The Barcelona Brothers (7 page)

She has always been the one who got to choose. The one who made others wait. Giving free rein to her whims, making things happen, causing earthquakes, and—if she felt like it—healing wounds and repairing losses. But she wasn’t unfair, or at least she doesn’t see herself that way. She never got a guy hot just to leave him hanging, the way other girls would. Nor did she ever deceive anyone or act in bad faith. Of course, sometimes she liked to have fun, all girls did, but she didn’t go much beyond that.

She’s sitting on the floor in the half-empty apartment Epi asked her to meet him in. The window shutters are down, but the slats have so many holes they look bullet-riddled, and the first direct light of the morning enters through them. The dust is getting into her throat. She remembers the time when bees built a hive in the housing above some other shutters. Where did that happen? Was it just after they arrived in Spain? Yes, on the second floor, where they lived in practically complete
security. Papa didn’t let anybody go into the room. He sealed it by stuffing cloths under the door so that the bees, once they were driven mad, couldn’t escape. The action wasn’t particularly heroic. The nest was treated with poison, after which there was nothing to do but let a few days pass and then check the honeycomb to see that it was empty. But to Tiffany, the long wait on the other side of the door, then her father coming through it with that strange construction in his hands, and the floor of the room thickly littered with insect carcasses—all that seemed to provide yet another demonstration of the value and authority her progenitor exuded at certain fixed hours of the day. That was her father’s good side, which on no account compensated for the other one.

Now she regrets having added so much fuel to Epi’s flame. She reflects on his unexpected call, his apparently urgent need to see her, his almost literally yanking her out of her apartment and summoning her here, to the safe house Tanveer Hussein and his pals use. Epi tricked her, assured her that she absolutely must not remain at her place, because they’d be coming for her, too. But who? And why? Tiffany didn’t understand a thing. But she was mixed up in so many shenanigans that she decided to err on the side of caution rather than incredulity.

“What’s that supposed to mean? What happened?”

“Nothing, honey, nothing. I’ll explain when I see you.”

Tiffany hated it when Epi called her “honey.” It wasn’t just a casual, unimportant filler word—far from it. Epi deployed it to reconstruct a familiarity that no longer existed between them, to go back, little by little, to that part of their lives. It
was a bit like a little story she remembered from her stay in the convent school. The camel, which is sin, stands outside your tent and begs you to let it enter because a terrible storm is raging. First it thrusts in one foot, then another, then its head, and eventually, almost without your noticing, the damn camel’s inside and you can’t get it out of your life. Tiffany reproaches herself for having allowed him to use that “honey” without hanging up on him. But she wanted to find out what the devil had really happened, what on earth would cause him to telephone her at eight in the morning. Not exactly an hour for heroic exploits.

“I don’t want to play games, Epi. Stop fucking around.”

“But why not do what I’m asking you to do, just this once?”

He was very nervous. It had been a long time since she’d last known him in such a state. Tiffany had a bad feeling. She didn’t want impatience to get the best of her. She lifted the medal with the image of the Virgin to her lips, kissed it, and put it in her mouth, completing the unconscious gesture she had recourse to when she was trying to calm down a little. She stood there in the middle of the room, barefoot, wearing the XL Mala Rodríguez T-shirt that reached down almost to her knees and served as a nightshirt. She’d jumped out of bed to get the phone, and Epi wasn’t making himself very clear. She was having trouble hearing him. When she did, his voice had a metallic echo. Tiffany decided to jump in the shower and get dressed quickly. She’d probably get breakfast in the bar, so she wouldn’t have to give her mother any explanations. Thus distracted, she hadn’t noticed that the older lady, awakened by
the telephone, was behind her, wrapped in her pink dressing gown and clutching it as though holding in her life.

“Nothing’s going on, Mama. Go back to bed.”

“Who is it?”

“Nobody, goddamn it, nobody! And don’t yell! The child’s still asleep!”

“Tiffany, please.” It was Epi’s supplicating, half-human, half-robotic voice, coming from the receiver.

“For Christ’s sake. You’ve woken up the whole family. Now I’m trying to get my noble mother to return to her bed, and besides, I can barely hear you.”

“How about now? Can you hear me better now?”

“Yes.”

“Either my account’s getting low or my battery is, I don’t know. I have to keep turning the phone off and then turning it back on. I’ll see you in the Granada Street apartment in fifteen minutes. It’s important, I promise.”

“But don’t leave me like this! Tell me what’s going on!”

“I’m all right.”

Tiffany left the room where the telephone was and went back to her bedroom. She got dressed and, standing in front of a mirror, thought for the umpteenth time that maybe it hadn’t been such a great idea to have her eyelids tattooed. She also found time to spray her hair. Before she went out, slamming the door, she wondered whether she should tell her sister where she was going. In the end, she decided not to. Now, in the other apartment, she regrets her omission in a remote, imprecise way, with a feeling close to apathy. The same feeling
that stops her from reaching in her purse, pulling out her cell phone, and calling home this very moment.

Tired of sitting on the floor, she rises to her feet and shakes the dust from the seat of her pants. It must be years since anybody swept up in here. She goes to the bedroom, where there’s a mattress and a wardrobe with a few articles of clothing. She knows entering the room is going to bring back bad memories, but she won’t and can’t resist the temptation to go in. Everything looks the way it did the last time she was there. All that’s different is the blue T-shirt on the floor, or maybe the cruddy glasses by the mattress. There are some little glassine envelopes with tiny traces of cocaine. Tiffany runs a finger inside the envelopes and then rubs the finger on her gums. The drug tastes dusty, of course.

She rummages around in her purse until she comes up with her cigarettes. She lights one. There’s no ashtray, so she uses one of the little envelopes. She sits down on the mattress. She knows she’s still not alone; she knows she’ll have no secrets, no privacy, as long as those invisible eyes keep looking at her. Eyes that never sleep. Eyes that look in no other direction, not yet, not for the moment. Tanveer’s eyes.

Tiffany drags on her cigarette, sets it on the chest of drawers, and thinks about opening them. The surface of the chest is rough. Once the piece of furniture was in place, they promised each other they’d sand and stain and varnish it, but Tanveer never had time for anything. Nor was this place ever his home. Other people were always staying there—you could meet all kinds. The bottom drawer is empty. The drawer above
it contains a pair of clean panties that Tiffany had forgotten about. In the top drawer she discovers the little paperback novel she never finished reading, no matter how much Alex insisted. It wasn’t only that reading didn’t interest her; it also put her in a bad mood. She always felt that someone was making fun of her, of her inability to keep her attention focused on the plot, of her tendency to get lost among the lines of black ants that seemed to move around, for no good reason, right in front of her eyes. Under the book she finds some lilac-colored packets of condoms.

She shuts the drawer, takes another drag on her cigarette, and lets herself drop onto the mattress. Exhaling the smoke, she stretches out, face down. She lies still and closes her eyes. She feels sleepy, thinks she’s going to doze off. But first she wants to smell Tanveer. To relive the last time she was there with him. No, not the last time. All the times before that, yes, but the last one, no. She wants to smell other women, too. Other scents, other sweat, not Hussein’s.

The last time they were together in this apartment, the Moroccan was in a strange mood. She’d never seen him like that before. They were trying out a brand-new, shiny kind of separation, according to the terms of which Tanveer didn’t come near Tiffany until she decided when and where they would see each other. This game delighted both of them, but on that night, Tanveer wasn’t himself. He made her wait a long time. She was unable to get in touch with him the entire afternoon. If it hadn’t been his birthday, if she hadn’t bought him a Raider T-shirt, she would certainly have given up waiting for
him. When he finally arrived, he told her some asinine story he didn’t even try to make believable. Then, when she didn’t believe him, he tensed up and tried acting tough, but Tiffany was in a good mood and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. She wanted to enjoy herself; she wasn’t up for having a bad night. However, Tanveer kept thinking about other things, maybe about another woman. He took her out to dinner, yes, but he hardly drank anything. At the end of the dinner, when she blurted out that he was acting strange, he apologized and said he was wasted. The previous night had nearly killed him.

“Don’t exaggerate so much, Tanveer. We’ve all had wild nights.”

“Last night was different, babe. We went too far.”

“It could be you’re getting old.”

“It’s not that. Or let’s say it is—it makes no difference. Your thing is you always have to be right.”

“Were you out with Epi?”

“Yes.”

“Just the two of you?”

“Of course.”

“Where did you go?”

“Around here.”

“Did you score?”

“That, too.”

After dinner, Tanveer didn’t want to go to any of the usual places. He insisted on dodging friends and chance meetings. They left the barrio, and in a Colombian joint whose rolling shutter was halfway down, Tiffany drank herself crazy. The
cheap alcohol made her head spin and caused her to puke her guts out, first in the ladies’ room and later in the street. The alcohol and her fear, and her certainty that Tanveer was escaping her, and the sensation that he found no pleasure with her or had any idea what she was thinking at any given moment.

Why not erase that last night with Tanveer from her memory and concentrate on the other times? When he’d turn into her father and her son, when he’d scold her for being so good and for being such a whore, when he’d adore her for taking pity on him and healing him. She’d explore the thick, curly hair on his chest, as if she wanted to make sure there was a heart underneath. To hear it beating and tear at it with her teeth. And then to feel herself the female again and ask him for forgiveness, for mercy, for the harshest punishment imaginable. Or to leave him outside the room while she stretched out naked on this very mattress, under the covers. And he’d come in like a thief, without knowing how he’d be received, and open her legs and put it in her. And afterward she’d hit him, thrust her fingers in his ass until it hurt, scratch him, and hate him as much as she desired him.

Or why not recall, for example, that time at the gas station? That Thursday when she was so angry at him, and she went with some girlfriends to a disco where she knew Tanveer would come looking for her. She spent a little time before he arrived chatting up some poor chump whose name was Luis or Ángel, she can’t remember now. When Hussein appeared and saw them sitting so close together in the corner, he rushed over to them, looking as though he was going to kill the guy.
He grabbed him and shook him and pressed a fist against his face so hard it seemed it might go through his skull. Tiffany was frightened by the scene, by the violence she saw seething in Tanveer. But she had to admit it was a little like what she’d been hoping would happen. It felt godlike, determining future events, capriciously provoking moments of blinding intensity. The guys from security showed them the door, and they obeyed. It was better to leave than to have the management call the police. Then they all piled into Epi’s van. They drove around looking for Luis or Ángel or whatever the fool’s name was. It took more than an hour, but at last they saw him and his friends standing near a metallic Skoda in a gas station, fueling up. After telling Epi to park several yards away from the first pumps and keep the engine running, Hussein got out and headed straight for the soft drinks machine into which Luis or Ángel was inserting coins. After half a minute, Tiffany also stepped out of the van, but without any specific goal. She was afraid, and she didn’t know whether she’d rather calm things down or enjoy her fear. Epi and two of Tiffany’s friends, tired girls with their war paint quite faded, were remarking that the whole thing was madness. One of them got out with the intention of walking to the avenue and catching a cab. The other girl hesitated, but in the end she told Epi good-bye and ran off after her friend. They stood on a corner of the avenue, waiting for a taxi with a green light to come along and take them home.

Tiffany’s erstwhile suitor became aware too late of Tanveer’s presence. The
Moro
punched him in the face, causing
him to stagger and fall backward; he landed hard on his back and had the bad luck to strike his head against the curb. As he lay on the ground unconscious, the kid began to shake. Later they would learn that Tanveer hadn’t killed him, but the sight of that body shaken by spasms, with a protruding tongue, a pool of blood spreading around the head like a Gothic nimbus of sanctity, and eyes starting from their sockets, made them anticipate the worst. Little by little, Tiffany got closer to the scene. She was surprised and fascinated. She couldn’t turn her eyes away. What she was looking at repulsed her, frightened her, and attracted her, all at the same time. Then Tanveer snatched away the fuel hose one of Luis or Ángel’s companions had been using to fill his tank. The terrified suitor lay on the ground, sometimes shaking, sometimes unmoving, as Tanveer doused him with gasoline. Then the
Moro
turned to the Skoda and pumped gas all over it; two other guys who had taken refuge inside the car sprang from it in terror. Tanveer flung the hose to the ground, next to Luis or Ángel’s body, and walked away from the filing station at a decent clip, but without running or even looking back.