Rafael Chirbes - On the Edge

“‘Sweetie,’ he says, or ‘sweetheart,’ and he plants slobbery, wet kisses on my neck. Stop it, you’re tickling, I say, but actually I find his breath disgusting, it stinks of cigarettes and booze; I’ve felt even more disgusted recently, ever since I’ve smelt different perfumes on him, different from the ones I use. He seems so laid-back, but he’s always got an eye on the main chance. He pretends not to care, but as soon as there’s something he wants, there’s no stopping him. He can be sitting quietly watching television and, suddenly, he’ll glance over at the clock, leap up, get dressed in no time and off he’ll go, having spent the entire evening lolling on the sofa as if he had nothing better to do. Where are you going? Out. And I’m sure he’s got a date. He’s arranged to meet someone and doesn’t want to tell me who. I look at my watch, ten past eight. And I know he must have arranged to meet someone somewhere at half past. He appeared to be bored, but actually he was waiting, he’s been waiting all day for that date at half past eight, but who with? There’s no point asking him, he wouldn’t even bother to invent a lie. Out. I’m going out. And if I insist, I know he’ll look me up and down, as if I disgusted him, the way a caged tiger looks at the keeper who has him imprisoned and yet is so far beneath him, and he’ll either say nothing or start shouting at me: What do you expect? Do you want me to stay home all the time? I just can’t win — I’m wrong if I go out and I’m wrong if I stay in. If I go out, I’m up to no good and a drunkard, if I stay in, I’m a lazy useless son-of-a-bitch. There’s no pleasing you. I’m minding my own business, all right, looking for work so that I can feed you and your children. And I stay home with the kids, seething with rage, knowing that he’s off somewhere having a good time, drinking, or worse, screwing around. It’s just awful knowing someone so well and being torn apart by jealousy: you know exactly what he’ll be saying to that woman he’s screwing, the gestures he’ll make, the words he’ll say, the same words he used to say to you, you see his body, every inch of it, see how he gets out his cock and even how the other woman takes hold of it, and the little movement he makes with his hips in order to enter her, his mouth half-open, his tongue between his teeth, it’s awful, jealousy is sheer torture, and it’s not even as if that bitch was taking something you want, because you hate that body — you wish you could be rid of him once and for all, but you always feel it’s not quite the right time, it never seems to be quite the right moment. The other night, we went out dancing. So there I was, having just sat down at a table, a drink in my hand, and up he comes and says: Come on, we’re leaving. I said: But we came here to dance, didn’t we? We haven’t had a single dance — you drank too much this afternoon and now you’re feeling sleepy. He replied: Look, I said we’re leaving, and he grabbed my elbow, his fingers digging into me. But why? It’s still early, things are only just beginning. Let’s dance — just one song. No way — I’m leaving and you’re coming with me, he said. Later, he told me that he’d seen me sitting at the table surrounded by plastic cups with the dregs of drinks — Coca-Cola and gin and tonic and whisky — left behind by the previous occupants, and he felt I looked too exposed, available for anyone to look at, surrounded by someone else’s trash, the cups all sticky with someone else’s saliva, and that he was the only one who had the right to look at me the way it seemed to him the other tipsy or drunk or coked-up men were looking at me, horny as rabbits. He said they walked past me, looking at me as if they wanted to do what only he can do with me.

“I know, Liliana, but he was probably thinking about all the men who had looked at you during the months he was still in Colombia, and about the other hands that had touched you, about what they’d done to you.”

“I always made them use a condom. Besides, I was defending the family. I was paying the price of having them here with me, don’t forget, the price of their airfares, I was buying what they would need so that I could have them with me again, don’t you see, Susana?”

“Well, men say those things when it suits them, they pretend they don’t know, but they’re simply storing it all away, piling up all that information like wood to burn you with later on.”

“He grabbed my elbow and dragged me to my feet. The chair fell over, but being only plastic, it didn’t make much noise, and anyway the music was blasting out at full volume and everyone was talking at the tops of their voices. What’s wrong, I said. When he pulled me to my feet like that, he didn’t just knock over the chair, but some of the plastic cups too, and the contents spilled onto the table and dripped onto the floor (Coca-Cola, soft drinks, orangeade, pineapple juice, lemonade), and one of my shoes got stained and they were new shoes, and I felt like crying, and he was staring at me in this really horrible way. When we got out on the street, he kissed me, but it wasn’t how a husband kisses his wife, it was a drunk’s kiss, the kind of kiss those men in the club were wanting to give me. Without even thinking, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, wiping away his saliva, and he saw me do that and, although he didn’t say anything then, he gave me a really frightening look. When we’d walked a little way down the street, he said: What’s up? Do you only like that old man’s kisses now? That’s what he said, and I felt like slapping him, but I knew that, if I did, he’d beat me to a pulp right there and then. He’s a really nasty piece of work, at least when he’s behaving badly, although lately, even though he’s been trying to behave a bit better, it just makes matters worse somehow; but the truth is he probably doesn’t give a shit about other people’s feelings and does exactly as he pleases, whatever suits him best, and as the mood takes him. I remember the look of pleasure on his face when he turned up with a puppy for the little one, how he opened the door, carrying the dog in one hand and kissing and petting it, and with a broad grin on that great round face of his. The boy started screaming with excitement and jumping up and down, let me have him, let me have him, and my face just dropped, how can we possibly keep a dog here, I said, there’s barely enough room for us in here, what on earth were you thinking of, I said. Turn round right this minute before the boy gets too attached to the dog, and take it back where you found it. Give it back to whoever gave it to you. Of course, the boy started crying, he’s mine, he’s mine, Papa, and the smile on Wilson’s face became more like a tiger’s grin, his lips curled back, baring his teeth, and the language, the swearing, fucking hell, fuck the lot of you, screw you, I can never do anything right in this fucking household. Happiness isn’t allowed here. And it’s your fault, you’re the one who turns everything sour, you’re the witch, the bitch, who spoils our lives, who pisses us all off. And I said: Well, if I’m the witch-bitch, you’re the bloody ogre, me and the kids never know what mood you’re going to be in next, it’s like I’m slaving away, doing the cooking and the washing for an ogre who’ll just end up eating us all. And I added: Plus you’re a really stupid ogre. And telling him he’s stupid is the worst thing you can possibly say, the thing guaranteed to offend him most. Well, you should have married an engineer, then, if you’re so smart, he said, elbowing the little one in the mouth as he stood on tiptoe to stroke the puppy, and the boy hit his head on the table and started screaming and stamping. You could have fractured the child’s skull, I shouted, and you wonder why I call you an animal. Now he was the one manhandling the dog, and the dog didn’t even bark, its eyes wide with terror, realizing suddenly what kind of new home this was turning out to be, and how this man, who had started out so affectionate, stroking and kissing him, how he was treating him now. It was the same with me, little dog, I thought, first, he was all sweetness and light, and then… Then Wilson said: Oh, go screw yourselves — the dog, the kids and you — and he suddenly squeezed the dog’s neck, I heard a click, and the dog lay there in his hands, his legs all limp. He’d strangled it; because I think he knew it was already dead when he hurled it against the wall, as hard as he could. The little creature ended up lying in the middle of the living room, along with various ornaments from the sideboard: it lay there, bleeding from every orifice and surrounded by broken glass. I snatched up my little boy, who was about to rush over to the dog and cut himself on the broken glass, and Wilson left, slamming the front door. The worst part, I thought, will be when he comes back, boozed-up and furious, after going over and over all the shit in his head, I even considered putting the security chain on, but that would only have made things worse, because then he would just kick down the door, with the chain on or off, and would even tear out the door frame, because he’s very strong, but there was a time when the same strength that frightens me now gave me a sense of security. It drives me to despair seeing that body of his, so full of energy demanding to be used up, lying on the sofa or slumped in the armchair and dragging that great body from there to bed. He’s not the big lad I used to really fancy when he led me onto the dance floor, the one who made me feel safe in his arms, like a bird in its nest. Now I’m afraid of his hands and his arms and, do you know what he reminds me of when he gets angry — he reminds me of a fat, furious old lady. I told him so one day: you’re like a big, fat woman, I said, because his hair and even the hair on his legs looked to me like a woman’s hair. He hit the roof. Don’t you dare make fun of me, not unless you want to feel the back of my hand. I’ve got enough problems being unemployed without you coming and winding me up. I said: Out of a job, you say? Well, there are more than enough jobs for you here, doing the cooking and the washing, hanging out the clothes, but no, you do fuck all. All you ever do is lie on the sofa and drink beer. He reached out one arm and punched me softly in the buttock. It was almost a caress, but I said: if you ever hit me again, I’ll report you to the police and you’ll never see hide nor hair of me again. My voice sounded shrill and strange. Prevention is better than cure, I thought. If that punch to the bum is a warning, then I’m going to issue my own warning. You wouldn’t be missed, he said. No, you probably wouldn’t miss me , but you’d miss the steaming plate of pig’s trotters and greens at lunchtime, and the cold beer and the clean shirts, you’d miss that, and all the time I’m saying this, I’m washing the dishes, making a real clatter with the water and the glasses and the plates as I put them in the draining rack, just to remind him that there is someone in the family who works and goes back and forth, carrying shopping bags, picking up the little one from school, cleaning this apartment and other people’s, putting on rubber gloves and sticking my hand down other people’s toilets to scrub away the accumulated dirt, smelling old people’s shit and feeling it all squishy on my gloves. I sometimes think he’s such an evil bastard that the devil will have a hard time finding volunteers to burn him in hell. Nobody could stand being with him twenty-fours hours a day, besides, I heard recently that the Pope had said there is no Devil, but if there’s no Devil, then there’s no God. Given the state of the world, this doesn’t surprise me. I’ll have to ask my late aunt next time I talk to her.”