‘So where’s the money, Chelín?’
‘There’s nothing left, Brinco. They played that trick with the aeroplane. Went and stole it. I thought it was them when it was someone else.’
‘What are you trying to tell me, Chelín?’
‘You have to help me, Brinco. They’re after me. They’re going to kill me!’
Víctor tore back the sleeve on his left arm. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake! For the love of God! Hadn’t you given this up, you prick?’
‘Don’t leave me, Brinco, don’t leave me…’
The lights in a few windows had gone on. The first sign of complaints.
‘No, I won’t leave you. It’s not your fault. Let’s get out of here. Come on!’
Inverno pushed back the levers in the junction box to turn on the floodlights. The football pitch lit up. Chumbo took a throw-in. Víctor Rumbo was leading Chelín by the shoulder. Not violently, but holding on to him. They walked towards the nearest area. It was cold on that large open pitch and Cora waited behind, trying to warm herself up with her own embrace. The boss called to her, however. ‘Come on, you.’ And she obeyed, moving like a tightrope walker, her heels sinking into the grass.
‘Don’t fuck me, Brinco. What the hell are we doing here?’
‘What do you think? We’re going to play!’
He pushed Chelín into the goalmouth. As he was talking, he placed the ball on the penalty spot.
‘We won a lot of matches together, remember? You were a fucking great goalie. OK, a good one. A guy I could trust. Isn’t that right?’
In the middle of the goalmouth, Chelín looked disorientated, shipwrecked. But the position he was in helped him. He remembered the keeper he’d been. Stood tall. A little bit.
Brinco gave himself a run-up to take the penalty. But then suddenly turned to Cora.
‘Why don’t you take it?’
‘I’m not sure I can.’
Cora took off her shoes.
‘Oh, come on, Brinco! Don’t let her take it.’
‘Go on, girl.’
Cora ran barefoot and kicked the ball with all her might. Chelín tried to save it. A dive to one side, at the limit of his strength, which left him lying on the ground, moaning softly.
The others left. He saw them from where he was lying. With their backs to him. Cora’s shoes, which she held in her hand. The only thing similar to a farewell.
He tried to get up, but his body preferred to remain on that bald patch of earth. His eyes were taken in by the leathery, indifferent line of grass, the goalkeeper’s nightmare.
‘I always brought you good luck. What do you think?’
Carburo cut a strange, solitary figure that night in the Ultramar. In a white apron, static as papier mâché, his arms crossed, an angry expression, rooted in front of the television. The map of isobars. There was a knock at the door. He used to like haranguing the weatherman. What had happened to the weatherman? Perhaps he was a fugitive and this was him at the door, seeking shelter.
There was another rap at the glass door. The beating of a tambourine. Carburo moved the curtain and saw it was Brinco. With merry company. Just what he needed. He opened up silently. He wasn’t the kind to pretend he was pleased to see you.
‘Evening, Captain Carburo! We’ve come to ride out the storm!’
‘What storm?’
Brinco laughed. Carburo’s permanent bad mood always struck him as funny. Having climbed the stairs, on the landing he embraced Cora around the waist from behind. They walked like this, swaying slightly, covered and uncovered by the curtains the wind puffed out.
‘How well you ride the wind!’
When he saw the door of the suite, Brinco’s expression changed suddenly. Became tense. Hardened. Looked back.
‘Fucking wind! Why don’t they ever shut the blasted windows?’
‘What you looking at?’
‘The sea!’ Cora seemed moved, like someone who’s found an image she’s always dreamed of.
‘The sea? Aren’t you sick of looking at the sea?’ Brinco went over to the window. ‘Besides, you can hardly see it.’
She knew he was half drunk. She’d started to know him well. The other half filled sometimes with electrified passion, others with a sickly blackness. When he spat out his words, she didn’t flinch.
‘Yes, you can. It’s on fire.’
‘On fire, eh? That’s good, girl. Stay where you are.’
She stayed. On the bed. Gazing through the window at a sea that could be seen and not seen. Víctor went into the bathroom and switched on the light, the door half open. He looked at himself in the mirror. This sweat. This unfamiliar sweat. He rinsed his face with cold water. And again. Looked at his wet face. Raised his fist to break the face that was now in the mirror. But in the end moved his fist aside and banged the wall. Had difficulty breathing, as after a long fight. His forehead pressed against the mirror. The freshness.
Cora came over to the door. Didn’t push or look. Just whispered, ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Every night I smash a mirror with my fist. It’s a custom of mine…’
He glanced at her, and, used as she was to the tones of his voice, this time she couldn’t say whether she was the witness or object of his hostility. Unsettled, she went back to the bed, to her side next to the window, and slowly began to undress.
Brinco came out of the bathroom and went to his side of the bed, in the half-shadows. He lay down in his clothes, face up.
Everything registered a mute silence. In a move that was in fact defensive, Cora went over to him, naked, not touching him, but curling up into a ball.
‘The sea brought you as well, didn’t it?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know…’
‘The key!’
‘He’s got it,’ said Carburo meekly. With this woman he only knew how to obey.
‘The other key!’
All the wind piled up for years on the landing, like grass pressed inside a silo, was exploding. The nightmare was bursting inside her eyes and she flung open the door.
Brinco and Cora lay on the bed, both naked. Hearing the door creak meant sticking his hand under the pillow, in search of his weapon.
But he soon saw it was Leda.
Leda carrying something in her hand. One of those leather-bound bibles with a zip. Leda opened the bible and shook free the dollar bills that floated down on top of the bare bodies.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘I’m buying her. She’s mine. She’s free!’ shouted Leda.
She grabbed Cora’s arm and forced her to stand up. In the middle of all this uproar, Cora glanced at the sea, the ashen paste, the oily fringe of foam. As for the rest, scraps of evanescent mist.
Leda grabbed her shoulders. Shook her about. Talked to her violently of freedom. Freedom which for Cora had a double meaning. Was always used as a threat. She’d crossed borders, as a mule, with condoms stuffed full of money inside her vagina or her digestive tract. On the verge of exploding. Why not try to buy off this policeman? The way he looked at her was very like this woman shaking her. You don’t know whether what they want is to set you free or hold on tighter. It was better not to try. The border policeman was in on the loop. Luckily she caught the gesture he made, the axial connection with the guy waiting at the checkpoint.
‘You’re free, understand? I don’t want to see you round here ever again! Take that money and leave.’
Leda released the girl and from the doorway shouted at Víctor, who was getting dressed in an appearance of calm. Patience. The storm would soon pass.
‘As for you, you bastard, go to the football pitch.’
She’d disappeared down the landing, swallowed up by eternal waves of curtain, when he finally registered what she’d said.