During the break, I bump into Canetti, more taciturn than ever. I’m thinking about quitting, I tell him. His reaction is delayed, his eyes glued to the embers of the cigarette dying between his fingers. I’m knackered, says Canetti and starts moving his shoulders as if saying what do I care. He talks about his pains, about all his misfortunes. What a shitty life, he sighs. I stop him short. I repeat: I want to quit. And he steps back as if I were about to slap him. It arouses his full interest: resignations, dismissals and working relationships are a very sensitive topic for him. He doesn’t try to dissuade me nor does he encourage me to do it, he limits himself to advising me. He knows a lot about the subject: agreements, rights, regulations. He lists advantages and disadvantages: The important thing is to have a strategy. If you send a letter of resignation you lose, like in war, that’s how he puts it. He takes a drag, releases smoke from his nose and mouth and continues: It’s always better for them to fire you. And he adds, lowering his voice: You have to forge your own escape route, understand. Pull stunts, cause a racket without anyone noticing. Canetti’s nature is too strong for him and despite so many losses, all those miserable years, as he calls them, the rebel seed has been kept alive in him ever since it occurred to him to hatch an illness to which in some way he ended up falling victim. A kind of silent, solo revolution, neither utopian nor idealistic, but practical and mocking, that of a fainthearted martyr.
At the end of the day, I see Esteban passing between the tables and sunshades. He walks rapidly towards the lake next to a zoo employee dressed, like me, as an explorer, speaking into his walkie-talkie and gesticulating with his free hand, giving to understand that whoever is at the other end is an imbecile. This is my opportunity to clarify matters, we’ll see what happens afterwards. I take a step forward but I pause in the attempt, one foot in the shade and the other in the sun. Esteban notices my aborted impulse, and my indecision; for that reason he raises an arm and waves above his head at me, showing no hint of stopping, as if he already knows and prefers not to hear me say it.
After a week of silence, Eloísa rears her head again. She sends me two identical messages one after the other. I’m sorry, she writes, I’m really mental. And a third, at dawn: You kno I love u.
Thirty-two
Herbert comes in kicking the door. He’s in his pants, hair on end, confused expression and a pillow mark splitting his cheek in two. What time is it, I ask, my voice hoarse, sitting up in three beats. I have the book with the naturalist illustrations on top of me, making it hard for me to move. Mum says for you to go upstairs. I hear him fine, but I don’t react, I hug my legs, I stretch to grab the sheet, screwed up at the foot of the mattress, and cover myself, I feel a bit embarrassed. It’s as if he’s speaking to me in a dream, there’s no sense replying. He insists: It’s urgent. What happened, I ask silently, raising my chin. Herbert says nothing more. Message delivered, mission accomplished, he turns round and is swallowed by the darkness of the corridor. I put on the first thing I can grab, the usual jeans and a black T-shirt with studs that Eloísa left one day and never reclaimed. I leave on tiptoe so as not to wake Simón, who is biting his lips in his sleep. A warrior’s dream.
I realise that I’m barefoot as I’m climbing the stairs but I don’t go back, I’m guided by the word urgent. In fact, if it weren’t for the confusion caused by the abrupt awakening, I would almost certainly be speculating on what might be waiting for me up there. But no, I climb on blindly. On the fifth floor, I lean in, half opening the door. I risk a few steps and from the kitchen I can see Mercedes snoring, sprawled over the bed; closer to me Herbert is lying on his, his eyes tightly closed, as if what just happened was my own invention. I can’t see Sonia anywhere.
I retreat. Motionless on the threshold, I hear a hoarse shout: Here, here. The voice is coming from the other end of the corridor, some four doors further down. I feel my way forward, unable to see much ahead of me until I make out Sonia beckoning with her hand. There’s no time for greetings or explanations. I need your help, she says quietly, guiding me into the flat by the shoulder. Identical to Mercedes and Sonia’s: dining kitchen, two rooms at the sides. The one on the right is empty, in the other there are three or four children sleeping on the same mattress, criss-crossed, superimposed. Between the bedrooms is the bathroom, instead of a door there’s an iron panel which Sonia slides across to pass through, carefully so that it doesn’t come apart. She makes me enter first, she’s anxious for me to see: a naked woman sitting on the toilet, her head straining towards her legs, about to give birth. The last thing she wants is to go to hospital, Sonia breathes at my neck. The woman, only just noticing us, throws herself back, her fright slightly out of time. She has a tangle of black hair, very black, covering half her face. I give an Oriental-style bow of greeting, she ignores me. It really hurts, it’s squeezing, says the woman, addressing Sonia, as if she doesn’t entirely accept my presence. I move back, the conversation is between them. Don’t you think we’d better go? The other woman shakes her head from side to side as if possessed.
We leave the room to deliberate. Sonia tells me that last time she was in hospital for three weeks because the stitches from her caesarean got infected. They cut her right up, she says. She doesn’t want to go through that again, she explains and shrugs, I don’t know whether in reprimand or sympathy. A silence and she confirms the latter: I’d do the same as her. Another pause and she nods. Suddenly she asks me: Are you up for this? I don’t know, I say. I think about horses, cows and calves. Also about snake eggs. Yes, I don’t know. It’ll come out either way, says Sonia as if in jest, but not. We enter again, feigning impossible courage. Relax, I find myself saying, and for the first time she looks straight at me, child’s eyes, sharp and shining. Sonia positions herself behind, I take her by the wrists, helping her to stand up. Now I can see her properly: the dirty stomach about to burst, that dark, flat belly button, arms and legs so limp. The woman is a girl of uncertain age, too young to have so many children, assuming that all those in the bedroom are hers. She has double circles round her eyes, a border of very dark skin and another of ash colour, reaching the top of her cheeks. A hardened young woman. Take deep breaths, release the air slowly, Sonia recommends, showing her what she should do, a sequence of brief rhythmic puffs to direct the pushes. The girl imitates as best she can but as soon as a new contraction comes she forgets about the breathing, her posture, the two of us, and doubles up again. I want to lie down, she says, surrendering. I can’t take any more. I offer her my arm so that she can stand up while Sonia covers her with a towel. In moving, the girl translates her discomfort with a series of Ows followed by a strident click, swirling the saliva between the tongue and the palate.