He hears the elevator arrive, the doors open, the key being inserted into the lock. Anibal walks by his door and says hello without looking at him. Three seconds later, Maisabe is standing in the doorway. The Glock is resting on Giri’s lap, where his wife cannot see it.
How are things? Good. How did it go? To tell you the truth, this business of taking Anibal to catechism school precisely at rush hour is enough to earn me my place in heaven. I thought you’d already earned it. Are you hungry? A little. There’s steak. Good. Salad or mashed potatoes? Whatever you like. Okay.
As she enters the kitchen, she has an attack of silent rage against her husband. The remains of a ham sandwich on the kitchen counter has turned into a restless mass of ravenous ants. Maisabe hates these industrious and tiny insects that, in all the years they’ve lived in this apartment, they’ve never managed to exterminate. She picks up a small pot, turns on the hot water tap and places the pot under it. With a familiar groan, the flames of the instant hot-water heater spread a blue hue over her movements, and as the pipes heat up the water they emit a painful cry. While the pot fills with water she observes the ants carrying their crumbs, rushing to and from the food, crossing paths, stopping briefly, as if to chat. They are ruled by an orderly frenzy. She places the pot next to the edge of the counter and, using a kitchen towel, pushes the sandwich and the ants into the pot. The insects stop moving the second they touch the hot water. She, on the other hand, can touch it without getting burnt very much at all. She throws the water and the dead ants down the sink, picks up the remains of the wet bread and ham and throws it in the trash can. The hot water streaming out of the tap washes the cadavers down the drain, and the yellow rag finishes up those who are dispersed and disoriented, dazed. One last ant crawls around the counter in circles. Maisabe looks at it and, once it finally decides on a direction, smashes it with her thumb, the exoskeleton making a cracking sound as it breaks. She looks at the remains, the internal organs squished on her fingertip, and she is tempted to put it in her mouth. Instead, she rinses it off under the water. She takes out the cutting board and places a slab of meat on it. She picks up the wood meat pounder and brings it down on the meat, watching as the small veins break apart and the meat fibres bleed.
Her mind travels to a future after Giribaldi is dead, Anibal has left and Roberto… who knows? She imagines herself alone in the world, alone in life, making the first, only, and last free choice: to swallow an entire bottle of sleeping pills. In her mind’s eye she sees herself as an old woman, lying down on her bed to die. She sees herself dead. The ants, in patient procession, come to devour her. Her body will be communion for those indefatigable creatures whose only god is hunger. By the time someone finds her, there will be nothing left but bare bones; her flesh will have become part of that despicable army of obedient and minuscule beings who will remain in the house to torment its next residents as they have tormented her. In the end, the ants will be the victors, no matter how many she kills.
14
Alone. Lost. Confused. Wandering the streets. Surrounded by rushing strangers. Pursued. Hunted. Dressed as a construction worker and carrying a bag loaded with disorderly bundles of dollar bills. Trying to catch his breath, to calm down. Trying, without success, to quiet the wild beating of his heart, which is making him dizzy. Gasping for breath. The sirens of the police cars bounce off the buildings full of respectable white-collar workers. The adrenaline courses through his blood, prevents him from thinking, readies him for only fight or flight. Rage clouding his vision. His awareness that this state of mind is his perdition. Just when he feels his last edge of sanity cracking under his step, thunder echoes and it begins to pour. Strong, furious, as if it will never cease. A dense, ferocious rain, one that seems determined to wipe the human race off the face of the Earth. A rain that slows the rush and increases anxiety, that destroys the makeshift hovels of the poor and spoils the parties of the rich. A rain that forces suits paid out in six instalments to take refuge under the eaves and balconies, and their contents to look up to the sky, begging for a reprieve that will allow them to get to work on time. That’s when Miranda the Mole begins to walk under the downpour. Refreshed, renewed, composed. He thinks about Duchess. As if she had sent him this storm to abate the squall within. He walks for blocks like that, calmly, until he enters the mouth of the underground. He lets the first train go by. The platform is momentarily deserted. He stands behind the newspaper stand, takes off his soaking-wet overalls and stuffs them under the stand. His suit has yellow stains on it.
When he re-emerges at Primera Junta station, the rain has turned into cold, sharp needles. He enters a second-rate clothing shop. He leaves behind him, to the astonishment of the sales people, a trail of water that could almost have been blood.
In the changing room he takes off his stained clothes, puts on some new ones, and dries the bag off with the old. In this minuscule space of privacy he slips his thirty-eight under his belt, takes out ten bills of a hundred dollars each, puts four in one pocket and six in the other. He bundles up his used clothes and stuffs them under a broken-down stool. He ignores the salesman who helped him and walks resolutely up to the cash register, where a smarmy man is doing some bookkeeping. He’s the one in charge. You can tell because he looks like a rat. Miranda places six bills on the counter, in piles of two, two and two.
These two are for the clothes. Give me two hundred australes for these two. These two are so you’ll keep your mouth shut.
He subtly adjusts his jacket to show his weapon.
If you ever saw me, I’ll come back and kill you. Understand?
The rat immediately evaluates the deal on the counter: just one of those Franklins pays for the clothes and one more covers the amount of Argentinean money the man wants. He nods, picks up the six bills with his effeminate fingers, and stuffs them into his pocket; then he opens the register and places three bills of fifty australes and five of ten on the counter. He turns back to his bookkeeping as if Mole didn’t exist. He never saw him.
Goodbye, sir, thank you very much.
Miranda walks out slowly. Along the way, he picks a raincoat off the rack, pulls off the price tag and throws it on the ground. Once outside, he trots to the corner, and with one small shove steals the only free taxi away from an elderly gentleman.