Rage (22 page)

For example:

"I read the book you told me about, Your Erroneous
Zones."

"Did you like it?"

"I gave up on it."

"Because?"

"Because it bored me. I read the first part... I don't
know, it didn't seem to apply to me... The first bit is
all about... Hang on a minute, I'll go and find it, it
was lying around here somewhere... Wait for me, eh?"
She returned a few seconds later.

"It says..." she began, and started reading aloud:
"Look over your shoulder. You will find you have a companion
who accompanies you wherever you go. I liked that bit.
I remember reading it, and it made me think of you,
I swear. Do you know what crossed my mind the other
day? Look, this is what crossed my mind: that you were
here inside this house. Believe me. The other day I
found some footprints in the kitchen and I swear on my
mother's life that I went around the house with a finetooth comb - to every point on the compass - at the end
of which I felt so utterly empty..."

It was true. Maria had watched her go through every
inch of the entire house, going in and out of one room
after another, as if she'd suddenly gone mad.

"It goes on to say: For lack of a better name, call your
companion Your Very Own Death. You can choose to be afraid
of this visitor or to make use of him. The choice is yours. That's
where I started losing the thread..."

They were chatting like an old married couple, like
a workman and a maid, a married couple of the future transported to work on different planets - without
resentment, without even questioning the fact - at a
time when relationships within the working class simply
"happened like that".

They never mentioned Israel. Maria was certain that
Senora Blinder must have been aware of the fact that
Israel had been killed, so it was safe to assume that she
would have told Rosa everything (rubbing her hands
while Rosa suffered the impact of such news, and
wearing a wide if near-imperceptible smile), in the same
way that she could have sworn that Rosa knew (but in
too indistinct a manner to catch him out) that he had
been the murderer.

They had reached the perfect pitch of mutual understanding. They were at this point when Rosa's hand
squeaked and paused on the banister.

From this moment until the one when Maria came
to know his son, nothing more or less than three years
flashed by: that was the true duration of the three
subsequent days for him. In fact, Rosa went in on a
Tuesday and didn't return until the Friday, quite late at
night. And the first thing they did (Senor Blinder was
engaged on a telephone call, conducted while staring
at the television) was to settle the baby down in Senora
Blinder's bed.

"Are you serious?" asked Maria, when he next called
Rosa. "It seems to me that this is something you need to
change right now. The kid can't sleep in the Senora's
bed, the kid needs to sleep with his mother, and that's
you. Settle him down in your bed, so he can smell your
own scent, and make sure you really look at him, do you
hear what I'm saying?..."

The second matter was to find him a name. They left
the bedroom, sat themselves down one beside the other on the sofa and (while Senor Blinder, who had just
broken off communications, went off into the bedroom
to give a compromising look at the little creature) they
began reviewing the first names.

Anyone could see that Rosa was tired, and that the
one thing she longed for was to go to sleep - if at all
possible, beside her son - that she was making an
exceptional effort to quell the Senora's anxieties, all the
while she was attempting to resolve the queries around
the sleeping arrangements. Should she also lie down in
Senora Blinder's bed next to her son, or was the Senora
waiting for her to tell her she needed to rest and spend
a while alone with her son, in order for the two of them
immediately to rise to their feet, to go and fetch him,
and to bring him to his room?

While Rosa was mulling all this over, Maria learned
which gender the baby was.

"What do you think of the name Gonzalo?" enquired
Senora Blinder.

(A boy!)

"Oh no, Senora, pardon me for saying so, but," Rosa
lied, "my cousin is called Gonzalo and I could tell
you stories about him you wouldn't begin to want to
hear..."

"Or what about Federico? Federico sounds very nice..."

"Do you know which name I like the best?" asked
Rosa.

Maria bent his ear.

At that moment Senor Blinder left the bedroom with
an air so resoundingly indifferent to Rosa's new son it
was deafening. But Maria failed even to notice. All his
attention was fixed on what Rosa would say next.

And Rosa said:

`Jose Maria. That was the name I'd thought of..."

Senora Blinder straightened her spine, arched her
eyebrows, and let the hand which hitherto she had held
extended towards Rosa's face -just as if she were about
to intercept her - fall back to her knee again. Then,
at last, she froze. It was but for an instant, but it was
enough for Maria to choke with emotion.

"Jose Maria? Are you really thinking of that?" exclaimed
Senora Blinder. "Doesn't it sound a bit... forgive me for
putting it like this, but... a bit vulgar?"

"No, Senora."

"There are so many names far prettier than this
one..."

"But it's the one I like..."

"Jose Maria..."

"That's what I was thinking of, yes..."

"What do I know about it?..."

"Don't you like it?"

"To tell the truth, not much."

"It's great!"

"Listen Rosa, you're the mother here. If that's the
name you want, give it to him, but don't ask me to lie
to you about it. It seems to me there are a million and
a half other names more suitable than that one. I don't
know... Think it over."

A boy! A boy!

And Rosa wanted to give him his own name! Good
God, what joy, whatever Senora Blinder had to say
about it!... Rosa was thinking of calling him Jose Maria!
She had said so, and he had heard her. Her very words
were: "I like the name Jose Maria!" All the rest of that
list, the other million and a half names that remained
outstanding for consideration... which one of those
could possibly now usurp his own, what possible chance
could they have?

`Jose Maria, Rosa, yes, Jose Maria, he has to be called
Jose Maria, don't let them change your liking for it,"
he was telling himself a minute later, as the initial
euphoria abated.

He had only just seen him the other day, in the most
daring act he had ever committed since the day he
himself was born. He had entered Rosa's room.

It was six o'clock in the morning. Last midnight,
after breastfeeding him, and under the attentive gaze
of Senora Blinder, Rosa had succeeded in taking the
baby with her (against the musical backdrop of a
tempestuous football match). Possibly she had gone
to feed him still one more time. In any case, they
were both now asleep in the same bed together. The
crib (which Senora Blinder had rescued from some
storeroom pile at the back of the house some days
earlier, and which no doubt had been where Alvaro
had vomited his earliest months away) was placed
close at hand. Rosa hadn't even bothered to attempt
to set him down there. She had taken him directly
into bed with her.

He was magic, in every possible sense: he had a face,
he had fingers, and he breathed. Up until that point,
Maria had seen no more than a bundle, a little ball
of pale-blue blanket fringes. Now, as he approached
him, becoming slowly used to the darkness inside
the bedroom, the profile of a head was revealed, the
closed flower bud composed of cheeks, nose, chin and
mouth, all bunched together in the middle of his face,
as if his features were still being sucked back into the
nothing from whence he came.

He came a little closer.

Rosa was lying on her side, her back glued to the
wall, giving the baby practically all the space on the bed. She covered his feet with one of her hands... Maria
leaned very slowly over him until his lips brushed his
son's forehead at last.

Some days later, he would still be savouring the details
of this momentous event (the emotion, the surrounding
silence, the tenderness) to the visual accompaniment of
Neil Armstrong stepping onto the ashen floor of the
moon. He straightened up, turned around and left
the room at such a speed his shadow remained behind
him.

Rosa opened her eyes, suddenly uneasy. She cast
her eyes about the room as if she felt it still contained
another presence, and, at the end of the half-second's
review, returned to her baby, who too had now opened
his eyes.

She calmed down.

The baby didn't yet know how to smile, but he smiled
and said I am me with his eyes.

30

"Rosa?"

"Maria, how lucky you rang..."

"What's up?"

"I had a horrible dream! I woke up thinking, `I do
hope he'll ring me and I can tell him all about it,' and
here you are. I dreamed I'd taken Jose Maria out for his
walk, around that square where the Lago de Palermo is,
and..."

"Did you really call him Jose Maria after me?"

"And you told me never to ask again where you are?
Every time we talk you ask me the same thing! Of course
I called him after you. Why don't you believe me?"

"I don't know if I believe you. I just don't fall for it, and
that's another matter..."

"Speaking of falling... Do you know where the planetarium is?"

"Yes."

"I dreamed I'd taken him down there to get a bit of
sun, and all at once I saw you coming out of the planetarium. I was frozen to the spot, it was years since I'd last
seen you... As I've told you before, you appear lots in my
dreams, but in this dream I knew I hadn't seen you for
ages and it froze me to the marrow to see you suddenly
like that. You'd been to see some showing about the
moon... And you had a beard!"

"Are you serious?"

"I swear it. And you had long hair too."

"OK, so then you grabbed Jose Maria and threw him up
into the sky and then you caught him and... well it was OK
up until that point... But then you started throwing him up
higher and higher each time, and I got frantic, and in the
end you threw him so high that it took the baby something
like half an hour to come back down again! We were staring
up at the sky, but he was nowhere at all to be seen..."

"A nightmare..."

"Horrible."

"Did he come down again?"

"Yes, he came back down and you caught him. But from
when he went up to when he came down I nearly died. I
was in such anguish, you can't believe it! I was all covered
in sweat..."

"You know I'd never do anything like that."

"Yes, I do know..."

"Does he eat well?"

"He never stops!"

"And you? Are you looking after yourself properly,
eating well?..."

"Yes, normally. Do you dream?"

"What?"

"Tell me whether you dream. I've realized that you tell
me nothing, nothing about what you do... or what you
dream... or..."

"I never dream."

"Never?"

"I sleep very lightly. That probably has something to
do with it."

"They say it does you good to dream..."

"The dream about the planetarium ought really to
have been my dream, since I don't get the bit about the
name."

"How terrified it made me..."

"Was he scared when he came down again?"

"Not a bit. He was killing himself laughing!"

"You see?"

"Oh, Maria..."

"Yes, I know..."

"Could things ever work out differently... one day
perhaps?"

"You look after the baby. That's your occupation. And
it's the best way to ensure that things will work out differently one day..."

"I mean it seriously."

"The Senora buys him all the new products on the
market for newborn babies..."

"What, to eat?"

"Yes."

"But don't give up on the breastfeeding, Rosa. A
mother's milk is a basic necessity for a baby's good
health. What products is she buying him?"

"Some little glass jars of pureed stuff. The paediatrician told me that he can now start taking a few solids,
and the Senora..."

"Still keep up the breastfeeding, just the same. And
don't stint on how much you give him..."

"Right."

"Talk to him while you're feeding, or switch on the
radio..."

"You've no idea what a lovely character he has! Everything makes him laugh and then he makes me laugh
too... Anything at all makes him laugh. Pull a little face
at him and he laughs... The Senora gives him a kiss on
the nose and he laughs..."

"Your saying that reminds me of something in Your
Erroneous Zones, when they say: `It is always worthwhile
surrounding yourself with amusing people'..."

"Now he's sleeping like a dream..."

"You always keep him in sight, don't you?"

"I've got him here next to me... Shhh... wait a moment..."

"Yes, it's the Senora just arriving... We'll have to hang
up...

"Tell the baby about me, Rosa. Tell him about me."

"Yes, yes, I'll tell him, I'll talk to him... Call me later.
A kiss."

"A kiss."

31

When Jose Maria celebrated his first birthday, Maria
made his first outside call. He wanted to give something
to his son.

He rang the house of his uncle in Capilla del
Senor. It was a sunny Sunday and Senor and Senora
Blinder had gone out together. He hadn't the faintest
idea where they might have gone, those two recently
hadn't so much as exchanged two words with each
other. Rosa had gone out with Jose Maria at the crack
of dawn, to have a roast-beef lunch, in the company
of her friend Claudia. Claudia's boyfriend was the
waiter in a rotisserie overlooking the River Plate, in
the neighbourhood of Vicente Lopez. It would make
a good outing for the baby. So Maria made the most of
having the house to himself to raise his voice precisely
as much as required.