The Heart Tastes Bitter

by Victor del Arbol

  Mr Who looked down into the bottom of his green teacup and his eyes softened.

  ‘I went to the cemetery today. To visit papá,’ he said, the conversation taking a sudden turn.

  Maribel eyed her son uneasily. Mr Who rarely brought up Teo, and visited his grave even less.

  ‘I suppose that’s good.’

  He raised his chin, lacing his fingers, their nails painted black, behind his head.

  ‘Sometimes I can hear you crying through the bedroom door.’

  Maribel exhaled with displeasure and tucked a strand of grey hair behind her ear.

  ‘He was the man I loved, the one I chose to spend my life with, and we had twenty good years. You don’t just forget something like that.’

  ‘I, on the other hand, can hardly remember him. To me he’s just a closed bedroom door, the one you won’t let me open.’ It wasn’t a reproach but a statement of fact. Mr Who wasn’t allowed in Maribel’s bedroom.

  ‘My pain is mine alone. It’s not something I want to share, nor do I have any desire to. It’s all I have left of your father.’

  ‘But I should be able to remember him. I try, but I can’t do it. Over the years he’s become just a blur, something that gets further and further away, as if he never was.’

  Maribel shook her head sadly and finished her tea. She left the glass in the sink and wheeled herself to her son’s side.

  ‘I suppose your going through this is inevitable — your changes, your questions, your doubts. But honestly, I wish it could be avoided.’

  Mr Who stood up and crossed his arms.

  ‘What would you do if you could go back in time? Would you adopt me all over again? Would you take that trip to get me?’

  Maribel stared at her son, incredulous.

  ‘Why are you asking me this? What sense does it make? Of course I would; you’re my son, I love you, I’m proud of the man you’re becoming — it’s just that you’re changing so quickly it scares me.’

  Mr Who blushed slightly and looked away, visibly uncomfortable. He snuck a peak at the clock.

  ‘I’m sorry, forgive me. I have to go someplace,’ he said, walking out of the kitchen.

  Though the streetlights were still on, it was starting to get light. A garbage truck lifted a bin. A few yards away a woman was walking her Yorkie — dragging it more like — on a dainty chain. At a taxi rank, two men argued in hushed tones, exchanging cigarettes, and a newspaper seller to the right of Puerta del Sol was just cutting the seals off his bundles of papers and magazines. Mr Who didn’t have to walk too far up the street before he hit number 123. A cheap hotel. He buzzed the intercom and within a few seconds a voice told him to come right up to the top floor. The elevator was the old birdcage style, and the building had a porter’s lodge, though it was still closed.

  As the elevator rattled its way up, floor by floor, he tried to imagine what kind of rendezvous this might be. Experience had told him that attempting to figure it out in advance was a waste of time, but feeling a certain anxiousness was inevitable, the closer he got. Normally, clients who wanted more aggressive, kinkier experiences went to Chang’s secret location behind the restaurant — it was more discreet. No one wanted to risk having the screams alert a well-intentioned neighbour, who might call the police. The fact that this guy had chosen a central hotel calmed his nerves, at least a bit. Maybe it would be a bourgeois type, or a professional, or freelancer — a doctor, lawyer, writer, musician. Dealing with them was always relatively easy, and in a way could almost even be pleasant. They tended to be far more conventional in their sexual proclivities than you might expect from people in their broad-minded professions.

  He had experience with a certain well-known singer whose reputation as a wild-child and zealous practitioner of every vice imaginable was part and parcel of his image on his records, on his tours; and yet in private, he turned out to be a tame little kitty cat, just a guy who needed the cuddly affection that his status as an enfant terrible made impossible for him if it wasn’t clandestine. Mr Who felt real affection for the man, who played him quiet ballads on his Spanish guitar rather than the raucous, hard-core numbers he was famous for — though before he paid, he’d make him promise to spread the word that he was the nastiest, most degenerate party-boy in all Madrid.

  Hoping for something along those lines, he slid back the metal grate of the elevator when it stopped at the top floor. The door to the room was ajar, but Who rapped on it with his knuckles anyway.

  ‘I’m out here, on the balcony,’ said a female voice from the back.

  So it was a woman, Who thought. Well, it wasn’t so unusual for women to request his services, and when it came down to it, it wasn’t that different from what he did with men, either.

  He went from the light outside to the darkness inside in the blink of an eye. The smell of fresh coffee and bath soap floated in the air. In contrast with the derelict facade of the hotel, the room was quite nice — a bit minimalist, which led Who to find it cold: bare white walls, cheap furniture. The television was tuned to a classical station, and the violinist Vanessa Mae was playing a Vangelis arrangement.

  The woman was leaning over the railing of the small balcony, staring out at the grey horizon of Madrid and the anarchic forest of pointy antennas.

  ‘Beautiful view of the city,’ Mr Who said, by way of greeting.

  She didn’t turn right away and simply nodded, stroking her bare arms. Then she slowly turned her head, revealing a face puffy with sleep, hair falling untidily onto her forehead. She wore a crimson spaghetti-strap nightie, tight enough to reveal a body that had begun to sag a bit. And she was barefoot, her right foot resting on the instep of her left. Mr Who noticed that each of her toenails was painted a different colour. She seemed somewhat eccentric, and he liked that.

  ‘You look older in the photos,’ she said crossly. She examined Who with a mix of sadness and determination. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Twenty-four,’ he lied, without batting an eyelid. He knew it was an intermediate age that would fend off any prejudices, and he could fake it with no problem. ‘But I can leave if you want,’ he added, with just a hint of spite.

  She shot him an ambiguous look, which morphed into a forgiving smile. Reaching out, she pulled the young man’s body to her. In person he was really much more attractive than the online photos had led her to believe. Stroking his androgynous face, she felt a momentary stab of regret, of weariness, but she left that behind when he took her by the waist and kissed her neck slowly.

  ‘I want you to kiss me on the mouth. Is that included in your fee?’ she asked, the cruelty in her voice restrained, like a dog biting its own tail.

  Mr Who gazed into her eyes, which were half-hidden by deep bags, and shrugged.

  ‘French kissing is very personal, almost as personal as saying your name out loud to a stranger.’

  ‘My name is Rocío. Satisfied?’

  Mr Who rested his fingertips on the woman’s crotch by way of reply. Then he kissed her on the lips and felt her kiss back impatiently.

  Some lovers love with gestures full of veiled rage, secretly blaming themselves for that moment of pleasure they concede, tormented by fears and reproaches. That was how the woman on the sofa of that hotel room surrendered herself. She wouldn’t even let him take off her nightgown, refusing to grant any part of herself — anything intimate — to the stranger, who very quickly stripped her bare with the insolence of his moves, his expression.

  Mr Who observed her closely. She was no longer young, and didn’t wear her age well; she’d probably grown used to the comfort of these transactions, the nonchalant denial of feelings and the ease of not giving anything she didn’t want to give, while still able to demand anything she wanted in return. Paying for sex gave her certain rights, and that excited her — the certainty of knowing she was an object, an obstacle standing in the way of her contractual lo
ver’s goal: the cash awaiting him on the table. Desire was therefore purely carnal; sex was practical, her skin became excited but her heart was protected, safe from wounds new and old.

  ‘Everything okay?’ asked Who. He knew that abstract feeling, that stiffness of the hips, the type of kissing that was more like biting, the indifference to his caresses. It saddened him to note that no matter how much effort he put in, he’d never break through the ice that must have frozen her heart long ago. So all he could do was apply himself, mechanically, conscientious of technique and skill. An orgasm, maybe two, and that was it. That was all that was being asked of him that morning.

  ‘I’m fine,’ the woman said, pulling off her panties. ‘Now, could we stop talking and fuck?’

  Mr Who closed in on himself, like a conch snail retracting, in order to become invulnerable. He hardly even undressed: she ripped a few buttons off his shirt, exposing part of his tattooed torso, and freed his cock — but wouldn’t let him take off his pants or boots. When they were finished, she pulled away, her face tense. If she’d enjoyed the encounter at all, she certainly didn’t show it.

  ‘Can I use the bathroom?’ Who asked. The woman gestured indifferently toward a door at the end of the hall.

  Mr Who locked himself in and gazed into the mirror, contemplating himself with a sombre expression. After doing it, he felt supremely lost and empty for a few minutes, as if blood was being drained from his body. Then, little by little, it began circulating through his veins once more, and the colour returned to his skin. Sooner or later, he thought, I’ve got to stop working for Chang. But he had several thousand euros to go before he’d have saved up all the money he needed. And Mei needed him.

  He went back to the bedroom. The woman was smoking, sitting cross-legged on the mattress. One of her nightgown straps had fallen from her shoulder, exposing part of her breasts. The cash was folded on the bedspread. Who walked over and picked the bills up without counting them.

  ‘I’ll leave you a card, in case you need me.’

  The woman nodded very slowly, not looking up at him. Then Who realised she was crying.

  ‘Are you alright?’

  She tilted her head and gazed intently at him. Then, very slowly, she lowered the other strap and let her nightgown fall to her waist, exposing one sagging pink-nippled breast, and a scar where the other should have been.

  ‘My name isn’t really Rocío. It’s Graciela.’

  Mr Who walked back out onto the street, flooded with relief. The sidewalk had just been hosed down, and two hookers were offering their services in tight red dresses covered in stains, and cheap patent-leather thigh-highs with dizzyingly high heels.

  We are all alone. Utterly alone, he thought.

  5

  The housekeeper greeted him with a smile of recognition and led Eduardo straight to a room he’d never been in before. Debussy’s Claire de Lune was playing, but the grand piano presiding over the room stood silent, producing a strangely magical effect. Atop a very thin layer of dust on the fallboard covering the keys were the imprints of four hands. He could imagine that piece was being played by a duet of ghosts, their invisible fingers betrayed by the dust. Gloria was leaning against a bookshelf reading something. Seeing Eduardo she forced a smile and placed the paper inside a roll-top desk.

  ‘I thought you wouldn’t come back, that you left here convinced I was completely out of my mind.’

  ‘I’ve decided to take on your commission,’ Eduardo replied, quashing her fear.

  ‘I’m glad to hear that. Smoke?’ Gloria held out a pack of Hungarian cigarettes — she had them shipped from Budapest specially — and sat sideways on the edge of a chair that looked fairly uncomfortable. It was not a good posture for confidences. Gloria had scratches on her neck and a bruise below her ear. Her arms, too, bore marks, as though someone had held her forcefully.

  ‘Did you have an accident? Have I come at a bad time?’

  ‘There’s never a bad time to get what you expect, Eduardo,’ she replied cryptically.

  Eduardo cleared his throat and put all his weight on his good knee. She hadn’t asked him to sit. Instead, she eyed him from a distance, somewhat aloof. He had no idea what had changed since his first visit, but he attempted to forgive her: people are predisposed to overlook other’s offenses when they’re attracted to the offender. And he was deeply attracted to the woman, though he wasn’t exactly sure why.

  ‘I can’t promise you anything, Gloria. Perhaps it would be best to not expect of me more than I can offer. But I’ll try.’

  Gloria looked at him as if he were prey to be shot on a hunt, an insignificant animal in the forest, frightened and frantic at the barking of the dogs, the sounds of the chase.

  ‘If you’re going to work for me, I suggest we stop speaking to each other formally,’ she said, inviting him to use the familiar tú form.

  For the next three weeks, Eduardo visited the house almost daily. Gloria generally received him in a good mood, sometimes in her office or another room, others — when the changeable February weather permitted — out on the desolate grounds surrounding the house, which extended along a narrow path into a grove with a stream, and a stone bridge in poor repair. Sometimes they talked about art, painting, music, and film, other times they got lost in everyday anecdotes, current events they feigned interest in. But in one way or another, they were always circling around their anguish — sores that appeared on the skin like bends in a stream.

  Gloria found it difficult to talk about what was killing her — the pain of losing her son Ian. But more than that, she couldn’t find the words for the other, deeper pain festering inside her, the one Eduardo glimpsed in her silences. There are people who spend their whole lives suffering without realising it, who die without discovering the cause of the heaviness that weighs down their days, the vague uneasiness that makes them sullen and sometimes mean, and always unhappy. People who live in the dark, never learning the cause of their private, personal pain, so routine that they accept it as normal, like a migraine or a backache. But sometimes something happens — maybe too late to fix it — that suddenly gives them the key to understanding that pain, if not the time to repair it.

  Early one morning they went out to the backyard and walked to a bandstand that must not have been used for quite some time. Its wooden stairs were full of cracks and its domed roof was full of large holes. Gloria held onto Eduardo’s forearm without resting her weight on him, more a gesture of complicity than a sign of weakness. That woman might be many things — nostalgic, sad perhaps — but she certainly was not helpless. Quite simply, women occasionally feign weakness so that men won’t feel threatened.

  Eduardo let himself be led, docile, to a bench under an evergreen oak with a gnarled, desiccated trunk. He felt the urge to stroke Gloria’s beautiful face, so like and yet so unlike Elena’s, but cowardice hammered his fingers all the way down into his jacket pockets. For a few seconds they both stared straight ahead, very close, without saying a word. Eduardo listened to their hearts beating out of time, the different rhythms of their breathing.

  ‘Sometimes I come here to say my son’s name out loud,’ Gloria said suddenly. ‘As if by doing that I could invoke his presence — it’s crazy, I know. But without his name to repeat there would be no trace of his time on earth. When I call him, his face comes to me among the trees, or in a room, or sometimes sitting in the first few rows at a concert. I see his face in my mind, his little boy face, the unruly curls that were impossible to tame; I stroke his velvety eyelids and let myself be rocked by his voice and I feel like he’s still here with me, ready to take on the world, to chase his dreams.’

  She could still feel the way he moved around in her belly, how uncomfortable he had been in the womb, how anxious to come out into the world that scorching hot, dry day in 1984, in the mountains of Cáceres. Gloria and her husband Ian had gone to the patron saint festival in her grandmoth
er’s town, Aldea del Cano. The evergreen oak the town kids had chosen for the festival that year was astonishing — the largest Christmas tree in living memory. They dragged it in using two carts, tied together with thick ropes, that were pulled by two mule trains, and headed for the Plaza del Ayuntamiento, in the centre of town. There it would remain, surrounded by kindling, until New Year’s Eve day, when they’d set it alight.

  Ian was riding up on one of the carts, perched atop a bunch of dry roots, filming it all on a movie camera — totally absorbed, all worked up — waving like a government minister. He was radiant. Gloria waved back with a smile that took everything she had, holding her swollen belly. The baby would not stop kicking. Gloria was due, and the closer her labour got, the stronger the pains, the shortness of breath and dizziness, but she was trying to hide it so she wouldn’t ruin the moment for her husband.

  From the corner of her eye she searched among the crowd in the plaza, trying to find the sign for the medical dispensary she’d glimpsed earlier, in case her son decided to come out right there on the dry red earth of the square, in a small town in the sierra, over a hundred kilometres from any city that might have a decent hospital that could treat her, in case of emergency. At first she’d thought she could hold out until night, till they got back to the city where there were real hospitals. But she was no longer so sure. Hiding from Ian the pains she’d started feeling that morning had been reckless; they were stronger than usual — maybe not quite contractions yet, but they certainly felt like them.

  ‘I knew it was a boy. No one had told me — I wouldn’t let the gynaecologist reveal the baby’s sex, compelled by a sort of family superstition: my grandfather always said the only thing you should hope for is what you get. But I knew; I was carrying a healthy, beautiful boy and he was going to be a musician, like all the men in my family, like me. I hadn’t said anything to Ian because he always wanted a girl and I didn’t want to disappoint him unnecessarily. It wasn’t a conscious secret, at least not at first, just one of those things you keep quiet because you can’t find the right time to bring them up.’