she carries on with every last ounce of energy. And it’s not worth a fart. First person walks past and the pavement will be dirty again. The rain has turned the dirt road into a swamp, but still Mamina goes on scrubbing the doorstep. I don’t know where she gets the strength.
I put the kettle on the stove and brew up a couple of mates. I bring a sweet one out to her. Just the way she likes it.
‘Morning …’
‘Good morning, m’hijo. How did you sleep?’
Like shit, but I don’t tell her that. I feel sorry for her. Quique is sleeping in my bed. Like a log. And Mamina took great pains making up another bed for me. A box and a couple of blankets. I went to bed just as it was getting light and woke up a little while later with my back fucked. After that, I didn’t get a wink of sleep, though I tried.
‘So-so,’ I say.
‘I’ll go over to Ernestina today and ask her to lend me a mattress …’
‘Don’t worry about it, Grandma, you’ve got enough on your plate with the kid.’ She glowers at me like I’d just said something terrible.
‘How’s the little girl?’ I ask in passing.
‘Still weak.’ She sucks greedily on the mate t
hen hands me back the gourd.
I bring her another sweet mate, and when I bring her the third she says no thank you. She doesn’t want any more. She’s frugal even when it comes to mate.
Inside, Quique is already up. He’s taken some of the hot water from the kettle to brew himself an instant mate in a jam jar. He’s making himself at home.
‘Hey, compañero, you could at least ask first!’
‘Don’t bust my balls, Gringo.’
He grabs two sachets of sugar, tips them into his mate cocido and, blowing on the jam jar, wanders over to the shelf where Mamina keeps the radio. He flicks it on, turns the dial till he comes to a station playing ‘Sympathy for the Devil’, cranks up the volume.
‘I thought you were a slum-boy cumbia fan?’ I say to wind him up.
‘I was, and now I’m a Stones fan,’ he plays along.
‘Since when?’
‘Since right now.’
‘Fuckwit … Why?’
‘Meh … people change.’
‘Do you even know what they’re singing about?’
‘No, but I still like them.’
I like them too. Particularly this song. I like the drumming. Sounds like candombe. But at least I know what the lyrics mean. More or less. Santi, the mad fucker, translated them for me one time when we were in his Chevy. ‘Sympathy for the Devil’ is all about this guy who’s filthy rich and has good taste, but doesn’t tell you his name. It’s like this game, he wants you to guess his name, gives you a bunch of clues, in case you’re thick. The chorus is just ‘Who, who, what’s my name?’ like it was a riddle and he’s being all mysterious.
Drinking his mate cocido, Quique taps along with his foot. He glances over at me and laughs. He’s a strange little fucker. When he’s finished, he puts the jar in the sink. I’m still leaning on the counter, still drinking my mate. He turns and comes over to me, all mysterious.
Seven Ways to Kill a Cat Page 10