After that came more injections, pills, low-quality eggs, toilets and screens with naked women on them and the pressure to fill the plastic cup, baptisms they didn’t attend, the question “So when’s the first child coming along?” repeated ad nauseum, operating rooms he wasn’t allowed to enter so that he could hold her hand and she wouldn’t feel so alone, more debt, other people’s babies, the babies of those who could, fluid retention, mood swings, conversations about the possibility of adopting, phone calls to the bank, children’s birthday parties they wanted to escape, more hormones, chronic fatigue and more unfertilized eggs, tears, hurtful words, Mother’s Days in silence, the hope for an embryo, the list of possible names, Leonardo if it was a boy, Aria if it was a girl, pregnancy tests thrown helplessly into the trash can, fights, the search for an egg donor, questions about genetic identity, letters from the bank, the waiting, the fears, the acceptance that maternity isn’t a question of chromosomes, the mortgage, the pregnancy, the birth, the euphoria, the happiness, the death.
17
He gets home late.
When he opens the door to the barn, he sees the female curled up, sleeping. He changes her water and replaces her food. She wakes with a start at the sound of the balanced feed hitting the metal bowl. She doesn’t move closer and looks at him in fear.
She needs to be washed, he thinks, but not now, not today. Today he has something more important to do.
He leaves the door of the barn open on his way out. The female follows him slowly. The rope stops her at the entrance.
Back in the house, he goes straight to his son’s room. He picks up the cot and takes it out to the yard. Then he gets the ax and kerosene from the barn. The female is on her feet, watching him.
He stands next to the cot, paralyzed in the middle of the star-filled night. The lights in the sky in all their appalling beauty crush him. He goes into the house and opens a bottle of whiskey.
Now he’s next to the cot again. There are no tears. He looks at it and takes a sip from the bottle. He starts with the ax, feels a need to destroy the cot. As he breaks it into pieces, he thinks of Leo’s tiny feet in his hands right after he was born.
After that he douses the cot in kerosene and lights a match. He takes another sip. The sky is like an ocean that’s gone still.
He watches the hand-painted drawings disappear. The hugging bear and duck burn, lose their shape, evaporate.
The female is watching him. He sees her there. She seems fascinated by the fire. He goes into the barn and she curls up in fright. He remains on his feet, swaying. The female trembles. And if he destroys her too? She’s his, he can do whatever he wants. He can kill her, slaughter her, make her suffer. He picks up the ax. Looks at her silently. This female is a problem. He raises the ax. Then he moves closer and cuts the rope.
He goes out and lies down in the grass beneath the silence of the lights in the sky, millions of them, frozen, dead. The sky is made of glass, glass that’s opaque and solid. The moon seems a strange god.
He no longer cares if the female escapes. He no longer cares if Cecilia comes back.
The last thing he sees is the door to the barn and the female, that woman, looking at him. It seems like she’s crying. But there’s no way she understands what’s happening, she doesn’t know what a cot is. She doesn’t know anything.
When only the embers remain, he’s asleep in the grass.
18
He opens his eyes, then closes them again. The light hurts. His head is pounding. He’s hot. There’s a stabbing pain in his right temple. He lies still, trying to remember why he’s outside. Then a hazy image appears in his mind. A stone in his chest. That’s the image. It’s the dream he had. He sits up with his eyes still closed. He tries to open them, but can’t. For a few seconds he’s still, his head resting on his knees, his arms wrapped around them. His mind is blank until he remembers the dream with terrifying clarity.
He’s naked and walks into an empty room. The walls are stained with humidity and something brown that could be blood. The floor is dirty and broken. His father is in the corner, sitting on a wooden bench. He’s naked and is looking at the floor. He tries to go to his father, but can’t move. He tries to call him, but can’t speak. In another corner, a wolf is eating some meat. Whenever he looks at the wolf, the animal raises its head and snarls. It bares its fangs. The wolf is eating something that’s moving, that’s alive. He looks closer. It’s his son, who’s crying but not making a sound. He grows desperate. He wants to save the infant but is immobile, mute. He tries to shout. His father gets up and walks in circles around the room, without looking at him, without looking at his grandson, who’s being torn to pieces by the wolf. He cries, but no tears fall, he shouts, wants to climb out of his body, but can’t. A man appears with a saw. The man could be Manzanillo, but he can’t see his face. It’s blurred. There’s a light, a sun hanging from the roof. The sun moves, creating an ellipse of yellow light. He stops thinking about his son, it’s as though he never existed. The man who could be Manzanillo cuts his chest open. He feels nothing. Just checks to make sure the job was done well. He gives Manzanillo a congratulatory handshake. Sergio comes in and looks at him closely. He appears to be deep in concentration. Without saying anything to him, Sergio bends down and reaches into his chest. He examines it, moves his fingers, pokes around. Sergio yanks out his heart. He eats a piece. The blood spurts from Sergio’s mouth. His heart is still beating, but Sergio throws it to the floor. While he squashes it, Sergio speaks into his ear and says, “There’s nothing worse than not being able to see yourself.” Cecilia comes into the room with a black stone. Her face is Spanel’s, but he knows it’s her. She smiles. The sun moves more quickly. The ellipse gets bigger. The stone shines. It beats. The wolf howls. His father sits down and looks at the floor. Cecilia opens his chest up even more and puts the stone inside it. She’s beautiful, he’s never seen her so radiant. She turns around, he doesn’t want her to leave. He tries to call her, but can’t. Cecilia looks at him happily, picks up a club, and stuns him right in the middle of the forehead. He falls, but the floor opens up and he keeps falling because the stone in his chest plunges him into a white abyss.
He raises his head and opens his eyes. Then he closes them again. He never remembers his dreams, not with such clarity. He puts his hands behind his neck. It was just a dream, he thinks, but a feeling of instability moves through him. An archaic fear.
He looks to one side and sees the ashes of the cot. He looks to the other side and sees the female lying very close to his body. He gets up with a start, but he’s not steady on his feet and sits back down. The thoughts come quickly: What did I do? Why is she loose? Why didn’t she escape? What is she doing next to me?
The female is curled up in sleep. She looks peaceful. Her white skin glistens in the sun. He goes to touch her, he wants to touch her, but she trembles slightly, as though she were dreaming, and he moves his hand away. He looks at her forehead, where she’s been branded. It’s the symbol of property, of value.
He looks at her straight hair, which hasn’t yet been cut and sold. It’s long, and filthy.
There’s a certain purity to this being who’s unable to speak, he thinks, as his finger traces the outline of her shoulder, arm, hips, legs, until it reaches her feet. He doesn’t touch her. His finger hovers a centimeter above her skin, a centimeter above the initials, the “FGPs” scattered all over her body. She’s gorgeous, he thinks, but her beauty is useless. She won’t taste any better because she’s beautiful. The thought doesn’t surprise him, he doesn’t even linger on it. It’s what he thinks whenever there’s a head he notices at the processing plant. The odd female that stands out among the many that move through the place every day.
He lies down very close to her, but doesn’t touch her. He feels the heat of her body, her slow and unhurried breath. He moves a little closer and begins to breathe with her rhythm. Slowly, slower still. He can smell her. She has a strong smell because she’s dirty, but he like
s it, thinks of the intoxicating scent of jasmine, wild and sharp, vibrant. His breath quickens. Something about this excites him, this closeness, this possibility.
He gets up suddenly. The female wakes with a start and looks at him in confusion. He grabs her arm and takes her to the barn, not with violence, but decisively. Then he closes the door and walks to the house. He showers quickly, brushes his teeth, dresses, takes two aspirin, and gets into the car.
It’s his day off, but he drives to the city, without thinking, without stopping.
When he arrives at Spanel Butchers, it’s still very early and the shop isn’t open. But he knows she sleeps there. He rings the bell and El Perro opens the door. He pushes the assistant aside without saying hello and goes straight to the room at the back. He closes the door. Locks it.
Spanel is standing next to the wooden table. She’s clearly relaxed, as though she’s been expecting him. There’s a knife in her hand and she’s cutting an arm that hangs from a hook. It looks very fresh, as though she yanked it off a few seconds prior. The arm isn’t from a processing plant, because it hasn’t been bled dry or flayed. There’s blood on the table, and on the floor. The drops fall slowly. A puddle is forming and the only sound in the room is the blood from the table splattering onto the floor.
He moves toward Spanel, as though he’s going to say something, but he puts his hand through her hair and grabs her by the nape of her neck. He uses force to hold her there, and he kisses her. It’s a ravenous kiss at first, full of rage. She tries to resist, but only a little. He pulls off her bloodstained apron and kisses her again. He kisses her like he wants to break her, but he moves slowly. He undoes her shirt while he bites her neck. She arches her back, trembles, but doesn’t make a sound. He turns her to face the table and pushes her onto it. Then he lowers her trousers and slides her underwear down. She’s breathing heavily, waiting, but he decides to make her suffer, that he wants to enter her behind the cold of her cutting words. Spanel looks at him, imploring him, almost begging him, but he ignores her. He walks to the other end of the table, grabs her by the hair, and forces her to unzip him with her mouth. The blood dripping from the arm falls right past the edge of the table, between her lips and his crotch. He takes off his boots, his jeans, and then his shirt. Naked, he steps toward the table. The blood drips onto him, stains him. He shows her where to clean, there, where the flesh is hard. She obeys and licks him. Carefully at first, then desperately, as though the blood that stains everything weren’t enough and she needed more. He grabs her hair with more force and motions for her to slow down. She obeys.
What he wants is for her to scream, for her skin to cease being a still and empty sea, for her words to crack open, dissolve.
He goes back to the other end of the table. He removes her trousers, rips off her underwear, and opens her legs. Then he hears a sound and sees El Perro looking in through the window in the door. Good for him, he thinks, carrying out his role of faithful animal, of docile servant protecting his owner. He takes pleasure in El Perro’s blind stare, in the possibility of the man attacking once and for all.
Then he thrusts. Just once, precisely. She keeps quiet, trembles, contains herself. The blood continues to drip down from the table.
El Perro tries to open the door. It’s locked. The man’s rage is visible, palpable. There are fangs in El Perro’s eyes, he can see them, and relishes the man’s desperation. He continues to glare at El Perro and yanks Spanel’s hair. She claws silently at the table, gets blood under her nails.
He turns Spanel around and takes a few steps back. Then he looks at her. He sits down on a chair and she moves toward him, stops right above his legs. Then suddenly he’s on his feet, the chair knocked to the floor. He lifts her up, and with his body crushes her against one of the glass doors. On the other side of it, there are hands, feet, a brain. She kisses him in anguish, solemnly.
Spanel wraps her legs around his waist and holds on to his neck with her hands. He presses her harder against the glass. Then he penetrates her, grabs hold of her face and looks her straight in the eye. He moves slowly, doesn’t avert his gaze. She becomes frantic, shakes her head, wants to break free. But he won’t let her. He can feel her ragged breath, she’s nearly in agony. When she stops writhing, he runs his hand along her skin, and he kisses her and continues to move slowly. It’s then that Spanel screams, she screams as if the world didn’t exist, she screams as if words had split in two and lost all meaning, she screams as if beneath this hell there was another hell, one from which she didn’t want to escape.
He gets dressed while Spanel, still naked, sits on the chair, smoking. She smiles, showing all her teeth.
El Perro is still looking in through the window. Spanel knows he’s there, on the other side of the door, but she ignores him.
He leaves without saying goodbye.
19
He gets into his car and lights a cigarette. But before he starts the engine, his phone rings. It’s his sister.
“Hello.”
“Hi, Marcos. Where are you? I see buildings. Are you in the city?”
“I am. I had to run some errands.”
“Why don’t you come over for lunch, then.”
“I can’t, I have to go in to work.”
“Marcos, I know perfectly well that today is your day off. The woman who answered the phone at the plant told me. I haven’t seen you in ages.”
He’d rather see his sister than go back home to the female.
“I’ll make special kidneys in a lemon and herb marinade. You’ll be licking it off your fingers.”
“I’m not eating meat, Marisa.”
His sister looks at him with surprise and a bit of suspicion.
“You’re not one of those veganoids now, are you?”
“It’s for health reasons, my doctor suggested I stop eating meat. It’s just for a while.”
“Is everything okay? Don’t scare me, Marcos.”
“It’s nothing serious. My cholesterol’s a bit high, that’s all.”
“Well, I’ll think of something. But come over, I want to see you.”
It’s not for health reasons. Since his son died he hasn’t gone back to eating meat.
The prospect of seeing his sister weighs on him. Visiting her is an errand to be taken care of when he has no other choice. He doesn’t know who his sister is, not really.
He drives slowly through the city. There are people around, but it seems deserted. It’s not just because the population has been reduced. Ever since animals were eliminated, there’s been a silence that nobody hears, and yet it’s there, always, resounding throughout the city. It’s a shrill silence that can be seen on people’s faces, in their gestures, in the way they look at one another. It’s as if everyone’s lives have been detained, as if they were waiting for the nightmare to end.
He arrives at his sister’s place and gets out of the car. Somewhat resigned, he rings the doorbell.
“Hi, Marquitos!”
His sister’s words are like boxes filled with blank paper. She gives him a hug that’s limp, quick. “Let me take your umbrella.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Are you crazy? What do you mean, you don’t have one?”
“I don’t have one, Marisa. I live out in the country and the birds won’t do anything. It’s only in the city that people are paranoid.”
“Hurry up and come inside, will you.”
His sister pushes him into the house and looks around. She’s worried that the neighbors will see her brother without an umbrella.
He knows that what will ensue is the ritual of talking about trivialities, during which Marisa insinuates that she can’t take responsibility for their father, and he responds that she doesn’t have to worry, and then he sees the two strangers that are her children, and she drops the guilt for six months until the whole thing repeats itself.
They go to the kitchen.
“How are you, Marquitos?”
He hates it when she c
alls him Marquitos. She does it to express a modicum of affection, which she doesn’t feel.
“I’m fine.”
“A bit better?”
There’s pity and condescension in her eyes. It’s the only way she’s looked at him since he lost his son.
He doesn’t answer, restricts himself to lighting a cigarette.
“I’m sorry, but not in here, okay? You’ll fill the house with the smell of smoke.”
His sister’s words accumulate, one on top of the other, like folders piled on folders inside folders. He puts out the cigarette.
He wants to leave.
“The food’s ready. I’m just waiting to hear from Esteban.”
Esteban is his sister’s husband. Whenever he thinks of his brother-in-law, he sees a man hunched over, with a face full of contradictions and a half smile that’s an attempt at hiding them. He believes Esteban is a man trapped by his circumstances, by a wife who’s a monument to stupidity, and by a life he regrets having chosen.
“Oh, Esteban just got back to me. That’s too bad. He has a lot of work and won’t be able to make it.”
“That’s fine.”
“The kids will be home soon from school.”
His sister’s kids. There are two of them. He thinks that she was never much interested in maternity, that she had her kids because it’s one of the things you’re supposed to do in life, like throwing a party on your fifteenth birthday, getting married, renovating your home, and eating meat.
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