Screw’s eyes fill with tears. He lowers his head. The waiter places the wooden platter with the pizza on the table, opens the Quilmes beer and walks away. Mole pours out the beer and hands Screw a glass. Screw finishes it in one gulp. He looks up from the foam in the glass and meets Mole’s eyes. His face is twisted with grief. His voice sounds like his tongue is a wet rag.
She’s dying, Mole.
He looks down and burps. Miranda calls over the waiter.
Do me a favour, kid. Put the pizza in a box and give it to those kids out front. Seems we’ve lost our appetite.
Mole stares silently at his friend, then pulls himself together.
You’re going to kill me. Stop talking crap, will you? What do you mean, I’m going to kill you? I would if I were you. Nothing can be done? I spent all the dough on tests to see what she had. And? It’s a brain tumour. Inoperable, no treatment. All I can do is sit around and watch her die. She’s blind…
Miranda, seeing that Screw’s about to fall apart again, squeezes his arm to bring him around. He doesn’t want to hear any more about it. He has no room for his friend’s pain. Prison has left him with dead zones that will take a long time to come back to life.
It’s okay, Screw, calm down. What can I do? You had to spend it, and you spent it on a good cause. The problem is, you didn’t let me know. ’Cause you know what, buddy, when you hear news like that your blood pressure goes up. You can’t think clearly and you don’t know what to do. Of course, I understand you… No, Mole, I’m sorry, but you don’t understand. Nobody who hasn’t gone through this can understand. Your head explodes. Nothing that mattered to you matters any more. Nothing makes sense any more. You feel totally alone, totally abandoned. All you can do is watch yourself suffer as you watch the disease consuming your daughter’s life and see that empty look in the doctors’ eyes that says that they don’t know anything, either, that there’s nothing they can do. Even what I’m telling you now doesn’t really get at it, Mole. I can’t find the words to tell you what I’m going through.
Suddenly his friend is out of reach. All Mole can do is look at him: Screw brings his hand to his forehead, drops his head again and a sigh comes out of his mouth that sounds like a muffled howl, almost inaudible, but that makes Miranda’s bones twinge as if someone had used a cattle prod on him.
As soon as I can I’ll get it back to you, Mole, I promise. Do me a favour and cut the crap about the dough, Screw. Okay, Mole, thank you. Yeah, cut the crap. I gotta go. Take it easy.
Miranda stands up to give his friend a hug, but Screw avoids it, holds out his hand in a brief moment of desperation, then leaves without looking back. Mole watches him through the window as he turns the corner and disappears into the night. He finishes the beer in three gulps, pays and leaves. It’s cold outside.
He starts walking. This is one thing he never expected. Screw’s miserable face has remained stamped on his retina like a curse. And what if tomorrow the test comes out bad, and it turns out he’s condemned like Screw’s daughter? What would he do if something like that happened to his son? He pushes that thought away with a grunt. He can’t even conceive of it. Miranda is capable of facing anything, rising to any occasion, but he doesn’t do well with problems he can’t do anything to fix, situations where the only possible course of action is no action, merely acceptance. Acceptance is an art that nobody would dream of practising voluntarily. It’s always imposed on us by the most implacable of tyrants: Mother Nature. The closest Miranda has ever come is resignation, which he’s practised every time human justice has placed him behind bars. But resignation is temporary, and even while it lasts, you can always do something, plan something, think about a future or find a crack — doing yourself in? — to escape through. But acceptance is reserved for when there is absolutely no other option, when it’s the only choice left.
He follows the same route he saw Screw take as he watched him through the window. Miranda watched him — alone, divorced from the world by a tragedy that places him out of reach of any comfort — knowing that he couldn’t do anything for his friend, that nobody could. But he has to do something for himself. He has very little money left. Soon it’ll be completely gone. He walks until his legs hurt, then he goes to his hideout and lies down, fully dressed, on the bed.
The La Plata train station looks just like it did when he first saw it as a child. He’s on the platform looking through a window at Duchess and Fernando, his son, sitting in the waiting room. Suddenly the train whistle blows, the engine spews out a blast of steam, and it starts to move. But it’s not the train that’s moving, it’s the station. It’s not his wife and son who leave; it’s the station, it’s him. That image continues to cause him indescribable anguish for a long time after he’s already woken up.
7
Give me more morphine. Let’s see… what time is it? No, not yet, you’ll have to wait a few more hours. Why? We’ve got to save it for the night, when the pain gets much worse. So, give me some now, and again at night. No way. What, are you worried about me getting addicted? It’s a possibility, but what I’m really afraid of is that you won’t have the opportunity. It’s a wonderful drug, but the price is high and the bill comes due fast. If your blood pressure drops too much I won’t be able to do anything. Do you have any idea how much this hurts? No, I’ve never been shot. I wouldn’t wish it on you, I feel like I’m being torn apart at the seams. Listen, there’re many ways to deal with pain, and the way you’re dealing with it is the worst. Oh yeah, how’s that? You’re resisting it. What should I do? Relax, enjoy it. What the hell are you talking about? I’m not a masochist. That’s not what I’m talking about. What are you talking about? Have you ever stopped to think about the purpose of pain? To fuck up your life? No, to save it. If there were no pain, you wouldn’t realize you’d been shot, for example, and you’d bleed to death quite cheerfully. You’re right. Pain is the language your body uses to tell your brain that something’s wrong, where it’s wrong and how serious it is. I understand, but it could use gentler words. Pain is a force of nature, and nature doesn’t let its creatures ignore it when it has something to say. You can’t argue with nature. So? So, pain is a signal. And? When you resist it or try to ignore it, it’s not doing its job, and it will keep trying. Which means? Which means it will keep hurting. On the other hand, if you pay attention, it will have carried out its mission and will let up a little. If it were that simple we wouldn’t need painkillers. Painkillers block your perception of the pain for a short time, so you can rest. They help. Especially for men who are such wimps about pain. Are you calling me a wimp? All men are a bit wimpy about pain; if they ever gave birth they’d know what pain was. You can’t compare. What? Giving birth and getting shot. Okay, I won’t compare. Anyway, this business of you calling me a wimp, you’re just taking advantage of me because I’m wounded. If I wanted to take advantage of you, I wouldn’t give a damn about your wound.
Just as the last words are leaving her mouth, Ramona turns her back on him, picks up the tea tray and walks toward the house. Lascano watches her. Her straight black hair dances to the cadence of her walk. He wonders how it would feel sliding down his belly. Desire shines in his eyes, which she can no longer see, desire she guessed at long before Lascano even had a clue he felt it. She reminds him of Eva.
As fleeting as their meeting was, it has left its mark on him, as only true love can. Before Eva, there was Marisa, the woman he loved without a shadow of a doubt and who abandoned him forever when she died, just when he loved her more than ever. His grief lasted until he met Eva, who looked so much like Marisa that it was like she had come back for act two. With Marisa’s death, he’d lost all hope of ever finding love, he’d become some kind of ascetic who could only be aroused by memory or fantasy. Eva erupted into his life with the power of a gale-force wind or, as Ramona would put it, like a force of nature. With her animal love, she reinfected him with the virus of desire. The indisputable urge for a woman’s body. She reminded him that his physical being was subject to the imperatives of the species, imperatives that demand, for moments of dazzling urgency, that this thing hanging between his legs be inserted into one precise spot, that it has a purpose it must carry out. Men disguise this urge to conquer, equate it with the hunting of prey, think we’re in charge when we are really just submitting to the imperatives of reproduction. Not to mention that the best part of the hunt is really when we are being hunted.
The afternoon sun falls slowly behind the eucalyptus trees. The leaves quiver. Friday’s first star makes its appearance in the dark sky. Lascano hears the sound of the screen door opening, Ramona’s steps on the quartzite path set with shells. The breeze carries her perfume ahead of her, announcing her arrival.
Time to go inside. Will you give me a hand? That’s what I’m here for.
Lascano no longer needs help getting up. They both know that, but Ramona leans down so he can put his
