But Maria knew perfectly well that Alvaro hadn't been sleeping... Why on earth had his sister told him his face looked "as if it had just left the pillow"? Alvaro began trying to tell his father that he hadn't been asleep, that really he'd been... But Maria couldn't overhear the remainder of his answer because Rosa had started climbing the stairs hauling up one of the suitcases, leaving him no option but to get out of the way. He was certain that Rosa had left the living room deliberately, as soon as Alvaro had entered it.
13
That was on the 21st December. Over the next three days, Maria learned a number of new things: that Loli and Ricardo lived in London; that neither of them were smokers (although Esteban, the fourteen-year-old, was, except he was always out of cigarettes); that the other two children spoke scarcely any Spanish and, to revert to Esteban again, that he got on extremely well with Rosa. It was on a previous visit, when Rosa had only been working in the villa for a few months, that Esteban had become such great friends with her. Esteban was only twelve at the time, with no one to open up to (in either global hemisphere), and had made Rosa his chosen confidante. It seemed he had revealed some kind of an intimate secret to her. Maria never discovered what it was about, but it was a closer bond even than friendship between the two of them.
"So how are you?" Esteban enquired of Rosa, one day when the two of them were alone in the kitchen together.
"Fine. And you?"
"Fantastic. Do you know what? What I wanted you to know," said Esteban - he was an Argentine living in London, but he'd spent most of his short life in Spain - "was that I've never stopped thinking about you for a single day."
"You?" asked Rosa, suddenly startled. "About me?"
"Of course."
"Why?"
"Don't laugh. It's true: I've thought about you every day of my life."
"You're making fun of me..."
"Come off it. Do you mean the same thing hasn't occurred to you?"
"You're talking like a screen lover! "
"That's nice of you."
"No, I'm serious! You're talking as if you were a film star..."
"If you say so..."
Silence.
A moment later, Esteban spoke out gravely:
"Naturally, I've also thought of suicide. But don't get alarmed: it wasn't you who saved me; it was I myself, because at those moments I had the good luck to think of you."
"What a poet you are..." Rosa commented.
"I've been published."
"Really?"
"No, that's a joke. But I'm writing it down. Writing all of it, every single detail of what passed between us, every least..."
"Tell me that's not true!" Rosa interrupted. Esteban bunched his fingers in the sign of the cross, and kissed them.
Rosa grew indignant:
"You'll get me thrown out!"
"I'll make you famous."
Silence.
"It is a joke, isn't it?"
"You tell me if you remembered me, and I'll tell you whether or not it's a joke."
Silence.
"Yes, you know it's true," Rosa finally said. "Now tell me yourself: is it a joke?"
"Would you believe me if I told you it was?"
Silence.
Followed by giggles.
Maria couldn't see nor hear him, but in his head he visualized Esteban and Rosa emerging from a long embrace. A second later and the two of them were laughing and chatting at high speed, without either accusations or histrionics.
Maria was overcome with fascination. What had taken place between the pair of them? The serenity and selfconfidence demonstrated by Esteban had made him think (more than was suggested by what he was saying) that he was dealing with a lad too clever for his years. Soon he'd also be thinking that within the panorama of his true intentions towards Rosa, friendship didn't feature much larger than a peanut. Jealousy was to come later. For the time being, he was extremely busy processing fresh information.
For a start, cohabitation (as Maria called it, despite never having been invited in) had become extremely difficult. Since there were now so many more occupants in the house, basic and essential acts, such as going to the toilet or the kitchen, demanded an exhausting degree of attentiveness. And he couldn't even sleep well, for fear that one or another of the little kids would decide to conduct an exploration of the house. The house scared and tempted them in equal measures. Even the rat seemed stressed out. Lack of sleep, irregular eating habits, a constant state of alertness... it was too much. Every hour seemed like a century. And it already appeared they were going to stay into the new year! And to cap it all - and this was worst of it - he still hadn't managed to find out what had taken place between Alvaro and Rosa.
He didn't learn until the afternoon of the 24th December. Meanwhile he had brought a few happy actions to a successful conclusion that would be useful in the future (since to enjoy them now meant absenting himself from what appeared truly important to him): he'd robbed Esteban of the headphones to his Walkman, and he'd even managed to steal one of the bottles of champagne reserved for parties from the kitchen. It was a long time since he'd drunk alcohol, and he couldn't remember ever having tasted champagne. That afternoon, on the 24th, the Blinders and their guests had gone out en masse to buy Christmas presents, leaving Maria to take it easy, at least for a few hours, a rare opportunity to be near Rosa. He watched her ironing, changing the sheets, cooking, nibbling at bits of food, bending her fingers backwards - since the Blinders' relations had come to stay, she no longer masturbated - and finally dial a telephone number.
"He raped me."
"Rosa."
"He raped me."
"Alvaro."
"Yes."
"Yes, he raped me. What do you mean, how did he rape me? He raped me!"
"I knew that..."
"Nothing, I defended myself, but I don't know how, he grabbed me and..."
"No, thank God. At least not that. He just gagged my mouth... He's big and strong and he was drunk. There wasn't exactly much I could do..."
"You. Only you."
"Come on, what kind of an accusation can I make, with the money they have. Also..."
"No, I won't do that."
"It's like..."
"No!"
"Oh he's been after me for quite a while and you know, I..."
"Are you crazy? How can I possibly tell them something like this? If I tell them, they'll throw me out!"
"So then where would I go?"
"Listen, Claudia, I tell you the guy came in and raped me and the only bit that matters to you is legal action? What happened to me doesn't count?"
"And so what?"
Maria's hands were shaking. That bastard Alvaro had raped Rosa! He longed to cry, but he was so furious he suppressed his rage. Rage likewise forestalled him from listening to the rest of the conversation. Rosa hung up and as she did so, the phone began ringing. Rosa answered.
"Hello?" she said. Her voice still held a tremor from the previous conversation.
The person on the other end clearly observed this.
"Nothing, nothing," replied Rosa.
"No, honestly, it's nothing."
"No, everything's fine."
"Well, just hanging out here..."
"Yes, I also wondered about that..."
"When?"
"I don't know, all these relatives have arrived and it looks like I'll be running around like crazy..."
"Like a loose canon, yes."
"And as for you, how are you?"
"God, but it's true what I'm telling you. I won't say definitely no, but... Another day, perhaps..."
It was "the guy". Maria had suspected as much, but now, with that "another day, perhaps", he had proof. Rosa had held him on standby as a result of his latest phone call, but at the same time wasn't going to give him a definitive no, meaning that the caller wasn't just anyone, but "the guy". She liked him, life was giving her a "second chance" and, just in case - since Maria was still the first one, even if he
was appearing out of it - he was still being allowed a little space.
"The only thing missing now," thought Maria, "is that she tells him she got raped and we'll have the whole bloody love story." He said this to himself suddenly, without aforethought, lucidly, without feeling himself feeling it, without resentment and without laughing out loud. And then he heard her say:
"One little problem..."
"Here, it's private."
Maria saw what was coming and feared the worst. Was Rosa really so desperate to tell everyone else that she'd been raped? He felt disgusted by rapists; he had no other views on them, or feelings towards them; they just revolted him. But he didn't understand that the victim, and Rosa more than all the rest, was unable to overcome her indignation, and, in her anxiety for protection, felt obliged to bring it out into the open, instead of keeping quiet and conserving energies better deployed in revenge. To him, this was the essential difference between a man and a woman. The woman relates what she intends to do, and prays for someone else to do it.
Maria thought Rosa was very intelligent, but didn't think she had too much competence in dealing with this matter: he wanted to be the one to get to Alvaro. This was why her way of unburdening herself to everyone else bothered him, because in the telling she fabricated a rival and, at the same time, left him at a disadvantage: it left Maria with far fewer options for his kind of rough justice. The guy was out on the street and could be intercepted either head on, or by feigning a casual accident, and then beaten to death. Only not by him. He was obliged to wait. On the other hand, he loathed to overhear Rosa discuss sex with anyone else.
Who was the guy? What could he do to check him out? It was a good moment to call her (he was on his own). He went upstairs to look for the portable phone and dialled the number of the house. Busy. This was surprising because Rosa had hung up. He called again. Engaged. Had the guy called? Or had Rosa called him? Perhaps she was just taking an anodyne call from someone...
While he was waiting for Rosa to finish speaking, he occupied himself by going through the possessions of Loli and Ricardo. There was nothing there to catch his attention: passports and clothes and more clothes... In the bedside table drawer he found a penknife: he kept it. In a folder marked "American Airlines" he discovered a wad of notes. He counted them: they totalled $4,500.
He weighed the folder in his hand, as if it were a brick. He would have had to slave for years to earn money like this; what was curious was how little the labour of so many years weighed. What would he do, keep it? How would the Blinders react, would they think a thief had entered in their absence or would they fall to blaming one another? He couldn't take the risk: it was more than likely they'd blame Rosa. They'd chuck her out. And what about him? Could he go on living in the villa without Rosa? Or would he have no alternative but to leave? No, he was incapable of remaining a single day longer in the house without Rosa. And at the same time, he would have to remain there, otherwise when they threw her out and he followed, he'd end up in jail as soon as they caught him, so that way he wouldn't see her again either. Prison had to be a far worse place than the villa, of this there could be no doubt.
The dollars enraged him. He had never as much as held a dollar in his hand, and now that he was holding four thousand five hundred, they were useless to him. He resumed dialling the phone number. It remained engaged. He went to take a look at what was going on.
He went downstairs, annoyed with Rosa, treading on the flat of his foot, as if sending a message to once and for all kindly hang up the phone. But Rosa wasn't in the kitchen. Maria was scared: he had been certain of finding her there - and had allowed himself to be led by his assumption that the engaged tone necessarily signalled that the line was in use... He had been so certain that when he didn't find her there, he suddenly became concerned that she might just make him jump by turning up behind his back.
His eyes took in the kitchen at a glance, as if they were a camera lens, so he beat a rapid retreat, mentally going over the details of what he had seen and now imprinted on his mind as he saw them: bottles of champagne, piles of table napkins on the sideboard, a lit stove (Rosa might return at any moment) and the telephone halfhanging off its hook.
"Pheew!" he exhaled.
For an instant (mid-air as he left by silent leaps and bounds) he contemplated the possibility of returning to replace the handset correctly. The burning stove meant that Rosa couldn't be too far from the kitchen, even though, thinking it through carefully, a stove is one of those artefacts that afford the cook time (the other side of the coin to, say, a liquidizer). Impossible to guess where Rosa might be at this juncture... Yet just in case, he hesitated. Whatever happened, he decided to stay put: he wanted to know just as soon as possible what Rosa's reaction would be to finding the telephone off the hook. He had to speak to her today, come what may.
He went into one of the ground-floor toilets. He was naked and sat down at once on the lavatory seat. He stayed there, with the bored expression of someone waiting for someone else in order to complete a piece of business, but after a few minutes, he stretched out one leg, shunted the door with his foot, half-closing it, and began to strain at his labours.
He remembered that when he was a kid, he'd always been a leader. And he realized that never, right up until now, had he understood why. He had been a quiet child and mysterious along with it. That was all. He had no other virtues. At that time he'd not had a quarter of the agility he now possessed. But his friends and acquaintances respected and feared him.
It's always a problem to talk when you really have something to say. But having it all without saying a thing is magical, and you need to be a magician to enjoy the role. Maria was the opposite: he found himself out of sorts and uncomfortable. He knew that without a doubt he was going to be discovered and ejected, rubbished. He was a false leader. He had been a false acolyte. Would he also be?... Be careful: someone had just come in.
Maria emerged from the toilet and, for a fraction of a second, he found himself face to face with Senora Blinder. She didn't actually see him, but when he backed off and hid inside a bedroom, he was left with an overall image of exactly what Senora Blinder was wearing, right down to the gems in her necklace.
He hid behind the door. Senora Blinder entered, switched on the light, lifted the cover on the ottoman at the foot of the bed, removed something from inside, and left the room again. A few seconds later she reappeared. This time she seated herself on the bed, rested the palms of her hands on her thighs, and looked left and right without any apparent reason: she didn't crane her neck, she wasn't looking for anything... Then she got up, went to the window, examined the curtains, shook them as if to air them, then went over and sat at a desk, where she remained without moving for several minutes. Maria thought that people who are watched without knowing it appear mad.
Until Senor Blinder came in and everything became normal again.
Senor Blinder walked to and fro, clearly longing to launch an insult (but restraining himself like a gentleman), while Senora Blinder slowly turned her face to look at him.
"Something up?" she asked him.
"And you're asking me..." he replied.
She blinked. She recognized his tone as a battle cry and, even while she didn't yet understand what he was referring to by his "and you're asking me", accepted the rebuke.
"Are you annoyed?" she enquired.
Senor Blinder stopped and stared at her.
"Of course I'm annoyed," he said.
"What are you talking about?" Senora Blinder asked, with genuine sincerity.
"The toilet," he said.
"What's up with the toilet?"
"And you're asking me?"
Senora Blinder paused once more. She looked sideways, then let her eyes slide back to look at him again:
"What sort of nonsense is this?" she said. "I'm asking you what's going on in the toilet. What is going on?"
"Go and see for yourself if you want," said Senor Blinder, his tone sounding both
ironic and fed up.
Senora Blinder didn't move. The only thing she did was to take her eyes off her husband and fix them on a spot on the wall, thinking deeply. Then she rose and left the bedroom.
When she returned, she looked as if she'd witnessed a crime.
"Do you think I did that!" she said.
"Why not? Did I do it?" Senora Blinder replied sarcastically.
Senora Blinder clenched her fists.
"Have you gone mad?" she asked.
"Go on, Rita, pull the chain and let's go to sleep, it's getting late," he said, and sat down on the bed and pulled off his shoes.
Senora Blinder took three steps towards her husband.
"In the first place, it wasn't me. Secondly, let's not hear anything about `let's get to bed': it's seven-thirty in the evening, and we have guests. You're going to take a shower, and we'll all have dinner together. Where on earth did you get the idea that I could have left a thing that size in the toilet?"
"Rita, until this point in our conversation, I was merely joking. But if you carry on like this, you'll end up really infuriating me. Pull the chain and let's change the subject."
"I tell you, it wasn't me!"
"OK, it was me. Can you please now go and pull the chain?"
"No!" replied Senora Blinder, and crossed her arms.
"Why are you shouting?" asked Senor Blinder, wrinkling his nose in disgust, as if his wife's voice was unbearable to him.
"Marcos, if you're annoyed about what happened today with Ricardo, don't take it out on me, it's not fair. Even less when you pick a fight about something like this," went on Senora Blinder, waving in the direction of the toilet. "We're grown-ups."
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