Liliana Heker - Please Talk to Me - Selected Stories

‘Perfectly?’ said the plumber. ‘Could you switch from the central spout to the side jets?’

‘No, not really.’

‘So it wasn’t working perfectly. It’s the transfer valve.’

‘And will it take long to fix?’

‘About half an hour. But I am going to need to turn the stopcock on and off a few times. It’s probably better if you tell me where it is.’

The plumber’s brusque manner made her uncomfortable but she decided that it would be better not to put up any opposition. You never know, with these people, she thought that she would say to Silvina when she recounted the incident later on, and she led him to the kitchen. She waited. The plumber opened the stopcock, shouted something to his assistant, who shouted a reply, then closed it again.

‘Shall I go with you to the bathroom?’ asked Señora Brun.

The plumber looked coldly at her.

‘I think I know the way,’ he said.

She waited for him to walk away then went to the study from where she could at least see the bathroom door. She felt like ringing her friend Silvina to tell her how unpleasant the plumber was but finally decided that it would be better not to call: with the door open the men were sure to overhear her and if she closed it she wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on the bathroom door. One doesn’t want to be on top of them, she pictured herself saying to Silvina; I don’t like to keep monitoring people as they go about their work, but this plumber is such an odd character, and bringing that assistant, too — tell me, did the man really need to bring an assistant? You should have seen how he insisted on being the one to control the stopcock — what was I supposed to say? So now I’ve got him here, wandering around my house as if he owned the place.

She went to the bathroom.

‘How’s it going?’ she asked cheerfully.

‘Well,’ said the plumber. ‘It’s nearly done.’

‘Oh, thank goodness. I’ll have time to visit my friend, then. She’s laid up with a sprained ankle, poor thing.’

Neither the plumber nor his assistant had anything to say about that, so Señora Brun waited a little before deciding to go to her bedroom to get her clothes ready: she was going to change as soon as the plumber left so that she could go straightaway to her friend Silvina’s house. She took the earrings she was going to wear out of her jewellery box and it was at that moment that she remembered the chain with the teardrop pendant: she had left it in the bathroom cabinet as she always did before getting into the shower. She tried not to panic: there was no reason why the plumber would open the cabinet.

She went to the bathroom and paused in the doorway, not wanting to appear anxious.

‘So, everything all right?’ she asked. ‘You’re nearly finished?’

‘That’s right, Señora,’ said the plumber.

‘And is it home for a rest after this?’

‘Not yet,’ said the assistant.

‘What a difficult job,’ said Señora Brun, ‘always some last-minute emergency. Could you excuse me a moment? I need to get something.’

She stepped into the bathroom and opened the cabinet. A shiver of fear ran through her body: the teardrop wasn’t there. Helplessly she glanced around her to see if it had been left on the vanity top or on a shelf or sill. Nothing. On the floor? Nothing.

‘Oh no,’ she cried involuntarily.

The plumber looked at her.

‘Is something wrong?’ he asked.

‘No nothing, I just suddenly remembered something,’ she said, and went out of the bathroom.

Of course I am sure, she imagined herself telling her friend Silvina, I always put it there before I have a shower (but just in case, she was checking her jewellery box, the chest of drawers, the bedside table). I make a point of putting it into the cabinet so that it can’t fall down the drain — imagine how awful that would be, a three-carat diamond. No of course I don’t wear it every day, do you think I’m mad, with all the insecurity there is these days? I keep it for special occasions and only if I’m going out with Ricardo. That’s precisely the reason I wear it at home, where there are no risks. Otherwise when would I ever wear it? And I adore that teardrop.

She had looked in every conceivable place without finding it. What should she do now? Obviously I can’t march up to him and say ‘you stole my teardrop,’ she imagined herself saying to Silvina. It’s a question of delicacy, you know, one can’t simply accuse someone of being a thief, without any proof. Besides, his character is quite… What if he sees red and thumps me on the head? Things could turn really nasty. And there are two of them; I’m lying there unconscious and in five minutes they clean out the house and no one will be any the wiser.

Señora Brun was standing in the middle of the hall, wondering how she ought to proceed; generally she favoured a delicate approach, but she couldn’t allow the plumber to walk off with her diamond just like that. Most likely the man wasn’t actually a professional burglar: he had spotted it in the cabinet, realised that it was valuable and pocketed it there and then. At that moment Señora Brun began to see a clear course of action: she must give the man an opportunity to return it. She let out a scream. The plumber had suddenly appeared before her eyes.

‘Where are you going!’ she shouted at him.

The man stared at her with surprise.

‘To open the stopcock,’ he said.

‘Ah yes, of course, I’m sorry: my mind was somewhere else,’ said Señora Brun.

She walked towards the bathroom thinking over what she was going to say. The boy with the curly hair was fiddling with the diverter tap.

‘Turn it on,’ she heard the plumber shout from the kitchen.

The boy turned the hot water tap. Water flowed out in a respectable stream. He turned the diverter tap: water came up from underneath. He turned it off: the flow of water stopped.

‘Isn’t that wonderful,’ said Señora Brun. She pretended to be looking for something on the vanity top.

‘Everything in order?’ asked the plumber, who had just come into the bathroom.

‘Yes,’ said the boy.

‘Oh my God!’ cried Señora Brun. The plumber and the boy both looked at her. ‘I could swear I left it right here,’ she said, in an anguished tone; she waited for them to ask her to elaborate, but no. ‘I’m so absent-minded, it’s terrible. I don’t suppose either of you has seen a little pendant on the countertop?’

Both of the men said that they had not.

‘Oh, I could shoot myself! It has enormous sentimental value for me. My husband gave it to me when we got married. It had been his mother’s, poor thing, she died so young.’

‘Could you have left it somewhere else, Señora?’ asked the plumber, a little impatiently.

‘No, I’m sure I didn’t.’

‘Well, you can have a good look for it in a moment,’ said the plumber. ‘We’re finished here.’

The man’s got no shame, Señora Brun imagined telling her friend Silvina, but she had already thought this all out; the important thing was to give them an opportunity to return the necklace.

‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘it couldn’t have fallen down the plug in the basin, could it?’

‘If you’re asking can it, then yes it could,’ he said. ‘It all depends on the size.’

‘It was very small,’ Señora Brun said quickly. After all, if the man had it in his possession he was hardly going to say ‘no, Señora, I happen to know that it’s enormous.’

‘Well then it could,’ said the plumber.

‘Would you be so kind as to have a look? I can make you both a coffee in the meantime.’

The plumber exchanged a glance with his assistant that did not escape Señora Brun’s eye.