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  “Do not worry, Amalia Reséndiz gave me the list of those who are going to read and you are not on it.”

  Far from feeling relieved, I loathed her. She’d taken me off the list of readers after my sloppy performance at her house and I could almost swear she’d suggested that Father Clark use me as the stagehand for the event even though I was the driving force behind those poetic soirees. I deserved it.

  “Ofelia told me that you’d like me to say a few words about Isabel Fraire,” I told the priest, remembering what my sister had said.

  “Yes, but I consulted Amalia Reséndiz and she thinks it is not appropriate.”

  “Fine,” I snapped.

  We hung up. The soiree was in honor of a poet no one knew anything about and, nevertheless, saying a few words about her seemed to be inappropriate. I should have said to hell with everything, but I couldn’t be rebellious with three people already having dropped out of the home reading program. The possibility of cleaning toilets in the public hospital terrified me.

  Efrén finally got one of the bookcases attached to the wall. I started to fill it with books, but I had to stop halfway through, because it was getting late, I was sweaty, and I needed to go home and take a shower and change my clothes. When I told Abigael, he motioned me over to the cash register. He opened the top drawer of the small dresser beneath it and told me to take a look. It was a black pistol with a mother-of-pearl handle.

  “I just bought it, it’s a Beretta, an automatic,” he said lowering his voice.

  “What do you need that for?”

  “One never knows.”

  “Is it legal?”

  “More legal than your birth certificate.”

  He raised his finger to his lips as if it were our little secret and closed the drawer.

  “Do you know how to use it?” I asked him.

  “I’m taking lessons at a shooting range, not far from here. We should go together sometime. It would be a good idea for you to have one around, too.”

  I nodded, because maybe he was right. I told him we’d see each other later, left the store, and went home.

  Ofelia had taken my father and Celeste to her house to eat, planning to leave for the bookstore from there, which meant there was no one in the house, something completely unusual, and I couldn’t help thinking that it would be like this when Papá died and I let Celeste go. I couldn’t imagine living alone inside those walls where I’d spent my whole life. Would I continue to go to Sanborns de Piedra, living a life of seclusion, or, the other extreme, would I host parties and soirees like the Reséndiz couple did?

  After I showered, I changed shirts, but I put on the same jeans I’d been wearing to avoid being called to the stage by Amalia Reséndiz or Father Clark to replace some reader at the last minute. I went to the kitchen to make myself a sandwich and a cup of coffee. While the coffeepot was heating on the stove I went into Celeste’s room and opened a drawer in her nightstand and went through her chest of drawers and closet, looking for a letter, a picture, some object related to Colonel Atarriaga, something to indicate the level of intimacy between them. But I didn’t find anything. I went back to the kitchen, ate my sandwich, drank my coffee, left the house, and hailed a taxi.

  When I got to the bookstore there were already a lot of people and I was afraid there wouldn’t be enough chairs. We’d done everything humanly possible to give the place an agreeable appearance: the bookcases lined with books looked imposing, and thanks to them the bookstore seemed more elegant, even classy. However, Efrén hadn’t shelved the books correctly; they were sticking out too far, on the edge of each shelf, and I pointed this out to Abigael.

  “They’re like that because we had to make two rows,” he told me. “They wouldn’t fit in a single row.”

  I had a bad feeling about that and I went for a closer look to make sure. The excessive weight of the extra books, combined with Efrén’s shoddy work with the drill, had caused the lag screws that attached the bookcases to the wall to emerge from the wall anchors a few millimeters, therefore jeopardizing the overall stability of the bookcases. In fact, one of them had already started to draw away from the wall a little at the top. I asked Abigael where Efrén was and he told me he’d gone to pick up a group of elderly people from Father Clark’s Christian organization.

  “The bookcases aren’t fastened to the wall very well and they could fall over; we should take down the second row of books to lighten up the shelves,” I told him.

  “I can’t, I’m busy at the cash register, you do it,” he told me.

  “I just took a shower,” I objected.

  “So once Efrén comes back, we’ll tell him to do it.”

  A young man approached to ask about a book and Abigael led him to the back of the bookstore, down the long corridor that now, thanks to my bookcases, seemed spacious. Maybe because of that I remembered these two lines: “There are avenues so wide, / that crossing them becomes another avenue,” and when Abigael returned to where I was standing, I recited them and asked if he was familiar with them. I saw him turn pale; he looked at me as if I were joking and asked how I knew those lines. I told him I wasn’t sure, but I’d probably heard them from my father.

  “That’s one of my wife’s poems,” he said lowering his voice and staring at me. A silent telegram crossed between us. He seemed to be waiting for me to explain. I didn’t say anything, but I felt a profound disappointment when I realized that Isabel Fraire and my father hadn’t known each other and that he’d become fond of Isabel’s poetry thanks to Abigael Martínez’s wife, and it was because of her that my father’s phrase, the one about our city not having a soul, only swimming pools, had come to Isabel Fraire’s ears.

  “My wife’s name was Ivonne,” Abigael told me, studying my reaction to that name, a name I’d never once heard cross my father’s lips. Was he hoping that Papá would discuss his love affairs with his family?

  “I’ve never heard him say that name before,” I told him.

  “Tell me the truth,” he insisted, coming so close his face was almost touching mine. He had bad breath. He was pleading with me, in spite of his gruffness, and I saw a man tormented by jealousy, even after the death of his wife, whom I imagined had been taller than him, with black hair and a sensuous mouth, a mix of Margó Benítez and Isabel Fraire.

  “I swear,” I told him, holding my breath so I wouldn’t have to smell his.

  He moved his hand to his pocket and took out his wallet. I assumed he wanted to show me a photo of his wife, but he changed his mind, put his wallet back, and moved away, calming himself down. I could have left then, but I lacked the courage to walk out on everything a little less than half an hour before the soiree began. Anyway, my father was going to arrive in a few minutes and I was tormented by the thought of Abigael’s Beretta in the drawer beneath the cash register. I didn’t know what the man was capable of. At that moment a customer approached to ask him for a book, he said to follow him, and I took that opportunity to sneak way to the other side of the bookstore. I took out my cell phone and called Ofelia, who told me she was on her way with Celeste and my father. I told her it wasn’t such a good idea to bring Papá.

  “Here we go again! I think we’ve already talked about that.”

  “Yes, but I’ve just discovered something.”

  “What? Speak louder.”

  “I can’t shout,” I told her.

  “I can’t hear you.”

  The call dropped and I had to hang up. I looked around for Abigael, who was at the cash register, where a modest line had formed, something never before seen in that bookstore. Other people wandered around the shop looking at books and thumbing through their pages. I went back to the bookcases, where a few customers were browsing the shelves, and I leaned against the most dangerous one to secure it against the wall.

  People continued to arrive and Abigael couldn’t keep up with the sal
es. Father Clark came in and, when he saw me, came straight over. I noticed his shoes had recently been shined.

  “I am glad to see you, Eduardo,” he said, turning to look around the whole bookstore. “I am going to be the master of ceremonies. Amalia Reséndiz asked me to. The readers will come in when everything is ready. I want to tell you something,” and he took me by the arm to steer me to the corner, but I didn’t let him move me, so I wouldn’t be separated from the bookcases. He was surprised by my resistance and I told him the truth: “This could fall over at any minute, and I’d rather stand here so I can hold it up.”

  I don’t think he understood me, but he said, “That seems reasonable to me,” and then went on to tell me about David, Tatis Reséndiz’s boyfriend, who’d disappeared the previous afternoon. Tatis had received a message from him that morning telling her not to look for him and that she should be careful.

  “Careful of what?” I asked.

  “We do not know. The poor woman will not stop crying.”

  I thought he was going to ask me to read in her place and I got out in front of that: “Look how I’m dressed, Father, and I haven’t prepared anything. I didn’t even bring my Isabel Fraire book. Beyond that, I’m worried about this bookcase. Someone has to stay here and keep an eye on it.”

  “No one is asking you to read, Edu.”

  “Please, don’t call me Edu.”

  “Your sister calls you Edu.”

  “I know, I’ve asked her not to a thousand times and she still calls me Edu.”

  “Understood. I am not going to ask you to read in her place, Eduardo, Tatis is a professional and she will do it, no matter what happens,” he said.

  A professional screamer, I thought to myself.

  He leaned against the bookcases I was holding up with my body, and I was afraid one of his sudden movements would pop it out of the wall. He specialized in damaging walls.

  “Don’t lean on the bookcase, Father,” I told him. He didn’t understand and I had to tell him again.

  He stepped away from it and, in a hushed voice, said, “I have been told something I do not like, Edu…excuse me, Eduardo,” and he informed me that this David character, apparently, had been meddling in some dirty business.

  “What you mean to say is that he’s a criminal?”

  “Something like that, and they are looking for him.”

  “The police?”

  “No, the chiffchaff like him.”

  “Riffraff,” I corrected.

  “Do not tell Tatis about this.”

  At that moment, someone called to him from the door and he told me, “I will be right back and I will tell you more.”

  But we didn’t have an opportunity to keep talking because a small blur of elderly people, led by Efrén, entered, some in wheelchairs, others with walkers, and Father Clark had to coordinate how to accommodate them in the available space. The walker users were seated in the last row of chairs and those who were in the wheelchairs were put in front of the stage, which provoked the discontent of the first ones, who protested what they considered an unjust act. Seeing that the elderly contingent had already been seated, the people who’d been roaming around looking at books decided to take their seats as well and the room filled to near capacity in less than a minute. I tried to get Efrén’s attention to ask him to help me remove the second row of books from the shelves, but I saw that the disgruntlement rippling through the elderly in the last row occupied him completely, and between him and Father Clark they were unable to make any progress calming the complainers down. Right then, another elderly man in a wheelchair entered. It was my father, pushed by Celeste. They passed in front of Abigael, who didn’t see them because he was at the register ringing up a customer. I raised my hand to catch Celeste’s attention and pointed to a place at the end of the row formed by the wheelchair gang; it would be more difficult for Abigael to see Papá there. Celeste wheeled him over and stood beside him. I motioned for her to come to where I was.

  “And Ofelia?” I whispered in her ear.

  “She’s parking the car.”

  “Is my father wearing a diaper?”

  “Of course.”

  I looked at Papá, who looked back at me without recognizing me. Everything must have seemed so strange to him in that space crowded with people. At least a year had passed since he’d left the house and worn ordinary clothes. He was looking for Celeste, who was beside me, and he had that drowning-man expression I’d seen in his eyes when he’d tried to recite Isabel Fraire’s poem from memory. His eyes lingered on her, but Celeste, mesmerized by the excitement that prevailed in the bookstore, wasn’t paying attention to him. She was wearing the same Indian shawl as the last time we went out, and it occurred to me that this garment somehow changed her inwardly, transformed her into someone else.

  “Go back to him, he’s looking for you,” I told her, and in the self-sacrificing way she approached my father I saw that her days in our house were numbered, and I hoped once again that Papá would die sooner rather than later.

  Then another wheelchair appeared. It was Margó. Aurelia was pushing her and Rómulo Esparza followed, carrying his guitar case. Father Clark walked with them to the front of the room, the crowd suddenly fell quiet, there were whispers, and a few people applauded the entrance of the mezzo-soprano, who smiled timidly. She was wearing a simple cream-colored blouse, black slacks, and low heels. Her hair down, dark black and wavy, covering half of her face, made my heart race. There was no way she didn’t see me, but she avoided looking at me. The priest wasn’t sure if he should position her on the stage already or mix her in with the wheelchair gang. They decided on the stage, the priest himself pushed her there, and Margó, when she passed in front of me, ignored me once again. The one who didn’t ignore me was Aurelia, who was there to escort her employer, and as soon as she recognized me, she gave me one of her lavish smiles, which everyone noticed and, consequently, made people notice me, who’d gone unnoticed until then. Some must have asked themselves what I was doing next to the bookcase, standing there doing nothing. They didn’t know that I was securing part of the staging. Aurelia’s unbridled smile in front of a room full of people once again made me question her sanity, and I thought that if the poor woman was nuts, Margó knew, and if she knew, she shouldn’t have placed any merit on what she told her about me kissing her daughter under the table. She was too intelligent to be rattled by something so trivial. Instead, knowing that I could still hide under a table with a little girl and hold her in my arms, had made her feel hopelessly old and too inadequate for me. Perhaps she felt like I was still too restless, and that had depressed her, making her ask herself what she could offer me from her wheelchair. Her flowing hair, and her marvelous, insensitive thighs? Little Griselda had toppled her with a simple prank. I looked at her, longing for her to look back at me, but she didn’t. Had she turned to look at me, she would have understood that I’d never betray her, and that her skin, her hair, and her sensuously raspy voice were so much more redeeming than her condition. Hoping for some sign from her, I’d moved away from the bookcase without realizing and I stood there, separated from it, which triggered the beginning of the disaster.

  The poetry reciters, the declaimers rather, entered, all of them men and wearing tuxedos, led by the dolled-up and glistening Amalia Reséndiz, who was wearing an unfortunate embroidered white blouse, a huipil, which fell to her heels. Like a murder of crows behind a chicken, they were received by another murmur from the audience. There were five of them and they took their seats in the first row, which had been reserved for them, beside Rómulo Esparza; Amalia Reséndiz sat in the middle. I recognized three of the starchy gentlemen who’d read at her house the week before. There were still two empty seats, and Amalia motioned to Father Clark, who signaled to the back of the room. Tatis Reséndiz, wearing a spectacular olive-green evening gown and open-toe high heels, entered on the arm of her u
ncle. Humberto Reséndiz wore a tuxedo like the declaimers. They slowed their pace so everyone could admire them; an aura of delicate ridiculousness encircled them as they walked toward their seats, with Tatis escorted on her uncle’s arm as if uncle and niece had mistaken the modest bookstore stage for a church altar and the poetry soiree for her wedding. Amalia Reséndiz, perhaps noting how laughable the situation was, began to applaud, followed by the declaimers, and the applause propagated throughout the room, while Tatis and her uncle sat down in the two remaining unoccupied seats in the first row.

  Then Father Clark approached the microphone and opened the poetic and musical soiree in honor of Isabel Fraire, not a single book of whose could be found in the entire bookstore.

  * * *

  —

  IT WAS MARGÓ‘S BEAUTY that convinced Amalia Reséndiz to change the program order on the spot. She’d envisioned a first part dedicated to the five orators, to be followed by Margó’s musical intermezzo, and then Tatis would close the evening triumphantly. But Amalia Reséndiz must have sensed, observing Margó concentrating in her wheelchair, that she was the real gem of the evening, and she changed the order to spare her niece an unpleasant close, sending her into the fray after the last orator had returned to his seat. Not one of them had learned a single poem by Isabel Fraire, something I appreciated because they would have destroyed them, and because of the way things turned out, Isabel Fraire was mentioned only once during that tragic soiree.

  Tatis Reséndiz had just situated herself in the middle of the stage when I noticed something pressing against my back, as if someone were pushing me, and it wasn’t until that moment that I realized I’d moved away from the bookcase. The anchors couldn’t hold the weight on the shelves, causing the bookcase to come away from the wall and a whole row of books on the top shelf fell to the floor. Tatis screamed in surprise and the towering piece of furniture, even though I tried to hold it with my back, fell over. Everyone shouted and stood up from their chairs. That’s when the first shot was heard. The bookcase hurled me onto the row of wheelchairs, which I rammed head-on, knocking three old people over with me. Then the second and third shots were heard. It was most likely the bookcase crashing down, with the subsequent scene of panic that it produced, that caused the shooter to continue firing in such a hurried manner, and that saved Tatis Reséndiz’s life, wounded as she was in only one arm. The bookcase collapsed onto the stage and grazed Margó by a hair. The photograph that portrayed my landing on the wheelchairs, which coincided with the first and second gunshots, appeared the next day on the front pages of the local newspapers and led to the conclusion that I’d thrown myself on the old-timers to protect them from the gunfire, thus saving their lives. Proof that the assassin was also firing at them came from the third shot, aimed at my father who was at the far end of the row of wheelchairs. It was in fact the only shot of the three fired that found its target. The bullet entered his right temple. Margó remained motionless while the crowd screamed and rushed to the exit, her hair covered her face which, inclined over her chest, seemed to have achieved its highest degree of concentration, then blood soaked her blouse and it was ascertained that the second shot, also aimed at Tatis, was the one “that caused the death of the beautiful mezzo-soprano, who found herself right behind Señorita Reséndiz, the principle target of last night’s cowardly attack,” as stated the following day in the largest newspaper in circulation in our city.