Authors: Marc Pastor
Blackmouth is left alone with the boy, who has quit digging in his nostrils in order to focus on his crotch.
“If you don’t think about it, it’ll flow easier,” says Blackmouth, as if he were an expert, and the boy looks up.
Blackmouth kneels and extends his arm.
“Do you want me to help you?”
They are both scared and silent for a few seconds. Blackmouth thinks that half the pub will surely come through the door any minute now, but he keeps drawing closer to the boy. He almost has him. Now all he has to do is take him without anyone seeing.
“Do you want a chocolate?”
The boy nods his head.
“If you come with me I have a cart outside filled with sweets.”
The boy laughs, gap-toothed. Blackmouth laughs too, but out of nervousness. The boy is frightened by his dark teeth and turns off his smile. He hears a sound at the door and sees his father come in.
“What the hell are you doing?” he bellows.
“Help… helping the boy,” he stammers and stands up, but his pants don’t follow suit, remaining around his ankles.
“Sick son of a bitch!” he shouts even louder, and a friend of his comes in and, quickly evaluating the situation, takes the boy by the hand.
“No, no, no.” Blackmouth pretends that it’s all been a misunderstanding, but you can see right through him.
Àngel, the owner, comes in, with a rolling pin, the king of clubs.
“Narcís, a woman told me that you should watch out for this bastard, that he likes to touch…”
No, no, no, moans Blackmouth, his trousers down.
The three of them pounce on the lad and beat him harshly,
that’ll teach you a lesson, and end up throwing him out on the street, in front of a horse-drawn carriage that had to move heaven and earth to keep from trampling him. Blackmouth gets up in pain, his nose is bleeding and he thinks one arm is broken, even though he can’t tell which, and he decides to march up the street before some municipal shows up or the blokes from the pub rethink things and come back for more; he’s already suffered plenty and it’s not the time to tempt fate any further.
When he reaches Provença Street he finds Enriqueta sitting in a doorway.
“Now you know the risks,” she says, getting up and turning her back to him. “Let’s go, we’re not finished for today.”
Salvador Vaquer was at his workplace, the tramcar from Colom to Pujades, the morning he tried to steal my wallet. Being lame, and with the complexion and dexterity of a barrel of wine, Vaquer went pale when I caught him red-handed. I knew he’d do it, just as I know that he was raised in a poorhouse to the age of twelve, or that he’ll never have children, that he likes to eat chicken more than his pocket allows, just like I know the date I’ll have to come looking for his rotten, vacant soul. I know the story. But I prefer that he tell it to you. That’s why I’m insisting. It’s not that I’m not nice; I’m not compassionate; I haven’t got any empathy. But direct testimony is much better than some omnipresent narrator such as myself. In the end I’d be boring you, you’d get tired of listening to me going around, bragging about knowing everything, I’m sure, because I’d end up distancing myself, get distracted and start explaining things that aren’t relevant.
“Mr Vaquer.”
“Eh… do we know each other?”
“We’ve met here and there.”
He bristled his eyebrows, thinking back, but there is a vast void behind his pupils.
“I’m a friend of Enriqueta’s.”
“Ah!” he smiled, but he still hadn’t placed me. The phrase “a friend of Enriqueta’s” could mean too many things. Half an hour later he was confessing, “Pujaló is a son of a flea-ridden bitch. He took her down a bad path. Do you know that poor Angelina spent days and days alone at home?”
“Angelina?”
Enriqueta and Pujaló’s daughter, a delightful creature, very affectionate. He’d take my Enriqueta out drinking, and drinking and drinking, and they’d sleep it off on the streets, like two cadgers. He with that big moustache and that unfinished portrait of Lerroux he’s always going on about, boasting about his elegance and, in the end, losing his dignity in any and every corner.
The big jerk tried to get her to sell herself again to pay for his gambling! They won’t let him into any of the casinos, they all know him too well.
When I met Enriqueta, she had already stopped loving him… well, it’s just an expression, because you must know how she is: she never loves anybody much. Even I’m aware that, the day she decides it, we’re over. It will be difficult, because like all couples there are secrets that keep us together and shouldn’t get out, but with her you never know.
Salvador Vaquer, the poor soul, didn’t mention anything about the fact that she was in jail while we were having that conversation. She was there for a few days, not many, because they had caught her stealing costume jewellery from the Nourés family—I’m
innocent, I swear, this isn’t what it looks like—with whom she’d built up trust and whose drawers she’d been milking until they found her with the great-great-grandmother’s necklaces, may she rest in peace, in her hands. Enriqueta froze like a deer, her eyes fixed on Mr Nourés, but he was more scared than she was. For a couple of stones it wasn’t worth bloodshed, she decided in seconds, and she burst out crying, the most repentant and false she could muster, with dry tears and begging forgiveness on her knees from the father of the family to see if the situation could be solved in the simplest possible way, even though she knew it would be useless.
And Salvador, when talking to me, lied just like everyone else:
“With me Enriqueta had found stability, for a woman her age that’s the best thing. She wants for nothing: food, company and a warm bed.”
It was true: at the women’s prison on Reina Amàlia Street she had all her needs covered.
“Where is she now? I haven’t see her around much lately,” I provoke him.
“She’s had the flu,”—it’s midsummer—“and today she took advantage of the fact that she’s feeling better to go clothes shopping.”
Oh, so that’s what they call it these days, being in the clink. Salvador Vaquer, fat, ugly and unkempt, must have a wardrobe that’s the envy of tailors everywhere.
Blackmouth wonders why the hell she did that to him, the strumpet. Walking two paces behind, he looks her up and down and wants to kill her. Pounce on her, strangle her from behind, grabbing her neck hard, pressing until her eyes pop out of their sockets and she is laid out on the ground, crying blood, and people will
come over to congratulate him for having killed this murderer, the new hero of the city, the guy who helped in the arrest of the Negro sorcerers and then killed the ogress.
As if she could read his thoughts, she turns and looks at him without stopping.
“You have to get used to it. If you can’t be invisible, you have to be strong. If you can’t be strong, you’re dead.”
Blackmouth, like a lapdog, follows her and remembers One Eye’s words: you’d best carry garlic on you. As long as he’s with her, he’ll be in danger; but if he distances himself, he’s done for.
As they approach Calàbria Street the sound of the city grows muffled by the distance. The street is empty, the walls lose their posters advertising events (a cabaret, a bullfight, Raquel Meller at the Arnau), and the stores with awnings disappear to make way for closed doors.
They arrive at a small house, barely a few beams thrown together, with a baby’s crying coming from inside, mixed with the sound of a bubbling pot.
“Manuela!” calls out Enriqueta, shrinking herself down. She now seems ten or twelve years older and more fragile, her gaze weary.
Out comes a woman about thirty years old who looks much older, dressed in mourning and with her hair pulled back in a bun run through with a rabbit bone, hello Cinta, haven’t seen you for days.
“The dizziness kept me from leaving the house.”
“Ay, yes.” She brings her hands together, half entreaty half applause, one hundred per cent histrionics. “When I was pregnant with Carmeleta I couldn’t lift a finger, you don’t have to tell me.”
Manuela notices Blackmouth and arches her brows in question.
“He’s my nephew,” says Enriqueta. “Maria’s son, who helps me on my walks and makes sure I don’t fall.”
“But the boy is skin and bones! Come in, come in,” she invites them. “A bite to eat will do you good.”
Manuela Bayona is the level-crossing keeper on Calàbria Street, and every day she goes to the Model Prison to pick up the leftover food. At midday she brings it to her little home, heats it up, sets aside one plate for her and one for Carmeleta, and the rest she distributes among the indigents who visit her and keep her company in the evenings, since poor Serafí can only chat with the angels in heaven who have him in their glory, a train ran him over and all I had left were a couple of pieces of smoked flesh, no good even for the wake.
Enriqueta sits in a wicker chair, ay yi, my bones hurt, I’m too old for this, and Blackmouth remains standing by the door, actually truly in pain but with his feet ready to run away, today he’s had quite enough. Manuela is a trusting woman, with the smell of stewing meat stuck in her hair and the steam from the broth scratching at the ceiling, who just wants to have someone to chew the fat with for a while. She keeps one eye on the food and the other on the girl in the crib (literally, because she is well cross-eyed), with a smile that could be a grimace, because it doesn’t fade even when she explains how she sold her husband’s body to the Clínic for the students to chop open, rummage around in and sew up, since the doctors at the hospital were always so nice to him in life and he would have surely wanted to help them in death.
Enriqueta drinks a bowl of broth, bites her lips and says ay, it’s burning hot, while Manuela prepares a little bundle of boiled veggies and a bit of meat.
“Don’t you want to eat?”
He doesn’t think twice and drinks the soup in one gulp, not caring that it’s liquid fire, and devours the plate of innards Manuela has just served him. Carmeleta cries, and Enriqueta goes over to stroke her face.
“Oh, she’s so cute…” It’s Snow White’s stepmother speaking.
“She’s got my Serafí’s face, God rest his soul.” She crosses herself.
“She’s a gift from God, Manuela.”
“You can say that again, Cinta.”
Enriqueta has been visiting the level-crossing keeper for some time now, since the day she found out that she was pregnant. She approached her on the street and offered her some salves for a good pregnancy and an even better birth. They call me Cinta, she added.
“It must be very difficult to raise a girl all on your own.”
“She’s very good. She doesn’t cry much and, when she does, she calms down quickly.”
“I’ve never had any children,” confesses Enriqueta mournfully. “The closest I have is this lad, my nephew. And now I’m past the age, and I have a void here inside.” She closes her fist over her stomach.
Manuela lifts Carmeleta from her crib and rocks her.
“Do you want to hold her?”
“Ay, I wouldn’t want to hurt her.”
“No, woman, no. Babies are strong and we women know how to hold them.”
“I don’t know if…”
“Here.” And she places the baby in Enriqueta’s arms, who now doesn’t look so weak.
Blackmouth stands up and goes close to the door, prepared
to flee, but it doesn’t seem she’s planning to take her, because she whispers honeyed words and kisses her and strokes her hair.
“Ay, Manuela, how happy I would be with a little one like this.”
Manuela extends her arms to take her back and, seeing that Enriqueta won’t let her go, she grows impatient.
“The girl has to sleep.”
“I can put her to sleep, you’ll see. I would be a good mother.”
“She can only sleep in her crib.”
“Let me try.”
Blackmouth locates a bread knife on the table. If things get ugly, in one step he can grab it and in a matter of seconds slit Manuela’s neck with the blade. Enriqueta guesses his intentions and shakes her head no.
“I think it’s time for you to be going, Cinta. I have a lot of work to do, still, and the train—”
“I’ll buy Carmeleta from you.”
“What did you say?” She is alarmed.
“I’ve got some money saved up, I can pay you.”
“But… but…” Anxious, she sees how Enriqueta has moved away from her and is protecting the baby against her chest. “You don’t even have money for food.”
“How much do you want?”
“She’s not for sale!” She is about to cry.
“I could make her happy,” mutters Enriqueta. “You are a widow: this little angel would grow up without a father, with a mother too busy to be with her.”
“Give me Carmeleta back.”
“She’d be in the streets all day, until what happened to Serafí happens to her, because if you can’t look after your husband, how could you look after a little girl?”
“Give her back to me!” the woman cries and raises her voice.
“With me she would be taken care of, and she’d have a family. I could bring her here once in a while, so you could see her, but she’d have a father and a mother.”
“Bitch!” shouts Manuela, and the bark of a dog is heard from the street.
“If you don’t sell her to me, I plan on coming back here one night and taking her.” Now Enriqueta is standing up, no more disguises, her back well straight. “And I’ll split your belly open from top to bottom like a piglet and leave you to bleed to death, and that will be the end of it.”
Manuela screams unintelligible words, unable to comprehend how Cinta, that kind woman who took care of her during much of her pregnancy, could transform into a snake like this.
“Somebody’s coming,” warns Blackmouth, who sees that some neighbours are approaching because of the woman’s screams.
Enriqueta throws the baby into the pot and walks out of the little house, with firm steps, towards the Model. Blackmouth stays for a moment, hypnotized by the image of Manuela pulling the reddening baby from the boiling broth, her hands scalded, and then he follows Enriqueta. The neighbours run towards the shack and no one pays attention to them, as if they didn’t exist. Enriqueta, with her pinkie nail, picks a bit of celery out of her teeth, and she wonders if the soup, with the girl, tastes any different. And her mouth waters.