A Dead Man's Travail

by Susana Pagano

  Ernestina comes into La Covadonga without making a sound. When Hortensio sees her, it makes him jump and the whole store rattles. Hi hands start to sweat and he can’t keep looking into Tinita’s eyes, and hers, as usual, look inwards, never at her surroundings. Ernestina walks without noticing how short her skirt is, her with legs without stockings, her hair a mess of dishevelled curls. Hortensio can’t stop watching her. Since he was a child, her presence troubled him, it made him wet his pants. Tinita carries a small soft toy in the shape of a dragon. You’re still a child even after all of these years, you’ll never stop being a child and that’s what I like about you, Ernestina. You’re still the twelve year old girl caressed my hairless chest and laughed at my skinny legs.

  But Ernestina doesn’t hear Hortensio’s thoughts, she is to absorbed in her shopping list. Two packets of sliced Bimbo bread for the prisoners and a kilo of ham and one of cheese for the jailers. Also, a heavy duty yard broom to clean out the shit and cockroaches from the cells. A packet of cotton wool for the female inmates, because it makes the guards feel sick to see their stained underwear. The prisoners can’t just eat Bimbo bread and water, but I am forbidden to buy anything else; I could get thrown into jail myself for disobeying the president’s orders. I mustn’t ask questions; they say I mustn’t ask questions. Two scrubbers to clean the consciences of the police, six toilet rolls for the guards; the inmates can clean their filth, their wounds and their misery with their hands. I like your messed up hair, Tinita, and that you don’t wear a brassiere. What are you looking for? It doesn’t really matter, you can stand there all day showing me your legs. Do you like me now that I’m older, now that we’re both adults, our dreams wrecked by others who are older than we are? A bar of Zote soap for the policemen’s uniforms. Will they make me wash them, or will the prisoners? A couple of spades, yes; I’d forgotten spades to dig graves for those who die of hunger, thirst, nostalgia or anger. A lot of them die angry. Would you like a little sugar, Tinita? Take all you want, Ernestina, the whole store is yours if you want it, but give me your legs and your waist and your beasts. I’d love to kiss you until I finish all my kisses and my desire. Let me have you one more time, like so many years ago, when my poor little penis had such a ridiculously tine erection that it only tickled your groin. There was not penetration as I didn’t know then that you could do that. Now, I could split you in two, Ernestina; I could tear out the words you have refused to utter for such a long time. I would make you shout with pleasure, but you would die in my arms. Everyone believes you have been to bed with me a million times and with everyone else well. They imagine possessing you, lunging into you like animals, as if you were in heat; but they can only dream and imagine themselves to be real men. They say this because they know you aren’t interested in defending yourself against their lies, their filthy lies. Are you still a virgin, Tinita? We’re going to need another packet of rice and another of frijoles, but I won’t have enough money, they didn’t give me enough, they never do anyway. Have I forgotten anything? No. I’ve got everything I was asked for and a bit more, just in case.

  Ernestina goes towards the counter with her fluffy dragon over her arm. Hortensio hasn’t stopped gazing at her. Ernestina places a handful of strips of newspaper on the glass table and goes out without buying anything and without having turned to look at Hortensio even once.

  38

  I was born in the neighbourhood of Guerrero, amid cantinas, drunks, prostitutes and low life thieves. That’s where I grew up, with crooked, crafty people. I’m not the way I am for nothing; I had to find the guts from wherever I could, defend myself from the rabble, kick before I was kicked. Any good character was torn out of me from an early age. I became angry and sullen. It was the only way to survive in this stinking world.

  There were three of us, two sisters and a brother who died aged seven of a badly managed appendicitis. Our papás didn’t look after us in the slightest. They’d go to work very early and then go to the cantinas. They would arrive home really late at night very drunk and just wanting to sleep. They left us in the lap of the gods, or whoever else. If we went to school, that was fine; if we didn’t that was fine too; they never cared how we were doing at school, whether we failed subjects or got 10s. I was the slowest of us; I hated studying and I used play truant from school all the time with my friends, to go have an ice cream, to Chapultepec lake, to the matinee at the Cine Janitizio, where you used to have to take an umbrella because it leaked and rent a stick to kill the rats. I failed fifth year of primary school three times and then gave up as it wasn’t worthwhile. So I can barely write the letters and can more or less add and subtract. When my papás found out I’d left school, they put me to work in a factory, but I couldn’t stand it ‘cos they treated me really badly and paid peanuts. I didn’t last long. Then I worked in a bakery behind the counter, but because I couldn’t add up very well, i was always charging too much or too little, and so I was out on the street again. I went from pillar to post, working a few months here and a few there; in so and so’s store or someone else’s. As I grew up and began to become a woman, I started to like men and they began to like me. The problem was that not that men liked me, but that the first one to take any notice of me was mi papá and that was a pain because the bastard weighed a ton.

  We used to live in a tenement building that was so old it was falling down, the walls were full of holes, full of rubbish, dog shit, cat urine, rats and, of course, cockroaches. The room we rented leaked, the floors were bare earth, a wood stove and broken windows. It was there that we all slept like chickens in a coop, like packaged mummies, like inmates at Lecumberri prison. At night we’d hear the little scurrying of the rats running from one side to another like crazy; the noise of the toilet flushing when one of the neighbours got up to have a piss in the middle of the night; the drops of water dripping continuously into the chamber pot. We’d also hear the sounds of the family breathing, papá’s grunts and mamá’s moans.

  ⎯ Hey, Florencia, what were those noises last night? ⎯ asked my sister once.

  ⎯ Which do you mean? ⎯ I still wanted to act dumb.

  ⎯ Those moans as if mama was going to cry. I think they must have been very worried, ‘cos they didn’t stop moving.

  ⎯ Yeah, they must have been really worried about something.

  ⎯ Why, sis?

  ⎯ Stop asking dumb questions, don’t you realise they we doing it together?

  ⎯ But they’re already together?

  ⎯ Stop being stupid, they were trying to make another little brother for us.

  ⎯ What for? Maybe that’s why they were worried, in case God took him away too.

  ⎯ God’s gonna take you away too, you’re so virtuous and dumb.

  I didn’t want to explain anything to my sister; someone elwse would tell her, a friend at school or her first boy friend.

  We’d hear them going at it every night; each time they cared less and less whether we could hear or not. The always arrived drunk, they cared less whether we saw them, or the neighbour. But one day, mi papá got tired of always doing it with mi mamá and decided he needed a change. He got into bed with me and you can imagine the rest. Mi papá was a big man, as big as a bear and just as heavy; there was no way to get him off me. Another day he got into my sister’s bed and that’s the way he went, going from one bed to another like a rat in a circus. What really got to me was when he made a baby with my sister and that was when I got on to the streets, first with the pretext of getting money for the abortion, and then because I started to like it.

  A few months after I’d found a nice little room that was more or less decent and a pimp to look after me, I took my sister to live with me and then I got her into school ‘cos she had always liked to learn. I didn’t want her to get into the business ‘cos she was very pretty and could take away my clients.

  Maria Guadalupe studied to be a secretary and got married at eighteen with a nice, hardworking boy; I don’t know where she found him. The day of
her wedding I said to her:

  ⎯ I hope you are very happy, sis’. This is real life. We’re each on our own. Do look for me unless this one turns out to be a nasty piece of work and things are going to the devil.

  ⎯ But why? She asked me sadly.

  ⎯ You are gonna live the life of a proper lady, you’ll have kids and what they call a respectable family. I am just a slut and one day you might be ashamed of what I do for a living. May the Virgencita take care of you.

  ⎯ Maria Guadalupe and Fermín went to live in the United States right after they got married and I haven’t heard from them since, but I’m certain they are doing well. I never heard anything more of my parents; just when they told me about the accident when the skinny broad killed them both. I didn’t even go to the funeral, what for? They stank anyway.

  39

  Francisco caresses her childlike skin; his eyes closed he tenderly kisses her closed eyes, her straight nose, her beautiful lips. But Francisco does this without passion; there is no passion in those kisses because it’s like kissing an angel, a sacred, inimitable image.

  Lying on the bed in the cheap hotel, Anita is more beautiful than she was when she was learning to smoke or playing truant with her friends. Her long, dark hair tumbling over the pillow makes her look even younger, just the way Francisco likes them. Francisco covers Anita’s body with the sheet; young girls don’t like showing their nakedness, they’re bashful and that’s fine. That’s the way it should be, not like that slut of a wife of mine who, at the first opportunity, strips off for anyone, thinks Francisco. That’s why Francisco hasn’t taken off his clothes; beneath his trousers his member, hard, engorged, virile and darkened with anticipation, would be too frightening for those warm, childish, innocent eyes to see. He kisses her a little more earnestly but Anita’s lips are still unresponsive. Francisco whispers words of reassurance: he tells her he cares about her, that he loves her, that he’d give his life for her; and all of the sweet nothings he can think of.

  Francisco is sweating like a lion; he hasn’t taken his clothes off, he has too much clothing on and it’s making him hot and uncomfortable, but it doesn’t matter, it’s all over now. You see, it wasn’t so terrible, was it? His breathing is rapid, he calms himself down, he drops down beside Anita and falls into a deep sleep.

  A loud banging at the door wakes him. Francisco rubs his eyes, he doesn’t remember where he is. We’ve got to go, Francisco, hurry up; says a familiar voice from behind the door. Francisco remembers and looks to one side. Anita is lying on the bed just as she was a few minutes ago, or was it hours? He’s not sure how much time has elapsed. Hurry up, says the voice. Francisco stretches indolently; he wishes he could stay there many hours more, or his whole life, if that were possible. But the voice on the other side of the door is hassling him, insisting he get a move on. Ay, what a fucking the idiot! I’m coming, he whispers, I’m coming. He gets off the bed as calm as can be, gives another huge yawn and wipes the sleep from his eyes. Anita doesn’t move, she is lying still on the as if she were waiting for something Francisco can never give her. Francisco buttons up his trousers and with very slow steps he walks unhurriedly towards the door of room number five hundred and ten. With the same composure, he opens the door to Lolo Manón who storms into the room, slamming the door behind him.

  40

  I have nothing against gays, in fact I pity them. As long as they stay out of my face, I don’t have a problem. It’s one thing to be kind, but it’s another if they want get smart with you.

  Valerio Cuadra is a good person, a bit scatterbrained sometimes, but nice. I even find his effeminate thing quite amusing, he is so sensitive and fragile, and he gets upset over any little thing. Every month and a half I go and have my hair cut at his salon and I sort of know him, although we’re not friends. He never bothers anyone because he’s always very respectful. He didn’t like Lolo Manón, in fact, he thought he was a very unpleasant sort, but Valerio Cuadra is incapable of committing something as despicable as taking someone’s life, anyway he’s a devout Catholic. I wouldn’t stick my neck out for anyone, but I can assure you without a doubt that Valerio Cuadra did not kill Lolo Manón. If he’d been a woman, he’d have gone into a convent; he’s such an upright person and I wouldn’t suspect him at all. I’d be more included to have doubts about Aguinaldo Misiones; that one’s face is a mask the whole time, and he carries around a lot of resentment against the world ‘cos he wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth. When he looks at you and smiles, it feels as if the devil’s smiling at me. Still waters run deep with that guy.

  No, señor, I’m not accusing anyone of anything. I’m just giving my particular opinion about that man, but I’m not saying that he killed Lolo Manón; to be able to say that, I’d have to have proof, to have seen or heard something that made me suspect him. I’m telling you this in answer to your questions; in the end, I couldn’t care less who killed that parasite, and if they put Aguinaldo Misiones or Doña Natalia or Florencis Ruiseñor or even Valerio Cuadra in jail, I couldn’t care in the slightest. I can only assure you that I had gone to my pueblo to save my mamá from dying once and for all. Don’t try to trick me into to admitting false charges when I haven’t said anything. So if you have finished with me, I am leaving, señor detective. I’m not about to waste my time with this nonsense. I can’t think who might have put it into your head to go sticking your nose into my private life just because some crazy person decides to stick a knife into my neighbour, a layabout and good for nothing in this world. If you will excuse me, I’m leaving. I have more important matters to attend to.

  41

  Ernestina gets to the XXI Century hospital around twelve. She tells the nurse, in writing, that she wishes to see Ramiro.

  ⎯ Ramiro who?

  Ernestina shrugs her shoulders. She doesn’t know his last name, she never has. She writes down on the piece of paper anything that she can think of, about the shooting and everything.

  ⎯ Pérez, the name is Pérez and he’s in intensive care; but he’s not allowed visitors who aren’t family members and, anyway, visiting isn’t until two o’clock-. Ernestina looks up at her like a little lost dog, which is what she feels like. The nurse looks back at her for a while. You’re dying to see him, aren’t you? Listen sweetie, I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll give you a pass so you can see him; you don’t say anything to anyone and you promise me you won’t worry him even the slightest bit because he’s very ill. You can be there for five minutes and then you’re gone with the wind. You nderstand? Good, be a good girl and don’t go in until two o’clock.

  Tina sits in the waiting room quietly, without moving so as not to make a sound.

  A señora in black arrives with two young men, one of about fifteen and the other around twenty. The señora looks as if she hasn’t slept for ages and is about to burst into tears. The young men look like young men. The three of them sit opposite Ernestina.

  ⎯ Did you go and see him? – says the señora staring at who knows what but still listening.

  ⎯ Yes, Ma ⎯ says the older of the brothers.

  ⎯ And? ⎯ the mamá takes a handkerchief out of her bag to dry the tears that she hasn’t yet shed.

  ⎯ They don’t know anything.

  ⎯ How can they not know anything?

  ⎯ El Pelón wasn’t there.

  ⎯ In that case, they do know something ⎯ the señora insists on wiping non-existent tears from her eyes.

  ⎯ They only know that El Pelón grabbed his stuff and left. No one realised. But it’s not the first time, quite often he heads off to Ciudad Juárez, he’s got family there.

  ⎯ Like hell he has; that man hasn’t got a mother or a father or anyone. He must be heading up to the sierra for weed or somethin’ like that. What other thing would that good-for-nothing be going for?

  ⎯ Weed? What’s weed? ⎯ says the yonger of the brothers.

  ⎯ Shut up, you. This is an adults only conversation.

  ⎯ No Ma, you’ve
got it wrong. Really, El Pelón does have family in Ciudad Juárez.

  ⎯ Yeah, and I’m still wearing nappies. Your brother is up to no good since he has been going around with El Pelón, I’m certain of it.

  ⎯ Ramiro isn’t involved in any dirty business. You’re hacked off with him ‘cos he gets into a mess once in a while. But I know him and I swear it was an assault, honest, Ma.

  ⎯ Who would know him better than his mother? He’s always been rebellious.