Rage (15 page)

He remained some time kneeling on Alvaro's legs,
reproaching himself for having lacked the presence of
mind to tell him that the man in the process of killing
him was Rosa's boyfriend. Finally, he got up and went to
sit down on the sofa. He was exhausted.

"Right," he told himself, "what next?" He could open
the kitchen door and take the keys, so the Blinders
would assume the murderer had entered the house
from outside, at some unknown hour of the night...
perhaps seeking Ricardo's dollars, or Senora Blinder's
jewels... He rejected the idea immediately: it was too risky to go into Ricardo's bedroom and steal the dollars,
and the same applied to Senora Blinder's jewels. He
lacked enough information on Alvaro's relationships
with his family, or even outside of it, to try and fabricate
the scenario for a crime of passion. In any case nobody
would believe for more than a minute that Ricardo
or Senor Blinder would be capable of murdering
him: neither man had sufficient strength to strangle
Alvaro, no matter how drunk he was. No one had
the least suspicion as to his own presence inside the
house either, so no one would be looking for him. In
all likelihood, the police would convince themselves of
either the one or the other of the two options he had
already come up with, whether he left the doors open
or not. Whichever it was, they would go over the house
with a fine toothcomb, and they might even set up a
base there, which would mean him expiring of thirst
or hunger if he weren't discovered beforehand. The
Blinders might even decide to decamp to a hotel, or
to stay with friends, revolted or terrified by the murder.
Then what would become of him... or of Rosa?

All this flashed through his mind in the space of a
sigh. In fact, from the time he collapsed onto the sofa
till the point when he got moving again, some five or six
minutes had elapsed. He'd done no more than recover
his breath and his strength: now he knew what he was
going to do, he had no need of further thought. He had
had an idea and, to judge from the speed with which he
wiped the sweat from his body, it was a work of genius.

He went upstairs to his room.

On hearing him arrive, the rat jumped off the bed
and lazily, confidently, headed for the cupboard. Maria
picked up the plate of food he'd left on the bed a few
hours earlier and left the room again.

He still had enough nerve to make a detour to the
kitchen to check the time on the wall clock. He had
been under the impression that day was dawning,
but it was five in the morning. The sky had cleared,
admitting a fraction more light, that was all. He had
plenty of time before day broke. Nonetheless, he was
worried by the difference between his perception of
time and reality; he could have sworn that no more
than a few minutes had gone by.

He set down the plate on the rattan table. Next
he picked up Alvaro's body, dragging it from the
armchair and depositing it face upwards on the sofa.
He had often heard comments on the media about
the deadweight of a corpse, but Alvaro's body could
not have felt lighter to his touch. He sat down beside
him and took a piece of meat from the plate and put
it into his own mouth. He chewed it. Then he spat
the masticated meat into his hand, pushed it into
Alvaro's mouth, and used two fingers to force it into
the bottom of his throat.

He repeated the operation until no more meat
remained on the plate. Then he added the pasty, a
small quantity of ham and the bread.

He had stuffed him like a turkey.

It only remained for him to hope that, if the following
day there were any doubts as to the cause of Alvaro's
death (asphyxia through regurgitation, or choking
on his own vomit) and someone decided to visit the
Alcoholics Anonymous group with whom he'd dined
on Christmas Eve, this menu would fit the bill.

Apart from that - and it was fortunate that this was
the case - Maria had lost all remnants of hunger. In
fact, he felt fully satisfied. He got up, picked up the
plate (nodding with approval to observe that at least the banana was still left for him) and disappeared into
the darkness.

15

The first thing he did when he woke next day was to
breakfast on the banana. Then he ran his tongue over
the plate to lick up the remains of the meat and a plumflavoured sauce, while conducting one of his imaginary
conversations with Rosa.

"To please other people, there's no need to be beautiful but to be horrible."

"Why?"

"What do you mean, `why'? Think about it a minute.
You have to say what others want to hear, you have to
smile at everyone you meet, you need to be impersonal,
transparent and a whole heap of other things too, all
horrible. And all to what end? In the end you die. We
all die. Have you never thought that when you die, and
all those you know die, nothing will be left of you, not
even a memory?"

"You're being very profound..."

"No, nothing profound about it, it's a cliche. What
happens is that people don't want to see it. Some
because they can't and others because they see it but...
What took place between you and that fellow?"

He was about to reply in Rosa's voice when he heard it
for real:

"Maria!"

His breath was cut short.

He cautiously left the room, confirming that nobody
else was in sight, and slipped as rapidly as possible
downstairs towards the kitchen. On his way down he heard Rosa's voice again, repeatedly calling his name,
now from the little garden adjoining the tradesman's
entrance.

There was no one in the kitchen. The outside door
was open a crack. Maria went over to the window and
looked outside. The street entrance with its grille was
also open, but Rosa was not to be seen anywhere.

A minute later, Rosa came in from the street. She was
agitated, as though she'd been running. She shut and
locked the street gate and walked back indoors: she
looked grief-stricken. Maria saw her coming and hid
himself behind the wall by the kitchen annexe. It wasn't
a very safe place, for if Rosa decided to go and fetch
something from the dining room, he'd have no escape
route onto the corridor or the staircase without being
seen. But Rosa sat down at the table, laid her head on
her folded arms, and started to cry.

Maria watched her for a few moments. Then he
retreated slowly towards the staircase, and ran upstairs
rapidly to find the telephone. He had a million questions
to ask her.

"Rosa?" he said as soon as she picked up.

"I saw you, I called you, and you behaved as if you
couldn't hear me!" said Rosa all of a rush, her voice
breaking. "Why do you do this to me, what happened
to you, what made you change like this? Why are you
playing games with me?"

Maria comprehended she must have caught sight of
someone resembling him outside on the pavement. She
had called him, run after him for a few yards - perhaps
as far as the corner, but not much further, taking into
account that she had left the house open and empty
- shouting after him without getting an answer.

"It wasn't me you saw."

"You behaved like you were distracted, you saw me
calling you but pretended you couldn't hear me!"

"It wasn't me, Rosa. You confused me with someone
else."

(Sobs.)

"Tell me, how am I dressed?" asked Maria. At that
moment, he was wearing nothing except his shirt (he
had cleaned himself up a bit that morning).

"All in blue."

"See? I'm not wearing anything blue."

"And how am I supposed to know if you're lying or
not, when I can't see you?"

Maria thought for a second.

He was on the point of saying something like "just
believe me" or "why would I lie to you?" when Rosa
asked him another question:

"Where are you speaking from?"

"From a public phone box..."

"Why don't you come here? Why do you never give me
an explanation for what happened?"

"I love you. That's the only thing which matters."

"I love you too, and that's why I want to see you. I
swear, you're doing my head in, Maria... I don't know
why... I don't understand any of it..."

"And?"

"And what?"

"Is the other guy still pursuing you?"

"What other guy?"

"Come on Rosa, let's not start that again... Who is
he?"

"It doesn't matter to you."

"You see? See, I'm right, there is another guy. Who is
he?"

"No one."

"Tell me who he is."

"First you tell me what has happened, why you're behaving like this, and I'll... In any case, it doesn't matter
that you go on endlessly about the big guy when I still
don't know why you left like you did. I thought you
loved me..."

"So he's big, is he?"

"I don't rightly know about big. He's tall."

"Do I know him?"

"I'm going to hang up. You're hassling me."

"No -wait, Rosa, this is important! I love you too..."

"I don't believe you."

"I swear to God I do. Do I know him?"

"Who?"

"Big boy, tall guy, whatever!"

Silence.

"Listen to me, Rosa. I can't tell you too much. You
have to trust me, and you have to believe me. I love you
and that's the truth. It's true that I love you. I'd give my
right hand - and half the other one - for a kiss from
you, but I can't. Listen to me carefully, my love: I can't.
I can't. You have to be patient, because at any moment
it might be possible and... well, for now, that's just the
way things are."

"Are you in prison?"

"I've already told you I'm not."

"So, what?"

"Who's the big guy you've been talking about? Do I
know him?"

Silence.

"Rosa?"

"I can't believe you going on endlessly about this.
He's totally unimportant to me. He pursues me, but I
don't even give him the time of day. The only thing I do is think of you. I feel so lonely! Even more so now...
Do you remember me talking to you about Alvaro, the
Blinders' son, who drank like a fish? Well, this morning
they found him dead in the living room."

"What happened to him?"

"In my opinion, they killed him."

"What?" asked Maria, after a pause.

"He choked on his vomit while asleep, so they said.
He's just been buried, they didn't want to give him a
wake or anything: straight into the ground. Bah - they'd
said right in front of me, they'd give him a decent wake.. .
I don't know where... but it seemed to me they couldn't
wait to bury him. Nobody around here liked him."

"Why do you say he was killed?"

"I don't know... I'm afraid."

"Who would kill him here inside the house?"

"I don't know. But don't pay any attention to me. Who
knows, perhaps it's more likely he really did choke and
here's me saying otherwise, that he... My love?"

"Yes."

"Are you far away?"

"No...,,

"Do you sometimes come as far as here? Oh, I need to
hang up!" said Rosa hurriedly. "Someone's coming. Call
me later. And don't worry, I've never told anyone you've
rung me... I've got to go. I love you."

And she hung up.

Almost directly afterwards Esteban came into the
kitchen. He was dressed as if for church, in a bluejacket,
grey trousers, white shirt, with a tie and soft shoes to
match.

"Watch out," he told Rosa, "Grandfather is furious: he
keeps on getting the engaged signal, all the time. And
on top of that, the other line is also always occupied."

"Oh my God, I must have knocked it half off the
hook... when I cleaned..."

Rosa went running up to the first floor. Maria, who'd
caught the first part of the conversation, ran on ahead
of her. He had several yards advantage over her, so
could reach the phone before she did. He took it off
the hook and, without thinking about what he was
doing, hid it behind some curtains. But Rosa was so
worried by the talking-to that Senor Blinder would give
her when he arrived, she didn't notice the curtains still
swinging.

She reconnected the phone and made the sign of the
cross. Then she looked at the phone again. It was still
warm.

16

There had been no remorse, but at the same time no
relief. Quite the opposite: he was worried. He would
have liked to talk to Rosa, to explain to her that he was
the murderer, and that he'd done it for her. He hardly
expected Rosa to pat him on the back, but he longed
to see her face (even with an expression of shock on
it), followed by a relief which he could not feel. It
was an irrational fantasy rather than a hallucination,
the product of his fantastical situation: deprived as
he was of speech, of being seen, even of making a
noise, his fantasies swept all before them. Were he not
living hidden away in the villa, but had still murdered
Alvaro, it would never have crossed his mind to admit
that he did it. And now on top of it all, he would have
to take care when he spoke to her on the phone: it simply hadn't occurred to him that someone would want to use the spare line if the main one was constantly
engaged.

For the time being, there was little to be done.
For the two or three days after their return from the
cemetery, the Blinders suspended their city walks and
imposed a limit on the number of times they left the
house. Had Senor Blinder scolded Rosa for blocking
the first telephone line, and for leaving the second one
disconnected? Probably not, although it was hard to
be sure, given that the near-constant presence of the
Blinders in their villa obliged him to stay away from
the ground floor and even, at certain times, to keep off
the first floor, where the Blinders had agreed to let the
youngest kids have full rein to play - mostly, it seemed,
at hide-and-seek.

In any case, he conducted a couple of reccies at various
hours of the day, and could detect no sign whatever of
grief among the Blinders. Instead of affecting them,
Alvaro's death seemed to have brought them together:
they went around in a band, always more than one at
a time, as though the space had drawn them in. Until
some kind of spontaneous and sudden accord returned
them to their normal routines - and as if the period of
mourning were a formality with which they were obliged
to comply - the thing they did most was to spend hour
after hour seated in the living-room armchairs staring
at the television set, seemingly both absent and pensive.
Nobody spoke, apart from the children.