Rage

Novelist, playwright, poet and screenwriter, Sergio Bizzio
was born in 1956 in Villa Ramallo, Argentina. As a child he
spent many hours watching films in the cinema managed
by his father. He began his career writing screenplays for
television and film. His short story Cinismo was made into a
film that won four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007.
Sergio Bizzio has written many prize-winning and critically
acclaimed novels, of which Rage is his seventh and the first
to be published in English. Rage is being made into a film by
Guillermo del Toro.

Sergio Bizzio

Translated by Amanda Hopkinson

"`You really give it a lot of importance if you let
it control your life like this,' I told him, and he
replied: `Would you like to know whether or not I
want to hear what you're saying?"'

"Did he say that?"

"No. He let me understand that was what he
meant."

Doctor Wayne W. Dyer & Lua Senku, Dialogues

1

"When you were born I was just coming..."

"I don't believe you," said Rosa, laughing, "you can't
possibly remember something like that..."

There were fifteen years between them. Rosa was
twenty-five and Jose Maria forty years old. He was so in
love with her, he thought himself capable of anything,
even down to remembering what he was doing at the
time of her birth: was he actually screwing? At that point
in time, he was going out with a very tall, very thin girl,
who straightened up every time he put his hand on her
waist, making herself appear even taller and bonier than
she was already. The girl was a good head taller than
him, wore tight lycra and ironed her hair, and she had a
stammer. In spite of it all, they had sex. Jose Maria had
been in a relationship with the girl all year: there was one
chance in twenty-eight that theywere actually makinglove
on the day that Rosa was born (February). He thought
about it in days not in seconds; he was unable to ignore
that, according to Dr Dyer, "if an orgasm lasted three
minutes, nobody would believe in God"; in addition, if
he got his memory to think in such tiny units of time, it
would have amounted to putting his own existence in
doubt. In any case, it was a joke, a game. And Rosa was
enchanted by the very idea. She embraced him.

He let her cover his face with kisses. When Rosa's ear
came close to his mouth, he took the opportunity to ask
her:

"Can I take you from behind?"

Rosa froze.

"Oh..." she replied.

"What's the matter?"

"I was scared you were going to get around to asking
me that one of these days..."

"Don't you want me to?"

"It's just that..."

Rosa often left her sentences unfinished. She was
highly excited, but starting and stopping while leaving
her sentences unfinished was her usual form of speech;
it had nothing to do with her state of excitement. She
thought at the speed of light, and her thoughts clashed
and intercepted one another.

"You'll like it..."

"I'm not sure..."

"I can assure you."

Jose Maria regarded her a moment in silence and, since
Rosa said nothing, he lowered himself from on top of her,
lay down at her side and put his hand on her waist to turn
her over. But Rosa arched her back and moved away rapidly,
as if Jose Maria's hand had given her an electric shock.