The Seven Madmen (22 page)

"That's quite all right."

Still Erdosain did not much like the cold way she looked out of her transparent verdigris eyes. And he thought:

"One of those perverse types," since he had noticed under her green hat her red, red hair was drawn smoothly down either side of her face to cover her ears. He looked again at her unblinking red eyelashes and her lips that seemed inflamed against her face with its plague of freckles. And he thought—how very unlike the woman in the photograph.

She stood facing him, observing him as if thinking:

"So he's the man," and he, next to the woman, felt her presence as incomprehensible, as if she didn't exist or at some inner level was miles off. But yet she was there and something had to be said, and since it was all he could think of he said, after turning on the light and offering the woman a seat while he sat on the sofa:

"So, you're Ergueta's wife? Very good."

He couldn't fit the sudden appearance of this being in with his own chaos. He felt filled with curiosity, but he wanted to feel something else, a familiarity with the woman's face, its oval shapes suggesting the red of copper, like the sunbeams through rain that in holy pictures are always breaking into a thousand rays from behind the clouds. And he said to himself:

"Here I am, but where is my soul?" And so he said again, "So you're Ergueta's wife. Very good."

She had crossed her legs and was tugging her skirt well down over her knee, so that the cloth bunched in her bright pink fingers, and raising her head as if it were hard to do so under unfamiliar circumstances, she said:

"You must do something for my husband. He's gone mad."

"Even that doesn't arouse my curiosity," thought Erdosain, and satisfied he had stayed as emotionless as the stereotype tycoon, he added, secretly pleased to play the uncaring man, "So he's gone mad, has he?" but all at once, realizing he couldn't keep up the role, he said, "You know what? You just gave me this stunning news and yet I have no reaction. I don't like being empty of emotion like this; I want to feel, but I'm like a sack of potatoes. You must forgive me. I don't know what it is with me. You forgive me, don't you? Yet I wasn't always like this. I remember I was happy as a lark. Bit by bit I changed. I don't know, I look at you, I want to feel like your friend, and I can't. If you were dying, maybe I wouldn't even hand you a glass of water. See? And yet
...
. But where is he?"

"He's a patient at Las Mercedes."

"But that's odd! Weren't you living in El Azul?"

"Yes, but we've been here for two weeks."

"And when did it happen?"

"Six days ago. Even I can't figure it out. It's what you were saying only about me. Sorry if this is wasting your time. I thought of you, you knew him, he was always telling me about you. When did you last see him?"

"Before he got married
...
. Yes, he told me about you. He called you the Lame Whore."

To Erdosain Hipólita's soul seemed to be filling her eyes with beauty. He felt he could speak to her about anything. The woman's soul stood there without moving, as if in receptive anticipation. She rested her folded hands on her skirt above the knee, and the very way she sat invited his confidences. What had happened that morning at the Astrologer's house seemed far removed, only some branches against the sky flashed across his memory at times, and the flow of fragmented images somehow gave him an unjustified sense of peace. He wrung his hands with satisfaction and said:

"Please don't take this as an offense
...
but I think he was crazy when he married you."

"Tell me
...
did you know him before he married me?"

"Yes
...
besides, I remember he used to pore over his Bible, because among other things he would talk to me about new times to come, the fourth seal and things along those lines. Besides, he gambled. He always intrigued me because he was like a man in a nonstop frenzy."

"Exactly. A frenzy all the time. He once even staked five thousand pesos on a poker game. He sold my jewels, a necklace a friend had given me—"

"What? But didn't you give that necklace to the maid right before you married him? That's what he told me. That you gave her the necklace and the silverware—and the check for ten thousand pesos that other man gave you—"

"Do you think I'm mad? Why would I give my maid a pearl necklace?"

"Then he lied."

"So it would seem."

"But how odd!"

"It shouldn't surprise you. He lied all the time. Besides, toward the last he was a lost soul. He was working out a system to win at roulette. You would have laughed to see him. He worked out a book of numbers nobody but him could understand. What a man! It kept him awake nights; he neglected the pharmacy; sometimes I'd be just about to fall asleep, the lights would be out, then there'd be this bang on the floor; he had leaped out of bed, turned the light on, and was writing numbers down before they got away from him
...
But, he told you I'd given my pearl necklace away? What a guy! What he did was to pawn it before we got married
...
. Well, as I was saying, last month he went to the Real de San Carlos—"

"And, of course, he lost—"

"No, with seven hundred pesos he won seven thousand. You should have seen him coming in
...
without a word
...
I thought: So! he lost—but the odd thing is he was frightened by his own good luck—but I was just sure something would happen. At ten that night he still wasn't back and I went to bed; at one or so his footsteps in the room woke me up, and I was about to turn on the light when he just leaped over and grabbed my arm, you know how terribly strong he is, he got me out of bed in my nightgown and dragged me through the halls to the hotel door."

"And you?"

"I didn't scream because I knew it would drive him wild. At the hotel door he stood looking at me like he didn't know me, his forehead all full of wrinkles and his eyes all huge. There was this wind that bent the trees right over, I covered myself with my arms, and he kept his eyes on me, when a patrolman came up to us, while the doorman grabbed his arms from behind, the noise woke him up. He was shouting so you could hear clear down the block: this is the whore—the one who loved the ruffians whose flesh is as the flesh of mules—"

"But how do you remember those words?"

"It's like I can see it all over again. There he was trying to get back in the door, the patrolman trying to pull him into the street, the doorman with a stranglehold on him, trying to weaken him, and I just hoping things would somehow come to an end, because people were gathering and instead of helping the policeman they were staring at me. Luckily I always wore a long nightgown
...
. Finally with the help of all those other patrolmen that someone inside the hotel had summoned, they got him down to the station. They thought he was drunk but it was an attack of insanity—that's what the doctor said. He was raving about Noah's Ark—"

"I see
...
and what can I do for you?" Again Erdosain felt that character looming up in his life like an element in a novel you have to keep straight, the way you have to keep your tie straight at a dance.

"Really, I came to bother you hoping you might help me. His family is no help at all."

"But didn't he marry you right at home?"

"Yes, but when we got back from Montevideo after getting married, we went to visit—just think—they were people I'd worked for as a servant!"

"I bet that was something."

"You can't imagine how indignant they were. One of his aunts
...
but, why should I inflict all their pettiness on you! Right? Anyway, that's how it goes. They threw us out and so we went. So, what else is new?"

"The odd thing is your having been a servant."

"Nothing so odd about that—"

"You don't seem the type—"

"Thank you. So when I left the hotel I had to pawn a ring—and I really have to watch it with what money I have left—"

"And the pharmacy?"

"They've got a substitute running it. I sent him a telegram asking for money, but he answered he's under orders from the Erguetas not to let me have a cent. And so
...
"

"So what will you do?"

"I can't decide
...
if I should go back to Pico or wait here."

"What a mess."

"I'm sick of the whole thing."

"The thing is today I have no money. Tomorrow I will—"

"You know? I have to hold onto those few pesos, because you can never tell—"

"And while you're getting it sorted out, the whole mess
...
if you like you can stay here. In fact, there's an empty room right in through there. What else do you want?"

"To see if you might get him released."

"How can I get him released if he's crazy? We'll see. Okay, you sleep here tonight. I'll make do with the sofa
...
probably won't get much sleep here."

Again that malevolent green gaze came filtering out from behind her red lashes. It was as if she were pouring her molten soul over his ideas to make a cast of his intentions.

"All right, I accept—"

"Tomorrow, if you like, I'll give you money, you can stay at some hotel unless you'd rather stay on here."

But all at once, annoyed with Hipólita because of something that had just come to him, he said:

"Well, you can't really love Eduardo."

"Why?"

"It's obvious. You come here, tell me the whole drama, amazingly calm about it all
...
and naturally then
...
how does that make you look?"

During this speech, Erdosain had begun to pace in what space there was in the room. He felt nervous and surreptitiously examined the freckled oval face, its thin red eyebrows under the green hat, the inflamed-looking lips, the coppery hair drawn smoothly down either side of her face over her ears, and the transparent eyes that poured forth their steady gaze.

"Why, she hardly even has breasts," Erdosain thought. Hipólita looked around her; suddenly, with a friendly smile, she asked: "So what did you expect, kid?"

Erdosain was irritated by that "kid" with its slutty ring, on top of her hard as nails "So what else is new?" Finally he said:

"I don't know
...
I guess I'd imagined you wouldn't be so cold
...
sometimes you really seem to have something perverse about you
...
I may be wrong, but
...
anyway
...
you can just
...
"

Hipólita got up.

"Look, kid, I don't go in for a lot of theatrics. I came to you, but just because I knew you were his best friend. What do you want? You want I should produce tears to order for the situation? No, I've cried enough
...
."

He had also stood up. She looked him right in the eye, but the hard lines rigid under her skin like an armor of will melted with fatigue, her head drooped a little to the side, she reminded Erdosain of his wife—and she could well have been—she stood in the door of a strange room—the Captain, uncaring, he watched her walk out forever and did nothing to stop her
...
there was the cold city street
...
maybe she'd find some filthy hotel, and then, seized with pity, he said:

"Forgive me
...
I'm a bit nervous. But do feel welcome to stay. I just don't have any money. But tomorrow I will."

Hipólita got back in the chair and Erdosain took his pulse as he paced. It was going fast. Worn out from the afternoon with the Astrologer and Barsut, he said bitterly:

"Life is hard
...
eh?"

The stranger regarded the toe of her shoe in silence.

She looked up and a fine wrinkle shot across her freckled forehead. Then:

"You look really worried. Is something happening to you?"

"No, no
...
tell me, did you suffer much with him?"

"A little. He is violent."

"How odd! I try to picture him in the mental ward and get nothing. All I get is a bit of face and one eye
...
. I should tell you I could see it coming. I met him one morning, he told me everything, and all at once I just knew you would be unhappy with him
...
but you must be tired. I have to go out. I'll tell the landlady to bring you supper here."

"No, I don't want any."

"Well, then I'll see you. Here's the screen. Make yourself at home."

The Lame Whore watched Erdosain's departure with the strangest gaze, a sort of fan that opens up to slice a man through from head to toe, then folds into itself the whole interior geometry of his life.

Inside the Cavern

Once in the street, Erdosain noticed it was raining, but he kept on walking, impelled by a dry rancor, annoyed he was not able to think.

It was getting complicated. And he, meanwhile, was he being processed through a big machine that cut off his escape, pulled him further into life and thrust him into the mud, leaving him bereft of hope? Besides, there was that
...
that impotence of mind, his thoughts refused to follow clean lines, like a chess game, and his mental incoherence left him angry at everyone.

Then his irritation turned on the animal contentment of the shopkeepers who from the doors of their grottoes spat into the slanting rain. He imagined their weaselings while in the back rooms their saggy-bellied wives could be seen spreading tablecloths over wobbly tables, scrounging together the stew that, when the lid came off, stank up the street with grease and peppers and stringy bits of leftover veal.

He scowled as he walked, with slow fury he investigated what thoughts must breed behind those narrow foreheads, staring those livid-faced merchants right in the face, as from recessed eyes they watched customers in the shops across the way. At moments Erdosain had an urge to insult them, he longed to call them cuckolds and thieves and throw in something about their mothers, to say they were puffed up like advanced cases of leprosy except for a few thin ones who were consumed with envy. Inwardly putting them on trial, he made vile accusations, imagining those merchants staggering to bankruptcy under a pile of debts, and the misfortune that plunged him into desperation would also be visited on their grimy wives, who, with the same fingers that had pulled out their menstrual rags a moment before, would cut the bread they devoured, cursing at their competitors.