To Jorge Manrique, Nicanor Parra, and Erasmus of Rotterdam

My trio of aces

The deeper the blue becomes, the more

strongly it calls men toward the infinite,

awakening the desire for the pure and,

finally, for the supernatural.

— Wassily Kandinsky

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On saint Anthony's day, the thirteenth of June, the president declared an amnesty for certain common criminals.

The warden of one prison ordered one prisoner brought to his office before being released. Angel Santiago arrived with an air of contempt, the raw beauty of his mere twenty years, his haughty nose, and a lock of hair falling over his left cheek. He stood in front of the warden and stared defiantly into the eyes of authority. Hail pounded against the windowpanes through the bars, wearing away at the thick layer of dust.

The warden looked Angel up and down without blinking, then lowered his eyes to the game of chess on the table in front of him and slowly rubbed his chin, contemplating his next move.

"It seems you're leaving us, young man," he said with a touch of melancholy, never taking his eyes off the board. He then picked up his king and absentmindedly placed the tiny cross on its crown into the space between his front teeth. The warden was wearing an overcoat and a brown alpaca muffler; a heavy sprinkling of dandruff decorated his brow.

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"So it seems, Warden. IVe had to put up with two years in this place."

"I guess you wouldn't say that the time flew."

"It didn't fly, Mr. Santoro."

"But something positive must have come out of the experience."

"I'm leaving with a few interesting plans."

"Legal?"

The boy gently patted the backpack where he carried his few belongings. He edged a piece of sleep out of the corner of his eye and gave the warden an ironic smile, as if to negate the veracity of his own words.

"A hundred percent legal. Why did you call me here, sir?"

"Two little things," said the warden, tapping himself on the nose with the king. "I am white and its my turn. What should my next move be?"

The young man looked contemptuously at the board and scratched the tip of his nose. "And what would the second little thing be?"

The man put the king down on the chessboard and smiled with such overwhelming sadness that his lips quivered and swelled as if he were about to cry.

"You know."

"No, I don't."

The warden smiled. "Your plan is to kill me."

"You aren't important enough to say that my plan, my only plan, is to kill you."

"Let's just say it is one of your plans."

"You didn't have to throw me naked into that cell full of brutes that first night. It hurt, Warden."

"So, you are going to kill me."

Angel Santiago's senses sharpened significantly at the sudden, horrifying thought that someone might be listening to this con-

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versation and that a reckless answer might endanger his imminent release. He spoke cautiously. "No, Mr. Santoro. I'm not going to kill you."

The man grabbed the lamp hanging over the table and turned it so the bare bulb shone in the boy's face like a spotlight. He left it there for a long time without saying a word, then dropped it and let it swing back and forth.

The warden swallowed hard and spoke with a hoarse voice. "As far as I see it, my participation in the events of that night was an act of love. You can go crazy with loneliness in this place."

"Shut up, Warden."

The warden began to pace around the room, his eyes glued on the concrete floor as if searching there for the right words. Finally, he stopped in front of the young man and with melodramatic slowness began to remove the muffler from around his own neck. In a sudden burst of humility he held it out to Angel without looking at him.

"Its old, but it'll keep vou warm," he said, then shivered and lifted his eyes to the young man's.

The phrase "act of love" had made the boy's face so red it looked as if he had swallowed gasoline. A scarlet patch spread over his ears.

"May I go now, Mr. Santoro?"

Santoro moved toward him, but Angel's icy stare stopped him in his tracks. The warden shrugged his shoulders and spread out his arms m a gesture of resignation, as if begging for mercy.

"Take the muffler, young man."

"It would disgust me to wear something of yours.''

"Come on, take it."

The young man decided that anything was preferable to further delaying his departure. He took the muffler and walked toward the

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door, dragging it behind him. When he got there he stopped, wet his lips, and said, "Play queen's pawn. Black will take pawn, then move white bishop to black queen. Checkmate."

the moment angel left, the warden turned on the intercom and told the guard to bring him another prisoner, Rigoberto Marin. While he waited, he lit a cigarette, took a puff, and exhaled the smoke through his nostrils. Then he went and placed the kettle on the burner.

He opened a jar and placed one spoonful of instant coffee and a couple of spoonfuls of sugar in two cups; when the water boiled he filled the cups, stirring both with the one spoon that still remained from the government-issued cutlery set.

The guard brought in the prisoner; the warden pointed to the chair and to the coffee. Marin's hair was greasy and disheveled, his eyes dark and darting, as if his scrawny body had been subjected to a strong electric current. He took his first sip of coffee with a secretive air.

"What's up, Marin? Hows it going?"

"Same as always, Warden."

"Too bad you weren't included in the amnesty."

"I'm not your run-of-the-mill thief, sir. I'm in for murder."

"It must have been serious. You got life. And even that was an act of mercy. How many murders have you got on your rap sheet?"

"More than one, Warden."

"So there isn't much chance you'll get out on good behavior in a few years."

"More like no chance at all. They agreed not to execute me only on the strict condition that my sentence never get reduced for any reason whatsoever."

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"Wouldn't you have preferred the firing squad? After all, this isn't much of a life, is it?"

"Not much of one, but life is life, after all. Not even a worm likes to be squished."

The warden handed him a cigarette and lit another for himself. Marin sucked in his first drag with hungry ferocity, like a winded athlete inhaling a deep breath of fresh air.

"For instance, take this cigarette, Warden. A few puffs like this make my day. God always provides."

Santoro studied the man in front of him: he had all the classic characteristics of a scoundrel. He decided to come right out and say what was on his mind.

" 'God always provides.' That's a good saying, Marin, and just to show you how true it is, I'm going to make you a little offer."

"What's it about, Warden?"

"Obviously I couldn't include you m the amnesty, but there's nothing that says I can't let you out of here for a few weeks so you can do me a little favor. I'll just say you're in solitary, that way nobody will suspect you. As you know, not even the pope is allowed in there."

"I don't even gotta ask you what it's about. . . . Who is it?"

Santoro took comfort m another sip of coffee and indicated to Marin that he should do likewise. "Angel Santiago."

Marin blinked long and hard, then glued his eyes on the cup as if he were trying to make out a hieroglyphic. "The Cherub?" he whispered.

"The very one."

"Such a handsome kid. He's like a fly on the wall, hasn't hurt nobody."

"But he's going to kill me."

"Did he threaten you?"

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"He's going to kill me, Marin. And I have a wife and two kids and a lousy salary, but that's all weve got to live on."

"I understand. My problem is that I don't got nothing against the kid. Maybe a little envy, is all. Who wouldn't want to be so young and good-looking?"

"Make it look like a drunken brawl, whatever you can come up with. The important thing is to make sure he's really dead."

"It's just that every other time I had a good reason. But this . . ."

"You'll think of something. After ten years in jail, a whore a day for a month, let's say, would give a little meaning to your life, now, wouldn't it? And life is life,' as you said."

"I don't go to whores. I've got enough gals who'll do it for love."

"But they know you, Marin. I'm sorry for them, they'll miss out on the fuck of the century, but you are still officially in jail. One careless move on your part could turn your life sentence into a death sentence. What do you say?"

"It's a little complicated."

"Just think: a month on the streets, Marin, for the last time in your life."

Marin was silent. Without waiting for an answer, the warden walked over to the bathroom door, opened it, then directed Marin's attention to the shaving cream and razor.

"Shave."

N a separate section of the same prison complex, Vergara Gray was told that he had been granted amnesty right after he _JL asked the guard to buy him some more pomade for his hair. He took his tailored suit off the hanger and tried it on, pleased to find that he could fasten the top button by sucking his belly in just a little bit. The last five years of sedentary life had wrought only minimal damage to his physique, thanks in part to the yoga he had learned in the distant past when he was a seaman in Thailand.

His glistening gray locks found their final flourish in two salt-and-pepper sideburns; a thick mustache of the same color emanated a sense of authority and serenity. Standing m front of the mirror held for him by a guard, he drew a comb through his hair, confident that in spite of his years in prison his deep-set eyes could still make a woman dizzy. He cast aside this momentary indulgence in male coquetry with a sad sigh: he loved only his wife, Teresa Capriatti, and he suspected she would be less than overjoyed that her husband had been set free; she had not visited him once m five years, not even at Christmas.

Their son had not been the most affectionate nor the most fre-

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quent visitor, either. The boy would show up on his father's birthday in the last week of December, recite his full and unvaried schedule for the coming year, and after a few simple exchanges about their favorite soccer teams and how his high school studies were coming, he'd hold out his hand to avert the good-bye kiss Vergara Gray always tried to plant on his cheek.

This amnesty, which had cut his sentence in half, was a gift from Above, a chance to recover his lost love. He made a solemn vow to God, the press, and the prison authorities that he would never again break the law, and with the money his partner owed him for having kept his mouth shut throughout the trial, he would be able to lead a modest and honorable life without fleecing anyone or groveling for a few pesos.

He was on good terms with some influential newspaper editors who specialized in crime reporting, and he would beg them, as old friends, to stop publishing special editions on the anniversaries of his more spectacular heists. They would surely understand that now, with his newfound freedom, he would wish to maintain a low profile, that it was the only way he could hope to regain his family and, finally, his dignity.

He thanked the guard for holding up the mirror and flashed himself a final smile before turning away. This was the man he wanted to be. The warm smile, fraternal and virile; the secret light in the depths of his eyes; the deep lines etched by pain and solitude; and above all, the hunger, the desire to live, which in other prisoners had melted away into indifference, as if their own destinies had become as alien to them as somebody else's.

He took one last look around the walls of his cell and saw two remaining personal items: the calendar of the Virgin Mary with the days until June thirteenth marked off with a red X, and the poster of Marilyn Monroe, she and her luscious breasts stretched

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out across a red velvet cloth. He placed the calendar in his suitcase along with his clothes, then took an old fountain pen out of his bag and wrote across the length of Marilyns body: "To my successor. Nicolas Vergara Gray."

On his way to the office of his warden, Huerta, he was joined by a number of prisoners who wanted to wish him good luck; some had tears running down their cheeks as they hugged him good-bye. The man humbly accepted this outpouring of love and admiration, always careful to maintain his upright bearing and impeccable grooming: the silk handkerchief discreetly peeking out of the breast pocket of his tweed jacket, his tie perfectly knotted, and his hair groomed like an elderly movie stars.

Huerta made sure Vergara Gray s arrival coincided with the boisterous uncorking of a bottle of champagne, and after another official poured out the bubbly for the guards and a select group of prisoners, glasses were raised and shouts of Salud rang out. The warden cleared his throat, paused histrionically, then pressed his hand to his chest before beginning to read a statement that had been carefully handwritten on official government stationery.

"Esteemed Professor Vergara Gray, dear Nico: It is with strong and conflicting emotions that we watch you leave today. We are overjoyed that you are free, that such a refined and gracious gentleman is emerging, reborn, into the civilian world. We are, however, also saddened at the loss of your delightful company, the pleasure of your stories, the depth of your reflections, and the stoic wisdom of your counsel, which has brought comfort to prisoners and guards alike.

"There is no denying that you strayed from the path of the law, and it was reasonable for the judge to sentence you to ten years for your spectacular robberies. In none of your deeds, however, did you use violence, you left nobody wounded or dead along your path,

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and I doubt if you have ever so much as carried a weapon. You are a far cry indeed from those unscrupulous miscreants who fill our jails and teem through our streets.

"Your crimes have been unanimously acclaimed as true works of art, and through them you have achieved renown that extends far beyond the courthouse. I am certain that more than one of Chile s great authors will write about you, thereby spreading your fame beyond our national borders. Today, however, I do not speak to the artist, but rather to the man of flesh and blood who is now taking his leave of this, our small corner of the world, a man bursting with life and integrity, and purified by many blessings of friendship. I offer you the two words that express all our hopes for you: Good luck!'

He walked up to the prisoner, threw his arms around him, gave him a great bear hug, and with a sigh of resignation made room for other effusive expressions of congratulations. After everybody had had a chance to slap him on the back, shed their tears, and shower him with affection, they gathered around to listen to the words of the honored guest.

"My esteemed Warden Huerta, dear guards, fellow prisoners: Carried away by our long and tedious nights in prison, I was sometimes long-winded and told exaggerated accounts of my criminal deeds. But now, at this pivotal moment, I feel I am the most taciturn of men. Today, I am at a loss for words, as if a great stone were lodged in my throat. I leave here with an abundance of faith in myself, knowing I will forge my way back into life on the outside. I fear nothing but loneliness, and God willing, I will win back my family. May all of you also regain your freedom sooner than you expect, for only God can decide in the long run who is guilty and ho is innocent. May He bless you all."

Out in front, in the small plaza, Vergara Gray felt June's cold

w

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breath on his neck and momentarily regretted giving away his trusty scarf and wool coat. The warden accompanied him to the taxi, solicitously carrying his suitcase. As he opened the door, he turned to Vergara Gray and said, "The taxi is paid for. We took up a collection."

The ex-prisoner passed his hand over his graying temple and smiled melancholically. "The money isn't really the problem, Huerta. Something else is."

"What?"

"What address should I give the driver?"

once the driver had loaded the suitcase in the trunk, he sank into his seat and looked through the rearview mirror. Then he solemnly posed the momentous question, "Where to, Mr. Vergara Gray?"

"Do you know of a store that sells leather goods?"

"There's a good one on the Alameda. Stuff from Argentina. And with the crisis there, the prices are rock bottom."

"Take me there."

Vergara Gray had expected to hungrily devour the sights, smells, sounds, and people he encountered these first moments of freedom, but now, on the contrary, he felt he was immersed in a process of introspection that left him oblivious to the urban sphere surrounding him. He stroked his temple and realized that he was too old to embark on such a precarious life. He was a compass whose only north was his family: it was for them that he had worked, broken the law, and, of course, kept his mouth shut. "The Tomb," his partner had dubbed him, and it was supposed to be meant as a compliment. Nor could he complain about his luck: the president s amnesty—sharply criticized by the news media, which simultane-

M

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ously condemned the overcrowding of prisons as inhumane and denounced the number of criminals wandering with impunity through the streets and alleyways of the nation—had been an act of divine justice. If he had squealed instead of remaining silent, he would have been spared the exact same five years the amnesty had erased with the stroke of a pen. "I'm a lucky fellow, after all," he mumbled under his breath.

After asking the cabdriver to wait, he trusted his instincts to lead him to the finest bags. With delight he touched the kid leather of a sturdy briefcase with two gold-plated clasps, which required a special code to open, then let out a deep, self-satisfied sigh when he discovered that it was by far the most expensive item: his choice had been the right one. The salesman asked Vergara Gray for a number so he could set the combinations—a different one for each lock—and without hesitating, he told him his own and his sons birthdays.

"Are you paying with cash, check, or credit card?" the salesman asked as he wrapped it up.

Lifting his brow, Vergara Gray wondered if he looked honest enough to be offered such choices.

"Cash," he said as he laid the bills out on the counter.

"Today is Saint Anthonys Day," the salesman suddenly said. "A miraculous saint. Single women stand his statues on their heads so he'll help them find a husband."

"I'm sure they do," Vergara Gray said as he took the change and the plastic bag containing his purchase. The man looked at him strangely, and the ex-convict risked a smile and a question. "Does my face look familiar to you?"

The salesman scratched his head. "Are you on TV?"

"Oh . . . no!"

"Nope, I can't place you. Sorry, sir."

'4

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"On the contrary, I am grateful for your tact. How old are

you?"

"Twenty-five."

"History has passed me by. Five years ago, a shopkeeper like you would have asked for my autograph or called the police."

'5

hat's just how Angel Santiago had imagined his Santiago: buses careening down the streets, pedestrians plunging into subway stations, scooters backfiring, office workers dressed in suits and ties and carrying briefcases, waves of women wearing brightly colored sweaters cut off right above their freezing-cold belly buttons, kiosks overflowing with newspapers announcing prison sentences for government ministers, and glitzy magazines plastered with pictures of naked women. "My city!" he shouted. "My Santiago!"

He strode through the streets of downtown, feeling more energized every time he brushed against or tripped over somebody. He inhaled and exhaled with the prowess of an athlete until a deep and ferocious hunger overtook him: he knew he could devour at least two, maybe three, of those completos "with everything" from one of the restaurants in the Portal Fernandez Concha, where hot dogs, nestled in fluted rolls, were piled high with a leaning tower of mashed avocado, chopped tomatoes, a long, thin line of El Copihue hot sauce, a pile of pickled cabbage—German-style—and crowned with a feverish delight of mayonnaise and mustard. These sandwiches begged to

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be downed in two bites that left the front of your shirt covered with the unstable ingredients and your face smeared all the way up to your eyebrows with a voluptuous carnival of flavors.

His hunger, however, was infinitely more ample than his funds. The two coins jingling against each other in his pocket would be barely enough for a couple of rolls: two pathetic marraquetas, naked and defenseless. He considered that poverty was a second prison, then dispelled this defeatist idea by punching his fist into the air: better to die eating smog in the streets than languishing in his cell. If his hunger got worse, he would steal. An apple from the produce stand, a package of crackers from the grocery store. The judge couldn't convict him. His pal, Fernandez, a lawyer and prison colleague, had taught him a magic trick to avoid being sent back to jail. If they nabbed him, he would simply claim that the crime had been "motivated by dire hunger," that he had stolen food "to avoid dying of starvation."

"Its the only law in Chile that actually favors the poor; all the others pulverize them," Fernandez had stated, with the air of a misunderstood aristocrat waxing eloquent behind bars.

Cold and hunger added alacrity to his steps, as did his backpack banging against his back and the joy of feeling healthy, in one piece, and above all, in no need of the wardens filthy muffler to ward off the cold. His blood grew warmer as he walked, turning him into his own portable heater, his own unique solution to the freezing temperatures that assaulted the necks of the other pedestrians, who tried to bury their noses into their belly buttons.

He would never bury his nose, no way, not that mighty spur that sucked in Santiago's smog as if it were the purest mountain air. And with that same grace and power that made him feel alive, intact, and virile, he would one day slice the wardens throat. Not now, not while the villain expected him to attack, but in a few weeks, a month, once

17

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he had grown accustomed to his fear and finally decided, What the hell, I'll go out with my buddies and have a glass of wine.

Then (at this point, he started walking faster) Angel would find him in a drunken stupor. The white tablecloth would be decorated with flowery red wine stains, and the chairs would be held together with duct tape. Angel would wait until the warden was alone, maybe when the bartender had gone to the bathroom, then come up behind him and grab his chin with his white-gloved hand, and press his knife into his jugular. Everybody else walking down that street might lack a purpose in life, flitting from one state of anonymity to another with nothing to ennoble their existence.

Not he. Not Angel Santiago.

Of course (now he was leaning against the pole of the streetlight), the lifers who had carried out that repulsive rite against him had done so with more perversion than desire, their aim being to humiliate him more than anything else. They were uneducated men driven by a code of resentment. To do that to him, who had been educated in a good school, who was able to recite by heart several poems and figure out a percentage to offer a guard a bribe without using a calculator, was a way of telling him that his beauty and education weren't worth a rats ass.The following morning in the infirmary he didn't know if more blood or more tears were flowing out of his body, nor which caused him more pain. His determination had been forged out of those bodily fluids, but he never suspected that an amnesty would hasten its fulfillment.

Before turning onto the central pedestrian walkway lined with hair salons, movie theaters, shoe-repair shops, and pawnshops, he looked affectionately at the watch Fernandez had placed in his pocket before he left jail: "You are returning to a world where you can invest each moment with meaning. Here, in prison, time measures only the passing of nothingness."

[8

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He felt a wrenching in his gut at the thought of parting with this token of affection, but he had nothing else he could offer up for sale. His generous and well-worn leather jacket? Not a chance. Not only did it protect him from the cold but it lent him a certain air of toughness that was well worth cultivating in a city like Santiago. In addition, girls were drawn to the rugged air of old leather garments. It reminded them of movie stars and gave them the illusion that a guy wrapped in leather and stinking of black tobacco could offer them exotic adventures, when the only action theyd probably see would be a bit of pumping and thrusting in the bed of a seedy hotel room.

Right in front of the pawnshop was a stairway that led to an underground movie theater, and just above the ticket window, which was still closed, a poster proclaimed the virtues of the movie of the week: "A Japanese woman betrayed by her husband gets her revenge by sleeping with everybody she meets." The title was Tokyo Emmanuelle. Angel was intrigued as he approached the window, not by the pleasures promised therein but by a tall, thin girl squishing her nose up against the glass. She seemed to barely be able to stand up under the weight of the backpack slung over her oversized coat. Standing there next to this young woman, feeling the warmth and tenderness emanating from her body, he got dizzy. Before his ill-fated run-in with the law, only two minor incidents separated him from his virginity, and the adventures he dreamed about in his cell were infinitely more exciting than those quickies hed enjoyed under the stars.

He placed his cheek very close to the girl's face and read the names of the Japanese cast as if they were well-known stars like Brad Pitt or Leonardo DiCaprio. "Kumi Taguchi, Mitsuyaso Mainu, Katsu-nori Hirose."

The girl turned to look at him and, moving her backpack from her right to her left shoulder, smiled. That minimal expression of kindness, completely absent from his life for so many years, inspired the

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young man to take a pack of cigarettes out of his jacket and offer her one. The girl firmly refused; he placed the cigarette in his mouth and a moment later had it lit and burning. "Are you going in?"

"It looks kind of boring. You?"

The young man turned his head to blow the smoke away from her dark brown eyes and, without reading the poster, he declared, "A film with Kumi Taguchi, Mitsuyaso Mainu, and Katsunori Hirose cant be all bad."

The girls cheeks shone with surprise. "How did you learn those names?"

"I am a useless marvel," he answered. "I read something once and never forget it."

"I wish I had that talent. I'm flunking out of school because I have such a terrible memory."

"What school do you go to?"

" Went I got expelled."

"What are you doing now?"

"Waiting for them to open the movie theater. There's nowhere else to go in this cold. What about you?" The girl pointed at his bulging backpack.

"I've been on the road. I just arrived from the south."

"Where do you live?"

"Nowhere yet."

He pulled on the imitation-gold chain and took Fernandez's watch out of his pocket to show her its face. On one half was a sun with a winking eye and on the other an owl sitting on a waning moon. The girl laughed.

"The sun is shining!" she exclaimed.

"At eleven at night, the stars around the moon begin to shimmer."

"It looks like a watch from A Thousand and One Nights! 1

"How much do you think they'll give me for it?"

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She held it in her hand as if she had lots of experience in such matters.

"Its very unique; at least, IVe never seen anything like it. Maybe they'll give you a small fortune. ,,

"I don't think so. It's Japanese junk. Like the movie."

He invited her to come with him to the pawnshop, where he placed the watch on the glass countertop. The pawnbroker sized up the couple with a quick glance, then picked up the object and held it in his hand as if it were the tail of a filthy rat.

"We don't buy stolen goods."

The young man winced at the pawnbroker's tone, and his hand instinctively moved into his pocket and clutched his knife. A moment later, however, he loosened his grip and pawed the floor with his tennis shoe to calm himself down.

"My father gave it to me for my eighteenth birthday."

The man tossed the watch onto the glass and faked a yawn. "That's what everybody says. That their gold medals and watches have great sentimental value but that they're forced to sell them because of some emergency. Is that what you were going to tell me?"

"Sir, you stole the words right out of my mouth."

The pawnbroker smiled at the girl and patted Angel on the shoulder. "Now we understand each other."

"How much will you give me?"

"Thirty thousand pesos."

"But this watch shows day from night. It tells you if it is ten in the morning or ten at night. This watch is one of a kind."

"It's a useless feature."

"It might be useless, but it's cool and no other watch has it. This watch is poetic. The stars shine at night."

"Here, kid, take thirty-five, and be grateful I'm not asking you for the original receipt."

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Angel Santiago stuffed the bills into his pocket and deeply inhaled the cold air that swirled through the arcades archways. He took the girls arm and led her to the Plaza de Armas.

"In the Portal Fernandez Concha, there's a cafeteria that serves hot dogs loaded with so many toppings you can barely get your mouth around them. IVe been dreaming about biting into one of those for two years."

'Til come with you."

"What about the movie?"

"Its always playing. I can go anytime."

"Do you go a lot?"

"Sometimes, that is, it depends. . . ."

He stretched his arm across her shoulders and together they crossed San Antonio Street.

"What does it depend on?"

"A lot of things."

"Like whether or not you've been expelled from school?"

The girl perked up, and answered cheerfully. "Exactly."

The restaurant was called Ex Bahamondes, and the boy asked one of the twelve hardworking waiters—who showered the customers with heavenly steaks, beers, broiled chicken, and hot dogs—if the "ex" in the name might suggest that the completes weren't as complete as they used to be.

"Better than ever, sir," the waiter responded. "I guarantee that when you bite into one the juice will drip all the way down to your belly button. Would you like two?"

"Not for me," the girl said.

"Aren't you hungry?"

"No."

"You don't mind if I eat?"

"On the contrary."

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Rubbing his hands together, his smile stretching wider with each topping he mentioned, the young man sang out his order.

"Bring me a supercompkto. Cradle the extra-long hot dog m the bread, heat it up m the microwave; then smother it in a layer of sauerkraut, two slabs of avocado, a blanket of chopped tomatoes, and top it off with a dollop of mayonnaise decorated with a line of red hot sauce and another of mustard/'

With Santiago's first bite, the waiter's prophecy came true, and a torrent of mayonnaise and tomato streamed over his leather jacket. The girl stuffed a dozen napkins under the collar, then encouraged him to keep eating. Every once m a while, Angel Santiago would lift a finger, as if to signal that he was about to say something, only to decide instead to devote himself to another bite. Still chewing heartily, he seemed to continue to formulate the words he would utter once he had finished savoring every exquisite flavor.

Crowds of office workers on their lunch breaks poured in, steaming up the windows and making the restaurant hot and stifling.

"I need some fresh air," the girl said.

On their way out, Angel bought two cartons of milk. They crossed over to the Plaza de Armas and sat down on a wooden bench, placing their feet on their respective bags: he, on his backpack full of everything he had brought with him from jail; she, on her bag with her schoolbooks and supplies.

She undid the top buttons on her coat, exposing the indecipherable insignia on the sweater of her school uniform.

"How long have you been playing hooky?"

"A month. They kicked me out of school and I still haven't dared tell my mother."

"So what do you do?"

"I get up in the morning, pretend I'm getting ready for school,

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then walk around until the movie theaters open. After a while, I go back home."

The boy knitted his brow, looked up, and considered the possibility of a sudden downpour. The clouds overhead were dark: some were compact and puffy, others stringy and fast-moving.

She followed his gaze, then ran her ringers through her hair. As they both looked down, their eyes locked for a brief, intimate moment. She smiled at him; he thought it would be attractive and virile to do nothing, so he held her stare and brushed his hair off his forehead.

At the precise moment they lifted their milk cartons to their mouths, and just as they were about to take a sip, lightning flashed through the clouds and a ferocious peal of thunder boomed across the sky. They both looked back up at the ominous sky, glanced at each other, then swallowed their milk as if they were enjoying a picnic in the countryside on a spring day. She wiped the white foam mustache off her lips with the sleeve of her coat and, seeing that the boys upper lip was also thus adorned, wiped his off with her finger.

Under the lash of the downpour, the girl hunched up her shoulders, drawing herself into her large coat. Angel seemed oblivious to the deluge around them.

"This is what I am," he told the girl. "I am absolutely and totally this moment. I have no home, no friends, no past, nothing I want to remember, and no money. I am a stomach stuffed with a delicious supercompleto and this is my city of ice and mud. What s your name?"

"Victoria."

"And they call you Vicky?"

"Yes, but I prefer to be called Victoria, or La Victoria, like Victory; it sounds more hopeful."

She brushed away the water seeping underneath the collar of her

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coat, then noticed a brown alpaca muffler poking out of the boy's bag. She pulled it out and placed it over her head.

"Take that off," the boy ordered sharply.

"Why?"

"Because its contaminated."

"With what?"

Before answering he pulled it away from her and stuffed it back into his pack. The rain seemed to wash away her smile.

"That muffler belongs to somebody I despise. I'd rather be carried away in a flood than owe that person anything."

"So why not just throw it away?"

"It may come in handy someday."

She made a tent by covering both their heads with her overcoat. Inside that cozy darkness, they finished drinking their milk. Having him there so close and so serious made her laugh, and she remembered the games she played as a child with her cousins when they'd pretend the sheet was a teepee and they were Eskimos, rubbing their noses together. Santiago began to feel the warm vapors of her laughter melt the icy armor that had helped him survive the last few years, and something viscous and musty seemed to evaporate from his soul in a feverish swirl.

He touched Victoria's cheek, then brought his fingertip to his lips and rubbed them together solemnly. Watching the concentrated gravity of his gesture, she stopped laughing and became serious and alert.

"What's your name?" she asked in a whisper.

"Santiago. Angel Santiago," answered Angel Santiago with a wink.

He turned before reaching Las Cantmas Street, wanting to see for himself how the neighborhood had changed during his absence. Sauna studios, massage parlors, and bars—where cocktails came garnished with the promise of girls wrapped m leather and a joint or a line of coke on the side—now reached all the way to the Costanera Highway. He regretted that he was carrying that old, beat-up suitcase and looking like a tourist who had been given the wrong directions. His picture still appeared m the papers whenever a journalist decided to once again extol the consummate artistry of his crimes. He'd even considered shaving off his ostentatious mustache to avoid calling attention to himself, but such a desecration would have been like amputating his manhood. At the first corner, his goal of keeping a low profile was thwarted bv Nemesio Santelices, a purveyor of stolen goods and valet-for-hire, who every once in a while got a few coins tossed his way for parking someone's car and watching it so it didn't get stolen.

"What a pleasure to see you a free man, Nico!" he exclaimed as he fell into step alongside the maestro, not darmg to offer his hand

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or give him a hug. Nico was encouraged that the lowliest scum in this world of scum still knew how to show proper deference to his status.

"I doubt if everyone feels the same way."

"Why shouldn't they? Everyone knows you didn't squeal."

" Vergara Gray, the Tomb, eh?"

"The Tomb of Gold. Business has been thriving while you were inside. Santiago is now a great metropolis."

"Sounds like my partners bank account should be doing quite well."

"Hey, Nico, if you're planning something, you know you can count on me."

"You better look elsewhere, Santelices. I'm retired."

During this brief stroll, and without even turning to look, he had felt many eyes on him. Then with a quick touch of his finger to his forehead, Vergara Gray took leave of his companion. When he reached Monastery's place, he placed his suitcase down, loosened his belt, tucked in his shirt, pulled his pants up over his belly, took a deep breath, and retightened his belt. It had just gotten dark, but his partner's cantina was almost full, and even though the girls stared at him as he entered, not one of this new generation of hookers wrapped in fashionable garb seemed to recognize him.

He made his way to the far end of the bar and studied the rooms every detail until he caught sight of Monasterio giving instructions to the cashier. With the power of his gaze alone, he forced his partner to look over at him. Recognition was instantaneous, as was a dark cloud that spread over the man's face. By the time Monasterio reached him, however, he had skillfully wiped away the shadows, and proceeded to shower his partner with affectionate hugs and the requisite backslapping. The ex-convict received his partner's enthusiasm with a cautious smile.

Monasterio complimented him on his elegant suit, his perfect

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haircut, and the youthful shimmer that lent an ironic sparkle to his eyes. Feeling suddenly quite modest, Vergara Gray said, "Ah, but styles change in five years."

" What are you talking about? You are as elegant as ever."

"The suitcase doesn't shut. I had to close it with tape."

Monasterio awarded it a gentle, affectionate kick. "The suitcase of so many great feats, Nico. When you have your own museum, this will be one of the most valuable exhibits. Don't laugh. In London there's a crime museum, with a wax statue of Jack the Ripper. Champagne?"

The guest waited confidently for his partner to utter one additional word, then smiled when he did.

"French, of course. You are, after all, the one and only Nicolas Vergara Gray!"

He told the waiter to bring the bottle, the bucket, and the glasses to a private booth in the back; once they were seated, Monasterio patted Vergara Grays cheek with paternal affection.

"Free at last, old man."

"Outside, time flies; inside, it crawls."

"I want to ask you to forgive me, Nico, for not visiting you this whole time."

"I hadn't noticed."

"Its not that I didn't want to, its just that my visit would have given the police a lead. In other words, my not going fit right in."

"With what?"

"Your silence."

"That silence, Monasterio, is now my only capital."

"We really must talk about that. But not now. Now is the time to celebrate your return. Now is the time for champagne."

His partner raised his glass, but Vergara Gray left his untouched. Instead, he placed the suitcase on his knees, pulled back the tape, and took out a large envelope. "I brought you a present."

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"For me?"

"For you, partner." He emptied the contents of the envelope onto the table. Out tumbled five calendar pads with each of the days of the five years circled in red ink.

"Nico, I sent your family a money order every month."

The ex-convict picked up one of the many pages that had come loose from the pad and placed it in front of his hosts eyes.

'The year is 2001 and its the hottest summer I ever remember in Santiago. The cockroaches stagger past the rusty bars.' "

'Til show you your room."

"Where?"

"IVe got a little hotel across the street."

"A family hotel?"

"Were in an economic crisis," he said, attempting to appease his partner.

"You mean it's a hotel for couples."

"And miscellaneous."

"And miscellaneous."

"Just for a few nights, until I find you something more appropriate."

"That wont be necessary. I'm going to live with Teresa Capriatti."

"Let me carry your suitcase."

Without waiting for Vergara Grays consent, Monasterio picked up the suitcase and started walking toward the door. The night had grown colder and darker. The wet sidewalk reflected the pathetic flashing of the neon lights.

As they crossed the street, Vergara Gray, at least four inches taller than his companion, had to lean over so he could hear him over the roar of traffic.

"Take good care of those calendars, partner. You can put them on exhibit in the Vergara Gray Museum, too."

The room had a small, modern closet where Vergara Gray hung

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up his jacket. He pulled a speckled gray sweater out of his suitcase and put it on, sat down on the bed, and picked out a pair of thick wool socks to warm up his cold, aching feet. Then he lay down on the bed without even bothering to pull back the covers and began to study the stains on the ceiling.

He feared nothing, he told himself, nothing but loneliness.

He heard a knock on the door and propped himself up on his elbow. "Come in."

Someone pushed the door open with a knee, and at first all he saw was a metal tray carrying a bucket, the bottle of champagne, and two fluted glasses. The intruder was a woman about twenty years old, dressed in a tight outfit that showed off more than just her belly button and with a mass of black hair framing a pair of fuchsia-colored lips.

"Monasterio says you forgot this."

"You needn't have bothered."

"He said it would be a shame for it to get warm. Its French champagne, after all."

"You can just leave it on the table."

The woman followed his instructions, then filled the two glasses and held one out to him. She sat on the edge of the bed. "Why does Monasterio take such good care of you?"

"He's an old friend."

"He's got lots of old friends, but only you get a double treat."

"What's that?"

"The champagne, and me."

"Ah, I understand. Since were occupying the same bed, maybe you should tell me your name?"

"Raquel."

"Look, Raquel—"

"Of course, my name isn't really Raquel."

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"Of course. Look, Raquel, you are a beautiful young woman and any man would feel privileged to have the opportunity to be with you. But there is only one woman in my dreams, and I am saving myself for her, as if I were a teenage virgin. It s nothing personal."

"What do you mean, nothing personal? It is me, personally, you are rejecting. I'm a skilled professional. I promise I wont hurt you."

"I trust you implicitly; its myself I don't trust."

"Afraid you wont be up to it?"

"I'm sixty years old."

"So, you dont trust me."

Vergara Gray took a sip of champagne and indicated that the woman should do likewise.

"I cant stand champagne. It gives me a headache."

"What do you like?"

"Mint frappe."

The man handed her a ten-thousand-peso bill. "Here, go buy yourself a bottle."

"I never refuse a good tip. But what should I tell Monasterio?"

"Tell him I appreciate the thought, but that I never accept gifts. Tell him Tm waiting for him to bring me the fifty percent he owes me."

"He s going to yell at me."

"I dont think so."

He drained his cup and wiped his mustache with the back of his hand. She patted the back of his other hand and stood up.

"What's the lucky woman's name?"

"Teresa Capriatti."

The woman took a cube of ice out of the silver bucket and placed it in her mouth. She switched it back and forth from one cheek to the other with a thoughtful expression on her face, as if she were trying to interpret a hieroglyphic. "You're an odd duck," she concluded.

M

Victoria led angel santi ago down the staircase of the dance academy and from there to the rehearsal studio, where the heater was on full blast. The young man leaned against the wall while the girl spoke to her teacher. A half dozen teenage girls were at the bar doing stretches and practicing pirouettes on tiptoe. The teacher s gray hair was pulled tightly back from her temples. A thin layer of mascara lent a certain weight to her lashes, which seemed to leap off her pale face. Victoria returned carrying a stool. "She says you can stay." "I don't know what to do here/' "Just watch."

She ran off to the other end of the studio and stripped down to her tights and leotard. The teacher placed a ring of keys on top of the piano, called the girls to attention, then began playing a tune with a strong beat.

At first the young man was interested in the dancers and even found it entertaining when four of the girls linked arms and performed a short routine. About half an hour later, while they all stood at the bar and the teacher corrected them by tapping them

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lightly with a pointer, he grew bored. Absentmindedly, he reached for the girls backpack and started rummaging around inside.

Only about half the exercises in the math workbook had been completed, and these had been corrected by the teacher with painful results. The assessments at the bottom of each page ranged from "bad," to "very bad," to "terrible."

Her language arts binder contained a poem by Gabriela Mistral with two lines highlighted m bright yellow: "From the frozen niche where men have put you, /1 will lower you to the humble, sun-drenched earth!'

As Angel turned the pages full of grammar drills and lists of synonyms and antonyms, he noticed that those same two lines appeared again and again, written like a slogan and highlighted each time in a different color, on every fourth or fifth page.

On another sheet, at the end of the poem "Tarde en el hospital" by Pezoa Veliz, Victoria had written, "so many people everywhere dying." In her music binder he found lyrics by Elvis Costello and a few lines from Beethoven's "Ode to Joy."

His clothes were beginning to dry, and he moved on to his own bag to verify the extent of his worldly possessions. He emptied the contents onto the floor and poked through them with his foot: the wardens muffler, two shirts, two pairs of boxers, a turtleneck sweater, and his faded leather jacket with the broken metal zipper. There were also two books: Heart, by Edmundo de Amicis, and Where Vm Calling from, by Raymond Carver. A special gift for a certain special person, he thought with a smile.

Soon night would come and he would have to find himself a place to sleep. There were several mattresses in this very studio, and if the heat stayed on until morning, the problem would be solved.

The other possibility was to go to a hotel with Victoria, a doubly crazy idea because they had yet to exchange so much as a kiss and because they didn't have the money to pay for their room in advance,

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always required in the cheaper places. They could possibly go to a more respectable establishment and find some way to disappear in the morning. No, that was also a bad idea: they'd ask him for ID when he arrived and then he'd have the whole police force after him.

There were always parks, plazas, and pneumonia. It would be a sorry blessing indeed to exchange the prison cell for a cot at the public hospital next to a bunch of indigents in their final death throes.

Victoria approached with her teacher and introduced him as her brother from Talca. The teacher, introducing herself as Ruth Ulloa, asked him what he did. In a moment of inspiration, he said that he owned a small plot of land and was studying agronomy. After all, he knew that the Piduco River ran near that city and that there were meadows and cows and lots of grapes on the vines. The teacher responded that there must be a future in agriculture because of all the new exports to Asia, and he, in turn, noted that dance was an even more promising profession because all you had to do was watch television to see that this generation was crazy about dancing and everyone who wasn't already on television hoped to be there one day. The teacher explained that the kind of dance she taught at this academy never ended up on television but rather in prestigious venues, such as the Municipal Theater of Santiago and the Colon Theater of Buenos Aires, when and if, of course, there was talent. Angel Santiago considered it appropriate to ask what exactly it meant for a dancer to have talent, and she answered that talent was a dancers ability to express with physical precision the fantasies that obsessed them.

"For example, I am now helping your sister choreograph a dance based on a poem."

"By Mistral!" the boy exclaimed.

Victoria looked at him perplexed, and Angel Santiago licked his smiling lips, feeling certain that his luck was improving by the

H

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moment. His guardian angel had found her way back to him and was watching over every step he took, offering him one inspiration after another.

"Yes, Mistral," the teacher confirmed with gravity. "She wants to dance nothing less than The Sonnets of Death.

" 'I will lower you to the humble, sun-drenched earth/" the young man was quick to recite.

"I see you are interested in poetry," the teacher commented, already seduced.

"No, only that poem. After all, it has a lot in common with agronomy, don't you think?"

The teacher acknowledged the exchange with a smile and, putting on her coat, gave them each a kiss good-bye and a couple of blankets. Victoria went over to the hot plate and put on water to make some instant coffee. She filled two ceramic cups and sat down cross-legged on the floor. The boy burned his tongue with the first sip while she blew cautiously into her cup.

"Who goes first?" she said after a brief pause. "With what?" "The truth."

The boy wrapped his hands around the warm mug of coffee and silently praised his good fortune as he stared into the profound intensity of her brown eyes. He didn't want to make one false move. He didn't want to lose her. Not that night, not ever. "Shoot." Your name. I mean, your real name." Angel Santiago."

It sounds like the name of a trumpet player in a salsa band." That's the name they gave me." Your parents?"

Or the local priest. I was too young to remember" What do you do?"

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"Here and there."

"What do you do here and there?"

"Nothing. I don't do anything here and there."

"And what's this about agronomy? Do you really own land in Talca?"

"The only land I own is the dirt on the soles of my shoes."

"How do you live?"

"IVe got a few plans."

"What kind of plans?"

"A few ideas for making money. Lots of money."

"Tell me all about them."

"Its a secret. If I tell you, it'll ruin the whole thing."

They finished drinking their coffee in silence, then Angel took off his shoes and placed them next to the heater. She pulled the rubber band out of her hair and, with one shake of her head, let it fall in charming disarray down her back.

"My turn," said the boy.

"Go ahead."

"I dont want to ask you any questions, but I do have three wishes."

"What's the first?"

"That you let me know when you are going to dance at the Municipal Theater."

"Why?"

"I saw a movie on television once about a guy who sends his ballet-dancer girlfriend a bouquet of roses. I would love to send you a bouquet of roses at the Municipal Theater."

"That will never happen. The girls from this academy never get to dance at the Municipal."

"Well, anyway, if by some chance you do one day dance there, I want to know."

"Agreed."

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"My second wish is that you go to school tomorrow and ask them to let you back in."

"There's more chance that I'll dance at the Municipal than that they'll let me back in school. I was expelled, Angel."

"Everybody gets kicked out of school at some point, but then they let you back in."

"That already happened to me. They suspended me twice; the third time, they expelled me."

"Why?"

"Partly because both times they made appointments to meet with my mother, and she didn't show up."

"Didn't she want to go?"

"I don't want to talk about my mother."

"Okay, okay, calm down."

"I am calm."

"You are calm. Good. Now relax."

Victoria began to pull on the rubber band she'd taken out of her hair, then turned to watch the rain falling against the basement windows. "They threw me out of school because I can't concentrate. When I'm in class I'm always on the moon. I mean, I'm always thinking about the same thing."

"What's that?"

"My father."

"What happened to him?"

"When my mother was pregnant with me, the police arrested him in front of the school where he taught. Everybody saw it happen. They came with helicopters and cars without license plates. Two days later they found him in a ditch with his throat slit. I was born five months later."

"What had your father done?"

"He was against the dictatorship. He would have been able to

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identify some of the kidnappers who made people disappear. I think he was one of the last to be killed. Then democracy came."

"That doesn't mean you have to think about him all the time."

"If I don't, hell disappear forever."

"But that's not good for you, not good for your head. That's why you can't concentrate on your schoolwork."

"I went to the same school he taught at. Everyone was really nice to me. They treated me like I was made of glass and was about to shatter. They even gave me a scholarship so I could study there."

"You can't just throw that away!"

"My mother wants me to study law. Can you imagine! Studying law in a country where my father was murdered with total impunity?"

"But she's your mother. You have to tell her the truth. She'll speak to the principal, and they'll take you back."

"My mother's depressed, totally indifferent to everything. After he was murdered, while everybody else was talking about my father being a hero, she just kept complaining about how she'd been abandoned. When I was born, I think she was more upset than happy because I reminded her of my father. Once she said to me, 'The Party might have lost a militant, but I lost my man.' "

Santiago tried to think of something he could say that would lighten the gloomy tone of their conversation, but he couldn't find the words. He also decided to stifle the caress destined for Victoria's cheek, afraid to show compassion that the girl might reject. Instead he walked over to the bars and did a few gymnastic exercises he had learned in school. Encouraged by his agility, he walked back to her and said, "Tomorrow I'll go to your school with you and talk to the principal."

Victoria laughed, but without derision. Suddenly she was in an irresistibly good mood. "You? In those rags?"

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"I'm your brother from Talca. That should give me a certain amount of authority"

"They know I don't have any brothers. Every year, in every speech at the beginning of the term, the teachers mention my solitude and the tragedy Chile has overcome. The word 'overcome' makes me laugh. Nothing ever overcomes death."

"So I'll say that I'm your boyfriend and we're going to get married."

"But you don't even have enough money for bus fare. What would you support me with?"

"I told you, I've got plans."

"What plans?"

"Nothing you'd be interested in."

Victoria yawned and laid out a mattress against the wall. She took off her leotard, folded it up neatly, and placed it on a chair on top of her sweater. Her nakedness revealed to Santiago two firm, medium-sized breasts with an archipelago of freckles between them.

He carried over the other mattress, laid it down next to Victoria's, and spread a large wool blanket from the island of Chiloe over both of them. Its thick weave promised prolific warmth, and he grew dizzy at the proximity of the girls body. When he moved his cold knee between her thighs, she murmured with closed eyes, "Remember, you are my brother from Talca."

But the boy's fingers had already grabbed hold of her underpants, and with one quick movement he had pushed them down around her knees. He brought himself up against her from behind and with more luck than skill found his way to her more humid regions. When he heard her first gentle moans of pleasure, he lost the last remnants of control and into her flowed all the frustration accumulated over so many nights of sadness and fantasy.

H

e was woken by a knocking on the door, hesitant at first, then more and more insistent. He got up and went to the bathroom to wash out his mouth, looking sadly at the almost-full bottle of champagne. Twenty years ago, two of those wouldn't have been enough to bring the night to life. As he was pulling his pants on slowly and deliberately, the knocking sounded more and more like a police raid.

"The louder you bang, the less I'm going to rush." The racket stopped immediately, and he spent another few minutes combing his mustache and checking how quickly the white was winning out over the gray. Only then did he pull the door open suddenly and all the way, a trick gangsters use when they ve got nothing to hide. He assumed this overzealous early bird could only be a cop. Instead, the young man anxiously waiting in the hallway looked like somebody's assistant, an impertinent messenger boy poking his nose into other people s business. He carried two books in his left hand, and his hair clearly had not seen a comb in months. Behind his ear he carried a green highlighter pen, and he had the look of someone who had been up all night.

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"What can I do for you?"

The young man brought his hands to his chest in a gesture of prayer and cleared his throat several times before he could get any words out.

"Vergara Gray?" he exclaimed finally. "I'm really face-to-face with the one and only Vergara Gray? I cant believe it!"

"Go light on the melodrama, young man. How may I help you?"

"May I come in?"

"I'd rather you didn't. This room is only very temporary. It's really not up to our standards."

"Oh, no, sir. It's perfectly fine by me."

Vergara Gray walked over to the window. He opened the curtain and felt comforted by the sight of the dim sun filtering through the inevitable June smog. Compared to the miserable day he'd been released, this Tuesday felt like a party. He lifted his eyebrows, trying to soften the stern expression he'd shown his visitor so far. "What can I do for you, young man?"

"I have here a letter of recommendation."

"From where?"

"Jail. They released me yesterday."

"They threw me out of prison, too. Same amnesty, eh?"

"Destiny has brought us together," the young man quickly added.

"Is it a letter from the warden?"

"Please, sir, who do you take me for? It's from a prisoner!"

"A prisoner?"

"From Lira the Dwarf."

"A letter of recommendation from a hoodlum like Lira? I advise you not to look for work in a bank."

"Open it and read it, please."

The man placed the envelope on the bed, took one dramatic

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step back, then stood and stared at it with a furrowed brow. The boy picked it up and handed it back to him. Vergara Gray wiped his fingers off on his sweater, as if to erase his fingerprints, scratched open the envelope with his fingernails, and took out the thin piece of paper he then held in the air as if it were infested with lice.

"So, what do you say?" the boy asked impatiently, moving the books covered in graph paper from one hand to the other.

" 1 would like to introduce you to Angel Santiago.' Signed, 'The Dwarf "

"That's it."

"That's the entire contents of this epistolary masterpiece? Lira the Dwarf's eloquence is as spare as his stature."

"It would have been too incriminating to say anything else. I'll tell you the rest."

"I'm happy to hear that, my boy, because this is about as informative as a brick wall."

"First of all, I'd like to give you these two books. They're used, but in good condition."

"Thank you. Let's see . . . Heart and Where Ym Calling From!'

"In Heart, I identified with Garron, the good boy in class."

"I take it, then, that your stay in jail was the result of a misunderstanding."

"Don't make fun of me, sir. In the other one there's a story about the death of Chekhov. Do you know who Chekhov was?"

"Sounds like the name of a chess player."

"He's a Russian writer."

"I've never been interested in politics."

"Chekhov was from before communism."

"You might have guessed that I'm not a big reader. Thank you anyway for the books. I will try to take a look at them."

Angel waved his arms around wildly. "No, no. You don't have

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to read them, Professor! What matters about these books are their covers ."

Vergara Gray scratched his head, then rubbed his unshaven cheek. "Translation, please."

"In jail, its impossible to find better book covers, so we used graph paper." 1 see.

"The graph paper is much uglier than the original covers, so we will remove them at once." Joining action to words, he took the paper off the books and spread them out on the bedspread.

"Mr. Vergara Gray, sir, Lira the Dwarf s genius is inversely proportionate to his size."

With one sweeping movement he turned over the book covers; the other sides were covered with intricate and complex hieroglyphics that looked something like a map. They were, in fact, miniature architectural drawings.

"What is this?"

"This here is the strategy for what I call the big coup, designed step-by-step by the Dwarf. It was going to be his next masterpiece, but he got arrested for some minor job that wasn't worth even a tenth of his talent. He sends it to you as a token of profound admiration and with very cordial regards."

"I'm sorry, but I'm retired."

"Please allow me to explain."

The man covered his ears. "Don t waste your breath. I don't want to hear anything."

"Okay, just one thing: we're talking about one-point-two billion pesos."

"What's that in dollars?"

"On the black market, with the dollar at seven hundred forty-five pesos, that would come to about one-point-six million dollars."

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"Okay, now you listen to a different calculation: for every hundred thousand, that's one year away. In one million six hundred ten thousand dollars there's a hundred thousand, sixteen times, which adds up to sixteen years in the slammer. But in order to get your hands on that delightful sum, you cant just lift your arm and cut off a branch laden with bills, as if you were picking a bunch of grapes. You can bet that amount of money will be well protected by guards and guns. Let's say you have extraordinary good luck and you only kill one person. For homicide, add . . . Have you killed anyone yet?"

"No, not yet."

"Okay, lets see. For a first homicide, you'll get ten years, added to the sixteen youve already got, that's a total of twenty-six years in the shade. And if we figure that you re as good as your Garron in that book and they let you off five for good behavior, we've got twenty-one. How old are you now?"

"Twenty, sir."

"You'll get out at forty-one, probably with other pieces of paper like Lira's in your pocket."

"If I've come to you it's because I know you've never fired a shot. That's the beauty of your career."

"I am not infallible, young man. After all, they had me inside for five years. I've even got a few white hairs in my mustache."

"But they didn't catch you in the act. The judge gave you ten years because you wouldn't squeal."

"Either you know a lot or you presume a lot."

"You're all anybody talked about in jail, Professor Vergara Gray. Of course, Lira the Dwarf would like a commission."

"A 'small' commission, I hope."

"Lira has modest ambitions, and a really good sense of humor. He used to tell us jokes by Monterroso, a well-known writer of similarly short stature."

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"Like what?"

"Like this one: 'Dwarfs have a kind of sixth sense that allows them to recognize each other at first sight.' "

The man smoothed down his mustache and walked over to the window to hide his smile. He preferred not to get the young ruffians hopes up by showing him that he was amused; Vergara Gray also feared that if he allowed himself any weakness he would be more vulnerable to temptation. "Breakfast would be a good idea. Coffee or tea?"

"Coffee with milk, for me. Are you really going to treat me?"

"I'll ask them to bring it up from the bar. In the meantime, we'll have to get some fresh rolls from the bakery."

Til go."

"I would greatly appreciate that."

"What kind do you want?"

"An assortment. I eat a big breakfast and then skip lunch."

"Understood."

"Bring two marraquetas, two colizas, three hallullas, three flautas, four tostadas, three onion rolls, and three slices of kuchen with raisins and candied fruits."

"At your service, Professor. Oh, yes, and please forgive me, but could you give me some money? I left jail without a penny."

The man took a five-thousand-peso bill out of his wallet, rolled it up, and stuck it behind Angel's ear. "Here you are."

"The bread is, of course, my treat. This loan is guaranteed by the loot."

"By the one-point-two billion?"

"By my share of the one-point-two billion."

The young man was about to shoot out the door when the older man stretched out his leg to stop him.

"What made Lira the Dwarf think that you and I could work together?"

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"Lira said, 'The technical expertise of Vergara Gray combined with the energy of Angel Santiago.' "

"That's pretty sad praise." >

The young man pointed to the drawings on the bedspread. "What do you think, at first glance?"

"A lot of work has gone into this."

"Only three years. At first the little guy was worried about leaving any clues. He didn't want to write anything down, afraid they'd steal his treasure. So we'd sit in the yard, and he'd explain it to me over and over, drawing it out with a stick in the dirt. Whenever a guard approached, he'd erase it. We'd say we were playing tic-tac-toe. Until I had the idea of covering the books in graph paper. A simple but brilliant idea, don't you think?"

"So you're good at remembering things they tell you only once?"

"I don't like to brag, but that is my speciality. I'll just run out to the bakery and be back in a flash."

He walked out into the hallway, where the man's urgent voice reached him.

"Just out of curiosity, Mr. Santiago. What exactly are you going to buy?"

"Bread, of course."

"Which ones?"

The young man blinked for ten seconds, stuck his tongue out between his teeth, then recited while scratching his nose, "Two marraquetas, two colizas, three hallullas, three flautas, four tostadas, three onion rolls, and three slices of kuchen with raisins and candied fruits."

"May God be with you, my boy."

"Don't forget to do your part."

"My part?"

"Order me a coffee with milk."

Victoria caught the first bus of the morning, the same one that carried the masons and carpenters from the outlying slums to the wealthy neighborhoods, and she crowded into a seat without feeling any relief from the cold. The men had wet hair, mufflers wrapped around their necks and up to their noses, and almost everyone carried a bag containing a sandwich and a thermos of coffee for lunch.

When she got off at the corner of the school, she almost passed out. Even though she was aware of the dangers of anorexia, she knew that even a few extra ounces could sabotage her grand jete or a leap into the arms of her partenaire, and she preferred hunger to losing her ballet dancers figure. After last nights precipitous explosion, Angel Santiago spent hours caressing her skin with his unpracticed hands, and she felt more supple and flexible than ever. Those rough fingers seemed to be writing something on her skin, and she allowed him to do as he pleased, surrendering to his desire and his protective touch.

But this abrupt change in her life was also disorienting. A month had already passed since they had expelled her, and now, instead

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of heading m blind despair for a movie theater that opened early and showed movies continuously, she found herself in front of her school, trembling and not knowing exactly what to do when the bell rang. Santiago's arguments had been much more persuasive than her mothers silent reproaches; she was in her last year of school, just five or six months from graduating, and she simply couldn't allow her life to be ruined because of a simple case of poor academic performance.

"The teachers are there to teach you, and if they cant manage it, the failure is theirs, not yours," Angel had whispered in her ear.

The girl explained to him, talking into the pillow without looking him in the eyes, that she was often incapable of expressing herself, and that for her, everything from the most insignificant to the most profound got transformed into movement. "I can dance sadness, but I cant cry it."

"But to get into the Escuela Superior de Arte you have to have your high school diploma. That should be our goal, your victory, or else you'll end up dancing m a chorus line or being a nursery-school teacher. You think your father would approve of that? I'm sure he would have wanted something better for you. He wanted freedom for the people!"

"Yeah, and instead he left my mother, a slave to me, a widow, pregnant," Victoria said, turning around, "indifferent to herself, to me, to life. What do you know about freedom?"

Angel Santiago smiled at her words. "The fact that a small group of teachers threw you out of school, destroying your life and shitting on your father's dreams, is nothing more than an insignificant bleep in the entire history of the universe. If that's the way it is, then the people who killed him won. They defeated you, and him."

She had put the pillow over her head. She didn't want to hear a sermon, she said. She was sick of people who talked big.

THE DANCER and the THIEF

Yet here she was, wearing her blue uniform stained with fruit juice and ink from her Bic pen, her backpack slung over her shoulders, and her eyes glued on the tiles in the hallway.

She was the first to arrive in the classroom. She sat down in her assigned seat and looked at the only name she had carved into the desk with the point of her compass—Julio Bocca, the dancer— surrounded by all the other honors generations of girls had paid to their idols and current boyfriends.

"Have they taken you back?" asked Ducci, the blond girl, as she sat down next to her.

The other girls also looked at her as they arrived.

"No."

"So what are you doing here?"

"I'm going to see what happens."

"They're going to throw you out. That's what's going to happen."

"They've got no right. This is a democracy and I want to study."

The class was art history, and according to what the girl could glean from peeking at her schoolmates binder, they were studying trends in twentieth-century painting. The teacher had passed out photocopies with pictures of dozens of paintings, and the students were supposed to say which school each belonged to, then back up their answers with an explanatory sentence. At the bottom of the page, she saw the list of possible answers: expressionism, surrealism, pointillism, impressionism, cubism, abstract.

"Cezanne is a cubist," her friend whispered in her ear, "because he distorts figures into geometric shapes."

"Why did he do that?" asked Victoria.

"Because he felt like it, that's why. An artist who does something that hasn't been done before becomes the founder of a school."

"And Dali?"

"He's a surrealist. For example, here you've got a clock melting in

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the desert. It s not melting because of the heat, but because time is useless, sterile, like the desert. Understand?"

"Where did you learn all that?"

"I learn what interests me. For number three, write down 'Van Gogh.'That one first sees the colors, then the things. When he puts the things with the colors, its as if he were seeing them for the first time."

"Like this sunflower?"

"This is just a stupid photocopy. If you saw this in Amsterdam, you'd faint."

"Have you been to Amsterdam?"

"Are you kidding? My family is dirt poor. Write there, 'Van Gogh/ "

"What are you going to do after you graduate?"

"I'm going to get a job as a bilingual secretary. Take the sheet to the teacher."

Ms. Sanhueza had kind green eyes surrounded by plump cheeks, and she often preferred to stay at her desk rather than move her ample body up and down the narrow aisles between the desks as the girls pretended to gasp in horror at the advent of her ample rear end. While the girls completed worksheets, sheet bury her head in a magazine of crossword puzzles about movie stars. She agreed with her students that Hugh Grant was divine, but she saw herself as having much more affinity with a more mature gentleman like Richard Gere.

She had once taken part in a television game show. Poised to win a hundred thousand pesos for answering questions about Jeremy Ironss life in a "double or nothing" round, she failed to remember the names of the entire female cast he had starred with in The House of the Spirits. To have missed such an easy question that was so relevant to Chile gave her rheumatism for two weeks, during which time she couldn't look anybody in the eye.

the dancer and the THIEF

"You already finished?" she asked with surprise when she saw Victorias paper.

"Yes, teacher."

She looked over the pictures and Victorias comments and checked them off with a Faber fountain pen.

"Everything is correct."

When she opened her roll book to write an A-plus in the column next to Victoria s name, she found that it had been crossed out with a thick red line.

"My dear!" she exclaimed. "You don't exist. Look at this: 'Expelled for poor performance, May twentieth/ "

The girl smiled innocently.

"I left and now I'm back, teacher. As far as my performance, you can see for yourself that I've changed."

"An A-plus in art history is quite an event, my dear. I rarely give anybody such a high grade."

"IVe grown up, teacher. Before I didn't know what to do with my life. Now the only thing I want to do is study. Get a scholarship. Go to the university."

Ms. Sanhueza nodded and placed the successful exercise on top of the roll book.

"And what would you like to study, young lady?"

"Art history education," she proclaimed.

She didn't know where those words had sprung from, and she couldn't believe they had just come out of her mouth. She somehow associated this strange lapse with a fleeting memory of Angel. Could it be that just as Ducci had whispered in her ear the correct answers, her new friend had hypnotized her into articulating such madness?

Ms. Sanhueza had always been sweet, but the expression on her face now reached the heights of syrupy goo.

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"Really, young lady?"

"Really, teacher."

"Never has any student IVe ever had chosen my career. Don't you think its because I haven't been a very good teacher?"

"No way, teacher. I would say that it is precisely your dedication that has inspired me."

"As a teacher you will never earn very much money and youll go gray at a young age."

"I'm only seventeen years old! I'm way too young to worry about gray hairs. What matters to me is to follow my vocation."

She placed her hand on her chest as if she were swearing allegiance to the flag. Ms. Sanhueza removed with a sweep of her hand the tear that lingered in the corner of her eye.

there was a long recess at ten in the morning. The girls spent the time yawning in the hallways, sharing secrets, exchanging music they'd downloaded from their computers, smoking in the bathrooms, applying acne cream, trying to finish homework for the next class, and flirting with the French teacher, who was only five years older than they and had a certain George Clooney air about him that made them tremble.

In the meantime, Ms. Sanhueza, invoking a dispensation granted to teachers by the Ministry of Education to be used only in matters of the gravest consequence, called all the teachers to the principals office to address the case of Victoria Ponce. The girl was placed in the middle of the room—whose walls were covered with oil paintings of illustrious citizens and rectors of the institution—precisely under a teardrop chandelier that had enough lightbulbs to dispel the gloom of winter.

The teacher laid out her argument with a vivacity and passion

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that brought a blush to her puffy white cheeks: the punishment this academic community had dealt out to Victoria Ponce had had the desired effect. The black sheep had returned to the fold, not only remorseful about her prior behavior but with a strong desire to study, an eagerness to excel, and a willingness to be obedient and polite to her teachers and friendly and congenial to her classmates.

And that wasn't all: Ms. Ponce had just completed an assignment in art history with such mastery she had given her the highest possible grade: an A-plus.

"What exactly are you trying to tell us, Ms. Sanhueza?"

"I believe we must rescind this girls expulsion."

The principal turned to the teacher with a sardonic smile on her face. "Have you taken into account that Ms. Ponce was removed from this school after three suspensions? That her guardians did not even show up to discuss the deviant behavior of their rebellious and insolent child?"

Ms. Sanhueza rose from her seat with an accusatory finger. "You know very well that her father couldn't come because he was assassinated on the steps of this very school, where he was a great pedagogue. It seems that the events of that terrible day have silenced us all with fear."

The principal made a gesture of irritation and looked up at the chandelier, as if asking for patience from the heavens. "What fear are you talking about? That happened seventeen years ago and Chile has been a democracy for over a decade. When are we going to stop blaming everything on Pinochet? This girl never even knew her father."

The art teacher turned purple and broke out in a profuse sweat. "But she knew his absence!"

With the alertness of a predator about to leap on its prey, she looked from one to the other of her colleagues, awaiting their

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response. The other teachers docilely lowered their eyes; only the math teacher, Berrios, spoke while examining his well-groomed fingernails.

"I have great sympathy for your somewhat pathetic eloquence, Ms. Sanhueza. But in my class this student was performing well below grammar school level. I doubt she even knows her multiplication tables."

"Okay, my dear"—the art teacher turned to Victoria—"what's nine times nine?"

"Eighty-one, teacher."

The woman made a triumphal pause, like a defense lawyer who places his client at the mercy of the court.

"That was just a figure of speech," Berrios sighed. "She doesn't know anything about algebra."

"Did Picasso know algebra?"

"How should I know?"

"And Dali?"

"I don't think so. He was crazier than a loon."

"So why should Ms. Ponce know algebra when her greatest aspiration is to be a humble art teacher?"

"But we have a basic curriculum, Ms. Sanhueza. It doesn't matter at all if an architect knows the difference between the liver and the kidney, but any civilized person must understand the circulatory system.'"

"Blood knows better than you how to circulate. Air comes and goes through your lungs without you even realizing it. The birds and the bees don't need your sex education classes to breed."

Berrios covered his face with a handkerchief. "I'm ashamed to be in this room. Your arguments lower me, degrade me, Ms. Sanhueza."

THE DANCER and the THIEF

"My esteemed colleague, anybody can learn algebra. But only Toulouse-Lautrec could have painted the Moulin Rouge!'

The principal clapped her hands to put an end to the exchange. The clock told her that recess was over, and she hadn't even had her tea. The other teachers were also impatient.

"What do you say, dear colleagues? Shall we give Ms. Ponce another chance?"

The teachers, perhaps distracted by other concerns, simply shrugged their shoulders.

Several times a day, every day for more than a week, Vergara Gray dialed Teresa Capriatti's phone number. Every time she answered, he recited her name reverently and she hung up. On three occasions she asked him never to call again, underscoring this more formal rejection by slamming down the phone.

Her scorn caused him so much distress that all he could do was sit in his room, shuffle a deck of cards, and dream about a sudden stroke of good fortune. In the evenings he went across the street, where Monasterio told the bartender to serve his partner vodka with orange juice and, on the pretext of having some urgent business to resolve, muttered something to Vergara Gray about how next week they would have a long chat about all their unresolved issues.

"There's only one I care about," Vergara Gray said, grabbing him by the lapel and lifting him off the ground. "Half-half. That was the agreement and I expect you to honor it."

"You don't have to remind me, Nico. We'll share whatever there is in a brotherly manner."

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"Nothing brotherly about it, Monasterio. Fifty-fifty"

Then he'd take a stroll around the neighborhood and observe the changes of the last five years. Most of the girls on the street were very young, almost children, and they all wore what looked like a uniform: a skimpy top and blue jeans that came below the tops of their underwear. Between the two garments a shiny ring hung off their belly buttons, adorning their smooth, flat stomachs. Mens gazes could slide from their breasts to their bellies as if skating down a smooth sheet of ice.

Apparently, the heroines from his criminal past had abandoned the battlefield, mortally wounded by added pounds and a profusion of wrinkles. They had never learned how to use those portable compact disk players the young ones wore glued to their ears and strapped around their skinny waists, nor would they have been able to sing along to the latest hits in English. The more he observed his surroundings, the neighborhood, this world, the lonelier he felt. His expectations of freedom had been so different that he even began to feel nostalgic for jail.

On Saturday, after glancing at the sketch of an elevator in Lira the Dwarfs plans, he picked up the telephone and again dialed Teresa Capriatti's number, deeply resigned to the agony of another rejection. This time, however, his wife didn't hang up, but rather asked in a strictly disinterested tone of voice how he was.

"Good, my love. I'm very good."

'Tm glad, Nico. I didn't hang up this time because you and I have to talk."

"That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"It's about something important that affects you, me, and our son."

"My three aces." The man smiled.

"We should speak in person. I'd like us to meet tomorrow, once and for all."

ANTONIO SKARMETA

"Lunch?"

"No. That takes too much time. Lets meet for tea. Its less complicated."

"Where?"

"There's a tea salon on Orrego Luco, just before you reach the Costanera. Its called Flaubert. I'll be there with Pablito tomorrow at five."

"He's really going to come?"

"He doesn't want to see you at all, but since it's something important . . ."

"He's my son. He shouldn't feel that way."

"You've caused him a lot of harm, Nico."

"I? Harm him? The person I love most in the world? I, cause harm?"

"Try to remain calm, or we won't be able to meet."

"You're right. It's better to talk about these things in person."

"Flaubert is a decent establishment. Keep that in mind."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, people notice what you're wearing."

"I understand."

"Styles have changed. Anyway, just so you know what to expect."

When he hung up, he rushed down the stairs, crossed the street to his partner's bar, and asked Elsa, the cashier, to give him some money. She told him there wasn't any money in the register this early in the morning. The money got locked up in the safe on Friday night, and on Monday the armored car came to take it to the bank.

Vergara Gray told her he needed a modest sum, about two hundred thousand pesos, to buy a more fashionable jacket, a silk tie, and a nice striped shirt, English-style. When the cashier pressed the electronic button that opened the drawer, he could see for himself

THE dancer and the THIEF

that there wasn't even enough money in there to give change to an early bird buying cigarettes or a vodka sour.

Smoothing down his mustache, Vergara Gray asked her the location of the safe and the combination. Smiling, the woman informed him that she knew absolutely nothing about the numbers that gave access to the treasure within, but that the metal safe, weighing in at over four hundred pounds, was in the next room and was bolted to the floor and the wall.

"Lets go take a look," the thief said, winking at her.

"My pleasure, Nico. I just want to reassure you that it's impenetrable."

"I believe you. I'm just curious."

Vergara Gray stood in front of it and sighed deeply. How many times had he faced a similar contraption after sneaking through the labyrinthine hallways of banks and stores, then had to turn away, humiliated by defeat, unable to find the combination and open it. This particular model had a special kind of charm. Right m the middle was a wheel that had to be turned to open the first steel door, behind which there would be an electronic system, perhaps connected to an alarm, that would require either a load of dynamite or the fine manipulation of tiny screwdrivers.

He turned the wheel to the left and to the right, then turned it back to the middle; he brought his ear close to the lockbox and smiled when he realized that the music of that mechanism was not new to him. If he was remembering right, he was dealing with the same Schloss model he had encountered in the Petzold Jewelry Store that unsettled month of September 1973.

The owners had raised the Chilean flag to express their approval of the military coup that had overthrown Allende, then gone off to their mansion m the resort town of Zapallar to wait for the soldiers to finish killing off all the leftists still roaming the streets.

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On the night of Wednesday, September 12, that very flag had inspired him to climb onto the roof of the jewelry store with a drill, for the first time unconcerned about the noise he would make—it would just blend in with the gunshots and explosions raging throughout the city—to open up a hole large enough to climb through and jump right onto the safe. It had been the quickest and most efficiently executed heist he'd ever pulled off When the owners went to the police to complain about the disappearance of their most precious jewels, the captain accused them of being selfish shopkeepers, worried about some insignificant crime while his men were risking their lives in the battle against Allende s terrorists. He told them to get out of the police station immediately if they didn't want to be locked up in a cell where the blood of the torture victims flowed over the cement floors.

He figured that with his three jewelers screwdrivers and his dental tweezers, he could disembowel Monastery's safe in a few hours, as long as the cashier and the morning drinkers left him to work in peace.

"Elsita," he said to the cashier, "if I spent a few hours on this lady here, what would you do?"

"I'd have to tell Monasterio, Nico."

"Do you know your boss owes me money?"

"That's what everybody says."

"Oh, really? What exactly do they say?"

"That there's a lot of money involved."

"How much?"

"You kept quiet and the loot was never found. If it was sold on the international market, we must be talking about a whole lot of money."

"So why didn't they lock up Monasterio if everybody knows?"

"I'd rather not talk about that, Nico."

the dancer and the THIEF

"It happened so many years ago. Tell me about it as if it were a legend, a movie somebody told you about."

"That's not so easy; Ive been personally involved in this storv. You see, ten vears ago I weighed twenty 7 pounds less and I kept off the wrinkles with makeup my niece brought me from the duty-free shop in the airport."

"So?"

"I'm trying to tell you that Monasterio noticed me."

"Were you his lover?"

"Oh, that word is so filthy!"

"You were his friend?"

"His friend."

"Intimate friend."

"You could say so. A few months after you got arrested, we had to get rid of the jewels. But it had to be done in a clever way."

The cashier seemed to suddenly realize that she had already said too much. She went to the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles of mineral water. She stuck a slice of lemon in each and offered the man a toast. Then she took a long sip and ran her tongue across her lips.

"If I'm telling you all this, its for Monasterio. I want you to know so you'll still be friends. To him, you are more than a partner. He thinks of you as a brother."

"What happened to the jewels?"

"He got wind that the cops were going to come and question him, and he had the brilliant idea of beating them to it. He asked for a meeting with the first lady, and offered her half the jewels to give to the army to pay for the reconstruction of the country."

"Jesus Christ!"

"That's why he was allowed to keep the other half without anybody bothering him. I love Monasterio and I don't like to think that for a few pesos here or there a good friendship would be ruined."

Cm

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"A few pesos here or there! I was sentenced to ten years in jail!"

"He did everything he could for you!'

"Like come visit me in jail?"

"Every month he sent money indirectly to Teresa Capriatti."

"What do you mean, indirectly'?"

"Directly you'll see how he did it indirectly!'

The woman placed a checkbook on the counter and looked at the date on a calendar from a candle factory that had a picture of the Virgin Mary, the baby Jesus, and the motto: illuminating

FROM END TO END.

"What are you going to do?"

"Write you a check to help you through these hard times."

"Elsita, I may be a thief, but I'm not a pimp. I just want Monas-terio to give me what legitimately belongs to me."

The woman smiled as she scribbled on the newspaper to try to get the ink flowing through her Bic pen.

"What's so funny?"

"The word legitimately,' Nico. How much do you need?"

"I don't want charity, I told you."

"It's not charity, Professor. It's an advance."

Vergara Gray rubbed his chin, then his mustache, then one of his sideburns, and responded thoughtfully. "When you put it in those terms, it seems honorable enough."

"Will two hundred be enough?"

"Make it three."

In the criminal world, the only things that work are violence and patience," proclaimed Lira the Dwarf. "The first will make you rich or lead you back to jail; the second will keep you poor but free."

Angel Santiago was already losing patience with being poor.

He wanted to get to the ballet academy and invite his "sister" to a Chinese restaurant. If all had gone well with her return to school, he hoped he could count on a night of lovemaking, maybe even in a decent hotel in a real room with a real bed.

He wanted to make up to her for his overzealousness, for wildly shooting off his wad as if he couldn't care less about his lovers pleasure. He tried to comfort himself with a feeble explanation: that discharge was just a burst of energy accumulated over months and years of fantasy and frustration, when the only women he saw were in glossy magazine pictures that hung on the walls of his cell. But he still had not confessed to her that he had not traveled four hours by train from Talca to Santiago but rather three hours from two years in jail to the movie theater where they had met. The way

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things stood now, she might very well have gotten the impression that he was an uncouth, arrogant young man.

The problem was, he liked the girl. There was also, of course, her body, delectable wherever his hands happened to land. But most of all, he was drawn to her precariousness, a poor student expelled from school, frequenting raunchy movie houses just to keep warm, or so she said. He imagined her there, slouched down in her seat, less interested in the kung fu moves and erotic gymnastics than in her dreams about the routines she would practice that evening at the ballet studio.

When he pictured the girl dancing, she became even more enchanting and seductive. He imagined her surrounded by other dancers, also passionate about the precise execution of a pas de deux or a similarly exalted tour en Fair. But when the music stopped and the sand got swept out of the circus tent, as they say, all that awaited her was uncertainty: the streets, a depressed mother, poverty, and— he admitted to himself mercilessly—he, Angel Santiago.

And who was he? A nobody she had met by chance. A starving interloper, an intruder, clueless as to his own destiny, but, when all was said and done, somebody she'd slept with. He had given her sermons, he realized, with the vehemence of a parish priest, not to harass her but out of pure, disinterested affection: a spontaneous impulse of his heart. Then he had shot her off to school like an arrow.

He needed money, even just enough to take the bus to the academy, and his hands were freezing as much from the cold as from the fear of being caught pickpocketing a sucker on the subway and being sent express back to jail, where the warden would not hide his glee, rejoicing in this welcome reprieve from the nightmare of his own murder.

His only path had to be prudence, but after two hours of hang-

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ing around the automatic teller machine at the exit of the Hippodrome of Chile, he began to get desperate and bored; that s also when his senses grew sharper.

A taxi stopped next to the curb, and a stuck-up woman rushed out of it and left the door open, shouting at the driver to wait. She ran into the cubicle, inserted her card, and impatiently banged out her password on the keyboard. Just as the money was coming out, Angel Santiago approached her innocently and asked if the machine also gave out smaller bills. The woman looked at her wad, saw that it didn't, and, without saying good-bye, turned to run back to the taxi. Whatever had caused the woman's agitation, she had done exactly what Angel had long been hoping for: she had walked away while the question, "Do you need anything else?" remained on the screen.

He pressed the yes key and tentatively asked for a hundred thousand pesos, which the machine gave him quickly and obediently. He then thought it prudent to let the machine remain in dialogue with itself, avoiding the temptation to commit other crimes he lacked the necessary experience to carry out successfully.

After crossing Vivaceta Avenue near the racetrack, he came across a groom leading a horse back from a training session. He patted it on its mane.

"Is he gentle?"

"Gentle? Like a lamb," the groom replied.

"How many races has he won?"

"Just one, when he was three. But he'll be able to again because he got downgraded."

"How does he do in the twelve hundred?"

"One-fifteen-two. If he goes down a fifth, he'll win."

"And how much is he worth?"

"Not cheap, about three hundred thousand. But he ain't mine."

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"If I offer you a hundred thousand, will you sell him to me?"

"That's an insult, young man. There are six-year-olds who turn around. At that price it would be a steal."

"I'll buy him for a hundred thousand."

"Please don't insult me, sir. This horse has got a future."

"He won once when he was three. How old is he now?"

"Barely eight."

"Barely eight. He might win out in the desert, in Antofagasta, but forget about Santiago."

"How much did you say you'd give me?"

"Eighty thousand."

"Cash?"

"Cash. And since you're stealing him from his trainer, I'll give you seventy thousand and mum's the word."

"The trainer's crazy about him. He'll kill me."

"I'll give you sixty thousand cash and we'll forget all about it. How much did you say he ran the twelve hundred in?"

"One-sixteen. I can't lie to his new owner."

Angel Santiago sought out the most deserted streets on his way to the dance academy. He had forgotten to ask the horse's name and in a way this made him happy: when you name something for the first time you make it yours. He and Victoria Ponce would baptize him at the fount of the church. He walked slowly up Einstein, following the signs toward the Virgin of San Cristobal Hill. When he gave the horse his lead, the animal was obedient and attentive to his wishes.

He had not been free for even a week, and when he added things up, the balance couldn't have been better: he owned a horse, of sorts, that he could ride all over the city from end to end and corner to corner as he had done in the fields of Talca when he was a little boy. He had a girlfriend, of sorts, for although there was nothing

the dancer and the THIEF

formal between them, the starting gates had opened. He could count the ballet studio he had snuck into for the last few nights after having secretly made a copy of the teachers key as his own lodging, of sorts. In addition, he had a fortune, of sorts, that permitted him to take his slender friend out to eat with chopsticks at the Poor Chinaman Restaurant.

Not least among these few items in his private Utopia was his horse: a worn-out beast with matted hair, wide flanks, and more than a few gray hairs; he was a creature, like Angel himself, who had dreamed in his youth of being a prince and in the end had only been an also-ran. Society may have lowered its curtain on Angel at twenty, but both their lives were about to get turned around.

He evaluated his arsenal: a woman, a horse, Lira the Dwarfs coup, and—sound the trumpets!—Don Nicolas Vergara Gray.

full hour before the appointed time he snooped around the Flaubert Tea Salon, sniffing it out like a bloodhound. He leaned against the fence of a house across the street and spent a long time studying the customers and the cars they got in and out of, sensing that particular aura of an established, well-heeled clientele. He deduced that this was not a place for the kind of people he associated with but rather for those he stole from. By the same token, he was gratified by Teresa Capriatti s good taste, and he felt confident that his sons upbringing was in good hands.

Though he managed to maintain his upright posture and impeccable grooming, he feared he might be on the verge of passing out. By now, Pedro Pablo's gift had been carried around for so long that the red ribbon was unraveling and looked worn and secondhand. He wanted to avoid seeing them enter before him, so he snuck away toward the river and smoked two cigarettes, contemplating the turbid waters but unable to formulate even one clear thought.

For years now he had been preparing the conciliatory speech that would prove to them that he was a deserving man and that nothing

THE DANCER and the THIEF

remained in his attitudes or his plans that would lead him back to a life of crime. His decision to live a moral life and get a respectable job had been set in stone by nothing less than the decade-long sentence he'd been given. And if this hadn't been enough, he had recourse to the five long years he'd spent separated from his wife and Pedro Pablo, his teenage son, who, though he had made a few cursory visits to his father in jail, never even tried to hide his complete indifference.

At five minutes after five he entered Flaubert's and his instincts led him to the farthest, most remote corner of the dining room, a table in the back next to the oven where the aroma of baked delicacies was most concentrated. Though he had always thought Teresa Capriatti the most beautiful woman in the world, seeing her after so long—dressed in a close-fitting, tailored black suit with a pearl-colored scarf around her neck and the brooch she wore at her wedding on her lapel—gave him the anguished sensation that he did not, in fact, deserve her.

Time had done her little damage. On the contrary, any lines on her face were hidden under a layer of makeup, and the few extra ounces that filled out her cheeks only added the final touches of perfection to her beauty. On the heels of these observations came the unwelcome suspicion that she had a lover, a thought that cast a shadow over the ex-convict's face and distorted his well-rehearsed smile as he approached the table.

Somebody at the next table stared at him, perhaps sifting through his memory for where he might have met that man. Vergara Gray leaned over his wife's cheek and anointed it with a kiss: a mere peck for her; the entire world for him. Pedro Pablo rose, and his father stretched out his arms to give him a hug. The son, however, kept his distance and held out his hand. Vergara Gray sat down between them without uttering a word.

"We already ordered two mineral waters."

ANTONIO SKARMETA

"Mineral water? But we must celebrate J'*

"You can have whatever you like, but we re having mineral water."

"What would you like to eat?"

"We don't have much time, Nico. We'll leave the meal for another time"

"The pastries look wonderful. Aren't you just a little bit tempted?"

The waiter brought their order and turned to the man. "What would you like, sir?"

"Me? Tea, please."

"What kind?"

"Tea. Just tea."

"Sir, there are thirty kinds of tea on our menu."

The waiter held the menu out to him as if giving him a blow. As he read it he realized that all those exotic names of Oriental infusions meant nothing to him.

"Bring me the Flaubert mix, please."

"Yes, sir. Anything else?"

"I dont know."

He wanted to think of something that would stop time, slow down the clock, but nothing came to mind.

"Perhaps a pastry?"

"That's it, yes. A pastry."

"We have many kinds. Lucuma cake, black forest cake, mocha cake . . ."

"Just bring me a mineral water."

"Carbonated or plain?"

"What?" Vergara Gray asked, puzzled and suddenly distracted by the impatient little kicks his son was giving him under the table.

"Your mineral water, sir?"

"Carbonated, if you would be so kind."

THE dancer and the THIEF

The impertinent waiters departure laid a tangled silence down among them.

"I love you/' the man said abruptly. "I have come here to tell you that I love you, that the two of you mean everything in the world to me."

Teresa Capnatti brought the glass of water to her full lips, then dried them with the linen napkin. Her husband placed the gift on the table, offering it to his son.

"Thank you," the boy said.

"No need for that. Open it now, Pablito."

"Is that really necessary? Everybody's looking at us."

"Nobody will care if you open a present."

After trying several times to untie the knot with his fingernails, his son picked up a knife and cut the ribbon. He tore off the paper and nodded without uttering a word of appreciation.

"What do you think?" Its nice.

Vergara Gray lunged for his sons hand and placed it on the briefcase.

"Touch it, caress it. Can you feel the nobility of that leather?"

With both hands, he demonstrated the movement he was recommending. He then placed his hand over his sons and held it affectionately.

"Its nice. Its a good briefcase, thank you," the boy said, freeing himself from his father s touch.

"Now I'm going to show you the best part: how it locks. A lot of briefcases have two locks, but this one has a different combination for each one. You have to memorize them, then you, and only you, will be able to open it. The number on the right side is the day and month you were born, and the one on the left is the day and month I was born. A pact between father and son. Now open it."

ANTONIO SKARMETA

"Here? Now?"

"I want to make sure it works. If there's a problem, I can still return it."

Pedro Pablo started to turn the lock; his father took part in the ceremony by whispering each number to the boy as he went.

"If you forget the numbers, you can always ask me."

"Where?" Teresa interrupted.

The man leaned back, dumbfounded. He spent half a minute scratching his mustache, then said in a very low whisper, "Its just that I thought that you and I ... I mean, you and I and Pedro Pablo .. ."Then, correcting himself nervously, he said, "You're right. I'll write the combination down for you on a piece of paper."

He tore a page out of his small notebook and started to write. His son stopped him.

"You don't need to write it down. I've already memorized it. On the right—"

"Ssshh," his father said curtly, looking around. "This is a secret between you and me. Never say it out loud. If nobody knows the number, they'll never be able to steal your documents."

Pablo stopped, smiled, then suddenly started laughing out loud, even banging his chair against the wall.

"What are you laughing at?"

"The briefcase, man! Only a safecracker would think of buying such a secure briefcase."

A sudden tremor shook the man's hands, which he quickly moved under the table and held between his legs, trying to bring them under control. He felt like an idiot when he managed to say, "You don't like it?"

"No, I like it."

The waiter brought a cup, the mineral water, and a porcelain teapot. Pedro Pablo whisked away the briefcase, making room for

the dancer and the THIEF

the waiter to set the items down on the table. Teresa Capriatti took another sip of water and when Vergara Gray began to pour his into the glass, she spoke. "Nico, there are two issues/'

"I should tell Monasterio to increase the amount he sends you every month. Everything in Chile has gotten so much more expensive.''

"When will you be talking to him? I haven't gotten a check in six months."

"Today. And the other one?"

Teresa Capriatti looked at her son, who wiped his nose quickly with his finger, leaned conspiratorially on the table, and pulled a piece of paper in a plastic sleeve out of his jacket pocket.

"Nico, Mom and I have decided that I'm going to change my name."

"I don't understand."

"Vergara Gray. I don't want the name Vergara Gray."

"What name do you want?"

"Capriatti, Mom's name. It's totally legal."

"But you are my son, Pablito. Why do you want to change your name?"

"It has problems."

"What problems?"

"Well, every time they ask my name and I say Vergara Gray, they say, Vergara Gray, like the

The boy twirled his fingers, making the universal gesture for a thief.

"So?"

"Well, it feels weird. And the other day I applied for a job at Citroen to learn to be a mechanic. I wrote down my name and underneath I had to put my father's profession—"

"Accountant. I am a certified public accountant!"

"It's better for me to change my name, Nico."

l\

ANTONIO SKARMETA

"There are hundreds of Vergaras and none of them would ever dream of changing their name."

"But there is only one Vergara Gray. Where did your family come up with such a pretentious idea of having two names?"

"We wanted to keep the name of the famous inventor"

"Who?"

"Gray, of course"

"What did he invent?"

Thoroughly distracted, Vergara Gray put sugar in his tea a second time, then drank it and made a face of disgust.

"What is this, son? An academic aptitude test?"

"I'm just asking!"

"It was one way to make up for a great injustice. Your greatgrandfather, Elisha Gray, experimented with electrical and communication devices. On February fourteenth, 1876, he went to the U.S. Patent Office to register a patent for a new invention: the telephone."

"Gray?"

"Gray. But just a few hours earlier, Bell had registered the same invention in a different city. Your great-grandfather sued but lost, and the patent remained in Bell s name."

"A history of losers," the boy said with a smile.

"That's the way it was."

"You are so Chilean. Instead of commemorating victories, you celebrate defeats. Like our national hero, Arturo Prat: everybody remembers him with great affection because he lost the naval battle of Iquique against the Peruvians."

Teresa grabbed the document Pablo still held in his hand and placed it on the table. "The lawyer already filled out the papers. The only thing we need is your signature "

Vergara Gray leaned over the table; as he read his tongue got drier

the dancer and the THIEF

and drier. When he finished, he leaned back in his chair, wishing it were electric and the warden were on hand to lower the switch.

After clearing his throat, he said, "Do you realize, my boy, that since we came here you have not once called me papa?"

The boy shrugged his shoulders, and Teresa Capriatti handed Ver-gara Gray the gold pen he had given her for her fortieth birthday.

Mongolian pork, set tan chicken with almonds, glazed duck with noodles, conger eel with black bean sauce, deep-fried prawns, reineta fish in soy sauce, spring rolls, oyster cakes, Shanghai chicken in mushroom sauce, five-flavored duck, meat patties with pineapple, vegetable chop suey, Santa Rita Gold Star wine, Carmen Rhin, Undurraga cabernet: a small sampling of the dishes and wines on the menu at the Poor Chinaman Restaurant.

Victoria Ponce tended to go for lower-calorie dishes like stir-fry vegetables and Angel Santiago for the furious fervor of the spicy Mongolian pork. She chose Cachantun mineral water; he, half a bottle of red wine. He had brought her from the ballet studio to the Plaza Brasil on his chestnut horse at a slow walk under the starry night sky, and Victoria had had to lift up the skirt of her school uniform to mount the horse, then cover herself from her waist to her knee socks with her large overcoat.

From their table next to the second-story window, lit up with dragons and red lights, they could see the horse, tied to a palm tree in the Plaza Brasil, patiently munching on the grass while some

the dancer and the THIEF

local kids stroked his mane. They had both expected that as soon as they saw each other they would breathlessly tell the other all the news of the last few days. But the process of mounting the horse instead of taking the bus and of going to a restaurant instead of grabbing a quick sandwich on the go had silenced them into smiles and circumspection. They were experiencing the onset of inhibitions so typical of those who begin to care deeply what the other person thinks of them. Once the dishes had been eaten and the absence of bread made it impossible to sop up the sauce and thus further postpone their communication, he asked her how things had gone at school.

"They took me back conditionally. They gave me ten days to pass an exam on everything that's been taught this year so far."

"Like what?"

"Natural science, world history, Chilean history, civics, algebra, physics, chemistry, French, English."

"I know a little English."

"Lets hear."

"One dolar } mister, pleez."

"Where did you learn that?"

"In Valparaiso harbor!'

"On the docks? What were you doing there?"

"Getting by."

The waitress brought them jasmine tea and fortune cookies.

"How old were you?"

"Seven or eight."

"What did your father do?"

"He went out on the boats."

"And you?"

"I hung around."

"With your mother?"

ANTONIO SKARMETA

"With several mothers. Listen, Victoria. I didn't learn the English I know at the Grange School; I learned it on the streets."

The girl stirred her tea without putting any sugar in it. "Now I feel sorry for you."

"You don't have to. Things have gone well for me. I had a knife to practice my penmanship before I had a pen, and I know how to peel an orange in one piece."

"Well, lots of people can do that. Even I can do that."

"Do you also know where to stab somebody most efficiently—in the liver, the lung, or the bladder?"

"In the heart, I guess."

"Well, that could be dangerous. If you're trying to hurt your victim rather than kill him, a stab in the heart could get you life."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

"So you know that I know a little about lots of things, like anatomy, languages, penal codes . . ."

"You should go to the university."

"I've got other plans. I asked my fairy godmother for four wishes because the standard three weren't enough."

"What are they?"

"There's one I can't tell you."

"It's something bad?"

"Yes, but not for me."

"You're going to hurt somebody?"

"Something like that. Though 'hurt' is a pretty gentle word to describe it."

"It's a euphemism "

"What's that?"

"It's a figure of speech. I learned it in language studies. A euphemism is a gentle way of saying something that isn't so gentle. For example, you might tell a really, really fat guy that he looks robust."

the dancer and the THIEF

Angel Santiago was momentarily distracted by a small statue of a smiling Buddha wrapped in colorful wreathes.

"That would be irony" he said after a moment, "not a euphemism"

"You can use a euphemism ironically. That's allowed. What are the other three wishes?"

"Well, I already have the horse."

"Where s he going to live?"

"Wherever I live."

"And where would that be?"

'Til have to give that one some thought. In the meantime, 111 rent him out as a cart horse in the market."

Victoria took a sip from his glass of wine and swished the liquid around in her mouth. When she swallowed it, a rush of warmth rose to her cheekbones.

"You're a little screwed up in the head, Angel. You have no sense of priorities. Its normal for some things to come before others."

"You're one to be giving me lessons about priorities. School should always come before the movies."

"Movies let you dream."

"But people who spend all their time dreaming get screwed up in the head, too. If you cant turn those dreams into reality, you'll end up in the loony bin. It's a good thing you're back in school."

"Thanks to you."

"I wouldn't want you to end up being bitter because you couldn't do what you wanted to."

"I have to pass that exam. I've got ten books in my backpack, and I've got to memorize all of them. I'll have to keep studying tonight."

"Not tonight."

"Why?"

ANTONIO SKARMETA

"Now were getting to the third wish."

Angel donned his best smile as he leaned his elbows on the table and plopped his chin into his hands. The girl brushed her hair away from her temple again and again, as if with this gesture she could quiet all the storms in her soul. She wasn't certain about anything, but her dream was to dance ballet, of course, at the Municipal Theater in Santiago, the Colon in Buenos Aires, the Teatro de Madrid, the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. She didn't lack passion, and she'd be willing to burn every single one of her other bridges just to live out that dream. But for that she needed to graduate, she needed money, and she needed talent. Who could reassure her that she had talent? Her teacher at the academy, who doled out praise to all her disciples as if each of them were a Tamara Kasarvina, an Isadora Duncan, a Margot Fonteyn, a Pina Bausch, or an Anna Pavlova? No, her maestra had more delusions than objectivity, and her opinion wasn't worth a hill of beans.

Any girl with smooth skin, upturned buttocks, and a sassy belly could fancy herself a professional dancer because she had learned the simplest version of Shakira's newest dances, and shed prance around hoping some television producer would discover her.

She also knew that there wasn't any chance that the kind of dance she studied would be profitable. She had seen so many people buy and sell themselves in order to live—first of all, herself—that she held ballet and modern dance in a sacred space, immune to all worldly corruption, beyond the reach of her depressed mother, her father's murder, the professors who looked down on her for her indifference, for her silence.

If she ever did dance professionally, even in the town hall of some tiny city in the provinces, she wouldn't ask to be paid. This

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would be the triumph of art over the scoundrels who traded in death and ugliness. Commercialism had no right to be a patron of the arts.

The fact that Angel Santiago wanted to sleep with her again meant he didn't know her very well. They had spent a few hours together, a quickie on a mattress, and he had talked her into going back to school. In her empty world these trivial events constituted the most intense relationship she had ever had, perhaps in her entire life.

So, before this incipient love got ground to bits by mutual disgust, poverty—the squalor of the parts of her life that he still knew nothing about, the stigma only her dance could redeem—then thrown into the garbage bin along with that crumpled napkin on top of what was left of the chop suey, they should love each other fully today, and then tomorrow say farewell!

"And the fourth wish?" she said softly.

"A farm. A big farm. With all kinds of animals. Really, a zoo: cows and donkeys, but also peacocks and black-necked swans."

"I, on the other hand, see myself living in a big city. Paris, Madrid, New York."

"They already blew up New York."

"And nobody will ever forget it. Just like I don't want to forget what happened to my father."

"I understand. I know what it is to be obsessed by something. But I am just one step away from living my dream."

"How?"

"I will finally convince a great man named Nicolas Vergara Gray to become my partner."

"In what?"

"In a single, unique, and extraordinary adventure that will be forever remembered in the annals of history."

ANTONIO SKARMETA

"A robbery?"

"No, Victoria Ponce, a work of art."

those who lived near Plaza Brasil were enchanted with the horse; they fed him artichoke stems, and he thanked them by switching his tail back and forth. This action delighted the children, who took turns placing their heads in its path so it would muss their hair.

"How have you been, my dearest friend, apple of my eye?" Angel greeted his beast with this Cervantine flair before he and his girlfriend mounted and road off slowly to the nearest station of mounted police. The carabineros gave him permission to tie the chestnut horse up in their corral and come get him the following day.

Elsa, now working as the hotel receptionist, saw the couple arrive and turned off the little television behind the reception desk in the hotel lobby on which she had been watching the latest reality show.

"Were looking for a room for a few days," Angel said, placing some bills on the counter.

"Is the girl legal?"

"She's been my girlfriend for years."

"How old is she?"

"Twenty."

"Lets see, dear, what you're wearing under your coat."

"With this cold?" Victoria protested.

"Do it or leave."

The girl unbuttoned her overcoat.

"But she's a schoolgirl. You want them to shut us down?"

"First, she's seventeen. Second, I'm her brother."

"That's makes it even worse, son."

the dancer and the THIEF

"And third, Vergara Gray recommended that we come here."

Elsa put on her glasses and looked for a moment at the blank television screen as if it were still on. She opened the guest book and pushed it toward them so they could write down their names.

"We are part o£ Vergara Grays team. You understand we cant possibly give you our real names."

"I already figured that one out."

"I just thought I'd mention it so you didn't consider asking for our IDs."

"This fox has spent too many years in this lair, cutie-pie."

Angel Santiago placed the guest book next to Victoria and pointed where she needed to sign.

"Just put down any name," Angel told her.

"How about my art teacher's?"

"Perfect. What is it?"

"Sanhueza. Elena Sanhueza."

"I'm going to give you the room next to Vergara Gray's. But try not to get too enthusiastic during the night, or you'll disturb the maestro s sleep."

The receptionist made a move to hand them the key, but instead rested it on her lips.

"You have to swear to me that if there's an inspection, you'll say you came in illegally. I registered a Mr. Enrique Gutierrez and a Ms. Elena Sanhueza, who left for an unknown location after doing their dirty deeds. Agreed?"

"Agreed. The key?"

Instead of handing it to him, she placed it in front of her nose and breathed in deeply. "Something big?"

"What?"

"What you're planning with Vergara Gray."

ANTONIO SKARMETA

"If it weren't big, I wouldn't be working with him. You think I'm a small-time player?"

"Not at all. But if it is something really big, I'd like to help. Tell Nico that Elsa, at the front desk, said so."

"You tell him yourself. I'm nobody's messenger boy."

She lifted her eyebrows, looked offended, then hung the key up in its box. "Okay, then go screw each other at the Salvation Army."

Angel Santiago saw that Victoria was inching toward the door in shame and placed a hand on the receptionists shoulder. "Okay. I'll try to put in a good word for you."

"Because if it's a question of favors, he owes me quite a few."

"I'll tell him."

"Second floor, third door on your right."

"ask me another," Victoria ordered him at two in the morning, just as he was tracing a line on her inner thigh with his tongue.

"Aw, let's take a break."

"Please, anything."

"Physics?"

"Okay."

"What did Stephen Hawking write and what theory did he propose?"

"We reviewed that yesterday, didn't we?"

"You should remember."

"Hawking wrote A Brief History of Time, and he says that time has no beginning and no end."

"Perfect."

He pulled back the sheet and continued to savor her, moving around behind, up, and over.

"That's enough for now, you . . . I"

the dancer and the THIEF

The young man continued along his path, unperturbed, wiggling his nose in between her legs.

"What happened in 1989 in Tiananmen Square?"

"There was a massacre in Peking with the army and tanks."

He lifted his head to her chest and drew circles around her nipples. "What would happen to our bodies if the atmospheric pressure suddenly changed?"

"We would explode."

"Perfect. What was Saint Ignatius of Loyola's motto in life?"

" Tor the greater glory of God.' "

"Correct. What was the name of the first architect of the Egyptian pyramids?"

"Imhotep."

"What is a miracle?"

The girl buried her fingers in the young man's curly hair, which was impervious to any brush or comb, and tried unsuccessfully to untangle one of the most rebellious of his black locks.

"An event that happens against the laws of nature, perpetrated by supernatural intervention of divine origin."

"What is the scientific name for sweet acacia?"

" Acaciafarnesiana!*

"What is the organic compound that produces gout and rheumatism when it accumulates in the human body?"

"Uric acid."

"That's amazing, Victoria. You haven't missed any."

"Did you know all that before?"

"No, I've learned it with you."

The girl took his penis in her hand and pushed down his foreskin, then brought her face up close, breathing his scent in deeply.

"I couldn't control myself that first time."

"What are you talking about?"

ANTONIO. SKARMETA

"I came so quickly and all."

"Don't be silly. Those are just chauvinist myths. Women don't care that much."

"Well, I cared."

"I could tell you were pretty upset about it. But since then . . ."

"You really came just now?"

"Couldn't you tell?"

"The magazines say that women can fake it."

"My God, Angel Santiago. Don't you realize we're soaked?"

"You're right. What is parthenogenesis?"

"Reproduction of live individuals without the presence of male sperm. By the way, shouldn't we be using condoms?"

"You—"

"Never mind, I don't want to talk about that now. Geometry."

"What does the Pythagorean theorem state?"

"In any right triangle, the area of the square whose side is the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares on the other two sides."

"What is bile?"

"Pancreatic secretion."

"The names of the sons of Oedipus?"

"Eteocles and Polynices"

"Symptoms of a black widow spider bite?"

Victoria ignored Angel and mounted him. Once he was inside her, she gently began to ride him.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do."

"I'm too shy to say it."

"But not to do it?"

THE DANCER and the THIEF

"Language is sacred. Think of all those words racing around the world. They excite me."

"You don t have to be so academic. You could just say 'they turn me on.' "

"Yes, my love."

"Careful. The word love' has just made its debut."

The girl clenched her teeth, then contracted her pelvic muscles along the length of his penis until her whole body began to convulse almost violently.

"You made me come again, you beast," she said, collapsing onto his chest.

According to fresia Sanchez, proprietor of the bakery on the corner of Salvador Allende and General Schneider streets in the town of San Bernardo, the man who passed by the door at dawn, hugging the adobe wall as if trying to vanish into the last strokes of night s darkness, was Rigo-berto Marin himself

She later recounted that there were a dozen stray dogs following him, sniffing the ground and the air, as if trying to detect the source of the danger. The strays seemed possessed by some kind of ethereal silence, their attention focused on deeds much loftier than squirting on trees or electric poles.

It was the hour when workers straggled to the corner to wait for the buses that would take them to the construction sites downtown, and the contrast between them and Rigoberto Marin was like night and day: they were beginning their day while Marin was ending his night.

I'm glad he didn't come into my shop, the baker thought.

Nor did she envy anybody who opened a door for him. The man attracted death the way carrion attracts vultures, as if wherever his

THE DANCER and the THIEF

steps happened to fall, strife reigned, knife battles broke out, maybe a bullet that would bring the police to round up eyewitnesses and cart off the dead.

It was common knowledge that Marin had been sentenced to death and that only a merciful presidential decree had commuted his punishment to more than one life sentence without possibility of parole. If he had escaped from prison and was looking for refuge in San Bernardo, Fresia Sanchez thought, as she took the golden marraquetas out of the oven and emptied them into an enormous basket, the outlaw had acted astutely. In the first place, nobody dared squeal on him; in the second, there were numerous women of all ages who had benefited from his prodigious virility and would take great pains to protect him. They claimed he made love with passion combined with violent tenderness that both confused and excited them.

She herself had once heard the secret confessions of a widow, who had recounted with photographic precision how Marin had spent an hour caressing her and crying after he had done everything he wanted with her. In addition, none of his murder victims had been women, even if in this case the victim had been the woman's husband. Which didn't stand in the way, after the funeral, of the widow and Marin having a good, long screw in the Conchali Hotel, amid the funeral flowers and half-burnt candles, "Because I love you and respect him," the woman had told Marin.

Marin's ardor led men to somewhat less lyrical expressions of irony. They said that the bastard was so hot he could iron his shirts with his hands.

According to Fresia Sanchez, the fugitive was heading to the same widow s brick house. As irrefutable proof, a large number of dogs were stretched out on the street from the dear woman's front door to the facing sidewalk, scratching their fleas, getting in the way

ANTONIO SKARMETA

of the carts carrying fruit to the market, and stoically withstanding the bucketfuls of cold water the neighborhood women dumped on them to get them to disperse/

still rigorously dressed in mourning, the widow kept a shelf in her dining room exclusively dedicated to Saint Anthony of Padua, and on the small round table covered with an oilcloth and decorated with Chilean pastoral motifs, a glass held two daisies. Marin pushed it aside to make room for several dozen clams and two lemons, which he dumped out of a bag onto the table. He broke the first one open with a blow of his fist, squeezed a few drops of lemon juice on his victim to make sure it was fresh enough to wiggle, then placed it on the widow's tongue.

"For ten years IVe dreamed of a breakfast like this," Marin said.

"Of Chilean seafood?"

"Of you. But you've been untrue to me." Marin pointed with a somber gesture at the saint. "You've been true to him. And you still have that picture of the dead man. But there isn't a trace of me."

"You don't leave pictures, Rigo; you leave wounds."

The woman walked over to the stove and brought back a kettle of boiling water to pour into the two cups of Nescafe. The man chewed another clam with relish and pointed the knife at the widow as if it were simply the extension of his index finger.

"From the very first moment I was free, my steps led me to you."

"Did you escape?"

"Sort of."

"What do you mean, Rigo?"

"I'm on parole."

"The newspapers said you were given two life sentences and five years and one day. You can't lie to me. You escaped."

THE DANCER and the THIEF

"I did it for you. Nobody squeezes it like you do."

The woman placed her hand on the felons unshaven cheek. She caressed it with tenderness, then lifted his upper lip and looked affectionately at the space between his two front teeth.

"I'm not going to turn you in."

"Nobody in the world can know. If anybody finds out, I'm a dead man."

"Did anybody see you come here?"

"I crept through the shadows."

"I don't like people blabbing about how my husband's murderer is staying at my house."

"If he'd really loved you, he'd have gotten you out of this stinking hole."

"He had his moments, Rigo. But wine and unemployment sank him. This house is his, and I demand respect. If you don't like it, get out."

"Your wish is my command."

He picked up the empty shells, shook them in his hands, and let them roll over the oilcloth as if they were dice. "You know how to tell your fortune from this mess?"

"Clamshells don't work. But I can read your cards."

"No need. I always get the golden sun." He brought the cup of coffee to his lips, then quickly placed it back down on the table with a grimace of pain. "Shit, I burned my tongue."

The widow gave him some cold water, then stirred the coffee and told him to take another sip. Marin obeyed without looking away from the woman's large black eyes.

"The truth is, they let me out to kill somebody."

"Who?"

"A poor bastard who doesn't even have a record and whose only crime hasn't yet been committed."

ANTONIO SKARMETA

"I don't understand.''

"He's a handsome kid the warden threw into a cell with some sleazebags so they could baptize him his first night there. The warden took his turn, too. Now the boy is free and the warden is sure he's going to kill him."

"How does he know?"

"The kid told everybody, and the day he got out he swore he would do it, right to the wardens face."

"Kids that age are braggarts. Whatever they lack in experience, they've got in gab."

"Not this one. This one does what he says he's gonna do."

"And you?"

"The warden gave me a month. He planned it all out; everybody inside thinks I'm in solitary. Nobody'd suspect me."

"Why did you agree to do it, Rigo?"

"Thirty days, thirty wild nights. The first one with you."

The woman placed her hand on his knee, then moved it up his thigh. The flame of the heater began to fade under the bright morning sunlight filtering in around the edges of the crepe curtains.

"What happens if they catch you?"

"I told you, I'm dead."

He spoke these words as if conjuring up a curse, then walked over to the window and edged open the curtain. The dogs were still there, their noses in the dust, waiting for him.

"Dogs have followed me around ever since I was a kid. They come up to me, sniff me, then follow me wherever I go."

The widow placed her hands above the heater, then on her cheeks. The bed was unmade, just as she had left it when she jumped up to answer Marin's knocks on the door.

"Go to bed. Sleep will do you good."

the dancer and the THIEF

"I don't want to sleep, woman. I've got to take advantage of every minute of freedom."

She climbed onto her knees on the bed; with a little effort she lowered her panties until her strong copper-colored bottom was waving, naked, in the air. With one hand between her thighs, she cleared away the tangled mane that covered her pubis and, opening her lips, delighted in the palpitations and abundant secretions of her own vagina.

Rigoberto Marin let his pants fall around his knees and, without even taking off his worn-out brown tweed jacket, he walked over to the bed and approached the widow just the way her body was begging him to.

He jabbed it in her from behind.

Like she wanted.

Like a dog.

That night, vergara gray took a walk along the Mapocho River, its waters brown like the city's refuse that filled its banks. Old tires, scrap lumber, fecal matter, tin cans, rotten vegetables, branches, dead dogs, crushed pigeons, and, every once in a while, a human cadaver. After the military coup, people would stand on the bridges and point down at the dead floating by, their skulls and chests crushed by soldiers' bullets. There were days when the families of the disappeared would sit on these banks, hoping that the bodies they hadn't found at the police stations or the morgue would float by so they could give their loved ones a proper burial.

Now the city had been modernized and the Mapocho tamed by civil engineers. They diverted its course to build freeways, straight as arrows, that took the city's wealthy citizens from the exclusive suburbs to their banks downtown. The river was no longer the refuge of street urchins and young hooligans; now it was a kind of backyard to Santiago's financial center. Along its banks rose four or five tall steel buildings that aspired to being skyscrapers; Chileans, with their self-deprecating sense of humor, had unofficially baptized that pretentious, stuck-up neighborhood Sanhattan.

THE DANCER and the THIEF

Vergara Gray thought he could exhaust his cares by walking until he collapsed. In his present state of mind he might have thrown himself against the paving stones along the banks below, but the idea came and went in seconds. Suicide was an undignified act. Onlv somebody with no sense of modesty would expose himself to whomever happened by, his clothes torn up by blackberry brambles and sharp branches, his eyes devoured by rats, sockets staring empty out of a dead face.

Finally at daybreak, when the hint of light transformed his anguish into plain and simple sadness, he turned his steps toward Las Taber-nas Street and his room. My grave, he told himself. My tomb.

According to one of his favorite tangos, this was the hour when those who know they're dying bid farewell to the world. As he climbed the stairs, he loosened his tie and undid the top button on his shirt.

When he opened the door, he was sure it was the wrong one. There, in the middle of the room, above a table covered with a white tablecloth and beaming over a steaming pot of coffee and a basket overflowing with rolls, hovered the supremely clean smile of the young Angel Santiago, accompanied by a helpless-looking schoolgirl as thin as a ballerina.

"Breakfast is ready, maestro. Would you mind if we joined you?"

"What is that girl in a school uniform doing m this brothel? If they discover her in my room, Til go straight to jail. My freedom will have turned into a curse if I go down as a sex offender."

The boy jumped up and pulled a chair out for the man; after making sure he was comfortable, he encouraged him to shake the hand the girl was holding out to him over the table.

"This is Victoria Ponce. I'm helping her cram for an exam she has to take next week."

"In this dive the word 'cram' seems especially appropriate."

ANTONIO SKARMETA

The boy pointed his finger directly at the girls forehead. "What is the main characteristic of an amoeba?"

"It is only one cell," she answered quickly.

Angel Santiago rubbed his hands together, then spread his arms out as wide as he could to bring everyone's attention to the delicacies on the table.

"Help yourself, maestro. Two marraquetas, two colizas, three hal~ lullas, three jlautas, four cold tostadas —because the stove had a short circuit—three onion rolls, and three slices of kuchen with raisins and candied fruits. Happy birthday, Don Nico."

"Today is not my birthday."

"Details, my dear professor. I bet if you go to a funeral you make them show you the body, and if you go to a baptism, you have to see the baby. Just enjoy your breakfast without so much fuss and bother!"

Vergara Gray let them pour milk into his Nescafe and spread butter on his marraqueta. He continued to study the girl as he took his first bite. She responded to his stares by moving the sides of her nostrils in and out like a rabbit.

"What are we really celebrating, Mr. Santiago?"

"The beginning of the execution of the Dwarf s plan."

"Oh, really?"

"Yesterday I was in the maintenance area of the Schendler plant. I went to the cafeteria where the elevator mechanics eat. It s the least secure place in the world. They leave their jackets with their identity badges just hanging there and go sit down."

"I'm pleased to see that you entertain this girl with your fairy tales."

"Its no more a fairy tale than there are three halves to a whole."

Moving from words to deeds, he took a blue plastic bag off the

the dancer and the THIEF

bed and pulled out two jean jackets, holding one up in each fist, like a fisherman showing off his giant catch.

"And what does this have to do with the Dwarf s plan?"

"I already told you we were celebrating the beginning of its execution. We still need you to do your part."

"What are you talking about, you fool?"

The boy brought the jackets over to show him the Schendler Elevators identity badges on each one. The faces of the rightful owners had been exchanged for those of Angel Santiago and Vergara Gray.

"Just take a look at the details!" the boy bragged.

"Where did you get those pictures?"

"I took mine on Matte Street. Yours, I downloaded from the Internet. Your entire career is posted online. Now its just a matter of checking up on sources and writing a novel about your life "

With furrowed brow, the man chewed a marraqueta spread with butter, then turned to Victoria, who looked back at him as she silently drank her coffee with milk, waiting for what he would say once he swallowed the bread that was slowly dissolving in his mouth.

"What is the epidermis?" he finally mumbled.

Victoria cast about in her chair, looking silently at Angel for help. The boy deliberately rubbed his hand against his skin.

"No cheating, young man!"

"The epidermis is the collection of materials that make up the border between the organism and the external environment," the girl said emphatically.

"And where did you get the seal of Schendler Elevators to stamp our pictures with?"

"That was a cinch, maestro. In every elevator in the city there's a tiny window with a piece of paper where Schendler s seal is stamped

ANTONIO SKARMETA

to indicate when the last safety check was done. I broke one with a little hammer and put the rest together on the computer, shrank everything in a color photocopier, two snips of the scissors, glue, plastic cover, and ready to go."