Juan Pablo Villalobos - I'll Sell You a Dog

‘Do you mind telling me what I’m being accused of? Being a writer? I declare myself innocent!’

Then he said he had a statement that incriminated me: Hipólita had cracked. He took another sheet of paper from his file and held it up next to his papaya head: ‘Hipólita, the lady from 2-C, has stated, and I quote: “The man who’s writing a novel recommended we give the dog a stocking to eat.” End of quote. The murder method matches the results of the autopsy carried out on the animal.’

‘It’s not me! How many times do I have to tell you I’m not writing a novel?’

‘Hipólita, the lady from 2-C, has stated, and again I quote: “The man who’s writing a novel lives in 3-C.” End of quote.’

I assumed it was revenge for not putting her in my supposed novel, or for writing about her moustache. Then I found out it was neither one nor the other: Hipólita had fractured her right wrist while turning over a page of the Proust and was on some painkillers that had loosened her tongue (and gave her hallucinations, like seeing papayas where there were heads).

‘Are you aware of Mexico City’s law against cruelty to animals?’ Papaya-Head said, threateningly.

I didn’t reply either way; I assumed there was a law for the elderly that would save me from all this. If the city’s governors liked anything it was these very two things: animals and old people. I imagined that the second group still took precedence. At that moment, the doorbell went: it was Wednesday; it was Willem. I spoke into the intercom and told him to come on up, then announced: ‘I’d like to call a witness.’

‘This isn’t a trial,’ Papaya-Head said.

‘The witness will refute your accusation,’ I replied.

We waited. Willem took ages, just for a change. A cockroach emerged from the kitchen; its antennae detected the tension of the moment and it quickly went back in. The young woman walked over to the painting hanging on the wall and stood looking at it for a long time, then said: ‘Did you paint this, sir?’

‘No, my father did.’

‘Is it your mother? Your father’s wife, I mean.’

‘Yes.’

‘She must have been very pretty.’

I looked at her closely, up and down and then down and up.

‘What did you say you were called?’ I asked her.

‘Dorotea.’

The minute Papaya-Head was getting ready to upbraid the girl for her soft-hearted tactfulness, someone knocked at the door. I opened it. Willem crossed the threshold and Papaya-Head looked at me scornfully: ‘Is this a joke?’

He was wearing his knackered old Mormon uniform, his black rucksack on his back, and in his right hand he held the ever-present Bible. Dorotea came over to read the little badge pinned to his shirt: she was so short, and Willem so tall, that her eyes only came up to the level of the boy’s heart.

‘Pleased to meet you, Willem,’ she said.

‘Are you Dutch?’ Papaya-Head asked.

‘I’m from Utah,’ Willem replied.

‘A gringo,’ Papaya-Head concluded.

‘Actually, my famly…’

‘Now’s not the time for genealogies, Villem,’ I interjected.

I asked him to confirm that the day of the dog’s death he had been with me and that I hadn’t given any orders, or suggestions, to carry it out.

‘What day was it?’ he asked.

The young woman told him the date: the day and the month.

‘No, sorry. I mean which day of the week was it?’ he said.

The report didn’t say. We went to look at the calendar I had in the kitchen. The cockroach was amusing itself with a little granule of sugar. The calendar was from 2012, so we had to add a day. We looked: Monday — that is, it had happened on a Tuesday.

‘No,’ Willem said, ‘I only come on Waynesdays.’

‘Are you sure?’ I asked. ‘Are you really sure?’

‘And Saturdays,’ he concluded.

Papaya-Head left the kitchen and headed for the front door, with a self-important air, as if this were a trial after all.

‘Wait!’ I shouted. ‘Wasn’t 2012 a leap year?’

We went back to the calendar: February had twenty-nine days.

This didn’t change the calculation in any way, but it did at least sow confusion. The girl took out her phone and was about to look up the date on it. I touched her arm with a shaky hand (I’m really good at that). She took pity on me and put the device away. Papaya-Head held out a copy of the report and a summons, two weeks away. He left, dragging Dorotea’s dismay along with him, the girl looking at me as if cruelty to animals were punishable with stoning, chemical castration and hanging, one after the other.

‘What the hell is wrong with you, Villem?’ I shouted as soon as the door had closed.

‘Lahying is aginst Gawd’s commandments,’ he said.

‘God doesn’t exist, kiddo, you haven’t got a clue.’

I went over to the bookshelf and took down the Aesthetic Theory . I was on the verge of throwing it at his head, but what good would that do me? What I should have done was to ask to borrow a copy of In Search of Lost Time . The pasty little bastard would never have got out of that one alive.

‘I don’t want to see you again,’ I said, opening the door for him.

He picked up his rucksack and began his pilgrimage towards the exit.

‘Hey, before you go, tell me something.’

‘What?’

‘What’s my nose like?’

‘What?’

‘You heard, what does it look like?’

He stood and looked at my nose, not daring to open his mouth.

‘Tell me.’

‘A potato?’

‘Get out of here, go on, beat it!’ I ordered.

He went without a fight: we both knew he’d be back on Saturday. I poured myself a beer and, when I’d calmed down, began to read the police report. And then I noticed the surname of the person who’d filed it. I shot off down the stairs like a ramshackle rocket to the greengrocer’s, knocking over the salon’s chairs as I went, shouting out as I got there:

‘You’ll never guess who wants to put me in the slammer!’

Juliet interrupted what she was doing, which was talking to Dorotea.

‘Come in, Teo,’ said Juliet. ‘Let me introduce you to my granddaughter. This is Dorotea.’

‘I’ve already met her,’ I replied, ‘she works for the dog police. How did you end up with a counter-revolutionary granddaughter?’

‘There’s nothing counter-revolutionary about it, just the opposite,’ said Dorotea, defensively.

‘Yeah right! Are dogs going to start the Revolution?’

‘Hey, don’t laugh,’ said Juliet, ‘the mutts already run the street. Calm down Teo, Dorotea’s a good girl. She’s too idealistic, but there you go; she’s not her grandmother’s granddaughter for nothing.’

‘I should go, Abuela ,’ said Dorotea. ‘I’ll come back another day.’

‘But you never come to see me!’

‘From now on I will, you’ll see.’

She gave Juliet such a tender hug even I forgave her for coming after me.

‘And another thing, child,’ said Juliet, ‘stop sending your friends to my shop, they all owe me money.’

‘Collaborate with the cause, Abue !’

‘I don’t have enough tomatoes for so many causes. I have to charge people, otherwise how can I eat?’

They finished their hug and, before she left, Dorotea asked me: ‘Is that boy a friend of yours?’

‘The Mormon?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Do you like him? Want me to set you up on a date?’

Her long hair stood on end.

‘No, no, I was just curious, missionaries have always intrigued me. And besides, I was surprised at his integrity.’

‘Integrity?’

‘He wasn’t prepared to lie to give you an alibi.’

‘Well you know what, now that I think about it you two would make a great couple, the traitor and the counter-revolutionary. I am going to set you up.’