‘Sure, I know him,’ I said and walked over to him and he smiled. I took his hand. I said, ‘Come on, come inside, it’s really buzzing.’
He went limp and allowed me to lead him. As we got to the door he said, ‘Just don’t ever say “welcome” to me.’
‘Whatever you like,’ I agreed.
I led him into the middle of the crowd. Was something exploding inside me? I stroked Mariángela’s waist and she took my hand and squeezed it, very briefly, as I passed. The night air wasn’t good for me. Was the headache following me? A thrill ran all the way from the top of my head as I stepped inside and saw that all the people who’d been propping up the walls had come together to form a crown of thorns, all spellbound, their heads high, staring at the stereo. From his strategic vantage point, Leopoldo was no longer playing accompaniment but something like a counterpoint and I thought, ‘That’s so sad.’
Ricardito, who always understood me, finished the thought for me. ‘It’s the saddest sound in the world,’ he said, staring in astonishment.
‘Oh, Misery Guts,’ I said, touched, ‘everyone here understands English. Just look at how together they all are. Do you know this song?’
‘Sure,’ he said effortlessly. I took his hand.
‘Come on, let’s sit down. Not here where everyone can hear us. Whisper the lyrics in my ear. You’re my interpreter.’
‘Forever?’
‘No, sorry, it wouldn’t be fair to promise that. Just for tonight, but you know me, you know my nights are long. Ready?’
‘Yeah. It’s called “Milla de luz de luna” – “A Mile of Moonlight”.’9
‘“Mile”?’
‘Yeah. That’s the literal translation. You picked a difficult song.’
‘You can do it. The band?’
‘Rolling Stones.’
‘They’re playing it again. They can’t get enough of it. Oh, I’m so happy! “A Mile of Moonlight” …’ I repeated, memorizing the title.
The same head with the precise gestures picked up the needle and, without a hiss, dropped it back into the groove at the start of the song.
‘Here we go,’ said Ricardito.
‘Quietly. We don’t want to disturb them.’
So he moved closer to me and whispered the song into my ear and his voice was soft. He was happy too, and after every line I felt a shudder of pleasure, a quiver of amazing feelings radiating from my ear.
‘When the wind blows and the rain feels cold
With a head full of snow
With a head full of snow …’
‘Snow?’ I said. ‘Does he mean …?’
‘Yeah,’ whispered Ricardo, ‘it’s a double meaning.’
‘Far out!’
‘In the window there’s a face you know
Don’t the time pass slow
Don’t the nights pass slow …’
‘Can you do it faster? Translate at the same time as he’s singing, please …’
‘You picked a tough song.’
‘Shhh … they’re singing again.’
Ricardito took a deep breath and became very cool. His temples glistened.
‘The sound of strangers sending nothing to my mind
Just another mad, mad day on the road
I am just living to be lying by your side
But I’m just about a moonlight mile on down the road
Yeah, yeah, yeah …’
‘You don’t need to translate the yeahs and the babies for me,’ I snapped.
‘Made a rag pile of my shiny clothes
Gonna warm my bones
Gonna warm my bones …’
‘God,’ I said, ‘it’s such a sad song. Where’s Mariángela?’
‘I got silence on my radio
Let the air waves flow
Let the air waves flow
Oh, I’m sleeping under strange, strange skies …’
‘I caught up,’ said Ricardito, happily, ‘I caught up, my mind’s working at the speed of light.’
‘Just another mad, mad day on the road
My dreams are fading down the railway line
I’m just about a moonlight mile down the road
I’m hiding, sister, and I’m dreaming
I’m riding down your moonlight mile
I’m hiding, baby, and I’m dreaming
I’m riding down your moonlight mile
I’m riding down your moonlight mile
Let it go now, come on up, babe
Yeah, let it go now
Yeah, flow now, baby
Yeah, move on now, yeah
Yeah, I’m coming home
’Cos I’m just about a moonlight mile on down the road
Down the road, down the road …’
‘There’s no lyrics after that,’ he told me. ‘Just this long guitar solo.’
‘Well, then let me listen to him.’
‘Him who?’
‘The guitarist sitting behind you.’
Ricardito turned. ‘That creep?’
‘He’s totally rock and roll,’ I protested.
‘Do what you like,’ said Ricardito. ‘I feel good because I did my job. There’s not many people could translate off the cuff, and that fast.’
‘It’s a slow song,’ I objected.
‘Actually my version’s better. My lyrics are better than the original by those assholes.’
‘Whaaaaaat?’ I raised my hand and tried to grab him by the scruff of the neck, but he had already gone to sniff out some other corner. I was sick at the thought that it was a complete con job. If he’d improved the lyrics, that meant he’d changed them. I felt so helpless not being able to understand English! ‘Where’s Mariángela?’ I almost whimpered. She didn’t appear. But some boy with stubby arms and glasses came right over to me.
‘Keep calm and stay sane,’ he said. ‘You’re not the only one tripping here. If you’re going to pull a whitey, then go outside and die there, because if you ruin my friends’ trip, pelada, I’ll kick the shit out of you.’ And with that he disappeared into the night.
‘What?’ I jumped to my feet, half woman half panther. ‘Who are you to threaten me? Who?’
Ricardito appeared from nowhere and put his arms around me.
‘Who?’ he asked me. ‘I’ll defend you.’
I looked at him, completely stunned, then laughed in his face (I know the redhead was watching me).
‘You? Don’t even try, they’ll batter you.’
‘Let them batter me, I’ll batter them right back,’ he assured me. ‘Where is this guy?’
‘I don’t know who it was,’ I screamed. ‘I don’t know!’
‘Hey!’ the guitarist called over.
I whipped round. ‘Yes?’
‘Coming, yeah?’
I went.
‘Don’t go,’ Ricardito begged me.
‘I’m not going for good. I’ll be back, I swear,’ I said, because his gesture filled me with a surge of tenderness as he sank his head into his shoulders, stretching out his arms to me.
In careful, happy steps I walked over to where the guitarist was sitting and sat down next to him, ready to receive his message, which turned out to be a question: ‘Is this your first time?’
Not really knowing what we were talking about, I said, ‘Yeah. It’s also the first time a song’s ever moved me that way.’
‘Whatever you do, don’t panic,’ he said. ‘If you want, you can stay here with me.’ And I closed my eyes; I could have curled up in his arms. ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘I’m really sorry.’ I pointed: ‘There’s someone waiti
ng for me over there.’
‘Who?’ The chords – guitar and vocal – jangled. ‘That little runt?’
‘We’ve been friend since we were kids,’ I explained. ‘Besides, he gets depressed. See you.’
He didn’t answer. I walked back to where Misery Guts was standing. A distance of nine steps. How many it took me I can’t remember. It must be inside my head somewhere. Sometimes I feel like I’ve got golf balls banging around in there making a glu, glu noise and I can’t help seeing the shocked face of that expert player, Jesus, and I ask for some 10mg Valium tablets which bring me better dreams.
I know everyone’s always inventing new shit for people to try, but of all the things I’ve tried, acid is the worst. You should see what it does to your eyes, the things it makes you imagine people are doing; you don’t need to be sick in the head to think that people who love you are doing everything they can to get rid of you – it’s a simple fact. It fills you with hatred for your parents, murderous thoughts about servants, terror at the first light of day; you feel like you’re made of plasticine. If you have spots, acid gets rid of them and leaves you with pockmarks, dry hair, loose teeth; you won’t be able to run or eat because you ache all over, in your joints, your cartilage, your gums; you try to read a book and the words dance in front of your eyes; you try to sleep and not think about all the horrible things in your past, the things you’re ashamed of … and I’d scream: ‘But I haven’t got a past! My past is what I’ll do today!’ I couldn’t do a thing. When I could summon up the energy, I’d get off the sofa and go out but, having no past, I didn’t recognize people, I blanked them when they said hello, and you should have seen their faces when the most gifted girl in Cali blanked them – they stared furiously at the pavement, at the roots of the African palms. In the end you wind up doubting the whole world, and how can a doubter find consolation if she can’t read, can’t have a simple conversation without finding something sinister in it, some misfortune destined to degrade her still further?
Gentle reader, my hair lost its brilliance, it turned from gold to ash. Not that anyone would notice it now as I tell my story, because this hair has history. My skin, always so smooth and tanned, became scabbed with bruises like scales. For at least three days I was in a terrible state, scampering around like an animal trying to get its strength back, accepting outlandish invitations in the hope of discovering some new possibility; I even agreed to attend a graduation dinner with my parents. The main course was pork ribs, which I ate out of politeness. (My culture forbids it. I’d always been intrigued by the Maccabeus brothers’ blind refusal to eat pork, by Moses’ unconditional prohibition, and as a little girl I’d been scared stiff by the story – which everyone knew but no one talked about – of an aunt who died from worms in her brain after eating undercooked pork. I never knew what she felt like towards the end; I know I always kissed her when she came to visit, a memory that infects me to this day.) That cursed meat tasted so sweet. For at least a month I was convinced I had larvae hatching in my brain. ‘I’ll die a miserable death,’ I thought. ‘No fate could be more symbolic for a child of the second half of the century.’
But, oh, I don’t have the words to describe the joy I felt, the dimples that appeared in my cheeks as I walked back to poor Ricardito, who had spread his arms wide and was whispering comforting words to himself. I moved towards him wreathed in colours, in my favourite colours. Green: the colour of the world’s envy at my happiness; black: the colour of the sea that scares me; yellow: the colour of summer in countries further north and which I’ll never see because I belong to, I am bound by chains to, this land.
Ricardito suggested taking me up to the first floor, showing me rooms he’d already explored I don’t know when but which he assured me were fascinating. I followed him and people saw him take my hand and again they thought, ‘They’re a tragic love story.’ We climbed stairs which, as they rose, formed a perfect circle. What was he so eager to show me upstairs? A series of terribly empty rooms.
‘I’ve been trying to get it on with you all day,’ he complained as we started up the stairs. Then later: ‘I knew this house would be the perfect place for my ravishment.’
‘For your what?’
I stopped dead and turned to face him.
‘For … for pulling the wings off a reckless butterfly,’ he muttered, embarrassed.
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said harshly and walked down the corridor, entranced now by these empty rooms. I thought, ‘Have his parents fled the country?’ And as I walked along the corridor I felt a thousand feathery touches on my shoulders, on my back. ‘If he touches me any lower,’ I thought, ‘I’ll turn round and deck him.’
In the last room there were mirrors strategically placed such that I could see myself from all four sides. I watched Ricardito step into each reflection, too shy to look at himself. Instead he stared at me, fascinated by my fascination.
In the middle of the room were large pieces of furniture covered in dust sheets – wardrobes or beds. ‘Beds?’ I thought. ‘So this was where they were bouncing earlier.’ And I decided it would be a fantastic idea to try it myself. ‘Come on, let’s bounce on the bed, I dare you,’ I said, and he looked at me nervously. He didn’t refuse, but I could see he was afraid, weak. I decided to go first, to prove to him how much stronger my sex can be. I jumped and let myself fall back on to the nearest bed, the biggest one. I remember Ricardito, his eyes on stalks, making a vague, desperate attempt to catch me as I sailed through the air. The bed I landed on wasn’t very springy. I’d got used to bouncing, to the upward motion which should have followed my fall, forcing me to tense my neck, arch my whole body, and giving a gleam to my eyes, so that when I felt myself not bouncing, not rising, not even bumping but sinking into something soft, uneven and still warm, I was terrified, as though I was suddenly inside an aquarium and Ricardito was standing stunned on the other side of the glass, making no attempt to help me. I didn’t move a muscle, quickly trying to identify the sensation. Just then I realized that, on each side of my legs, trunks of flesh as real as my own living flesh had parted to make room for me. A nose was pressed into the back of my neck, two enormous pairs of breasts pushed against my back.
My bellowing (which no one heard downstairs) was joined by an ecstatic wail from Ricardito. To get up, I grabbed one end of the sheet and in a clean jerk split it in two: the moment of revelation lasted as long as it took the sheet to fold in on itself and I let it fall to the floor. In the double bed were three bodies: those of Doctor and Señora Augusto Flores, whom I’d regularly seen taking a turn in the park at around seven o’clock, and the body of a girl who’d been Lanky Flores’s nanny before becoming a general skivvy: an Indian girl from the mountains of Silvia I’d never said a word to – that would have been all I needed. I thought, then said aloud, ‘You think he invited us here to see the corpses?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Ricardito. ‘Otherwise he’d have had everyone up here, he’d have had us all file past. I think he’s just forgotten.’
‘So you’ve already seen them?’ I asked, without reproach.
‘Yes,’ he admitted, gratefully.
‘Then let’s cover them up again,’ I said, carefully moulding the sheet around each form. We rushed out of the room. At the end of the corridor, like another mirror, a huge window loomed. I went over to it and stared down at the Parque Versalles, perfectly asymmetrical, marked out in 1920 by some demented Italian architect.
‘The garden of Marienbad,’10 Ricardito, sounding like a professor. I glared at him in disgust. Something in his words (which I didn’t understand, because I didn’t get the reference) completely contradicted what I was thinking. He always was highbrow, Misery Guts Ricardo, to those who knew the difference.
He must have mistaken my anger for weakness or grief because he offered me
his arm and I didn’t push it away. To tell the truth, I was shaking a bit and, according to him, a pale mask crept over my face.
‘Was he miserable with them?’ I asked him, since he was the one up early every day sniffing around the morning arguments of the families in the Parque Versalles.
‘I know for a fact he was,’ he said gravely and that was our last word on the subject.
Flores never mentioned the bodies to anyone. They were discovered two days later by an aunt. The crime was all over the papers. The son refused to say anything. His relatives refused to support him and he spent a whole year in the asylum at San Isidro, where he shared a bunk with vicious lunatics and blacks, was completely neglected, fed on slops, plied with drugs and so much shock therapy that when the authorities closed San Isidro for lack of official funds, the cousin who took him in (a stuck-up gringa bitch who always dressed in checks) had to hold him up just so he could put one foot in front of the other along the path of life, man. Turns out the cousin was an okay woman; she took him to Dallas, Texas, and he lives there now surrounded by cats, cornbread and country music all day long, crooning drivel about the flowers of Cali and asking in vain for tropical fruit.
Yeah, the whole thing created a massive shitstorm. This was back when respectable pundits were beginning to diagnose a malaise in my generation – the generation that appeared with the Beatles’ fourth LP, not the Nadaístas11 or the middle-class boys withering in the ruins of the Nadaísta movement. I’m talking about the generation defined by rumbas, the beach, by the orgies at La Bocana during Holy Week. We weren’t trailblazers, none of us claimed to be the first to wear a paisley shirt or grow their hair long. By the time we came along, everything had already been invented. It didn’t take a genius to work out that our mission was never to return to the beaten track, never to refuse a challenge, so that, like ants, our burrowing would eventually undermine the very foundations of this society, including those being dug now by the people who prattle on about building a new society in the ruins we left behind.
But we had no intention of dying that quickly. None of us worried about passing on our wisdom, sharing our deepest thoughts. Me, I always knew that I had a gift for rumba and nothing else, and I don’t even know who I get that from. My remorseless energy doesn’t frustrate the men who want me but can’t have me, because the more they watch me, the more they realize why they don’t deserve me. My talent’s a force of nature, a gift from life, and it’s also an acknowledgement. It annoys me when some prematurely fat, prematurely bald smartass pops up to inform us that all this confusion, all this waste has been in vain, that our social structure is ill-defined, and dismisses the whole tragic phenomenon as ‘imported decadence’. Oh, the gentle reader of these words would pay good money to see how I laugh in their faces, and my laugh, like my mane of blonde hair, is petrifying. It doesn’t bother me when people compare me to an octopus. I’ve met tons of fat bastards who write beautiful bullshit and people call them poets, but when they’re face to face with me, oh, the terror they feel, the crassness of their drunken binges, not to mention the greenish tinge of the compulsive wanker, the sort of guy with a scaly claw inside that makes him incapable of relating to women. We girls are mysterious creatures, man. The only guys I’ve ever been able to relate to are the kids I don’t see around much any more, the guys who spend their days scratching their brains. ‘It doesn’t hurt,’ they say. ‘It’s like running a comb through your thoughts and untangling your ideas.’
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