She continued on to the end of the passageway. Then she retraced her steps and ran to the kitchen. Maria wasn't there either. Rosa became alarmed, agitated, as if what happened later had already taken place. It seemed she was running from one end of the house to the other in a desperate search for him, until she reached the corridor that led to the living room - a spacious lounge, with all its windows tightly shut - where she at last could hear Maria calling her. Yes, it was definitely him calling her.
"Rosa..."
"Yes, it's me. Where are you?"
"Rosa?" asked Maria, whispering from somewhere unseen.
"Here I am, Maria! Come out, please, don't play games!"
"Where are you, Rosa?"
"Here! And you?"
Rosa heard the sound of something suddenly falling and breaking.
"Where are you, Maria?"
"I don't know, Rosa. I'm lost... I can hear but I can't see you..."
She found him in the library. Rosa switched on the light. Maria was standing stock-still at the desk, one hand resting on the back of Senor Blinder's favourite chair. In the darkness, he had knocked over a standing lamp; the light had fallen onto a settle and the light bulb and its glass shade had shattered. The carpet was covered in shards of glass, as if the lamp had multiplied itself in the fall.
Rosa skewered him with a look. Then, as though afraid to let him go anywhere alone again, even to the kitchen to find a dustpan and brush, she grabbed an art-exhibition catalogue from on top of the desk and used it to sweep up the glass fragments.
"I went to take a quick look around and things got complicated..." Maria confessed. "I came down the staircase, took a turning down a passage and then... Well, you know how this whole house is a labyrinth."
"I told you to stay in the room."
"Don't get cross," said Maria, lifting the lamp stand up off the floor. "I didn't put a light on because... Just imagine if someone were to see you..."
"And who would that be, if there's nobody else in the house?"
Rosa said nothing more. She rose and, closely followed by Maria, went to the kitchen to throw the broken glass into the rubbish. It was a real shame: they'd frittered away their time and now it was getting late, and Rosa was in a bad mood. Senora Blinder would reproach her for having broken the glass lampshade - she might even deduct the cost from her wages. Maria collapsed into apologies and excuses, each time extending a hand towards Rosa's cheek, but she kept on brushing it away like a fly. Finally, Maria removed a piece of the glass from the rubbish bin and assured Rosa that the next day he would buy her another identical shade. Rosa clicked her tongue and opened the kitchen door to accompany him out to the pavement. Maria jammed the door with his foot and Rosa permitted him to kiss her goodnight. Then she went to the tradesman's entrance giving onto the street. She looked to left and right and, when she was certain there was no one else around, signalled to Maria to come out. Once at the grille, he kissed her again.
"I'll come by tomorrow..." He said. "And again, please forgive me. Bye, beautiful."
"Hi, beautiful," was the first thing he had said to her the next day. It was so cold that when Rosa embraced him, he could feel the cool of her hands through his jumper. He didn't have the lampshade with him.
"I was just listening to the radio and heard that there was an impressive tornado over Costa Rica," she said, "only I'm not certain whether they said Costa Rica or Puerto Rico..."
"There are loads of tornadoes in the United States..."
"But they didn't say a thing about the United States, they only mentioned Costa Rica or Puerto Rico, I can't remember which. Apparently the roofs of the houses blew away. And they said the boats broke their moorings and scooted about in the air like flying ducks..."
"What if one of those yachts landed on your head? Can you imagine that?"
"I don't want to imagine it... How cold it's got!"
"Freezing. Though I don't feel it myself."
"I prepared this for you," said Rosa, holding out the plastic box she gave him each morning. "You have two chicken legs, and I also included some mashed potato..."
"Thank you, darling. Well, I'd better be off now, it's already gone eight o'clock..."
"Did you get home all right last night?"
"Perfectly. How was your night?"
"I fell asleep immediately."
"Didn't you watch the TV?"
"Yes, but there wasn't anything on. I switched it off and I'd no sooner put my head on the pillow than I was asleep. Oh - and I added some red pepper to your lunchbox, to spice up your potatoes."
"You always make them so tasty..."
"Time to be on your way, you don't want to be getting there late."
"I'll see you after work."
Maria gave her a kiss, winked and set off on his walk to work.
Up until this point, everything had followed its normal path. But the problems started as soon as Maria got to work. He bumped into Israel and the doorman, on their way back from talking to his foreman. Israel and the doorman passed by without looking at him, then carried on walking, hastening their pace.
"Maria," the foreman called out, "come over here a second, I need to speak to you."
The foreman walked away from his workers in order to speak to Maria alone. He leaned one foot on the floor and a thigh against the edge of some scaffolding. Maria was standing beside him, but the foreman took his time in withdrawing a packet of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, raising one to his lips, then patting down his trouser and anorak pockets in search of matches, before finally asking:
"Do you have a light?"
"I don't smoke."
"Ricciardi!" he called out.
Ricciardi pushed his way past them carrying a sack of cement.
"Ricciardi, give me a light."
Ricciardi approached them, still with the sack of cement on his shoulder. Using sign language, he indicated he had a box of matches in his back trouser pocket. The sack was so heavy he didn't have the necessary strength left even to open his mouth.
The foreman felt his pockets with a degree of apprehension, but failed to find what he was looking for, so Ricciardi had to turn around to proffer him the other back pocket. The foreman repeated the operation without finding any matches.
"See that? You're just doing it because you want me to put my hand down your trousers, aren't you?" he announced to everyone.
Ricciardi cracked a smile through clenched teeth and planted himself in front of the foreman so that he could try his luck with the front pockets. At the final try, the foreman tapped on a box.
"Here they are," he said.
But before inserting his hand inside Ricciardi's pocket, he scrutinized him carefully. The two men stared at one another in silence for at least an endless split second, bearing in mind that this was a delicate body zone to investigate by hand. Afterwards - long afterwards, it seemed - the foreman carefully introduced his hand into Ricciardi's pocket and with the tips of his fingers extracted a box of condoms, which he then hastily and immediately attempted to shove back inside.
"What the fuck is this, Ricciardi? Do you or don't you have a light?"
Ricciardi made a peculiar gesture, a gesture that might have been a shrug of the shoulders, had it not been for the sack that was weighing them down. The foreman told him to move on and Ricciardi immediately set off, his back bowed ever lower as he wove an increasingly erratic path. The foreman once more found himself alone with Maria.
"Some gentlemen came to see me. They say you're going about causing trouble in the neighbourhood..." he told him.
Maria stared at him in silence.
The foreman continued:
"They mentioned that you called one of them an idiot and you punched the other one in the nose. Is all this true, Maria?"
"Yes," replied Maria calmly.
"And you can confirm it just like that?"
"How would you like me to confirm it, then?"
"I don't know. Tell me in your own words."
<
br /> "Yes, I'm telling you, yes. One of them is an idiot and I hit the other one."
"So why did you provoke them?"
"Me? I didn't provoke anyone. They came looking for me."
"It seems they found you," remarked the foreman, with heavy irony.
"Yes."
The foreman gazed at him, chewing on his unlit cigarette.
"Quit fucking about, Maria. Are you going to tell me that I also came looking for you? Because you know I've never come looking for you, but the other day I almost hit you... you, you piece of shit. So don't come talking nonsense to me. "
"What did you call me?"
"What did I call you when?"
"What did you call me just now?"
"When?"
"Just now."
"What did I say?"
"That's what I'm asking you. Why don't you repeat what you said?"
"And what was it I said to you?"
"Say it again, you."
"Don't address me as `you' like that. I'm `sir' to you. Tell me what it was I called you, and address me respectfully. Are we clear?"
"Didn't you call me `a piece of shit'?"
"Can't remember. Perhaps I did. I can't recall it now, but I could have done so, and quite right too. Who the fuck do you thinkyou are, to go around insulting people? Where the fuck do you think you were born? What on earth do you think it does for me, the foreman on this site, when the neighbours start turning up to inform me that you're running around causing a scandal in the district? And d'you want me to tell you another thing? Yes, I called you a piece of shit. Why not? Do you have a problem with that?"
"No..."
"Ah, so no problem there?"
"No."
"Why, you a faggot?"
"Yes."
"Look at you."
"Why, you want to fuck me, you?"
"I told you not to keep calling me `you'. On top of which, you got here late this morning, it's already ten past eight. You're sacked. For causing a disturbance in the neighbourhood, for turning up late, for addressing me as `you' instead of `sir', and for being a faggot. Take your things and get the fuck out of here."
Maria picked up his belongings and left.
3
That day he came around to the house a half-hour later than usual. Rosa brought him into the kitchen: the escalopes were ready, fresh from the stove. There was also a dish containing a mountain of fried potatoes piled on a paper serviette, and a bottle of white wine. Maria hung his bag on the back of a chair and sat down at table.
"I cooked them in the oven this time," Rosa said as she put an escalope on his plate. "It's the first time I've done them this way. For myself at least: the Senora always requires me to make them like that for her. But for myself, I've never done them this way before. Let's see how you like them! How did it go at work today?"
"Fine," answered Maria.
He cut off a slice of escalope and lifted it to his lips on a fork.
"It's good," he commented, chewing. "Why don't you put on the TV?"
"Oh, right - I'd totally forgotten! What's the time? On Chiche Gelblung's programme at seven o'clock they're going to have that little dwarf, he's only eighteen inches high. Do you remember what I'm talking about?"
"No."
Rose had switched on the television and was flicking through the channels on the remote control, searching for Channel 9.
"I saw him the other day on Hola Susana, and apparently they're going to invite him back on again today. I don't want to miss it. He's no more than eighteen inches tall, something so... Ah, here we are. Well, maybe not, this is Chiche... perhaps he'll explain what's coming up.,,
Rosa sat down facing Maria and ate the first half of her escalope in silence, without taking her eyes off the screen. Chiche Gelblung was practically rubbing his hands with glee and begging all those watching the screen not to look away, since any minute they would be able to see the smallest man in the world. Next came the commercial break. Rosa served Maria with fried potatoes, and then herself.
"Poor little thing," she said, "you should have seen him. He barely even came up to Susana's knees... Is anything up with you?"
"No. Why?"
"You're very quiet..."
"I've only just got here."
"I know you've only just arrived, but you could still say something, couldn't you?"
"I'm fine."
Maria poured himself a glass of wine and downed it in one. Then he refilled his glass and, as an afterthought, poured Rosa a glass too. He was dying of thirst. As he drank the second glass and set about serving himself a third, he realized that two days must have gone by since he'd had a drop of liquid to drink.
"Do you have any soda?" he asked.
Rosa said she did, rose from her chair, and went to the fridge. She took out a bottle of soda and put it on the table. Maria knocked back two glasses filled to the brim, the first one mixed with wine.
"What a thirst you have!" said Rosa.
"Did you see that? It must be the dust I swallow every day at work... On top of which I've only just noticed that it must be two days since I drank anything."
"Anything?"
"The same thing would happen when I was a boy. I could go for two, three or four days without having a drink and then, all of a sudden, I'd have to catch up. I'd drink anything, including orange juice I squeezed myself. I'd crush the oranges in my hand... crush them to a pulp... or I'd pierce a hole in one and suck out the juice... Lots of kids did that back in my village... There was only one little shop and that was ages away, and in any case no one had so much as a peso. We would pretend we were drinking soda pop! Ah well, why don't you say something?"
"Where was it you were born?"
"In Gobernador Castro."
"I don't know it..."
"Why would you expect to? It's a shit hole, and it's down near Ramallo. Does that name mean anything to you?"
"No..."
"Ramallo's another shitty dump. I don't really know how to describe where it is... It's about sixty miles from Rosario, a bit more towards San Pedro. If you know San Pedro and from there..."
"What, on the other side of Rosario?"
"No, before Rosario. On this side, and before you even get to Ramallo, maybe thirty miles before. Heading towards Rosario, about thirty miles down the road from here. Gobernador Castro is around a hundred and ten miles away."
"Ah..." murmured Rosa, attempting to decipher the mass of information.
"Yes," confirmed Maria.
"I thought you were born in Capilla..."
"Nope. I moved there when I was quite young, but no. I was born in Castro. Mother of God, how my hand is hurting..."
"What happened, did you bang it?"
"Yes, I sprained it."
"You banged it or you sprained it?"
"I banged it."
"And so how did you sprain it?"
"I dunno. Must have banged it lifting something. At the moment I can't rightly remember, but right now it's hurting all over."
"Here, help yourself to another escalope. Would you like me to slice it for you?"
"No, leave it. I'll do it myself."
"I feel embarrassed to tell you, but... last night I dreamed about you. You were riding on a white horse, with a sword in your hand..."
"You were dreaming about St Martin..."
"No, seriously. You were riding naked."
"Bareskin?"
"Yes, bare to the balls..."
"Bareskin, I'm telling you, and mounted bareback."
"Oh, all right, I'm sorry! Look what you're making me say..." she blushed. "You were riding this horse stark naked, sword in hand. And the sword and your... well... prick, and the horse's neck, everything was full of nerves and veins... I swear I woke up at that point..."
"Have you always had erotic dreams?"
"No. The night before last I dreamed I went windowshopping. I went crazy looking in those shop windows, and I went into a boutique and bought a heap of clothes and then I
went to a hairdresser and had highlights put in my hair."
There was a silence while Rosa gazed at him.
"Are you certain nothing has happened?"
Maria shook his head and Rosa didn't persist. They had maintained their conversation while keeping an eye on the Chiche Gelblung programme, to spot whether the dwarf put in an appearance. But the presenter had moved on to another category of deformities by now, one in which there was no chance that dwarfs might be included, even though the dwarf was still being trailed at every commercial break. Before the final section, when he was due to sign off, Gelblung started to apologize for the fact that his time had run out, and to promise a special programme the next day, entirely dedicated to the smallest man in the world. But Rosa became annoyed and switched off the television before Gelblung finished making his promises, and went to sit on Maria's lap. She threw her arms around his neck.
"Do you know what I like best of all about you?" she asked him.
Maria shook his head.
"You seem such a mystery. So quiet... It's as though you're always keeping something back..."
She moved to kiss him on the lips. But less than an inch before touching him, she paused, stopping in midair as if frozen, her pupils open wide, and her eyes fixed on the street outside.
"What's up?" asked Maria.
Rosa shut him up with a rapid "shshsh".
She jumped down from his lap and ran to the window.
"Oh my God!"
"What's up?"
"It's the Senor and Senora! They're opening the door! Mother of God! Now what do I do? If they catch you here they'll flay me alive!"
Maria went over to look out of the window. Rosa was right: a man was stooped over the door lock, trying to insert a key. Beside him stood a woman. The woman was just about to ring the bell.
"Listen to me and calm down, I know what we need to do. Rosa, listen, and stay still a moment... breathe deeply... I'll hide myself away here, behind the dresser. You open up to them, they'll come inside, and I'll take the keys and leave, then push them back to you through the grille by the garden gate. It's easy. Breathe deeply, you need to be able to pretend with conviction. If they notice you're nervous, they'll take you and shake everything out of you, down to the dream you've just told me. Breathe. That's it... Well done... Now I'll go and hide and you go and open the door..."
Rage Page 3