At a service station, recently opened on what always used to be wasteland, Eloísa is waiting for us with a can of Coca-Cola, chatting to a guy in a vest and mirrored glasses. Iris looks at her angrily, the same anger I feel towards her for being so stubborn. It’s getting on for five in the afternoon, Simón wants an ice cream, Iris to go back, Eloísa for us to accompany her to a pool bar to see if anyone she knows is there. Going for none of these options, we walk the few blocks to the shopping centre and stop at a kiosk. We sit down with a giant bag of crisps on some brick steps in front of a hairdresser’s: Styles. For Eloísa, we cease to exist for a while. She devotes herself to sending messages, one after another. She is electrified by the responses, which the mobile announces with the gasping of a hysterical girl. Finally she addresses us: There’s something on around eight, you coming? She says she’s going to meet her school friends and some other guys she hasn’t seen for ages. And she adds: What will it be like to see everyone again?
I wake at dawn with a start: the iguana is walking across my cheek.
Twenty-eight
Time with tortoises. Giant ones, from Aldabra. Relatives of those from the Galapagos. The female isn’t as restless as the male. Esteban taught me to distinguish between them, explaining something about concave and convex. A characteristic that allows copulation. I’ve spent two months coming and going without paying any attention to this naturally lit tank at the centre of all my movements, with its tree trunk, pool and mattress of rotten vegetables. Tomato, carrot, celery and a thousand mysterious little green pieces. The rain and Yessica’s absence force me to find a pastime and my feet lead me to contemplate these two fantastic beasts. I stand in the corner, my forehead supported where the walls join, occasionally glancing up to see whether anyone’s approaching and intercepting them in the aisle to check their ticket. Two minutes of observation are enough to humanise them, to project myself into the enclosure, into the slowness, to load all that weight on my shoulders. The female won’t acknowledge me at all, always motionless by the side of the pool. The male, almost twice her size, he certainly moves, initially erratically, circling her, chasing something with black skin, it could be aubergine. I try to count the rings on the carapace to work out his age, impossible, I immediately get lost. A loud voice brings me back to my post. It’s a tall, slim woman, her wrists covered by metallic bracelets, chink chink chink, and five children flitting round her like gnomes. I wait for them to disappear and return to the tortoises. The male, now, to my surprise, is up against the glass, right where I had been standing. Courteous or standing guard. When I’m face to face with him, not before or after, he stretches that aged alien neck of his and strikes the glass with his rapacious beak. He calls me, challenging, he wants something. And not just one blow, there are several, phlegmatic, but rhythmic, like a code. Here I am, he seems to be saying. A statement, a threat, a greeting. Since I can’t interpret it, he stares at me and the pecking accelerates. I could swear he’s saying something about captivity, his ancestors and all the humans he’s seen pass by. As many living as dead, for me. Can’t you see? They’re all here, engraved on my retinas. Before he starts speaking, I lean towards his fellow beings, the land tortoises. Much more numerous, mobile and superficial, incapable of making eye contact. Terrestrial.
Eloísa asks me to meet her a few blocks from Axel’s house. She writes: HV 2 C U URGENT. There are eleven text messages in the day and since I’m not going to reply to any of them, she calls: Why do you never answer, dickhead? She says we’ll meet at eleven at the pizzeria before the bridge. I’m about to refuse but I stop myself. Since Herbert is still at home I ask whether he can stay with Simón tonight. No problem, there’s never any problem.
The bus drops me at the door, a minimalist kind of place, television high on the wall, facing mirrors from floor to ceiling, illuminated photos of pizzas and three guys eating standing up at the endlessly multiplied counter. Eloísa hasn’t arrived. I prefer to wait outside, up on the bank at the edge of the train tracks. I look towards the avenue to see whether she’s coming. Ten minutes, fifteen, nothing. A couple, a guy alone, another couple, two boys on skateboards. From the darkness of the bridge, a strange figure is becoming clear, it could be Eloísa but it isn’t, much taller and with shining hair. The night spins out the intrigue and I take advantage of being on this slope to conceal my surprise. It’s her: white fur coat, miniskirt, transparent silk blouse, high heels and a wig.
I walk down to the pavement, I question her with my hands and discover that she is also plastered in make-up. A rookie transvestite, slight, inexperienced, taking her first steps on the street. But Eloísa’s bitter expression contrasts with her crazy appearance. I’m so fucked off with it all, is the first thing she says and she ushers me into the pizzeria. We sit on stools at the end of the bar. Eloísa takes off the coat, rolls it up and rests it on the foot rail. A thin, hairy, tame dog. However far away we move, all eyes are infectiously drawn to us. Eloísa is the target, of course, I’m just part of the package.
The fat cow caught me in the dressing room looking for the key to the safe, that’s how she begins. She didn’t see me, I’m sure, she came in two seconds later, but I really shat myself. You have no idea. I told her there was a fancy dress party and that Axel said I could use his old lady’s clothes. Almost the truth. She says that Orfe kept watching her as she started trying on dresses, wigs and shoes. She wouldn’t go away and Eloísa had the key in her hand and couldn’t leave without returning it to its place. She was there for half an hour not knowing what to do. Total bummer. Finally I put on this coat and d’you know what the old bitch says? I shake my head. What are you supposed to be going as? she imitates Orfe’s voice, like a stupid bird. A right whore I almost told her, Eloísa laughs loudly and as she talks and drinks beer she gets worked up like a man.
Now that we are no longer a novelty, we entertain ourselves watching television like the rest of the customers in the pizzeria. A hot-air balloon has lost control and is flying aimlessly, guarded by two aeroplanes that are trying to guide it to the sea. Underneath, on the screen, it reads: Prisoners fleeing by balloon caught mid-air. We fantasise that the ropes get tangled with the wings of the planes and they all go under together. The images are being transmitted live from Arizona. But our attention doesn’t last long, the guy behind the bar, in charge of packing up pizzas, stretches out an arm, changes channel, sighing as if he doesn’t believe any of what they’re saying, and puts on a boxing match.
We get two slices of napolitana each and Eloísa returns to the matter of the robbery between mouthfuls. I’m going to have to kill her, she says and throws out a wild, foamy cackle. I laugh with her and, seeing her properly, I don’t understand why she’s still wearing the wig. And the key, I ask. All fine, the old bitch got tired and eventually left me alone. You won’t regret it, she fires at me and I can’t remember saying I would join in her plan. It has to be this Friday. Axel’s going to the psychiatrist at one on the other side of the city and Orfe’s going to cook with the nuns. There’s no danger of anything. With just one of those rings we’re made. For them it’s a just a bonus. What difference can it make to them? Since I don’t answer, she becomes bold and tries out a phrase that surprises even her: You’ll see, we’re going to start a new life. Eloísa is animated by what she has just said and repeats the last few words, over-articulating, as if she’s found the slogan she was looking for: A new life, do you realise?