Open Door (8 page)

Jaime wakes up feverish again. He stays in bed all day, against his will. I make him drink lots of water and wrap him up well so that he sweats. He says he must have something because he’s not the kind to fall ill easily. I tell him it could be a virus, that nowadays they’re very resistant and that he’ll have to be patient. He looks at me distrustfully.

Amongst the books that I found in the round boxes on top of the wardrobe was one in French:
En Argentine, De Buenos Aires au Grand Chaco
, written by a certain Jules Huret, and published in Paris in 1911. On the second page, in smudged black ink, I can just about make out a dedication in Spanish:
To Dr Domingo Cabred, great visionary and Creole
. It is signed Jules Huret, Paris, Oct ’11.

At first glance it seems to be a kind of travelogue by a Frenchman who visited Argentina at the beginning of the twentieth century. The contents page lists several chapters devoted to Buenos Aires, its various neighbourhoods, its institutions and, of course, its people,
los porteños
. Further on, it talks about the countryside. What follows is an excursion in caravan to the north of the country, stopping at Tucumán, Jujuy, Salta, the Chaco Austral, the forest of El Impenetrable, Corrientes, the upper Paraná, Misiones, the Iguazú Falls, the Jesuit ruins and the Israeli colonies in Entre Ríos. I read the topics listed on the contents page several times and imagine a strange fascination in the eyes of this European confronted by so many things so far from home. In one of the initial chapters, entitled
‘Les criminaux et les fous’
, I discover a section on Open Door and Cabred. I look for the page but I needn’t have bothered, I can barely understand it at all.

That same afternoon I make a trip to the Open Door library with Huret’s book under my arm.

It must be about thirty blocks, half of them unpaved, half of them tarmacked. The village is at its best, full of life. A man carrying a pair of spurs shows me how to get there. Just before the level crossing, I turn right, pass the bar with the pool tables where they were selling beer on the day of the carnival, I walk a few more metres and there I am.

Behind the desk, Brenda, the librarian, attends to me, a village girl with hair down to her waist. I tell her that I’m looking for a French translator and she freezes as though I’ve insulted her. I tell her what it’s about. She pinches her lips and finally brings herself to speak. She tells me that she has quite passable French. A foreign language was obligatory at school and she never liked English much. But she’s never translated anything, she adds with a touch of panic. I show her Huret’s book, in particular the part devoted to Open Door.

She took an immediate interest. She examined the book with great delicacy, treating each page as if it were about to break. She ran her eyes along the lines, murmuring slightly to herself, nodding her head from time to time. She stayed like that for about five minutes, without saying a word to me. In the meantime, I entertained myself by leafing through a magazine that was on her desk. It was published locally, handmade and distributed free. The main article was about the history of Open Door, it was the second instalment. There were some photographs, the first villagers, the arrival of the train, a
fiesta
in the barn, all black and white.

‘This is a very valuable book,’ Brenda said finally and showed me the last page, which stated that only ten unique numbered copies had been printed, on Japanese paper. I was impressed.

‘And why do you want to get it translated?’ she wanted to know.

‘Out of curiosity,’ I replied and Brenda wasn’t entirely satisfied with my answer. ‘Do you fancy doing it?’

Brenda raised her shoulders, smiled and I saw that she did, that she would give it a try. I left the book with her. As we said goodbye, because she came with me to the door, I saw that her right leg ended in a stump and that she was in a wheelchair. I hid my surprise and thanked her. We agreed that I would call the following week.

By night-time Jaime’s fever had dropped a bit but he was still under the weather. I made him some broth and took it to him in bed. To distract him, I tell him about my trip to the library, about Brenda, and about what I learned of the history of Open Door. Jaime drinks his soup and, with every sip, produces a terrifying sound like broken turbines. I ask him how it was that Huret’s book, with its dedication to Cabred, had ended up in his possession. He tells me that it’s not his book. That he doesn’t read books.

Very early, we are woken by the telephone. We leave it ringing, but it persists and I have to get up to answer it. It’s Yasky, from the court. He says that today, as soon as possible, I have to attend the morgue again.

I don’t tell him this, but the truth is that I’m starting to forget about Aída. I don’t know whether to feel guilty. The appointment is for three in the afternoon. I wonder whether this time it will be her. Before hanging up, Yasky apologises.

I tell Jaime, who is slightly annoyed. He doesn’t understand how it can be so difficult to find a body. A body, he repeats.

Eloísa is gesturing to me from the gate. I gesture back for her to come in, but she stays where she is, waving her hand. I go over to her. I want to talk to you, she says and takes me along a path I’ve never been on, through the woods, as far as a fig tree, full to bursting, which we relieve of its fruit until we’re sated. Eloísa holds the figs by the base and with her tongue licks the sweet, sticky milk, before opening and devouring them. Her lips shine. She tells me that the other day a boy asked her to take her clothes off, after school one afternoon, near here.

‘And I got naked, I was bad,’ I don’t know if she’s expecting me to comment. She stares at me, her eyes wide, it seems as though she’s going to touch me, but she changes her mind.

‘Was I bad?’ This time she’s definitely asking me.

It’s almost two o’clock, I’ve got to go. Jaime is waiting to take me to the morgue. He insisted on coming with me, even though he isn’t completely better. But Eloísa keeps me, she ensnares my eyes. She says that I have very white skin. She says it so that she can touch me, to see if it really is that white. She strokes my legs. Are you ticklish? I don’t answer. She continues, and I laugh. And then, taking advantage of my distraction, she moves her face close to mine and gives me a dry kiss at the edge of my mouth, almost without meaning to, innocent. Then she becomes serious, she remembers something:

‘What about you? Have you taken your clothes off in front of many boys?’

In the city, Jaime drives the same way he does in the country. We are repeatedly hurried on by blasting horns. I get out at the door of the morgue and Jaime goes to look for somewhere to park. This time Yasky is punctual. He seems impatient. We say hello quickly and take the same route as before. It’s strange, I’m starting to feel secure in this place, fearless. We come across new faces, but there is still the same hubbub, subdued because of the proximity of dead bodies. Again, the Irish-looking man receives us. Yasky leaves us alone for a moment, he’s forgotten to make an urgent call. The man shows me into his office. He offers me coffee. I accept. On the back wall, behind the desk, there is a poster of a snowy volcano reflected in a lake. The man picks a subject just to strike up a conversation. He’s different, more amicable, he looks at me differently. He wants to know what I do, what my job is. I find it hard to believe, but he’s trying to seduce me. I wonder whether it would occur to him to fuck me right here, surrounded by all those corpses. It sounds ridiculous, yet so natural, he’s a womaniser like any other. Necrophilia is something else altogether. What must that be like, getting turned on by dead bodies?

Yasky opens the door just in time. He purses his lips, he can sense something. We repeat the same ritual as before but it’s quicker this time. We take our places. We’re a team. The body is uncovered for three seconds. I shake my head.

‘This isn’t her either,’ I say, thinking that at least she’s more like her than the first one was. Yasky is embarrassed, the other man almost laughs.

Not everyone says Open Door in the same way. Some say
Open
Door, others Open
Door
. Eloísa says
Open
Door, Boca and Jaime say Open
Door
. I haven’t decided yet. It depends on the moment and who I’m with. In general I say
Open
Door, but to tell the truth I don’t know which of the two I prefer.

The calendar hanging on the handle of the larder door is showing the wrong date. Nobody has pulled off the leaves since the second of March and we’re up to the twentieth, or is it the nineteenth of April, I don’t even know any more. I don’t have anyone to ask. It’s the middle of the night, there can only be a few hours until dawn. Jaime is snoring in the bedroom: it’s not a strong snore, but it is persistent. It never switches off. At times it builds, moves from high-pitched to low, becomes angry, then abates before immediately catching breath and accelerating. When it’s not a snore, it’s a whistle, and when it’s not whistling, it blows. In a certain way it talks, it says things in that fundamental, universal language, difficult things, fragments of something that Jaime carries deep inside, in his guts, and releases at night without realising it, so that I can hear it and understand him a bit better, or so that I can start to despise him. I’m wide awake and more inclined to hatred than to understanding.

Now, in the kitchen, I take sips of gin to help me sleep. Then I see this calendar that I’ve never noticed until today and whose leaves nobody has removed for a long time. I pull them off one by one, from the second of March to the nineteenth of April. I’m about screw all the days into a ball and throw it in the rubbish bin but a discovery stops me. On the back of each leaf is a phrase in quotation marks. They are signed by celebrities, writers, artists, philosophers, statesmen, men and women of note, at first glance a lot more men than women. Each is something along the lines of a motto with which to face the new day. Some are confused or badly translated, most suggest impractical behaviour, there are Chinese proverbs, Creole phrases, Bible verses, fragments of universal literature. One of the most frequently recurring themes is avarice. Another is the relationship between body and soul.

I keep two quotes, one for its ingenuity, the other because it made me think. The first is by Schopenhauer, or at least the calendar attributes it to him, and it says: ‘
Woman is an animal with long hair and short ideas
.’ Horace puts his name to the other: ‘
Not to bring smoke from fire, but light from smoke
.’ I love it, I don’t know why.

Jaime finally felt better and went back to work. He leaves at seven, returns for lunch, we sleep a siesta together and every now and then we make love. At around half four, he goes out again, not returning until eight. In the morning he does building work with Boca on one of the small farms or estates in the area. He plans the refurbishments, buys the materials and deals with clients, while Boca provides the manpower. After our siesta, he goes to the hospital.

My routine is much more sedentary. I sleep late, eat breakfast alone, do a bit of tidying, listen to the radio, have a bath and kill time until half twelve when I start cooking. I’ve started to live like a housewife, without quite realising it, instinctively. In the afternoons, I walk in the woods or go into town for a bit of distraction. On the way there or back, I often bump into Eloísa on the road. Yesterday she invited me to watch television.

‘Do you want to come to mine to watch telly for a bit? My brother and my folks aren’t in, they went away for a few days,’ she said.

Eloísa’s house is attached to the shop, it’s a kind of annex, accessed through a separate door. Straight away it’s clear that it’s a makeshift construction, the proportions are unusual and there are lots of spaces without any obvious use. There’s a hole for the window, but the window isn’t there: in its place is a wooden board that can be removed and replaced. The only glimpse of the outside world comes through the skylight in the bathroom. There are two bedrooms and a multi-purpose room that includes the kitchen. The television occupies the centre of the house; all the furniture is arranged around it. One of the walls, the first I see when I go in, is papered with an enormous map of the world that, judging from the darts stuck in some countries, also serves as a target board.

We are sitting on the sofa-bed, it must be about six in the evening. Eloísa tells me they have sixty-six channels, as she runs through them all from one end to the other, over and over. She doesn’t seem to tire of it. She asks the same question repeatedly: Shall I stick with this one? She asks me, but answers herself because she immediately skips to the next channel. And suddenly, without explanation, she switches off the set, throwing the remote control onto the floor. She crosses her legs, hugging a cushion, and looks at me face-on with an anxious smile.

‘Do you want a smoke?’ she asks and, from a little wooden box painted with a cat, she removes a fat joint. ‘Here, you light it. My brother has, like, six plants hidden behind the henhouse, so it’s free here. He takes care of them like they’re made of gold, but if you ask him, he’ll give you all you want.’

Two drags each, the joint passes back and forth. Eloísa stretches out her legs and kicks off her trainers, spinning them through the air. I look at her sidelong, my head lolling against the back of the sofa. She looks me straight in the eye.

‘Will you show me your tits?’ she asks quietly and laughs loudly. She says it completely naturally, with impunity, she doesn’t give me time to react. ‘Go on, just for a second.’

I say nothing, neither no nor yes. I laugh along with her, I close my eyes for an instant and when I open them, Eloísa has her t-shirt rolled up with her tiny tits on show, upturned like two drops of water. Ready for me to examine her. She shrugs. She wants to know if I like them.

‘They’re very nice,’ I say. Eloísa stretches out her legs, stroking my knees with the soles of her feet.

‘Don’t you want to touch them?’ she asks but gives me no time to respond and touches them herself.

The rain began suddenly, with hail and everything. First, two claps of thunder made the walls of the house vibrate and immediately water began to pour down in torrents. The corrugated iron roof made a terrible noise, like bursts of machine gun fire.

‘Youcan’t even think aboutgoing out in this,’ says Eloísa, frenetically changing channels again. ‘You’ve got no chance in this rain, the road must be a river,’ she insists. She’s right. It’s almost eight and Jaime must be about to get home.

‘I’ve got to let him know,’ I say.

The phone is in the shop so I have no choice but to go outside and walk round. I’ve barely crossed the threshold and I’m soaked from head to toe. I follow Eloísa’s instructions to get into the shop but I struggle so much that I almost give up. There are three padlocks, each tougher than the last. I eventually manage to gain entry. I pick up the receiver and I might have known: the phone is dead.

When I returned to the house, Eloísa was out of sight. She called me from her bedroom and found me a towel to dry myself.

‘I’d better lend you some clothes, or you’ll catch cold straight away,’ she said and undertook to undress me herself. First my boots, then my trousers, blouse and the rest.

‘Are you cold?’ asked Eloísa and, again, didn’t let me answer. She wrapped me in the towel and stared at me. Then, first with one hand, then with both, she began to touch my breasts, without asking my permission. Making circles, squeezing them, pinching my nipples, she played, she enjoyed herself.

Then Eloísa turned on the television again and we ate an enormous bag of crisps, watching a quiz show. The rain continued to fall hard. There was no sense in thinking about going back.

Night fell and tiredness pushed us into bed. Without meaning to we embraced. Eloísa fell asleep immediately. I took a bit longer. On my back, with Eloísa’s hair covering half my face, my head fills with green things that skim past quickly, green flashes of lightning, images, abstractions. They are strange yet agreeable shapes. Eloísa smells so good.

I open my eyes at some point in the early hours. Somewhere between surprised and scared. After the rain, it has become intensely cold. I have to go back. Before I leave, Eloísa, pretending to be asleep, gives me a long kiss on the mouth.

I arrived at the house with my trousers muddied up to the knees. From the gate, I could see more lights than usual and I knew that Jaime was waiting up for me. He was in the kitchen, his arms folded, his eyes beginning to close. He didn’t even have the strength to ask me what had happened, but I told him anyway. I told him that I’d been trapped by the rain. Jaime couldn’t accept that Eloísa’s phone didn’t work when his functioned perfectly.

‘You can’t do this,’ he was saying. ‘You should have let me know somehow. I was thinking about calling the police.’ He was exaggerating.