by Martha Bátiz
The first time I saw him do it was on our wedding night. I was pretty scared, naturally. I didn’t love him to begin with. Even his money didn’t interest me. He got undressed, helped me get undressed as well, and there I was, feeling nervous and a bit disgusted, and then we climbed into bed. He put his hand on my tummy and began to run it down toward my legs so he could open them up. He lay down on top of me and I could feel his breath in my ear and on my neck, I could feel him fumbling clumsily, if you know what I mean, but as soon as I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, hoping the pain and discomfort Claudia had warned me about wouldn’t be so bad, he hopped up and went over to the dresser. I was going to ask him what was wrong but before I could say anything he took out the gun and put it in his mouth. He was about to pull the trigger when I covered my face with my hands, expecting the worst. After an agonizing moment of silence I heard a single click. And then, nothing. Once again, nothing happened.
The rest of the night he didn’t even come near me. He put the gun back in the drawer and went to sleep on a sofa. At first he was tossing and turning. He couldn’t sleep, and neither could I. I wasn’t going to close my eyes, are you kidding me? All I did was pray for somebody to come get me out of there and take me back to my house. I’d rather have been with my dad and put up with him. At least I was used to his ways. But it didn’t take me long to realize I wouldn’t be able to escape.
The next day he took me to town and bought me some really nice dresses and some jewelry. He even looked proud to be walking beside me. But he didn’t take his eyes off me for a second, heaven forbid, and even when I had to go to the restroom he stood waiting for me right outside the door. Back then, around these parts everybody figured he was the finest catch, as they say, so my dad was sure he was doing the right thing for me. “Tobías is a fancy man, Greta,” my dad told me the day we said goodbye. “At least you won’t be lacking for anything, and you’ll look like a queen at his side.” And Dad was right on that score: he did have good taste in clothes, and he liked to walk down the street holding my arm and introducing me to his friends saying, “This is my woman. Eat your heart out.” And he loved to shout and yell, he sure did, only I found that out much later. I figured some day he’d bust a gut screaming his drunken head off.
The worst thing of all was that he’d never let me go out alone. For the first few days that was understandable. All I wanted to do was get out of there, go find Claudia and ask her if we could leave together or if she’d let me stay at her house, or whatever. Then time went by and I got used to staying home and finding little chores to keep myself busy. Little by little I felt less like running away.
Whenever Tobías came home drunk he cried and begged me not to abandon him. He said he wanted to make me happy but just didn’t know how. He begged me to believe that he was really trying. That was touching at the beginning. He’d curl up in my arms like a little baby. I started to become fond of him in spite of his refusing to let me go out alone and locking the door whenever he left the house. To prove that he wanted to make me happy, he bought me a TV so I didn’t get bored while I was waiting for him. That was nice, you know? And yet I felt lonely. I yearned for more. See, at night… How can I even say this? Oh, well, who cares? All he did was lie next to me, just sleep and that was it, you understand? He never touched me.
“Don’t you want to have kids?” I asked him one day. Man, did I regret that. He said if I thought he wasn’t man enough to make me a bunch of kids, he’d show me how wrong I was, and he hit me. He pulled down his pants and…nothing. He couldn’t do it, just like on our wedding night. He hit me so hard he had to take me to the hospital because my head split open. Look, I’ve got the scar right here. And no hair grows around it.
The doctor wanted to know what happened to me and asked me if I wanted to press charges against my husband, but I didn’t dare. Tobías had such an expression on his face, he looked so desperately sorry, and I really didn’t want to get mixed up with the cops. I already told you I hate cops. So I swore to the doctor that I’d fallen down the stairs. He didn’t believe me, but what did it matter? After that Tobías gave me a gold bracelet with my name on one side and his on the other and a little doggie so I wouldn’t feel so lonely at home. I didn’t want to embarrass him, so I didn’t bring up the idea of kids again. I named the puppy Nicolás, and for a while things were okay.
Since I would spend all day at home knitting doilies, embroidering our pillows, doing housework – he always wanted everything to be spotless – and watching TV, well, little by little I lost my figure. I feared Tobías would force me to go on a diet. He had been so proud of my looks when we first got married, after all. But to my surprise, he let me be. Besides, by that time I was not exactly a young lady any more. Tobías would go with me to buy new clothes and take me to the market, and he kept giving me little pieces of silver jewelry, sometimes gold, but he wouldn’t let me go with him anywhere else. He was probably embarrassed to be seen with me. He didn’t invite his buddies home anymore – which actually was just fine because he had been impossible when they were around, grabbing my ass with his grubby hands right in front of everybody, watching all the gestures, the looks, so that none of them would dare even speak to me – and sometimes he wouldn’t even come home to sleep. Nicolás would sit next to me, and I’d stroke his little head, and we’d just stay there like that until the sun came up.
It was around that time that Tobías stopped playing Russian roulette with that damned gun of his. I didn’t say a thing, because he looked happy, peaceful. Perhaps he was having an affair? Knowing what I knew about him, it was unlikely. But just in case, I never asked. “You are my saint,” he’d say when he got home. I wouldn’t even look at him. All I began to live for was to dream about returning here. The only thing that broke the monotony was being with my dog. I fed him the same food I gave Tobías, when he wasn’t looking, of course, and I played with him for hours on end. I kept him shampooed and perfectly groomed. I knitted him a sweater for cold weather. I wish my dad could have known him. My dad was ill-tempered and stubborn, but he was very fond of animals, he sure was. And I know Claudia would have liked Nicolás, too. But the dog died of old age, and I never had a chance to come here. Tobías wouldn’t let me.
I got so used to going out with my husband that early this morning in the bus station I felt lost and I almost started to cry. Walking among strange people without anybody to guide me, I felt very insecure. I was dying to get here. I thought that as soon as I found Claudia everything would be all right, but as you can see I haven’t located her yet, and this place has changed so much I feel more lost than ever.
My dad? My dad died a long time ago. He was my only family, but even knowing that, Tobías would not let me go to his burial. He made up all kinds of excuses not to come. He even said he “couldn’t miss work.” Damn it, you mean my dad had to wait for Tobías’s “vacation” to come along before he could die? It’s not as if we ever went on any trips. I’ve got to be honest with you: it was very hard for me to forgive him. But in spite of it all, in the end I did. I also ended up forgiving him for beating me, you know, and for not letting me drink coffee or go out alone. But what he did to Nicolás the Second – that was unforgivable.
When Nicolás died I was terribly sad. All I did was cry, I even stopped eating for a week or so. None of Tobías’s presents could console me, until one day in the market Tobías bought me a rabbit in a cage. He was white with red eyes and a pink nose, pretty run-of-the-mill, I guess, but I thought he was awful cute. When I was a little girl, at home we had a bunch of rabbits and I loved to feed them and take care of them. So I felt really happy.
In the morning, while I did the cleaning or cooking, Nicolás the Second stayed in his cage, but in the afternoon I always took him out and put him on my lap to watch television. During these past few months I wouldn’t even wait up for Tobías, because I got used to him arriving in the wee hours of the morning. I stopped worrying about him and asking him to install a phone in
the house or buy me a cell phone so he could let me know where he was. As if the master of the house was going to listen! Not a chance. Not even when I told him that, if there was ever an emergency, I would have no way of getting hold of him. “Emergency? Here? Don’t be ridiculous, what could happen?” he replied, and simply kept on doing whatever he pleased. After a while it didn’t matter to me whether he came or went, as long as the pantry was full and the TV was on. While I watched my soap operas or did my embroidery I chatted with Nicolás the Second, who was really a fantastic listener and looked at me as though he understood everything I told him. I’d often speak to him about my dad and about Claudia, too. About how things used to be when I was young. About everything I missed.
But as it happened, three days ago, that son-of-a-bitch Tobías – excuse me, but I guess this tequila is going to my head, because I’m not used to drinking – came home really late, drunk as a skunk and hungry as a wolf, and instead of waking me up to cook something for him, like he usually did, he got it into his head to… Just remembering it makes me want to cry. That bastard threw Nicolás the Second into a stew pot. He broke his neck and tossed him into the pot to have him for breakfast, he said. Does that make any sense to you? No, right? It doesn’t make any sense at all! But that’s what he did, and that’s what he said, and he made a big racket walking out of the kitchen because he was so drunk he was stumbling, and that’s how I could tell something bad was going on in the first place.
That was the first time I ever held him responsible for anything. “Why’d you have to kill my little bunny? He was already old! Did you think that if you ate him you could get it up? Not even a miracle would get it up, cabrón!” Whew, forgive me, I never use that sort of language. But I was so angry that I can’t even remember what else I screamed at him or why I didn’t bust a gut yelling at the top of my lungs. All I knew was that I was not about to put up with that damned Tobías for another instant. Nicolás the Second was my friend, he was my only company. Of course Tobías hit me, but I didn’t cry. Look, I’ve still got the bruises on my arms, and my lip is a bit swollen, see? But I swear I didn’t shed a single tear. I kept repeating what I thought of him until I suppose he finally got tired of listening to me and he gave up. So guess what he did. Well, he went straight to his room to play Russian roulette again. The gun only had one bullet in it, and unfortunately it wasn’t his turn to die. He was spared again. I don’t think I’d ever been so furious in all my life.
After he left I felt relieved but then the wait turned out to be terrible because this time it took him a day and a half to come back home. And all of a sudden I started wondering. What if he didn’t come back at all? What would I do then? I had to come up with a plan.
I buried Nicolás the Second in a large flowerpot, where else? The backyard was all cement, with not so much as a square foot of lawn. What was the use of having a big house if there was no yard? I kept telling Tobías that, but he refused to give in. He said there’d be a lot of dirt and dust getting into the rooms and it would attract bugs. Bugs? Are you kidding me? As if here, in this very town where we met, there hadn’t been any.
To make a long story short, when Tobías returned he brought me a pearl necklace as a gift. He must have forgotten that I already had three of them. And what good were they anyway, if I couldn’t put them on to go anywhere? I told him, “I don’t care about your presents, you’re not a man.” I screamed and threw the necklace out of the bathroom window. Of course I took care to stand close to the door so I could slam it shut before he could get in to hit me. He stayed there for quite a while, waiting for me to come out, but I sat down on the floor and thought that, as far as I was concerned, we could just stay there for hours. Finally he got tired and went out again when night began to fall. I wasn’t scared then. I knew he would return.
Okay, let’s have one more tequila, but this will be my last one for tonight.
I pretended to be asleep when I heard him open up the front door, but I was certain he was drunk because he stumbled again. He came into the bedroom and just stood there next to me. I wasn’t stupid enough to open my eyes. I thought that if I did, he would hit me for sure, because he’d been wanting to. I heard him take off his pants and felt him sit down on his side of the bed. Then he opened his dresser drawer. For a second I felt like warning him about the gun, but it was too late to change my mind. You won’t tell anybody, will you? While he had been out I decided to search everywhere for the rest of those blessed bullets so I could help him out with that game he liked so much. I put in four more: that way there was still one empty space. If fate really and truly wanted him to survive, he would.
On second thought, do give me a little more. Just half, though. This really is my last one.
I pulled the blanket up over me and started to say the Lord’s Prayer. I wasn’t halfway through it when I heard the shot. I heard him fall to the floor and tried to get up to see exactly what had happened, but I was too afraid. Then I remembered I’d left everything in God’s hands, and therefore whatever took place had only been His will, and that was a big relief. I went over to get a look at him and take his house keys so I could let myself out. And guess what? This time he did have it up. Can you believe that? I could hardly believe it myself when I saw it.
I took his key ring and on it I found the key to the drawer where he kept the coffee pot, so I went and made myself a cup. I had lost interest in the taste of coffee a long time earlier – I just settled for the aroma – but at that precise moment I felt an overwhelming urge to taste it. Anyway, I gathered up the presents for Claudia and a few of my clothes, opened the door, and headed for the station as fast as I could to catch the first bus that would bring me here. I didn’t even look back at Tobías.
That’s why I’m here. I don’t imagine anybody will think of looking for me. He died by his own hand, after all. What will I do if I don’t find Claudia? I looked for her all afternoon and into the evening. My feet still ache from all that walking. It’s ridiculous that there’s a park now on the spot where her house used to be. Tomorrow, when I’m feeling better, I’m gonna go ask around and find out what happened. Right now my head is spinning. What? No, thanks, no coffee. I told you, there’s nothing more bitter.
Still Watching; Watching, Still
I shouldn’t have bought the newspaper, but I couldn’t help myself. I folded it to place it under my arm and still be able to hold Rodrigo, who had fallen asleep. I walked back home and closed the door, but didn’t feel safe until I was in my bedroom and put my son down to continue his nap. I closed the curtains after carefully checking no one was spying on us – that no one was outside looking at me, or for me, even though no one has for years – and sat down at the end of the bed, my foot tapping on the floor without me wanting it to. This constant restlessness, this impossibility to be at peace – I inherited from Father.
I opened the newspaper and read the article swiftly, as if I was being timed on it, not really knowing why I was in such rush. I was about to read it once more when Rodrigo woke up. Time flew by, and I didn’t think about it again until now. It’s dark; Rodrigo shouldn’t wake up until the morning. Such an easy child! Sleeps like I haven’t done in years. And as I watch his chest going up and down and enjoy his skin’s smell of chamomile and lavender – the warmth of his body curled up against mine – I try to remember him. Father.
My memories of us together are scarce. I have a much better recollection of the things that he didn’t do. He never took me to school. He was never there for my birthday. At the beginning I thought it was because he didn’t love me. I believed the girls at my school who teased me saying that he had abandoned me and Mother. That perhaps he had another family. Mother’s silence about his absences was sharp as a knife; from early on I learned to not ask questions.
Mother used to cry at night, and also in the shower, hoping the water would wash off her anguish. But her skin was a familiar territory, and I could read her body – her slightly curved back, her silent steps – t
he way people read a map. She didn’t tell me what was going on, but she couldn’t fool me. Thinking of Rodrigo and the questions he might ask when he grows up, I revisit my endlessly hushed childhood and rehearse possible answers. Answers that my dear old Nacha would like, such as “But we must feel very proud.” Bullshit.
I have no energy to read the article again. Instead, I curl up beside Rodrigo. I do remember Father lying down just like this, right beside me, when he paid us a surprise visit. I remember his wet, long hair, his breathing – tired, devoid of peace. There was always dirt under his nails, no matter how hard he scrubbed his hands. They smelled of the soap Mother used to buy, and I knew he had scrubbed them because the points of his fingers were reddish, irritated. I used to open my eyes and explore his hands, comparing them to mine. Their size and shape. Our identical thumbs. Father’s hands holding me turned my world into an upside-down desert landscape where I was kept warm at night and then froze up with his absence as soon as the sun came out.
I close my eyes and listen. Thousands of insects sing their night song. In this country not even the bugs let you be at peace, he complained. But I’ve always liked their humming. Our house was so quiet that the bugs reminded me we were alive.