Friday arrives. Eloísa tells me to meet her at one in the afternoon. On the dot, she writes in the last of seven messages she sends me the night before. She also says: All ready, I got gloves. I don’t reply, I concentrate on the drawing of the snake, the huge tome lying between my legs. The idea of the robbery is spinning round my head and even though it only ever sounds unreal to me, just another story, sometimes I become more practical and try to visualise it. I think of the consequences, the laws and the social aspects, about the benefits too, the money I could use for I don’t really know what. The most sensible thing would be to give up before it’s too late. When my eyes start to close and I no longer have a firm enough hand to carry on tracing the boa with its million scales, I grope for the mobile and two seconds before I regret it I text: Fine.
I’m punctual, as Eloísa asked me to be; at five minutes past I ring the bell and it’s clear she’s been waiting for me. The iron gate slides back with a sigh to let me through. Her head appears at the back of the garage above the car roofs. She waves without speaking, nor does she say anything when we are face to face, she gives me a quick kiss and a manly pat on the shoulder. I can see her properly now we are entering the kitchen. Her hair is wet, combed slickly back, just out of the shower. She’s dressed in a red vest top that clings to her body and dark blue jeans, also tight. She isn’t wearing a bra. If I didn’t know her I’d say she looked reliable and determined. It’s as if the role of thief in which she’s about to make her debut should be underpinned by a change of appearance, to give her courage and throw people off the scent. She asks if I want coffee, she doesn’t offer me alcohol as she usually does, I suppose staying sober is part of the plan. I accept half a cup and as I drink I think that, in this mini gang we have formed, she would be the boss and I the henchman.
First, before the action, a brief conference in the everyday dining room. We go through some rules: avoid making noise and dropping things, nothing to attract attention, speak quietly just in case, leave everything in its place, even the slightest little thing, keep the gloves on until the end. Surgical gloves that Eloísa hands to me seriously as if they were a secret weapon. We just need to allocate roles, to decide how to carry out the coup. The question is whether I accompany her or keep lookout. The second option sounds more prudent but if I stay alone on the ground floor and someone enters it will look suspicious. We’d best go together, Eloísa concludes, we can always invent something. Say I wanted to show you the jacuzzi, some bollocks like that.
At the foot of the stairs, giving me to understand that from now on the real adventure has begun, that setting foot on the first step is already part of the crime, Eloísa shows me a clenched fist. A code of the underworld I haven’t yet grasped. I respond as best I can, imitating her with much less enthusiasm. The curved, solid banister serves as a guide for my ascent, my latex skin gliding over the wood frictionlessly, as if it had just been waxed.
Upstairs, the walls are populated with family portraits, all the same size and identically framed. Axel’s parents by the sea, him, heavily bearded, her, pregnant, hair long and uncombed. Cheek to cheek, they are both biting a slice of pizza, two perfect sets of teeth marks. Next to it, Axel and his sister, in little sailor suits. Teenagers, with braces, and more up-to-date snaps, the four of them together with slightly forced smiles. There are also black-and-white portraits, grandparents, great-great-grandparents, children from the past, Axel’s ancestors. What are you doing? Eloísa calls me, sticking half her body out, two doors along.
The room is as immense as a room can be. Eloísa drops out of character and for an instant is the same as ever. She jumps and belly flops onto that limitless bed where four or five could easily sleep without bothering each other. What bastards, she says, looking at the ceiling. On the other side there’s a chest of drawers with a collection of perfumes and silver figurines: an army of naked dwarves with very pronounced penises. Have you seen the state of the bathroom? I lean in: the famous jacuzzi next to the window, a massage table, the toilet with bronze seat and lid, luxurious but cold. In a corner, an exercise bike, handlebars folded. Ready, says Eloísa, rubbing her hands together. Once more she becomes serious and stands up determinedly.
There it is, she says, gesturing to a sliding door that opens in the middle of the wall. We move into a dressing room with a mirror at the back. To the right, women’s clothes, dresses, skirts and coats, to the left, an endless row of men’s suits, more or less identical, many grey, some black or blue. Eloísa moves ahead and unhooks the mirror. Ta-dah, she says as she uncovers the safe. Guess where the key is. She points out two rows with fifty-odd shoes on either side. Party shoes, heels, boots, sandals, clogs, slippers. No, I don’t know. Another clue: It’s red and for women. I don’t answer. Eloísa takes a step forward, bends down, she’s about to unveil the mystery.
And suddenly: a door slamming, a creak and another slam. Hide the gloves, Eloísa tells me, tapping me with her finger so that I keep silent. She’s been knocked off course, she doesn’t understand, she interlaces her fingers and twitches them, asking me for an explanation that naturally I won’t be able to give. We allow thirty seconds to pass, immobile and expectant. Eloísa re-hangs the mirror on the wall and leaves the shoe in its place. Act as if nothing’s happened, she says, leaving the room. From the corner of the staircase we see that the door to Axel’s room is opening, he stays as quiet as us, disconcerted. Eloísa is quick: You scared us, dickhead, she says and raises a hand to her chest. Axel shrugs apologetically. What are you doing? he asks. She wanted to see, says Eloísa, nodding towards me. Oh.
Axel tells us without anyone asking that his psychiatrist, he calls her the girl, stood him up. She isn’t answering her mobile, or her landline, she doesn’t seem to be anywhere, she’s been kidnapped as far as I can make out. Eloísa forgets about the jewels, she hides it well, and goes out to the garden: Be right back. Have you eaten, Axel asks me. I make a gesture he understands as a no and he brings a bag of crisps, a tin of palm hearts, cheese slices and Coca-Cola from the kitchen. They leave me alone in the middle of the house and I would flee like before but I’m scared of getting trapped again. Eloísa returns with her hands busy rolling a joint. She winks at me behind Axel’s back, inviting me to stay calm, as she moves her lips to say: All fine. We smoke, we eat, we make ludicrous conjectures about the whereabouts of the psychiatrist. We laugh like good friends. Axel becomes animated and unfolds the giant screen to watch television. A flick through the channels and we get caught on a video clip: a guy in a motorbike helmet next to a cardboard tree. Magically, another guy appears at his side, a kind of hippy with a Creole guitar and his hair in his face. Between them, a desperate-looking girl. They sing: There’s someone living inside of me as if I were his house. The chorus is catchy, Eloísa joins the choir, Axel la-la-las, I’m shuddering. I think about Tosca, about her tumour, the spud, which lives inside her as if she were its house. At the end of the song, the boy in the helmet is alone once more, steaming up the visor with his breath.
I’m off, I say at one point, assuming that it’s getting late. Axel makes a joke I don’t hear, at which he laughs alone. Eloísa walks me to the bus stop. Crossing the avenue, she pulls my arm: It’s all good, he didn’t realise anything was up. He totally bought the thing about me showing you the house. I don’t reply, in fact I don’t give her the pleasure of making eye contact as she wants to. Eloísa gets annoyed, my silence bothers her. We’ll do it next Friday, she says and becomes bold: It can’t happen twice in a row. We’re immune. That’s what she says: immune.
Under the bridge, without stopping, I tell her no. Best not. Why not? She squeezes my wrist hard. She repeats indignantly: Why not? Eloísa forces me to stop and I’m standing between her and a bed of curved bricks separating the pavement from the embankment. I try to think and I end up saying something that only makes it worse: Why don’t you do it yourself? Eloísa becomes furious, she speaks with a fresh hatred. You’re a shit, she’ll spit out at least four times before she finally leaves. I cross the street. Before disappearing into the tunnel she shouts again with all her anger, her hands cupped around her mouth to produce a megaphone: Baaack-staaaaabber.
The heat pushes us out to the street during the night. Everything sticks to us, mattress, clothes, hair. Simón tosses and turns in bed emitting thin little whimpers, mouth closed, like a subjugated animal. I observe him from the corridor with the door open to see if the air is moving out there, until he sits up and looks straight at me with the face of a bad-tempered adult announcing that he won’t stand it any longer. He gives up trying to sleep. At the entrance to the building there’s a group who, like us, can’t tolerate enclosure and have come out in search of unlikely relief. There’s Perico, el Buti’s brother, crouching under a tree; nearer us, more visible, a couple of teenagers drinking beer and a fat family with their radio blasting. Benito and Tosca aren’t there; I wonder how they’ll manage to bear the heat in that chaotic apartment with such low ceilings. I can see Canetti with his limping gait, coming and going, his head bowed as if he has lost something. Luckily, he doesn’t notice me. We move away, streets, passageways, the train tracks. We reach a paved plaza where an indigenous camp is set up under the motorway and we turn back. I can’t get it out of my head: There’s someone living inside of me as if I were his house.