It’s over. I don’t know if I’m happy for him. I kiss his hair and softly hum in his ear.
The main purpose of lullabies is to numb. To make you forget.
I can’t decide. On the shelf, the pasta and polenta are one on top of the other. Many different brands of each. Different colours. But mostly red, blue, and yellow. Almost never purple or pink. I never see those colours at the grocery store. Hands reach out and grab boxes and bags. Pasta more often than polenta. You have to bend down to reach the polenta.
I start compiling statistics. Red seems to be a popular colour. Women are more likely to pick the polenta than men. They’re less afraid of bending over? They take a lot of pasta too, though. Now that I think about it, there are just more women than men who go grocery shopping.
I recognize the guy in front of me. He keeps a low profile at the theatre. I don’t think he teaches classes. Maybe he works the lights? We’ve been introduced, but I forget his name. I’m bad with names.
I say hi as I walk by him. Chloé! What a surprise. I’m only used to seeing you behind the counter. You’re not buying anything? No, I always come to the grocery store so I can leave empty-handed. He ends up inviting me over for dinner. Points to the box in his hand, ¡será polenta!
What strikes me most about him is that he has a certain stiffness in his back and, when he walks, I feel like I’m watching a ghost go by.
He makes me think of a teacher at a country schoolhouse. I wouldn’t be surprised if he lived with his mom. That stiffness in his back, maybe. He offers me candy. I think they’re dragées.
I’ve never really known what dragées were, but looking at the platter he hands me, I tell myself that must be what they are. He holds them under my nose, insistent, and I don’t even think to make a joke. No one understands my jokes anyway. His apartment is dusty, everything’s old. He pulls up a chair for me and just leaves me there in the living room. An aria starts playing, preventing any possibility of conversation.
I realize it’s too late, now, to ask his name. Especially since he compulsively repeats mine every time he speaks. ¿Caramelos, Chloé? ¿Te gusta el país, Chloé? Over the lull of the opera music that’s playing, I wonder what I’m really doing here, apart from just killing time.
On his bookshelf, a bunch of obscure books I’ve never heard of. I pull out one about demons in the Middle Ages. Upsetting pictures of women hanging by their feet. The book cracks every time I turn the pages. I’m not even sure this is in Spanish. Is this Old Spanish? The calligraphy is incomprehensible.
If I were you, I’d put that book down.
His tone is ice-cold. On the table, slices of fried polenta on plates. With nothing else.
Dog, have you ever wondered if lemmings give suicide any thought before they throw themselves over the edge? There are some questions modern man can’t answer. Great scientists, somewhere out there, are weighing up lemming questions. Some would even have us believe that lemmings don’t kill themselves. That there are voracious eagles or some other hibernating predator, like zombies, that periodically decimate lemmings. They come crawling out of the woodwork, hungry for lemmings, then go back to their world once the population has been regulated for another few hundred years. Smoke and mirrors to evade the essential question: do lemmings die intentionally or don’t they? The other question being whether the intentionality changes anything at the end of the day.
Have you ever thought about that, shit for brains? There you go wagging your tail. You think I’m taking care of you?
I know what you’re missing! One of those cones you get from the vet to keep you from scratching your ears. You’d be perfect with a cone for sick dogs. You’d get it caught on all the furniture when you run, you’d spin around, not knowing where you were. We could sneak up behind you and shake the cone to make you shut up. A cone-dog, clown-dog, dumb-dog, wow.
Adriana introduces me to Pedro and his cousin, Fede. Pedro is a sailor, he’s going around the world on his boat. No, not Pedro. That one’s Fede. Or is it Pedro? Bueno, da igual. She’s wearing a scarf on her head, tied under her chin. Sunglasses and lips like a starlet from the ’20s. Neon nails.
I halfheartedly say oh really, cool. And Fede is a lion hunter. I sit down. Of course. Kittens, I mean. Fede is a lion hunter who hunts kittens. Grrrr. León, gatito. I don’t get it.
I motion to the waiter to let him know I’m not ordering anything. Adriana’s hand slides quickly up and down Pedro’s arm. He winks at me. The sailor’s not bad. So, Pedro, do you have a tattoo? Excuse me? You’re a sailor. Do you have a tattoo? Adriana starts laughing. Fede jumps into a long explanation of the history of taxidermy.
Betty, when’s the last time you saw the neighbour with that tragically rebellious lock of hair? I hope they haven’t moved. I’d only have pigeons left to look at.
Nothing wrong with pigeons, but it’s just not the same.
Emilio looks up from the couch he’s fallen asleep on. Adriana, wearing heels that anyone else would have a hard time keeping their balance on, with nails to match her eyeshadow, a colour that complements her lipstick and dress. She’s so shiny you’d expect a trail of glitter behind her.
I have two invites to the Bonbon Cherry show. Can you imagine! Lucky me. Emilio pouts, dubious. Me too. We look at each other. I surprise myself by smiling too candidly. A moment of complicity I wasn’t expecting. She has a look on her face that says You two deserve each other. Both so lame, why do I even bother anymore?
I feel like it’s been weeks since I’ve seen Emilio. He’s all wrapped up with Gloria. Reduced to voices behind the door. He waves me over.
Move over a little so I can sit. He turns to me and props his legs up on my lap, then lies back down. I can’t move anymore, I’m stuck in a trap. What are you up to these days? Asking that or asking anything. He leans his head back, looks up at the ceiling, shrugs, sighs. ¿Y vos?
I was little, the Oka crisis had shaken the world. I would watch these blurred images, a bridge, tension that bordered on hysteria. On top of the machine guns on the news, they’d bombard us with stories about the poor reservation kids getting high off glue and gas and permanent markers. They were about my age. In the garage, I waited until everyone was gone and opened up a tube of wood glue. If it was good enough for them, it was good enough for me.
Such a disappointment. The world had made false promises, of dreams that could never be.
On the church steps, tourists fly by without stopping. I’m drawing, but they move too quickly. A girl sits down, finally. She reminds me of Gloria. The leggings, maybe.
The girl looks at her phone nonstop. It doesn’t seem to be making her happy. She wiggles back and forth from one butt cheek to another. Rummages through her purse. I try to capture her on paper. She puts the phone away, takes out a mirror. Is she waiting on a call from a lover who’s stood her up? She plunges her hand back into her bag and rips out her phone. Dives back onto it. I have a hard time making out her facial expressions from here. I imagine she’s angry. Trapped in a treacherous universe. Where even phones break their promises.
I don’t want to stay too long in front of Matías’s door. Or look at it. Or knock. What if he picked that exact moment to come out? I don’t detect any movement behind it.
I put down the chocolate heart I just bought him at the grocery store. I don’t know if he’ll understand it’s supposed to be a joke. Or if he’ll come out before it rots. Cuidate amigo, I write next to it.
Plant, we need to give you a name. You too, crack in the wall. Look at that, my room’s a full house now.
Señorita, you’re so pale.
A stranger’s hand lights the cigarette that’s between my teeth. I lean over a little to reach the flame. The man’s hand strokes my cheek. And the smoke escapes, smooth. I’m wearing gloves and a tight, low-cut dress. My infinite eyelashes brush against the man’s hand when
I blink. The street is empty. Apart from the man, who wears a tailored suit. His hair greased to one side, a hat. We’re close to a metro entrance. Hot air climbs up my thighs. For once, my nails aren’t black with pollution. Nothing sticks to my skin.
I would savour the smell of the match being struck. That would erase, for this short moment, the smell of the cigarette. And I’d take the stranger’s hand and never look back.
I go to the theatre, pretend to be busy. I bring a book and set myself up at the front desk. I feel a bit less guilty than I would staying at home doing nothing.
Emilio walks by, surprised. What are you doing here? Do you feel like coming upstairs?
They’re 8, 9, 10 years old. Sitting nice and still in a circle. They seem to be making up stories with their hands, they barely look up when I arrive. Everyone, this is Chloé. She comes from a country full of polar bears and today she’s going to join our class. Obviously, the bears feed their imaginations. There’s one kid who sits off to the side. Kind of chubby, clumsy. He wishes he were somewhere else, he’s always the last to figure out the exercise. Emilio leans over and whispers something in his ear. The kid stares at me, eyes straining hard to believe the unbelievable, laughs, looks at me again. And he joins the group again with an energy I hadn’t seen in him before. He stops every fifteen seconds to stare at me. I imagine that in his eyes I’ve become a rhino tamer.
Wait up. Emilio looks through the costumes, an old bolero, a stuffed python, African masks. We’re gonna play. You might even like this. Yeah, I don’t think so. The sacred circle. You can scream or make noise, but no words. Didn’t I have something to do downstairs? He gets in my way and stops me from leaving. Emilio! Leave me alone. Some other time, okay? He takes my hand. Then the other. He starts waving his hands. I resist. If there’s one thing I don’t know how to do in life. We’re two warriors. Preparing for a ritual. He pulls my arms up in the air like a bird preparing to take flight. My eyes pointed up toward the sky. Are you done? He keeps it up, more and more determined. And, consequently, so do I. I try to pull my hands away, but not hard enough. Every time we land, the iron staircase resonates with a clang. Stop! Someone’s going to come. I don’t want people to see me like this, Emilio, stop. I try to sidestep, he cuts me off. Shakes his head No with the big paper maché mask on. I giggle.
Then I burst out laughing. A stifled, nervous laugh. He keeps jumping. I told you you’d like it. Jesus, Emilio. If Pablo comes up, I’ll die. If someone finds out, if you tell anyone. He starts moving back and forth from right to left, pulls me along with him. A rhythm. He’s ridiculous. I’m so pissed. Emilio, I swear, I’m leaving. And yet, when he lets my hands go, I don’t leave. He’s panting. Pounds his chest and screams. High pitched, then low, then a growl, a croak. He jumps up and down with both feet, takes my hands again and pulls me with him. I’m gonna kill you for this! It would be my pleasure, he says back.
It isn’t surprising in this city to see artists moving from place to place stained with paint or with a blowtorch in hand. Still, stumbling upon a big plot full of huge sculptures made out of scrap metal, right in the middle of a residential street, is unsettling. Lunar Park. A mix of dinosaurs and robots, if you have to call it something.
At first, when I saw the letters, I didn’t understand. They’re arranged all crooked, the R in Lunar has basically fallen off. Makes the whole thing even quirkier. Normally, I zip by. I prefer that to looking like the girl who’s never seen a commune, or that came to do some casas recuperadas tourism.
A frail-looking girl with green dreads and ripped jeans calls me over, says come, they won’t bite, before disappearing inside. I stay where I am. As far as I’m concerned, the sculptures make great guard dogs. People come and go. Some weirder than others. Most pay no attention to me. On top of the giant robots, a mop of wool hair gently sways in the wind. Their heads follow. When the street falls quiet, I hear the wind blow between the sheets of metal. Some mysterious force compels me to sit and listen to the improvised concerto. A little kid comes to play in the tall grass between the statues. I realize that whole families are probably squatting here too.
The wind keeps whistling. I convince myself that they can’t see me. I don’t know why. I don’t know why I get up, either. Or why I head toward the door.
I hold my breath. I’m scared animal entrails will drop onto my head. I wonder if people back in the day set up a ritual to calm the Stonehenge gods. I keep going forward, carefully, as if that may help for some reason. There’s just a fake soldier I have to confront, at the entrance. A robot like the others, with an army helmet and a captain’s badge pinned where his heart would be. His face is like the Joker’s. He threatens the innocent passersby with an inquisitive finger. Nunca más, is what’s written next to him. I slide behind a skinny guy who’s on his way out, the door gently shuts behind me.
On the fourth floor, a painter. I’m normally indifferent to abstracts, but his really grab me. Something about the density of the lines. I sit. The studio’s empty. Apart from the painting in front of him and the space it occupies. He’s completely focused. On the concrete floor, two tubes of paint, a few brushes. His back is turned, there are no windows. His painting slowly takes shape. A strange feeling of peace, of abundance, emanates from him. Nothing like the supercharged energy of the squat. Here, nothing exists. I’m not even sure he knows I’m there. I await his next movement, suspended. Black and white on the canvas, unsettling density. I forget that I’m not part of it. I forget that I’ll never be part of it. And I travel with his brushstrokes.
The line that runs from his hands to his back is so pure it almost excuses the rest.
On his way out of the studio, he says there’s more than one way to inhabit silence. He slips across the floor and disappears. The huge painting, maybe finished, watches me from the wall where it takes pride of place.
I wouldn’t know what to say about it. Nothing like “magic, soothing, whole.” Nothing critical or intellectual. I spend hours sitting on the floor of the squat, losing myself in it while no one bothers me.
I want a flower crown. I want to roam the city streets like I’m a little girl. I wouldn’t notice the disapproving looks of grandmas or the fat, wet air kisses of the workers. I’d keep my head high and be proud. I wouldn’t bring a doll with me. I wouldn’t have a bleeding forehead from the thorns, and no one would applaud as I walked by.
I’ve been waking up later and later. The dog is barking. An alarm, somewhere far away, goes off. I hope the thieves make off with the car quickly. I hope it stops. I hope the noise stops. All this noise. Always, noise, too much noise.
Noise that sets in and never ends. An endless drone. Everywhere, day and night. In this crazy city where nothing is ever silent.
Betty, have you ever believed that rain was the sky crying? Not me.
Llover, llorar. Pretty similar, though.
Come on, please, do it for me. I don’t know anyone who speaks French. Come on, Chloé! Under different circumstances, I might enjoy Emilio begging me like this.
He wants a girl to speak French for the soundtrack of his next play. There’s no script. He suggests I write a few words. Nothing too complicated. No one will understand anyway. You must have something that you wrote at some point that you can use? A poem, or a song?
How do I explain?
What do you want me to talk about? Improvise. The tape recorder stares me down, there’s no way I can forget it’s there. Betty, what would you talk about? I’ve never written a poem. I definitely won’t be starting today, that’s for sure.
So this morning I got up, it was late, I was sick, Luz was still there, I don’t think she noticed, Emilio showed up full of pep, threw the tape recorder at me like it was something fun, said alright, see you later.
Of all the dangers in Colombia, it’s falling asleep under a palm tree that terrifies him most. Falling coconuts kill more people than t
he guerrilleros. Anke’s boyfriend tells me this with the straightest possible face. What, you’ve never thought about coconuts falling? It’s the epitaph I’m imagining.
I feel like going there to get killed by a palm tree just so my tombstone could read Here Lies Chloé Duclos, who died from too much dreaming. Palm trees go hand in hand with the ocean. With children slathered in sunscreen, with pink lemonade and cars with sun visors that say Florida Beach.
Palm trees aren’t weapons of mass destruction. No matter what wimpy boys think of the coconut rebels. And Anke throws me under the bus, takes his side, but yes, Chloé, the palmeras kill people. She’s gotta be kidding me. You’d know that if you’d done a bit of research on South America. It’s not because she’s sleeping with a Colombian that she’s palm tree expert all of a sudden. She’s never told me about him. How long has this been going on? People who are afraid of everything usually die getting hit by cars crossing the street on a green light. Did you know that? Did you also know that holding hands for too long significantly increases the risk of pancreatic cancer?
Finding boys cute. Finding just one boy cute would be enough for me. I’d love to get butterflies in my stomach whenever I see him. To tell myself, here, him, maybe. No need to talk, smile, nothing. Sharing an invisible instant, making the moment last, leaving it suspended in time. Even if it’s just for a little while.
In the End They Told Them All to Get Lost Page 8