Iosi Havilio - Paradises

Saturday afternoon, the last day of the year. A few blocks before the zoo, in passing, I hear one taxi driver saying to another, as they sit in their cars, that a temperature of forty-three degrees has been forecast. That it will be a record, the highest for fifty years, and that the emergency services have declared an orange alert. Dog days, he shouts and accelerates. No matter what, if December’s like this, the chances are that January will be worse. Record or not, the heat is certainly making itself felt and at times it seems unreal. It must be between two and three o’clock, I’m in the shade and yet this blouse, too heavy for the summer, is sticking to my back, chest and armpits. Few people dare to look round the cages in the sun: one bold woman drags five rebellious children behind her, a pale adolescent passes with a sketchbook and two tourist couples enter the reptile house sweaty and happy. Since the activity is almost nil, the fiery breeze sends me to sleep. I’m alone; Yessica was feeling unwell and they gave her the day off. My blood pressure’s hit the floor, that’s what she said. Esteban didn’t appear either. The only person I saw, passing in the distance with a broom, was Canetti, who in an attempt to escape the heat went to sweep behind the toilets, a zone he always avoids because of that intolerable sewer smell.

Suddenly, above the muffled hum emanating from this incendiary cloud of heat, I hear an exclamation followed by a metallic clatter. I’m gonna bust you, you utter bastard, is what I hear. Less quickly than other curious bystanders, but still attracted by the din, I leave my hideout and take three steps forwards without venturing beyond the edge of the shade. The scene is being acted out right in front of me, next to the drinks stall: on the ground, there’s a blond guy surrounded by a table and some chairs that fell along with him; a few metres away, a skinhead in a vest, a hefty guy, hostile expression, keeps tossing out insults in that rough voice that dragged me from my lethargy. He’s one of those skinheads who shave to disguise premature balding, to seem harder or more virile. In the second row, each man has his cheerleader. The blond guy has a little boy with curls, even blonder, of six or seven who snivels behind his back: Daddy, Daddy, he repeats, I can’t work out whether reproaching or wanting to protect him. The other man is accompanied by a girl with back-combed hair, a fuchsia top and a leather miniskirt that comes down to where her arse meets her legs. Near the blond guy I can now see the remains of a hot dog, the sausage rolling slowly down the slope towards the lake, to the delight of the otters.

Think you’re clever, dickhead? the skinhead persists. The blond guy doesn’t seem particularly willing to fight, you can see the fear in his face, he’d rather the other man calmed down; for that reason he holds up his right hand. However, because the skinhead isn’t pacified, nor does he feel sorry for the man who fell down, quite the opposite, he threatens to continue hitting him and a security guard arrives to join the struggle without much success. But even though the skinhead gets angry, the intervention is of some use, because although he continues with the insults, he seems to give up on the idea of coming to blows.

The scandal attracted the attention of Iris, who left her post and approached me, raising her eyebrows. Behind her appeared a few people who had left the queue for the sea-lion show. But since I didn’t know any more than what I could see, I could only offer the typical, vague conjectures that people tend to venture about the origins of any fight.

It was then, in that moment of distraction, as I was holding a silent dialogue with Iris, that the blond guy stood up and did something of which no one would have thought him capable, not those who were following the saga nor his son, nor even the man himself, much less the skinhead, who was now talking to the guard and gesticulating eloquently. The guy grabbed the base of a Coca-Cola sunshade that had toppled with him and in one movement that was as quick as it was furious swiped at his rival with a blow directly to the legs. Less from the force of the impact than from the surprise, the skinhead fell backwards and almost caught his neck on the edge of a raised flowerbed. Taking advantage of the fact that his aggressor was on the ground, instead of running away, the blond guy plucked up his courage and went to confront him, without releasing the sunshade, like a medieval knight brandishing his lance. What’s wrong with you, what’s wrong with you, he said. Iris let out a laugh, out of nerves, because of the ridiculousness of the situation, a noisy guffaw that she immediately repressed by putting her hand over her mouth. While the curly-haired boy continued crying, the girl in the miniskirt shouted Juan, to warn the skinhead of the attack. The young father’s warrior-like attitude didn’t last long. The skinhead’s expression contorted like a latex mask. We saw it clearly, Iris and I; this time we hadn’t been able to resist moving a bit closer. In two precise manoeuvres, with the speed of a ninja, no doubt born of some kind of training in martial arts or self defence, the skinhead disarmed the blond man of his sunshade, stood up and gave him a flying kick that clobbered him in the jaw. The guy collapsed, taking with him the only table that was still standing. Allowing him no time for anything, the skinhead leapt on the blond guy with all his ferocity: he kicked him in the stomach, the legs, the head, as if he were avenging some old family feud. The skinhead was so beside himself that not even the guards, of whom there were two by now, nor Iris’s aquarium colleagues could contain him. Only when the other man stopped reacting, trembling, his mouth and one eye bloody, did the skinhead allow four men to take control of him. One of the guards called for help on his walkie-talkie. One man held the blond guy’s head between his knees until the ambulance arrived. After a while, the police arrived in a patrol car, scaring the ducks with their siren.

The blond man was barely conscious, completely broken. They carried him into the ambulance on a stretcher along with his son. The skinhead was arrested. As the remaining group of onlookers gradually dispersed, the girl in the miniskirt stayed where she was, unburdening herself into her phone. Since Iris and I, not meaning any harm, were looking in her direction, she wheeled round to snub us and, in an instant, without pausing in her rant, she got her footing wrong and broke a heel.

Incident over, and with all traces cleared so that no one would suspect anything had happened, Canetti hosed down the area. The boy from the bar told us his version of events. From the looks of things, while the skinhead had been in the toilet, the blond guy had made a move on the girl in the miniskirt at the food stand. Not even a move, he had paid her a compliment. It would seem that the girl told her boyfriend and the rest was history. We stayed there discussing it for a while, it was really Iris and the boy, I can never remember his name, Cristian or Marcelo, discussing who had been at fault. According to Iris, the blond guy was a stupid chancer. The boy, on the other hand, defended the father and laid the blame on the skinhead. He was out to kill him, he was saying. I saw his face, I knew he was out of it. They couldn’t understand how he had been able to keep hitting him, on the ground and with the kid right there. He was really messed up. I say nothing, I keep scouring the ground in search of a bloodstain that might have been missed.

On the stairs of el Buti, a large hand falls on my shoulder and grips me. Benito hands me a bit of paper with a hurriedly handwritten note. I don’t need to read it to recognise Eloísa’s writing: Tonight party on a boat, it’s going to be great. Call me. That’s what she says and she leaves her phone number again. Thanks, I say to Benito who is waiting for a response like a messenger from another century.