As I continued to look at her, my initial confidence began to wane, as always happens: certainty is followed by doubt and uncertainty by ratification, usually only when it’s too late. I suppose that, as the minutes passed, the image of the living woman became superimposed on that of the dead woman, displacing or blurring it, thus allowing for less comparison, less similarity. She behaved like a woman of easy virtue, which didn’t mean that she was, as far as I was concerned, she couldn’t be, since, as far as I was concerned, she still lay beneath the desolation of the lights and the television left on all day and of the semen in her mouth — entirely unmerited — and the hole in her chest, which she had merited even less. I looked at her, I looked at her breasts, I looked at them out of habit and also because they were the part of the murdered woman I was most familiar with, aside from her face, I tried to get some sense of recognition, but it was impossible, they were covered by her bra and her dress, although I could glimpse her cleavage beneath her neckline which was neither sober nor exaggerated. I was suddenly gripped by the indecent thought that I had to see what those breasts were like, I was sure I would recognize them if I saw them uncovered. It would be no easy task, especially not that night, when her companion would have exactly the same intentions and would not want to surrender his place to me.
Suddenly I smelled something, a sweet, cloying smell, an unmistakable aroma, I don’t know if it was a change in the direction of the wind that wafted it to me for the first time — the wind swinging round — or if it was the first clove-scented cigarette that had been smoked at the table next to ours, a different, better-quality cigarette to be smoked with the coffee or the liqueur, like someone treating themselves to a cigar. I glanced at the man’s hands, I saw his right hand, it was playing with the lighter. The woman had a cigarette in her left hand, and the man then raised his left arm in order to gesture to the waiter, asking for the bill, his hand was empty, therefore, at that moment, the exotic smell was coming from her, she was smoking an Indonesian Gudang Garam that crackles as it slowly burns down, I had had a packet myself two years before, Dorta’s final gift to me, and I had made it last, but not that long, a month after he’d given it to me it was finished, I smoked the last cigarette in his memory, well, each and every one of them really, I kept the empty red packet, “Smoking kills”, that’s what it says. How was it possible that she — if it was her — had made the cigarettes that my friend must also have given her that same night last so long. Two years, those “kretek” cigarettes would be dry as sawdust now, an open packet, yet they still gave off a pungent perfume.
“Can you smell what I smell?” I asked Ruibérriz, who was beginning to get fed up.
“Can I look at her now?” he said.
“Can you smell it?” I insisted.
“Yes, is someone smoking incense or something?”
“It’s cloves,” I said. “Tobacco with cloves.”
The man’s gesture to the waiter allowed me to make the same gesture of writing in the air to another waiter and so be ready when the couple got up. Only then did I give permission to Ruibérriz to turn round; he did so and decided to accompany me. We followed a few paces behind the couple, I saw the woman standing up for the first time — a short skirt, open-toed shoes, painted toenails — and as we took those steps, I also heard her name, the name that she had never had for me or for Gómez Alday nor perhaps for Dorta. “You’re a lovely mover, Estela,” said the coarse man, not so coarse that he wasn’t absolutely right in his remark, which was spoken more in admiration than by way of being an amorous compliment. Ruibérriz and I separated for a moment, he went over to the car in order to pick me up as soon as they got in theirs, they weren’t travelling by taxi. When they did so, I got into our car and we drove off after them, keeping a short distance behind, there wasn’t much traffic, but enough for them not to notice us. It was a brief journey, they drove to an area of suburban houses, the street was called Torpedero Tucumán, a comical address to send a letter to. They parked and went into one of the houses, a three-storey house, lights were lit on every storey, as if there were already plenty of people there, perhaps they were going to a party, supper followed by a party, that guy was really going to a lot of trouble.
Ruibérriz and I parked the car and stayed where we were for the moment, from there we could see the lights but nothing else, most of the blinds were pulled halfway down and there were lace curtains that didn’t move in the wind, you’d have to go right up to one of the windows on the ground floor and peer through a crack, we might even end up doing that, I thought quickly. It immediately seemed to us, though, that it couldn’t be a party, because there was no music drifting out through open windows, no sounds of anarchic conversations or laughter. The blinds were only up on two windows on the third floor and you couldn’t see anyone in there, just a standard lamp, and walls without books or pictures.
“What do you think?” I asked Ruibérriz.
“I don’t think they’ll stay very long. There’s not much fun to be had in that house, apart from the intimate kind, and those two aren’t going to spend the night together, not there at least, whatever kind of place it is. Did you see who opened the door, did they have a key or did they knock?”
“I couldn’t see, but I don’t think they knocked.”
“It might be his house, and if it is, then she’ll be out again in a couple of hours, no longer than that. It might be her place, in which case, he’ll be the one to come out, much sooner too, say about an hour. It might be a massage parlour, that’s what they like to call them now, and then again he’ll be the one to leave, but give him about thirty or forty-five minutes. Lastly, there might be a few select poker games going on, but I don’t think so. Only then would they spend the night there, losing and recovering what they’d lost. No, I don’t think it’s likely to be her house. No, it can’t be.”
Ruibérriz knows all the different territories in the city, he has experience and a good eye. He doesn’t need to ask many questions and he can find out anything or locate anyone with a couple of phone calls and perhaps a couple more made by his contacts.
“Why don’t you find out for me whose house it is? I’ll wait here, in case one or other leaves unexpectedly. It wouldn’t take you long to find out, I’m sure.”
He sat there looking at me, his tanned arms resting on the steering wheel.
“What is it with this woman? What are you after? I didn’t get a very good look at her, but I don’t know that she’s worth all this fuss.”
“Not for you probably, as I said. Just let me see what happens tonight and I’ll tell you the whole story another day. I just need to know where she lives, where she hangs out or where she’s going to be sleeping tonight, when she does finally go to bed.”