He explains. Before starting work at the zoo, he spent six months tramping round the city. A tree census. It was his first job after the debacle, as he calls it. Kind of a resurrection. He took some photocopies with him so he could recognise the different species and he made notes of his findings. Just think, I couldn’t even tell the difference between a silk floss tree and a palm. He did the even sides first, following the route on a map he was given, and then he returned to do the opposite sides. Even odd, even odd, coming and going all day. He says the job changed his way of thinking. You always walk along looking right in front of you and all of a sudden I had to cast my eyes upwards.
Let’s go down here, he says, a detour, I know, but I let myself be led. Just for today. This is one of the most varied streets I’ve come across. No two trees are the same. He lists them as we advance: An acacia, an orange tree, a jacaranda, the true national flower. He falls silent and, pleased at my interest, feeling obliged to proffer a conclusion, he says: They piss themselves laughing at us. I assume he means the trees. Canetti points out a trunk chopped almost to ground level because it was destroying the surrounding paving stones. A walnut tree. At the end of the block, the dense tangle of a mulberry: the glory of rats.
All the way back to el Buti, Canetti fills my head with names, characteristics, fruits, flowerings, he pulls off some leaves so I can distinguish one tree from another. He makes me smell and suck them. When he’s not talking, he’s whistling. A funny melody that repeats endlessly, circus-like. As we arrive, he describes the trees from the corner. All ash, except for this one, he says, steadying himself against the fat trunk in front of the building, whose branches, I notice as I raise my head, collide against the windows of our flat. The only paradise tree on the block.
Benito gives me some old camouflaged walkie-talkies he found on the street so that I can monitor Simón whenever I come downstairs. He doesn’t use those words, he makes himself understood in his own way. Guttural. They work, he says gravely, with a touch of indignation, anticipating my mistrust. And he shows me how, with a matchstick, I can keep the button pressed down and hear what’s happening at the other end all the time. I thank him with a pat on the back. Sincerely.
Tosca tells me about Mercedes, Herbert’s father, Sonia’s husband. The dealer of the building. I learn that as well as providing Tosca with her morphine and Canetti with his sedatives, he sells drugs to Perico and his gang. Everyone hates him but no one dares say a word. Only Sonia calls him by his name, those inside call him Paraguay, those outside, his clients, call him the Chemist. Ah, I say, remembering the tanned faces of the two little chancers who approached me at the entrance to the building. You have to take care, Tosca adds, he’s a sly one.
Fourteen
Eloísa reappears one night, without warning, when I’ve already started to erase her from my mind again. Determined to get Simón, who’s annoyed at everything, to go to sleep, I ignore the first knocks at the door. Their persistence eventually distracts me and forces me to my feet. Who is it, I ask, exaggerating my reluctance, certain that it’s Canetti with his melancholy vibe. It’s me, I hear that unmistakeable voice, echoing as if in a cave. I open the door and Benito’s huge head fills my entire field of vision. A long silence and finally: Someone’s looking for you. He stands watching me and says: People.
I go downstairs with Simón. The hooded boy who used to guard the entrance hasn’t been there for a few days. Change of habit. Nose to the door, I peek through the crack between the sheet metal and the wall. It’s Eloísa and seeing her again is no surprise. To some extent I was expecting her. Her cheeks are puffy, red, as if she’s been running. Also, I realise when I greet her, she smells of a fresh joint, recently smoked, her eyes narrowed and sickly. Behind her is the same car she got out of the other day when we met by chance on the corner by the zoo. The full-on glare of the streetlights makes the chassis shine. You didn’t call me, bitch, that’s the first thing she says, with the deepest frown she can muster, like a mask. I’m about to tell her the sweat rubbed her number off my hand, but there’s no point, what for? She gets there first anyway: Let’s go for a drink? I’m with Simón, I say. Eloísa raises and drops her shoulders, as if she couldn’t see anything inconvenient about that until I clarify: My son. I open the door slightly further so she can see him sitting at the bottom of the stairs, a little ball of annoyance. Ah, says Eloísa, suddenly remembering what she had buried completely. That’s a bugger. Can’t you leave him with someone? I smile to say no. Come on, she says, let’s go out for a bit, my friend will take us in the car. The proof of Eloísa’s return is that she makes me hesitate. I don’t think so, I’m going to stay here, I say and close the door.
I drag Simón by the arm and almost crash into Benito, who has been lurking in the shadows, a sentry. With each flight of stairs, I nearly stop, play for time, turn back and come up with a quick lie, say that the person who might have taken care of him went out, she’s sick, or asleep, that next week we’ll definitely meet up. But the impulse to retreat clashes with a mysterious and tenacious force that makes me carry on climbing and so we arrive at the third floor and Simón turns into the corridor towards the flat and kicks the door. The heat, the humidity, something deeper I can’t fathom has disagreed with him. I give in.
Come on, I tell Simón, who doesn’t protest, sure that he has won the battle. We go up to the fifth and ring Herbert’s doorbell, he sticks his head out rather disconcertedly. Is your mum there, I ask. Herbert glances behind him and lets us in. Sonia and Mercedes are sitting at the table, they’ve just finished eating, lethargic, their eyes duplicating the television screen. Nothing, no hello, not even indifference. The first impression I have of Mercedes confirms all the stories I’ve heard about him. He’s a sitting bull. The naked torso, the square head, bushy eyebrows and a mass of tangled hair that couldn’t be blacker. He really is frightening. For a moment, I’m invisible, just long enough for a recce of the territory. It’s an ambiguous setting: unplastered walls, pipes exposed, as are the cables and the bare concrete floors. There are numerous cardboard boxes piled up on one side and a series of very new appliances: stainless-steel kitchen, a fridge big enough for a whole community, an ultra-modern washing machine. Excuse me, I say, wishing I hadn’t come. I’m about to ad-lib: I have to buy something from the Chemist. Or no, better tell the truth: A friend I haven’t seen for ages came by. In the end, it’s neither of the two, I don’t explain a thing, I’m direct: Could Simón stay for a while, I have to go out. Like dominoes toppling, Herbert and Sonia transfer my question with a turn of the head until it reaches Mercedes, who takes a while to react. He’s devoting all his attention to tearing the last bits of flesh from a chicken leg. With the bone in his hand like a pointer, he raises his brows, directs a stiff smile at me, shakes himself like a mime artist and nods with his whole body. It’s a yes, I take it as a yes, but I still can’t tell whether he’s making fun of me slightly, whether he’s suggesting that in some way I’m going to have to pay, perhaps it’s just an odd way of saying yes, of course. You stay with me, says Herbert, and Simón immediately perks up. He doesn’t even wave goodbye.