Time with tortoises. Giant ones, from Aldabra. Relatives of those from the Galapagos. The female isn’t as restless as the male. Esteban taught me to distinguish between them, explaining something about concave and convex. A characteristic that allows copulation. I’ve spent two months coming and going without paying any attention to this naturally lit tank at the centre of all my movements, with its tree trunk, pool and mattress of rotten vegetables. Tomato, carrot, celery and a thousand mysterious little green pieces. The rain and Yessica’s absence force me to find a pastime and my feet lead me to contemplate these two fantastic beasts. I stand in the corner, my forehead supported where the walls join, occasionally glancing up to see whether anyone’s approaching and intercepting them in the aisle to check their ticket. Two minutes of observation are enough to humanise them, to project myself into the enclosure, into the slowness, to load all that weight on my shoulders. The female won’t acknowledge me at all, always motionless by the side of the pool. The male, almost twice her size, he certainly moves, initially erratically, circling her, chasing something with black skin, it could be aubergine. I try to count the rings on the carapace to work out his age, impossible, I immediately get lost. A loud voice brings me back to my post. It’s a tall, slim woman, her wrists covered by metallic bracelets, chink chink chink, and five children flitting round her like gnomes. I wait for them to disappear and return to the tortoises. The male, now, to my surprise, is up against the glass, right where I had been standing. Courteous or standing guard. When I’m face to face with him, not before or after, he stretches that aged alien neck of his and strikes the glass with his rapacious beak. He calls me, challenging, he wants something. And not just one blow, there are several, phlegmatic, but rhythmic, like a code. Here I am, he seems to be saying. A statement, a threat, a greeting. Since I can’t interpret it, he stares at me and the pecking accelerates. I could swear he’s saying something about captivity, his ancestors and all the humans he’s seen pass by. As many living as dead, for me. Can’t you see? They’re all here, engraved on my retinas. Before he starts speaking, I lean towards his fellow beings, the land tortoises. Much more numerous, mobile and superficial, incapable of making eye contact. Terrestrial.
Eloísa asks me to meet her a few blocks from Axel’s house. She writes: HV 2 C U URGENT. There are eleven text messages in the day and since I’m not going to reply to any of them, she calls: Why do you never answer, dickhead? She says we’ll meet at eleven at the pizzeria before the bridge. I’m about to refuse but I stop myself. Since Herbert is still at home I ask whether he can stay with Simón tonight. No problem, there’s never any problem.
The bus drops me at the door, a minimalist kind of place, television high on the wall, facing mirrors from floor to ceiling, illuminated photos of pizzas and three guys eating standing up at the endlessly multiplied counter. Eloísa hasn’t arrived. I prefer to wait outside, up on the bank at the edge of the train tracks. I look towards the avenue to see whether she’s coming. Ten minutes, fifteen, nothing. A couple, a guy alone, another couple, two boys on skateboards. From the darkness of the bridge, a strange figure is becoming clear, it could be Eloísa but it isn’t, much taller and with shining hair. The night spins out the intrigue and I take advantage of being on this slope to conceal my surprise. It’s her: white fur coat, miniskirt, transparent silk blouse, high heels and a wig.
I walk down to the pavement, I question her with my hands and discover that she is also plastered in make-up. A rookie transvestite, slight, inexperienced, taking her first steps on the street. But Eloísa’s bitter expression contrasts with her crazy appearance. I’m so fucked off with it all, is the first thing she says and she ushers me into the pizzeria. We sit on stools at the end of the bar. Eloísa takes off the coat, rolls it up and rests it on the foot rail. A thin, hairy, tame dog. However far away we move, all eyes are infectiously drawn to us. Eloísa is the target, of course, I’m just part of the package.
The fat cow caught me in the dressing room looking for the key to the safe, that’s how she begins. She didn’t see me, I’m sure, she came in two seconds later, but I really shat myself. You have no idea. I told her there was a fancy dress party and that Axel said I could use his old lady’s clothes. Almost the truth. She says that Orfe kept watching her as she started trying on dresses, wigs and shoes. She wouldn’t go away and Eloísa had the key in her hand and couldn’t leave without returning it to its place. She was there for half an hour not knowing what to do. Total bummer. Finally I put on this coat and d’you know what the old bitch says? I shake my head. What are you supposed to be going as? she imitates Orfe’s voice, like a stupid bird. A right whore I almost told her, Eloísa laughs loudly and as she talks and drinks beer she gets worked up like a man.
Now that we are no longer a novelty, we entertain ourselves watching television like the rest of the customers in the pizzeria. A hot-air balloon has lost control and is flying aimlessly, guarded by two aeroplanes that are trying to guide it to the sea. Underneath, on the screen, it reads: Prisoners fleeing by balloon caught mid-air. We fantasise that the ropes get tangled with the wings of the planes and they all go under together. The images are being transmitted live from Arizona. But our attention doesn’t last long, the guy behind the bar, in charge of packing up pizzas, stretches out an arm, changes channel, sighing as if he doesn’t believe any of what they’re saying, and puts on a boxing match.
We get two slices of napolitana each and Eloísa returns to the matter of the robbery between mouthfuls. I’m going to have to kill her, she says and throws out a wild, foamy cackle. I laugh with her and, seeing her properly, I don’t understand why she’s still wearing the wig. And the key, I ask. All fine, the old bitch got tired and eventually left me alone. You won’t regret it, she fires at me and I can’t remember saying I would join in her plan. It has to be this Friday. Axel’s going to the psychiatrist at one on the other side of the city and Orfe’s going to cook with the nuns. There’s no danger of anything. With just one of those rings we’re made. For them it’s a just a bonus. What difference can it make to them? Since I don’t answer, she becomes bold and tries out a phrase that surprises even her: You’ll see, we’re going to start a new life. Eloísa is animated by what she has just said and repeats the last few words, over-articulating, as if she’s found the slogan she was looking for: A new life, do you realise?
I offer no opinion, nor do I contradict her. I prefer to let things follow their natural course, then I’ll see. I bet Eloísa gives up anyway, when faced with the delirium. A pause to chew and she returns to the subject: I have an idea, she says. Let’s make a bed for the fat bitch, she deserves it. She means incriminating Orfe by putting a necklace under her mattress, or in her wardrobe, Yes, better in the wardrobe, between the clothes, badly hidden, so they can find it easily. She looks at me expectantly, she wants me to give my approval, but I stay silent. I don’t feel like opposing her and I consent without meaning to.
On the way out of the pizzeria, Eloísa removes the wig, puts it inside the coat and hides the bundle behind a group of dense bushes at the foot of the bank. Another dog, this time stray and crouching. I’ll grab it on the way back, she says. Who’s going to take it? With no fixed direction, we snake through the dark streets lined with tall banana trees until we come out at a corner overpopulated with teenagers, in groups, alone, in couples, an obligatory meeting point for their nocturnal outings. It’s Saturday night, I take a while to remember. In Eloísa’s words: This is where the wannabes hang out because they don’t know what the hell to do. In that couple of blocks, the traffic, both in the street and on the pavement, has become a kicked anthill.
We move away, some boys shout I don’t know what at us from one pavement to the other. Eloísa answers them with a rough screech: Suck my tits. When it seems the night is taking us nowhere, Eloísa grabs me by the arm and leads me into a shopping arcade with the blinds down. Come on, she says, you won’t believe this. A broad aisle with shuttered premises on either side, we climb a stationary escalator, more shops, all of them shut, fishing gear, tattoos, lottery kiosks, model aeroplanes. We pause at the window of a place selling masks and disguises: witches, monsters, presidents. Bugger, says Eloísa, I should have brought mine. And for a moment I try to imagine her walking all those blocks in the fur coat and wig. No, I just can’t picture it.
Another escalator and, at the end of the corridor, a dark glass door with a neon sign: Shantytown. I slow my pace, wanting to go back. And Eloísa, who let go of me a while ago, sensing my resistance, takes me by the hand again and drags me to the entrance like a mother with a rebellious child. The guy on the door, in suit and trainers, draws back a plastic chain. Hi girls, that’s what he says and shows us his golden front teeth. I have to get rid of my keys first, then all the coins in my pockets so that I don’t set off the metal detector.
At first glance: a small stage with two towers of speakers, bodies and heads milling about, a circular dance floor with tiles that illuminate rhythmically, tables and chairs in corners against the wall, streamers, more bodies, a beach bar. It will take a couple of minutes for my eyes to get used to this new light, like a restless fog. Apart from a spotlight spinning on its axis, the rest, skirting boards, corners and outlines, are delineated by blue tubes that conceal everything that isn’t white. Eloísa moves ahead of me and asks for a bottle of beer, which is handed to her capped with two red cups, from a child’s party. There’s a three-for-two promotion. We make a toast: To us.
The DJ takes it upon himself to keep the night lively too. He directs the dancing, arranges choreography, signals to someone, a couple, a man, a single woman, the guy in the palm-tree shirt, you in the fuchsia miniskirt, he makes it clear with a laser pointer and issues instructions. A god of the night. Let’s see, let’s see the brunette shake her booty. Where are those sharks? Work it, hotties, work it, he says, his voice serious, quivering, mouth stuck to the microphone producing a series of aquatic sounds, like seal kisses. And now for this sweet cumbia. It’s going out with a subliminal message, so no one’s gonna be left with the horn.
More beer, I hurry down three glasses in one go. I lose Eloísa somewhere, I wander round several times in vain until I locate her on the dance floor. I avoid her, but she’s seen me, she stretches and catches my arm. I’d rape this guy, she says in my ear, pointing out a guy who won’t stop smiling. His friend takes advantage of the opportunity to approach me, he takes me by the waist. I have no means of escape. I move, I pretend I’m dancing. The guy sticks his mouth to my ear to speak. You’re so beautiful, he says, I don’t understand the rest. A gap between songs, I excuse myself with a flick of the hand and aim for the toilets with the bottle under my arm. On the way, I hear: Get me a …
I pee with my eyes closed. A cliff appears to me and an old-fashioned girl in petticoats with her legs up who shows me everything. In the background, a mass of flares lights up the sea. Where did that come from? On my way back, I see Eloísa jumping in the centre of a ring of three guys who are blowing her kisses and moving very close to speak to her. I look for the darkest corner and start drinking beer, without wanting to but without stopping.
Where are you going? Eloísa shouts at me, leaning over the rail a second before I disappear. I gesture to say I’m leaving. And I exaggerate the modulation so that she can read my lips: I’m zonked. Come on, she insists but this time I stand firm, I’m not going to give in. She lets me go and warns me with her index finger: Friday, don’t forget. Yes, yes, Friday.