The Killer's Tears (6 page)

THE CATTLE FAIR was to be held the day after next. Luis's money would be enough to cover lodging and eating expenses until then. There would even be enough left to buy some sheep, as well as a cow.

Luis was told of an inn that would accommodate their mounts, and where two rooms with sinks could be had at a reasonable price. They went there at sunset, under the rain. Angel was still upset with Luis about the bank and kept silent, making sure to guide his horse into every rut and pothole on the road. With each jolt, Luis moaned in pain.

The inn looked like a cutthroat place. Its pitched roof came down to meet small and dirty windows, which were
never opened and which were rotting inside because of the condensation. A smell of wet dog and human sweat greeted Angel and Luis as they walked in, a smell strong enough to wipe out their appetite. Maybe that was just as well, considering the quality of the food. The innkeeper, a small and skinny man with a yellowing beard, chewed on an old pipe as he showed them the rooms. Meanwhile, Paolo had taken the horse and donkey to the back of the inn, where a canopy functioned as a stable. A mixture of mud and dung stuck to the soles of his shoes. As he waded through the filth, he thought about the bank and the sweet, and won-dered why anyone had to live in a place like the inn when there were lots of heated houses with carpeting.

In the dining hall, the innkeeper's wife served them a mutton stew that was too salty and a pitcher of wine that had been diluted with water. The greasy tables were riddled with holes, the chairs were wobbly, the fireplace was sooty, and thick smoke hung above the guests' heads like fog coming from the sea. Since they had gotten only two rooms for three people, how to split them was a problem. With whom would Paolo sleep?

“He'll sleep with me,” Angel declared. “I'm his father.”

“My room seems warmer,” Luis objected.

“But it's smaller.”

“I think I noticed that your sink was clogged.”

“Paolo doesn't need to wash himself.”

As he chewed on the stew, Paolo looked at the pictures hanging on the walls of the room. The paintings depicted
life in Punta Arenas: a trawler in the harbor, people coming out of church on a sunny day, a farmers' market. Paolo thought the pictures were pretty; he liked the colors. He got up and approached the one showing the scene of the har-bor. He reached out with his hand to feel the surface.

“Don't touch that!” the innkeeper shouted from the other end of the room.

Startled, Paolo put his hand in his pocket. The inn-keeper came toward him.

“Do you like it?” the man asked.

Paolo looked at him. “I've never seen…,” he started saying.

“You've never seen a painting?”

Paolo shook his head. The man was eyeing him in a friendly way.

“My daughter, Delia, painted them.” The innkeeper turned to Luis and Angel. “They're for sale, if you're inter-ested.”

Luis got up and went to Paolo's side. He looked at the painting more closely.

“Do you like it?” Luis asked.

“Yes,” Paolo whispered.

Luis turned to the innkeeper. “How much?”

The man motioned for him to wait. He crossed the room and disappeared behind a small door. Now Angel got up; he could feel complications coming on.

“You're proud of your money, aren't you?” he said to Luis.

“I'm not proud of it,” Luis answered quietly. “I use it, that's all.”

The innkeeper returned a few minutes later, accompanied by a young woman.

“This is my daughter, Delia.”

The young girl came forward shyly. She wore overalls made of thick material, and a shawl was thrown around her shoulders. Her thick black hair was held back by a comb and her bright face had the softness of dawn.

“Is it for you?” she asked Paolo gently.

Paolo remained silent.

“Yes,” Luis answered in his place. “I want to give him a present.”

“Nothing is decided yet,” said Angel.

The young woman turned her face toward the one who had spoken in a harsh voice. The murderer swallowed with difficulty.

“Sit down!” the innkeeper suggested. “I will treat you to a bottle of my personal reserve.”

The four of them sat at the table. Paolo faced Delia, and next to him Luis faced Angel, who poured more wine than was reasonable. The young woman spoke eagerly about her paintings, the colors of the town, her walks, and the way she chose her subjects.

“I wanted to register at the School of Fine Arts in Santiago. But this involves a trip by train, a room to rent, and supplies to buy. We are not rich enough. So I try to save
money from the paintings I sell. Once a week, I rent a stand at the market. Sometimes a tourist buys one or two of my canvases. At the inn, they are more for decoration. Farmers don't pay much attention to art.” Her eyes met those of Paolo. “Fortunately, there are a few sensitive children who have a good eye.” She smiled at him.

Luis started to talk earnestly of the Valparaiso museums, mentioning the names of famous artists, making long and complicated sentences. He paused, looking for the right words, citing dates, getting enthusiastic about colors with unfamiliar names. These made Paolo's imagination go wild: vermilion, carmine, Prussian blue, ochre, emerald green. … Delia too became excited, and her and Luis's words danced in Paolo's ears. His jaw tight, Angel grew impatient.

“Would you like some more wine?” he asked Delia.

“With pleasure.”

Paolo saw Angel's hand briefly touch that of the young woman and noticed that he spilled some of the wine.

“I will buy the painting of the harbor,” Luis decided. “Your price will be mine.”

Delia looked at Paolo again. “You're lucky,” she said, “to have such a nice father.”

Angel opened his mouth to answer, but Paolo was faster than he was.

“Luis is not my father,” he explained.

The young woman raised her eyebrows and turned to
Angel. It seemed impossible that this man, with his thick neck and rough hands, could be the father of such a sensitive child. Angel could sense the feeling of suspicion and distrust hanging over him. Right away, he wanted to flee this place, but he forced himself to stay put.

Delia got up and went to take the painting down.

“How old are you?” she asked Paolo.

“I don't know.”

“And your first name?” she said, laughing. “Do you know it?”

“Paolo. Paolo Poloverdo.”

She turned the painting over on her knees and took a pen out of one of her overall pockets.
For the shining eyes of Paolo Poloverdo, one evening, in Punta Arenas
, she wrote on the back. Then she handed the canvas to the child.

Luis told Delia that he did not want to take out his money in front of the other guests in the dining hall. He suggested that she accompany him to his room. Delia nod ded. Her cheeks were flushed, and the air was so charged with electricity that Paolo could feel tingles on the back of his neck.

Luis took Delia's hand, then turned to Angel, who remained frozen in his chair, his face tense.

“It's agreed,” Luis said. “Paolo will sleep with you.”

THAT NIGHT, ANGEL was unable to sleep. He tried to think of ways to get rid of Luis, but nothing short of killing him came to mind, and this was upsetting. Between two flashes of anger, he listened to Paolo's breathing. The child's breath acted like a poultice on his enraged feelings. Then he thought of Delia's lovely face, her hair, her burning eyes, and once more choked with rage.

Angel put his boots on and went out. What time could it be? There was no noise in the corridor. He put his ear against Luis's door and heard nothing. The silence was worse than anything else. Each step of the stairway creaked as Angel went down. He opened the front door and let the
cold wind whip his face. He could feel a wave of pain and violence come over him, an enormous wave that his body was unable to contain. He went out into the damp night.

As he walked toward the center of town, he had the impression of walking in a dream. Moments of his life rushed to his mind: he remembered the other cities, Talcahuano and Temuco, the neon lights of bars, the fights, the blows, the fear, the hatred, and the repugnance. He started to run. At the end of the street, he could see lights. They were waving in front of his eyes; Angel was intoxicated with pain.

The bar he entered was crowded. Young men and women were laughing and dancing among the tables. They were celebrating the departure of a fishing boat, which was to weigh anchor at sunrise. The men, their faces reddened with excitement, were going to spend weeks at sea, deprived of everything, completely at the mercy of the ocean. It was as if they could hear death knocking on their door, so they drank and danced all the more. Unaware of how it hap-pened, Angel found himself with a mug of beer in his hands, then another, and another. He started to laugh and dance like the others, but felt that he was no longer himself. It was almost as if his body were in the bar while his soul waited outside. And as he danced, he felt his knife knock against his chest like a second beating heart.

Later, as he slumped on a bench, a drunken girl fell asleep against him, her head on his shoulder. She smelled of
tobacco, alcohol, and sweat. He shook her. In her blurry eyes, he saw his reflection: his chiseled face, his dirty beard, and the grin of a man consumed by madness. A flash went through him. He lifted the girl's head to his mouth—to kiss or bite her, he no longer knew. Around them, the jubilant crowd turned round and round in a frenzied circle. Angel felt his arms lose their strength. The girl slid down against the back of the bench onto the dirty floor. She was laughing and talking, but Angel understood nothing of what she said. He got up and put the palms of his hands on the wall to catch his breath. Under him, he could see the girl, breathing. She had gone back to sleep. Angel's throat tightened. No, this time he did not want this girl. Or Delia. Or any other.

He got up and elbowed his way through the crowd of revelers.

For the rest of the night he walked the streets around the harbor, with no idea of the time, simply spitting and shouting into the darkness. He was sick of himself and of the world. More than anything, he badly wanted to be someone else!

Finally, as the sun began to peek through the sky, he stopped. A ray of vivid light colored the surface of the sea. He felt cold and aware that his fever had subsided. He shook himself and decided to go back to the inn. Paolo would be waking up soon. What would he think if he found himself all alone? Abandoned, that was what!

Angel started to run through town. He inhaled the crisp early-morning air and exhaled all the hatred and violence left within him.

When he entered his room at the inn, he was glad to see Paolo sleeping calmly, curled up in the middle of the bed. He sat on the side of the mattress and stroked the child's forehead very gently with the tips of his fingers. He stayed like this for an hour, not moving, with the impression that he was finally absorbing the meaning of life. The shy birth of dawn, the breath of a sleeping child, and a man with the huge hands of a killer, seated in the dark, suffering: that was life.

PAOLO AWOKE, DISTURBED by something heavy on his legs. He sat up and saw Angel lying across the bed, fully dressed, his body weighing on Paolo's legs. Paolo freed himself and bent over the face of the man. He felt his warm breath and was reassured. In the daze of waking up, he had thought that Angel had been overcome by a mysterious force and had died. He pushed the blankets away and got out of bed. As he put his clothes on, he contemplated the painting that he had placed on the dresser. The harbor, the boat, the yellow spots of the slickers, the sea. He squinted and had the feeling that he was entering the picture. He could smell the fish. His heart swelled like a sponge and
something trembled deep in his body. It was both an upsetting and an immensely pleasant feeling.

Angel was snoring on the bed as Paolo left the room.

Paolo did not find Luis downstairs and did not dare to knock on his door. Instead, he decided to tend to the don-key and horse: after all, the animals were just as worthy as the two men.

An overcast day had risen on the muddy backyard. Paolo hopped over puddles to reach the canopy where the animals were prancing with hunger, their fur wet and shining. He found some hay at the back of the shelter and sat on an old saddle to watch them eat. Behind him, attached to rusty nails, was a lot of equipment forgotten by strangers passing through: saddle covers, straps, currycombs, halters. … Paolo got hold of a leather riding whip and hit the ground with it, making the straw fly around. Then he made marks in the loamy soil with the tip of the whip. At first, he drew all sorts of lines. Then he discovered that the whip was flexible, and he came down from the saddle to pay more attention to what he was doing. Words took shape in the mud, almost more easily than on Luis's white sheets of paper:
Paolo—Chile—fox—knife—pitcher
. He considered the result. After thinking it over, he traced a P, followed by an
I, K, S, U, R, E. PIKSURE
.

The child was startled when he saw Delia approach, and his face reddened. He trampled over the mud to erase the words he had just written and quickly covered the spot with
straw. Wrapped in her shawl, Delia came to him under the canopy. She stroked the neck of the donkey, then that of the horse.

“Are they yours?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“You take good care of them, I see.”

“Yes.”

She crouched in front0 of him. “I hear that you came to Punta Arenas for the cattle fair.”

“Yes.”

“Which one is really your father? Luis or Angel?”

Paolo frowned and lowered his head. What was the answer? Neither man was his real father, but how was he to decide? Angel had taken care of him, fed him, and given him the fox. Luis had taught him the alphabet and the beauty of poems, and had given him the painting. Both men made him suffer and live at the same time, just as fathers do. Delia guessed his embarrassment and changed the subject.

“How many lambs would you like to buy?”