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  “Why not?”

  “He hates the police; he told me while you were in the bathroom, Eduardo.”

  “He hates me more.”

  “Do you want me to go see him?”

  “What are you going to tell him?”

  “I’ll think of something.”

  There she was again, the Celeste I didn’t know, determined and fearless. She called her niece and asked her to come early the next day to take care of my father. I took Papá to his room in his wheelchair and she helped me stand him up. While I supported him, she held the plastic urinal so he could pee for the last time of the day. I couldn’t avoid seeing his penis and I looked away. But not Celeste, who made sure he didn’t piddle outside the basin, and then she absorbed the last drops on his penis with toilet paper and pulled up his underwear. Between the two of us we put him to bed.

  It was late so she went to bed, too. I read a while, turned out the lights, and also went to bed. At two in the morning I woke to the sound of my father moaning; I was going to get up when I heard Celeste’s footsteps in the hallway, then I heard them speaking. I stayed awake for a while and then fell back asleep, but that didn’t last long. I got out of bed and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. I could hear the sound of my father snoring from the hallway. Then I stopped. My father didn’t snore like that. I retraced my steps and nudged the door a little, which was already slightly open. I recognized Celeste’s silhouette lying next to my father. Her back was to him, and he embraced her from behind. A timid embrace, as if he didn’t want to disturb her. I closed the door and went back to my room, forgetting about the glass of water.

  I tossed and turned in my bed, but I couldn’t sleep. The way my father was embracing Celeste, clutching her back while she snored, gave me a feeling of profound and hopeless exclusion. I was getting in the way. More than anything, her snoring gave a certain I don’t know what kind of degradation to my future in that house, as if I were an intruder eavesdropping on other people’s lives. I thought that Celeste and I shared that complicity which is so natural between the healthy who care for the ill. Now I realized that the real collusion was between the two of them behind my back. The real sick person in the house, after the accident (or the misfortune, as Celeste called it), was me, almost thirty-five years old and living like a kept man, because ever since they’d taken away my license we had to pay a guy to deliver the furniture store orders with our truck, which had been my principal function up to that point. My only contribution to the family business had been reduced to going over the accounts with Jaime, and I hadn’t even been able to call the futon lady, closing a practically certain sale.

  The next day I woke to the voices of Celeste and Clotilde, her niece, who’d arrived early to take care of my father. By the time I went to the kitchen for breakfast, Celeste had already left. I took a shower, got dressed, and went to the furniture store, where I spent the rest of the morning doing nothing of particular importance. By the time I got back to the house, Celeste, Clotilde, and my father were seated around the table. I didn’t usually eat with my father, because he ate lunch too early, but this time, desperate to know how successful Celeste’s visit with the Colonel had been, I sat down at the table with them. However, Celeste, occupied with raising pieces of food to my father’s mouth, didn’t look at me even once, and it wasn’t until my father finished eating and Clotilde took him to lie down, that she could speak to me, and she said I should relax because she’d forced the Colonel to promise he wouldn’t report me. I asked her how, and she said that she’d given him a neck massage.

  “And that was enough?”

  “I promised that I’d give him others.”

  “Others? How many?”

  “I don’t know, we didn’t set anything up.”

  She bent down to open the lower cupboard where she kept the dish soap, but I felt like she did this so she wouldn’t have to look at me.

  “And is he going to pay you for them?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, Señor Eduardo.”

  I watched her and I had the impression that their arrangement didn’t upset her. I would have never imagined Celeste could have made me jealous. It wasn’t exactly my jealousy but my father’s, which I shouldered for him since he couldn’t feel it for himself because of the condition he was in. At that moment Clotilde came into the kitchen to tell her aunt that she was going home. I left the kitchen and went to my bedroom. My blood was boiling, and I felt like going to the Colonel’s house and punching him in the face. But more than anything I was upset with myself, for allowing Celeste to go and visit him. I should have gone, to try to arrive at some agreement and, if we couldn’t, to tell him to fuck off and that he could do what he wanted. I wondered how far I’d be willing to go, now that he had the upper hand (the higher hands, Father Clark would have said), and how far Celeste would be willing to go to protect me. I hardly knew her at all: The once reserved, passive woman had turned into an effusive and sensual being, who in our visit to the Colonel had taken control of the situation, and she saved me for a second time in the Jiménez brothers’ house, reciting from memory the two Isabel Fraire poems. I saw her again in my father’s bed, embraced by him, but not returning his embrace, offering her back as if throwing a lifeline to someone drowning, and that feeling of gratitude and repulsion I’d found for her returned.

  * * *

  —

  THURSDAY AFTERNOON, just like she told me she’d do, Celeste went back to the Colonel’s house. Clotilde filled in for her, helped me pot some geraniums and tie up the bougainvillea guide lines that encircled the porch columns. I was waiting for Celeste’s return and kept glancing at my watch. At some point I went to her room to look for the garden trowel, which for some reason we kept in her closet. Clotilde had left her purse open on her aunt’s bed and I saw that she’d brought her pajamas. She only brought them when she spent the night at our house, on those rare occasions Celeste left to visit her son in the town where he lived. I went back to the yard and asked her if she was going to spend the night. She said yes, because Celeste had told her that she probably wouldn’t come back that evening. I almost dropped the trowel.

  “Why didn’t she tell me?” I shouted.

  Poor Clotilde, who’d never heard me raise my voice, went pale.

  Celeste didn’t return until the next day, around seven in the morning, in fact. I heard her speaking with her niece in the kitchen, and I was tempted to listen in on the conversation, but I stopped myself. Passing my father’s room on my way to the bathroom I saw that he was still asleep, strange for that hour. I imagined that he must have found out from Clotilde that Celeste would be away all night and now he too acted like he was asleep so he wouldn’t have to speak with her.

  Since I didn’t know what to say to Celeste, I decided to have breakfast somewhere else. I didn’t go to Sanborns de Piedra, because I’d planned to go there that afternoon, so I decided to go to La Oriental Café, which was on the way to the furniture store, and they made good rolls. I arrived at the furniture store just in time, because there were three customers, two young couples and an elderly gentleman, and Jaime was overwhelmed. I attended to one of the couples—they bought a queen-size bed—and then the elderly man, who flirted with a walnut desk but couldn’t bring himself to buy it.

  While Jaime attended to the other couple, I dialed Güero’s number; he answered immediately. I told him that I wanted to talk to him.

  “I can’t pay what I owe you yet,” he told me.

  “That’s not why I’m calling. Will five o’clock work, same place as last time?”

  He said yes, we hung up, and almost immediately my phone rang again. It was Mario, the Banorte Bank executive whose cubicle was next to Rosario’s. He informed me that Regino García, the taxi driver, had just picked up the little bottle of ointment and had left me one hundred pesos. I told him I thought that was strange, because Celeste had made it clear the
ointment was a gift.

  “Well, the money’s here, come by any time.”

  I told him I’d come by at once, because it was close to where I was going. That wasn’t true, but it was an excuse to leave the furniture store and to give Rosario another opportunity to apologize to me.

  It took me fifteen minutes to get there, but before I went in to see Mario I looked into Rosario’s cubicle. She wasn’t there. Mario saw me from his cubicle; he was with a customer and told me that Rosario had gone out and that she’d be back in thirty minutes. He stood up to take his wallet out of his pocket and give me the hundred pesos, but I told him I’d wait until he was free because I wanted to talk to him about my father’s mutual fund. That wasn’t true; I only wanted to wait around for Rosario to return. Mario sat back down and I took a seat in the adjacent lounge where other customers were awaiting their turn. I grabbed a magazine from the table and a person in front of me exclaimed: “Eduardo Valverde!”

  It was Humberto Reséndiz, Amalia’s husband. I stood up to shake his hand and he pointed to the chair beside him, wanting me to sit there.

  “I’m glad to see you,” he told me. “Don’t go to the house tomorrow. We called Father Clark yesterday to cancel your reading. He didn’t tell you?”

  “No. Is your wife ill?”

  “Not at all! She’s healthier than ever. She finally convinced the owner of El Caracol to host a soiree with music and poetry in honor of Maribel Fraire, and she’s running around like a crazy woman getting everything ready.”

  “Isabel,” I corrected.

  “What’d you say?” he raised a hand to his ear. Humberto Reséndiz was a little hard of hearing.

  “Her name’s Isabel, not Maribel.”

  “Oh, right.” He grabbed my arm. “We’re counting on you, Eduardo, you won’t let us down. We’ve already talked to Father Clark. There’s also going to be music. A mezzo-soprano is going to sing, accompanied by a guitarist. She seems to be a very elegant woman.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Amalia told me, but I forgot.”

  “It’s not Margó Benítez, is it?”

  “That one! Do you know her?”

  “Yes.”

  “A very elegant person; Father Clark recommended her.”

  At that moment a young executive came out of his cubicle and told Humberto Reséndiz that he could come in. Amalia’s husband stood up, we hugged, and he told me again that they were counting on me.

  I sat back down, picked up the same magazine as before and started to flip through it. I looked at my watch. Rosario hadn’t come back and Mario was still with his customer. It seemed absurd to continue waiting for only a hundred pesos. I stood up, put the magazine on the table, and left the bank.

  Now, at least, I had something to talk about with Celeste. When I got home, Clotilde had left and Papá was watching a tennis match on TV. Celeste was in the kitchen making lunch, and without any preamble I said, “Mario, the guy from the bank, called me. Remember him?”

  “Of course.” She stopped chopping the zucchini to listen to me.

  “The taxi driver went to pick up the ointment you left for him, and guess what? He left you one hundred pesos.”

  “But I told him it was free!”

  “That’s what I told Mario.”

  She shook her head and went back to what she was doing. I opened the fridge and poured myself a glass of juice. While I was drinking it, she asked me, “Do you want me to go and pick it up?”

  “The hundred pesos?”

  “Yes, there’s no need to bother yourself, Eduardo,” she said without looking at me. “I can ask Clotilde to fill in for me some morning.”

  “All morning to go to the bank and come back? It’s only a ten-minute taxi ride.”

  She blushed and said, “I’d go to the market, too. On Wednesdays there’s a street market downtown.”

  She was lying to me. She wasn’t going to any market, especially not one in the center of the city. I wondered if she was falling in love with the Colonel, because I guessed that was why she wanted to go out, to see him, and I imagined her lying next to him, her back to him, held in his arms. I thought my father would have assigned her the three p’s: purpose, prowess, and prudence. She’d saved me, no doubt about that, and she continued to save me, because if it wasn’t for her, the Colonel would have turned me in, even though he didn’t like the police.

  “No need to go out for the money, I just went by and picked it up,” I told her, and removing my wallet I took out a hundred-peso note, put it on the spice rack, and left the kitchen.

  * * *

  —

  I MADE IT to Sanborns de Piedra by five o’clock sharp. Güero was already there and he’d chosen the same table as the previous time, but he hadn’t ordered anything, so I assumed he didn’t have a cent on him. When I sat down and he asked about my father, I shook my head and told him that what he was living couldn’t be called a life, the pain in his bones was killing him and at times I wanted him to die.

  “What about him?” he asked me.

  “Him what?”

  “Does he want to die?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know? Did he tell you?”

  “No, but I know.”

  The waiter approached. He was the same one as the previous time. We ordered a León and an Indio.

  “You needed to speak to me?” he asked once the waiter had walked away.

  I told him about everything that had happened with Colonel Atarriaga. When I finished, I told him that one of his visits to the pensioner would convince the old goat to abandon his arrogant pretenses with Celeste.

  Right then, the waiter brought our beers. Güero poured his own, watching how the foam diminished in volume in his glass.

  “I know the Colonel,” he told me. “He still has a lot of contacts in the military, and we can’t step on that terrain.” He pointed at the ceiling, a clear allusion to his superiors.

  “No one has to find out,” I told him. “You scare the shit out of him and that’s all. Celeste would do anything to protect me, and he’s taking advantage of that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s making her spend the night with him.”

  “Is she hot?” he asked.

  Güero hadn’t met Celeste, because by the time my father got sick, he was no longer welcome in our house.

  “No, she’s not hot and she’s not young, but she gives a really good massage. The old man has become smitten with her.”

  “They won’t let anyone mess with a retired colonel,” he said, leaning forward in his chair. “There’s a nonaggression pact with them, you know what I mean? Leave it up to that woman. From what you’re telling me, she’ll know how to handle it.”

  “And what if she leaves my father for that old dog?” I blurted out.

  He glanced around and, lowering his voice, asked me, “Do you want me to kill him? Because I don’t see any other way around this business.”

  The waiter was on the other side of the room, but he was looking at us, to see if he could bring us something else. I took a long swig of beer, almost finishing it. Güero hadn’t taken his eyes off mine, waiting for a response, and as I didn’t say anything, he took a swig of his beer and then another until he finished his bottle. He stood up and told me he had to go. Then he added, leaning down to me, “If you change your mind, let me know. I’d do it for your father.”

  “Kill?”

  He nodded.

  “Even him?” I asked.

  “Him who?”

  “My father.”

  He watched me while I took another drink of my beer. He hesitated, then he sat back down.

  “Is that what you want?” he asked.

  “Don’t pay any attention to me, it’s just that sometimes I think he’d thank me for it.�
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  “Did he ask you to do it?”

  “Of course not. That would be like complaining, and he never complains. Seems like he’s lived his life with only one objective: never complain. It’s as if that were his mission in life.”

  “If he hasn’t asked you to do it, I can’t do anything,” he said.

  “I know. I just wanted to know.”

  “Know what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “If you can count on me?”

  I lifted the bottle to my mouth and drained it.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  He watched me and I avoided looking at him.

  “Leave it up to him,” he said as he stood, and he burped.

  He seemed confident about what he said, as if my father had already talked to him about the matter. As if everything had already been arranged between them and I didn’t have to get involved.

  “Leave it up to him.” I laughed. “Nothing’s up to him these days. Obviously, it’s been a long time since you’ve seen him, Güero.”

  I had said his name, despite myself. He could interpret that as the slightest gesture of affection, and I tried to erase that impression by taking another swig of my beer, but it was empty, and I thought, I was dealing with Güero after all, my father’s first employee, the man who’d helped him get the furniture store on its feet, and I assumed that at some point he’d held me in his arms when I was a child. Then I said, “You were seen with David.”

  “When?”

  “Five or six days ago.”

  “I haven’t seen David for two weeks.”

  “You were seen with him.”

  “Where?”

  “In El Caracol. You were outside and he was inside.”

  “What’s El Caracol?”

  “A used bookstore. It opened a few months ago. It’s at the end of Río Mayo.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”