The Good Suicides (22 page)

It is almost eleven when Amanda finally decides to get up and turn on her computer, a reflex gesture. While she waits for it to boot up, she always feels the vague fear that he might let her down. That some Sunday the message with the instructions to follow won’t come. In fact, it has happened once, an unexpected punishment she found much more unbearable than any other of the many he is capable of imagining and executing. But this Sunday she knows it won’t be like that; he told her so on the phone on Friday, around nine at night, as he usually does. He calls her every Friday, not caring where she is. She must answer—it’s part of the deal. So that night, during that horrible weekend with Brais and the others, she had to move away from the house to take the call.

“Touch yourself, caress your breasts under your clothes. Turn yourself on thinking I’m here, watching you, ready to whip you if you don’t please me. I want to hear you moan.”

She doesn’t want to think about it. Not this Sunday; she has agonized enough over it. She can’t tell anyone about it. She had bad enough luck with Sara …

It was careless, an unforgivable error. After that weekend, the eight had exchanged personal emails in case they needed to get in touch. They hadn’t used them much, to be honest, and she always respected the order: eliminate all traces as soon as you’ve read it. But Gaspar’s death affected them all, especially Sara, who started to write to her from time to time. Sara was so alone, she needed someone to talk to, albeit so cold a comfort as an email. So one day when she wrote a message to Saúl Duque, her lover, one of those breathtaking texts full of intimate details, the name of the addressee was automatically filled when she wrote the first letters without Amanda realizing. And the damned message landed in Sara’s inbox, not Saúl’s.

Amanda could have whipped herself when she realized the error,
but it was already too late. She could only rely on Sara’s discretion. And she showed herself to be discreet, although especially interested, with a curiosity she never would have suspected in her. They were in her house and Amanda tried to explain how she felt. But how? She could only tell her details, games that sounded ridiculous or disturbing when expressed aloud, judging by Sara’s reaction.

How to explain that finally, after years of unconscious searching, she has found the man who makes her most intimate fantasies a reality. Someone she finds attractive and with whom, of this she is certain, she can play without fear. Although Saúl can be and is hard, he never goes too far, always seems to know when to stop the pain and console with caresses. Moreover, it’s not just about sex: Amanda feels guarded, protected. She couldn’t explain to anyone why the feeling of belonging to someone, obeying him, fills her in this way. Sometimes she is scared at the thought of losing him, not because she loves him, at least not in a conventional sense, but because she knows it will be difficult to enjoy similar stimulation again. No doubt this will end up happening, and both are aware of it. But for the moment it’s better not to think about it.

As she makes coffee, Amanda reads the email and frowns. There are games she likes more than others, and the one Saúl has ordered for this evening is nowhere near one of her favorites. However, she doesn’t protest; she answers in the required submissive tone and arranges everything for later.

Brais leaves the house around five because he thinks that if he spends another minute inside, he will punch the walls apart. He’s been inside for a day and a half. Too much time idling for someone like him. He needs to let off steam and the gym is as good an option as any other. He also needs to escape the worried face of David, who asked him at midday, seriously, what the hell is happening to him. Luckily, Brais was able to blame his restlessness on work without lying too much, but David isn’t stupid and, although he pretended to accept the excuse, he doesn’t
fully believe it. He tried to be sociable during lunch, tried watching a couple of episodes of
Mad Men
that his husband had downloaded, a regular pastime on winter Sunday evenings, but he was eaten up with nerves and couldn’t sit still on the sofa. Finally, David suggested going to the gym for a bit to “see if you calm down.”

It’s almost night, although on such a gray day you’d scarcely notice. Brais leaves the lights of the theaters beginning to be lit on Paral·lel, and walks toward the center. He starts to walk rapidly, with the sports bag on his shoulder, but when he gets to the Sant Antoni market he changes his mind. It’s not there he wants to go. There’s something he has to do to calm his mind once and for all, and it isn’t running on a treadmill until he’s out of breath. Problems aren’t resolved by fleeing but by confronting them. And right now his problem has a name: Manel Caballero.

Night has fallen when Octavi Pujades watches his son’s car moving down the road. They all leave, he thinks unresentfully. Night and illness combined are frightening. Not far from his house a dog howls, as if he can chase away evil spirits with his barks. Octavi enters the house and closes the door. The silence inside hits him again and he switches on the television, just to hear a voice. Eugènia is sleeping upstairs, if you can call it that. More like slowly dying, being consumed until she can no longer open her eyes. In recent days she has worsened, the deterioration is evident, and he can barely stand to watch. Pain and fatigue are another dangerous combination: sometimes one overwhelms the other and gives him the strength to continue struggling, but there are moments, like this one, in which fatigue prevails and what he wants, with all his heart, is for it all to be over.

Desiring the death of someone he loves is terrible, and Octavi is aware of that. But he can’t deny the facts. This house that embraced them when they were in love is little by little turning into a tomb. Her tomb.

Sitting on the sofa, before the fire, he tries to get these dark thoughts
out of his mind. He’s been expecting Sílvia to call him all day long, but she hasn’t. The time will come, no doubt. He spoke to Víctor yesterday. Víctor—so excited, so childish in his approach … Or maybe not; maybe people like him and Eugènia are the ones who have lived in error, tied to work, routines and obligations. And what for, in the end? To end up dying when they are just about to enjoy a little freedom earned through years of work. He can’t fault Víctor Alemany wanting to buy his freedom back if he has the means to do so.

The dog’s howls sound closer, more urgent, and Octavi goes to the window and pulls back the curtains. As he expected, he sees nothing. He stands there, attentive to those ever more hysterical howls. Someone must be prowling around, he thinks anxiously, before going up to Eugènia’s room to see how she is. To see if she’s still alive or if death has finally won.

“I want you to wait for me asleep. For you to be my sleeping beauty. This will be your punishment: only I will enjoy your body tonight.”

And Amanda obeys, knowing what he expects of her. She has changed the sheets, as she always does, and put on some new white ones. Also white is the nightgown he demands for this game. White are the pills she must take so that when he arrives he will find her deep in sleep and enjoy her unconscious body as he pleases.

She takes them sitting on her bed, with a glass of water. From previous occasions she knows the necessary quantity. He will be annoyed if she wakes midway through the game. It happened the first time and he was so upset Amanda decided not to fail him again. She lies down and lets herself be caressed by sleep; she imagines what he will do while she’s asleep … She sees him naked, handcuffing her still arms, treating her body as the beautiful piece of flesh it is. She is about to lose consciousness when she hears the door of her bedroom opening. It’s not her fault if the pills haven’t fully taken effect yet; her eyes are closed, her body is
heavy and, although she feels as if she is sleeping, she feels hands grabbing her shoulders and sitting her up.

Amanda knows she should be asleep. So she doesn’t resist when she notices the hands opening her mouth and starting to give her pills, and then water, and more pills. With the little strength left to her she manages to swallow, and the last thing she thinks is that Saúl will be happy and will stay the night. So she can see him when the game is over, when she regains consciousness. When she awakens …

“You were asleep and I didn’t want to wake you. I have to go. See you soon. Kisses. T. And look after the Gremlin.”

The note was on the nightstand when Leire returned to the world after an unusually long Sunday siesta. She’d gone to lie down around half past three, convinced that she wouldn’t sleep more than thirty minutes, but having read the note and looked at her watch she realized it was almost six; taking into account that it was the time the AVE departed, Tomás had left some time ago. Too dazed to react quickly, she remained seated on the bed, feet on the floor, debating whether to go back to sleep or restart the day halfway through the evening. In the end she opted for the latter, above all because, although it seemed strange, she was hungry again. The Gremlin, as Tomás called him, provoked a voracious appetite in her at unexpected moments. Or, more accurately, at almost every moment. A little later, after wolfing down a couple of cheese sandwiches and eating a bit of fruit, she felt more alert, as if instead of an afternoon snack she’d breakfasted and had the whole day ahead of her. That only five hours remained of the day didn’t worry her too much; she was beginning to get used to the anarchy of not having schedules and doing what she liked. “Take advantage of it now. When the little one is born he’ll be the one calling the shots,” her mother had said to her. It seemed curious to Leire that no one referred to him as Abel, a name decided months before: to her mother he was “the little one”; “the Gremlin”
to Tomás; and “the baby” to her friend María. On the other hand, she thought of him with his name, maybe to get used to the idea that very soon someone so named would occupy a space outside her body; someone who would be a sleepyhead or a crybaby, or both, someone with their own body and personality.

That weekend Leire and Tomás had again discussed the subject of how things would be once Abel abandoned his shelter and launched himself into the world. In fact, it was Tomás who had brought the subject up, suddenly and in a casual voice, as if it were all overwhelmingly obvious.

“I’ll have to start looking for an apartment here,” he’d said just before bed the night before. “I can’t be a squatting father forever.”

“You’re going to move to Barcelona?” she asked him, not sure she’d heard right.

“It’s the most practical thing, don’t you think? I’ll have to keep on traveling a lot—you know what my work is like—but as I have to rent a place, it’s only logical for it to be in the same city as my son.”

It was the first time he had expressed himself in those words and Leire felt overcome with an absurd feeling of gratitude, which she struggled against, similar to one she’d experienced on Friday night when he arrived. Although she wasn’t completely sure of her feelings toward Tomás, Leire had looked at herself in the hall mirror just before he appeared and saw herself as huge, like a Botero model. The idea that all pregnant women are beautiful had never sat well with her, so she almost burst into tears when, just in the door, he dropped his suitcase, practically leapt on her and, resting his hands on her breasts, murmured something like, “You’ll let me, won’t you? I spent the whole journey wanting to do it. They’re glorious.”

Then he focused on caressing and licking them, as if she were a porn queen and he her most devoted and aroused admirer.

“Well, what do you think? Will you be able to stand living less than ten kilometers from me?” he asked, eyes smiling. “I promise not to raid your fridge.”

Leire nodded, vaguely conscious that logically it made more sense for Tomás to move in with her and Abel instead of looking for his own apartment. But if he was expecting her to suggest that, he had the sense not to mention it. And of course she didn’t. The offer, or rather the absence of one, hovered over them both all Sunday morning like a UFO, and after lunch acquired such solidity in the air that Leire went to bed for a while to ignore it.

She dressed as if she were going out, though leaning out on the balcony she was struck by doubt. The weather had been terrible all weekend and, although it wasn’t raining just then, the cold air stung her cheeks. Bad-tempered because of this indecision that seemed to cover even the most trivial aspects of her life, an insecurity new to her, it suddenly occurred to her that Ruth Valldaura would have known what to do. It was an absurd, inappropriate thought, but one of which she was absolutely convinced. Ruth, who had decided to go and live with Héctor Salgado when she was little more than twenty, who had had a child at twenty-five, who at thirty-eight had separated to begin a different emotional life, taking that child with her, didn’t give the impression of being an indecisive person. Maybe therein lay her charm, looking at the photos again: the apparent tranquility was hiding an iron will, the capacity to exchange a well-trodden road for another less certain, without rejecting those left behind. As far as she knew, Ruth had managed to maintain good relationships with her parents, her ex-husband, her son. People little given to praise, like Martina Andreu and Superintendent Savall himself, had been affected when the news of her disappearance broke six months ago. And not only because of the esteem they felt for Héctor, but because of her. Because of Ruth. And even when Carol had mentioned she thought she’d end up leaving her, she’d done so sadly, not with hatred. “Love creates eternal debts.”