Rage (2 page)

"What's up?"

She shook her head.

"Come on, Rosa, I mean what I'm saying..."

Rosa propped herself on one elbow across the bed,
looked at him and asked:

"Do you love me?"

"You know very well I do..."

"So why do you want to make me...?"

"My love, how on earth does that have anything to do
with it? We've been going out together for two months...
Do you really love me?"

"I adore you."

"Well, I adore you too!"

"I knew that one day you'd come to me with..."

"You knew it because you too wanted it. That's why you
knew it."

"The problem is, it's that I've never..."

"And I've never done it either!"

"Really?"

"Why on earth would I lie to you?"

"You've never made love like that... with anyone?"

Jose Maria bunched his fingers and kissed them,
swearing on the form of the cross. The two of them were
totally naked in a little hotel room down on the Bajo,
where they went on Saturdays. The only thing they were
wearing was their watches. Only last week Jose Maria
had bought two fake Rolexes and given one to Rosa.

Jose Maria managed to read the time on Rosa's Rolex:
it was twenty to twelve. Soon it would be noon. The time
they would have to vacate the room.

"You weren't lying to me?"

"What do you want, that I swear it you again? I'll swear
from here to China if you want. I swear solemnly before
God."

"I believe you. How idiotic, if I tell you `I believe you',
you'll think that I'm giving in..."

"Darling, let's not talk about it any more. We just have
twenty minutes left..."

"And in twenty minutes you want to do... Twenty
minutes is no time at all for such a thing!"

"Rosa, I love you."

"Yes, I know you do..."

"What does time matter if we're in love?"

"It's just that for me it's all very..."

"Just try it, whatever. Let me try it. Let's try it together."

"And if it hurts me?"

"What do you mean, hurts you? If it hurts you, I'll
stop."

"Will you love me just the same afterwards?"

Jose Maria beamed at her.

"Come here, give me a kiss..." he told her.

Rosa kissed him, but only after a pause: she knew that
the kiss meant "yes".

Beneath her reluctance, she was dying for it. She would
have given him everything and anything. If he'd had
two cocks, he could have given it to her with both. She
loved him. Her fear wasn't that it would hurt, or even
that he would lose his respect for her. The truth was that
she was not afraid of anything. Her desire overwhelmed
her, in the exact same way as her thoughts ran ahead
of her words; that was all. No, really nothing more: she
simply hadn't foreseen the time when Jose Maria would
ask to take her from behind.

They had got to know one another in the queue at
the Disco supermarket. Jose Maria was a construction
worker; Rosa was a maid in the villa belonging to the
Blinder family. He had left the site where he'd been
working (as yet still a skeleton two blocks away from the
mansion) to buy meat and bread for their midday fryup and had ended up in the line, right behind Rosa,
who had been going for her weekly shop: her trolley
was overflowing. Jose Maria calculated that the young
woman had enough purchases to guarantee a good halfhour at the till. He slid a glance at the tills on either side,
but the queues were even longer, and an ill-tempered
tutting escaped from under his breath. Rosa heard
him: she looked at the red plastic basket Jose Maria was
holding in one hand (containing one packet with bread
in it and another with cuts of meat) and said:

"Would you like to go through first?"

Jose Maria was caught off-guard by her offer. He raised
his eyebrows and made a strange movement with his
head, both shaking it and nodding at the same time.

"No, I'm fine where I am, no problem..."

He wasn't used to any kind of friendliness. That was
why, when Rosa began to take her purchases out of the
trolley, he interpreted her offer as having been more
of a reaction to the impatient teeth-clicking sound
he'd made a minute before, when he spotted the huge
quantity of goods she had bought and was estimating
how long it would take her to get through the till with
them.

"I didn't mean..."

Rosa turned and looked at him. She looked at him
seriously, silently.

"It's just that I didn't mean..." he repeated.

Sometimes he found it particularly hard to make
himself understood.

Rosa resumed leaning over her trolley and continued
unloading her shopping.

"Thank you all the same," persisted Jose Maria.

"Don't mention it."

The till operator smiled and lowered her gaze to the
carton of milk she had in her hand, as she typed in the
bar code, thinking that this guy and girl had something
going, or else they soon would. She wasn't wrong.

Once Rosa had finished her shopping (she requested
the lot be delivered to the tradesman's entrance at
the villa) and had come out of the supermarket, she
didn't leave immediately. She crossed the street and
remained within Jose Maria's field of vision, pretending
to window-shop. Jose Maria emerged a minute later, his
bag of purchases dangling from one finger. He crossed
the street directly over to where she was.

"Am I bothering you?" he asked.

Rosa had seen his reflection in the window, but
feigned surprise, even starting a little. She went so far
as to allow an "Ay..." to escape as she raised her hand
to her heart.

"You gave me such a fright!"

"I'm sorry."

"It's nothing..."

"Are you from around here?"

"From over there," replied Rosa, pointing at the villa
on the corner.

"Some cottage, eh?" observed Jose Maria. "I work on
the opposite corner, just around there..."

"Ah, yes..."

"Yes. I always come here to do my shopping."

"And what's your line of work?"

"Construction."

"Well, that has to be good..."

"Yes. Plenty going on at the moment."

"What?"

"In construction. Last year there wasn't any work. Now
things are picking up. How about you?"

"I'm a maid. It's OK."

Jose Maria smiled to himself as if he had suddenly
remembered something, and held out his hand.

"I'm Jose Maria," he said.

"Rosa," she said, holding out her own.

"Pleased to meet you."

"Me too."

"So, Rosa..."

"Yes...'

"Do you always come here to do your shopping too?"

"It's the only supermarket around here..."

"And this place is so well stocked. It even sells records. The other day I saw Shakira's latest on sale... Do you
like Shakira?"

"Wow. She sure has a voice..."

"What kind of music do you like?"

"Hmmm... Cristian Castro... Iglesias..."

"Father or son?"

"Son, all my life long. The Senora listens to the father
when she's alone. But not when other people are
around. When there are guests she puts on classical
music..." Then she added, smiling, "And they tell her:
`Oh please, turn it off, Rita,' but she just carries on...
I've no idea why she plays it if even she doesn't like it!"

"She doesn't like it but she plays it? How weird people
are... So it's Enrique Iglesias you prefer. He's called
Enrique, isn't he?"

"Yes, Enrique. But I like Cristian Castro better, he
really gets to me..."

"And you don't like cumbia at all?"

"I used to. Now I've grown a bit tired of it."

"Me too. And I grew up with cumbia. My old woman
told me that when she was pregnant with me she'd put
on the radio and it got to me through the umbilical
cord. Think about it. But you're right, in the end you
grow tired of it."

"It's not the same for me. I don't like it just because I
never liked it. But there are people who like it and will
always like it..."

"No, the truth is that I never really did. What happened
was that I didn't want to offend you because it seemed
that you..."

"Yes, you're right, cumbia touches my soul. Why would
I lie to you about that?"

"Incredible, isn't it? We've only just got to know each
other and we're already telling lies..."

"Well, they're not really lies," said Jose Maria, introducing a sense of proportion. "It's just a topic of conversation, like any other. We adapt what we say out of
respect for the other person..."

"It's prudent. And quite right too."

"Perfectly."

"That's the way it has to be. To me prudence seems...
Well, when someone tells you the truth just like that..."

"But you look like you're completely sincere..."

"Thank you."

"No, no I mean it seriously! I can look at you and see a
sincere person. What did you tell me your name was?"

"Rosa."

"Rosa. That's a pretty name."

"Thank you. Well..."

"Do you have to go?"

The conversation ran on along these lines for a few
more minutes, because they felt an attraction, and because
neither wanted to end it. They hadn't shifted an inch
from the spot on which they stood, seeming rooted to the
ground; despite the fact they were shifting from side to side
constantly, they were essentially skirting around the same
place, leaning forwards from the waist, as if the power of
attraction had caused them to lose their sense of balance.

The doorman standing at the entrance to the adjacent
building stared at them out of the corner of his eye. He
had seen the woman a thousand times previously, always
alone, but this was the first time he saw the man, and
he didn't approve of the manner in which he observed
him address her. Planted at the entrance of the building
next door, the doorman was making considerable efforts
to overhear their conversation; he caught snatches of it, odd phrases - things like "Who did you vote for?"
"No comment, voting is done in secret" - and felt a
tide of indignation rising in his throat. It was clear the
unknown man was in the act of deliberately seducing
the Blinders' maidservant.

The district lacked a code of conduct, yet everyone
behaved as if they conformed to one. Even without
it, things ran on much as usual. Rather, there was an
instinctive code, running deeper than any externally
imposed one (it had to do with the quality of one's
clothes, with skin and hair colour, with a way of
speaking or walking), and which, of course, included
domestic staff. In general terms, what happened was
that strangers were "signalled", principally on sight,
leaving them with the sensation of being spied on:
it was a highly effective form of insolence, swallowed
and put into practice by the entire district, even by
household pets. In effect, the doorman would rapidly
leave off observing them askance in order to stare
openly at them, even taking a step in their direction
the better to listen to what they were saying.

He didn't hear overmuch: it was just at the point
when Jose Maria and Rosa were saying goodbye. The
one thing he managed to hear clearly was the promise
they made to meet up again. Rosa then set off rapidly
in the direction of the villa. Jose Maria gazed after her
for a few moments, then turned around and set off
back to work.

He passed the doorman, whistling and swinging the
bag containing the meat for the grill. The doorman,
more brazen now that Jose Maria was leaving, took a
step forwards as if distracted and wishing to examine
something on the edge of the pavement, then put
himself right in the way of Jose Maria. It happened as rapidly as if he'd planned it: he wanted to force Jose
Maria to go around him, so that he could turn on his
heels and follow him with his eyes: a clear insult. What
didn't figure in the doorman's calculations (he was a
fat and flabby fellow with rounded shoulders, somewhat
unobservant despite everything) was that the unknown
man would take deep offence.

"What are you staring at, you idiot?" asked Jose Maria,
without halting.

The doorman was struck dumb, and stood there as if
paralysed. By the time he could summon up a reaction,
Jose Maria was already at the corner.

"Good God, he's so agile," he thought. "I bet the guy
could leap from one pavement to the next without
landing on the street."

A few hours later that same day, he saw him again. It
was six-thirty in the evening, to be precise. The doorman had now washed and changed his clothes and
was back in the entrance to his building making his
perpetual and enormous effort to appear bored. Jose
Maria had completed his day's work: he too had washed
and changed his clothes and was now walking towards
the Blinders' villa.

It was the first time that he had taken this route at
the end of his working day. As a matter of course he
went down the street from his workplace towards the
Bajo, where he caught the minibus in the direction of
his home in Capilla del Senor. Even thinking about the
two hours of journey ahead made him feel tired. He
passed the doorman and nodded.