Patricia Ratto: Proceed with Caution: Stories and a Novella

I hear the squeal of brakes, the noise of an engine, but this time I’m sure it’s not the Jeep. I also hear some shouts. I tiptoe over to the window. For several nights now I haven’t closed the shutters all the way; I always leave one panel open. There’s a gray car at the door of Gina’s house, and now the van from the police station arrives and parks. A couple of guys get out of the gray car and kick down the front door of the house; one of them pulls the hippie, handcuffed, from the car and drags her along with him. She turns over and shouts toward the streets with all her strength: Aldo, you son of a bitch! Esther, I think. The guy who’s dragging the girl slaps her in the face and pushes her inside. The lights of the house next door flash on and rapidly flash off again. Father Renato told me it’s better not to see anything, or else you’re the one who’ll end up with problems. The cops stay outside with their weapons drawn; not a soul on the street, and you can tell that it’s nearly daybreak because I can hear Vilma’s rooster crowing. Her chicken coop is next to my patio.

I can’t sleep with this fire I have in my gut, and no matter how much bicarbonate I take, I can’t get any relief. And as if that wasn’t enough, that dog’s eyes haunt me, also his barking, sometimes during the day, other times at night. Even though Esther said that Jiménez told her he couldn’t have done anything to save him, I can still hear him barking at me from the room across the way. I see him, too. And besides, there are those voices, although the house is empty, though everyone reassures me again and again that it’s all over. Even though Father Renato has comforted me, telling me that the Virgin I have in the living room is very old, and that these pieces have their secrets, especially when they’re so old, and that wood is alive, of course; that’s why it’s not unusual that it’s developed a crack. But I know that Her face split open there, right where the white light from the street hit Her that night. And I also know that it’s there Her cries come from, Her icy moans.

I’M OUT HERE on the balcony now, but I can see her anyway, through the sliding glass door. She comes and goes, from the tiny kitchen of the apartment to the living-dining room. She has spread out and painstakingly adjusted the floral tablecloth that she uses for special occasions, and now she passes by carrying four glasses that she deposits on the table, although from what she said earlier, there will be only two of them, the guest and her. It’s just that she likes everything to be completely separate: wine on one side, water on the other; meat over here, vegetables over there; a little plate for bread, another for toast. Well, everyone’s got their obsessions, and hers are pretty harmless. As for me, I’m a simpler creature, I’m not usually so particular.

I look outside and entertain myself watching the neighbor, who steps out onto the balcony of the building across the way. She leans forward, making a sign to someone who is obviously down on the sidewalk but who I can’t see from here, drops something that looks like a bundle of keys tied to a blue ribbon, and when the ribbon is extended, she lets go of the other end. She adjusts her hair, goes inside, closes the sliding door, and suddenly I can see myself—I’ve always had very good vision—reflected beside the flowerpots on our balcony; she, on the other hand, has been swallowed up by the darkness indoors. Now a floor lamp lights up, no doubt she turned it on as she walked to the door, where she’s probably greeting the person she’s been waiting for, someone she likes, I imagine, and has been anxiously awaiting.

I turn my attention to the inside of our apartment: she goes by with two bread baskets, just as I expected—one with bread, the other with toast. She deposits them in the middle of the table and disappears from view when she returns to the kitchen. I stay here looking at the slightly sad leaves on the ficus plant that stands in the corner of the balcony; I imagine they need water. I turn toward the sky, it’s dark already, the street lights have switched on, hardly any stars and no moon at all; maybe a storm is brewing. Inside, she comes back into view, carrying two small, overfull bowls—that’s why I can see what’s peeking out—one holding a yellow dip, and the other a white dip with green specks. It’s for spreading on the bread while they talk and wait for the warm main meal to be ready. Juancu, the boyfriend she broke up with not long ago (I don’t know why, because he was really cool and I liked him a lot), loved the white dip with green specks, which he ate with breadsticks; he always asked her to make it. When the mixture was ready, he would take it to the sofa where sometimes all three of us, together, would watch those National Geographic shows that I find so fascinating, and we’d eat there happily and have so much fun.

What I regret most about tonight’s date is that I won’t be able to watch the jungle program they’re showing later. But of course it’s understandable; in cases like this, when the guest is coming over for the first time, it’s better for them to be alone. She glances at her cell phone, puts her hand on her head, and goes running toward the bedroom, the only one in the apartment. For the time being I remain staring out; I enjoy being on the balcony.

You can tell the traffic must be heavy because you can hear horns honking and even a motherfucker now rising in a hoarse, deep voice. I’ve always wanted to have a deep voice because it sounds more macho, but, well, over time you learn to accept whatever fate deals you. A pigeon goes by, flying very close, maybe, I think, with the intention of sticking around, but at last he passes out of view. I don’t like pigeons; they’re so gray, and besides, they disgust me a little because they make everything dirty. Just as well it kept going.

She returns in a long red dress that looks very nice on her. Hmmm, red—you can see that she’s chosen her very finest for this meeting. She stands in front of the mirror on the other side of the sofa, near the table, paints her lips (also red), combs her hair, goes back to the bedroom. I like that mirror; sometimes I stand there for a long time looking at myself in it. She brought it home from an auction one day because her mother had told her that mirrors make spaces look bigger. She’s back, taller now, in a pair of black sandals she wears very often, but which still look like new because they’re so uncomfortable that she ends up taking them off and walking around the house barefoot. She’s very natural: when she’s home alone, that’s when I think she’s prettiest. In fact, I tell her so whenever I can.

She heads for the kitchen, no doubt to see how everything is coming along. You can hear the sound the oven door makes; it’s a terrible squawk, like a crow’s. The noise of that door gives me goosebumps; sometimes I try to make her understand, but she shrugs and wrinkles her brow as though she can’t hear me, or maybe she just doesn’t take it too seriously. Then I tell her again that she looks very pretty like that, natural and at home, and she gives me another smile.

The doorbell rings, she crosses the room quickly but stops short and turns around, stops in front of the mirror, checks her appearance, fixes her hair once more and takes off again. She reaches the door. I can hear her open it: a hi , another hi , the soft pop of a kiss, a few steps, more steps, and now I can see him, he’s got two liter-size bottles of beer in his hand, so I imagine he probably doesn’t like wine. What a shame, because she appreciates good wine, especially if it’s a Cabernet Sauvignon, I’ve heard her say so many times, and Juancu always brought her some. That Juancu was a great guy.