29
FRANCISCA
I hated her as soon as I saw her. Without knowing why, or maybe somehow I did know. It bothered me that Marcus had talked to her about himself, about us, but I couldn’t show I was jealous; I never have. Even when I wrote to him, I held back, smothered the fire. Instead, I wrote to him about us, told him what life was like behind bars, told him what I’d do to him as soon as I got out. I wanted to eat him up.
When I got his reply, I wanted to break through the bars and get to him as soon as I could, because his letter was concentrated bullshit. Bullshit about his life, his apartment, how he was waiting for me. Not even a nod to that fucking angel face. A page of bullshit, as if he were afraid that if he let himself think, he might let on too much. And what was there to let on? That he was falling in love with Penny.
I don’t think he did it on purpose, I really don’t, but you don’t live for twenty-four years in this shitty world without learning to pay attention, because if you’re not careful, you’ll leave it without understanding what you need to understand. You get smart, and when you love someone a lot, you get doubly smart.
I haven’t laughed since I was twelve.
Marcus is the only man who has ever touched my body without it feeling dirty.
I can’t stand being touched by anyone else, not even by mistake. Imagine how I react to the ones who do it on purpose. If Marcus hadn’t killed that bastard at the club, I’d have done it myself.
I even hate it when people stare at me in the street.
I hate being photographed.
I hate any person who wants to capture me, steal from me, stop me, get something from me.
Marcus is all I have.
But I’m no longer all he has.
I get out earlier than expected and go to his place, hoping to surprise him, but he surprises me instead. He’s surprised, yes, but not in the way I’d hoped. His eyes hide a million questions. He makes love as if it were his duty.
At night I watch him as I pretend to sleep. He smokes as if he’s immersed in the fires of hell. Then he takes a cold beer from the fridge. We drink like in the old days, and finally he’s free, but I don’t feel any better about the fact that he can only screw me properly when he’s drunk.
We go buy something to eat, and there, on the sidewalk, everything becomes so clear that I almost vomit. Just a few feet away I see the face of that fucking angel. She’s with a boy. They get in a car and drive off.
Marcus looks like a murderer who wants to shed blood like a farmer sows his seed. I see how he looks at them, I see how he looks at her. My legs are shaking, and I suddenly feel empty, empty, empty, and pissed off, and lonelier than a child who’s been raped and who’s cutting her veins with a razor blade. We go upstairs and I ask him. It’s useless to pretend that years haven’t passed – and especially these last weeks. At first he keeps moving down the same old hall of mirrors, but then he slips. When he finally admits he loves her, I feel like there’s no tomorrow. I’m still in prison. No – worse. I’m still back in my old bedroom with my stepfather on top of me.
She loves him. Fucking angel face loves him. I look at her and there’s nothing left for me to do but use their love against them. I don’t lie to her but I exaggerate, and I don’t reveal the most painful secret to her. I don’t reveal what I’ve read in his eyes: hunger, love, jealousy, and an unexpected and terrifying vulnerability. She listens to me, believes me, and I have proof of it later.
A few hours later, in fact, when Marcus finally returns home. His eyes are all steel and ice again. He packs his things in the same bag he first threw against the wall. I get ready and we leave.
30
Penny turned towards the window to watch the deluge outside. She wondered where the sun had gone these days. She’d almost forgotten the warmth of its rays on her face and the beauty of a world not plunged into darkness. She’d seen nothing but rain for days, and without the sun, the city became one big grey maze of alleyways.
‘Miss, I’m waiting for my fried chicken,’ a skinny woman called over to her. Penny apologised and placed her meal in front of her.
That’s when she saw him, standing by the entrance, awkwardly fighting against the whims of an umbrella caught in the wind. He was soaked through, and his long khaki raincoat simply wasn’t up to the job of protecting him from the inclement weather. He managed to close the umbrella only by dint of a few acrobatics, and then he finally came into the restaurant, depositing the dripping umbrella in a corner.
He recognised her immediately as she stood there in the middle of the room, dressed in yellow, with her little waitress’s cap on her head and her green lock of hair, which by now had faded to a dusty grey. He gave her a soggy, weary smile. Penny welcomed him as if she were the evening’s hostess, even though this was not her home and Mr Malkovich was not her guest. Though he was definitely there for work. She had been expecting him to come; in fact, she was surprised it had taken him this long. She sat him near the jukebox and asked if she could bring him a coffee.
‘Yes, please – hot, if that’s OK? I’m worried I’m catching a cold. But . . . I’m here for another reason.’
‘I know,’ Penny answered.
‘I’d also like to see Mrs Grey. Up until now I’ve only been monitoring her, since I’ve always known Marcus pays her visits, but now I really need to speak with her.’
‘I know. I’ll get her.’
‘Wait, I’d rather talk to you first. Can you sit for a second? Why are you working here?’
‘I left my night job to take care of my grandma after she had a stroke. Sherrie almost saved my life by hiring me. She’s a wonderful person.’
‘I know. I don’t judge people by their past, only by their present.’
‘Maybe it would be better if you didn’t judge them at all.’
Behind the counter, Penny picked up the pot and poured coffee into a cup, then sat down across from him, aware of what was about to happen. Marcus had left over a week ago. He had fled in the night, silent as a cat, though even if he’d crashed his way down the stairs, Penny wouldn’t have been able to hear him over her sobs. That evening, as soon as he’d shown up at her place, Penny had understood that Francisca was right. Imprisoning him would have been like killing him, a slow death, a trickle of compromises, a slow progression of identical days, which would soon have led him to hate her. Lions must be free, even to live in a violent savannah, even to be killed – to die a savage death, a death in their prime. Seeing him wounded after assaulting Grant had been the tipping point. What if Grant reported him? Would he end up in prison again? So she had let him run off to chase after the wind. It wasn’t easy and she had cried for days. She still cried every time she came home and saw the spiral staircase that led up to the attic. She cried for all the cruel lies she’d had to spit out at him, and she cried for his sad eyes, because behind his shield of anger, the look in his eyes had been truly tragic.
‘So, where is Marcus?’ asked Mr Malkovich after a few restorative sips of hot coffee.
Penny answered him sincerely. ‘I honestly don’t know.’
He shook his head, displeased. ‘I was so hoping he wouldn’t do anything this foolish, and I was afraid Francisca might come back. She’s always made him do the dumbest things.’
‘She . . . she loves him.’
‘If she really loved him, she wouldn’t have let him violate his parole like this. If they catch him, they’ll send him back to jail.’
‘Maybe they won’t bother going after them? Marcus and Francisca are hardly terrorists or serial killers. They’re not exactly going to have the FBI breathing down their necks, are they? They’re small fry, and if they’re careful, they may just get away with it.’
‘But what kind of life can you live if you’re always on the run?’
‘An exciting one.’
Mr Malkovich looked astonished at this statement of hers, and a bit melancholy. ‘I really thought you two were close. I was hoping that you . . .’<
br />
‘I think we were close,’ Penny corrected him. ‘But no one can force someone to live a life they don’t want.’
At that moment, a voice interrupted them.
‘Table five are asking for their French onion soup, my dear,’ Sherrie said. ‘Can you take it over to them, please? Hello, Mr Malkovich. Have you finally come to question me? We don’t know where Marcus is, and even if we did, we wouldn’t tell you. And please don’t bother this poor girl any more, OK? She’s upset enough already. She’s hardly eating – can’t you see how thin she is?’
Monty Malkovich nodded, as if only now did he notice Penny’s dreadful state. She’d lost weight, which she could barely afford to lose in any case, and she was pale and could barely drag herself around.
Penny shook her head as Malkovich took it all in. ‘I’m fine, honestly. I’ll go get that soup now.’
Before he left, Malkovich stopped her. ‘Please, Penny, if he shows up, tell him to contact me. I haven’t reported him yet. I love that boy, but if he doesn’t help me, I can’t help him for much longer.’
Penny nodded with a slight sigh.
‘If he shows up, I’ll tell him, but it’s not going to happen. Listen to me – Marcus has gone from our lives forever.’
Barbie’s hair was silken and once more smelled of roses. Penny brushed it for a long time every day. It was almost evening and darkness had settled on the streets outside. They were sitting together on the couch on her return from the library.
Penny’s grandma needed constant assistance and her mental gaps were now chasms. One particularly bad morning, she had woken up, seen Penny and asked, ‘Who are you?’ Penny’s heart had fallen to the floor and smashed in two on hearing this. Fortunately, Barbie had recognised her again a few hours later, but from that day on Penny lived with the constant fear of losing her. Not physically – the doctor had assured her that with treatment she could still live a long time – but mentally. Her memories were part of her, they were her family and the certainty of having had a past, they were even the certainty of existing now, of being someone who counted for someone else, but if Barbie’s mind went, what would Penny have left? Only a giant and destructive black hole at the centre of her universe.
So she stayed with her grandmother whenever she could, even slept with her, and by day she worked and then ran home with all the urgency of a mother returning to her small child. She was thin and tired, but she wasn’t giving up.
Two months had passed since Marcus had left. In those two months she had turned twenty-three, Christmas had come and gone, a new year had arrived, and so had the snow. Grant hadn’t shown up again, and neither had Igor. And nor had Marcus. Monty Malkovich had given Penny his number, and every now and then Penny called him and sighed with relief when he told her that Marcus was still free, that he hadn’t yet been captured and carted off back to prison. She hoped he’d be free forever. Alive and free.
But oh, how she missed him. She missed him like people in the Arctic Circle yearn for the sun during their six months of darkness.
One day, when she was brushing out Barbie’s long hair, her grandma said, ‘A letter arrived for me today. Is it a love letter from John, do you think?’
‘For you? Show me!’ Penny exclaimed.
Barbie drew an envelope from her cleavage in a gesture harking back to long-lost times, when a woman would tuck money away there as a safe place that no decent man would ever dare to violate. Well, it sure didn’t look like a love letter; it was indeed addressed to her, Barbara Rogers, but it looked more businesslike. Maybe it was a bill, but for what? Penny opened it, worried. It was from a lawyer requesting a meeting on a certain day and time for an important notification concerning Barbie. Penny didn’t recognise the name. She asked her grandma if she did, knowing her memory tended to preserve the strangest details, but Barbie shook her head, genuinely unaware.
‘Too bad it wasn’t from John,’ she added with regret.
Penny picked up her phone to call the number on the letter. The call was answered by a dignified-sounding secretary.
When Penny found out what it concerned, she watched her grandma dab perfumed powder on her cheeks, smiling at her own reflection. She mused on love’s many colours – far too many to count. A wound that never stops bleeding. A teeming throng of memories. Remorse for what you did and regret for what you wanted to do, but also, above all, a perfumed handkerchief that dries your tears when memory fades and life draws closer to its end. Love is that golden four-leaf clover, that warm blanket, that distant music, that miracle which comes back one evening at sunset, when everything seems lost forever, and makes you feel eternal because someone out there has never forgotten you.
31
FRANCISCA
February is a real shit month. Except I don’t think it’s the fault of February exactly. It’s not the cold or the rain, it’s Marcus. We’re still together but we’re not together. We’ve crossed seven states. We’ve done a ton of odd jobs. We’ve travelled miles on foot and by bus – it’s easier for them to find us if we drive. We’ve fucked in dozens of motels. No one has come to look for us. But he’s no longer mine.
And yet, I make do. I don’t want to lose him. I’m satisfied with the scraps he allows me, with his mere shadow, his dazed looks, the snarling and distant sex, after which he immediately gets up and goes for a cigarette as far away from me as he can, before coming back to bed without a word. One night I can’t resist going up to him. Marcus is standing in front of the window with the blinds half-drawn, glaring out at the grim panorama of the parking lot beyond. I take a couple of drags from his cigarette, then ask him, ‘Are you still thinking of Penny?’
Call it impulsive curiosity. Suicidal curiosity. It’s not like Francisca Lopez to be this stupid, to humiliate herself and remind him of his heartfelt admission of love two months ago. But I’m so different now. We’re both so different.
He stares at me, his eyes narrowed to slits. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ he spits, and he looks so mad it scares even me.
I should back off, but I don’t. ‘You said that you—’
He laughs bitterly, and takes a few drags of the cigarette in turn. The blue smoke surrounds him and then escapes from an invisible crack in the window.
‘I said shit I didn’t mean. It happens, doesn’t it?’ he goes on. ‘I don’t even remember what she looks like anyway. Fucking is just fucking. I was using her for a few weeks, that’s all.’ He stares at me, smiles at me with malice, grabs my wrist with his hand.
He crushes the cigarette on the windowsill, leaving the butt there, crumpled, then pulls the blinds down to shut out the light. We land back in bed. Having sex with Marcus is like being in a hurricane.
He means everything to me. This panting, sweaty sex is everything. He is my angel and my demon.
But when he’s inside of me, I’m afraid. I’d like to cry and to punch him with my fists. Not because of what he’s doing, but because of his eyes, which look at me without seeing me. Because of his glittering metallic eyes that don’t know what they’re giving away. When he fucks me, he’s fucking with Penny – or fucking against her, for revenge – and he doesn’t even know it.
Another time it’s raining when we walk along the main street of a town whose name I can’t even remember. We have a few beers at a bar, then walk around town, try to stay out of trouble. Marcus paces ahead of me with his long loping stride, not so far as to forget all about me but enough to be able to ignore me. He keeps trying to light his cigarette in spite of the downpour.
‘Hey,’ I call out to him, ‘good luck with that.’
He looks up at the sky as if he’s only just realised that God is chucking it down. He squints, and the water is running down his eyelashes, his nose, the beard I’m still getting used to, his leather jacket. ‘Yeah, it’s too wet,’ he replies, and he throws the cigarette into the river that’s suddenly coursing down the middle of the road.
Then he glances down and his whole expression chang
es. He looks like someone who’s seen a ghost. I follow his gaze and stop in my tracks.
On the road, in the middle of all that water, there’s a woman. Is it her? No, it’s not her, but they’re very similar. She’s small, thin, clumsy, with absurd brown hair dyed red and purple and who knows what else. She’s dropped something and she’s struggling like an ugly swan, groping around in a puddle. Books? Can they be books? What is that idiot doing with books in the rain? But it doesn’t matter who she is or what she’s doing, it only matters that Marcus – proving that he remembers Penny very well indeed, given that he only needs to mistake someone for her to go crazy – rushes across the street through the puddles and lets himself be battered by the rain like he’s a horse galloping through the waves and the spray along a shoreline.
He stoops to help her, the storm beating down on his back like it’s a drum, and just as I’m standing there thinking, There’s nothing I can do, there’s nothing I can do, his heart is with her, his body is with her, and what the hell did she do to him, what on earth did that innocent bitch do, a car comes speeding around the corner. The driver must be drunk, high or crazy. He veers off to one side, skids, loses control, then heads straight for Marcus and the girl.
It all happens in a second.
I scream.
The woman screams.
Marcus doesn’t scream, and shoves her hard towards the sidewalk.
He takes the full blow.
The books fall to the ground. Marcus falls along with the books, among the books, in a puddle already red with his blood, while the car crashes into a wall on the other side of the street with a long, hysterical honk, and I scream out loud now all my hope is gone.
32
Spring in Vermont was suspended between the snow and the flowers. Nature was trying her hardest to overcome the cold. Walking out of the store with a bagful of groceries in her arms, Penny was doing her best not to slip on the frozen ground.
Trying Not To Love You Page 27