I won’t be able to sleep with the unstoppable racket in and outside the building, the cumbia music, the shouts, the explosions. I think about Iris, about her extremely pale face like an old-fashioned porcelain doll’s, about her eyes always full of amazement, about her fortitude and fragility, about how if Jaime hadn’t died, if what happened with the house hadn’t happened, if we hadn’t arrived on the day of the floods, if we’d been accepted at the first hotel we tried, I would never have met her — it makes no sense. The idea saddens me. The alcohol is getting the better of me too. If it hadn’t been for Simón in my arms, instead of consoling Iris with those cold pats on the back, I’d have given her a real embrace. And a kiss. It would have been the most natural thing to do.
Twelve
The twenty-fifth dawns with a tremendous hangover. The stairs of el Buti smell of vomit and urine or, at best, of spilt alcohol. The events of the previous night flood back to me with the rhythm of an unpleasant reflux, a mixture of food, white wine and that bad champagne. And with each retch, as if I were also bringing up leftovers of memory dissolved in the body, Iris’s face appears to me, her sudden mood swings, from ecstasy to tears and back to her cackle, her stories, the parade of dishes I’d like to erase from my mind, the fried frogs, the roulades, the cubes of jelly that wouldn’t stop wobbling, as well as the party on the street — these were all the images that had stolen into my dreams.
My head hurts so much that my only relief comes from complete immobility; I barely change position, even millimetres make it explode. I stay like that, face up, watching a corner of the ceiling where there’s a bend in the pipe that leads nowhere. It takes me a few minutes to make out two large beetles camouflaged by the grease covering this iron elbow, one on either side of it. They must be between four and five centimetres long. They are so still that anyone would think they were drawn on. It’s a strategy, as if they are studying their next step. Just as I’m starting to think they’re not going to move at all, at least not until I stop watching them, one of the two, male, female, impossible to tell, takes the initiative and begins to turn in circles like a dog chasing its tail. But it goes beyond that, it makes a decision and flies over the pipe to join its lookalike, as if to surprise it. But no, it was waiting. Each knew about the other, they scented each other, one supposes. They play, hyperkinetically, their legs clash until they freeze once more, this time both on the same side but facing in opposite directions. I can no longer tell which is the adventurer. All I know is that while one keeps moving its antennae, the other plays dead. Simón sleeps until half eleven.
My nursing duties aren’t suspended in spite of the holiday, but the timing is a bit more relaxed today. Tosca is in a bad mood, she regrets having had a drink. I’m stupid, she says but she doesn’t look that bad, she just likes complaining. She offers me a piece of sweet bread that falls apart on the way to my mouth. As I prepare the syringe, Benito, standing in front of the television, releases a seguidilla of farts. It’s not the first time he’s done it, nor does it particularly annoy me, but today, because it’s just occurred to him, or could it be that he’s beginning to trust me, instead of hiding them as he usually does, he amplifies them, duplicating them with his mouth in a counterpoint that’s as funny as it is repugnant. At the third or fourth fart, which is actually between six and eight, if you count the echo, Tosca, who didn’t even appear to notice, lets out a shout that makes everything shake: Benitoooo! But he pays no attention, and she doesn’t seem too bothered, it was just a shout, the necessary closure for the series of double farts.
Now that Tosca is beginning to feel the effect of the morphine, I avert my gaze and concentrate on Benito, who has taken refuge in a corner of the room. A dark, stooped mass, will he cry? Benito is one of those people who have such an impact at first sight, inspiring such intrigue as well as repulsion, that the natural instinct is to leave him alone. The idiot boy, cow-head. People aren’t keen to confront him, not so much because of what he might do to them, more because they don’t know how to treat him.
Apart from Tosca, who calls him by his name, everyone else in the building calls him Bear. Some, behind his back, call him She-Bear. His only formal occupation consists of managing the buckets of water that are hauled up the rope to the various floors of el Buti. Kind of like a water-boy. He is also in charge of putting the rubbish into giant sacks and taking them out to the pavement. Other than that, he devotes himself to watching television, eating and taking devices apart. A heap of junk, says Tosca, nodding towards Benito’s corner. Mobile phones, radios, speakers, printers, whatever he finds. He only breaks them apart, he doesn’t fix them or resell them. The pieces accumulate on a magnetic board, forming a mountain of screws, circuits, microprocessors, it’s impossible to distinguish the origin of any of it. The result, he’ll show me some time later, is some strange baroque sculptures suggesting torture, darkness and pain. Among his creations is a tower, at least a metre high, permanently oscillating.
On Saturday I go back to work. On the way to the zoo, something I can’t put my finger on is nagging at me, something outstanding, unresolved. I see Iris in the distance and everything becomes clear. I remember that she’s going to start working double shifts so she can buy her father a plane ticket, that she won’t be able to look after Simón any more. I have a week to find a solution.
I’m withdrawn all afternoon, half listening to Yessica’s Christmas stories. At two in the morning she went to a disco in the arse end of nowhere, so she says, out in the country, a party with some friends of her boyfriend, who never showed up. A complete downer. The worst thing was that the boyfriend didn’t answer his phone the whole night and only sent her a text message at three the following afternoon. If I see him I’ll kill him. She also tells me about a fight during the meal at her house, between aunts, uncles and in-laws, but I pay no attention.
I bump into Canetti and he reproaches me for not having gone up to drink a toast with him. I was worn out, I say, and he frowns to show that he’s upset. Annoyance makes him laconic, which saves me from his interminable chatter for once. The rest of the day passes without note. The threat of a storm that never breaks means fewer people come.
At times my mind returns to the matter of Iris and Simón but I get nowhere. The time of year complicates things. I rule out a nursery, deciding that, if I have to pay someone, I’d be better off not working at all. In fact, I seriously consider the possibility of resigning and looking for something on the injection side of things. I’d often heard talk of the lack of nurses. I could even take Simón with me, I don’t think anyone would mind. But I get swamped by the idea, I end up in a muddle, I’m not used to thinking so much. To forget, I rest my eyes on a fixed point, a goose, a Coca-Cola sunshade, the sun broken up by starchy clouds.