Without Blood (4 page)

The child turned
her head and
looked at him. She had
dark
eyes, oddly shaped. She looked at him without expression. Her
lips were half closed and she was breathing calmly. She was an
animal
in its den. Tito felt returning to him a sensation he had
felt a thousand times, finding that exact position, between the
warmth of sheets or under the afternoon sun of childhood. Knees
folded, hands between the legs, feet balanced. Head
bent
forward slightly, closing the circle. How lovely it was, he
thought. The child’s skin was white, and the outline of her lips
perfect. Her legs stuck out from under a short red skirt, as if in a
drawing. It was all so orderly. It was all so complete.

Exact.

The girl turned
her head
back, to its former position. She bent
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it forward slightly, closing the circle. Tito realized that no one
had answered, beyond the curtain. Time had surely passed, and
yet no one had answered. He could
hear El
Gurre banging with
his gun against the walls of the house. A muted meticulous
sound. Outside it was dark. He lowered the trapdoor. Slowly.

He remained there, on his knees, to see if through the cracks in
the floor he could see the child. He would
have liked to think.

But he couldn’t. Every so often he was too tired to think. He got
up. He put the baskets back. He felt his heart banging against his
temples.

They went out into the night like drunks. El
Gurre supported
Salinas, pushing him forward. Tito walked
behind them.

Somewhere, the old Mercedes was waiting for them. They went
a dozen yards or so, without exchanging a word. Then Salinas
said something to El
Gurre and El
Gurre went back, toward the
farmhouse. He didn’t seem very certain, but he went back.

Salinas leaned on Tito and told
him to keep walking. They
skirted the woodpile and
left the road to take a path that led
through the fields. There was a deep silence, and for that reason
Tito was unable to say the sentence that he had
in mind and
had
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decided to say: There is still a child
in there. He was tired, and
there was too much silence. Salinas stopped. He was shaking
and
it was an enormous effort to walk. Tito said something
softly, then he turned and
looked
back. He saw El
Gurre
running toward them. Behind
him he saw the farmhouse rip the
darkness, ablaze with the fire that was devouring it. The flames
shot up and a cloud of black smoke rose slowly in the night. Tito
moved away from Salinas and stood
petrified, watching. El
Gurre joined them and without stopping said Let’s go, kid. But
Tito didn’t move.

“What the hell
did you do?” he said.

El
Gurre was trying to drag Salinas away. He said again that
they had to go. Then Tito grabbed
him by the neck and
began to
shout in his face WHAT
THE HELL DID YOU DO?

“Calm down, kid,” said El
Gurre.

But Tito wouldn’t stop, he began shouting louder and
louder,
WHAT
THE HELL DID YOU DO?, shaking El
Gurre like a puppet,
WHAT
THE HELL DID YOU DO?, until Salinas, too, began
shouting, STOP IT, KID, they were like three madmen,
abandoned on a dark stage: CUT IT
OUT!

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The stage of a theater in ruins.

Finally they dragged
Tito away by force. The glare of the fire
lighted up the night. They crossed a field and went down to the
road, following the stream bed. When they came in sight of the
old Mercedes, El
Gurre put a hand on Tito’s shoulder and said
to him softly that he had
done a fine job, and that it was all over
now. But Tito wouldn’t stop repeating the words over and over.

He didn’t shout. He spoke softly, in a child’s voice. What the hell
have we done. What the hell
have we done. What the hell
have
we done.

The old farmhouse of Mato Rujo stood
blankly in the
countryside, carved
in red flame against the dark night. The only
stain in the empty outline of the plain.

Three days later a man arrived, on horseback, at the farmhouse
of Mato Rujo. He was filthy, dressed
in rags. The horse was an
old nag, skin and
bones. It had something in its eyes, a yellow
liquid that dripped
down its muzzle, and the flies buzzed
around
it.

The man saw the walls of the farmhouse standing blackened
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and useless, coals in the middle of an enormous quenched
brazier. They were like the last remaining teeth
in the mouth of
an old man. The fire had also consumed a large oak that for
years had shaded the house. Like a black claw, it stank of
calamity.

The man stayed
in the saddle. He made a slow half-circle
around the farm. He went to the well and without getting off the
horse unhooked the bucket and
let it fall. He heard the slap of
metal on water. He looked over at the farmhouse. He saw that
sitting on the ground, leaning against what remained of a wall,
there was a child. She was staring at him, two motionless eyes
shining in a smoke-grimed face. She was wearing a short red
skirt. She had scratches all over. Or wounds.

The man pulled up the bucket from the well. The water was
blackish. He stirred
it with a tin dipper, but the blackness
remained. He refilled the dipper, brought it to his lips, and took a
long drink. He looked again into the water in the bucket. He spit
into it. Then he set everything on the edge of the well and
pressed
his heels into the belly of the horse.

He went over to the child. She raised
her head to look at him.

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She seemed to have nothing to say. The man studied
her for a
while. Eyes, lips, hair. Then he held out a hand. She stood,
grabbed the man’s hand, and
lifted
herself up to the saddle,
behind
him. The old nag adjusted
its hooves to the new weight. It
tossed
its head, twice. The man made a strange noise, and the
horse calmed
down.

As they rode away from the farmhouse, at a slow trot, under
a fierce sun, the girl
let her head fall forward and, with
her
forehead against the man’s sweaty back, slept.

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T w o

The signal changed to green and the woman crossed the street. She looked down as she walked, because it had just stopped raining and in the hollows of the asphalt there were puddles that reminded one of the sudden rain of early spring. She had an elegant gait, confined by the tight black skirt. She saw the puddles and avoided them.

When she reached the opposite sidewalk she stopped.

People passed by, crowding the late afternoon with their steps toward home, or freedom. The woman liked to feel the city trickling around her, so she stood for a while, in the middle of the sidewalk, inexplicable, like a woman who had been left there, abruptly, by her lover.

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She decided to turn right, and fell in with the collec-tive promenade. In no hurry, she went along beside the shop windows, holding the shawl over her chest. She walked tall and confident, with a youthful bearing in spite of her age. Her hair was white, gathered at the nape and held by a dark comb, like a girl’s.

She stopped at the window of an appliance shop, and stood staring at a wall of televisions broadcasting pointless multiplications of a single news commentator. Each was tinted a different color, which fascinated her. A film began of some cities at war and she resumed her walk. She crossed Calle Medina and then the little Plaza del Per-petuo Socorro. When she arrived at the Galería Florencia she turned to look at the prospect of the lights extending in a line through the belly of the building and out the other side, into Avenida 24 de Julio. She stopped. She raised her eyes to look for something on the grand iron archway that marked the entrance. But she found nothing. She took a few steps inside the Galería, then stopped a man. She excused herself, and asked him what the place 42

was called. The man told her. Then she thanked him and said that he would have a most beautiful evening. The man smiled.

So she began to walk through the Galería Florencia, and eventually she saw, some twenty yards ahead, a small kiosk that stuck out from the left-hand wall, creasing for a moment the clean profile of the space. It was one of those kiosks where lottery tickets are sold. She continued walking, but when she was a few steps from the kiosk she stopped. She saw that the man who sold the tickets was seated, reading a newspaper. He held it resting on something in front of him, and he was reading it. All the sides of the kiosk were of glass, except the one that was against the wall of the Galería. Within, the ticket man could be seen, and a mass of colored strips hanging down. There was a small window, in front, and that was the opening through which the ticket seller talked to people.

The woman pulled back a lock of hair that had fallen over her eyes. She turned and for an instant stood looking 43

at a girl who came out of a shop pushing a carriage. Then she looked at the kiosk again.

The ticket seller was reading.

The woman approached and leaned toward the window.

“Good evening,” she said.

The man raised his eyes from the newspaper. He was about to say something, but when he saw the woman’s face he stopped, completely. He remained like that, looking at her.

“I would like to buy a ticket.”

The man nodded yes. But then he said something that had nothing at all to do with that.

“Have you been waiting a long time?”

“No, why?”

The man shook his head, continuing to stare at her.

“Nothing, excuse me,” he said.

“I’d like a ticket,” she said.

Then the man turned and stuck his hand up among the strips of tickets hanging behind him.

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The woman pointed to a strip that was longer than the others.

“That one there . . . can you take it from that strip?”

“This one?”

“Yes.”

The man tore off the ticket. He glanced at the number and nodded approval with his head. He placed it on the wooden counter between him and the woman.

“It’s a good number.”

“What did you say?”

The man didn’t answer because he was looking at the woman’s face, as if he were searching for something.

“Did you say it’s a good number?”

The man lowered his gaze to the ticket:

“Yes, it has two 8’s in a symmetrical position and has equal sums.”

“What does that mean?”

“If you draw a line through the middle of the number, the sum of the figures on the right is the same as those on the left. Generally that’s a good sign.”

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“And how do you know?”

“It’s my job.”

The woman smiled.

“You’re right.”

She placed her money on the counter.

“You’re not blind,” she said.

“I beg your pardon?”

The man began laughing.

“No, I’m not.”

“It’s odd . . . ”

“Why should I be blind?”

“Well, the people who sell lottery tickets always are.”

“Really?”

“Maybe not always, but often . . . I think people like it that they’re blind.”

“In what sense?”

“I don’t know, I imagine it has to do with the idea of fortune being blind.”

The woman spoke and then she began to laugh. She had a nice laugh, with no sign of age in it.

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“Usually they’re very old, and they look around like tropical birds in the window of a pet shop.”

She said it with great assurance.

Then she added:

“You are different.”

The man said that in fact he was not blind. But he was old.

“How old are you?” the woman asked.

“I’m seventy-two,” said the man.

Then he added:

“This is a good job for me, I have no problems, it’s a good job.”

He said it in a low voice. Calmly.

The woman smiled.

“Of course. I didn’t mean that . . . ”

“It’s a job I like.”

“I’m sure of it.”

She took the ticket and put it in a small black purse.

Then she turned around for an instant as if she had to check something, or wanted to see if there were people 47

waiting, behind her. At the end, instead of thanking him and leaving, she spoke.

“I wonder if you might like to come and have something to drink with me.”

The man had just put the money into the cash drawer.

He stopped with his hand in midair.

“Me?”

“Yes.”

“I . . . I can’t.”

The woman looked at him.

“I have to keep the kiosk open, I can’t go now, I have no one here that . . . I . . . ”

“Just a glass.”

“I’m sorry . . . really I can’t do it.”

The woman nodded yes, as if she had understood. But then she leaned toward the man and said:

“Come with me.”

The man said again:

“Please.”

But she repeated:

“Come with me.”