Fish Soup

  Villafora yawned. He remembered the fish smell that had woken him and realised that it had gone. He whirled round to look at the box containing Helena’s ashes, on the top shelf of the spirits and liquors, as if accusing her of waking him up with that lousy smell. But he immediately banished the idea from his mind, because Mr Aldo Villafora was not a mystical or fanciful person, or a schizophrenic. He wasn’t even a Christian. To him, Helena’s ashes were just that: ashes. And, although he sometimes looked at them nostalgically, he knew very well that at some point he would have to do something with them, but he still wasn’t sure what. Scattering them into the sea seemed too sappy but flushing them down the toilet was no solution either.

  *

  Villafora opened his eyes. He had fallen asleep. The cat was no longer there. In the bar, however, a man and woman were going at it against a wall, slobbering over one another like a pair of dogs. Villafora hated those kinds of displays in the bar, particularly so early in the day. He glanced over to check that the main door to the bar was closed. They must have come in through the window. Perhaps they were robbers.

  He grabbed a knife from underneath the counter and walked slowly towards them. In a swift movement, the man hurled the woman down onto a table and wrenched up her skirt. He yanked down his trousers and pulled out an enormous member, the most impressive thing Villafora had ever seen.

  ‘Hey!’ he cried, and the guy turned to look at him.

  It was Tellez, the sailor: he savagely penetrated the woman while she let out hoarse cries. Villafora launched himself at Tellez, shoving him as hard as he could. Tellez barely moved, but just enough for Villafora to see the woman’s face.

  ‘Helena?’

  Helena ignored him. She was lost in an expression of pleasure that Villafora had never seen her make. Her legs were splayed wide; she was impaled by Tellez’ huge member. Villafora ran to the other side of the table, grabbed a handful of Helena’s hair, pulled her head back and slit her throat.

  ‘Whore.’

  *

  ‘Señor Villafora?’ It was Grace.

  Villafora opened his eyes and saw the girl looking awkwardly to one side, as if she had a cricked neck. Then he realised that he was naked: the sheet had fallen to the floor.

  ‘Sorry, Grace.’ He picked up the sheet and tied it around his waist again. ‘I fell asleep there because somebody left the cat in the oven, and because of the terrible smell of fish that…’

  Grace stared at him as if he were a madman.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Villafora, and the girl walked off into the kitchen without saying anything. Villafora thought that she was just bad-mannered; but after a few seconds, as he was about to go back to bed, Grace came out of the kitchen, this time with Wally, and the two of them stood there gawping at him. Wally’s face was contorted, his eyes red. Villafora thought perhaps it was because he’d been boozing the night away in honour of Chichi Pimiento.

  ‘She’s dead,’ said Wally.

  Grace started to cry and Villafora looked at them blankly.

  ‘Huh?’ he said. ‘What’s wrong with you, have you both gone loopy?’ He held the knot in the sheet with one hand and with the other, he pointed at them, threateningly. ‘One of you has done something terrible – you don’t do that to an animal.’

  Grace cried even harder. Wally hugged Penelope, who now lay limply in his arms. How had the cat got there? Villafora felt tired. He squeezed his eyes shut then opened them again.

  ‘What happened to Penelope?’ he asked, confused.

  ‘You killed her,’ said Wally, his eyes filled with rage.

  ‘Me?’ Villafora could not stand the tiredness, his knees were trembling, he could hardly stand. ‘Give her some milk, that’ll make her better.’ And he turned and started to climb the stairs. ‘Then, take her out of there, put her in the street and…’. The words faded to a sigh.

  *

  The bed was damp. Villafora fell in and out of a fitful sleep, unable to get comfortable. Every time he breathed he heard a whistling sound and his chest hurt. The hourglass on the bedside table still had almost all its sand in the upper bulb and, in the lower one, a mound barely higher than it had been in the morning. He could smell fish again. And he could hear whispering.

  As he lay there dozing, Mr Aldo Villafora dreamed that he was on a ship to Europe, dressed in a waistcoat with gold buttons. Helena was with him, and so was Penelope, who had a collar round her neck and looked like one of those little porcelain cats they sold at fairs. The sun was shining, but it was not too hot, so they were sitting on the prow of the boat looking out to sea. He was sitting in a comfortable deckchair, and Helena was standing, staring out at the horizon. She wore a hat with a ribbon trim, and a dress nipped in at the waist with a long, full skirt. Now that he thought about it, the two of them were dressed in a strangely old-fashioned way. Penelope was sitting on another chair, watching him. Every now and then he would make little gestures and faces at her. He was fond of that cat, although he didn’t like to admit it. For Mr Aldo Villafora, a love of animals was typical of people who lacked character.

  He could hear piano music coming from somewhere, and Villafora closed his eyes, breathed in the salt on the breeze and felt contented, relaxed. Villafora and his wife had never had a holiday.

  ‘Helena, doesn’t that sound like that song, the one about a boat carrying a cross of… of what?’ he asked.

  She turned slowly to face him with a vacant expression.

  ‘I don’t know, darling.’

  ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘No.’

  But something clearly was. Helena looked back out to sea and Villafora followed her gaze. There was a small boat, being rowed by a sailor. The sailor was also looking at Helena, saying something to her that Villafora could not quite make out.

  ‘Who is that, Helena?’ he asked.

  ‘Who?’

  She carried on looking at the man, smiling with her head tilted. Then Villafora saw that it was Rodríguez, the sailor, with his caveman demeanour, rapidly approaching their ship.

  ‘Come here, Helena. Come and sit with me.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Helena shrugged. Villafora looked for Penelope in the other chair, but she was no longer there. Now there was just a basin containing a pile of fish, flapping around in their death throes. The smell was overpowering.

  ‘I’ve had enough; all this fish is making me sick…’ Villafora covered his nose.

  Helena walked quickly over and sat down next to him. Her dress clung tightly to her torso, her heaving breasts bulging out of it, like the whores in the alley.

  ‘You must eat the soup, darling,’ Helena said to him, with a bowl and spoon in her hand. She stirred and blew on the clear liquid. It gave off the same vile-smelling steam that had disturbed his sleep that morning.

  Villafora shook his head.

  ‘I don’t want soup, I really don’t.’

  ‘It’s good for your brain, it’s good for your joints. The doctor said…’

  ‘Which doctor?’

  ‘The fat doctor, darling.’

  He looked around to confirm that they were alone in the middle of the sea, but when he tried to tell Helena, she had vanished.

  *

  When Mr Aldo Villafora opened his eyes again, it was almost night. The door to his room was open and through it he could see the living room window that overlooked the harbour. In the sky there were a few scattered stars, and a sliver of a moon. On the bedside table, the hourglass was still not empty.

  ‘Bloody thing,’ said Villafora. His mouth felt dry.

  How was it possible for an hourglass to stop working? He sat up in bed, with difficulty. He was finding it increasingly hard to get up, he was getting thinner and weaker. From there, he looked at himself in the mirror on the wall and thought how haggard he looked. He reached out to grab the hourglass, but instead he found a revolver in his hand. He looked at it, then tucked it under the pillow, where h
e used to keep it for safety.

  He was still tired. Soon he would have to go down to the bar. Wally must have opened up by now, and Grace was not good at handling the cash register. She was too easily distracted by the customers, who would strike up conversations, knowing she would get confused and undercharge them. At that time of day, it wasn’t too serious, but when the sailors started coming in from the harbour, at around eight o’clock, everything would get complicated. They came in hungry, already half-cut, and in the bar, they seemed to completely forget themselves. They would grab sardines in handfuls, shovelling them into their mouths like animals. Sometimes they would rub them in the face of a distracted companion and wipe their hands on their clothes; the stink became unbearable. There wasn’t a single night that Grace did not have to clean up vomit. When there were whores in the bar, the sailors smeared food all over their tits and ate off them; the women’s shrieks upset Grace even more, and she often ended up fleeing in tears, leaving the cash register unattended. Villafora knew all of this because he had once been ill for a couple of weeks and asked Grace to fill in for him on the cash register. But by the third day, the girl was such a nervous wreck that Helena had to leave her post in the kitchen to cover for her. His wife had stoically endured all those nights; when she got into bed at dawn, she was swollen with exhaustion, and Villafora broke down in sobs and apologies. But she would tell him not to worry, that they were going to save enough money, close the bar and go on a trip; then everything would become just a bad memory.

  ‘A bad memory, my love.’ He felt like he could hear her voice.

  Villafora tried to stand up, but something was stopping him. A weight on his shoulders, a terrible pain in his temples. He squeezed his eyes shut. He could hear shouting from downstairs. A fight must have broken out. He mustered some strength and managed to stand up, went out of the bedroom and leaned over the inner balcony overlooking the bar. A ring of customers had formed around a pair of sailors who were hurling punches at one another. A woman was trying to separate them.

  ‘Grace?’ Villafora called out.

  But there was so much noise, and his voice was so feeble, that nobody heard him. He started making his way slowly down the stairs; every step he took caused his whole body to ache. At some point, as he descended the stairs, the fight stopped looking like a fight: Tellez and Rodriguez were laughing and passing the woman between them; she fell into their arms, one after the other. When Villafora reached the bottom step, he saw Rodriguez open his fly and sit down on a chair. The woman hitched up her skirt, sat down on him, face-to-face, and let herself fall backwards into the arms of Tellez, who held her while she writhed: it was Helena. Her blouse was half off, revealing her bra. She had lipstick on. She was laughing, enjoying it and laughing. Villafora stood next to them and stayed there for a few seconds; he felt like he was hovering above the floor, watching everything as if it were a film, or a memory. He pressed the tip of the revolver against Helena’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

  *

  The bang startled him. Villafora put his hand to his chest, sat up and saw an explosion of fireworks out of the living room window. In the background, shouts could be heard, and downstairs the music had been turned up so high that it made his head pound. He lay down again. In fact, he felt as if someone was gently pushing him by the shoulders.

  ‘Grace, ask them to turn the volume down, please, a little respect…’

  Villafora heard the voice of his wife from far away, as if from inside a deep cavern. He half opened his eyes and saw a tearful Grace standing in the doorway to the bedroom. She turned and left. In the living room, with his back to Villafora, a fat man was looking out of the window at the fireworks.

  ‘Who is…?’ Villafora tried to say.

  ‘Sshh, don’t strain yourself,’ said Helena, who was sitting on a stool next to his bed.

  The fat man turned and walked towards the bedroom.

  ‘Chichi Pimiento’s team won. Good lord, if they go on like this, they’ll have to declare a curfew.’

  Helena rearranged Villafora’s pillow, pulled the sheet up to his chest.

  ‘How’s he doing?’ said the fat man.

  Helena shook her head.

  ‘He’s saying strange things, he’s complaining about a smell, but I can’t smell anything.’

  Helena tidied the things on the bedside table: a bowl of watery soup, a bottle of pills, syringes. The fat man laid a hand on her shoulder and said, ‘Don’t worry, this stage is compl–’

  ‘Will he know what’s happening?’ she cut him off, her voice hoarse.

  The fat man sighed.

  Grace came back into the room, with Wally, his face burning, eyes bloodshot.

  ‘Well?’ he said, looking around anxiously.

  ‘What happened to Penelope?’ said Villafora.

  ‘Sshh,’ Helena repeated, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief.

  ‘Who?’ said Wally.

  Helena shrugged. ‘A little cat we had years ago, who…’ She was interrupted mid-sentence by the noise of a firecracker. Helena looked at the bedside table again and turned over the hourglass, which was empty at last. She sighed and took hold of Villafora’s hand.

  ‘What now?’ Grace stammered, looking at the fat man, who was leaning against the wall with such composure that Villafora found it offensive.

  The fat man took a deep breath and replied, ‘Now, we wait.’

  SOMETHING WE NEVER WERE

  When Salvador asked Eileen to be his girlfriend, she said no. She was having none of that boyfriend and girlfriend crap; what she was interested in was questioning certain paradigms. And seeing as all Salvador wanted to do was sleep with her, he decided not to contradict her.

  Eileen was tiny and skinny, red-haired and, so she said, part Irish. Salvador was too tall, and he didn’t like it, so he would stoop slightly when he walked. The night they started dating, Eileen took Salvador to her apartment to watch an inspirational film. It was already the early hours of the morning and he thought she might put on a porn film, but she put on The Third Man. Every now and then, Eileen’s dad would poke his head around the door of the room where they were watching TV. He was wearing long pyjamas, cup of tea in hand. ‘Great film,’ he said.

  The sex would happen in the apartment Salvador shared with his friend Matías.

  Eileen’s first request was for him to read out loud while she sucked him off.

  ‘I won’t be able to concentrate on both things,’ he told her, and Eileen replied that the only thing he had to concentrate on was the reading, she would take care of the other thing. And that’s what they used to do: he read out loud and she did her part. Salvador read poetry or extracts of novels, which Eileen chose; or he read long essays that Eileen had written at university and that, at first, gave him nothing but headaches. He couldn’t get it up in the beginning, and it was frustrating. But Eileen persisted so tenaciously that he ended up getting used to it, and even came to enjoy it.

  Three months into their relationship Eileen started taking money from his bedside table. The amount was different every time, and she moved the money from the table to her purse as naturally as if she were opening the fridge for a bottle of water. Salvador didn’t say anything. He didn’t know what to say; it didn’t seem fair to him, he wasn’t exactly rolling in money. One day, as they were strolling through a plaza together – she was talking about some island in the Pacific which was sinking, and she was concerned because they were going to have to relocate all its inhabitants to different cities around the world, where they would no doubt be rejected – Salvador asked her:

  ‘Are you charging me for sex?’

  Eileen burst out laughing. She grabbed his hand and steered him towards a bench, where they sat down.

  ‘If you and I were something different to what we are, the fact that I took money off your bedside table might mean that we are engaging in a commercial transaction. But with us, it doesn’t work like that, right?’

  Salvador shook his
head, although he wasn’t completely sure he understood.

  ‘The rules are different for us, Salvador.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘The money’s there on the bedside table, like food in a shop, or books in a library, and I am happy in the knowledge that, at least in our limited personal space, relationships are governed by the principles of common decency that you and I share.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘Anyway, it’s not like I take everything that’s on the bedside table, I take strictly what I need, like you take what you need from me.’ She smiled, stood up from the bench and resumed her spiel about the sinking island.

  *

  ‘Why don’t you just give it any old ending and be done with it?’ asked Salvador.

  Eileen was writing a script for a play that she just couldn’t seem to finish. She had spent months contemplating the ending. She was snappy, anxious and had begun chain-smoking. They barely had any sex.

  ‘Sweetheart?’ said Salvador.

  Eileen had sunk into a rare silence, her face contorted.

  ‘Leave me alone, I’m thinking.’

  She was naked, lying on the bed on her back: Eileen had such small tits that when she lay down they disappeared. Salvador was leaning against the bedstead. The sheets felt damp with sweat, the sweltering air seemed to cling to them.

  ‘But if you write more, nobody will read it, nobody reads things that long.’

  ‘I read much longer things.’

  Eileen jumped up and left the room. Her slender body was as agile as a rabbit. She no longer had red hair, nor Irish descent; she had died her hair jet black and now she looked just like any other girl at university. When she turned up with black hair, Salvador was a little disappointed: her red hair was the thing he liked best about her. That, and her mouth, which was huge and looked slightly out of proportion to her face. And the sex, of course. Eileen was the best sex he’d ever had.