Laura Restrepo - Delirium

DO YOU HAVE A CIGARETTE, angel? no, of course you don’t, Agustina doll, you’re not into that anymore; I, on the other hand, who used to be so healthy, the king of endorphins, lungs like brand new from so much exercise, have been smoking like a fiend ever since things fell apart, because believe it or not, nicotine’s the only thing that keeps me halfway afloat.

That time at L’Esplanade, Spider was presiding from the head of the table propped up in his wheelchair, stiff as a frozen fish stick, the poor guy, and behind him at the next table were his two favorite lackeys, Paco Malo and the Sucker, who weren’t waiting outside the way bodyguards should wait, steaming up the glass in those Mercedes that make guys like your father so proud and that don’t do a thing for me, because I steer clear of heavy machinery, I ride easy, free as a bird, and full fucking throttle on my Bee Em Dubyoo bike, which is worth twice any of my friends’ heaps in pickup and price, always moving smooth, with no bodyguards or hassle, my only protection my guardian angel, because I’m still the same today as I was when you met me fifteen years ago, baby, and I’ll be the same till they bury me. And buried’s the perfect word for this death in life I’ve been condemned to. But anyway, Paco Malo and the Sucker were shoveling in their rations shoulder to shoulder with the bosses, spoiling the show and giving everybody the creeps, all because Spider, who was paranoid about kidnappings, had the gall to sit a pair of thugs at the next table and let them order French wine and dishes with fancy French names, what a ridiculous sight, these two guys with pistols practically bulging out of their armpits, in scummy little ties, smacking their lips as they chewed, and if Spider wasn’t so goddamn rich, that frog Courtois who owns L’Esplanade would never have permitted such a blatant show of disrespect.

At the head of the table was Spider, paralyzed from the waist down, with me to his left, and to his right your brother Joaco, who’d just socked away a fortune as a go-between in the privatization of Telefónica, and also Jorge Luis Ayerbe, who had the press after him because of a massacre of Indians in the Cauca region, which is where his ultratraditional, paramilitary-sponsoring family is from, because a few months back the Ayerbes had sent their little private troop of paracos to scare some Indians off state land that, according to Jorge Luis, had been the legitimate property of his family since the time of the viceroys; nothing unusual, since hiring mercenaries is what’s done to control trespassing, except that this time the paracos started setting fire to the Indians’ shelters with the Indians inside, and as a result Jorge Luis was hounded by a raging pack of human rights defenders and an orgy of NGOs.

The other person present was, as always, Ronald Silverstein, the gringo we call Rony Silver, who poses in public as the manager of a Chevrolet dealership and operates under the table as a DEA agent, an open secret, completely fucking absurd, considering that Spider, who can get away with anything because he’s so loaded, always makes the same lame joke right in front of him, That Rony Silver, he’s double trouble, wouldn’t you say, boys? and I myself used to take the liberty of calling Silver 007 to his face, the gringo smiling away, tolerating my rudeness because he got a cut from me and those DEA people are more crooked than anybody, it wasn’t just Silver who was getting down on all fours for me but every one of them, champions of the double standard, and your father and your brother Joaco, too, that’s right, they may have been rich in pesos before, but it was me, Midas McAlister, who multiplied their profits and made them rich in dollars, because you know there’s a reason they call me Midas, which is that everything I touch turns to gold, or at least that’s the way it used to be, because now everything I touch turns to shit, including you, Agustina darling, I’m sorry, believe me.

AT GAI REPOS the three of us, my mother, Bichi, and I, slather ourselves with sunscreen and still we get as pink as shrimp the first few days of summer vacation while father and Joaco, who are naturally dark, tan right away and say, Be careful of the sun, it’s too strong for you. Only I know, Bichi, how much you would’ve liked it if your first finger was longer than your middle finger and you never burned in the sun; only I know how anxiously you wished things had turned out that way, but they didn’t, Bichi Bichito, you have to realize that, and you have to understand why my father scolds you for it, and scolds you with good reason. Your black curls and your pale skin and your big dark eyes like the Christ Child’s are worth nothing to you, because you would much rather have been strong and a little bit ugly like them, like Joaco and my father. Angel Face, they call Bichi, because he’s so pretty, and Aunt Sofi calls him Doll but our father doesn’t like it, it makes him lose his temper.

Let’s close the curtains, Bichi Bichito, so that it’s dark in our temple, Agustina says, and the boy replies, I like it better when you say plunged into shadow, All right, so that it’s plunged into shadow, and let’s do it all secretly, so no one else will ever know. Each time her father hits her little brother there’s a ceremony in the black night of a dark room, with a priestess who is Agustina and a novice who’s you, Bichi; you’re the sacred victim, the sacrificial goat, the Agnus Dei, and with your bottom still red from father’s slaps, you, the Lamb, pull down your underwear to show me where it hurts and then you take your underwear all the way off, and I take my panties off, too, and I stay like that, with nothing under my school uniform, a prickly unease between my legs, a delicious little bit of fear that my mother will burst into the room and discover everything, because Bichi and his sister know very well, although they never say so, that their ceremony must be performed like this, without underwear; if it weren’t, it wouldn’t be sacred and the powers wouldn’t be free to visit us, because it’s they who choose me and not the other way around, and their visit is always connected to the tickles I feel down there.

This is the Third Call, this is our secret, although of course the true secret, the greatest mystery, the treasure of the temple, is the photographs, and that’s why the real ceremony begins only when we bring them down from their hiding place on one of the ceiling beams, at the place where the beam meets the wall, leaving a small space that’s invisible unless someone climbs on top of the wardrobe, but the only ones who can get up there are you and I, because that’s the sanctum sanctorum, the place where the photographs are hidden and kept safe. You, Bichito, are in charge of lighting the wands of incense that make us dizzy with their threads of sweet smoke, and the two children laugh, huddled together with the joy of conspirators, because they know that never ever will anyone else find these photographs, nor will they know that I have them or that we celebrate our mass with them or that it’s from them that I get my powers or that I found them by chance one afternoon after school, says Agustina, when I was rummaging secretly through the things my father keeps in his study, because although the children aren’t allowed to go in, they do all the time, Agustina because she knows there are forbidden things there and her brother Joaco because he always finds some money to steal and invest in the business ventures of his friend Midas McAlister, who sells cigarettes, secondhand comics, pictures of soccer stars, and Amazonian amulets at the Boys School, anything for the idiots who hand over their allowances in exchange for junk.