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  ‘Why are you looking at me like that? What do I have to do with you?’ But of course I smiled at him and carefully closed the door. When I turned around there was Granny’s childish face against my chest.

  ‘I’m happy, my dear. I’m happy, but I think this time I’ll have to make a confession. Still, I’m sure it can’t be a very big sin. But anyway … since I want to take communion tomorrow …’

  ‘Did you tell Don Jerónimo a lie?’

  ‘Yes, yes …’ said my grandmother with a laugh.

  ‘Where is Angustias, Grandmother?’

  ‘I can’t tell you either, you naughty girl … And I’d like to, because your uncles believe a lot of foolish things about poor Angustias that aren’t true, and you might believe them too. The only thing wrong with my poor daughter is that she has a very bad temper … but you mustn’t pay attention to her …’

  Gloria and Juan came in.

  ‘So Angustias didn’t run off with Don Jerónimo?’ Juan said, brutally.

  ‘Quiet! Quiet! … You know very well your sister’s incapable of that.’

  ‘Well, Mamá, we saw her on Christmas Eve coming home almost at dawn with Don Jerónimo. Juan and I hid in the shadows to watch them. Under the streetlight at the entrance they said goodbye, Don Jerónimo kissed her hand and she cried …’

  ‘Child,’ said my grandmother, shaking her head, ‘not everything we see is what it seems.’

  A little while later we saw her leave, defying the icy darkness of the evening to make her confession in a nearby church.

  I went into Angustias’ room and the soft stripped mattress gave me the idea of sleeping there while she was away. Without consulting anyone I moved my sheets to that bed, not without a certain uneasiness, since the entire room was saturated with the smell of naphthalene and incense that emanated from its mistress, and the arrangement of the timid chairs still seemed to obey her voice. The room was as hard as Angustias’ body, but cleaner and more independent than any other in the house. Instinctively it repelled me, and at the same time it called on my desire for comfort.

  Hours later, when the house was in nocturnal peace – a short, obligatory truce – and it was almost dawn, the electric light shining in my eyes woke me.

  I sat up with a start in bed and saw Román.

  ‘Ah!’ he said, his brow wrinkled in a frown, but with the outline of a smile, ‘you’re taking advantage of Angustias’ absence to sleep in her room … Aren’t you afraid she’ll strangle you when she finds out?’

  I didn’t answer, but gave him a questioning look.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, ‘nothing … nothing I wanted here.’ Brusquely he turned off the light and went out. Then I heard him leaving the house.

  In the days that followed I had the impression that this appearance of Román in the middle of the night had been a dream, but I remembered it vividly a short while later.

  It was an afternoon when the light was very sad. I grew tired of looking at the old pictures that my grandmother was showing me in her bedroom. She had a large box full of photographs in the most awful disorder, some of them gnawed on by mice.

  ‘Is this you, Grandmother?’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Is this Granddad?’

  ‘Yes, that’s your father.’

  ‘My father?’

  ‘Yes, my husband.’

  ‘Then he isn’t my father, he’s my grandfather …’

  ‘Ah, yes! … Yes.’

  ‘Who’s this fat little girl?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  But on the back of the photograph was a long-ago date and a name: ‘Amalia.’

  ‘This is my mother when she was little, Grandmother.’

  ‘I think you’re wrong.’

  ‘No, Grandmother.’

  She remembered all the old friends of her youth.

  ‘This is my brother … This is a cousin who was in America …’

  Finally I grew tired and went to Angustias’ room. I wanted to be alone in the dark for a while. ‘If I feel like it,’ I thought with the slight discomfort that always assailed me when I thought about this, ‘I’ll study for a while.’ I pushed the door gently and suddenly I stepped back, startled: next to the balcony, taking advantage of the afternoon’s last light, was Román, holding a letter in his hand.

  He turned impatiently, but when he saw me he forced a smile.

  ‘Ah! … is that you, little one? … All right, don’t run away from me now, please.’

  I stood still and saw that with great serenity and skill he folded the letter and placed it on top of a small packet of letters that was on the small desk (I looked at his agile hands, dark and very clever). He opened one of Angustias’ drawers. Then he took a key ring from his pocket, immediately found the little key he was looking for, and locked the drawer silently after placing the letters inside.

  He spoke to me as he carried out these operations:

  ‘Actually I wanted very much to have a chat with you this afternoon, little one. I have some very good coffee upstairs, and I wanted to invite you to have a cup. And I have cigarettes and some sweets I bought yesterday, thinking of you … And … well?’ he said when he finished, seeing that I didn’t answer.

  He was leaning against Angustias’ desk and the last light from the balcony fell on his back. I was in front of him.

  ‘Your grey eyes are shining like a cat’s,’ he said.

  I shook off my stupefaction and tension in something resembling a sigh.

  ‘All right, what’s your answer?’

  ‘No, Román, thank you. I want to study this afternoon.’ Román struck a match to light his cigarette; for an instant, in the shadows, I saw his face illuminated by a reddish light, his singular smile, then the golden strands burning. Immediately after that a red dot and again the grey-violet light of dusk surrounding us.

  ‘It isn’t true that you want to study, Andrea … Come on!’ he said, approaching rapidly and seizing my arm. ‘Let’s go!’

  I felt rigid and gently began to loosen his fingers from my arm.

  ‘Not today … thanks.’

  He let go of me right away, but we were very close and didn’t move.

  The streetlights went on, and a yellowish streak reflected on Angustias’ chair and ran along the floor tiles …

  ‘You can do whatever you want, Andrea,’ he said at last, ‘it isn’t a matter of life or death for me.’

  His voice sounded deep and had a new tone.

  ‘He’s desperate,’ I thought, not knowing exactly why I found desperation in his voice. He left quickly and, as always, slammed the door when he left the flat. I was stirred in a disagreeable way. I felt an immediate desire to follow him, but when I reached the foyer I stopped again. For days I’d been avoiding Román’s affection, it seemed impossible to be his friend again after the unpleasant episode of the handkerchief. But he still inspired more interest in me than all the other people in the house taken together … ‘He’s mean-spirited, he’s a dishonourable person,’ I thought aloud, there in the tranquil darkness of the house.

  Still, I decided to open the door and climb the stairs. Feeling for the first time, even without understanding it, that the interest and esteem a person may inspire are two things that aren’t always connected.

  On the way I was thinking that on the first night I slept in Angustias’ room, after Román appeared and then I heard the door slam when he left and his footsteps on the stairs, I heard Gloria leave the house. Angustias’ room directly received noises from the stairs. It was like a huge ear in the house … Whispers, doors slamming, voices, all of it resonated there. I’d closed my eyes to hear better; it seemed I could see Gloria, with her white, triangular face, pacing the landing, undecided. She took a few steps and then stopped, hesitating; then she started to walk and then stopped again. My heart began to pound with excitement because I was certain she wouldn’t be able to resist the desire to climb the steps that separated our house from Román’s room. Perhaps she could
n’t resist the temptation to spy on him … But Gloria’s footsteps reached a decision, abruptly, when she ran down the stairs to the street. All of this was so startling that it played a part in my attributing it to disturbances in my half-waking imagination.

  Now I was the one climbing slowly, my heart pounding, to Román’s room. In reality it seemed to me he really needed me, that he really needed to talk, as he had said. Perhaps he wanted to confess to me, repent before me, justify himself. When I reached his room I found him lying down, stroking the dog’s head.

  ‘Do you think you’ve done a great thing by coming?’

  ‘No … But you wanted me to come.’

  Román sat up, looking at me with curiosity in his brilliant eyes.

  ‘I wanted to know to what extent I could count on you, to what extent you can love me … Do you love me, Andrea?’

  ‘Yes, it’s natural …’ I said, feeling self-conscious, ‘I don’t know how much ordinary nieces love their uncles …’

  Román burst into laughter.

  ‘Ordinary nieces? Do you actually consider yourself an extraordinary niece …? Come on, Andrea! Look at me! … Idiot! Nieces of every kind usually don’t care at all about their uncles …’

  ‘Yes, sometimes I think friends are better than families. At times you can be closer to a stranger than to your own blood …’

  The image of Ena, erased for all that time, made its appearance in my imagination with a vague profile. Hounded by this idea I asked Román:

  ‘Don’t you have friends?’

  ‘No.’ Román was observing me. ‘I’m not a man with friends. No one in this house needs friends. We’re all we need here. One day you’ll believe that …’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’m not so sure about that … You’d be better off talking to a man your own age than to me …’

  Ideas tightened my throat and I couldn’t express them.

  Román’s tone was irritated, though he was smiling.

  ‘If I needed friends I’d have them, I’ve had them and I’ve dropped them. You’ll get sick of it all too … What person in this miserable, beautiful world is interesting enough to put up with? Soon you’ll be telling people to go to hell too, when you get over your schoolgirl’s romanticism about friends.’

  ‘But you, Román, you’re going to hell too behind those people you dismiss … I’ve never paid as much attention to people as you do, and I’ve never had as much curiosity about their private affairs … I don’t go through your drawers, and I don’t care what other people have in their suitcases.’

  I blushed and was sorry I had because the light was on and a fire burned brightly in the fireplace. When I realised that, a new rush of blood rose to my face, but I dared to look in my uncle’s face.

  Román raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Ah! So, that’s the reason for your running away from me these last few days?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Look, woman,’ he changed his tone, ‘don’t meddle in what you can’t understand … You couldn’t make sense of it if I explained my actions. As for the rest, I never dreamed of explaining my behaviour to you.’

  ‘I’m not asking for that.’

  ‘Yes … But I feel like talking … I feel like telling you some things.’

  That afternoon Román seemed disturbed. For the first time I had the same sense of mental unbalance in him that always made it so unpleasant to be near Juan. In the course of our conversation there were moments when his entire face lit up with mischievous good humour, and other times when he looked at me with a frown, his eyes intense, as if what he was telling me were really passionately important to him. As if it were the most important thing in his life.

  At first it seemed he didn’t know how to begin. He busied himself with the coffee pot. He turned out the light and the only illumination for drinking our coffee more comfortably came from the fireplace. I sat on the straw mat on the floor, next to the fire, and he squatted beside me for a while, smoking. Then he stood up.

  ‘Shall I ask him to play a little music, the way I always do?’ I thought when I saw that the silence was lengthening. It seemed we had re-established our normal atmosphere. Suddenly I was startled by his voice.

  ‘Look, I wanted to talk to you, but it’s impossible. You’re a baby … “what’s good,” “what’s bad,” “what I like,” “what I feel like doing” … that’s what you have in your head, as clearly as a child. Sometimes I think you resemble me, that you understand me, that you understand my music, the music of this house … The first time I played the violin for you, I was trembling inside with hope, with a terrible joy when your eyes changed with the music … I thought, little one, that you’d understand me even without words; that you were my audience, the audience I needed … And you haven’t even realised that I have to know – that in fact I do know – everything, absolutely everything, that goes on downstairs. Everything Gloria feels, all of Angustias’ ridiculous stories, everything Juan suffers … Haven’t you realised that I manage all of them, that I arrange their nerves, their thoughts …? If I could only explain to you that sometimes I’m on the verge of driving Juan crazy! … But haven’t you seen that yourself? I pull at his comprehension, his mind, until it almost breaks … Sometimes, when he shouts with his eyes open, he even moves me. If you’d ever felt this emotion, so dense and strange, drying your tongue, you’d understand me! I think that with a single word I could calm him, make him serene, make him mine, make him smile … You know that, don’t you? You know very well how much Juan belongs to me, how much he trails after me, how much I mistreat him. Don’t tell me you haven’t realised … And I don’t want to make him happy. And that’s how I let him sink down by himself … And the others … And all the life in this house, as dirty as a muddy river … When you’ve lived here longer, this house and its smell and its old things, if you’re like me, they’ll seize the life in you. And you’re like me … Aren’t you like me? Tell me, don’t you resemble me a little?’

  There we were; I was on the mat on the floor and he was standing. I didn’t know if he enjoyed frightening me or if he really was crazy. He’d finished talking almost in a whisper when he asked me that last question. I was quiet, wanting to escape, nervous.

  He brushed my head with his fingertips and I jumped up, stifling a scream.

  Then he really burst out laughing, enthused, childish, charming as always.

  ‘What a fright! Isn’t that right, Andrea?’

  ‘Why have you told me so much nonsense, Román?’

  ‘Nonsense?’ But he was laughing. ‘I’m not so sure it is … Haven’t I told you the story of the god Xochipilli, my little idol accustomed to receiving human hearts? One day you’ll be tired of my weak offerings of music and then …’

  ‘Román, you’re not frightening me any more, but I’m nervous … Can’t you talk in another tone? If you can’t, I’m leaving …’

  ‘And then,’ Román laughed even more, his teeth white beneath his little black moustache, ‘then I’ll offer Juan up to Xochipilli, I’ll offer him Juan’s brain and Gloria’s heart …’

  He sighed.

  ‘Miserable offerings, in spite of everything. Maybe your beautiful, ordered brain would be better …’

  I ran down the stairs to the house, pursued by Román’s amused laughter. Because the fact is I escaped. I escaped and the steps flew under my feet. Román’s laughter reached me, like the bony hand of a devil snatching at the hem of my skirt …

  I didn’t want supper because I didn’t want to see Román. Not because I was afraid of him; one minute after it was over the conversation seemed absurd, but it had disturbed me, I felt ennervated and had no desire to meet his eyes. Now, and not when I saw him snooping so meanly, not respecting the lives of others, now, and not all those previous days when I ran from him, thinking I had contempt for him, now was when I began to feel an indefinable revulsion for Román.

  I went to bed and couldn’t sleep. The light from the dining room made a brilliant l
ine under the door to the room; I heard voices. Román’s eyes were on mine: ‘You won’t need anything when the things in the house seize your senses’ … This continual rumination on the ideas he had suggested seemed a little terrifying to me. I was alone and lost under my blankets. For the first time I felt a real longing for human company. For the first time I felt in my palms the yearning for another hand to soothe me … Then the telephone, there at the head of the bed, began to ring. I’d forgotten that this thing even existed in the house, because only Angustias used it. I picked up the mouthpiece, still shaken by the shudder caused by the impression of its piercing sound, and into my ears came a joy so great (because it was like a response to my state of mind) that at first I couldn’t hear her.

  It was Ena, who had found my number in the telephone book and was calling me.

  VIII

  ANGUSTIAS CAME BACK on a midnight train and ran into Gloria on the stairs. The sound of their voices woke me. I quickly realised I was sleeping in a room that wasn’t mine and that its mistress was going to reclaim it.

  I jumped out of bed, pierced by cold and drowsiness. So frightened that I had the sensation of not being able to move although, in fact, that was all I did: in a few seconds I pulled the bedclothes from the bed and wrapped them around me. I tossed the pillow onto a chair in the dining room as I walked past, and reached the foyer wrapped in a blanket, barefoot on the freezing tiles, at the very moment Angustias came in from the street followed by the driver with her bags, and leading Gloria by her arm. Granny appeared too, confused and stammering when she saw Gloria.

  ‘Come, child, come … Run to my room!’ she said.

  But Angustias didn’t let go of Gloria’s arm.

  ‘No, Mamá. No, absolutely not.’

  The driver observed the scene from the corner of his eye. Angustias paid him and closed the door. Immediately she turned to Gloria.

  ‘Hussy! Tell me, what were you doing on the stairs at this time of night?’

  Gloria was as self-absorbed as a cat. Her painted mouth looked very dark.