Matias Nespolo - Seven Ways to Kill a Cat

I lean back against the counter and feel the.38 dig into my kidneys. It’s so well holstered, I didn’t notice it till now.

As I drink the last of the mate , sucking on the bombilla until it whistles. I nod towards the fridge.

‘Are you going to get someone to come and look at it?’

‘They already did … It can’t be fixed, we’ll have to get a new one,’ she sighs.

‘So how do you manage?’

‘I don’t …’

From the look on my face, Yani can tell what I’m thinking. With all the cash Fat Farías spends on wine, you’d think he could buy her a new fridge, even a second-hand one.

‘The old man says he’s got three fridges at the bar so he doesn’t need another one …’ she explains.

‘No offence, Yani, but Don Farías sounds like a bit of a Neanderthal.’

‘A bit?’ she says and laughs again, but half-heartedly. Almost bitterly.

I change the subject. We talk about the movie with Libertad Lamarque, about insomnia, about the yowling of cats on heat … anything. Anything as long as there’s no mention of Fat Farías and his bar. The old man’s bar is the eye of the storm. Hers and mine. And just now, we don’t want to deal with it. The mate is too good to ruin it. So good we keep adding more water. At this stage, we’ve brewed every ounce of flavour from the yerba , and keep adding a little something until we’ve gone through a quarter of the bottle of gin. Yanina’s eyes are shining. Her cheeks are flushed.

I put the mate down on the counter and, without warning, grab her round the waist and pull her to me forcefully. She doesn’t resist, and I bite her lips. Yani’s tongue is dancing in my mouth. It tastes of gin, of tobacco, of plums, of cough mixture, of rosemary … and lots of other things I couldn’t begin to explain. But most of all, it tastes of desire. I slip my hands under her T-shirt and run my fingertips over every inch of her arse. She gets goosebumps. Our breathing accelerates. She pulls up my windcheater and my T-shirt, feverishly. Desperately. I cross my arms and pull them both over my head in a single movement. Time is speeding up. Or we’re speeding up. I put a hand on the small of her back. I lift her up, turn round and set her on the counter. While I pull the front of her T-shirt over her head and hook it round the back of her neck like a striker celebrating a goal, Yanina unbuckles my belt and opens my fly. The.38 falls, slides into the turn-ups of my jeans and drops to the floor with a sharp clatter.

‘Stop, stop … did you hear that?’ She’s nervous.

‘I didn’t hear anything, Yani,’ I lie.

I bite her nipples and she takes my cock in both hands and aims it at the centre of the target like it’s her own personal toy. She pulls hard, like she’s going to rip it off. With my index and middle fingers, I pull her G-string aside and trace the outline of her lips. Warm and wet. My fingers slip lazily in, opening a path. And I’m inside her. A journey into space. The final frontier. Now she’s the one biting. My earlobe. And she’s growling. Her tongue is tracing a song in saliva in my ear. I hang onto her hips like they’re the anchor for a paper boat in a raging storm. Out of sight of land. On an open sea, one that does not close. The only way is in. And I’m inside her. But the sudden contractions of her pussy as it grips me tight bring me back to earth. She whimpers and digs her nails into my side. Now I’m a trigger. The pain subsides. And I bite. I bite the dust, the last reflex of a man who’s been shot.

I give up. I rest my forehead in the cleft between her breasts. The sweat from her skin revives me. She wraps her arms around my shoulders and covers my neck with little kisses. I listen as she gets her breath back. Then with a thrust of her hips, she expels me.

‘Just look what you did to me, Catwoman,’ I say, showing her the scratches down my side as I pull up my pants.

‘What about you, you little dog?’ she says, sticking out her lower lip.

There are small purple bruises where I sank my teeth into her. One of them has produced a pearl of blood.

She pulls down her T-shirt and straightens her hair. With the toe of my shoe, I push the.38 under the cupboard. And we pick up the conversation as though we’d never left off.

‘He thinks I’ve got the makings of a madame … he wants me to look after his shit.’

‘Who? El Jetita?’

‘Who do you think …?’ she says, irritated.

‘I though El Negro Sosa took care of the girls?’ I say.

‘Don’t talk to me about that slimy bastard. Hijo de puta . He scares the shit out of me. He and El Jetita both want to fuck me.’

‘What does your old man say?’

‘Nothing. He agrees with whatever they say, like he owes them something …’

‘Money?’ I guess.

‘Not as far as I know.’

‘What was the deal they were doing with the police commissioner from Zavaleta?’

‘He’s agreed to turn a blind eye until Charly and El Jetita sort out the turf war. After that he’s planning on charging them both a “free trade tax”. That’s what he called it. Can you believe that?’

‘This turf war, people are going to get shot, Yani,’ I warn her. ‘If you stay on at the bar, you could get caught in the crossfire.’

‘Sure, I guess, but what do you want me to do?’

‘Get the fuck out of here,’ I say.

She looks me in the eye. And the pool of fear in her eyes threatens to drown me. Our faces are inches apart.

‘What about papá ? I’m just supposed to abandon him?’

‘He’s a big boy, isn’t he? He knows what he’s getting himself mixed up in —’

‘What they’re getting him mixed up in,’ she cuts in sullenly. ‘They set things up. El Jetita and all the guys who hang around with him, like you and your friend Chueco for example.’

‘I’m not involved in any of this, Yani! Get that into your head …’ We’re like cat and dog now. The harmony that was between us is completely fucked. ‘And just so you know,’ I add, ‘I’m getting out of here. I’m heading up to the Delta.’

‘What are you going to do up there?’ Her tone is softer.

‘I don’t know. Whatever. Something will come up. If you want to come with …’

Yanina suddenly laughs, but it sounds forced. She’s scared. She wasn’t expecting me to come out with something like that.

‘And I’m supposed to just quit school when I’m about to graduate?’

‘No … ask for a deferment and do your exams up there.’

She seems like she’s thinking about it, but she doesn’t look too convinced. She frowns and gets down from the counter. I get dressed. I bend down, pretending to tie my shoelace and grab the strap.

‘You make it sound so easy, Gringo, but it’s not that simple …’ she murmurs like she’s talking to herself.

I don’t say anything. And she says it again, her eyes vacant.

‘It’s not that simple …’

I take this opportunity to slip the gun into the back of my jeans without her noticing. But Yani’s quick. She wises up. And the look she gives me says it all.

THERE ARE THINGS about Mamina I don’t understand. All the pointless work she does, for example. But her attitudes too, the way she reacts … The more I know her, the less I understand. Right now she’s scrubbing the doorstep like she does religiously every other day. Come rain, thunder or hail she scrubs that little patch of concrete until it’s spotless. And today’s the day.

I listen to her fill the bucket from the outside tap. I watch her through the tiny kitchen window. Through the fog. She splashes out the water and scrubs with her brush. She’s stick-thin and getting thinner by the day, getting smaller and more stooped, and still she carries on with every last ounce of energy. And it’s not worth a fart. First person walks past and the pavement will be dirty again. The rain has turned the dirt road into a swamp, but still Mamina goes on scrubbing the doorstep. I don’t know where she gets the strength.