Santiago Gamboa - Night Prayers

Behind her, in the next building, he could see a window that was like Asaku’s backstage area, and which in spite of being lighted had a curtain in front of it. The story really gets going when the young man, still jerking off while Asaku is sticking a Gormiti action figure in her vagina, sees that curtain open; behind it, a man raises his hand, with something sharp in it, and brings it down seven times into the figure of a woman, who’s shorter and frailer than him, until she falls to the floor, clearly dead. Asaku doesn’t see or hear anything, since just at that moment her orgasm starts; the murder is happening behind her back; the young man lets go of his cock and yells into his microphone, but Asaku, drowning in an ocean of endorphins, takes her time in reacting, and when he tells her there has been a murder she laughs and doesn’t even turn around, she tells him he’s drunk or stoned, but he insists and says, you have to report it, where do you live? in what city? She refuses to tell him, saying: you’re making all this up to poke around in my life, don’t even think about it, you’ll never find out.

Edgar’s story began with that murder. He wanted to write it to find out who the murderer was and who the woman was and why he killed her by the window, in full view of anyone who was having virtual sex with a stranger.

I told him I thought it sounded like something by Murakami, and he thought this over for a while and said, it’s possible, but I believe in unconscious influences.

At school our classmates could never understand how Edgar, a guy from a good family, handsome, knowing lots of languages, could be my friend. That’s why they started to spread gossip, people said cruel things, that I was his servant, that his parents paid me to help him with his studies and whisper the answers to him in exams. I heard about all this gossip and never said anything, but Edgar was affected by it. During recess he would say to me, what a bunch of jealous sons of bitches, and the girls? what a herd of loudmouthed bitches.

One of these bitches, Daniela, was about to turn eighteen and was organizing a big party in her house. She lived in a very comfortable apartment near the beltway, and to spice it up announced that her parents weren’t going to be there, which meant it would be a really long party, and that got everybody excited. Of course it didn’t even occur to me that I might go to something as dumb as that, and I kept my distance. Everybody commented on what they would like to do, which girls they’d like to make out with, and what drinks they’d like to get drunk on. The girls wondered what clothes they would wear, and with what shoes, what necklaces and earrings, the kinds of things that get people like that all worked up but just depressed me, so that I sunk into my shell and at recess opted to take shelter in the toilets.

As I’m a polite person, as soon as I received the envelope with the invitation — a ridiculous card, of course, with emoticons dancing under the words “be with me for my eighteenth April”—I hastened to respond with a note in which I thanked her for the invitation but declined it on the grounds that I had a family get-together on the same date.

Daniela didn’t give a damn about my refusal, of course, but when she found out that Edgar wasn’t coming either she started to panic. Swallowing her contempt, she made up her mind to talk with me during recess, escorted by her best friend, a girl named Gina, a really nasty girl who loved to spread horrible gossip about Daniela — that she slept around with guys from other schools, that she popped pills, that she’d had an abortion — when the truth is that both of them were crude, dumb girls, real sluts, both obsessed with being the beauties of the class when they were actually pretty average, Daniela with a boob job and her face always smeared with makeup, like a high-class escort, and Gina short and fat, an Indian-looking face with slanted eyes, which in that city meant she was the kind of girl that all the guys ended up with at parties when they were already drunk and stoned and none of the other girls would put out, anyway, Gina and Daniela sought me out during the long recess and found me in the place where I was reading, on the waste ground at the far end.

Manuel, said Daniela, I felt really bad when I found out you weren’t coming to my party, I mean, like, that’s terrible, the whole point is so we can all be together! So I asked my mother to call your house and speak with your parents, and guess what, she’s just sent me a text saying that she talked to your mother and there’s no problem about you coming.

I hated them, Consul, because of the stupid importance that women give their birthdays, but I restrained myself, I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of insulting them, so I said, look, Daniela, I don’t like parties, I won’t be good company, don’t take it badly, but she glared at me and decided to lay her cards on the table, of course I take it badly, she said, very badly, not because I give a damn if you come or not, it’s your life, right? nothing to do with me, but it’s just that Edgar says he won’t come either and of course that’s because of you, so I have to ask you to come, I’m asking for a favor, just one little favor, nothing more, I’ll give you whatever you want, I’m quite serious, it’s important to me that he come, when he arrives you can go, if you like I’ll get the chauffeur to drive you home or wherever you like, but don’t spoil this for me, all right? it’s my birthday, dammit!

I told her it was too much: if I left home I couldn’t go back half an hour later, so she said, all right, then tell me what the hell you like to do and I’ll treat you, maybe you’d like to go see a late-night movie? would you like to go to a restaurant? I really will treat you, whatever you say, ask me for whatever you like, shit, there must be something you like, isn’t there?

Deep down she was suffering, so I said: I’ll try to persuade Edgar but stop fucking me around. You already screwed things up for me calling my house. And don’t worry, you’ll never understand what I like, not in a thousand years.

Before the end of recess I talked with Edgar and told him he should go to the party, it mattered a lot to the girls. Then he, being the unpredictable person he was, said: I have an idea, man, a great idea! I’ll take my mother’s car and we’ll go to Daniela’s for a while. And then we’ll go whoring, okay? The hour has come to live the life of the Parnassians, to explore brothels, which is where real life is, the real world, are you up for it? I told him I was.

And we went there, Consul, in a Citroën I’d never seen before. I was very nervous because Edgar didn’t have a license, although with his contacts and his luck it was unlikely anything would happen. When Daniela opened the door her face lit up. The pounding of the music hit us full on. She hugged Edgar and gave him a kiss as we went in. She was wearing a tight miniskirt, fishnet stockings, and very high heels. The perfect drawing-room whore. Edgar handed over his gift and, without looking at me, she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside. I stayed back, with my gift dangling from my hand.

I preferred not to go where everyone else was, so I went and sat down in the living room, by a window. A minute later a waiter passed with a tray of drinks and I gestured to him, but he didn’t stop. Then I moved to a second living room from where you could see the parlor. All my classmates were there, and people from other years. Some weren’t from our school. They had set up a big screen to show videos. I thought to go out on the terrace and smoke a cigarette, but at that moment a woman in an apron approached and asked me if I wanted to eat something.

I said yes, but then didn’t see her again.