Abelito Caballero, left alone in the now silent room, suddenly became aware of an excessive weight on his back and realized that he hadn’t removed his knapsack, which he proceeded to do, and then blew his nose to clear the stuffiness brought on by the smell of damp that permeated the parlor. Folding his arms, he settled down to wait, until he spotted the flicker of a small presence in one of the corners. Getting up, he discovered, crouched behind a chair, the thin, shy girl who had come to the door yesterday and today. If you want, we can set up the military parade again, he said, and when she nodded, he took the lead soldiers out of his knapsack and they got to work, the two of them kneeling on the floor. I’m Abelito, I don’t think I told you my name yesterday. And my name is Eugenia, I didn’t tell you mine, either.
Meanwhile Portulinus went looking for Blanca all around the house and found her at last in the larder, What the devil are you doing in the larder, confound it Blanquita, come at once! there’s a prodigy in the parlor, he announced, dragging her by the hand, Come, Blanquita darling, come and meet him, it’s the boy, he’s playing “The Greedy Cat” on the piano, hurry, it’s the boy! it’s Farax! and she, alarmed to see her husband in such a state, tried to calm him and allay the intensity of his outburst, Don’t make things up, Nicholas, how can it be Farax when Farax only exists in your dreams, Quiet, woman, you don’t know what you’re saying, come, you must meet Farax.
SO THIS, AGUSTINA princess, is how we came to the end of the farce, because life sets the stage, and we little puppets dance to whatever tune they play for us. What happened was that this Dolores and the loser with the whip put on their act, a pretty vile spectacle but since there’s no accounting for taste when it comes to sex, I bet you can’t guess who was thrilled out of his skull by the cheap violence, well who but Spider, I don’t think I’d be exaggerating if I told you that nothing had ever sent him into such ecstasies, I swear I saw him turning purple in his wheelchair shouting at the pimp, Hit her harder! Stop playing, get serious! Hit her for real! and obnoxiously egging him on like a paralytic Nero sending the lions in to wreak havoc, drunk with delight.
It was then that I decided to go up to my office and wash my hands of that miniature Roman circus, because although you may say, Agustina doll, that I’d put up with anything for Spider’s sake, this was so depressing that even I had to draw the line. His little squeals of glee, not to mention all that giggling and squirming, overrode my sense of duty; he may have been baptized in a starched christening gown and his great-grandfather may have brought civilization to our country, but he’s still a yokel with no scruples who struck it rich, and I promise you, Agustina doll, that that night he was like a happy Neanderthal, but since everything changes from one minute to the next, and when you least expect it what’s white turns to black and what’s black turns to white, in that same way Spider’s satisfaction with Dolores’s tricks began to turn to annoyance, The thing isn’t working quite right, Midas my boy, he told me, puffing so hard he could barely get the words out, this woman is 80 percent swindler and 20 percent actress, and there’s plenty of moaning and fake wailing and crocodile tears, but almost no true feeling; it’s been rehearsed so carefully that there’s hardly anything real about it. And how could I explain to Spider that this wasn’t the moment to be picky, since after all the woman wasn’t Our Lord Jesus Christ, about to let herself be crucified for some random Christian’s sexual salvation.
But you know how far Spider is willing to go to satisfy his urges, Agustina doll; it was more than clear that his thirst for the pain of others wouldn’t be satisfied with ordinary pantomime, so he demanded that the woman be submissive and docile, and questioned the pimp’s professionalism and dedication to his duties as whip-wielder, and since neither of the two paid much attention to him he started getting on my back, hinting that it was my fault for not lining up a real show, a more convincing scenario, so right then and there, I, Pilate McAlister, washed my hands of it all; Spider had already laid the blame for his erectile dysfunction on me once, to give a scientific name to the problem afflicting his floppy dick, and as obsequious as I may be, Agustina kitten, I wasn’t going to take the rap again.
So I shut myself up in my office, lowered the blind of the window that overlooks the gym so I couldn’t see anything that was going on down there, took a hit of weed, and immersed myself in Pac-Man, which is what I do to take my mind off things that irritate me. Pac-Man, adorable Agustina, is the greatest invention of the century; when you’re playing Pac-Man there’s no pain or love or regrets, and your thoughts are no longer your own, so I turned on the monitor, hooked up my electronic toy, and let myself be hypnotized.
I wasn’t myself anymore, Agustina darling, just a little ball all mouth and teeth, a ball roaming the labyrinth and eating pellets to give me strength to wipe out the little ghosts that crossed my path, and I started to win bonus points and my score went through the roof, because you’re looking at the world champion of that stupid game, Agustina princess, I swear the bastard hasn’t been born who could beat me at Pac-Man, I can gobble up the entire pellet supply in a single round, and if every so often I could hear Spider bellowing for blood from downstairs, I pretended it had nothing to do with me, I was remote from it all and looking out for number one, pac, pac, pac, eating pellets and darting around my labyrinth, I was just a little ball with a wild craving for pellets and a primal hatred of ghosts, and if any female cry reached my ears, I pretended not to hear it, I’m sorry, Dolores my girl, I can’t help you, you’re off my radar, but of course sometimes she would make some frightening noise and then I would get nervous and distracted, letting the ghosts take over, and Pac-Man lost lives like crazy.
It’s not that I’m sentimental, but I made the mistake of talking to Dolores before the show, I had brought her up to my office to settle the bill and we chatted a little, just the usual small talk, and when I gave her the money, I added a tip that she thanked me for on behalf of her little boy and that was when I committed an inexcusable error: I foolishly asked her what her son was called and it turned out that his name was John Jairo, or Roy Marlon, or William Ernesto, one of those double-barreled bilingual names, but the problem was that the boy crept into my consciousness, because putting a child at risk by torturing the mother is hardly my style, and that’s why I was so jumpy.
Then the great performance, that vaudeville of lashes and hooks and skewers and pinches and butt-slapping, reached its climax, and suddenly everything was quiet and from down below, the noise of the gym machines started up, the old familiar hum of the pulleys, the sharp clang of weights falling into place, the clatter of the presses, and I relaxed, thinking that the two escorts, Paco Malo and the Sucker, having had their fill of sadomasochism, were warming up on the machines now, Go for it, you flabby pair of thugs, let’s see you lose those little bellies you started at L’Esplanade, I thought, putting some disco music on full blast for them to work out to, and I submerged myself in Pac-Man with maniacal concentration, I don’t know how many hours I spent like that, Agustina doll, I swear that when I’m playing I lose all track of time, pac, pac, pac, opening and closing my big mouth and devouring pellets, pac, pac, pac, around and around the labyrinth overrunning ghosts, and I would’ve kept it up all night if the Sucker hadn’t stuck his head in my office to say that there was a problem and Mr. Spider needed me downstairs. Holy Mary Mother of God, I sighed, stopping the game and trying my best to be patient, because who could bear Spider whining and begging forgiveness for his latest erotic-sentimental defeat and demanding that I set up the next extravaganza for the next day, and when I got down there he was looking very old and very fat and infinitely weary in his wheelchair, So what’s the problem, Spider my friend, I asked condescendingly, The problem is that the little woman kicked the bucket, Midas my boy, God save her soul.