‘There are methods,’ says Yasky. ‘Fairly effective methods, if you both agree, I can raise a request and ask for authorisation, or perhaps we don’t need to, we could always organise a session between us, a conclave, in secret, right now.’
In addition to Yasky, there are two other men, one blond with earphones, the operator, and a tall, skinny guy, the witness, who will remain standing and silent throughout the session, lighting a fresh cigarette with the butt of the previous one.
We congregate around a strange device, like a portable mixing desk. Jaime, Yasky, Eloísa, the operator, the witness and me, in that order, in a clockwise direction. When did Eloísa appear? And what is she doing sitting on my knee? I have no answer to that. She seems happy, eager to find out what might happen. The operator presses a button, turns some knobs, the machine starts up. I’m well aware that we are in the presence of a ghost-catcher, the kind you used to get in the old days. Now, except for the witness, we’re all wearing earphones like the operator’s, although not quite so sophisticated. Jaime becomes tangled in the cables, he struggles to manoeuvre the equipment and Eloísa laughs in his face. She’s stoned, it shows in her eyes, she must have smoked a joint on the way over. Now that I look closely, her blouse is undone, her tits on show, but nobody notices, it doesn’t attract anyone’s attention. The girl has no limits. The operator puts on some thin gloves, very fine and surgical-looking. Eloísa wants to touch all the buttons, I have to hold down her hands, she behaves just like a child, the operator looks at us furiously. But deep down he likes her, he’s charmed by her.
We spend the whole night waiting for some kind of sign, a gesture, but since nothing happens, or else the machine isn’t working, Boca, who all this time has been guarding the kitchen door with his gun in his hands, ‘shooting ducks’, as I thought I heard him say at one point, gets impatient and joins the witness who is setting out glasses to begin an old-style séance. Eloísa has fallen asleep under the table, curled up at my feet. Yasky tries to encourage us, Jaime has lost patience and every so often bangs the useless machine gently but nervously. The operator is confused, he feels small, he recognises his failure.
But the wait is justified. When we had already abandoned hope and were playing at making the glasses move around the tabletop, a sudden, painful, ultrasonic hum revives everyone’s enthusiasm.
The spectre would manifest itself. The time had come. But something new happened, something unsatisfactory that put an end to everything. The device gave off some sparks, exploded and then plunged us into darkness.
THIRTY-FOUR
I spend my nights awake, reconstructing, with a bit of book-work and a lot of guesswork, the history of Open Door. I prefer to sleep during the day. In the daytime I don’t dream. At night I do and the dreams, my recent dreams anyway, are too disturbing. I bought myself a cheap whisky that keeps me awake. Sometimes I wonder why I’m so interested in this particular story, when there are so many others; because it’s close, because it’s unlikely, because it’s beginning to belong to me, because I have time on my hands, could it be because of Jaime, who I want to see less and less, or Eloísa, who I want to see more and more and who is driving me to distraction.
Very early, in secret, I submerge the tip in the piss-filled plastic container and leave it twice as long as the instructions suggest, to avoid any mistakes. It’s the first pregnancy test I’ve done in my life. I never thought I’d actually be able to do it. They say that there are many reasons for periods being late: hormonal changes, mood swings, stress, traumatic situations, false pregnancies. There are women who go up to six months without menstruating for no obvious reason, on nature’s whim, just because. Then out of the blue, it returns and they have normal periods again.
Late, but just how late? I’d lost track, but it was etched on my mind that the last one had arrived the day after that first night with Eloísa. I remembered it well because when I woke up that midday with Jaime’s axe cracking a few metres from the window, I went to the bathroom to pee and the blood stains in my knickers filled me with sadness. Right then, it made no sense. My legs were still trembling, my head was still swimming from too many joints and so much crazy sex, deep sounds echoed in my ears and an exquisite tingling picked at the inside of my body. I could only think about when we would see each other again, that same night if possible. And in that instant, like a child betrayed by her own body, I thought that the blood had ruined everything.
That must have been the start of April, the first weekend of the month, the fourth or fifth, a few days after I started taking my unsuccessful trips to the morgue. And if a few weeks ago, when the idea began to spin round my head, it had seemed absurd, impossible, utter madness, later I convinced myself that yes, it was possible, I wasn’t careful and although Jaime took precautions, they’re never enough. The possibility tortured me: it struck me dumb for a couple of days. It even stopped me wanting to see Eloísa, as if I’d deceived her. But no, it made no sense. How many times had I fucked without taking care and nothing had happened? It was all in my mind, and if my period hadn’t arrived it was because I was changing, my body was speaking for me, I wasn’t made to have children. And to stop me worrying over all these stupid speculations, the best idea was to confirm that it wasn’t true. I’m not pregnant and that’s the end of it.
Ready. I leave it a few seconds longer, my eyes following Jaime’s presence as he gets lost on the way to the stable. It would be good for him to have another horse, not that he could replace the other Jaime, but at least what remains of the stable would stop being uninhabited and the heavy air that’s starting to fill it with demons would be dispelled. Here I go: I take courage and pull the stick out of the container, which spills slightly over the toilet lid because my steady hand betrays me.
I make a note: When Open Door was established in 1898, the lunatic population numbered 25; in 1912 it was 154; by 1925 it had reached 234 and they were no longer lunatics, they were internees, the mentally ill. In 2000 there are 1,964. An average of 65 new internees enter the institution every year.
THIRTY-FIVE
This can’t be right, I must be hallucinating. But no. I wake in the middle of the night between two deeply sleeping bodies, one face up, the other face down, Jaime on the right, Eloísa on the left. All three in the same bed. All three naked. The half-light makes me doubtful, but touch confirms what sight refuses to believe. My eyes cloud over: I don’t know how we came to this.
Jaime had come home drunk, drunker than anyone I’ve ever seen, his mouth hanging open, fillings on show, upper teeth clashing against the lower. Dribbling all over himself. I remember that part perfectly.
He came in acting the way horses do when a lorry passes them on the road: randy. I’m hungry, he struggled to say as he kicked in the air to shake off his boots. I want to eat. I heated up some chicken soup left over from the night before. Jaime appeared from the bedroom, stooped and puffing, with an unfamiliar erection. And what happened next was so typical and so absurd that it didn’t even hurt me. Jaime spat out the soup and right there, on the cold marble work-top, he mounted me, as a stallion would mount a mare, from behind, until he couldn’t go on.
Then he left, he disappeared, and in a while Eloísa arrived, also pretty out of it. I told her that I didn’t feel well and she massaged me and I her, and we must have fallen asleep without realising it.