by R. M. Koster
Very well, but life remained wonderful. The maid, the sulky little bitch from Bastidas whom Olga had insisted on bringing into my home, though she was no kin to Edilma, had palmed the ring. And given it as a love token to the lout who mauled her in the Alameda on her nights off. He, of course, had pawned it instantly, in the big shop off Bolivar Avenue. There it was glimpsed by Colonel Wiggler’s daughter Mona on one of the shopping sorties she was making daily during her midterm vacation from Finch. Mona bought it and put it in her purse and had it there the Tuesday evening before when she made eyes at me along the bar at the Fort Shafter Officers’ Club. It was no more than a yard away from me during our top-down, moonlight cruise in my flashy Farinata, and later it rolled out onto the floor of room six at the Second Circle when she groped in panic for the pill she’d forgotten to take that morning. And that was why the ring was now neither on Olga’s finger nor in her jewelry box but mashed flat in my left fist.
I tried to pry the ring back into shape with an eyebrow pencil. It stayed badly bent, and I threw it into the box. I wasn’t completely happy with my latest account of the ring’s travels, but the only other one I could think of was even more fantastic. I’d accompanied León to Otán the weekend before, taking Jaime and the Cranston, leaving my coupe for Olga. It was conceivable—as a hypothesis it was just conceivable—that she’d taken it to the Second Circle. With her lover (what a disgusting term!) driving. With the pinky-dicked, bloat-scrotumed, slimy-assed son of a whore driving my car, so that the attendant (who despite being mired in loose fucking up to his eyebrows retained some faith in womankind) took him for me. But no. It was conceivable in theory but impossible in fact. Olga couldn’t be unfaithful to me.
She was sitting up in bed with her lamp on when I reentered our bedroom. “Are you nervous about something, Kiki?”
“No.”
“You’ve got a face like an ogre.”
“It’s the face God gave me,” complain to Him.”
“Something’s bothering you. Want to tell me about it?”
“No.” I got into bed.
“Well.” She sat with her knees up under the blanket and her hands folded calmly in her lap. “There’s something I want to tell you.”
“Let’s go to sleep,” putting out my lamp.
“No. I have to tell you now. I’ve been unfaithful to you.”
“For the love of God, Olga, it’s after one in the morning. Do we have to play these games now?”
“It’s not a game, Kiki.” I half-opened my eyes to see her slide a wary glance at me. “It’s true. I’ve been unfaithful to you.”
“Don’t say that any more, Olga. Let’s go to sleep.”
“No, Kiki, it’s true. I’ve been to bed with another man. I have a lover.”
“Don’t use that word.”
“You’re supposed to demand to know his name, and I, of course, won’t tell you. It doesn’t matter. You don’t even know him.”
“I don’t believe a word of it.”
“You don’t want to believe it.”
“Of course I don’t want to believe it. Do I look like some kind of masochist who’s always spying on his wife, who’s dying to catch her humping his best friend so he can suffer? I don’t want to believe it, and I don’t believe it, and it isn’t true.”
“It is true, Kiki, though he’s not a friend of yours. He’s just a man, He’s been after me for months, and I didn’t think I could do it, but I did finally and it worked out fine. You can check if you want. We went out Saturday night while you were in Otán. We took your car because his … well, because his might have been recognized, and went to a pushbutton. I’ve heard about pushbuttons and talked about them, and now I’ve finally been to one. It was called the Second Circle. I didn’t know you could have drinks there. Music too. Someone in one of the other rooms kept playing Mexican songs. I thought it might be you, Kiki. Did you sneak back Saturday night, Kiki? Wouldn’t that have been funny if you were in the next room with one of your little whores?”
During which speech I got out of bed and put on my shorts. For some reason it was suddenly embarrassing to be naked in front of Olga. Also I felt like being on my feet.
“Why don’t you say something, Kiki? It’s very important. I’ve been to bed with another man. I didn’t think I could do it, but I did. Then I thought it was only because you were away, so I saw him again today, and it was perfectly all right. And I was terrified you might find out, but you don’t pay enough attention to me to find out something like that, and you don’t think enough of me to believe it. Then, just now, I decided to tell you, because it’s dirty to be doing things behind your back. What are you going to do, Kiki? Are you going to kill me?”
“I can see I won’t get any sleep here tonight.”
“You’re so cool, Kiki. I supposed you didn’t love me enough to be jealous, but I thought your vanity would be hurt.”
I wasn’t cool, I was numb. What Olga had said didn’t seem to relate to me. I considered it as a problem involving two people I knew slightly. I’d always thought I loved Olga, but if she’d opened herself to another man … I couldn’t love her then, could I? It wasn’t reasonable for a man to love a woman who betrayed him. Some men could do that, but it wasn’t the sort of thing I did. As for my vanity, it couldn’t really be damaged by the actions of a whore, and if Olga had spread herself for another man, she had to be a whore. When I recall that moment—the scene took place twelve yards from here; Mito was asleep in this very bed—I marvel at the way I was able to separate things. The French diplomat’s wife, with whom I’d made love twice that afternoon, wasn’t a whore. She was a perfectly normal young woman who’d been attracted to me and had a small adventure. Olga, on the other hand, had to be a whore, for though she was my wife, she’d opened her legs and let another man put his prong in her. If she’d done that, she was a whore, whom I could neither love nor be injured by.
“Oh, Kiki, I hope I haven’t hurt you. I had to find out. The man doesn’t mean anything to me, Kiki, but I was happy when he came after me because it seemed I might be a human being again. I had to find out. I was so scared, but it was all right. I hope I haven’t hurt you, but I had to tell you. I think it’s dirty the way some women fool their husbands. And I had to tell you so you’d know I was a free person again. Don’t look at me like that, Kiki. Please tell me what you’re going to do.”
“I’m going out.” I got out the suit I’d worn that afternoon from the closet and draped it on my bed. “I won’t be back till tomorrow.” I put on the pants and took a sport shirt from the drawer. “Then tomorrow you’ll tell me the truth, that you’ve made this whole business up to get a reaction from me.” I got a fresh pair of socks and found my shoes under the chair. “And I’ll never bother you about it. I won’t even think about it. Except if, next year, say, we want to laugh about it.”
“But it is true, Kiki. It’s true, and you’ve got to accept it.”
“Tomorrow you’ll tell me the truth.”
I checked into El Opulento, but I didn’t feel like sleeping and had left my book at home, so I went up to the casino and played twenty-one, betting the minimum each hand, until the place closed. Then I chatted with the assistant manager for a while, and finally, about five, I went to sleep. I didn’t sleep well and woke before ten. I didn’t feel like having breakfast and went straight home. But when I got there, Olga and Mito and Olguita and all their clothes were gone.
34
“Kiki?” Marta pecks in. “Are you asleep?”
“No. Waiting. The buzzer’s slipped. What time is it?”
“Almost four.” Comes in warily, lips pursed.
“What’s wrong?”
“Colonel Gatillo just called. The Guard has Jaime.”
“Why?”
“Oh, Kiki, you know why. They arrested him outside Ñato’s. Can’t you wait till after the election?”
“Is Gatillo on the phone?”
“No. He said to call him back.”
&nb
sp; “Then put my clothes on me. Get me into my chair. Wait. Call Elena and go get Otilio.”
“What are you going to do, Kiki?”
“Whatever’s necessary. Do as I say.”
A cop guides Jaime, handcuffed, into the guard room at headquarters. Sergeant loafing by the door grins and says something about indians; laughs at his joke and pokes his club between Jaime’s buttocks. Jaime twists his shoulder out of the cop’s grip and slams sergeant with clasped hands. Loops the cuffs over the sergeant’s head and jerks against his throat. Cop cracks Jaime above the ear with his club; Jaime grunts and rams his knee into the sergeant’s back for purchase. Slow-motion club blows explode on Jaime’s head as the sergeant’s knees buckle. Guardias converge on central group in great slow-motion bounds. Officer rises slow motion from behind his desk, opens the flap of his holster, draws his pistol, thumbs the safety forward, aims …
“Are you all right, Kiki?” Elena at the foot of my bed.
“Jaime’s in trouble. Put my clothes on me.”
“You shouldn’t get exci …”
“Don’t give me advice. Do as I say. Shorts and pants.”
She gets a pair of shorts from the dresser and strips back the bedclothes. Works the shorts up my legs. Marta comes in, Otilio in the doorway behind her.
“Help Elena.”
They tug the shorts under my butt, bunch in my baubles. Intent glances at each other as Elena rolls the legs of my trousers. Slips them over my feet. Heave-ho, like a pair of mortician’s aides with a corpse who’s late for his funeral.
“Get me in my chair. You hold it, Marta. Otilio will lift along with Elena. Let’s go.”
“If you fall, Kiki …”
“Don’t worry about it, Elena. Pretend you’re starring for Hitchcock and have to get rid of a body. Move!”
Up and in. Otilio lifts, Elena guides, Marta holds. Scrape my back on the wicker, but that’s no matter. Two guardias are dragging Jaime down the stone steps to the Sala de Interrogaciones. Each holds a foot, and his head bumps stickily from step to step.
“Roll me to the study, Elena. Marta, take the phone downstairs and get me Gatillo. Stay on to translate. Come on!” Two guardias stand by Jaime’s feet while an officer pisses on his face to revive him.
Elena holds the library phone to my mouth and ear. In Guardia Headquarters the light is blinking on Flaco Gatillo’s private wire. Three flights below a stocky guardia sways on his left leg and hicks Jaime’s head like a football. An eye blossoms from its socket, and the officer shouts, “Goal!”
“Colonel Gatillo.”
He flashes on the backs of my closed eyelids, leaning forward with his belly pressed against the desk, clutching the receiver to a bulging check. Imprisoned within the blubbery colonel is a slim lieutenant who used to wait on the fringe of the grass strip beyond the Reservation, wait in the dawn twilight for me to swing in from Costaguana. He would wave with his right hand—his left was handcuffed to a bank satchel—and then lope over like a borzoi to let me stuff Tolete’s share into the bag.
“Señor César Sancudo will speak with you, Colonel,” says Marta. “I will interpret anything you can’t understand.”
“Flaco.”
“Yes, Kiki. Want to hear about Jaime?”
“Yes.”
“Ñato spotted him parked outside his house and called a friend of his here, Captain Acha. Acha sent an unmarked car and four men. They arrested Jaime, who was armed. One of them drove your car here; it’s parked in the lot outside. Acha ordered Jaime held for loitering in case Ñato wants to prefer assault charges.”
“What. Assault?”
“Threatening or menacing is an assault.”
“What about shooting a man in the back?”
“What?”
“Señor Sancudo wishes to know whether shooting a man in the back is also considered assault.”
“Look, Kiki, I can’t do anything about that. You know Ñato was charged with attempted murder and released on bail, and the order from the top is not to bother him. You know that, Kiki.’
“How’s Jaime?”
“He’s all right, Kiki. Acha wasn’t sure of the charge, so they didn’t take him downstairs right away. When I heard about it, they had him handcuffed to a bench in the guard room. I told Acha to leave him there. I figured you’d want to bail him out.”
“No bail, Flaco. Let him go.”
“What?”
“Señor Sancudo suggests that instead of his posting bail you release the prisoner, Colonel.”
“He’s been charged, Kiki. I’ll get the bail set at fifty inchados. What’s fifty inchados? That way it’ll all be normal.”
“That way it’ll be the same as Ñato. Forty thousand people saw Ñato shoot me down, and he’s been free on bail for four years. So free he can have Jaime locked up for nothing. So free the Guardia jumps all over to do him favors. And now you’re going to do me a big favor and let me bail Jaime out. No, Flaco. The charges against Jaime are shit! He has a permit for his gun, and he can park anywhere he feels like. You’re going to tear up those charges, Flaco, and let Jaime go. Not because it’s the nice thing to do. Not even because it’s the right thing to do. But because it’s the smart thing to do.” All of which Marta translates faithfully.
“Would you threaten an old friend, Kiki?”
“No. I just think you’ve got more political sense than Captain Acha.”
“What?”
“Señor Sancudo believes you better able than Captain Acha to predict the result of the forthcoming election.”
“Ha, ha. Is that what you said, Kiki? All right. I’ll let him go. But not because I need election insurance. It brings back my youth to hear you. Putting the screws on, just like before. I’m not scared of you, Kiki, but I do have a good memory.”
“For the happy days when you were Aiax’s bagman?”
“What?”
“Señor Sancudo asks if you particularly recall the period in which you and Colonel Tolete were associated in …”
“Sure I remember, but that doesn’t scare me either. I remember you, Kiki. You treated me all right. I’ll let your boy go.”
“Thanks, Flaco.”
“Does it hurt to say it, Kiki?”
“No. Thanks.”
“I know how you feel, Kiki. I like to scare people too. But it’s not so bad to be helped out of friendship. I’ll send you your boy.”
Nod for Elena to put down the phone.
“Do you want the rest of your clothes, Kiki? Otilio’s brought them.”
Nod.
“Are you all right?”
Nod. “A little tired.”
“You were worried about Jaime, weren’t you, caro?” She slips the right sleeve over my wrist, lifts my left hand and puts it through the other sleeve, then tucks the shirt between my back and the chair.
Nod. “If they’d touched him, he’d have fought. That would have been bad.”
“I was afraid you’d go down there.” Buttoning my shirt.
“I would have. But you needn’t have been afraid. Nothing’s going to happen to me, Elena. Don’t you see that? Oh, some night I’ll vomit in my sleep and choke on it, but I won’t die in action. It’s Jaime who takes all the risks now.”
“A convulsion?” She kneels to pull on my socks.
“You’re right! I might have had a fit down there. They’d have been stuck then, by God! Alfonso would accuse General Puñete of murdering me on Pepe’s orders, and everyone would believe it. Even Pepe would believe it if the story ran long enough. There was that chance, wasn’t there?”
“Do you want to die, Kiki?” Keeps her eyes on my shoelaces.
“Marta asked me that this morning. The answer is no. But just being alive isn’t enough. I want to feel alive. Can you understand that?”
“Yes, caro.”
“Marta can’t. But if women weren’t different, no one would want more than one. Send her up to me, will you? She said she’d read to me. And Jaime when he comes.
And, Elena …” She turns back from the door. “Thanks for before. For the siesta. It was lovely.”
“Prego, carissimo,” smiling. And adds without the slightest sarcasm, “It’s the woman who must feel grateful after she’s been in bed with a real man.”
35
“Are you happy, Kiki?” Marta smiles bitterly from the doorway. “Are you happy now?” She’s good in a crisis: does what’s necessary and saves her needle for afterward. “Now everyone will say that Kiki’s still a big macho.”
“I’m happy Jaime’s out. Thanks for helping. If we hadn’t gotten him out, he might have been badly hurt, even killed.”
“And whose fault would it have been?”
“That wouldn’t have made much difference.”
“It would have been your fault, Kiki.”
“And Jaime’s. For getting caught.”
“Your fault, Kiki. You sent him to Ñato’s. Couldn’t you wait till after the election?”
“I only sent him to remind Ñato we’re still around. Jaime wasn’t going to hurt him.”
“That comes later.”
Nod.
Looks down at her feet. “I won’t stay for that, Kiki. I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“When’d you decide that?”
“Just now. I was going to wait till Phil finished his film, but now I’m leaving tomorrow. If you come too, I’ll stay with you. And take care of you.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Phil wants to marry me.”
“Do you want to marry him?”
“It’s a solution. I won’t stay here. I won’t stay for more violence. Will you come, Kiki? Will you leave with me tomorrow?”
Shake my head.
“It means so much to you, killing Ñato?”