Irma, who had scarcely been paying attention, had to bring her head closer to the radio. In the fourth round she said thank you God and went to call the children. The neighbours woke up when they began to hear the imperious tone of the broadcaster coming through the wall. ‘Something’s happening at the Parinis’,’ said the neighbour and put on his radio. The commentator declared that in all these years this was Néstor Parini’s first good fight. And Néstor Parini wondered if it was for that, to hear them say that, that he had spent thirteen years punching a sandbag.
Irma brought out nuts. Patiently she opened them for her children, who were sitting on the floor in their nightclothes. She had put on every light in the house. The three of them sat together around the radio, on tenterhooks, not wanting to miss a single word. Rubén explained to Anadelia what a cross was.
‘Dad’s winning and you’re crying,’ he said to his mother. ‘What is it with women?’ And he asked her not to wake him too late the following morning. Because he’s got something to do tomorrow. Out in the street. Irma thought how beautiful life can be, how beautiful life is when your husband starts to become somebody.
And Néstor Parini asked himself again if it was all for this. For what was left to him: to win his next four matches against four poor bastards who hardly know how to stand up and to hear Irma celebrating him as if he had accomplished a feat; to hear her in ten years’ time telling some neighbour that her husband had been a boxer in his youth. And to know that nobody, not even the dogs, will ever remember Néstor Parini. If it was for that that he had torn his heart out. And wrecked her life. And made my own son hate me.
The commentator said that perhaps this lad Parini could still retrieve his form and give us a few more good matches.
And Néstor remembered his vast shadow and grew to the size of his own shadow, lifted himself to the heights from which there’s no return and said, no. Not for that. And he landed a formidable blow right in Marcelino Reyes’ liver. Not for that. And he punched him in the kidneys. Not for that. And his fist described a cold parabola, then smashed into Marcelino Reyes’ testicles.
The spectators roared their indignation, the commentator gave shrill explanations, Irma put the children to bed, the neighbours told one another that Néstor Parini had gone mad. And Néstor Parini kept hitting, right up until the moment when the referee ended the match.
Two hours later, while a hundred thousand people were still trying to find a motive for this extraordinary behaviour, an ambulance travelled across Buenos Aires. And sometime later, when Irma had finally struck on the most beautiful way to ask her husband’s forgiveness, a police officer came to inform her of the death of Néstor Parini. He said that he had thrown himself under a train for reasons still unknown.
BISHOP BERKELEY OR MARIANA OF THE UNIVERSE
‘How much longer till Mom comes home?’
It’s the fourth time Mariana has asked that question. The first time, her sister Lucia answered that she’d be back real soon; the second, how the heck was she to know when Mom would be back; the third time, she didn’t answer, she just raised her eyebrows and stared at Mariana. That was when Mariana decided that things weren’t going all that well and that the best thing to do was not to ask any more questions. Anyhow, she asked herself, Why do I want Mom to come back, if I’m here with Lucia…? She corrected herself: Why do I want Mom to come back, if I’m here with my big sister? She blinked, deeply moved by the thought. Big sisters look after little sisters, she told herself as if she were reciting a poem. How lucky to have a big sister. Lucia, with large guardian-angel wings, hovered for a second over Mariana’s head. But in a flash the winged image was replaced by another, one which returned every time their mother left them on their own: Lucia, eyes bulging out of their sockets, hair in a furious tangle, was pointing a gun at her. Sometimes there was no gun. Lucia would pounce on her, trying to rip Mariana’s eyes out with her nails. Or strangle her. The reason was always the same: Lucia had gone mad.
It is a well-known fact that mad people kill normal people, which meant that if Lucia went mad when they were alone together, she’d kill Mariana. That was obvious. Therefore Mariana decides to abandon her good intentions and asks again, for the fourth time, ‘How much longer till Mom comes home?’
Lucia stops reading and sighs.
‘What I’d like to know,’ she says (and Mariana thinks, She said ‘I’d like to know’; does one say ‘I would like to know’ or ‘I should like to know’?) ‘What I’d like to know is why in God’s name do you always need Mom around?’
‘No.’ Now she’ll ask me, ‘No what?’ She always manages to make things difficult. But Lucia says nothing, and Mariana continues, ‘I was just curious, that’s all.’
‘At twelve.’
‘What do you mean, at twelve!’ Mariana cries. ‘But it’s only ten to nine now!’
‘I mean at twelve, six and six,’ Lucia says.
Mariana howls with laughter at the joke; she laughs so hard that for a moment she thinks she’ll die laughing. To tell the truth, she can’t imagine anyone else on earth could be as funny as her sister. She’s the funniest, nicest person in the world, and she’ll never go mad. Why should she go mad, she, who’s so absolutely terrific?
‘Lu,’ she says adoringly, ‘Let’s play something, okay? Let’s, okay?’
‘I’m reading.’
‘Reading what?’
‘Mediocre Man.’
‘Ah.’ I bet now she’ll ask me if I know what mediocre man means, and I won’t know, and she’ll say then, ‘Why do you say “Ah,” you idiot?’ Quickly she asks, ‘Lu, I can’t remember, what does Mediocre Man mean?’
‘The Mediocre Man is the man who has no ideals in life.’
‘Ah.’ This lays her mind at rest, because she certainly has ideals in life. She always imagines herself already grown up, all her problems over, everyone understands her, things turn out fine, and the world is wonderful. That’s having ideals in life.
‘Lu,’ she says, ‘we, I mean, you and I, we’re not mediocre, are we?’
‘A pest,’ Lucia says. ‘That’s what you are.’
‘Lucia, why is it that you’re so unpleasant to everyone, eh?’
‘Listen, Mariana. Do you mind just letting me read in peace?’
‘You’re unpleasant to everyone. That’s terrible, Lucia. You fight with Mom, you fight with Dad. With everyone.’ Mariana lets out a deep sigh. ‘You give your parents nothing but trouble, Lucia.’
‘Mariana, I wish you’d just drop dead, okay?’
‘You’re horrible, Lucia, horrible! You don’t say to anyone that you wish they would drop dead, not to your worst enemy, and certainly not to your own sister.’
‘That’s it, now start to cry, so that afterwards they will scream at me and say that I torture you.’
‘Afterwards? When afterwards? Do you know exactly when Mom will be back?’
‘Just afterwards.’ Lucia has gone back to reading Mediocre Man. ‘Afterwards is afterwards.’ She lifts her eyes and frowns as if she were meditating on something very important. ‘The future, I mean.’