Horacio Castellanos Moya - Dance With Snakes

When I got to the driveway, carrying Valentina’s destroyed remains, several neighbours were peeking out through their windows and half-opened doors, but they disappeared as soon as they saw the other three ladies slithering behind me. We got to the yellow Chevrolet and left, heads bowed in sadness. The execution of Raúl Pineda was worth nothing compared to the death of our most beloved and beautiful Valentina.

I went back to the spot I’d left less than an hour before. I was overcome with despair — the beating, the wealth of emotions and the death of Valentina had devastated me. I barely managed to put the cardboard back up in the windshield and find a place for my blanket before I fell asleep next to Valentina’s body. I had a strange dream that I tried to interpret with the help of the ladies the next morning. Don Jacinto (who was really me), Doña Sofía, their daughter, and Raúl Pineda were in a room lying on a bed. Pineda made love to the mother and then to the girl, but I didn’t react or feel the slightest bit of pain or disgust. It was as though I were watching an enjoyable movie, until Valentina appeared and wrapped her provocative body around me in an indescribably slippery, orgasmic embrace.

I woke up in pain. My body was one big bruise. The ladies were in their hiding places, obviously exhausted by the previous evening’s activities. I wondered what we’d do with Valentina’s corpse. I got out of the car and stretched. It was early. I looked for a newsboy to buy the paper. To my huge surprise, I saw that we were on the front page. The headline read SNAKE INVASION and below that, CHAOS IN THE CITY: DOZENS DEAD AND INJURED. A picture of the gas station in flames covered most of the front page and beside it were two small photographs of the posh lady from the mall and the line of bodies at Raúl Pineda’s house. I hurried back to the car.

“Look at this!” I shouted once I’d got back in the yellow Chevrolet. “We’re on the front page!” The ladies didn’t understand my joy. “We’re important!” I insisted. “We’re in all the headlines. Don’t you know what this means?”

They were on tenterhooks. I knew it would make no sense to try to convince them of the importance of being front-page news — a privilege normally reserved for politicians, criminals, and similar people. The ladies showed no interest in being a part of that riffraff. But there we were, nearly dominating the national news section. There were articles and interviews with witnesses who described deadly snakes, a bearded beggar and a yellow Chevrolet. I read a statement by Deputy Commissioner Lito Handal, who was in charge of the investigation, with particular interest. “Due to the unusual nature of the crimes, Handal believes they may be the work of a criminal mastermind, probably an insane snake charmer,” the article read. “The Deputy Commissioner assured the public that there are already solid clues leading to the perpetrators of these heinous acts,” it continued. “He stated that the night before last, an officer attempted to detain the occupant of a Chevrolet similar to the one described by witnesses, but that the suspect managed to flee the scene.” There were two small photographs of Officer Dolores Cuéllar and Niña Beatriz Díaz, who said the car in question had been parked in front of Mrs. Díaz’s store for two weeks, but that after Officer Cuéllar’s inspection two nights ago, the yellow Chevrolet had disappeared. Further on, the reporter mentioned me by name as a probable victim who had been kidnapped by the owner of the car and of the snakes. I felt flattered. It was the first time in my life that I’d ever been in the newspaper. On another page there was a sketch of the man with the snakes and the yellow Chevrolet. It was a combination of Don Jacinto’s face and my own. The most shocking picture inside had been taken in the downtown area.

I was delighted. I forgot all about the ladies, my aching bones and Valentina’s body. How could we have caused such a commotion in so little time? I read all the information on our whereabouts. The editorial called for a tightening of the city’s security to prevent just any madman from plunging it into chaos. There was another article on the murder of Doña Sofía Bustillo, who had been savagely stabbed in her home. Her maid was also dead, but she was a victim of multiple snakebites. Based on that information, Deputy Commissioner Handal believed the crime was connected to the events that had shaken the public. The most sinister part of the investigation was the “massacre” of seven detectives from the Intelligence and Narcotics Department (DICA) including Chief Detective Raúl Pineda, in whose home the officers had been attacked by snakes.

“Ladies,” I said, “I think we’re going to have to hibernate for a while. Everyone must be looking for our yellow Chevrolet right now.”

I took the cardboard down from the windshield and the windows. Two people were already looking at the car from the sidewalk. When they saw me moving around, they went down the road. I needed to find a covered garage or a reliable repair shop to leave the Chevrolet for a few days, until people forgot about all this and we could drive around the streets again. We took advantage of the early hour and headed out of the city, looking for the road that led to the top of the volcano. I was in luck — I didn’t run into any police cars. Few cars drove around this rural area dotted with enormous mansions that belonged to politicians and the filthy rich. As I passed an enormous stone wall, behind which the top of a large mansion could be seen, I saw that the iron gate was being opened automatically. I manoeuvred so quickly the guard had no time to react. I rammed him and he fell across the windshield. I stopped the Chevrolet by crashing it into a Mercedes Benz that was getting ready to leave the property. A bodyguard jumped out of the back seat holding a submachine gun. I threw myself to the car floor, opened the door and shouted to the ladies to be careful. The bodyguard shot out the windshield, but was quickly neutralized by Carmela. The driver tried to back up, but Beti was already inside the car. An elegant-looking man, like the kind you see on television, got out of the car and ran towards the mansion, but Loli got him before he reached the door. The guard was lying on the ground, badly wounded and terrified at the sight of Beti. I asked him how to close the gate. There was a remote control in the Mercedes, he stammered, on the ceiling behind the sunroof. The driver was convulsing.

“What a garden!” I yelled.

There were two more gleaming cars in front of the mansion. Hysterical screams were coming from the front rooms. I hurried in. Beti bit the guard and slipped ahead of me. “That’s Don Abraham Ferracuti. .” I said, stepping over the body of the famous politician and banker, who was much more purple and contorted than he looked on the TV news. Two maids were rolling around on the floor of an incredibly luxurious room, the likes of which I’d only ever seen in movies. A beautiful older lady, wrapped in a silk dressing gown, was howling in pain on the stairs, a cordless telephone at her feet. The young girl who had locked herself in her room was screaming at the top of her lungs. She must have been trying to call for help, I thought. I took out Raúl Pineda’s gun and shot out the lock. Beti angrily turned to face me, as though my firing bothered her. I pushed the door open and just as I thought, the young girl was dialling the phone with trembling hands. She stopped when she saw Beti.

“Get that animal out of here! Help!” she screamed, and threw the phone at Beti. She was naked, just out of the bath, her blonde hair still dripping. She was lovelier than any woman I’d ever been with. But Beti didn’t let me fantasize. She bit her over and over again on the calves, the thighs and the neck. I was amazed at how quickly her body became disfigured. I went downstairs. There was a place set in the dining room. A coffeemaker bubbled in the kitchen. Carmela was in front of the door to the servants’ area.