“But that story about the soldier ... You told me that ...”
“No. I was never a soldier. I’m not a soldier’s son. I’m a street kid. I grew up in the street. My life has always been in the street. I don’t even know who my parents were.”
“But in that case, how much was true in that story you told me and why did you tell it to me?”
“Not much of it was true. I told you what you wanted to hear, mate. You seemed so naive! I realized that I could tell you anything. Actually I told you a story that I was told. The story of some guy I knew.”
“How was his life like yours?”
“Not at all. But he came like I did to Spain, after a woman. They killed this guy here, in Madrid.”
“In Madrid? And another Colombian killed him, I suppose.”
“Yes. Another Colombian. I know him. Or I should say that I knew him. Now that they killed him too.”
“My God! And that story about Dora? Was there any truth to that story?”
“Everything I told you about Dora is true. I came to Sapin for her. I came here for love, but she left me and now she’s a hooker in Majorca. She’s not married, like I told you, like I thought myself. She’s a whore. She works as a whore. A guy took her away or he cheated on her. I don’t know ... I’m not really sure what happened. Her sister won’t tell me the whole truth either. That’s why I have to go and see her. I want to see her as soon as I can. I need to talk to her, even if it’s the last thing I do in my life. I don’t want to die without seeing her again. You get it, mate? I need to see her!
“Yes! I get it! I get you!” I said, moved, putting my hand briefly on his shoulder. “I understand you very well. Believe me. And you’re right: It’s not a romantic story. Not at all. It’s a sad story. Very sad.”
We kept on drinking our coffee in silence. A little later, I put my cup on the table, looked distractedly at the television, which was turned off, and said: “I can’t believe that you’re really a murderer for hire.”
I served two glasses of Four Roses neat. J.J.’s with a little water. Mine, straight up. J.J. took a small swallow from his glass, tasted it, and took another swallow.
“The hell with my liver!” he said.
I sat opposite him, with my glass in my hand.
“You were a street kid, but then ... what about that boy in the car and the other girl ...? They’re your family, aren’t they? I thought street kids didn’t have families.”
J.J. looked at me several seconds with expressionless eyes. He sighed. I supposed that this was not a pleasant topic for him.
“I guess I said something stupid. I’m sorry,” I apologized to him. “Don’t talk about it if you don’t feel like it.”
“My folks died when I was very small,” J.J. said finally, with his sight firmly fixed on his glass. “They killed my dad one day by mistake when he was coming home from work. They mistook him for someone else. And my mom died shortly afterwards in a mudslide. There was a flood or something like that. I only know what they told me. I was three or four years old and I don’t remember them. Maybe my mom a little. My granny took me and I was with her till she died of cancer. As far as I was concerned, my granny was my real mom. She died when I was eleven. I’ve got uncles and aunts, of course, like everybody. I’ve got cousins ... But I don’t know all of them and most of the ones I know, I don’t have anything to do with them either. Why should I? In my cousins’ homes there were a lot of people and I was in the way, I knew I was in the way, that they didn’t need me. They said so themselves. So I started to wander. I started to find my own life. I hung out in the street. I found my life in the street ...”
Until he met an older homosexual, who took him in and gave him a place to stay for almost three years in his own home. Not only did he feed him and take care of him, he also educated him, taught him to speak, to think, to know how to behave. He passed him off as the orphan son of a poor cousin and treated him as such. In three years he learned a lot from him. J.J. even felt affection for him. He had already become accustomed to that comfortable and agreeable life when suddenly he found himself back on the street.
“They killed him too?”
“No. He’s still alive, the old bastard.”
“What happened?”
“He got tired of me and threw me out. That’s what happened. He liked little boys and I got bigger ... He found an excuse. He said I stole money to buy myself a motorcycle. But I didn’t steal it. I borrowed the motorcycle. A friend left it with me for a week in exchange for a favor I did for him. I’ve alway liked motorcycles, you know, mate? I’m crazy about speed. See this scar? See it?” He pulled up his sweater and showed me a straight whitish line, that descended from his abdomen to the top of his pants. “And you see this other scar? It was a perforation. This is where a piece of iron went in and perforated my intestine. Another piece of iron got me in the leg. They had to open me up to sew my intestine back together. It was a miracle that I was saved. It happened last summer in Madrid. It was five o’clock in the morning. I was going at top speed. I came off the M-30, turned too quickly to take a bridge and I crashed into the guardrail. It threw me unconscious on the ground, and I woke up several hours later in a hospital. My body was full of tubes and wires. They asked me my name, but I didn’t know. I didn’t have any papers on me and nobody could find out who I was. I like motorcycles, you know, mate?, and I know that, if I get another chance, I’ll go again. But that motorcycle a friend lent me. I didn’t buy it. Somebody else stole the money. Sometimes he brought little kids into the house. He even wanted me to get them from the street. Or maybe nobody stole anything. I got big and he was starting to cast me aside. He invented an excuse to kick me out into the street, the old hypocrite, the old bastard.”
Later there came a brief period of delinquency and street gangs. A hard period of survival, hunger, and misery. Until he met Dora and she helped him, she restored his conscience, she made him feel human again. No, he wasn’t the one who helped her. It was the other way around. She helped him. He didn’t like to lie, but ... The story of the other guy was similar. He had also come to Spain in search of a woman. There were many similar cases. His was not a special situation. Almost all girls dumped their boyfriends as soon as they got to Spain. A woman wants position, financial stability, and she knows she wont get it from an undocumented boyfriend. In order to get a residence permit or nationality she has to marry a Spaniard. And Dora was ambitious. She knew very well what she wanted. In spite of everything, he was sure that she still loved him. In Colombia she had often helped him behind her mother’s back, she had even found him a place to stay, when he didn’t have a place to sleep, like one time in the home of a widow who lived nearby, with whom, certainly, he slept the first night ... At first he didn’t love Dora. They slept together and he let her fall in love with him. Very curious. Love came later, almost unnoticed, after a quarrel and several days of not speaking. Love took him by surprise. It left him blind and stunned. He had never imagined that was what love felt like. Something so terrible and so marvelous. Something so sweet and at the same time so painful. It was the firt time he had fallen in love and he never wanted to fall in love again. For him love had only one name: Dora. No other woman had been capable of awaking in him a similar passion. He was sure that she still loved him. Something had happened to make her disappear like that, suddenly, leaving no trace, to not want to see him again. A guy had taken her away. He was holding her by force, surely, a guy who was making her work as a prostitute.
“Your life has been very hard,” I said. “I see that now. But why do they want to kill you? And why do you have to kill somebody? How did you manage to get to Spain? Are you mixed up in some drug cartel or the Mafia?”
J.J. took a swig from his glass and remained silent for several seconds, without looking at me.
“Too many questions, mate,” he said finally.
“Okay. Forget it. And that scar you’ve got on your forehead? How’d you get that? You can tell me about
that, can’t you?”
“Which scar? I don’t have just one. I have several.”
“You sure do!” I exclaimed, inspecting his forehead, in which I detected several pinkish marks along the hair line. “What happened?”
“You’re not going to believe it!” he said, smiling. “A friend of mine used to split glasses on his head with one blow. He was very good at it, like those Chinese guys who split bricks with their hands and don’t even get hurt. So I wanted to try it one day and I smashed a glass on my head. I broke the glass, yeah, but I almost broke my head too.”
“Fuck! How could you do that? And you stabbed yourself with the glass!” I said, kissing him on the forehead. “Are you crazy or what?”
“That’s the kind of stuff that street kids do.”
CHAPTER VI
It had been a good while since we turned off the lights in the living room, and J.J. was trying to get a peek from the windows, hidden behind the drapes, at the movements in the street.
“I would really like to believe that it was your friend who followed us,” he said. “I wish it had been, but I’m sure that it wasn’t. What kind of car does your friend drive? What color?”
“Who knows,” I said, trying to stifle a yawn. “His is blue, but he could have taken his sister’s, which is red, or his father’s, which is gray. He knows I would recognize his blue Ford Mondeo right away azul, and that ...”
“I’m not about to sleep tonight. Sleep if you want to, mate,” said J.J., sitting next to me on the sofa. “It’s almost four o’clock in the morning. Go on, sleep. Sleep right here, on the sofa, if you want.”
“Okay,” I said with my eyes closed, lying back and putting out a hand toward him. “But stay close, please. Very close.”
“I have to figure out what I’m going to do tomorrow,” he said, mostly to himself.
“J.J.,” I whispered, taking one of his hands, “you haven’t killed anybody, have you?” I began to stroke his hand. It was his right hand, the same hand with which he would have to grab the pistol and shoot, I thought. There was his index finger, The same finger with which he would pull the trigger. “A person like you, capable of so much love, couldn’t kill anybody. I know, J.J., that you’re good.”
“Sometimes you can kill just for the hell of it,” said J.J., with a sigh. “A friend of mine was killed because ...”
“Another dead friend of yours? How many people have you seen die, J.J.?”
“I’ve seen a lot of people die. People right by my side taken out with one shot when they least expected it. Human life in Colombia ain’t worth shit.”
“What happened to your friend? Why did they kill him? Is this a sad story or a romantic one?”
“Neither sad nor romantic. It’s an everyday story, like so many others. It was all so fast, like it always is. As soon as you realize that they’re going to kill you, you’re already dead. At least you don’t suffer ... And they’re going to kill this guy no matter what, get it? If I don’t kill him, somebody else will. It’s decided. There’s no way out. Not with them. And it’s decided about me too. They paid my passage. I didn’t have the money to get here. They arranged everything, get it? But with a condition ... Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“In order to see her, in order to come to Spain, I accepted any condition, and now they’re demanding that I keep my part of the bargain. Even if I wanted to, I can’t do anything now. It’s ironic, isn’t it? I’m out of it. Now I’m on the other side. Sooner or later, they’ll be coming for me too. If not today, then tomorrow. I know it. That’s why I’m waiting for them. I promise you that if they kill me, I won’t be the only one killed.”
“You’re not going to die, J.J.” I said, linking my fingers with his. “You’re strong and brave. You have to live to do great things. You’re not like the others. You belong to the class of bosses ...”
“Bah! I’m like any other guy. You’re drunk and you don’t know what you’re saying. You like me. That’s all. You’re wanting to suck my dick and that’s why you see me the way you do. However, the brave and the strong often die, and the weak, the stupid, and the cowards survive. That’s the way the world is and you know it. The best ones always die in wars. And it’s the same in life. Go ahead, sleep, sleep ... I’ll stay here. I need to think.”
“No, I don’t want to sleep,” I said, falling back at last on the sofa, but still without letting go of his hand. “Why do they want you to kill this man? What is it that he’s done?”
“I don’t know. Fuck if I know!”
“Is he Spanish or Colombian?”
“Colombian, I think.”
“Then you don’t know him?”
“Not personally. But I’ve got a picture of him and I know where he lives. Well, I saw him one day from a distance. I know him well enough so I won’t confuse him with somebody else.”
“You have his picture? Please, let me see it!”
“No! That’s enough! I don’t want to talk about this any more!”
“How can you kill somebody like that, for no reason? I don’t understand.”
“If I don’t kill him, somebody else will. I already told you that. And they’ll kill me too! So we’ll be two dead people. But if I kill him, there’ll only be one dead person. And you don’t want me to die, do you?”
“No, but I don’t want you to kill either.”
“Leave me alone!” said J.J., pulling away from my hand and getting up suddenly from the sofa. He started pacing around the living room. I could hardly see the form of his body moving from one side to the other. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me! I must be crazy to talk to you about all these things! You already know too much and that’s dangerous. Do you even know me? Do you have any idea what I’m capable of? No! You only know that you like me! And because you’re gay and you like me you feel very safe with me, don’t you?”
“There exists what we call the human factor. And you’re human. That’s enough for me.”
“Bullshit! When people kill, where’s the human factor? Who has pity for anybody?”
“A lot of people have pity on others,” I said, standing up. “There are murderers for hire, of course, people who do bad things for money, but there are also people who help to save lives and take nothing in return, only out of the desire to do good. Have you ever heard the term NGO? It’s an organization to help people. That man can save his life if you warn him of the danger that he’s in.” All of a sudden I was fascinated with my own idea and I moved closer to him. “Instead of killing him, you could help him get away! And you could get away afterwards to anywhere you wanted! So instead of one or two dead people, there wouldn’t be any! Wouldn’t that be marvelous?”
“Yes, marvelous! You don’t know what you’re saying! Do you think this is a game? Sooner or later they would kill both of us! These people don’t forgive. They never forgive! Are you crazy? Warn him of the danger! Who knows what this guy has done, what people he’s probably killed? Things are not that simple. My God!” he exclaimed, holding his head with both hands. “How could I have been so stupid? How could I have talked about these things with ...?”
“Hey, hey! Don’t be sorry you met me! Thank your lucky stars! Right now I’m the voice of your conscience. What’s happening is that you’re refusing to listen to the voice of your conscience. And I’m you’re only possibility. Besides, let’s not get things mixed up, you know what I mean? What does all this have to do with my being gay? You spent three years sleeping with an old pederast and you’re still prejudiced? You’re fuckin’ me!
“No, you’re fuckin’ me! Besides, that’s what you want, for me to fuck you!”
We both stayed suddenly quiet, one facing the other, contemplating in darkness the brightness of each other’s eyes (I detected a slight sickly look in his), hearing troubled breathing of our chests and even feeling the accelerated beating of our hearts. Then I suddenly realized that we were complete strangers, that we
were alone in my house and that he had a gun in that bag. He kept watching me, merciless, in the midst of the darkness, and I said to myself: What am I doing? What is all this? What kind of mess have I gotten into?
Famous for her beauty. The Indian. Now I understand. He’s talking to me about a woman. The Indian? I suppose there must be many Indian women there. It’s like calling a woman from Africa the Negress.
“Yes, the Indian. No, not all women are Indian. Where I’m talking about many are white. Or mixed race. But the Indian was pure Indian. She lived at the end of the neighborhood, there at the edge, almost in the country, in a hut of bad death. She was married to a hobo, a strange guy and solitary. They met in the mountains, where she lived with her family, raising goats.”
“¿Goats or vicunas?”
“No, goats. There were goats there too. One day the hobo went down to town with her and started working in a bakery. I already told you he was a strange and solitary guy. He almost never spoke to anybody. He went here and there always alone and people said he was a sorcerer. Freddy was my friend, a good guy, Freddy.”
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