‘Are you sure you don’t want a treatment?’ asked Karen. ‘I’m not sure what else I can offer you. What would you like: a massage, a deep skin hydration?’
‘A massage,’ the woman said, to put a stop to her persistence.
‘All right, we’ll concentrate on the back muscles and, if you have any pain or knots, let me know and we’ll work on them, how does that sound?’
‘I just want you to tell me about my daughter.’
Karen was troubled by that request.
‘Your daughter didn’t say much, Señora. If you’d like, you can get undressed. Just leave on your underpants,’ she said as she put on some music.
‘Did you wax her?’
‘Yes, I did, Señora.’
‘You did a good job. She looked like a doll,’ said the girl’s mother, undoing her bra.
‘Thank you,’ said Karen, thinking this was the strangest conversation she’d had in her life. ‘Now lie down on the treatment table, I’m going to put an electric blanket over you so you don’t get cold. Just a minute. Almond or lavender oil?’
‘I told you I didn’t come for this,’ the girl’s mother said again, her tone betraying a slight irritation. ‘And why else would my girl get a wax, if not for a date? I know she was seeing someone but she never told me anything. I don’t even know his name.’
Karen didn’t answer. Instead, she massaged the woman’s temples, her head, her neck. She was going to continue with her arms, but, when her gaze rested on the running make-up, she couldn’t fight the impulse to correct it. She daubed a tissue with make-up remover and passed it over her face, then applied a cleansing gel and finally a moisturiser.
She continued massaging her arms and, when she reached her left hand, Sabrina Guzmán’s mother started crying again. From then on, she wept softly while Karen worked.
After twenty minutes, she asked her to lie face down and only then, on turning over, did the woman ask:
‘Do you have children?’
‘A four-year-old boy.’
Karen worked on her back for a long time. It was full of knots.
‘And they want me to believe it was suicide …’ she said out of nowhere.
‘Suicide, Señora? I thought it was a natural death, an aneurysm.’
‘That’s what’s in the newspapers, what did you expect?’
Karen kept quiet.
‘And now my girl is dead and buried, what am I going to do? My God! What am I going to do?’
She’d erupted into a grief-stricken wail. Karen had to stop the massage.
‘Have you spoken to the police?’
‘They keep telling me that as long as the medical report states an overdose of Tryptanol as cause of death, there are no grounds for opening an investigation.’
‘Tryptanol?’
‘A drug, an anti-depressant that you can overdose on. What do you know, Karen?’ she asked again.
‘She didn’t look like someone who wanted to kill herself. How did she commit suicide, or how do they say she did?’
‘At the San Blas Hospital, they said a taxi driver dropped her at hospital. He said he picked her up on the corner of Calle 77 and Carrera 9, at around five in the morning. He said she asked to be taken to San Blas Hospital as fast as possible, that it was an emergency. And when he got there, she wouldn’t wake up. So he got out to take a look at her, and saw she had a packet of Tryptanol in her hand. He opened it and, inside, a whole blister was empty.’
‘So she’d swallowed the pills?’
‘That’s what the medical report says.’
‘But was an autopsy done? Was the taxi driver called to testify?’
Sabrina’s mother continued to cry, but quietly now.
‘I was scared. At the time, I was thinking the priority was to have her buried on hallowed ground. Did you know suicides aren’t admitted into God’s kingdom?’
Karen touched her right foot and Consuelo Paredes let out a sigh and closed her eyes. Karen rubbed the insteps with a little cream. Then she rotated her feet in one direction, and in the other. She rolled her fist around on the sole of her foot, first up and down, then in circles.
‘I don’t know what to say. Maybe it wasn’t suicide. Maybe …’
Right then, the phone rang. Karen had no option but to answer.
‘Just a moment, Señora. Yes, Annie?’
Karen had to cut short her time with Sabrina Guzmán’s mother.
‘I’m so sorry, Señora, our time is up. I have another client, she’s coming up as we speak.’
She got dressed quickly. Before leaving she gave Karen a hug, pressed a business card into her hand that read Consuelo Paredes, Real Estate Agent and listed her phone numbers.
Two knocks on the door announced Rosario Trujillo.
‘How are things?’ she said on entering, not looking anywhere. ‘I’d like a slimming treatment on my waist and thighs, and then an eyebrow touch-up, okay?’
She insisted on slimming down, even though she was underweight.
‘My pleasure, Señora,’ Karen said, and went out to find the warm gel, rollers and ultrasound.
When she came back, Rosario Trujillo was lying on the treatment table talking into her phone. As soon as Karen entered, she switched to English. Karen had begun to get used to that, too.
In the end, she was so irritated she switched back to Spanish and Spanglish, shrieking at her husband:
‘I’m not going on Indian Airlines! Put me in first class, or you’re going alone with the kids.’
As soon as she hung up, Señora Rosario started complaining. First, she complained about the heat, then about the voltage, then about the lack of ventilation in the cubicle and the short amount of time they had together, about the housekeeper who had quit without warning, about how her daughter no longer spent much time with her, about the traffic, about the poor water quality and once more about the heat. The hour went by slowly.
Karen wondered why no one told Señora Rosario that her low weight was becoming a worry, that she definitely didn’t need to slim down. She was tempted to say as much, but chose to keep her job instead.
‘We’re done,’ said Karen finally.
Then she went out to get the bill ready while Señora Rosario got dressed. It was barely five o’clock. She still had three hours to go before she could leave. Though Señora Rosario could be exasperating, she left Karen a 10,000-peso tip. Karen was grateful for that. On hurrying down the stairs, Karen saw Señora Trujillo’s bodyguard. The minxes’ gossip had it that she was married to an important politician. When she took the bill to the cash register she felt like she was being watched again. She was getting ready to go upstairs with Doña Rosario’s receipt when her next appointment stopped her with a light touch on the shoulder.
‘If you’re really busy, don’t rush, I’ll wait here until you’re ready.’
Karen turned and looked into my eyes.
‘Doña Claire, it’s lovely to see you. Give me a moment and I’ll come down for you.’
After saying this, she rested her hand on my shoulder for a second.
Since the fateful day when I stepped through House of Beauty’s doors, I’d come back often. I always asked for Karen, and if she wasn’t available I chose to come back some other time rather than let another woman touch me. I felt so comfortable in her presence. I could lie down on the white, warm towels, surrender to the silence, close my eyes, drift off.
Karen told me about Sabrina and her unexpected death. She also told me about the girl’s mother, about having to interrupt her in the middle of her outpouring because of her four o’clock appointment. I listened to her, maybe because the therapist in me couldn’t help it, maybe because I was truly interested, but either way, I listened.
‘Do you think it was suicide?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is there anything you do know?’
‘She was going to see her boyfriend.’
‘Interesting. How old would he be?’
‘I
don’t know. She never said, but he’s a young professional, perhaps twenty-seven, thirty at most.’ Karen told me other details she remembered: where he worked, his first name. ‘But why didn’t I tell her mother what I knew?’
‘Maybe it’s intuition, maybe you’re protecting yourself. Or maybe you’re respecting the confidentiality of your conversations with the girl. In any case, it’s a respectable decision.’
I realised we were up to the revitalising exfoliant with olive-stone grains, which had to be left on the skin for six minutes. Time had flown.
‘Doña Claire, don’t speak for the next six minutes, until I remove the exfoliant.’
‘You talk, then.’
‘What about?’
‘Whatever you like. And Karen, drop the “Doña”, please.’
For those six minutes, Karen spoke about Nixon Barros, her son’s father; about Emiliano, Rosario Trujillo and Karen Ardila; about her calculations to reach the end of the month. She told me about Ramelli’s I Love Myself, and the importance of being on the lookout for signs from the angels, who are always with us. In those six minutes, I knew Karen was the protagonist of a story that was already forming in my head.
‘Now give me a massage.’
‘Now?’ Karen asked, surprised.
‘Yes,’ I said, trying to appear casual. I wasn’t sure what strange force was making me stay by her side. I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay put, my eyes closed, feeling the touch of her hands and sensing her breath.
‘Let me check if I have another appointment and, if not, it would be a pleasure.’
When she hung up the phone, she said: ‘I can give you a massage. Would you like some disposable briefs or are you fine with the ones you have on?’
‘I’m fine like this,’ I said, feeling a faint embarrassment. I got undressed with my back to Karen. In any case, it was dim in the cubicle. Now her hands weren’t on my face or neck. They were everywhere, even on my ankles, on the soles of my feet.
‘Would you like to hear the sea?’ she asked.
I couldn’t answer. I pretended I was asleep. Karen put the sounds of the sea in stereo and came back to my calves. I’d never dedicated a single thought to them, yet now they seemed to contain the world.
‘Do you exercise?’ she asked.
I smiled.
‘I was sporty years ago, now I barely go for walks.’
Her hands travelled over my legs, my abdomen. The scent of coconut filled the cubicle and waves broke against the door that was pushed shut against the real world. I didn’t want to go back there, I wanted to stay like this forever, with Karen, with her scent of flowers, her child’s laugh, her seriousness whenever she spoke. Karen talked and I could sense only my body, in sync with the universe, pulsating. I couldn’t remember anyone ever touching me like this. I could have cried. Then Karen asked me to lie face down, and the urge to cry grew stronger. I rolled over. Now that I had my back to her, and my face was pressed into the hole in the treatment table, I could let out some tears. How long it had been. How long since I’d had skin-to-skin contact. I wanted to embrace her, but she might misunderstand. It wasn’t that. My agitation wasn’t desire. It had never happened to me before. I’d never liked a woman in that way. It was something else. It was her affection, the force of her youth, the tenderness that her gentle manner awoke in me, the ease with which she moved around the cubicle, her well-defined profile, I don’t know, I don’t know, but I kept crying in silence, with a mixture of distress, disquiet and joy that I hadn’t felt in a long time.
7.
It was just past eight when she turned out the light and pulled the cubicle door shut. Once more it was too late to call Emiliano. Her talks to him were dwindling to a Sunday ritual. She didn’t want to become one of those Bogotá working mothers whose calls home became shorter and shorter and more sporadic, whose children didn’t know what to say to them when they did call. Her initial idea of getting set up and then bringing Emiliano a few months later hadn’t worked out. Those few months had gone by. Today she had made only 11,000 pesos in tips. Some days she got 20,000 or more, but other days she got nothing. It bothered her when she was given a 1,000-peso note. She felt offended; the same hands held out that amount to beggars on the street.
There weren’t many days when she had a string of clients one after the other. In the idle hours when there were no clients, almost always the minxes, as Susana called them, invented all sorts of gossip and flipped through beauty and celebrity magazines, the same ones again and again. They commented on celebrity diets, the accessories this or that actress was wearing during the TV and Telenovela awards, the love affair a local model was having with some entrepreneur. Karen also liked looking at the magazines, but she had no time for the malicious remarks some of her colleagues liked to make. She preferred the days when she barely had time to take a breath between clients. The idle hours were when she grew melancholy, wondering where her life was going, as her colleague Deisy read aloud the finer points of the cucumber diet.
When she got home, she would see how much money was under her mattress. She couldn’t remember if it was exactly one million, but she knew it was close. She thought once more about bringing Emiliano here with what she’d saved. It would be a risk, but why shouldn’t she? The most expensive part would be paying for someone to look after him. Well, that, and having a good roof over their heads, because where she was living wasn’t the greatest. Karen fantasised about a neighbourhood where she could let Emiliano stay out late playing with other kids and not need to worry. She had to get a better idea of the cost of things. She had to work out a more accurate budget. She had to get a move on.
Rush hour had come and gone. She didn’t have to wait more than ten minutes at the station. Inside the bus, there were no free seats, but she didn’t feel like a sardine either. In the mornings, the trip was a misery. People pushed up against each other, which frequently ended in fights. Then there were the wallets, telephones and jewellery that evaporated, and the accidents suffered by those who jumped the rail to dodge the fare, and the stomped feet and bruises that came with travelling some of the public transport routes.
She calculated that in about five stops she would be able to sit down. She was right. By the fourth, after passing Los Héroes shopping centre, Calle 76, Calle 72 and Las Flores park, she nabbed an empty seat by the window. She rested her head against the fogged glass and was lulled by the engine noise. Every now and then she opened her eyes to see where they were. Houses in the area had seen better days. Though Karen didn’t know it, the magnificent mansions out the window – now converted into a flea market, brothels and a black market for spare parts – were rich families’ weekenders fifty or sixty years before. People scurried like ants, especially around the stations. There were more of them at this time of day, when the details of their faces and bodies disappeared until they were only quick-moving silhouettes. Life would be simpler if she could live around here. Further up from Avenida Caracas, of course, not on top of the mariachi and strip clubs. Close to Marly station, for example, where she could buy Emiliano’s school supplies at the large Éxito store when the time came. She would buy him only healthy food – no snack foods, only good things – fruit, yoghurt, string cheese. Things that would nourish him and make him grow up healthy, she thought. She felt a twinge on her backside. The buses were full of fleas. On the coast, there were no fleas, but there were cockroaches. Disgusting fleas.
Nowadays her mother barely responded when Karen asked if Emiliano had a healthy appetite, if he was behaving himself, if she was supervising the time he spent watching TV. ‘You just worry about yourself, child,’ her mother said, and avoided talking long. She had to turn down the stew, or bring in the washing, or watch her telenovela, or bathe Uncle Juan. There was always something.
If she had money, Karen thought, she would pay for a nurse so her mamá didn’t have to clean up after Uncle Juan all the time. He was getting worse. Sometimes he lost control, or forgot, or who knew why, and s
oiled himself. ‘Does it just to annoy me,’ her mother said, yet Karen found that hard to believe. She remembered when her uncle used to tell stories all day. His favourite one was about the parrot he loved ‘like a daughter’.
He took the parrot everywhere: on his walks to buy lottery tickets, to play dominoes, to have a coffee. It was the longest-lasting, most stable relationship he’d ever known. Or it was until the day someone ran the parrot over.
This was a story with no witnesses, which made it even more doubtful, more sinister. No one saw the parrot get run over. And the strangest thing is, the street in question was a dirt road that cars went down only rarely. It was a neighbourhood of motorbikes, not cars.
One night, when he got home from work at the post office, Uncle Juan and Doña Yolanda sat down to eat. Karen didn’t remember the scene because she was three or four and wouldn’t have been at the table. Like every other night, they were eating in near silence. The radio was playing in the background. Uncle Juan liked the soup so much he asked for more. After finishing off the second bowlful, he said to his sister: ‘What did you put in this tasty soup?’ Not missing a beat, Yolanda answered, ‘Sarita the parrot.’ Uncle Juan laughed at first, but on seeing how she kept eating, serious, he got up and looked all over the house for his parrot. He didn’t find her.
He threw up all night until daybreak, and for several weeks the two didn’t speak. When Karen asked her mamá why she did it, she said, ‘The parrot was dead, what did you expect me to do, throw it in the bin? Do you think we’re rich or something?’ Though Karen didn’t remember the scene, she did remember asking that question, as well as her mother’s reply. Despite her age, Karen knew it was cruel, and that it did irreversible damage to her uncle. From then on, he repeated the story almost daily and, not long after, he became lost in memories of past sporting events and would give a constant running commentary of them, as if his mind could no longer bear being there in that house with them. Her mother’s reply was etched in Karen’s mind also because it was the first time someone told her they weren’t rich. She had never thought about it before, but that didn’t make knowing it any less sad.
House of Beauty Page 5