Evelio Rosero - Feast of the Innocents

He went in without anyone noticing him. The rooms were small, dimly lit, and unlike the streets of Pasto, which vibrated with light and whistles, a smooth but despairing bolero —“Humo”—was all that could be heard coming from the hidden speakers. Behind that bolero , the carnival faded away: it had to be because of the eternal atmosphere holding sway in the house — biblical, unassailable, be it carnival or Galeras erupting.

One girl after another appeared and disappeared.

He chose the table next to the staircase that the girls went up in company, and came down later on, alone. Someone, a shadow, poured him a double shot of aguardiente . There was a photograph on the wall, above his table, a sepia shot, in a battered frame: Mandarina leapt out of the picture in a long sequinned dress, smiling in the middle of a group of happy men, obviously foreigners, explorers recently arrived from the Amazon, hats and water bottles, boots and rifles, all raising their glasses to the black woman’s health. Beneath the photo he read: Mandarina opens her first establishment in Puerto Asís, Putumayo, 1916. With her, from left to right: Wilson Fallón, Joel Schloss, Richard Cross, James Reed, Hermann Price, David Dávoren, Alfred Wills and Félix María Lindig, her most devoted admirers . And the signatures of the eight admirers lived on in the photograph, faded and looping, written around the blades of a fan.

Not far away, on a carpeted dais, decorated with flowers, red curtains like a little theatre, a trio of musicians were smoking, sitting down, their instruments lifeless between their knees. Old advertising posters surrounded them: FLANDES SWEETS, AMBALEMA CIGARS . The doctor was grateful for a second drink: once again he could not see who served it. Around him there were dark red couches and mahogany tables, full-length mirrors, an upright piano, oil lamps, a clock with no hands; men drank in discreet corners, seated on leather chairs; girls, like shadows, waited standing up, leaning against the walls — and the student? — the doctor remembered, and looked around for Puelles: no Puelles anywhere.

Nothing had changed in that house since he had visited it for the first time: the whole place smelled of disinfectant. He needed to pee; in the entrance to the toilet he read the same notice that had frightened him as an adolescent: BEWARE: HERE BE WITCHES . But above the urinal he saw obscene drawings and posters that were new — one of them could very well have been written by any one of Chivo’s students, he thought, or by Chivo himself: Love constitutes the only universal principle of a complete synthesis . Below that he read: That’s as good as saying love is the religion of humanity, arsehole . Returning to his table he saw two men dressed up as monks, or two monks, fighting harmlessly in a corner; they were yanking each other around by their cassocks, shouting; one of them wanted to leave, the other did not. The first resigned himself to waiting “just a minute.” The doctor sat down, and again a hand poured him more aguardiente , which he drank despondently. The three musicians were no longer smoking on the dais; the red curtains opened right up.

Mandarina emerged, dressed half in yellow, arms spread wide as if preparing to embrace the world. “Here you can only be happy,” she cried, “there’s no other way to be.” Loud applause accompanied her words. What great strong teeth, they’ll eat you alive, he thought, she’s ageless, looks younger than me, she tended to me when I was a boy and yet she looks like a younger sister, it’s impossible, but what a blazing woman.

“As you can see,” Mandarina whispered, as if she were reading his thoughts and answering him, “I did not grow old: I went backwards,” and with a tremendous shout: “The world ages around me, señores .” Another burst of applause ensued. “Let every man seek out his other half,” she cried, and disappeared as suddenly as she had appeared, into the cloud of pink smoke her girls were fanning towards her. The echo of her indomitable laughter remained, like a growl.

“You must do as she says,” the doctor told himself.

“Whenever you like,” a girl said at his side. At what point had she sat down with him? It was the woman who was pouring the aguardiente. All he could do was ask her name.

“Here, they call me Darkness,” the girl said. “What will you get me to drink?”

She was all spirit: enormous liquid eyes, great violet shadows underneath, very fragile, but hands twice the size of the doctor’s.

Then his attention was caught by the unusual names of the girls Mandarina was now calling, through a speaker, from the first floor, as if demanding they report in; she urged them to go up and do their duty.

“Density! Silence! Red Beard! Birdie! Poison Ivy! Baldy! Blame! Darkness!”

“That’s me, as you may recall,” the girl said.

But she sent a message with the girls going up to say she was sick.

“I’m a doctor, if I can be of any assistance.”

“I’m not really sick. It’s just that I know who’s waiting for me up there, and I’m tired of that pig. He’s got a thing like a donkey and I can’t take it anymore; he really is an ass, more of a beast than any real one.”

She was young, but the ravages of insomnia showed on her face.

“And you, señor , can I help you?”

“Not me, it’s for a friend,” the doctor said. The memory of Chila Chávez and the pious Alcira Sarasti, who were possibly waiting for him that Black Day, were a factor in his refusal, because he had been on the verge of taking her by the hand and leading her away, or letting her lead him away, until the last night of time.

And he explained to Darkness who Belencito Jojoa was.

“No kick left in him,” she said. “He’ll die on me.”

She remained with her arms folded, deep in thought, assessing the picture the doctor was painting of Belencito Jojoa.

“Sick and old with it: impossible.”

“Love works wonders,” the doctor said.

“He must be a right bag of bones, or is he one of the fatties?”

“More the dried-up type.”

“He’ll crumble away to nothing.”

“Don’t be a pessimist.”

“Fat or thin, I’d have to drive him.”

“Drive him?”

“Hop aboard and steer.”

The doctor imagined Belencito Jojoa receiving Darkness into his bed, his hands reaching out, and heard his voice, razor-sharp: “Drive me, drive me, kiss my soul.”

“Grandpas cost double,” Darkness went on, relentlessly, “it’s more of an effort, though you wouldn’t think so. It makes us think about death. Grubby old age. And, also, home visits are difficult, they’re a risk, what if he’s being nursed by Franciscan Sisters? That happened to me once before. And I don’t know if Mandarina will let me out today, on Black Day, because tons of people are coming in with the carnival, not just men but women as well, who we lend beds to. Tricky, señor. You’d have to pay in pure gold.”

“You will be paid in gold,” the doctor said. “And you’ll have to dress as a nurse, so they let us in. Me the doctor, you as the nurse.”

“Costumes cost extra.”

“But don’t paint yourself black. Let him see you as you are.”

Darkness made up her mind. “I’ll go and speak to Mandarina. You wait for me outside, in the doorway. She’ll tell me how much to charge you, and we can go. If Mandarina doesn’t let me out, never mind, I’ll escape: I was already keen to get away from this dump for ever.”

“As you wish,” the doctor said. And he went out of the house, into the confusion of the carnival.

A carnival troupe went by, and the revellers crushed in and around about: faces floated by, painted black — or black and white — there was a smell of bodies, alcohol, scented lotions. One of the merrymakers offered the doctor a cigarette, which he accepted. “So, are they worth it?” the man asked. The doctor nodded and the merrymaker went into Mandarina’s townhouse.