Rage
Page 18
One morning the dawn chorus of the birds on his window sill awoke him: they were squabbling. Then he observed that the noise of the traffic was considerably louder than that of the birds, and yet it seemed to him that it was the birds' squabbles he had first been aware of. Would he have heard the Blinders even if they had arrived? The disappointment at their non-appearance had intensified the burning sensation in his chest, and the blockage in his throat. He had spent a week on the ground floor; he needed to get back upstairs.
After a few hours in the attic he felt better, as if the time spent at ground level had harmed him in some way. That evening he went downstairs to make himself some soup. Then he decided to go back upstairs, but only as far as the third floor. He settled himself down in an armchair and began to drink his soup. His mind was a blank and his gaze was lost in space. At that moment the telephone rang. The soup plate slipped through his fingers and rebounded across the floor, spilling as it went.
It was the first time in a week someone had rung the phone. Most likely the few friends that the Blinders still retained knew that they were away from the house and would be back today. From then on the phone started ringing on a number of occasions: it was only the phone on the third floor, never the one in the kitchen, which rang. In all the time he had been in the house, he had never heard that phone ring once... When the answerphone cut in automatically, the person at the other end hung up. Could it have been Rosa? Was there any logic at all in imagining that Rosa was fantasizing about him being there in the house and was calling him from time to time, without the least expectation that he would actually pick up the phone, but byway of sending out a greeting?
He gathered up the fragments of the broken soup plate, plunged one hand into the rubbish bag, making a hole in it, and inserted them into the bottom of it... just in case. A nauseating stench emanated from the split bag. When he came to tie it up again, he saw that the scratches in it were now wider than ever: on one side of the bag there was now a split as broad as a handspan. His own hand and forearm, once inserted into the rubbish, smelled like something dead and decaying. It was a miracle to find them still attached to his body.
He took a bath, like one of those medical "immersion baths". At one point he submerged his head in the water and heard a dripping... puck... puck... puck... puck... He remained submerged until he had to come up for air. Then he noticed a little crack in the ceiling, from which thick drops of a dark and viscous liquid were falling in a rhythm which grew to a crescendo as they crashed into the water. On contact, the drops spread out, staining the water red. Blood. Was he hallucinating? He squeezed his eyes tight shut and when he reopened them, the crack was still there. But now it had increased in size and the blood was dripping from various different points at the same time... He stared fixedly at it, until the crack disappeared and the water appeared clear once more. When he decided to get back out of the bath, he realized he had lost all his agility: he had the sensation of having aged fifty years in fifty minutes. He got to his feet, dried and dressed himself, but each of these actions demanded the strength of Hercules.
Then, all of a sudden and at last, a half-hour later, it was as if absolutely nothing had occurred.
He was utterly exhausted and running a high temperature. He crawled in the direction of light and air, then sat down on the floor, one arm extended towards the window. He closed his eyes and fell asleep. The telephone resumed its ringing... When it stopped, he was under the impression that some idea or other had escaped from his head, or perhaps it was a memory, or a thought, he couldn't be sure. But he somehow reached the conclusion that this was something which was occurring with increasing frequency: little jumps or connections inside his mind departing one after another endlessly. He spent a long while trying to follow the shape these thoughts were assuming, as if they rose and fell, isolated and disconnected. An initial thought was continually unable to access the next or relate to it: he thought in bubbles.
Something caused him to open his eyes. It was already night now, but it wasn't really night-time. There were seven, eight, maybe ten rats on the staircase, some of them clinging to the wall, others being a little more adventurous in coming forwards... He wanted to get up but was incapable of moving: his body was as heavy as if he were still asleep. He slid along the floor. The rats scarcely budged. Only when he banged with the palm of his hand did they vanish as if by magic. Finally he succeeded in getting to his feet. He went to his room, entered it, and locked the doorfrom the inside, stretched himself out on the bed and, despite the tightening in his throat and a body riddled with cramps, he went back to sleep again.
35
"Rosa..."
"Maria, my love!"
"How lovely that..."
"I've missed you!"
"...you're telling me..." Maria's voice sounded feeble.
"You've no idea what a good time we had... the best you could possibly imagine!..."
"And Joselito?"
"He went crazy! He was scurrying here and there like a wind-up toy, there was no way of stopping him at all! Just the same, we didn't get to the beach all that often. We must have gone there four or five times, one day on and the next off, because I stayed back at the house with those people, helping out Estela, a really fantastic young girl who works there for them. We became great friends, and I'll tell you all about it later... But Joselito, yes, Joselito went to the beach every single day. When I didn't take him there, he went with the Senora. You can't imagine how brown he now is!"
"Did you build the castle with him?..."
"I built thousands with him!"
"And with the..." - here he had to swallow hard - "the moat?"
"That as well. But he spent most of the time playing ball. What a great way of getting him to amuse himself! I swear that just to see him... You were so right, I was bound to love it there."
"You see?..."
"Why are you talking like that?"
"What do you mean, `like that'?"
"Like that. Is something wrong with you?"
"No... I've got a bit of a sore throat..."
"Did you get someone to look at it?"
"No, it's nothing, it'll soon get better... Go on, tell me more about it..."
"I thought about you every single day. I thought how great it would be if I'd known the phone number there in advance, so that you could have called me... or if I knew your number... I talked a lot with that girl Estela... All the time, really, I so wanted to talk about you and... You've no idea how horrible it is not to be able to say anything to anyone, because on top of it all... well, as I told you just now, I missed you so much, oh I don't know... maybe it was because we'd talked of going to Mar del Plata, the two of us together, so often..."
"We'll get to go there..."
"...and they had an amazing seaside villa there, in a wood too, you've no idea how pretty it was. And the town centre, oh my God! I've never seen a town centre like that before. It's just like you told me it would be: a real anthill. On the beach or in the town centre, wherever you set foot, there were a million other feet next to yours. Maria?"
"Yes?"
"I brought you something back."
"What?..."
"A present. I've brought you back a present."
"Thank you, Rosa..."
"Two presents, in fact."
"There was no need..."
"I brought you a box of chocolate alfajores, made by Havanna, the best brand. Also a lovely necklace, with lots of little coloured stones. I know there's no way of telling when I can give it to you, but all the same it shows I was thinking of you and... Well" - she laughed a little - "if I end up eating the alfajores with Joselito, I'll still hang onto the necklace for as long as it takes. You're going to like it, just wait and see..."
"Thank you."
"I remember how you told me one day you liked the way necklaces could look on a man, that time we saw those guys wearing the beads... What a bad cough you have, Maria! Are you smoking heavily at the moment?"
"Have you given up?"
"I did some time ago... But tell me about Joselito... Did he sleep beside you?"
"All the time. The only problem is that he doesn't want to speak. He's hopeless! The one word he keeps saying is `mama'. He uses it with me and with any man he meets - he doesn't call other women anything. And what about you? Tell me something about yourself now..."
"Nothing..."
"Haven't you got anything at all to tell me?"
"I love you, Rosa..."
"Did you miss me?"
"I missed you and I love you... both things are true..." he added. Just then he saw Senor Blinder coming up the stairs.
It was the work of a single instant: everything happened all at the same time. At precisely the moment Maria saw him, Senor Blinder called downstairs, without pausing on his upwards journey (and without giving him any time at all) :
"Rita, come on, hurry up - please!"
Maria hung up at once.
He put down the phone and, with the last remaining shreds of energy, got himself up to the attic. His legs would hardly react any more... Going upstairs was like scaling a mountain... He went into his room, closed the door and sat down on the floor, his back pressed to the wall. He was sweating profusely and his hands were trembling. He was sure that Rosa had heard Senor Blinder perfectly clearly.
So he sat down on his bed and waited...
He felt weak and nauseous. It was very hot weather, that much he knew, but although he had put on his trousers and both his shirts, he was shivering with cold. In fact he could scarcely breathe... He had nothing more to give... He slowly turned his head and looked towards the window... He looked up at the light... heard the sounds of the street... He estimated it must be six or seven o'clock in the evening. Any moment now the darkness would begin to close in.
36
Rosa sported a deep tan. She had cut her hair back to her shoulders, and had put on some earrings with pale-blue stones in them, and which made her look younger and happy, although right now she was feeling dumbstruck. Her eyes were blacker and shinier than before and her nose had peeled a little with sunburn. Her eyelashes looked wet, as if they retained something of her last plunge into the sea.
Although more than a day had gone by since her return, she still hadn't resumed wearing her uniform. She was wearing a one-piece outfit in the same colour as her earrings, and was as barefoot as he was.
It was nine o'clock in the morning. Rosa was standing stock-still beside the door. She had frozen into an expression of astonishment, both hands over her mouth. Maria had only to look at her to register that Rosa had been staring at him for a good while before he had managed to open his eyes. And she still couldn't believe her own.
Maria parted his parched lips to say something, but lacked the strength: so he closed them again, in a smile.
"Oh my God..." murmured Rosa, her hands still over her mouth.
Her hands were also deeply tanned, with the nails closely clipped and varnished, shining like mother-ofpearl. Around her neck was a necklace of tiny manycoloured stones. Maria realized this was the necklace she had told him about the day before, her present to him. Staring at one another like this was the first contact between the two of them, other than the sound of their voices, for years now. The recognition of her necklace was another, perhaps even more significant than the previous one, for it established a relationship between the two of them, over and beyond that of looking.
Rosa took a step forwards. Then she stopped again.
"Maria..." she said.
Another five paces further, one after the other, as if she were counting each one, until she reached his side. She held out a hand but, before she could touch him, she backed off again as far as the door, where she stopped. She was crying soundlessly. Joselito came into the room, running clumsily, then steadied himself by grasping the folds of his mother's skirts, as if he had just landed safely after jumping off a precipice.
Then he saw Maria, seeming more pleased than surprised.
"Mama!" he addressed him.
"Hola..." whispered Maria. Sojoselito hadn't forgotten him.
Then, all of a sudden, Rosa ran over to the bed and embraced him.
"I knew... I knew!..." she said. "I knew... Oh my God, how long have you been here?"
"For ever..."
"And how come you never told me any of this?"
Maria smiled at her.
Rosa placed her hand on his forehead:
"You're raving!"
She looked wildly around her, towards Joselito - who had settled into tearing apart a best-seller - as if Joselito might be able to do something to assist her.
"In the room opposite..." commented Maria, gesturing towards the attic, "in my knapsack... take a look... I made so many little toys for him... some of them worked out all right too..."
Then Rosa came to and reacted. She got up, switching from a kind of stupor to highly strung nervousness, and began pacing from one side of the room to the other, considering what to do.
"Last night I finally realized all that was going on. It was when I was talking to you and I heard the Senor calling out for the Senora... but I couldn't bring myself to come up to the attic..." she shook her head. "Nighttime makes it easier to get out from here... I'll bring you something to eat, along with a glass of water, and I'll keep the door closed, and this evening we'll review how you're getting along and what we need to do to get out of here..."
Her ingenuity was touching. Maria was just finishing explaining to her that he had been there all along, and she was begging him to leave before another night should elapse. All in all, she was absolutely correct and rational: now she had discovered him, now he was no longer a phantasm, a suspicion, a possibility or a shadow, anyone else could just as well discover him too.
Rosa left the room. She closed the door, leavingJoselito on the inside, and set off downstairs at full speed.
Joselito was sitting on the floor, surrounded by torn and crumpled pages.
`Joselito..." Maria called out in a thin thread of a voice.
Joselito lifted his head and smiled broadly at him.
"Don't destroy that book any more..." Maria told him. "Come... come with me, Joselito... come here a minute with your dad..."
Joselito got up. It was hard work, but he got up. However, he remained rooted to the spot until Maria told him that he was going to tell him a secret.
Then he went over to him.
"Get up here, Joselito..." Maria said to him, patting his own chest by way of invitation. "Get up here and give me a hug..."
Joselito grabbed hold of Maria's shirt. Maria helped him clamber up, placing one hand under his behind and hauling him upwards, untilJoselito fell on his belly onto his father's chest.
He hugged him.
It was an incredibly tender embrace, even though it demanded all his strength. Afterwards, while he invented a secret in order not to disappoint him, he shut his eyes and thought of Rosa.
He realized that he knew nothing at all about her. Did she have brothers and sisters? What was her first lover called? Were her parents still alive? He had no idea if she had a middle name... He was ignorant of the date of her birthday... He hadn't the least notion of what scared her, nor what she wanted from life... or from him. He had never asked what plans she had for the future... He wasn't even certain that she had plans...
Had he fallen in love with Rosa that day in the Disco supermarket? Or did that happen later, when he entered the villa... born of his secret, of the impossibility of being together with her?
Had he ever offered her anything at any time?
Did he know who Rosa was? No. In one sense, he had invented her. That wounded him. He felt the pain and decided that yes, in all likelihood he had invented her. But he would die with her son in his arms.
BACK TO THE COAST
Saskia Noort
Maria is a young singer with money problems, two children from failed relationship
s and a depressive ex-boyfriend. Faced with another pregnancy, she decides not to keep the baby, but after the abortion, threatening letters start to arrive. She flees from Amsterdam to her sister's house by the coast, a place redolent with memories of a childhood she does not want to revisit. But when the death threats follow her to her hiding place, Maria begins to fear not only for her life, but also for her sanity.
Saskia Noort is a bestselling author of literary thrillers. She has sold over a million copies of her first three novels.
PRAISE FOR SASKIA NOORT AND THE DINNER CLUB
"A mystery writer of the heart as much as of the mind, a balance that marks her work with a flesh-and-blood humanity." Andrew Pyper, author of The Wildfire Season
"Affairs, deceit, manipulation, tax dodges and murder - there's nothing Noort shies away from stirring into the mix, nicely showing off the sinister side of the suburbs." Time Out
"While there are echoes of Desperate Housewives here, this is closer to Mary Higgins Clark and is a good bet for her fans." Library Journal Reaieu,,
THE VAMPIRE OF ROPRAZ
Jacques Chessex
Jacques Chessex, winner of the prestigious Prix Goncourt, takes this true story and weaves it into a lyrical tale of fear and cruelty.
1903, Ropraz, a small village in the Jura Mountains of Switzerland. On a howling December day, a lone walker discovers a recently opened tomb, the body of a young woman violated, her left hand cut off, genitals mutilated and heart carved out. There is horror in the nearby villages: the return of atavistic superstitions and mutual suspicions. Then two more bodies are violated. A suspect must be found. Favez, a stableboy with blood-shot eyes, is arrested, convicted, placed into psychiatric care. In 1915, he vanishes.
PRAISE FORJACQUES CHESSEX AND THE VAMPIRE OF ROPRAZ
"A superb novel, hard as a winter in these landscapes of dark forests, where an atmosphere of prejudice and violence envelops the reader" L'Express