María Bosco - Death Going Down

“You must miss it,” Blasi said with apparent sympathy. “Photography is an art too.”

“We have to live. That’s another art.”

Rita was listening with her chin buried in her chest. Her agile hands carried on knitting.

“Boris,” she interrupted gently.

“What do you want?” When Boris spoke to his sister, all trace of the indulgent tone he used with others disappeared from his voice.

Rita said a few words in a language Blasi supposed was their mother tongue. Boris turned back to their visitor.

“My sister would like to offer you a cup of Turkish coffee.”

Blasi accepted the coffee, and Rita got up to go to the kitchen. Muck, leaving his place at Blasi’s feet, followed the woman.

“It seems Muck remembers your sister well.”

“Who’s Muck? Your dog?”

“He was señora Eidinger’s dog. Don’t you recognize him?”

“I never visited señora Eidinger. She never came to our house either. Her husband did.”

“But your sister and señora Eidinger travelled together.”

“That’s true.”

Something akin to a cloud was forming in the room’s thick air, blurring the outlines of things, as if gas were seeping in through a crack and dulling the senses. Objectivity receded. The malign fog closed around Blasi, making him feel like he was in a different world.

He got up from his chair and went to examine a porcelain cup in the hope that a deliberate action might help him regain his lucidity.

“Dresden,” he said, examining the stamp on the cup.

“Yes.”

“On the subject of stamps,” said Blasi distractedly, “I wonder if you could help me decipher one I saw yesterday in a photograph.”

Boris’s sunken eyes shone with irony.

“Is that a personal or a professional request?”

“Think of it as both.”

Boris leant back in an armchair and, looking towards the kitchen door, called out:

“Rita!”

She appeared in no more than a couple of seconds. Her brother gestured to the cigarette holder that lay on a side table. Rita muttered a few words in Bulgarian. Muck stuck his rectangular head around the door. Boris spoke to Blasi again.

“Please excuse the scene.” Feeling herself ignored once more, Rita disappeared through the inner door. “My sister forgets all sorts of things. The war affected her deeply. One has to explain her duties to her as to a small child. Fortunately there are two cigarettes left in the case and I’m able to offer you one.”

Blasi could have quite happily hurled the silver cigarette case at his head. He hadn’t been wrong to judge Boris as a hateful human being who liked to lord it over others whenever he got the chance.

Rita appeared with a tray and poured the coffee. She then went back to her knitting by the window. While the men drank their coffee she played with Muck. She threw the ball of wool for him and the little dog ran to bring it back to her lap.

The game did nothing to dispel the pallor of her cheeks or her worried expression. She threw the ball of wool and picked it up distractedly. She was a woman absent from her movements.

“It seems Muck and your sister get on very well,” said Blasi.

“For the moment. Rita is unstable and incapable of focusing on one thing for long.”

Rita accepted the comment with her usual passivity.

“I must go,” said Blasi, standing up. “I’m sorry we haven’t been able to make an arrangement.”

“It was one possible outcome.” Czerbó had also stood up and was the first to hold out his hand. “I’m sorry too.”

“Come on, Muck!”

The fox terrier, hearing his name, ran towards Blasi. Rita stared at him with vacant eyes. She automatically followed Blasi after he had already said goodbye to Boris, who apologized for not seeing him to the door. She brought with her all the listlessness that stripped the Czerbós’s home of any human warmth. Her fear was palpable. Blasi could finally name the mephitic gas that anaesthetized one’s will upon entering the apartment. A fear that weighed as heavily as a tombstone on a world of tiny wriggling larvae, smothering them without squashing or immobilizing them.

Blasi deliberately stretched out his departure, slowly taking his overcoat and hat from the stand. Rita waited motionlessly.

“Say goodbye to Muck, señorita Czerbó,” said Blasi, patting her shoulder as if wanting to show his approval. Without saying a word, she turned and walked back into the apartment.

Aurora Torres was right, there was a bad omen floating around that house. Lost in his thoughts, Blasi did not notice the lift stopping on the second floor. The door opened to let Betty in. On recognizing Blasi she could not contain a grimace of annoyance. The young man gave her an involuntarily unctuous smile.

“Today’s your lucky day,” he said in reply to her greeting.

“Don’t try to copyright that as a conversation starter. I’ve heard it a thousand times.”

“I’m not saying that because we met but because I was just thinking of going to see you. As you’re on your way out, how about we walk a few blocks together?”

Betty agreed with a silent shrug of her shoulders. They had reached the ground floor.

“Is this your dog?” Muck had launched himself at Betty’s low-heeled shoes, stopping her from moving. “He seems intelligent.”

“If you mean that by way of contrast, thank you for the general idea you’ve formed of me.”

“Someone once told me that thinking too quickly is the same as a bad round of golf. The ball never goes far.”

Blasi observed her smilingly.

“I’ve heard plenty about you, but no one mentioned your irresistible fondness for aphorism. How is señor Iñarra?”

“Fine, thank you. He had a relapse yesterday but Dr Luchter recommended some electric treatments that have helped. All this makes things terribly difficult for poor Gaby.”

Blasi’s reproachful look did not go unnoticed.

“Don’t think me insensitive. Let me explain why. It all comes from my father’s overprotectiveness. He had the machine installed by someone on his list of protégés—the laundry delivery boy, can you imagine! As a result we’re left in the dark half the time.”

Ferruccio burst out laughing.

“It does me good to talk to you. I feel like I’ve escaped a snake pit.”

Betty did not respond.

“He’s a nice dog,” she said, pointing at Muck. “Have you had him long?”

“No, he’s been entrusted to me so I can carry out some very instructive exercises.”

All around them were the luxurious shopfronts of Calle Santa Fe. They had joined the carefree milieu and, like the others in the street, they maintained an impersonal tone of conversation. Betty said hello to a few people as they passed.

“You’re obviously rather popular,” Ferruccio joked.

“That’s exactly what the caretaker’s wife says. And she won’t let it go. She loves martyrs. I’m sure she thinks I’m too happy.”

“Other people always end up seeing us as martyrs to something or someone,” was Blasi’s verdict.

Betty’s dismissively upturned nose did not herald a friendly response.

“Now I know why you said that about my fondness for aphorism. It seems you’re easily infected.”

Blasi let the jibe go unacknowledged and they walked a little way in silence. Suddenly, Betty came at him with a direct question.

“How’s the investigation going?”

“It’s been closed.”

“Oh, yes? What were you doing at the Czerbós’s apartment, then?”

“A private matter,” replied Blasi, pointing at Muck.

Betty seemed sceptical.

“Shall we have a drink in that bar?” she suggested. “I want to ask you something and I need a stiff drink first.”