Juan Vásquez - The Informers

"No."

"And that went on for ten years. Ten years, Gabriel. It sounds like a long time but for me it went by like a shot, that's the truth. Because there wasn't the wearing down that real couples have. I've never been married, and maybe I shouldn't talk about something I don't know, but I swear Lombana fought more with his wife than with me, I haven't got the slightest doubt. Because with the wife there's a history. That's what a person had to avoid, that you build up a history with people, with friends, with lovers. You get close to a person and right there the resentments start to build up, things you say or do without meaning to, and that gets you into a history. You go to see your cardiologist and he takes out your medical history and without even meaning to he checks out everything: that you stopped smoking, yes, but not till you were forty. Your father had a heart murmur. Your great-uncle had arteriosclerosis. That's what Lombana told me, that with his wife it was like that, they went to bed and each and every grudge over their whole marriage went to bed with them. In the end he only made love to her from behind because he didn't want to look at her face. He told me all that. With every possible detail. I didn't want that to happen to me, and I suppose that's why I put up with it for ten years without doing anything, anything serious, I mean. I didn't want to do things that would later fill me up with bitterness and grudges, you know how it is. I like sex face-to-face, like normal. I'm a decent girl."

"How did they kill him?"

Silence.

"Right, then, is there any part of my life Gabriel didn't tell you about? He was a newsreel, your dad. Well, I'm sorry, but I don't like talking about that."

"Oh please, Angelina. You already told me your brother used to touch you. You just told me how you like sex."

"That's different."

"It was downtown," I said to her. "It was in a nightclub."

"And what does it matter to you?"

"It doesn't matter to me. I'm just curious."

"Morbid."

"Exactly, morbid curiosity, that's what it is. Was he into any dirty business, drugs?"

"Of course not. There was a fight and guns came out and he got shot, nothing more. The most normal thing in the world."

"Were you with him?"

"No, Gabriel, I was not with him. I was tucked up safe in my apartment. I wasn't with him, and I wasn't with my parents later, OK? Yeah, I wish I'd been killed, too, by that fucking bomb, I wish I'd been killed in the shootout. I wasn't with him and nobody came to tell me because very few people knew I existed, and all the ones who did know preferred to respect the wife and not tell her, they killed your husband and besides he's had another woman for the last ten years, no, thirteen whole years, how about that. No, I found out on my own. He wouldn't let me phone his house and I had to go and stand there in front of it like a prostitute to ask him if he wanted to finish with me, or why had he disappeared like that, and when he didn't appear all day, then I checked into things and eventually found out, but no one informed me because you all hide under the same blanket, fucking hypocrites. So I wasn't with him, so what? Can we talk about something else?"

"Don't be like that. It's good to talk about these things. It's therapeutic."

"That shit again. Your dad used to say the same thing. Why are you so arrogant? Does it run in the family? Look, if you guys go through life talking about everything and that works for you, fine, but tell me one little thing, why the fuck should it be the same for me?"

"No reason. Calm down."

"Why would what works for you guys work for me as well?"

"Calm down. No one's saying that."

Silence.

"You need to respect other people more, Gabriel."

"Respect other people."

"We're not all the same."

"We're very different."

Silence.

"Besides, I'm the therapist."

"Yes."

"Don't give me that shit."

"No."

Silence.

"Well, at least we're in agreement. Wait a second. Wait, wait, wait, wait. . OK. Right, what were you saying?"

"What happened?"

"I was rolling a joint."

"At this hour?"

"Yeah, right now. After what happened to my parents, this was the only way I could get to sleep."

"And you rolled it there, in bed, without dropping the phone? What a pair of hands you've got, it's true."

"I hold the phone with my shoulder, that's all. It's not that hard. Do you sleep well?"

"I suppose. I wake up early, though. Five in the morning and that's it, my brain wakes up in one second and keeps running all day. Or I get up to go to the bathroom. But everyone else can go back to sleep, I can't. While I'm pissing I think of my dad and then there's nothing for it. It'll last for a while, I guess, and then things'll go back to normal. Because things normalize, don't they?"

"Yes. Don't worry about that, Gabriel, things go back to normal. Here, have a puff of marijuana down the phone."

"I can smell it from here, I'm so jealous."

Silence.

"So, you're in your dad's apartment, eh? Sitting on your dad's bed. It's a little strange, to tell you the truth, you've got your strange side, you have."

"What are you wearing, Angelina?"

"Oh no, but not so strange after all."

"Are you under the covers?"

"No, I'm stark naked on top of the bedspread and I've got a red lamp shining on me. Of course I'm under the covers, it's fucking freezing in this fucking city. As usual. And you?"

"I'm taking my jeans off and getting under the covers, too. It is cold. I think I'm going to stay here, I've never slept in this bed."

"Aren't you scared?"

"Of what?"

"What do you think? That you'll get your feet pulled."

"Angelina, what a thing to say. And you, a woman of science believing in such superstitions."

"Science, my arse, I've had mine pulled. A friend from college died three years ago, of kidney failure, you know, one of those things they discover one day and three days later there's nothing to be done. And it was as if the poor thing hadn't had time to say good-bye to her friends. I was here, totally relaxed and sound asleep, and I swear she pulled them. Dead people like to say good-bye to me."

"Well, no one's ever said good-bye to me. And no one's ever come to pull my feet."

"But in a dead man's bed. It's impossible that it doesn't make a bit of an impression on you. I couldn't do it. You're very brave. What sheets are on the bed?"

"They're white with checks."

"I gave those sheets to your dad. He hadn't bought himself new sheets for ten years."

"I'm not surprised."

"Those are the last sheets Gabriel slept in."

"OK, don't get mystical on me. I'm going to stay here and my dad's not going to come to scare me, I swear he's got better things to do."

"Can I tell you something?"

"Tell me something."

"You're very good, Gabriel, a lot better than I was. You're going to get over this quickly."

"Don't be fooled. I act like I'm fine, but it's a defense mechanism. I'm an expert at that, everybody knows it. A poker face is a defense mechanism. Cynicism is a defense mechanism."

"And isn't it hard to keep pretending?"

"I play poker in my spare time."

"Sure, you make jokes about it, but I'm jealous. What I wouldn't give for a bit of a poker face. Can you learn that? Where do they teach it? No, I swear, it hit me really hard being alone, after the bomb, being on my own at night. Then your dad showed up and it was like he rescued me, I held on really tight to him. Maybe that was my mistake. And then to see that he left me, too. That he was also capable of hurting me. The truth is that hit me pretty hard. Who told me to build up my hopes? Who told me to be so naive? But it was really hard."

"I know. Enough to make you stab him in the back. And on television."