Iosi Havilio - Open Door

Afterwards, next to the door, imprisoned between two high shelves filled to the brim with boxes that could land on top of us at any moment, we say goodbye with a handshake. He has the last word: We’ll probably summons you again, he says, and releases my hand.

Since I finished somewhat earlier than expected, I decide to walk to the surgery to kill time. I think about Aída, I go over my statement in my mind. At no point did I lie.

I arrive at the surgery and, behind the counter, a girl I’ve never seen before mistakes me for a client. I tell her who I am and her smile tightens slightly. From the till, she removes an envelope with my name on it. It’s the owner’s handwriting, I know it well. She says she’s sorry, but she has to sack me, she says I left her no alternative. In fact, she’s not sacking me, she’s asking me not to complicate things and to send her my resignation. She’s also left me a bit of money, compensation I suppose.

My gaze moves swiftly across this animal world that was mine for almost six months. I thank the girl by raising a hand, leaving the letter on the counter. She purses her lips and raises her shoulders, apologising for something that wasn’t her doing. She seems happy with her new job. I wonder whether I ought to give her some practical advice.

I spend the next few days and nights in the Hotel Kalton. The night watchman gets me a television in return for a tip. I eat in bed, I watch all the programmes and when I get bored I turn to the Brazilian bible, which I read in parts, at random, wherever it falls open. I understand Portuguese much better than I thought I did. It’s a pleasing language, full of the sounds of the wind. I’ve been paid up to and including Friday, so I just let myself be.

On Saturday, I take the train again and I’m in Open Door before midday. I was in two minds about whether to bring the Brazilian bible with me, but no, why would I need it.

I arrive at the house on foot, I don’t have a single peso left, not even enough for the bus. It feels like a long way. Jaime was expecting to see me sooner, or at least to hear from me.

‘I couldn’t come any earlier, I had a legal matter to take care of,’ I say and he doesn’t show any interest in finding out what.

The first thing I do is to examine the other Jaime, who has improved considerably. It shows in the whites of his eyes, which are much livelier, and in the rhythm of his breathing. Jaime asks whether he could get better by himself. With difficulty, I reply.

Why did I come? I don’t question myself, Jaime asks me even less. We start preparing a meal. We both happen to be very hungry. The radio is loud: there’s a tacit agreement not to speak.

Later, after lunch, I tell Jaime about Aída. My story lasts the time it takes for him to roll and smoke three of his cigarettes. The kitchen reeks of smoke.

‘You must be sad,’ he says, or asks. With Jaime, it’s hard to tell.

When we take our siesta, Jaime offers me his bed again but this time he doesn’t ask my permission to lie down next to me. He’s less inhibited and takes advantage of the first brush of contact to stroke my back underneath my blouse. He kicks off his boots, snorting. I help him to undress, and take off my own clothes. Before I know it, he’s inside me. For a few minutes. He doesn’t leave me time for anything.

We sleep our siesta with our backs to each other. The sheets smell clean, Jaime must have changed them with me in mind. Or perhaps not, it could just be a coincidence. It’s my first siesta for a long time. I enjoy it, although the silence unsettles me at times.

When I open my eyes, it’s already night-time. Jaime is still aroused. He climbs on top of me again. This time he grips the headboard with both hands, his nose scraping the wall. He moves like an animal. I try to take pleasure from it. At times I even succeed. His penis slips out and I feel it colliding against the inside of my thighs. It struggles, almost manages to enter again but immediately slides out, ending up limp with the effort. I cool off, I become dry. I wait for him to sort himself out with his hand, for him to wet his fingers with saliva and pass them over my lips. But it would seem that Jaime doesn’t know about that sort of thing, even less that he wants to find out. He persists. My face is squashed up against his solid, hairy chest. It’s no use, I end up having to make way with my own hand. I guide him. He’s a terrible lover, with no technique.

On Sunday, Jaime wakes up with a fever. A relentless, country fever. He says it’s nothing, that it will soon pass. I touch his forehead with my palm. It’s boiling.

Some five hundred metres from the house, there’s a small shop. Jaime asks me to go and buy some coarse salt to make him a steam bath. He tells me to take the pick-up. I say I’d prefer to walk. The road is full of potholes, enclosed by two barbed-wire fences, three wires high on the right and four on the left. It’s half twelve and the sun, close to its zenith, prevents me from seeing things as they really are. The shop door is a curtain of rubber strips which I pull aside in order to pass through. There’s no one there. Hello, I say, but there’s no answer.

I retreat and, at the entrance, I clap my hands together. Still no response. I clap again, harder this time, and I hear the patter of small, reluctant, dawdling footsteps. The first thing I see is not that pair of tiny feet, with skin like dirty porcelain; instead it’s the dust they raise as they drag along. The feet stop and I hear a soft breath close behind me.

I raise my head and have to lean slightly to see a round, flushed face, the forehead covered in pimples. It’s a girl, somewhere between thirteen and sixteen; at that age you can never tell.

‘We’re closed,’ she says, ‘we open again at four.’

Silence. Neither of us moves from our position: I remain in the shade, she’s in the sun. I don’t know what to say, nor does she and, almost in unison, we shrug, hers apologetic, mine regretful. But I can tell that she likes me, or that she’s bored, or something like that, because she changes her mind straight away.

‘Do you need much?’

‘A packet of coarse salt.’

‘Come in,’ says the girl, and enters the shop, raising more dust. I follow her, a metre behind. Inside, it’s cool and dimly lit, ideal to rest my eyes and my head for a while, worn out as they are from so much sun. A light, crystalline dust with a taste of pollen envelops the atmosphere. It’s there and it’s not there, I can feel it, but I can’t see it, like a spent cloud at ground level.

It’s a typical general supply shop, but quite a bit smaller and much poorer than those that you still see in some villages, imitating those of days gone by. Even so, despite its precarious construction, it has that characteristic spirit of a cosmic market that conveys a sense of powerful abundance. Against the back wall, behind the counter, shelves reach to the roof, fashioned from piles of bricks and planks of wood, forming niches of different sizes in which the less usual merchandise is kept. It’s not that the items are unusual in themselves, the odd thing is their coexistence. Their proximity to each other makes them absurd. There are brooms, flippers, bulk and bagged flour, candles, nails, screws, nuts, whips, household and garden tools, inflatable dolls, bundles of wood, balls, portable barbecues, lifejackets, two bicycle wheels, a cement mixer, noodles, two fishing rods with red floaters, bottles of gin, liqueurs and demijohns, an old mobile phone with a broken antenna, more balls, sunglasses, stale bread, three carrots, six potatoes, a tomato, various pairs of espadrilles hanging from a string of garlic, all together and in full view.