Guillermo Rosales - Leapfrog and Other Stories

“It’s so beautiful! I’ll put it in the refrigerator with some aspirin so it lasts several weeks.”

She turned around with the orchid in hand and Danilo had time to scan the apartment. There were cactus plants of various kinds in every corner. And there were cats, many cats dispersed among the sofas and armchairs. The whole house smelled like cat piss. But, his aunt was already back, was already asking about old relatives, as silent as he was, who didn’t even call on the telephone. She came with the enormous family photo album and took a seat on the sofa, next to Danilo.

“Do you want some crème de vie?”

“No, auntie, I don’t drink alcohol.”

“Just like your mother, may she rest in peace. Nevertheless, she was luckier than me; she got a husband. Just look, look at the photo of your mother when she was fifteen years old. Wasn’t she pretty? Now look at me, always closing my mouth so no one would see my cavity-ridden teeth. And this one is grandma Salvadora, and that one is grandpa Papito, and here’s your aunt Patria, who married the mailman, and here. ”

At that moment, Danilo brought his hand to his stomach and made a grimace.

“What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

“Diarrhea, auntie. For the last week, I’ve had diarrhea.”

“Then go to the bathroom, child. Don’t lose any time.”

She took him by the hand and quickly led him to the toilet, warning him to use the least amount of paper possible and to flush when he was done. Danilo nodded in agreement to everything with an expression of extreme pain. When he was alone in the bathroom, he went directly to the sink and started frantically tapping the tiles. One of them sounded hollow and was nearly loose. It was the tile. The treasure tile. Danilo took a nail clipper out and began to carefully scrape the corners of that tile.

“Damn!” He thought. “This is going to be easier than I expected.” He stuck an edge of the nail clipper through a gap and soon the tile was in his hands, clearing the way to the treasure. Danilo plowed his hand in and started to feel around in the hole. From outside, he heard his aunt’s voice again, who asked him solicitously,

“All better, son?”

“Almost, auntie.”

“I have toilet paper for you here, it must’ve run out. Can I come in?”

“Not now, auntie. I’m on the toilet.”

“That’s nonsense. Have you already forgotten that I bathed you until you were 15 years old? I’m coming in. You’re like a son to me.”

Danilo didn’t have time to stand up. His aunt came in at the moment he was taking his hand out of the hiding place with a thick pile of 100 note bills.

“Thief!” His aunt yelled, bringing her hands to her head. “You’re nothing more than a vulgar and repulsive thief. Leave that money where it was!”

“Aunt, auntie. forgive me. I need three thousand pesos. It’s a matter of life or death.”

“Leave! Leave this house or I will call the police!”

“Three thousand, beloved auntie. I’ll pay you back in a month.”

“Earn it by working for it, you rat. Break your back.”

Danilo walked over to her and took her by the shoulders.

“Auntie, you have to understand. ”

“I don’t understand anything. Police! Police! There’s a thief in this house!”

Danilo shook her forcefully by the shoulders, but he couldn’t help the fragile woman from escaping from his hands and falling to the floor, knocking her head on the edge of the bathtub with a resounding thump. Immediately, blood ran down her head and her dentures fell out of her mouth.

“Aunt! Auntie!”

Danilo kneeled down before her and tried to revive her by tapping her face. He spent a few minutes doing so, until he understood that his aunt would never recover from that fall. He took her pulse and knew she was dead. He tried to close her eyes, but these were looking lifelessly at some undefined point on the wall. There was no time to lose. Danilo forgot about the old woman and filled his pockets with bills and jewelry. He had to leave quickly. He was no longer Danilo the teacher, or even Danilo the thief. He was Danilo the murderer, and that, under Cornelio Rojas’s government, carried the price of the firing squad.

In two steps, he was at the door of the house. He opened it, very carefully, and when he saw there was no one on the stairs, he started to run down the steps toward the street.

Ferryman, ferryman. you’re to blame. Although perhaps the real culprit was Cornelio Rojas whom he ran into on the street, looking at him with grave eyes from a street mural.

It was already too late to see the ferryman. So he would wait until morning, taking refuge in some dark place where the police wouldn’t find him. He walked. He walked like a madman through the elegant neighborhood of Los Molinos, looking for the right place to spend the night. The noise of a police siren made him enter the doorway of a large, seemingly uninhabited colonial house. Then it started to rain. A cold, abundant rain, that made him back up against the wall of the house and lean against a slimy door where, inexplicably, there were no Cornelio Rojas posters. Since he was still getting wet, he got closer to the door and noticed that it opened slowly. The siren of another patrol car made him open the door wider and enter on the tips of his toes into a large, high-ceilinged house where in years past some bourgeois family, one of the hundreds who had left the country after Cornelio’s arrival, had lived. He lit a match. The house smelled like dried shit, but in the middle of the living room was a velvet sofa that, although moth-eaten, was still a good place to rest. He laid down on it. He was so tired that he immediately fell asleep. He dreamt about the ferryman. He dreamt that he was at last escaping the country and sailing through a calm sea to an island of peaceful black people. He didn’t know how long he was there, sleeping. But when he woke up, the sun was already coming through the window and a disheveled woman was standing in front of him, watching him with curiosity.

“Forgive my trespassing,” Danilo said. “I didn’t know there was anyone in this house. I’ll leave.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” the woman said. “You have to go up to the second floor to see Mr. Coro.”

“Is that an order?”

“Absolutely,” the woman said, brandishing an old, rusty machete. “It’s easy to come in here, but leaving is a big problem. Come with me.”

Danilo rubbed his eyes with his fists and stood up, smoothing out his shirt.

“I’ll say again that I’m sorry. I didn’t know that this house. ”

“This house has an owner,” the disheveled woman said. “Follow me so you can meet him.”

Danilo followed the woman up a spiral staircase covered in dust and rat droppings, and both stopped before a gray door. The disheveled woman gave three light taps, and from inside the room, came an energetic voice that said, “Come in, Cossack.”

Danilo and the woman went in. It was also a bare room,

except in the middle was an ordinary desk behind which sat a puny man, wearing suspenders despite being shirtless, and looking aimlessly at the new arrivals from behind round, black glasses.

“Is this our new guest?” The little man asked the disheveled woman.

“It is.”

“You slept for twelve hours, my friend. I’ve been waiting for you since six in the morning. I’m Mr. Coro, and I’m blind because a bandit took out my eyes. But I prefer to tell that story another time.”

Coro turned his head toward the disheveled woman and

ordered, “You can leave, Cossack, leave me alone with this gentleman. ”

“Danilo Castellanos, at your service. I’d like to take this occasion to ask your forgiveness for having dared enter your house. I was truly exhausted.”