Iosi Havilio - Paradises

I drag Simón by the arm and almost crash into Benito, who has been lurking in the shadows, a sentry. With each flight of stairs, I nearly stop, play for time, turn back and come up with a quick lie, say that the person who might have taken care of him went out, she’s sick, or asleep, that next week we’ll definitely meet up. But the impulse to retreat clashes with a mysterious and tenacious force that makes me carry on climbing and so we arrive at the third floor and Simón turns into the corridor towards the flat and kicks the door. The heat, the humidity, something deeper I can’t fathom has disagreed with him. I give in.

Come on, I tell Simón, who doesn’t protest, sure that he has won the battle. We go up to the fifth and ring Herbert’s doorbell, he sticks his head out rather disconcertedly. Is your mum there, I ask. Herbert glances behind him and lets us in. Sonia and Mercedes are sitting at the table, they’ve just finished eating, lethargic, their eyes duplicating the television screen. Nothing, no hello, not even indifference. The first impression I have of Mercedes confirms all the stories I’ve heard about him. He’s a sitting bull. The naked torso, the square head, bushy eyebrows and a mass of tangled hair that couldn’t be blacker. He really is frightening. For a moment, I’m invisible, just long enough for a recce of the territory. It’s an ambiguous setting: unplastered walls, pipes exposed, as are the cables and the bare concrete floors. There are numerous cardboard boxes piled up on one side and a series of very new appliances: stainless-steel kitchen, a fridge big enough for a whole community, an ultra-modern washing machine. Excuse me, I say, wishing I hadn’t come. I’m about to ad-lib: I have to buy something from the Chemist. Or no, better tell the truth: A friend I haven’t seen for ages came by. In the end, it’s neither of the two, I don’t explain a thing, I’m direct: Could Simón stay for a while, I have to go out. Like dominoes toppling, Herbert and Sonia transfer my question with a turn of the head until it reaches Mercedes, who takes a while to react. He’s devoting all his attention to tearing the last bits of flesh from a chicken leg. With the bone in his hand like a pointer, he raises his brows, directs a stiff smile at me, shakes himself like a mime artist and nods with his whole body. It’s a yes, I take it as a yes, but I still can’t tell whether he’s making fun of me slightly, whether he’s suggesting that in some way I’m going to have to pay, perhaps it’s just an odd way of saying yes, of course. You stay with me, says Herbert, and Simón immediately perks up. He doesn’t even wave goodbye.

I close the door and realise how much time must have elapsed; Eloísa has probably already left. So, with that outcome in mind, once again feeling disconcerted by the contradictory forces of a moment ago, instead of hurrying I move with increasing slowness over the distance separating me from the ground floor. I count to three before I take the next step. All the same, I think, if I go back to get Simón now they’ll think I’m mad. The best plan is to go around the block a couple of times, take about twenty minutes at least. On the pavement, I realise the red car is no longer there and that the heat is more or less the same inside and out.

I begin to walk towards the corner and two short blasts of a horn stop me by the supermarket. They’re on the other side of the street, facing the wrong way against the traffic, lying in wait. Eloísa calls me over, waving her arm through the window. Let’s go, she says, get in. Something quick nearby. Good, I say, nearby, I can’t be long.

I get in the back, the upholstery smells new. Eloísa is in the passenger seat. She twists round, hugging the backrest, and introduces me to Axel, who’s driving, the same guy as last time, I assume. Axel greets me through the rear-view mirror. For a while, until we get out and I can see him face-on, his figure is reduced to a hunched back and portions of face that enter and exit the frame: an eye, the tip of the nose, pieces of ear and cheek. Where are we going? Axel asks. Surprise us, replies Eloísa and vaguely slaps the air with the back of her hand. How did you find me, I find myself saying, just to say something, not really interested. Aaahh, she plays mysterious, hands open. I have informants, she says. I smile. For the few minutes we spend in the car without settling on a destination, we continue to exchange short, worn phrases that don’t reveal much: All good? This is mad, isn’t it? Yes. And you? You’re the same. You cut your hair, I’m going to say and Eloísa’s going to show me the cross tattooed on her neck. To help us, or so he doesn’t have to listen, Axel turns on the radio and skips nervously from one station to another until he is grabbed by the anthem of the summer. That’s what he calls it, and turns up the volume.

After many false turns in search of somewhere in the neighbourhood, Eloísa orders: Park here, I’m starving. We end up in a taxi drivers’ bar a few blocks from the building, next to a funeral parlour. Jaime again. We sit at a table next to the window. The place is a pastiche of styles. Eloísa takes me by the hand and for the third or fourth time comes back to the same: What are you up to, you daft cow? Her nails are bitten, painted black. Well, I say, I’m here. She insists, she wants me to tell her, I have no way out. I try to sum it all up in one phrase, I chew it over but can’t find the words. I got bored of the countryside, I say and she laughs. And the old man? I hesitate, three, four long seconds, as if saying it out loud: He had an accident, He was run over by a truck, He was killed on the road. The problem isn’t the novelty of death so much as the reflection it entails, the obligation to recreate the grief, to put on a sorrowful face, because not even Eloísa, who never held him in high regard, could escape the platitudes. Did you chuck him? I’m succinct: He died. And her: You’re fucking with me. She’s going to say something else, but the waiter appears and saves her. The guy, a small bald man with a squirrel-like face, questions us with his chin, Axel asks for the menu and the man looks at him as if insulted.

Eloísa returns to the subject of Jaime, she squeezes my wrist and winds up the story with a short phrase: Man, what a head-fuck, I’m sorry. Really. She shakes her head as if saying never mind. How long has it been? she asks and answers herself: It’s like three years, that’s mad, she’ll say it a hundred times. She herself has much to tell. Her parents separated, her mum went to live in Misiones and her old man stayed in the house with her and her brother. My eyes are gone, hypnotised by the silvery pearl. I’d like to see it properly, I’d have to ask her to keep her tongue still for a few seconds. She says that one day she got tired of all that horse shit and got the hell out of there. Now everything’s really good, she speaks to her old man occasionally and everything, the bastard hooked up with a girl of twenty-three who works for the council in Luján and they live in a horrible but airy little apartment. After all the mess, they sold the house, did you hear? Yes, I say, although I didn’t hear anything, but I witnessed the demolition which is more or less the same. She explains: They split the cash, fifty-fifty, and gave a little bit to me and my brother, do you remember my brother? I nod although when I try to visualise him a motorbike comes into my head.

There’s no doubt, if the Eloísa of my memory was talkative, the current version is several times more powerful: her age and the city. She barely takes a breath. As I listen to her, or at least pretend to, half of it is swallowed by sheer velocity, I take one of her cigarettes without asking, an old habit, part of the re-encounter. As in the Fénix, smoking is an effort. It’s as though Axel isn’t there; he spends the whole time entertaining himself on his phone. The waiter comes back, this time Axel keeps him there, issuing a series of commands about how he wants his burger, which gradually put the guy in a bad mood. With ham but no cheese, with tomato but no lettuce, a dribble of oil, French bread, good and crusty, mayonnaise on the side. Eloísa orders two Fernet and Cokes and a portion of chips, she decides for me and asks if I’m ok with it when the waiter has already gone. Axel returns to his mobile, Eloísa to the conversation.