by Maxine Swann
I crossed the railroad track and, farther on, where the wall curved, glanced down to discover a flattened dog head, ear, eye, muzzle, all impeccably preserved, only half an inch thick. A pace or so away was the more mangled body.
I walked on, and about a hundred meters ahead, as I was taking the next curve in the wall, I saw a live street dog, unusually large, about three times the size of the standard street doglets, his German shepherd traits more pronounced, only something was wrong with him. He was missing all his fur, except for on his head and around his feet. Instead, the surface of his body was smooth dark gray skin. He was browsing through the garbage on the grass island between the two sides of the road. He shoved at a garbage bag with his nose, glanced up, saw me and headed my way, trotting at a diagonal carelessly through traffic.
I looked around. No one, nothing. The sidewalk on my side was entirely empty. There was no other explanation—he was coming for me. I began to walk quickly, looking over my shoulder. He was approaching from the traffic side. On my other side was the wall. What to do? Scale the wall? At least with a human being, you could talk, try to seduce or scare him with your words.
The dog had crossed the street and was coming up behind me, trotting. I was now covered in sweat. I was being pursued by an unscrupulous animal. I imagined the murder scene. He’d leap at me, knock me over—he was big enough—knock me out, start eating at my head, then slowly rummage down through the rest of my body, eating at his leisure. Would anyone see? There were hardly any cars passing. The sound of his breath, his footsteps ceased. Was he poised to attack? Would he spring? I stiffened, stopped breathing, preparing myself too. When nothing happened, I glanced back.
The dog had indeed paused. He was looking at me, waiting. As if coming to a decision, he turned and trotted back across the street the other way. He’d decided to spare me this time.
Miguel was back. M
“Okay,” Leonarda said. “Now I want to do something real.”
“Like what?” I asked.
We were standing on the street outside his house, cars parked in front of us. Her look was elated.
“I want to put a virus in his brain,” she said. “I want to make him ill, very ill. Will you help me?”
The proposition was so drastic, a crack opened in my vision. I saw Roman Coliseum entertainments, Francis Bacon scenes, a carcass placed on furniture in the center of a room.
At the same time, I pictured myself shouting, again this other register, high drama, “Hold, hold, enough!”
We pranced in together, paraded, danced, breezing past the doorman—of course he knew her—having just made out together against the wall across the street, everything a provocation, childish, yes, adolescent.
The floor had just been polished. I slipped. We giggled. We skated. There was a fat pillar. We twirled around it. His door was behind the pillar. There was a little grate on it.
“Hide, hide,” she said.
I hid behind the pillar. He was expecting her, not the two of us. She was changing postures by the minute, now the little girl. She rang the bell. He opened the door. I heard the murmur of his voice, deep, delighted.
“Listen, Daddy,” she said. “I have a surprise.” I stepped from behind the pillar. “Ta-dah!” she said.
I can’t imagine he was happy. Of course he wanted her alone, to do what he would with her. But he remained composed. Or maybe she had also fed him thoughts about the three of us, his head crawling like mine with peculiar erotic scenes. I stepped forward and bowed very low. He bowed in response.
Inside, his desk by the window with its row of pipes, the operating-table lamp, the soft leather couch beneath it. Okay, so the guy had pretentious taste, but you had to admit his objects were nice. Did anybody ever come to appreciate them? The place gave off a solitary air, all dressed up and nowhere to go. The kitchen with that piece of pig on a stick.
We were dancing, twirling. It was a hot day, but cool inside, the AC on. The great man looked down at us from the portrait above, still the prizewinner in that likeness, as yet minus his present humiliation.
We were sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for our food. The great man was meek, humble, shuffling, again with his apron on, again serving us. At the specter of this, I suddenly felt sorry. “Come,” I said, “don’t you want to sit with us?”
His cringe was accompanied by a laugh, showing the otherwise invisible stained teeth. Suddenly, I felt a sort of horror. What had we done to him?
But the next moment, he was standing upright, with a saber. I remembered the dog coming after me. Was it possible that I had misunderstood everything? They were in this together, I was the prey?
“Leo,” I said. “Leo.” Urgently.
I needed to catch her eye. She looked at me, clutched my hand and laughed. That’s right, we were together, doing this together. It wasn’t a saber, but a knife. He was cutting the ham again, serving us ham. Now he had a corkscrew, he was opening a bottle of wine, telling us about the vineyard, the year, in his deep, melodious radio voice. She lifted her chin, her nose, tasted. She was trying to learn the art of wine-tasting, this, yes, she admired in him and wanted to learn. The little girl now for a moment the snobby, sophisticated woman. She tried to make her neck long. She had confessed once to me that she feared her neck was short. He watched, breathless, would she like it?
Oh, dear, her nose was twitching, what did it mean? Distaste? Disgust? His eyes were on her. She quivered a bit, her entire head on her neck quivering, then looked at him very seriously, gave a dry stern nod and took a second sip—she liked it! The nose-twitching, head-quivering were to her mind movements of refinement, signaling appreciation.
He looked at her, triumphant. Just as he’d said all along. Neither would ever find another so perfectly suited. This was why he wanted to buy an island in Tigre and make it her kingdom.
“What will you call the island in Tigre?” It suddenly occurred to me to ask.
How I liked their grandiose, elaborate imaginations. How bored I was with false, Protestant humility, a whole race stifled, cramped, craving attention but unable to solicit it, waiting for someone to come along and marvel over what they were hiding away. Yes, marvel at yourself, I thought, looking at them, that’s the way to live. Don’t wait for some other wretch to do it. And here in this moment I appreciated the idea of the island.
Still, I didn’t entirely understand what he was doing here. He wasn’t stupid. In his eyes was a wild look. He must have seen it himself in the mirror. He hadn’t ever met anyone like her. His exwife had been the opposite, a steady, tranquil person. This girl was playing with him. And he let himself be played with.
Looking more closely, I could also see that he was tired, a tired player. He had nothing like Leonarda’s stamina, ambition. His sense of enjoyment was different. Was it maybe even more intense, sweeter than ours? He was nearing fifty. Was this his last opportunity for something?
We moved to the living room. I asked him if he ever smoked all those pipes that were lying on his desk. Twisting, bowing—his physical demeanor certainly was strange—he said he did occasionally. I asked if he’d please smoke one now, I wanted to see him.
“Oh, yes, Daddy, smoke one,” she said, child-like, as if it would be a big childish treat for us all.
The living room looked in on the bedroom. I remembered earlier scenes on that bed, Leonarda there, offering me her voluptuous breasts. The apartment was inhabited by these ghost scenes, her coming out of the bathroom with a mustache on, kissing me in the hallway. Suddenly, I felt irritated all over again, thinking how those scenes must be mixed in her mind with similar scenes she’d lived here with him.
Miguel lit a pipe, embarrassed, delighted, exposing himself. Could the guy stop for a moment exposing himself? Angry, I looked away. This is going to be interminable, I thought, suddenly depressed, and I sat down on the couch. Leonarda sat with me. She was all wiggly, squirmy. At the touch of her squirminess, I felt squirmy too, despite myself. He was standing by
his desk, smoking, watching us. He turned his neck, stretching, and an enormous tendon stood out.
“Ohhhhh, look at that!” Leonarda said. “Do that again.”
He did it again. Once again I was picking up on her giddiness, getting lost inside the evil of the moment, its playfulness. It was also the touch of her squirmy legs. We were under the operating-table lamp. Her breast was pressed against my arm. I could feel the stiff nipple.
“Oh, wait,” she said, getting up on her knees, leaning over me, her large full breasts against my shoulder, then neck, then cheek, then the top of my head. I turned my mouth to suck them. She was adjusting the lamp, so it was more directly on us. “There,” she said, but without coming down from her knees. Now her breasts were near my face. She pressed them into my face, looking over her shoulder at him.
“She likes to suck my breasts,” she said, “you should see how she sucks them.”
I made a sound. I had my eyes shut now. I tried to get her nipple in my mouth.
“See, I told you, she gets so excited,” she said. “I don’t let her suck them at first and then I do.”
She was moving her breasts around in front of my face, not letting me latch on. I grabbed one and bit the nipple through the shirt—she cried out—then sucked.
“Oh,” she said, “see, I can’t stop her.”
She was wearing the striped T-shirt of a boy. She lifted it. I pulled at her bra. Eyes still closed, I wanted her breast in my mouth. I pushed the bra up so the breast spilled out.
“See,” she said, “you’re not the only one who desires me.”
I wanted to devour her breast, take the whole thing in my mouth.
“See now, wouldn’t you like to be fucking me right now?” she said.
He must have started to move.
“Don’t move!” she said. “Stay right there, just take off your pants. I want to see your ugly horn sticking out.” He, staying over by the desk, slowly removed his pants.
She touched my hair. “You know what she likes? She likes it in the ass. I told you about her splendid ass. If you do what we say, she’ll offer it up to you.”
I made a sound of protest.
“Don’t worry, she’ll do it, if I let her keep sucking. She does whatever I say. You know what I pictured? After this, what I picture? You know the ham on the spit in the kitchen? I pictured the two of us putting you under this lamp, and cutting you up like a pig on a spit—”
I saw the image very clearly, him cored on a spit, his long lower limbs dangling off. Suddenly, the whole thing seemed horrible to me. I jerked my head away from Leonarda’s breast, pushed her off of me.
“That’s it, I’m going,” I said.
Finding my way to the door, I glanced back once as I closed it. He was standing, pants down, rabbit teeth showing. Leonarda was still up on her knees on the couch. Moments later, I was on the street walking fast past the zoo, the animals breathing on the other side of the wall. Leonarda called me but I didn’t answer. Later, I checked the message: “Hey, why did you leave?” it said.
nineteen
There was a puddle of water outside my door when I got home. This was not entirely unusual because part of the wall was open to the sky, so sometimes it would rain or leaves would fall in onto the floor. But this puddle extended underneath the door. I opened the door and indeed it was part of a much larger puddle, more like a long shallow pool, that extended all the way down the black-and-white-checkered hall. At the end, where the kitchen was, I saw a glimmering mass, deeper water still. I hurried to the source, not without a quick peek on the way into the living room. The rug was submerged in about an inch of water. My sneakers were soon soaked, but that was the least of my problems. I got to the kitchen, where water was steadily pouring out from the little white cabinet beneath the sink. I opened the cabinet. Water gurgled copiously from one of the pipes. I knelt down and put my hands around the pipe. There was so much pressure, the water shot through my fingers, the gurgling curves turned into violent spray. I stood up and peered into the living room again. The lower legs of the furniture were all submerged.
I called Olga and left a message on her cell phone. I opened the front door and peered out into the hall. Could somebody help me? As usual, there was no one around. I climbed one flight up where I’d once seen a man with dark hair in an overcoat enter his apartment and turn on a Mahler symphony. I knocked on the door. No one. Then it occurred to me that the more urgent scenario was the one downstairs. Those were the people who would be suffering my leak. I went down to the apartment below and knocked. I did hear sounds, but it took a moment for someone to appear. Finally, a young man with silky dark hair and blunt features opened the door.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I live upstairs. My apartment’s flooding. I was afraid the water might be coming down here too.”
“I haven’t noticed anything,” he said.
“Do you own the place?”
“No, no, I don’t. I just work here. I’m with a client now.”
As he was talking, I saw a darkening patch of water on the wall behind him. “There, there it is!” I said.
He turned and looked. “Oh, yeah.”
But he didn’t seem that concerned. Or rather, he seemed much more concerned with what he was doing.
“Hey,” a voice called out behind him.
“I’ll just finish up something and then I’ll call the owner. Thank you, thank you very much.” And he closed the door in my face.
Of course, he’s doing Gabriel’s job, I thought. I called Gabriel and left a message, describing the situation and asking him to call me back.
I returned to the leaking pipe in my kitchen. Wasn’t there caulk or something I could put on it? Tape, Super Glue? I looked in the cupboards and various drawers of the furniture. Nothing.
Meanwhile, the water was rising on the floor. I could monitor the water level by looking at the far wall of the living room. Nearby were doors that opened onto the balcony. The least I could do, I thought, is open those doors. I crossed and opened them. Water flushed out onto the balcony and fell in a sheet down into the back garden. The day was the same as it had been earlier, calm and rosy. Looking down, I saw someone in the garden. Could this be the reclusive super? This man who I felt sure existed, but was impossible to find. When I’d asked Olga about him, she too had seemed vague. “There is a super,” she’d said, “or there was. I’ve never seen him myself.”
“Hey,” I yelled.“Help!” By now I was just shouting at the receding back of a man, the top of his head, slightly balding, strong, rounded shoulders. Without even a glance, he stepped back inside.
I turned back to the room. The whole situation felt out of my hands. I was in a foreign city, in a place not my own, no one was helping me. I pictured the water steadily rising, inch by inch, as high as a foot. Soon I’d be wading through the rooms, like people waded across the streets when it flooded here, the water at my shins, then knees, then thighs.At some point, I’d have to simply get the hell out of here. I’d pack my things and walk out with my bag, leaving the apartment, the whole building, to rot and crumble. What else was I supposed to do?
But I wasn’t ready to abandon ship yet. Staring at the semisubmerged room, I decided that one thing I could do was go around and pick up everything possible and put it on higher ground, while I waited for either Olga or Gabriel to call. I picked up all my possessions, shoes and bags and clothes, and then the apartment owner’s possessions, where possible. I cleared the books out of the lower shelves of the bookcases and put them on the table. I put smaller furniture on top of unmovable items. But wait, wouldn’t the best thing be to turn the water off entirely? I thought of the last time when I’d had no water, the whole situation of the water tank and valves on the roof. Remembering the details of this kind of thing was not my forté, but at least I could go up there and give it a shot.
As I was walking up the stairs, Gabriel called. My description of what was happening came out nonsensically.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “I’ll call Hugo. And I’ll come by myself too, as soon as I can.”
I went up on the roof. I looked at the tank, the valves. As far as I could see, there were two possible valves, or valve-like appendages. I turned one of them, turned it back, then turned it again. The only way to know would be if I went back downstairs again. I went back downstairs. The water was still streaming out of the pipe. I could only imagine what was happening below. I pictured that dark swath of water I’d already seen. Now that whole wall must be dark and wet.
The person I should really be calling is the owner of the apartment, or rather the owner’s brother. This had occurred to me before and I had asked Olga for his number, but she’d said he didn’t want to be involved with the tenants. Everything had to go through her.
As I stepped out my door to go up to the roof again, I heard music coming from the apartment upstairs. Had the guy just come home? I went upstairs again and rang his bell.Again, no answer. This guy clearly didn’t want to be disturbed. I could respect that. Still, this was a particular situation. I continued up onto the roof, where I climbed up to the water tank again and turned the second valve.
I was carrying my cell phone with me everywhere. Right after I turned the valve, Olga called. She sounded distressed. I felt like telling her I was much more distressed. She was out in Olivos, a wealthy suburb, where she was showing houses to a client who was looking for a swimming pool. She’d call the brother. She’d try to be there as soon as she could.
When I got back downstairs, I noticed a silence. Or at least a new kind of sound, gentle lapping. The water had ceased pouring out. I checked to be sure. Yes, it really had stopped. The pipe below the sink stood there gleaming uneventfully.
I got a broom and started sweeping the water out onto the balcony. It sloshed down into the back garden. I did this for a while and then Gabriel showed up. There was still an inch or so of water on the floor.