words. When she opens them, she sees only his mouth. A thin line of saliva, which she longs to lick, gleams between his lips. Roberto is looking deeply into her eyes. Graciela approaches. She brazenly takes his hand and tells him that there’s something she must show him. What an idiot I was! When Roberto asked who would help him organize the bazaar, Maisabe was daydreaming, just like now, and that fake blonde beat her to it. Now that bitch has the perfect excuse to see him five times a week. In addition, with all that rushing around, she forgot to put on her perfume and lipstick. Now it’s too late, now there’s no point.
She sits down alone on one of the benches on the patio and keeps her eyes glued on the closed door of the sacristy. She’s daydreaming. A short while later the door opens and the two of them emerge. Her hair is mussed, just a little, almost nothing. The buckle on Roberto’s belt has slid a little to the right. She wonders if they were making out in there, and immediately the scene plays itself out in her imagination. The two of them on the oak desk, surrounded by sorrowful images of saints, passionately groping each other, kissing with serpentine tongues, hands burrowing under clothing, moaning and, suddenly, surprise surprise, she sees herself in the same scene, approaching them, squeezing in between those two bodies that press against hers… She opens her eyes and realizes that her new panties are moist. From the other side of the patio, Roberto is looking at her. She feels her face flushing, she looks down and pretends to be looking for something in her bag, but the only thing she finds in there is her lipstick.
The children come out of the classroom and run around the patio, chirping like little birds. Anibal is the only one who doesn’t join in. He walks up to her and stares, as if he knew. The other mothers stand around and listen attentively to the priest, who talks to them with a big smile and calm, deliberate gestures. Maisabe gives a sad wave and moves toward the door. Roberto excuses himself and intercepts her. He looks at Anibal, tenderly caressing his head. Maisabe stares at those voluptuous fingers lingering on the child’s hair. With one quick move, Anibal repels his touch.
Anibal, wait for your mama by the door, I’d like to talk to her for a moment.
The child looks at them with total indifference and walks away.
Maisabe, we have to talk.
Roberto’s eyes are shining as if he’d been reading her thoughts this whole time. Or could she be imagining it?
Talk? Tuesday is the best day. Tuesday? I’ll meet you here at twelve.
Roberto touches her hand and smiles. She quickly nods and walks to the door. She feels like she’s levitating, just as she did the first time she met him.
Anibal looks out the window of the bus. He watches the people walking down the street. He counts, he looks around, he plays.
Green. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven… a woman with a green coat. Yellow. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven… a man with a yellow raincoat…
Sitting next to him, Maisabe stares dreamily at the floor, happy and guilt-ridden for what she is feeling. The bus starts filling up. She watches the dance of the passengers’ feet as they squeeze more and more tightly into the aisle, their bodies pressing and rubbing against each other to the rhythm of the swaying, the braking, the potholes. She feels exhausted. She puts her hand in the pocket where she carries her rosary and turns it around with her fingers as she does when she prays, but she isn’t praying, she just uses it to quiet the trembling in her hand or, at least, to simulate prayer. What she wants to do is think about Roberto.
Maria, we’re home.
She snaps to. Anibal has never called her Mama, or Maisabe, as everyone else calls her, not even Maria Isabel, as she was baptized. He calls her plain Maria. He’s got something with names; he doesn’t call Giri “Papa” or “Leo”, either. He calls him Giri, like his fellow officers do, or Sir, like the soldiers under his command, when he had some. If adults ask him his name, he doesn’t answer, he pretends he’s deaf or he looks at her, so she’ll answer for him. She has, however, been told that when children at school or church ask him his name, he says Juan. Once she asked him why, and he refused to answer. He always does what he’s asked, he never talks back, or complains, he obeys as if his life depended on it. At two, when he was asked for a kiss, he’d say, “All done”; at four he began to dress himself; at six he was already deciding what he would wear every day. He wants to do everything by himself and seems vexed when someone offers to help. He does well in school, not the best student but not the worst, staying right in the middle of the curve where he is protected on both ends from the mediocrity of his teachers. He gets along well with his classmates, and he’s fairly popular, which strikes the teachers as odd, because he never smiles or laughs with adults, whom he keeps under strict surveillance. Many of them feel intimidated by his eyes that seem to burrow into them and rummage through all their secrets.
In the meantime, Giribaldi opens the drawer, unfolds an orange flannel cloth, takes out a wooden box, places it on the desk and opens it. Inside lies a black Glock 17 with its Storm Lake barrel and its magazine with seventeen rounds. Next to it he places the cleaning kit with its bronze brushes, cleaning rag and the little bottle of lubricant, which is almost empty. He places the pistol on the flannel cloth. He presses the button that releases the magazine, removes all the bullets and lines them up one by one as if they were toy soldiers. He draws back the slide and makes sure no bullet is left in the chamber. He removes the barrel and the slide exposing the recoil spring assembly. With a watchmaker’s screwdriver he pushes down the plastic spacer. He puts on his reading glasses. The next step requires enormous care because the spring is being held at maximum tension. When he disengages the safety catch it might shoot toward his face. It could easily take out an eye. This is not a toy, it is a killing machine and this condition is present in every one of its mechanisms. Giri manipulates the spring clip with great precision. He removes the hammer, then the trigger housing with the ejector, then presses down and holds the small silver safety button. He turns the extractor until he can remove it from the slide, then disengages the safety catch. He lines up all the pieces and looks at this orderly array. One drop of sweat falls off his forehead and draws a big yellow sun on the orange cloth. At this moment it is an innocent mechanism, incapable of causing harm. If someone attacked him right now, he would be unable to defend himself, for the individual parts pose no danger at all. Freed from its internal tensions, it is nothing more than a collection of greased metal parts designed to fit together perfectly. With great care he dips the tiny brushes in the cleaning solvent and goes over each piece thoroughly. He lubricates the moving parts then removes all the excess oil with the rag. Now comes the part he likes best. He pauses for a moment to memorize the exact location of each and every cleaned and oiled piece on the flannel cloth, starts the stopwatch on his wrist, closes his eyes and reassembles the pistol at top speed. He opens his eyes, looks at his watch — eighteen seconds — and smiles. He picks up the magazine and places it on the table. He polishes the bullets one by one before loading them. When he’s done, he inserts the magazine into the receiver in one energetic movement. Even though a pistol never loses its power to intimidate, it’s only when it is assembled and loaded that it takes on its full destructive capability. He grips it, then points it at the heads of the people in the pictures one by one: General Saint Jean handing him his diploma; his father; himself as a cadet; Maisabe dressed for her first communion; Anibal at the beach with his sour face. The weapon feels light and strong, powerful. He cocks it, it’s ready to shoot; this is the decisive moment, the tiniest movement of his middle finger resting on the sensitive trigger is all that separates whoever dares defy or disobey him from eternity. The only real power is that of life or death over other people.
He hears the elevator arrive, the doors open, the key being inserted into the lock. Anibal walks by his door and says hello without looking at him. Three seconds later, Maisabe is standing in the doorway. The Glock is resting on Giri’s lap, where his wife cannot see it.
How are things? Good. How did it go? To tell you the truth, this business of taking Anibal to catechism school precisely at rush hour is enough to earn me my place in heaven. I thought you’d already earned it. Are you hungry? A little. There’s steak. Good. Salad or mashed potatoes? Whatever you like. Okay.
As she enters the kitchen, she has an attack of silent rage against her husband. The remains of a ham sandwich on the kitchen counter has turned into a restless mass of ravenous ants. Maisabe hates these industrious and tiny insects that, in all the years they’ve lived in this apartment, they’ve never managed to exterminate. She picks up a small pot, turns on the hot water tap and places the pot under it. With a familiar groan, the flames of the instant hot-water heater spread a blue hue over her movements, and as the pipes heat up the water they emit a painful cry. While the pot fills with water she observes the ants carrying their crumbs, rushing to and from the food, crossing paths, stopping briefly, as if to chat. They are ruled by an orderly frenzy. She places the pot next to the edge of the counter and, using a kitchen towel, pushes the sandwich and the ants into the pot. The insects stop moving the second they touch the hot water. She, on the other hand, can touch it without getting burnt very much at all. She throws the water and the dead ants down the sink, picks up the remains of the wet bread and ham and
