Liliana Heker - Please Talk to Me - Selected Stories

From that day onwards I tried to avoid his presence, but that simply exasperated him. He stalked me, monitoring all my movements. And although I did everything I could to stop him watching me (in these conditions even breathing becomes difficult) I suppose that he had found a way to control me without my realising it. The truth is that every time I tried to do some important work, I would hear Juan Luis’ voice coming from the most unexpected places, and I had to get away.

It wasn’t so much for myself that I minded, but for my family. For days now, Mama’s eyes have been swollen from crying so much, and Adelaida has developed a kind of rash that makes her look terrible. Perhaps it’s better for everyone that things ended as they have. I don’t know. I have a strange feeling, even though I shouldn’t be surprised. What he was going to do was foreseeable. It should have been enough just to see the way he smiled at supper time — the obsequious way he offered me the breast of the chicken — to know that he was embarking on another of his crises. And that this time it would continue to its ultimate conclusion.

But it wasn’t at the dinner table that I knew for sure, it was at midnight, when I was lying in bed, still thinking it over. How was I so certain? I don’t know. I suppose it was something like animal instinct: rats abandoning a sinking ship. All I know is that I was going over what had happened in the last few days, and what Juan Luis had said at dinner and suddenly I realised that he was planning to kill me that very night. Initially, I admit, I was paralysed with terror but some inner voice urged me to fight for my life. I got up and, barefoot, so as not to make any noise, I went to Juan Luis’ bedroom. He didn’t move, but I could tell that he wasn’t asleep. A fearful thought struck me: what do I do if he attacks me? (Juan Luis was always stronger than I was). Although the thought of using a weapon against my brother was repugnant, I knew that my very survival was at stake. I went to the storage room to get an axe. Then, feeling calmer, I returned to his bedroom. From the door I watched the white rectangle of his bed; there was no discernible movement, but he couldn’t deceive me any longer. Quietly I approached the bed, and confirming my suspicions, he sat up.

I don’t know how far things might have gone if he hadn’t seen the axe. Even having seen it, he launched himself at me. Remembering that a person in his state of mind never abandons the course to which he is committed, I defended myself as best I could until Papa and Adelaida arrived and managed to free me.

I must have lost consciousness after that. This morning, when I woke up, I could barely recall the incident. I was trying to work out why my wrist hurt so much when, through the door, I heard my father talking on the telephone. ‘As soon as possible,’ I heard, ‘last night he tried to kill his brother.’ Shivers ran down my spine when I heard that. But this is for the best. I can’t spend my life hiding away. It’s terrible not to feel the sun on my skin. I want to be happy.

. . .

My God, I think I must have fallen asleep. I can hear his voice outside. Perhaps they’ve come to get him. I think I’m afraid.

. . .

Papa isn’t standing at the window any more. I called him and he shouted that he was coming, that I should keep calm. I have to speak to him. I have to explain. I had a dream. No, it’s not that. It’s a feeling I have, that an injustice is about to be perpetrated — that’s it. That he grew up with us, or don’t they remember that any more? He liked sunny mornings and Prince Valiant. And perhaps, even though we think that everything suddenly changed for him, perhaps within his soul there is still a beautiful and hidden part that nobody yet knows. That nobody will ever know, now. I hear the voices outside. They’ve come to get him. They are going to encircle him with walls through which the sun shall never enter.

When the time came to leave, Señora Eloísa still considered herself fortunate to be returning to Azul by car. The travelling salesman — who worked for her daughter’s future father-in-law — had arrived punctually to pick her up at the hotel and seemed very proper; he had shown great care in placing her little crocodile skin suitcase on the back seat and even apologised about the car being so full of merchandise. A pointless apology, in the opinion of Señora Eloísa, who always found the exchange of pleasantries with new acquaintances trying. As the car pulled away, she too felt obliged to make trivial remarks about the suffocating heat, prompting an exchange of opinions on low pressure, the probability of rain and the good that rain would do to the country, this last observation naturally leading to the fields of Señora Eloísa’s own husband, the trials of being a landowner, the highs and lows of life as a travelling salesman and the various attributes of many other occupations. By the time they reached Cañuelas, Señora Eloísa had already spoken — amiably at first, but with a growing reluctance — about the characters of her three children, the eldest one’s impending marriage, assembling a cheese board, good and bad cholesterol and the best kind of diet for a cocker spaniel. She also knew a few details about the man’s life, details which, before their arrival in San Miguel del Monte — and after a blessedly prolonged silence — she could no longer even recall. She was tired. She had lent back against the headrest, closed her eyes and begun to feel herself lulled by the low, soporific hum of the engine, evoking cicadas during scorching afternoon siestas Do you mind if I smoke . The words seemed to reach her through an oily vapour and with an effort she opened her eyes.

‘No, please do.’

She looked sleepily at the man who was driving, whose name she had completely forgotten; was it Señor Ibáñez? Señor Velazco? Mister Magic Bubble? Master Belch?

‘A great driving companion.’

This time her eyes sprang open in alarm. Who? Who was a great companion? Looking around her for clues she found nothing: only the man smoking with his eyes open unnecessarily wide. The cigarette, of course. She made an effort to be lively.

‘Everyone tells me they’re wonderful for clearing the head.’

Nobody had told her any such thing, it had been a mistake not to take the coach back, by now she would have been stretched out in the seat and sleeping peacefully. She half-closed her eyes and thought that she could, up to a point, do the same here. Lean against the headrest and go to sleep. Just like that, how delicious: to fall asleep and not wake up until a godsend . Did she hear him speak? Had the man just said ‘a godsend’? So was he never going to stop talking?

‘… because the truth is that tedium makes you tired.’

A joyful spark ignited within Señora Eloísa.

‘Unbearably tired,’ she agreed. She thought the man would realise now that she needed to sleep.

‘And it’s not only the tedium. Shall I tell you something?’ said the man. ‘Last night I didn’t sleep a wink. Because of the mosquitoes. Did you know there’s been an invasion of mosquitoes?’

Please be quiet, she cried out, silently.

‘It’s because of this heat,’ she said. ‘We need a good storm.’

‘The storm is on its way — look,’ the man nodded towards a dark mass approaching from the south. ‘In a couple of minutes we’re going to have ourselves a proper drenching, I can tell you.’

‘Yes a proper drenching.’

The need to sleep was now a painful sensation against which she had no desire to fight. She let her head loll back again, almost obscenely, her eyelids falling heavily. Little by little she disengaged herself from the heat and the man and surrendered to the monotonous rattle of the car.