Horacio Castellanos Moya - Dance With Snakes

“I’m making a soup with Valentina’s remains,” I mumbled.

They continued to ignore me.

I took another sip of rum, went back to the car and took out Valentina’s skin so it could dry in the sun. The soup was boiling now, but I wanted to wait for the meat to be ready. It had to be tender and delicious, worthy of a girl like her. And since I didn’t have any seasoning, I looked for the bags of marijuana I’d taken from Raúl Pineda’s table and emptied them into the soup.

Moving all that junk around, I found a small radio in a corner of the car, behind the empty cans. It worked perfectly, as if it had new batteries. I tuned in to a news update on the state of emergency that had been declared by the Presidential Palace because of an imminent snake attack. In the end, it turned out to be a false alarm caused by a yellow Ford whose driver had nothing to do with the perpetrator of the attacks destroying the city. The announcer said Rita Mena, a journalist with Ocho Columnas , was at the scene at the Presidential Palace covering an emergency cabinet meeting, and reported that stress and tension were prevailing even at the highest levels of government. Other sources claimed it was the reporter herself who had raised the alarm when she saw the yellow car as she entered the Presidential Palace.

I leafed through the newspaper I’d bought that morning. Mena’s article was in the national news section.

But now the announcer was saying that according to anonymous police sources close to the investigation, Jacinto Bustillo, the ex-husband of the woman killed yesterday afternoon, was the man suspected to be driving the yellow Chevrolet and planning the snake attacks. They’d finally identified me!

I stirred the soup, which was thickening nicely, and tried a piece of meat to see if it was tender. My succulent lunch would be ready in less than a half hour. I had another sip of rum and took out some of the bread that I’d taken from the supermarket yesterday afternoon.

The announcer reported that there was a rumour that government insiders believed the snake attacks could be part of a plan to destabilize the country’s leadership, a theory that had legs, especially considering that the murder of Dr. Abraham Ferracuti would intensify the infighting within the party. He also reported that a special committee had been formed, by presidential decree, to be led by the city’s police commissioner to stop the snake attacks as soon as possible.

The news update ended. I turned the dial and found the classical music I needed to organize my thoughts. I lay down inside the car, the little radio resting on my abdomen, my hands laced at the back of my neck, and my gaze fixed on the rusty ceiling of the Chevrolet. They must have been looking desperately for us, with their entire arsenal, street by street, combing through parking lots and garages, ordered to annihilate us the instant we were spotted. My sore body was begging for rest and I nearly fell asleep, but hunger prevailed.

The soup was delicious and invigorating, the mix of snake meat and marijuana totally innovative. What a way to enjoy Valentina — it was as though every piece of meat had been infused with her voluptuousness, as though her capacity for extreme anger and pleasure was transmitted to me with every bite, as though her lustful spirit had been distilled in the thick, hot liquid. I remembered the dream I’d had the night before, when Valentina had wrapped herself around me in a slippery, orgasmic embrace, and the soup seemed to taste even better.

Once sated, instead of falling victim to the drowsiness that comes after a feast, I felt incredibly energized and lucid. I wanted to talk, to do something. But first I had to get cigarettes. I put out the fire, had a last sip of rum, tore out the page of the newspaper with the office’s telephone numbers, and walked over to the scrapyard’s front gate. I thought it would be bolted by now, that the yard would be completely abandoned during the weekend, and that the watchman would be gone. I was right. I looked for a hole in the chain link that I could go through to get to the vacant lot next to the yard. I made it to the sidewalk. I walked a few blocks, under the blazing sun, until I found a store.

Two young men were sitting on the steps with a trail of beers before them, hangovers still written all over their faces. They looked at me distrustfully. An elderly woman gave me the cigarettes without hiding her disgust. I felt like having a cold beer. I asked for one. I sat down on the steps. The soup had been marvellous and I felt sociable and animated. The young men became uncomfortable and guarded. They moved over to the other side of the steps. I lit a cigarette and offered them one. They said no thanks. I was so thirsty I drank half the bottle of beer in one gulp.

“Is there a phone booth around here?” I asked.

They told me it was three blocks away. I wondered whether they recognized my face from the composite sketch that was in the paper.

“I heard they caught that nut with the snakes,” I said.

How? Where?

The old woman listened in from behind the counter.

“They just said it on the radio,” I explained. “He went back downtown and they caught him there.”

“I hope they kill that son-of-a-bitch,” the clean-shaven one said angrily. Then he told me he’d like a cigarette after all.

“What are you talking about? It’s too bad they caught him,” said the one wearing sunglasses. “He had those politicians by the balls.”

“I wonder if you’d like it if those snakes bit you or someone in your family.”

The old woman said she was sure the appearance of the snakes was an ominous sign, evidence that the end of days was near, just like it said in Revelations. There was no other way to explain such a disaster.

I told them I agreed.

I drank the rest of my beer. I got up and limped off to find the telephone, remembering that I hadn’t warned the ladies I’d be gone for a while.

I dialled one of the numbers listed for the newspaper office. I asked for Rita Mena. She came on the line quickly. I identified myself, warned her not to interrupt me or I’d hang up, and I told her everything that had been written about me hadn’t captured the essence of what was happening.

“I’m not crazy, and I’m not a criminal. I’m just someone who through tremendous effort and sheer will became what I am today: Jacinto Bustillo, the man with the snakes,” I said, inspired.

The poor girl was stunned. She kept quiet while I smoked.

I told her that it was me she’d seen driving by the Presidential Palace. But that didn’t matter; I wasn’t interested in getting inside the politicians’ lair.

“There’s no plan and there’s no conspiracy, the way they’re saying on the radio. Only chance and logic have allowed me to complete my mutation. But you wouldn’t understand,” I said, thrilled, as though I was able to express myself perfectly and freely for the very first time.

Before I hung up, I promised to call again.

I tossed my cigarette butt in the street. I walked back to the scrapyard, excited, wanting to see the ladies and tell them about the commotion we’d caused throughout the country so they could relish their fame, the fact that they were the talk of the town. But I didn’t want to pass by the store again. I went down a parallel street and walked until I got to the vacant lot, where I turned to go back in the way I’d left.

The ladies had gone back to the Chevrolet. They’d had enough sun and were full of energy, as well as a hunger and thirst that had led them to finish the rest of the soup and Valentina’s flesh. They were resting inside the car, looking placid and satisfied, which made me wonder what effect the mix of marijuana and Valentina would have on them.