‘I didn’t run away to be mean,’ she said to her cat, wagging its plastic arm up and down as though it were playing yoyo. But her cat couldn’t lie to her, so she covered his eyes with her hand, because she felt a little ashamed.
Sometimes you run away in order to be found. And she liked knowing that her mother and Eduardo were both out looking for her now. Together. She’d let them look a little more and then let herself be found.
‘That’s a nice cat.’
The voice had no face, only feet. Or rather, thick-soled boots with gold rivets, right in front of her face. Sara looked up from the ground through the gaps in the wooden bench above her. A pair of eyes looked down at her, and above them was the sky. A pretty sky, orange and purple.
‘I can see you. And your cat, too.’
Curious, she stuck her head out like a little mouse scanning the horizon before venturing out of its hole.
‘He’s not an ordinary cat. His name’s Maneki.’
‘That’s what I thought.’ The stranger had crouched down, so the eyes now had a face. A face that Sara liked. There were faces she liked, and faces she didn’t. This one, she did. Uneasy, her eyes darted immediately to the package he was carrying under his arm. She liked packages. They sometimes contained things not everybody had permission to see. ‘You should come out from under there. Earthworms crawl on the ground, but butterflies fly. And it’s stopped raining, so your wings will be safe.’
Sara smiled. How could he know she was hiding invisible wings that got damaged in the rain? She took the hand he held out and crawled out from under the bench.
‘That’s better. My name is Who. I think your cat and I are already acquainted.’
‘How could that be? I never let him go out alone.’
‘Well, cats are free spirits, you know. Maybe when you’re asleep, he jumps out the window to patrol the neighbourhood. Maybe we’ve seen each other out on the streets at night.’
There was no way Maneki got out at night, because Sara would get on her knees on the bed and watch closely. Mentally, she gave him orders (cats are very telepathic). Maneki sometimes obeyed her orders, moving an arm or blinking slowly. And sometimes he didn’t (that just showed his independent character). Sara had never told her mother these things. She would have said they were figments of her imagination. But Eduardo believed her, even if he did warn her not to tell other people. Not everyone is prepared to accept certain things. People believe what they want to believe, and then what they believe ends up becoming what they call truth or reality. Sara understood what Eduardo was telling her. If she went around telling everyone that her toy cat came to life whenever she asked him to — without using words — or that she had invisible wings that got damaged in the rain, or that invisible flies buzzed inside her ears, they would give her a baffled look and assume she was dumb, or crazy. Or worse, they’d accuse her of not living in the real world and not accepting the truth.
‘Why are you hiding under a bench? Why not behind a tree or in a doorway?’
Sara looked Who up and down. He was a dark spot dressed in a white spot, with messed up hair and black fingernails. His voice sounded very childlike, as if the little boy who lived inside him had not grown as quickly as his body. The opposite had happened to her — her mind grew too quickly and her body couldn’t keep up, so even though she looked like a thirteen-year-old girl, she wasn’t. And that made it hard to be respected in the adult world, where people were inclined to go by appearances. That was just one more reason she liked Eduardo so much — he accepted what really was and didn’t get hung up about what things looked like. Eduardo took her seriously.
‘Because if I did, they might not find me. And I want them to find me.’
‘Well, are they going to take much longer? It’s going to get dark soon.’
Sara shrugged.
‘You found me.’
‘But I wasn’t looking for you. At least, not for you exactly. That must mean something.’
The evening’s last glimmer of post-rain sun was shining directly into Sara’s face. She held up one hand like a visor, to get a better look at him. She thought, right then, of the tin vase her mother kept in the entrance hall. It was an ugly vase, with no flowers. At least she thought it was ugly, so it must have been. A vase with no flowers. She thought of that without knowing why. That happened sometimes: she’d think of things that made no sense, for no apparent reason. She’d just get an image stuck in her mind and be unable to think of anything else. She didn’t know why the image of that ugly vase with no flowers suddenly made her feel so sad. Occasionally she seemed to get sad for no reason at all. She could be walking down the street holding her mother’s hand, singing a song she’d heard on the radio, and suddenly see an old person’s face, or a woman with the hint of a moustache, or a dog whose ear had been bitten, or the faded awning of an ice-cream parlor, and the song would vanish, taking refuge inside her, and she’d become silent and very sad.
Out of the blue, when she saw Mr Who — or actually when she saw him switch his package to the other arm — she thought of the vase, and of home, and the music disappeared. A vase with no flowers. A tin vase.
‘Would you do me a favour?’ Mr Who asked. ‘Would you give this package to Eduardo? Tell him it’s from Teodoro López Egea.’
Sara took the package. She liked having a mission.
‘And now I think it would be better if you went back home. I think that’s what your cat is telling you.’
Sara stared at him wide-eyed.
‘Can you hear Maneki, too?’
Mr Who smiled.
‘I told you, we already know each other from the neighbourhood.’
17
Martina crossed off every day that passed with a red ‘X’ and circled future events in different colours — green for patients, yellow for holidays, blue for the last Thursday of the month. Why was Eduardo in a blue circle and not a green one like her other patients? Green was the colour of hope. Blue is the colour of nostalgia, the sky, the impossible. Seconds ticked by, turning to minutes, on Martina’s wristwatch. 10.45, 10.46, 10.47 … And still he did not speak.
He’d said something at 10.44. He knew the exact minute because, as he spoke he kept his eyes trained on the doctor’s petite, square-faced gold wristwatch. His eyes trailed from her watch-face to the fine downy hair on her forearm and paused for a second at a mark on her skin — a mole, slightly larger than a freckle, about the size of a lentil. He imagined she must have more on her body. A body covered in lentil-sized moles, which she probably had to lather with sunscreen when she went to the beach.
The doctor had jotted down what he’d said in her little spiral notebook. There were his words. He couldn’t take them back: I killed them, even though he’s the only one that died. And in order to stress them, she’d underlined the sentence with two thick lines that bled through to the other side of the paper.
At 10.48, he added, ‘I went to her house to see her,’ as if his earlier words were incomplete, demanding an ending.
If you discounted the two of them — discounted the office and the day-planner, the clock and the words on her notepad — it was as though the world were a lighter place, simpler, easier to bear. The last storm-front of spring was moving out over Europe, heading out to the sea. Beautiful sunlight shone down, and that unbearable heat that makes the clothes stick to your body had yet to build up. The interminable stream of economic exiles had not yet begun fleeing Madrid, laden with suitcases, in the hopes of discovering some prosperous new paradise. The city was a welcoming place in early May, easy to love. Perhaps the psychiatrist was daydreaming about some studio apartment she’d bought on the coast, about painters applying a fresh coat to the walls, and repairing the rusty handrails. Maybe she was making mental notes, counting off the red days left until she, too, could escape. That would explain the detachment Eduardo thought he could sense in her circumspect
expression, as though the words she’d written were an unsolvable algebra problem, her eyes shining vacantly.
Why had he gone to see Maribel? He didn’t know, he really didn’t. In the almost fourteen years that had gone by, he’d never felt the need to — except once, when his nightmares had become so intense they seemed to be some sort of code, charting his guilt, speaking to him in a language he didn’t understand. Often, it is only after feeling the compulsion to do something that people try to find reasons to do so. In all honesty, he’d simply turned up at the door of her apartment building, walked up the stairs, and rung her bell without thinking. He hadn’t been expecting anything. He had just felt the need to do it. The need to go there.
Martina jotted something down at the top of the paper, above the underlined sentence — an addendum — the writing so small that Eduardo couldn’t read it. His arms were crossed over his chest, wrapping himself in his solitude. Stop that, he used to say to Tania after he’d given her a talking-to and she’d taken the same defensive stance, as if sticking her hands under her armpits somehow created a shell that words bounced off, falling dead at her feet. It didn’t matter how much he shouted at her. As long as Tania’s arms were crossed, there was no getting through.
‘How did it make you feel, seeing Maribel after all those years?’
The second he’d rung the bell, Eduardo had gotten the urge to run back down the stairs. And as soon as the door opened, he wished he were invisible, wished he were anywhere but there, but it was too late. He saw a woman in a wheelchair, legs wrapped in a plaid blanket, wearing a fake-silk kimono. Her near-white hair was scraped into a severe bun.
Did she remember him? he wondered. She most certainly did; she hadn’t forgotten him for a second.
‘You’ve taken a big step, Eduardo. Forgiveness heals wounds, but you can’t expect things to suddenly be the way you want them to. It takes time,’ Martina said. He felt like he was listening to a nun. One who was locked in a cloister, her only contact with the outside world a revolving hatch through which she slipped pills, prescriptions, and useless advice. The only thing left for her to do was make the sign of the cross. In the psychiatric liturgy, the equivalent was to hand him a prescription for a tranquilliser without his having to ask for it.
Eduardo contemplated her fingernails, their bone-coloured polish, above the paper. We’re making progress. Towards what? Forgiveness. Whose?
‘Did you want to ask me something?’
Sometimes two worlds are totally irreconcilable, they exist entirely in opposition. She held out the prescription to him.
‘No, nothing, doctor.’
‘Okay then, see you in June.’
Perhaps, thought Eduardo. Perhaps.
He decided to walk. It was a nice day and there was no reason to waste it underground on the metro. He didn’t feel happy, but he bought some flowers without taking the florist’s advice. ‘Any kind, doesn’t matter,’ he’d said. Which had offended the girl, who suddenly wielded the pruning shears sticking out of her leather apron like a gun. She removed her green gloves and pointed to a few just-watered bunches on the counter: daisies, roses, verbenas. Eduardo nodded, as if to say they were all fine. He was just trying to lend some cheer to that flowerless tin vase that made Sara so sad. In the end he bought daisies, white and purple. The blue ones were more expensive. Walking down the street holding them that sunny morning, he’d have looked like a man in love were it not for how dejected he looked as he gripped the flowers, as if he was walking a poodle that insisted on stopping to sniff other dogs’ pee on every streetlight. He had the air of someone who’d been rejected. Perhaps that was why some people, especially women, shot him compassionate glances.
When he got to the corner of Calle León, a crowd of people blocked the way. Fire trucks were pulling up, sirens blaring, and a dense cloud of smoke billowed from the top of a block of buildings. Ash floated in the breeze, carrying the smell of wood and plastic. Eduardo managed to push his way through the curious onlookers and saw police cars and ambulances up on the sidewalk in front of an antique dealer’s. One fireman was tearing down the wooden door with a pickaxe as another was breaking the storefront window. The police were trying to control the gawkers while an emergency services worker hung a canvas curtain so the doctors could work in peace.
Behind the cloth partition could be heard distressed voices. Glancing underneath, Eduardo saw a leg hanging over the edge of a makeshift cot. It belonged to the body of a faceless man, who was still alive, moaning weakly. For several minutes, a doctor and emergency worker tried frantically to revive him. Someone brought a mask and oxygen tank. From where he stood, Eduardo could not see if the burn victim was reacting or not, but he thought all that pounding on the man’s chest must surely have broken a few ribs. Two nurses and two fire fighters, their faces and helmets covered in soot, carried the stretcher out to the nearest ambulance. The police cleared the way, and then a wailing siren took off up the street in the opposite direction.
Fire fighters started spraying the antique dealer’s with foam, using high-pressure hoses. Police were evacuating the apartment building next door, hustling the residents into a safety zone. A few were complaining — some people will complain even if someone is trying to protect them — others crying, one or two carrying cages with parakeets or cats in their arms, and a dog barked rabidly at the sirens assaulting his sensitive canine ears. A few people were speaking to officers, who were taking notes in their little books.
The fire had destroyed a good part of the building; apparently it had started in the basement. The piles of old clothes, furniture and paintings had fed the flames, which raged so quickly that only a few pieces had been saved. The fire fighters now dragged what they could out through the doors and broken windows: a bronze sculpture of Marcus Aurelius with a singed face; a charred baroque crucifix; spoons, plates and vases; a Louis XIV armchair. All that rushing in and out seemed just like a house being looted during the revolution.
Fifteen minutes later, the fire died down and the crowd lost interest. Only the most obstinate gawkers remained, perhaps those who derived secret pleasure from others’ misfortune. By the time the fire fighters finished their work all that was left was a black stain on the building’s facade and the police security tape. Nothing new.
Eduardo stepped back to pass by. His clothes were infused with smoke, and the daisies now looked sad and limp. That was when he saw Ibrahim standing among the few people still left, behind the security barrier, his head sticking out above the rest. He was watching the scene, impassive. Ibrahim turned and saw him. They exchanged a look. Eduardo began to wave, but dropped his arm mid-gesture. As though he hadn’t even seen him, Ibrahim withdrew and slipped off in the opposite direction.
When Eduardo got home, news of the fire was already on the radio. Sitting in the building lobby with her fashion magazines, Graciela was listening to a transistor radio, an absent look on her face and a half-smoked cigarette between her fingers. The announcers were grave, saying all anyone could do was regret the passing of Dámaso Sebastián, aged 72, who’d been owner of the antique dealer’s for over forty years. According to witnesses, he had no family. Dámaso had died before making it to the Major Burns Unit at Hospital de la Paz — from smoke inhalation and the severity of his burns, most likely; they were awaiting results of the autopsy.
‘That was just around the corner. You can smell the smoke on my clothes,’ Eduardo said by way of greeting, leaving the flowers on the lobby desk beside a packet wrapped in brown paper. ‘These are for your empty vase. I think Sara will like them.’
Graciela’s eyes skipped disinterestedly over the flowers, but she fixed her gaze on him. She was smoking, trying to look calm, but her mouth was clamped down too hard on the cigarette and she was exhaling a steady stream of smoke through her nose.
‘Did you know I pay for sex? Or at least I did, once.’
The question was so unexpected
it was like a slap in the face; Eduardo felt it smack him right between the eyes.
‘I don’t think that’s anything I need to know, quite honestly.’
Graciela put her cigarette out in the ashtray as if drowning it in a barrel of water.
‘Oh, of course. I forgot — you don’t need anything from me, or my daughter. You’re not interested in anything or anyone, really.’
Eduardo felt taken aback by this hostility, which seemed to be coming out of nowhere. Graciela took the package off the counter and held it in her hands.
‘This might interest you, though. Turns out the guy I paid to give it to me up the arse actually knows you. Knows where you live, knows your name, and of course he knows how my daughter and I feel about you. I doubt he knows what you feel for us, though of course that’s logical, since not even you know that.’
Eduardo made no reply. His tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He kept his eyes trained on the ends of Graciela’s collar; she was wearing a beige, long-sleeved shirt, and between the tips of her collar hung a religious pendant, which quivered when she breathed. He could see her chest swelling and falling with each heaving breath, and beneath her marbled shirt buttons, the outline of a breast — just one.
Eduardo averted his eyes, concentrated instead on the daisies. Sara was right: empty vases are so sad.
He turned to Graciela and gave her a candid look, with no shame or guilt. Forgiveness cures, that was what Martina had said. But Martina had no idea what things were really like; she was a nun, at her revolving hatch. All Eduardo felt was a deep sense of sadness, and he wasn’t even sure whether or not it was for himself. He thought about Sara and Graciela, about people like them who invented heroes to have someone to believe in, heroes who could reach out a hand and keep them from falling. Maybe they really did exist, but he wasn’t one of them. Nor had he pretended to be.
The Heart Tastes Bitter Page 35