The Killer's Tears (7 page)

“I don't know.”

“Ten?”

“Yes.”

“You need a lot of money for ten lambs!”

“And also a cow!”

“Luis is really rich, then?”

“Very. He goes to the bank and asks a nice lady for money. She gives him bills. She gave me …”

Paolo stopped. He did not feel like talking about the sweet, his talisman. He feared that to reveal its existence would break its magical power.

“She gave you what?”

“Nothing. A glass of water.”

Delia laughed. “You're a funny boy!”

She passed her cool hand through Paolo's unkempt hair and gathered him in her arms. Then she kissed his cheek. Just as quickly, she crossed the yard to go back to the inn. Seeing her go, Paolo felt overcome by a sadness that he had never felt before, even when thinking about his dead mother under the mound. It was a deep, strong sadness—one that encom-passed a very private and important truth. He looked at the whip that he still held in his hand. The words
pitcher, Chile
, even
piksure
could not express his feelings.

When he woke up, Angel noticed that Paolo was no longer in the bed, and it was he who felt totally abandoned. He opened the tap of the sink, splashed water over his face, and looked at himself in the rust-spotted mirror. Did he deserve to live? he wondered. He was going to be thirty-seven, the very age his father had been when he had died of tuber-culosis. Angel put a hand on his chest. Weren't his lungs on fire too? Wouldn't it be fair if he died, even if his death did not avenge all those he had killed? Tuberculosis was a filthy
disease. He had been five when his father had convulsed with pain and spat up black blood. Ever since, the smell of blood had stayed with him.

While he had been sleeping, Paolo had left. With Luis? With Luis and Delia? If that was the case, he would make sure to die this very day, because his life would be unbearable.

He dried his face with the back of his sleeve and walked out of the room. There was no one in the corridor, but he could hear whispers and laughter coming from Luis's room. He knocked on the door.

“Who is it?”

“Angel!”

“One minute!”

He heard muffled noises and steps. Then Luis appeared at the door, his hair disheveled.

“Where's Paolo?” Angel asked.

“I don't know.”

“I saw him with the horses under the canopy,” Delia said behind Luis.

Angel looked into Luis's eyes. Unexpectedly, he smiled. Luis did not understand the meaning of this smile, but for Angel it signaled the beginning of a beautiful day. It was one more day to live and spend with Paolo, who was waiting for him under the canopy. It did not matter that Luis had spent the night with Delia; the happiness of others was not important.

“Give me some money,” he said. “I want to take the child to the harbor and treat him to a good meal.”

Luis nodded and pushed the door closed before returning with two bills.

“Treat yourself too,” he said, handing the money to Angel. “As for me, I buy paintings.” He winked.

“Thanks,” said Angel.

He turned on his heels and went down the stairs, making each step creak. He no longer felt jealous. Delia could do whatever she wanted. Luis could open a museum. He didn't care. Paolo had not abandoned him. He had only risen early.

But Paolo was not under the canopy, and the donkey had disappeared. Suddenly Angel felt as if someone had plunged a knife into his stomach. Paolo
had
left! Why? What had happened? What foolish idea had come to the child's mind? Angel rushed over to the horse and rode off at a gallop. The donkey's hoofs had left some mud traces on the pavement, but not enough to guide Angel in a precise direction. Instinctively, Angel headed straight for the har-bor. He was beginning to understand Paolo's ways. He needed to look for him where the trawlers came and went, where the artists painted them.

CONTRARY TO WHAT Angel thought, Paolo had not gone to the harbor. He had headed east of town, following a rocky path that reminded him of the one that led to his house. But this path didn't lead to a windy and desolate expanse of land. It ended at the top of cliffs overlooking the Strait of Magellan.

The donkey was tired. Paolo stuck the bridle between two rocks. His heart was anguished by many strange feelings, and he went near the edge of the cliff to contemplate the sea.

Things happen when you watch the sea for long periods of time. And gradually, as Paolo observed the waves, spume,
and birds flying against the wind, his body began to feel weightless, as if he were floating between the sky and the earth, as light as a snowflake. He could almost feel the swell of the sea, the rip currents, and when he looked down the cliff, he had the impression of crashing against the rocks, of becoming a wave. Only his hands resting on the moss kept him in touch with the planet. He had never studied geogra-phy, geology, or astronomy, but he could clearly see his role in the universe, as if a veil had been lifted, and the truth revealed.

He thought about his birth and the narrow passageway he must have opened in his mother's belly. With each breath he took, he felt he was tasting the air for the first time. He could hear himself uttering his first cry as a new-born, a cry that was in answer to all the cries given from the beginning of time, by all the generations of human beings.

What had become of these millions of babies? Some had died, others had grown up. Among them, there had been beggars, kings, sailors, and farmers; some had fought proudly with their conquistadores' swords; others had shaken with fear and surrendered, kneeling on the ground and the ashes of their homes as they prayed madly to God, or gently like wounded poets. All this humanity was churning in Paolo before the sad truth of what was breaking his heart became obvious to him: he missed the love of a mother.

He cried, alone, facing the sea.

He cried a long time.

And he cried some more.

The wind dried his tears and made white furrows on his skin. It wasn't so much the death of his mother that made him cry as the fact that he could not remember if she had ever kissed his cheek. He couldn't remember if he had ever felt from her the warmth that he had experienced when Delia had taken him in her arms. How had he been able to live without this warmth?

Behind him, the donkey brayed.

Paolo spat into the sea.

THE HORSE'S HOOVES pounded on the asphalt and its nostrils were dilated; Angel stood up in the stirrups shouting Paolo's name. He could see nothing but spots of colors and blurred shapes fleeing in front of him.

“Crazy horseman! Crazy horseman!” the people yelled.

Angel and his horse plowed their way through the crowd. They rushed toward the boats, jumped over moorings and stacks of barrels, scattered groups of fishermen and crates of fish. It was hard to distinguish who was neighing: the man or the horse. Both had feverish eyes.

“Call the police!” a woman shouted.

“And the loony bin!” added another.

With each leap of the horse, Angel's coattails went flying around him. He looked like a specter, a sorrowful creature who had come from some lost world.

At last, the specter reached the end of the wharf. The horse reared in front of the sea. Again, the man shouted a name. “
Paolo!
” Behind him, the people in the harbor were recovering from their bewilderment. Such a spectacle had never been seen before. The police had to be alerted.

While phone lines started to buzz, Angel disappeared. But when the police arrived at the harbor, several onlookers gave concurring descriptions of the horseman, so it was going to be easy to make a composite sketch. Had this man damaged anything? the police inquired. Yes. He had overturned a few fish crates and crushed some dead fish. Had this man hurt anyone? Yes. He had caused a frightened fisherman to fall into the cold and dirty waters of the harbor. As a measure of precaution, the police researched the records of other provinces and communicated the madman's profile as far as Santiago.

Angel had left at full gallop on his horse, his eyes filled with tears. He sped along the shore, on paved roads, then on wild paths where the wind played with the grass. All the while he shouted Paolo's name. Anything could have happened to him!

Suddenly, Angel saw the donkey browsing at the edge of a cliff. He pulled on the horse's bridle to slow it down. His heart stopped beating. He couldn't see the child. One step at a time, slowly, slowly, good. He didn't want to scare him.

As he rounded a thorny bush, he spotted Paolo's small body right behind the donkey. Angel's heart started to beat again. But what was Paolo doing seated at the edge of the cliff? As silent as a snake, Angel got off his horse and moved toward the child. The wind was whistling in his ears. It was fiercely cold. The vast sea spread out in front of him, and the cliff seemed to be pitching like a ship in distress.

“Paolo,” Angel whispered.

The child looked over his shoulder. Two or three meters separated them.

“I'm going to jump,” Paolo said.

Angel held back a scream. Already, small stones were crumbling under the fingers of the crying child. It would take very little to make him fall down the cliff.

“Why do you want to jump?” Angel asked.

“I want to die.”

“Why do you want to die?”

Paolo did not answer and turned his head toward the sea. Angel took a cautious step forward like someone playing Red Light, Green Light. Then he stopped, realizing just how fragile was the thread that linked the child to this world.

“May I come next to you?” he asked.

“No, you're going to keep me from jumping.”

“Why would I do that?”

Paolo looked at Angel.

“In your opinion,” Angel went on, “why would I pre-vent you from jumping?”

“Because …” The donkey twitched his ears. “Because you do all you can to annoy me,” Paolo finally said.

“That's not the real reason.”

“Oh, no? So why did you kill my parents? Why did you come to my house? Why did you give me a fox?”

Angel tried to think fast.

“I did all that, it's true,” he said. “Why? Because I'm clumsy.”

The trace of a smile came over the child's lips. “Very clumsy,” he agreed. Then his mood darkened again. “I'm going to jump now.”

“Wait! I'm not finished talking.”

The horse blew air through his nostrils. Birds cried out in the sky, high above them. Between two clouds the moon was visible, even though it was broad daylight.

“Luis gave me some money,” Angel said. “One bill for you, one for me. Why don't we go eat a good meal in town?”

“I'm not hungry.”

“We could look at the shops, at the boats, dream about another life.”

“I'm not—”

“Wait!” Angel cut him short. “Here's what I want to tell you. It's the real reason I looked for you in the harbor and shouted your name all over town. Do you know why?”

Paolo curled his fingers and felt gravel lodge under his nails.

“Because you love me?” he asked.

“Yes.”

Angel had managed to come closer. Only one meter separated them now. He could see Paolo's red eyes and tearstained cheeks.

“Do you really love me?” the child asked.

“Yes.”

Angel saw the child push against the cliff with his legs. He saw his bottom rise and his body tip over. Angel screamed and threw himself forward.

There was a jumble of arms, legs, kicks, stones, blows, and shouts. Angel had closed his arms around Paolo's thin chest and held him tight. All his strength was concentrated in his arms. He crawled back, far from the edge, the child fighting him. Even once the danger of the cliff was gone, Angel kept his hold around Paolo's shoulders. Their eyes met.

“But you'll never be my mother,” Paolo whispered.

“That's true,” Angel answered.

He sat on the ground, lifted the child onto his lap, and cradled him, slowly rocking back and forth. Without thinking, he started to sing. He didn't know how the song came to his lips—whether his own mother had sung it to him when he was too young to realize she was dying, or whether he had heard it through an open window and stolen it like everything else. It didn't matter, though. He was singing for
Paolo with the sincerity of someone who has never sung before and whose voice rises suddenly, out of necessity, with the only purpose to comfort.