“You have a flashlight?”
“Yes.”
The woman gave me the flashlight.
“Be careful. I’ve told you the horrible things that have been happening with me, haven’t I?”
“You ought to go to your apartment in the city.”
“It’s worse there. I had to disconnect the telephone because of the calls in the middle of the night, threatening me. And there are people following me in the street. Here, at least, there are bars on all the windows, and the doors are metal. Take the revolver.”
“It’s better if you keep the revolver. Lock the door. And don’t go looking out through the window.”
It was a large country estate. A lawn with flowerbeds ringed the house. In the middle of the grass, a swimming pool. In the rear, the caretaker’s house and the garden. The rest of the estate was woods and large trees, which made the night even darker. Stone benches were scattered among the trees. I sat down on one of them, in the magnolia grove. I waited, with the lit flashlight on the bench.
Sonya emerged silently from the darkness and sat down beside me on the stone bench.
“Did you leave the revolver where she could see it?”
“I left it in her hand. I’m following your plan.”
“Listen to this noise,” Sonya said, taking a recorder from her purse and turning it on. It sounded like the moan of someone dying. “Doesn’t it sound like a ghost?”
“You two are lucky there’s no dog here.”
“There was. We poisoned it. Jorge poisoned it. When’s she going to use the revolver?”
“She’s scared to death, let’s wait a bit. Who’s Jorge?”
“If you don’t know, I’m not going to tell you.”
“Why do you want the woman dead?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“I’m going back to the house. Turn off the moans. That’s enough for now.”
“Don’t forget our agreement,” Sonya said. “This has to be taken care of within three days. If she’s still undecided, you put the bullet in her head yourself.”
I went back to the house. The woman opened the door, holding my revolver. She was trembling, her eyes wide.
“What was that noise?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? I heard it. Do you think I’m crazy?”
“No.”
“I know, I know you think I’m crazy.”
The woman pointed the revolver at me.
“Tell me the truth. You think I’m crazy. The caretakers thought I was crazy and ran off one night without saying a word. I’ve just heard a loud moan, the sound of a soul in agony, like mine, and you tell me it was nothing? And this revolver with no bullets? Is that how you were going to defend me? With an unloaded gun?”
“How do you know it’s not loaded?”
“I put it up to my head and pulled the trigger six times. Nothing happened.”
“I forgot to load it. I don’t know how that happened; I’m very careful.”
“You removed the bullets because you thought I was crazy and would shoot myself.”
“I’m here to protect you. Go to sleep. Tomorrow we’ll talk.”
“Don’t speak to me that way. I’m very nervous. Come sleep in my room.”
“All right.”
The woman lay down without taking off her robe, covering herself with a sheet. I sat down in the armchair in the room. All the bedrooms had armchairs and their own bathroom.
She looked at me from the bed, sighing like someone about to cry.
“Come over here, hold my hand.”
I held her hand.
“You have large hands. Did you used to be a manual laborer?”
“No.”
“Have you always been a companion for sick people?”
“When I was young, I spent two years pushing an old man’s wheelchair. It was the best time of my life. I liked to read, he had thousands of books, and I spent all day reading.”
“I’ve never seen you reading here.”
“I haven’t had time yet, and your books don’t appeal to me.”
“I’m sorry. And after you worked in the house with all those books that appealed to you?”
“Then I took care of the old man.”
“Was he mentally ill?”
“No. It was a sickness of old age.” The guy killed himself, with my help, but I wouldn’t tell her that. “Now try to get a little sleep.”
“Am I crazy?”
“No. You’re just very nervous.”
The woman fell asleep. I let go of her hand. I went to the armchair and spent the entire night awake, thinking, smelling the scent of her shirt on my body and looking at the woman as she slept. Primitive man would devour, like a hyena, the remains of dead animals that had been hunted down by other animals. He didn’t become a hunter himself until he invented pointed weapons. I loaded the bullets into the chamber of the revolver.
The woman in the bed looked like a dead dog that would be easy to kick. I don’t ask questions when I’m hired for a job. But in this case I’d like to know who wanted her to put a bullet in her head. Some scumbag husband terrifying his hysterical wife to make her kill herself so the bastard could keep the money? I’d been through a situation more or less like that once, during Carnival week.
Dawn broke, birds started to chirp, and the woman woke up. She smiled at me.
“I feel better today. I think the nightmare is coming to an end. I’m going to do some work in the garden, will you stay close to me?”
I left her bedroom. In my bathroom, I washed my face and brushed my teeth. I went to the garden.
The woman was wearing a hat to protect her from the sun. She asked me to accompany her to the tool shed next to the garage. There were pickaxes, shovels, an electric lawnmower, a pump for cleaning the pool. She picked up a pair of shears, the kind used in gardens.
“My garden is pretty, isn’t it? I planted those flowers myself; aren’t they pretty?”
I don’t care much about flowers, but I listened patiently as she mentioned the names of the ones growing in the flowerbeds.
“I have to make a phone call.”
“The telephone is disconnected.”
“I’ll go to the village.”
“Please, don’t leave me by myself.”
“Then come with me. You can work in the garden later.”
We took her car.
“Do you like music?”
“If you want to listen to music, it doesn’t bother me.”
She popped a violin concerto into the car’s player.
“Doesn’t it give you a peaceful feeling?”
Violin music makes me restless, but I put up with it without saying anything. We arrived at the small square in the village. I stopped at the door of the little market, full of sacks of cat and dog food.
She got out of the car with me. “I’m going to buy some things. I’m tired of eating frozen food.”
The man in the market greeted her amicably; the woman had owned the estate for many years. The man asked if I was the new caretaker, and the woman replied that I was a friend.
Nearby there was a bakery. I called Sonya from there.
“I’m going to do the job. But first I want to talk to you and Jorge. I want the rest of the money. Tonight, the same place where we met last night.”
“Jorge won’t go.
“That’s his problem. If he doesn’t come talk to me, the deal’s off. Nine o’clock.”
I hung up the phone and went back to the market. I picked up the bag of groceries, and we went back to the car.
The woman worked in the garden, then made something for us to eat. But she just sat at the table, without eating a thing. Then she went back to work in the garden, while listening to music, with me at her side the whole time, suffering from the music, wanting everything to be over and done with.
At fifteen till nine I told the woman that I was going to take a look around the grounds and might be gone for a while.