The Heart Tastes Bitter

by Victor del Arbol

  His career as a poet was over, forever.

  ‘He broke both his cheekbones, several teeth, and took out one of his eyes. No one would have bought his lousy version of events over the gravely injured professor’s. No one would have let such a scandal come to light. Arthur had to leave — and not just the university. If the police caught him in France, a jury would have taken no pity, would have given him an incredibly harsh sentence, admitting no extenuating circumstances.’

  Gloria felt a little disappointed. Eduardo’s distant tone and bovine expression hurt her, though she now understood that they were just a defence mechanism.

  ‘It sounds like you really pity him.’

  Eduardo glanced at Gloria, not understanding her flip tone.

  ‘Sometimes something happens, and it awakens a monster.’

  ‘How many things did it take to turn Arthur Fernández into what he is?’

  Eduardo looked away, upset.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can’t hate that man, Gloria. He didn’t do anything to me.’

  Gloria made no reply. Not with words. A slight breeze rattled the shutters. She tilted her head back and massaged the back of her neck, as though her thoughts had been interrupted by a ghost kissing her there. Slowly she turned Eduardo’s hands over, placing them palm up. She pulled back his cuff and examined the scars on his wrists. She must have seen them dozens of times, but it was as though this were the first time she really noticed, as if every other time his wounds had gone undetected. She did it without softening her face or showing a hint of generosity, or apology. She didn’t care how upset he might feel; she cared only about her mission.

  ‘You’ve been a victim, you’ve been an executioner, and now you’re just a witness — is that what you think?’

  It’s called denial, Eduardo thought. That’s why Martina wrote his prescriptions one Thursday per month.

  Gloria shrugged with a look of disenchantment, boredom even, which mortified Eduardo.

  ‘This is not the man that killed my son. This face is just a dead image. We both know that.’

  Eduardo brought his vodka tonic to his lips. But before taking a sip, he stopped for a moment to contemplate the effervescent liquid. On its surface, floating in the bubbles, was an insect. Not the right time of year for flying ants, he thought, as though nothing had just been said, plucking the bug out with his fingers. Sometimes the mind finds curious ways to escape.

  ‘Maybe you should find someone else. I’ll tell Olga to return your deposit. I’m not sure I can do this; right now, I’m not sure of anything, quite frankly.’

  Gloria scowled. She slid her fingers across the table and stroked the raised veins on the back of Eduardo’s hand. He felt an electric shock that excited him, in spite of himself.

  ‘I know there’s a monster inside that man. I know it, and I need to see it come to the surface. You’re the only one that can do that.’

  Eduardo shook his head. It wasn’t a convincing refusal, more a gesture of disbelief. Don’t we all have monsters inside us, just waiting for the right moment to burst through the skin? Arthur, Gloria, himself.

  ‘You should take the advice Arthur sent you from jail: erase him from your life, forget about him, or he’ll end up taking the very last thing you have left of your son — the pain of having lost him. And then you’ll have nothing. Absolutely nothing.’

  Gloria placed her napkin on the table. She picked up one of the sketches of Arthur and contemplated it for one long minute. Then tore it carefully in half.

  ‘What good is pain if you can’t share it with the person who inflicts it on you? I’m no good at forgiveness, Eduardo. I need to understand, and I need to hate.’

  They began walking down the middle of the street in silence, not looking at one another. Both had their reasons for going through life ignoring the rest of the world.

  Gloria seemed to trust no one. She was alone, and sometimes her loneliness was like lead, dragging her down to the bottom of a dark pit, where she could neither see nor breathe. All she had were her thoughts, her addled and indiscriminate rage, her insane desire to understand the man who’d killed her son. To understand him and then watch him die, slowly and before her eyes, contemplating his agony, perceiving every scintilla of suffering on his face. As long as she harboured that hope, she could keep her son alive, through his connection to Arthur. Using him. And the only thing she had, to get her wish, was this broken, bumbling man. Eduardo walked beside Gloria, looking at her with so much disappointment that she knew his admiration for her had been shattered into a thousand pieces, an admiration she’d spent so long patiently cultivating.

  ‘Will you come back with me to my hotel? I don’t want to be alone tonight.’

  Eduardo looked away, uncomfortable, as she undressed and then walked to the bed, silently inviting him to join her.

  They made love. Of course, that’s an exaggeration, a perversion of the term. Gloria draped her naked body weakly atop the sheet like a brushstroke, a pale blue watercolour. Eduardo contemplated her curves, her large sagging breasts, her pubic hair, feeling not desire but need. Gloria held out a hand and drew him to her without so much as touching him; invisible strings on her fingertips were all it took for him to let himself be pulled him in. Everything written on the skin — everything.

  He was silent, pitiful at times, as he attempted to penetrate her, unable to muster a real erection. He cursed the Risperdal, blamed it on the booze, but the truth of the matter was that he kept seeing Elena’s face, watching him from the armchair where their clothes were piled.

  Gloria thought of nothing. In order to withstand the nauseating performance — the moving forward, stopping, going back, seeking something even she could not identify in Eduardo’s body, his flaccid member — she had to force herself, remove herself from the scene, picture it from the outside to gain perspective, to see why she was subjecting herself to such horror. She had no interest in Eduardo as a man; the only man she’d ever been interested in sexually was her husband Ian, and since the divorce she’d felt no desire, no need or urge for any other sexual relations. Although Eduardo was in love with her, he would probably never have asked her to make that sacrifice. He’d have made do with whatever scraps she fed him. But those were just tedious observations she had to cast aside if she wanted to keep him on her side. If she could get past the revulsion she felt at prostituting herself that way, she could convince him. Sex was more revealing than other activities. When people’s senses and instincts are unleashed, they become less cautious, they make mistakes. They become malleable. It’s a story as old as all humankind.

  Less than an hour later, Eduardo sat on the unmade bed, gazing at the Hopper painting on the wall, with nothing concrete to think about. He felt tired — not sleepy, but worn down, like a knife that’s become so dull that it’s useless. He was like a sailboat whose sails have been torn in a storm — anything could toss him around, vary his course, even sink him with very little effort. He smelled his hands, the skin on his face, his chin. He smelled of her, of her vagina. He couldn’t help but feel that everything that had taken place was pitiful — the way it had all gone down. He could hear her in the bathroom, scrubbing herself with a bar of soap, using the shower gel repeatedly to remove Eduardo’s scent, and realising that hurt him. There was no doubt that she would never belong to him, not even one tiny part of her.

  He lunged for the minibar and walked out onto the balcony with the last mini bottle of booze.

  A minute later he sensed Gloria’s presence behind him. He turned to her sadly and gazed at her damp body, wrapped in a bath towel. For a fleeting moment, the image of Graciela’s amputated breast flashed into his mind.

  ‘There’s something else about Arthur that I didn’t tell you at the restaurant. He knows you commissioned the portrait. And he only agreed to pose for it on the condition that I tell him everything about you. But really th
ere’s not much I can tell. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know you at all.’

  Gloria’s face hardened, resembling a smooth impenetrable stone.

  ‘Poor Eduardo, so lost, so blind. What is it you think you know about him, that man you’re starting to admire?’

  13

  Back in Madrid.

  Eduardo opened his eyes slowly. He’d have preferred not to have to wake up, preferred to stay in bed, just waiting for the minutes to tick by, stalking the shadows that the passage of time would project onto his apartment walls. But whoever had been banging on his door for the past ten minutes didn’t seem inclined to leave him in peace. He dragged himself out of bed, his mouth thick, bones aching. He smelled sour and, for a minute — when he stood up and realised he was woozy — he cursed himself for so readily seeking solace in a bottle of vodka. The last track of a record he’d forgotten to take off crackled on the turntable: Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue. Looking through the peephole, all he could see was a blue shirt, buttons undone.

  ‘Open up, I know you’re standing right there.’ The commanding, omnipresent voice of Ibrahim.

  Eduardo massaged his temples; his head was about to explode. He had no idea what time it was, what day it was. And his growling stomach and weak muscles made him realise that he had no idea when he’d last eaten anything solid. He opened the door without removing the chain, just enough to see Ibrahim’s disfigured face appear in the crack.

  ‘What do you want? I’m feeling under the weather.’

  On the other side of the door, Ibrahim wrinkled his nose.

  ‘Judging by the stench, I’d say that’s obvious. You smell like you’re decomposing. Open the door or I’ll kick it down. We need to talk.’

  Eduardo opened the door reluctantly, allowing Ibrahim entry. The man gave him a severe look and then glanced with displeasure around the filthy, untidy apartment.

  ‘There’s more methane in here than at a nuclear power plant. We better open the window or the whole place is going to blow.’ He drew back the curtains and opened the window. It must have been late: the raucous sounds of children on their way home from school were filtering in from the park, and a grainy light seeped through the curtains. Ibrahim snatched up one of the open pill bottles on the table and read the label, and then nosed through the fridge, which was nearly empty.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Eduardo asked, struggling to articulate his words; it was as though a wasp had stung his tongue, making it swell up.

  Ibrahim stroked his hair mechanically. Before replying he stationed himself at the window and gazed across the street.

  ‘Arthur hasn’t heard a word from you for over a week, and neither have I,’ he said, once he’d gotten his fill of whatever it was he was watching outside.

  So it had been a week, Eduardo calculated, since he’d returned from Barcelona. Thinking about that revived the heartache he’d felt.

  He went to the tap to drink a glass of water, and the chlorine aftertaste made him spit it into the sink. He began searching for his cigarettes but couldn’t find them, so he stuck a wrinkled butt into his mouth and lit that instead, squinting. After days spent lost in a drunken stupor, his eyes felt different, distorted, as if they belonged to someone else.

  ‘I went to Olga’s and asked about you; she told me you hadn’t shown up for days and weren’t answering your phone, so I came here. Graciela is worried about you and Sara’s spent two whole nights like a puppy dog stationed by your door. I couldn’t convince her that you’re not worth that kind of loyalty. You should show a little concern for that girl. She might be the only person who actually thinks highly of you.’

  So this stranger was on familiar terms with his acquaintances, had become a household presence, Eduardo realised. It bothered him to the point of real vexation, that invasion of his privacy, his realm. Maybe it was just a nebulous, childish, perverse form of jealousy.

  ‘Thanks for the tip, I’ll keep it in mind, especially coming from someone like you, who must have a very rich social life,’ he replied sarcastically.

  ‘Get dressed. We’re going out. You need some fresh air and so do I. Someone is going to have to come disinfect this place.’

  Eduardo obeyed. He didn’t feel like arguing. And Ibrahim’s attitude made it clear that he wasn’t about to take no for an answer.

  They went out and walked to the plaza outside the Reina Sofía Museum. It was a nice day, and the steps leading to the entrance had been taken over by skaters, and performers with flea-ridden dogs and questionable juggling skills. The outdoor tables at the surrounding bars and cafés were quickly filling up with tourists. Behind Atocha train station, the horizon was alive with intense colours. Life was flowing by, and Eduardo felt out-of-place there in the middle of it all.

  Ibrahim traversed the plaza in a few long, determined strides and used his hefty presence to occupy a table that had just been vacated, causing a group of hovering Japanese tourists to withdraw, intimidated. He ordered an espresso. Eduardo asked for vodka — a double, neat. As the waiter was about to walk away, Ibrahim stopped him.

  ‘Make it a sandwich, and forget the vodka.’ The waiter glanced at Eduardo questioningly and he gave a resigned nod. Ibrahim didn’t ask, didn’t make requests. He simply forced whatever he said to be accepted, just like that.

  ‘Why are you looking at me like that? Do you find me pitiful?’ The way Ibrahim was examining him annoyed Eduardo. They weren’t friends, he had no right to feel sorry for him.

  ‘I like you,’ was all Ibrahim said after the waiter had served them. He ripped the sugar packet open with his horrible teeth and stirred it into his coffee. The way he said it, almost in passing, was simply offhand; it wasn’t intended to mean anything. He’d killed men he was a lot fonder of than Eduardo. As he stirred the sugar, spoon tinkling against his cup, he glanced over Eduardo’s shoulder, eyeing the plaza and its surroundings.

  ‘Kill someone? You’re so tense you look like a cat about to pounce,’ Eduardo spat, irritated. His chorizo sandwich sat untouched on its plate. Each time he looked at it, he felt a wave of nausea.

  Ibrahim shot him a furtive glance and for the first time gave a little smile, flashing his gnarled teeth.

  ‘Stupid question, don’t you think?’

  Indeed, it was.

  Eduardo examined Ibrahim’s pupils. The man’s expression, he now realised, was mournful, always; the emptiness was something Eduardo himself knew, too. He’d experienced it; it had taken root inside him. It was a look that bore no pity, nor condescension, nor even a hint of phony friendship. All it revealed was a truism that they both recognised: people sometimes betray one another. It’s part of being human, something to be accepted. But nothing hurts more than malice on the part of those we took to be on our side unconditionally.

  ‘Have you killed many people?’

  Ibrahim listened with his eyes, lips pursed and fingers gripping the table tightly.

  ‘What kind of question is that?’

  ‘I was just wondering if the dead weigh on you, that’s all.’

  Ibrahim looked away and murmured something in Arabic. He was recalling the voice of an imam reverberating through his adolescent heart, standing before the deep dark grave that held his father’s enshrouded body. Recalling the words spoken by the man of God — the virulence and hatred of his fatwa against the French and their descendants — as other men nodded and whispered verses of mercy and piety, their heads lowered, weapons hidden in their clothes. They weren’t killers, they were patriots, holy men, the imam told them, spewing vitriol as he spoke, his saliva landing on Ibrahim’s not-yet disfigured face. Killing does not make us killers, the holy man repeated, his ire contained in a trembling hand. Not when it’s for Algeria, for the FLN, for God. Recalling those words, Ibrahim gazed at his own hands, now old, the blood of the men he’d killed still staining them like a tattoo, mixing with his own in an inv
isible flow that bound him to his victims forever. One death is no different from another; they all weigh upon you the same when night falls.

  ‘I know killers who’ve never laid a hand on anyone, who live among us, who are fathers and mothers, siblings and children; people who seem kind, good people who go to work, are respected, loved, and even admired. But I can tell a jackal when I see one, hiding in their eyes; all it takes is the right time, place, and circumstance to unleash their instincts.’

  ‘I’m a killer,’ Eduardo said, his voice hoarse.

  Ibrahim gave him a look of commiseration. A poor dog licking his pitiful wounds.

  ‘You, friend, are nothing but a gravedigger. Killing a man doesn’t make you a killer.’

  Just a week ago he’d used the same argument at his psychologist’s office in his own defence. But now he wasn’t so sure.

  Without realising it, he’d pushed the barely touched sandwich to one side and was gazing absently at the crumbs on the table.

  ‘So what about Arthur, then? You know him better than I do; you’re his friend. Would you say he’s a killer?’

  Ibrahim was unperturbed by Eduardo’s sarcastic dig. It didn’t even ruffle his feathers. But he saw that the little man with his tatty old shirt had his own kind of dignity, one that he himself lacked. He stood and dropped a twenty on the table.

  ‘Ask him yourself. You’ve still got a portrait to paint. Make good on your promise, and then you can go back to your hole and lick your wounds. You might even cure them.’

  Eduardo observed Ibrahim carefully. There was something there that didn’t quite fit, but he couldn’t put a finger on it.

  ‘It seems strange to me that a man like you is so loyal to someone like Arthur.’

  Ibrahim shot him a murderous look.

  ‘The only loyalty I have is to myself.’

  ‘But you protect him.’

  Ibrahim let out a chilling little laugh.