House of Beauty

by Melba Escobar

  37.

  Cojack’s call left Consuelo short of breath. She called Jorge first and told him to come over; it was urgent.

  ‘I’m in Abastos.’

  ‘Okay, but come, as fast as you can.’

  ‘As soon as I can,’ he said and hung up.

  While she waited, her hands trembling, Consuelo opened her planner and called the lawyer, who didn’t answer. Then she called the National Society of Psychoanalysts, and was given my telephone number. She dialled right away and when I didn’t answer, left a message: ‘I’m calling on behalf of Karen Valdés. I’m Sabrina Guzmán’s mother. Call me back, please,’ and left her number. She called the lawyer again.

  ‘I’m going to have to step down from the case,’ he told her.

  ‘What? Just when it’s getting off its feet?’

  ‘Yes, forgive me.’

  ‘But what happened?’

  ‘A matter of a force majeure, Señora Consuelo.’

  ‘Don’t give me that,’ said Consuelo, her voice breaking.

  ‘This morning a small coffin arrived at my house. Inside were the names of my son and daughter. Please understand,’ he said, and hung up.

  Consuelo tried his number again but it was useless.

  She searched for the forensics officer’s number. She’d spoken to him on two previous occasions.

  ‘Señora Consuelo, I was just thinking about you, I wanted to tell you that someone’s been hacking your daughter’s Facebook page. But that’s as far as I got, because I’ve just been informed that another prosecutor has been assigned the case. That means he will put together another team, and I will probably be reassigned.’

  ‘But why? No one has said anything to me …’

  ‘Whatever they tell you will be a lie, Señora. I’ve got to go, I’m being called.’

  ‘Why are they doing this?’

  ‘It’s possible they’re trying to shift blame for the crime to an innocent, to draw attention away from the true culprit. Forgive me, Señora, but I’ve got to hang up.’

  Consuelo stayed like that, telephone pressed to her ear, bewildered.

  38.

  She stepped inside House of Beauty, leaving a puddle of rainwater in the entrance. Annie on reception looked on insolently as Karen shut herself in the toilets. She crossed her fingers, hoping for a hectic afternoon, even though it was Tuesday, so she wouldn’t have to put up with her colleagues’ conversations. She missed Susana. She cried, the hand dryer masking her sobs, before heading out into a clique of women who she found duller and more aged each day.

  She acted like an automaton. Panic overcame her at different moments. The urge to hurt herself was overwhelming. She was hounded by a constant image of cutting one of her calves with a scalpel to the point of slicing off a piece of muscle. She imagined mutilating a finger, an ear. Later, when she checked, she found a wound on her ankle, another on her elbow. She didn’t remember doing that to herself.

  Karen was going up the stairs when the unmistakable, nasal voice of Karen Ardila interrupted her:

  ‘Pocahontas, is that you?’ she laughed.

  She kept on going. Yet she hadn’t even shut the cubicle door when Annie called to tell her Doña Karen was on her way.

  Karen Ardila got undressed, letting her clothes fall to the floor. Her jacket and handbag were the only things she handed over. Karen felt irritated, but wanted to avoid a confrontation.

  ‘What would you like today?’ she asked, collecting her thong, bra, blouse and shoes from the floor.

  ‘A full Brazilian.’

  ‘Just a moment, Doña Karen. I’ll heat the wax.’

  She moved fast. She cut the strips of cloth, decided to forgo the electric blanket so they’d get through it quickly, for the good of them both. The nakedness of that body, which she had to turn from one side to another – its impurities, the mole on the hip, the scant hair on the pubis, the birth mark near the vagina, the dampness – it all nauseated her.

  She looked at the pussy in front of her: red, damp, open right in front of her nose, like a threat, like an insult that smelled of rotten fish, because that’s what it smelled like, that’s what she was smelling. Doña Karen called her by name:

  ‘Karen? Are you feeling all right? You’re sweating.’

  Karen would have liked to respond – she was grateful Doña Karen had used her name, it was the first time – but by then it was too late, out of the corner of her eye she had seen her frizzing hair in the mirror and she was angry. All that effort. She retched so hard she couldn’t answer Doña Karen, and she had no choice but to leave the cubicle, disobeying House of Beauty rules, praying she’d reach the toilet in time. Once there she threw up, feeling a great ball of disgust in her stomach.

  Karen splashed water on her face. She got a razor blade out of her pocket. She made a cut on her forearm. A faint buzz ran through her body. She repeated the operation three, four, seven times. They were superficial cuts. She wanted to make a deeper one. She bled. She opened the first-aid kit, put a plaster on herself. She lowered her socks and made a deeper cut on her ankle. She let out a deep breath of air. She put on another plaster. She wrapped the blade in toilet paper, there was a lot of blood, it stained the white socks of her uniform and her shoes, which were also white. She turned on the tap and wet her hair in fury, trying to straighten it. It was useless. It got wetter and frizzier. Karen was shouting. She was shut in the House of Beauty lavatory, tying to straighten her hair with water, and shouting. She took off her socks and rinsed them in the basin. When she finished washing them, and was about to put them back on even though they were wet, she saw there was blood on the floor and crouched down to mop it up with a sock. She heard two knocks on the door, then footsteps, then the voice of Doña Josefina, and more movement and people coming and going. Karen sang and cleaned the floor with her sock, but the cut kept bleeding, as did the one on her forearm.

  ‘Karen, open the door.’

  It was Doña Josefina’s voice. She didn’t remember much more. When she opened her eyes, she was in her cubicle, the woman had gone. Around her ankle was a bandage, and there was cloth wrapped around her forearm and wrists. A few minutes later, Doña Josefina appeared in the cubicle doorway.

  ‘Come up to my office, when you’re feeling up to it.’

  Karen closed her eyes and sank into a deep sleep.

  39.

  Josefina de Brigard asked Karen to leave House of Beauty immediately. She recommended she seek psychological help.

  ‘Honey, you’re sick. You can’t be here. It would be best if someone came to pick you up.’

  Karen tried Susana’s number, but she didn’t answer. Then she called me, and caught me when I was having a coffee with Lucía. I said I’d go get her right away. Lucía came with me. We helped her pack her things. Karen insisted on seeing Susana, so I promised to help locate her.

  We came to my apartment. For the first time, she came into my consulting room. We laid her down on the couch. Lucía passed her an alpaca blanket, and she covered her feet with it. The afternoon was deepening. A cold day, like almost all days here.

  ‘You were right, she’s beautiful,’ said Lucía.

  Karen dropped off to sleep. Sunlight fell on her face, leaving one side bright and the other in shadow. I made a pot of tea. We turned on the fountain on the terrace, just outside the consulting-room window. The sound of water always helps calm my thoughts. I hoped it would have the same effect on Karen. Lucía started reading a psychiatry magazine that was at hand.

  ‘I’d like to open my own consulting room. Think I’m too old for that?’

  ‘You’d be very good,’ I said.

  We watched over her as she slept for almost an hour. When she opened her eyes, it was night.

  ‘You’re Lucía,’ she said finally.

  ‘That’s right,’ Lucía said with a smile.

  Lucía was a woman who inspired trust. She had a placid face. Serene. And her smile was sincere. Yet Karen didn’t see that. She focused
on her grey hair, her crow’s feet, her yellowed teeth. She closed her eyes again.

  ‘Would you like to sleep here?’ I asked.

  ‘Why are you doing this for me?’

  ‘Because we want to,’ Lucía hurried to respond. ‘You’re unwell.’

  Karen opened her eyes again and stared at her.

  ‘What do you want with me?’ said Karen.

  ‘I’d like to tell your story. In fact, both Claire and I would like to tell it.’

  ‘How about I make pasta? Anyone hungry?’ I asked.

  ‘Not me,’ said Karen.

  I went to the kitchen and put spaghetti in a pan, then got tomato sauce out of the freezer and put it in a pan, too. I didn’t leave them for long. Once the food was ready, I went to call them. Before knocking on the door, I heard them laughing. At the table, Karen drank the glass of wine as if it were water and asked for more. She did the same with the second and then asked for water before speaking.

  ‘I’m going to do it,’ she said finally.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘Tell you my story.’

  ‘That deserves a toast.’

  Karen had two helpings of pasta, and said she would take a sleeping pill when we dropped her home. It was important she had a restorative sleep. She said she’d taken some of the pills I’d given her. She was sleeping well. From now on, I’d oversee her medication, as well as her psychotherapy. We took her to her apartment. We agreed to meet up the next day, to start work on the book. I said she should call me if she needed anything. I gave her another packet of Zolpidem and made sure her phone was close at hand. We hugged.

  With the traffic and pouring rain, it was almost nine by the time I got home. I was exhausted. I made myself a camomile tea with toast and sat in front of the TV. After an advert break came a new twist in the story: ‘New evidence has shed light on Eduardo Ramelli’s death. News Today has been able to establish that the author of Happiness Is You and I Love Myself was involved in a clandestine relationship with Karen Valdés (pictured), a prostitute allegedly implicated in the death of DEA agent John Toll, who died minutes after an encounter with the woman at the hands of a taxi driver who fled the scene, after robbing and shooting him. Toll had spent the night with the woman, who by day was a beautician in the prestigious salon, House of Beauty, located in Bogotá’s Zona Rosa. She worked there until early today, when she was dismissed due to mental health issues and aggressive behaviour. Authorities are investigating possible connections between Valdés and the death of Ramelli and of John Toll, as well as the death, also in suspicious circumstances, of Sabrina Guzmán Paredes in the early hours of 23 July. Valdés was the last person to see the minor alive, as she had gone for a beauty treatment that afternoon. The bag stolen by the taxi driver contained valuable intelligence information. The DEA is working with Colombian authorities to clarify Karen Valdés’s involvement in the crime. At the time of reporting, the whereabouts of the taxi driver is unknown.’

  As the news went on, I felt a tightness in my chest. I’m not usually an impulsive person, but this time I didn’t stop to think for even a second. As if I had spent my whole life preparing for this role, I jumped up from the sofa. I took my keys and handbag, and hurried out to the car. It was raining, like always. While I drove towards Karen’s, I felt my heart beating wildly. The sleeping drug would help. It always did. One patient had confessed to her husband that she’d had a lover for the past five years. Then she had turned over and fallen asleep, like it was nothing. The next day, she got up, surprised not to find him by her side, having completely forgotten her confession. In a more drastic case, a man medicated with Zolpidem killed his mother last year in Bogotá. It happened everywhere, and in the best families. He himself was the one to call 123 the next day, shouting about reporting a murder. Someone had stabbed his mother! An investigation was initiated. The man was the first to be surprised by the findings. Paradoxically, he was found ‘not guilty’. We usually believe that whoever commits a crime is guilty. And yet, being guilty requires an act of will. In this case, committing the crime and being guilty were two different things. The problem is that if this were applied to the law, we would pay less and less for our crimes and sins. We go around unconscious of our own impulses, desires and thought processes. We’re shadows trapped in a cave.

  The doorman opened the gate of the parking lot. He had seen me go in a few hours before with Karen.

  ‘Go through, Doctor,’ he said, as if he knew me. ‘Remind me of your name, again?’

  ‘Claire, Claire Dalvard.’

  ‘Go on, it’s 402.’

  I took the lift. I had to press her doorbell again and again. Finally, Karen opened up. Her hair was in her face. Her eyes were open. She was smiling. I had no doubt she’d taken the pill. She was sleepwalking. She would answer any question honestly.

  ‘Come in,’ she said, her body rigid.

  I sat down. After asking a few trivial questions – if she’d had dinner, what plans she had for the next day – I understood she was ready to respond on autopilot.

  ‘Tell me something, how was John Toll’s robbery arranged?’

  I’d brought along the recorder I sometimes used for my patients’ therapy sessions. I hit record.

  ‘That was Wílmer.’

  ‘Wílmer? Do you know his surname?’

  ‘Delgado.’

  ‘Had you been doing it a long time?’

  ‘Doing it?’ she asked. Then she started laughing.

  ‘The robberies,’ I said, trying not to lose the thread.

  ‘No, not long, once or twice. He asked where I was and what time my client left, and I told him. I thought he was watching out for me. It was never the plan to hurt anyone. Never. I didn’t know about the robberies.’

  ‘But you wanted to help him?’

  ‘He’s married to my friend.’

  ‘How many times did you give him a client’s whereabouts after that?’

  ‘Maybe four or five. He forced me to. He threatened to tell Maryuri about us. I didn’t think …’

  ‘Did you make victims withdraw money from ATMs?’

  ‘I don’t know about that. He only asked me what time my clients left after seeing me, and where that was.’

  ‘And Eduardo?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Were you seeing him for his money?’ I asked.

  ‘What money?’ she said. ‘The money that’s in the case?’

  With that, she curled up into a foetal position on the bed and fell fast asleep. I looked at her, then quickly searched in the obvious places. Under the bed was nothing. Then I opened the closet and there it was, a rigid, dark case. I opened it. Inside was an implausible amount of money, one-hundred-dollar notes in five-centimetre wads. I put it back, stood and left. The rain hadn’t let up. On my way home, I couldn’t help feeling a faint thrill. Suddenly I was the protagonist of this story. I could see clearly. I had missed the red flags. Like the addicts I treated, I felt I was in the grip of an epiphany. My empathy towards Karen had made me incapable of suspecting her. Perhaps because my view of her was condescending, filtered through pity, or through the guilt that hounds some of those of us who have everything. I was no more than a victim of my supposed superiority. I’d felt flattered to be the confidante of an unassuming beauty of modest means. My ego had kept me listening to her, seeking her out and offering her my help, never grasping that I was being manipulated. My supposed duty as a psychoanalyst was to remove the veil for my patients, that veil that we all carefully suspend between ourselves and the outside world. The distortion of reality shields us from suffering, but at the same time it can blindfold us.