March draws to a close without incident. Living in the city isn’t that bad sometimes. A week before Easter, when autumn is beginning to make itself felt in the balmy nights, the days gradually shortening and the leaves on the trees fading in swathes, Eloísa reappears. She texts the mobile I’d forgotten existed: axel going to miami, she writes like that, all lower case, a whisper. Not even a minute elapses before she calls me. Did you read it? Yes, yes. I’m alone, understand? No, I don’t want to understand, a wave of interference conceals my muteness. She seems to have hung up, Simón shows me a beetle limping across the middle of the room, and entertains himself by finishing it off with several stamps of the feet. Are you at home? Don’t move, I’ll be there in ten.
Another Eloísa, yet another, jumpy as always. Leather hat, raw silk scarf knotted round her neck, all in denim, looking like I don’t know what. That’s life, is the first thing she says, not even greeting me. All of a sudden, bish, bash, bosh. Axel’s sister got engaged to a Yank and the whole family is getting together in Miami. Imagine the ugly mug to get hooked by that girl. The important thing is that Axel is travelling on Maundy Thursday and returning the following Tuesday. A week and a half to do what I want. Do you realise? She demands that I be the one to translate what’s in her head. But she gets impatient and resumes: The jewels, you daft cow, destiny is calling us. We’ll sell a couple and we can fuck off. To Miami. No, not Miami, she says, imagine if we bumped into Axel’s folks. She spits out a blank laugh. Brazil would be better, a little beach, who’s going to waste time looking for us two. It’s now or never. Trust me, nothing will happen.
The door opens and Herbert comes to my rescue. I’m going to work, I say. Eloísa suggests accompanying me. I decline, I have to take care of lunch first. We’ll speak later, a useless attempt to get rid of her. Impossible. Back me up here, don’t be a wimp, she blasts in my ear and I don’t understand why she needs me so much, she could do it alone and still come out on top. Fine, let me think about it, I give in just to get her off my back. She corners me: Saturday or Sunday? I hesitate, if I speak I’ll condemn myself. She decides: I’ll expect you on Saturday at ten. And in my ear: If you don’t come, you’re dead to me.
The week passes quickly. Tosca feels better and threatens to venture out to the street, Benito manages to get her a tripod walking stick which he retreads with wire and duct tape. During a night of fury Simón bites my breast and leaves me twin scars very near the nipple. The fights between Sonia and Mercedes can be heard as if they were in the flat next door; Herbert makes no comment, he continues with his double shifts at training. Eva disappears, they locked her up or cleaned her out, according to gossip. Canetti plucks up the nerve to do what I didn’t: he gets himself thrown out of the zoo. I’m going to kick up one hell of a fuss, they’ll see.
Saturday comes round and, rather than erasing the film of the robbery that keeps playing in my mind, Eloísa’s silence functions as a stimulus. I knew it, she says shaking her head and she embraces me as if I’d come back from the dead. You can’t let me down, we’re practically sisters, aren’t we? First, at the door, I bump into Marito, the family’s loyal employee. He’s leaving as I’m entering. We greet each other as usual, I wonder whether he’s in on it, whether he’s joined the gang as a necessary accomplice. Eloísa explains without my asking: I made people come and go all day so they’re recorded on the cameras, to throw them off. We sit in the dining room, Eloísa goes to her room to look for a joint. I’m such a pot-head, she says. For a while I’m left alone in front of the map of cheeses, which I examine in detail. She returns with a bottle of beer. For starters, so she says, and we make a toast. As I crumble the marijuana, she prepares mini pizzas in the electric oven. She chats to me through the wall, she invents conversations to distract me. How’s Simón? she asks as if she cared. I swear I don’t know how you do it, there’s no way I could have a child. It must be something being a mum, is it? We smoke, we drink, we eat, in that order. My tongue gets tangled round the threads of mozzarella, Eloísa becomes transcendental: Last night I had a vision of cavemen. I pictured them round a fire, partying, half mad, same as us deep down, fucking, chowing, sleeping. Imagine what we would have been like back then. There must have been two girls like us. And Axel? Can you see him hunting? A faggot caveman, she concludes, and releases a cackle I can’t replicate.
She coughs, clears her throat, rubs her hands together and emits a man’s voice: Let’s go for something stronger. From the kitchen to the living room. We put on the slippers and slide over to a false mappa mundi next to the piano, which Eloísa opens at Ecuador. Several bottles stand like fish out of water, mouths gaping. To calm me, she says: The fat cow went to visit family in Rosario, so the coast’s clear. She closes her eyes and her index finger leaps from cap to cap: Eeny meeny miny moe. We have the dregs of a cherry liqueur.
The bottle empties quickly, we move on to an imported whisky without letting chance intervene. Any idea how much this must cost? She pours two generous glasses which we clink together, To a new life, she says, and I smile thinking that she must have been repeating the phrase all this time. A good pet phrase. The first gulp burns my chest. All this preamble makes me think the plan will come to nothing. And indeed, for fun, and because they are to hand, we start rifling through the pile of vinyl records that Axel’s parents keep in a chest. Lots of jazz, some operas and a collection of messianic music: Paul Wilbur, Israel’s Hope, Torah Torah. We’re flummoxed by the needle and the speeds on the record player but then we manage to get it going. Eloísa dances alone, clapping between her legs tarantella style. Tosca and Syracuse. The Hassidic medley begins with a sugary prologue that makes Eloísa laugh like a madwoman.
Our eternal father lives; the heavens,
the earth, all creation exalts him.
The people of Israel live and, every Shabbat, recall
the miracle of creation and ask for peace and prosperity.
The Lord blesses you from Zion and shows you
the glory of Jerusalem of our days.
May your children’s children live to see
true peace in Israel.
At twelve-something we approach the staircase. Upstairs, she walks in front, I linger at the portraits hanging on the wall as if hoping to discover a secret. The hidden intrigue behind Axel’s family. I enter the bedroom and in the centre of the dressing room I see Eloísa frozen. Before speaking, as if no words were sufficient, she stretches out her arm and gestures across a shoeless shoe section: That fucking bitch. Certain that she’s joking, I smile. But no, she grabs her head, holding it between her hands as if it were about to come off. It’s no joke. The bloody idiot went and found out, she says, and points to a shelf above the rail holding the fur coats, the evening gowns and the sheathed suits: piles and piles of identical white boxes.
I say nothing but I think that perhaps Orfe put the shoes away in boxes because Axel’s mother asked her to. Or because she does it every so often to give the dressing room a thorough once-over. A cleaning routine. I keep quiet. Her mood quickly changes. Wait here, she says, and shoots off. I crouch down and sink my hand into that thick, soft carpet, like a slumbering beast. Eloísa returns with the bottle of whisky which we left unfinished, an ashtray and cigarettes. We split the task, sharing out the boxes, grabbing three each and putting them back in their places. Before we start, Eloísa reminds me: Red and shiny, spike heels. I wonder what must be going through her head at this point. What will push her to carry on. I can’t believe anyone could have so many shoes. After uncovering more than half the boxes and getting nowhere, Eloísa, who was initially taking the search as a game, begins to get annoyed. If I didn’t know her better, I’d say she was on the verge of crying. Let’s go again, she says. This time the command is to forget the red shoes, which are nowhere to be seen, and check the others one by one, sticking a hand inside, because if someone was suspicious they’ve more than likely put the key in a different place.
A first piece of carelessness, a box that Eloísa doesn’t bother to close, unleashes the chaos. It seems ridiculous to be tidy if she isn’t, so I join in. Once again we reach the end to no avail, but worse than before, the mountain of shoes that has formed between us, that brightly coloured monster with a thousand points, is the living image of delirium. It can’t be, she says, beginning to doubt herself. I had it in my hands only yesterday, I swear. And once more she rants about Orfe, who must have put everything away that same afternoon before leaving. I think perhaps she’s right when she says they found her out, or at least sensed something, and someone took care to hide those red shoes somewhere safe from Eloísa’s imagination.
We can still change what is yet to come, we’d have to calm down. Actually, I would have to calm Eloísa down, persuade her that it’s nonsense to persist with this, that it was a good idea, but fate didn’t want it that way and that’s it, we have to resign ourselves to it. Let’s forget about it, that’s what I would say. Then we’d have to start organising that cluster of shoes, matching pairs, returning the finest to their tissue paper, putting them away in the boxes, piling them on the shelf in rows of three, the way we found them, and carry on getting drunk with no further pretensions. In her anger, incapable of dealing with her frustration any other way, as I mentally rehearse a short speech of persuasion, Eloísa grabs a shoe by the heel, the one closest to her, a suede number, and vents her fury by flinging it through the air. She is, we are, unlucky that the shoe hits the mirror, which breaks the way mirrors break, weaving spider webs without actually falling to pieces. Now there’s no going back. That must be why, after a silence that lasts the time it takes Eloísa to form a big, silent Oo, we end up laughing at the absurdity.
Come on, she says. She comes unhinged. She flies downstairs not looking where she’s putting her feet, defying gravity, on the verge of an accident. I follow a few metres behind, ornaments whirl across my path, including the urn containing Axel’s grandfather’s ashes, which scatter over the carpet. She doesn’t even turn round, she enters the kitchen and carries on to the basement. But instead of heading for the games room, she opens a small door camouflaged against the colour of the wall: the maid’s room. Unstoppable, Eloísa starts going through Orfe’s bedroom, swiping blindly, with no real intention of finding anything. Only anger. She opens boxes, hurls clothes over the floor, lifts the mattress, she shows no mercy to a knitted crucifix which she unthreads angrily, she breaks everything she can. On the sidelines, leaning against the doorframe, seeing her in action, I can’t find the words to object. I pick up an old ID covered in leather that lands on the floor next to my feet. In the photo, Orfelina de los Milagros, that’s her full name, has a cheeky, embarrassed smile, her hair tied tightly back, a white blouse with flounces and a tartan V-necked sweater. I can’t and don’t want to think about Orfe’s life, about the way she’s always been, but I can’t help letting myself be swayed. Before abandoning the room, when there’s nothing left to rip apart, Eloísa lights a match and threatens to burn it all.
It’s half three and we are still on an uncontrolled merry-go-round. The alcohol and the hours of madness could make my eyelids droop at any moment. Eloísa is pale, sweaty, she smokes without pause. The plant tattooed on her arm changes colour, from green to black. As if she were going to die. We empty half the bar, we annihilate two bottles of whisky, a half-litre of vodka and one of anisette. Sitting on the armchair in the living room, I fantasise that the remains of Axel’s grandfather are resuscitating in search of revenge. I avoid looking at the floor.
What comes next is difficult to relate. Or not to relate but to remember, to give some logical order to. Once again we go upstairs and, faced with the chaos in the dressing room, Eloísa is going to kick doors, smash two bottles of perfume against the wall, pee on the carpet, and I, somewhere between incredulity and fright, have an epiphany. On a partially hidden shelf, on a different level from the rest, I discover about ten shoeboxes we haven’t checked. For an instant I don’t know what to do, whether to stay silent or cherish one last chance. I’m leaning towards the latter in the hope that everything will be over quickly. Look, I say, and Eloísa pounces on the boxes, causing a landslide. The red shoe, of course, shiny, spike heels, comes to light. Once the euphoria passes, key in hand, Eloísa takes down the broken mirror, which ends up shattering into pieces the minute she rests it on the floor, and opens the safe effortlessly.
The loot, the jewels, are under a pile of files which Eloísa passes to me saying: Chuck these over there, tear them up, it has to look like junkies were here. For the first time she mentions them, the thieves, and then everything else, the destruction in Orfe’s room, the stripping of the bar, the wild behaviour, fits perfectly. Creating confusion, that’s what it’s all about. It’s part of a plan that was never revealed to me. For the false clues to be effective we would need to devastate the whole house, set fire to the barbecue area, the rooms, destroy the bunker, the cars in the garage, which would take us a whole day.
I obeyed and ripped to pieces what I assumed to be title deeds, contracts, wills. Eloísa embraced the trinket cases. We examined the jewels as if we knew what we were doing: rings, earrings, chokers. Many seemed to me like cheap bijouterie, fancy dress. With others, however, there was no doubt: a pearl necklace, a teardrop-shaped emerald charm, a star of David adorned with diamonds. Eloísa bagged it all in a crocodile-skin handbag. Weren’t we going to take one or two? And what about the ones to plant in Orfe’s room to incriminate her? Nothing, no answer, there’s no place for discussion and I’m exhausted.
Finally outside, when the gates have closed and I’m hurrying on, wanting to leave the nightmare of the last few hours behind, Eloísa stops short, turns round and retraces her steps. I pay her no attention, I keep walking until my curiosity betrays me and I turn round to watch her. She crosses the small plaza that splits the avenue in two and looks for I don’t know what among the bare flower beds. She returns to the front of the house armed with munitions I can’t identify because of the night and the distance. She positions herself, measures the angle and throws a stone, a piece of rubble or tile, aiming at the camera on top of the gate. She misses. Three more like that, and the fourth is the winner. She hits the bracket and the camera comes off its axis, lying on its back, filming the sky. Bolts and thunderclaps. Eloísa jogs up to me with the first raindrops, her gaze lost.
The heat means that as the water comes into contact with the pavement it transforms into a thick vapour, a rain of fire that is extinguished on the surface. The downpour is unleashed and we realise that neither of us has money for a taxi. We’re rich without a single peso. Not even coins. Eloísa says there’s sure to be something in Axel’s room. I tell her no. That if she goes back I won’t wait for her. She doesn’t insist. Several blocks on foot in the rain until a bus driver feels sorry for us and takes us home for free.
We are soaking wet when we arrive. I change in the bathroom, into tight shorts and a blouse stained with ketchup or something red. Eloísa strips off in the middle of the room, she puts on her studded T-shirt and some jogging bottoms, which she rolls up several times so as not to step on them. I’m dead, she says and throws herself down on the bed squeezing the handbag full of jewels to her stomach. She curls up next to the wall below Herbert and Simón, who are sleeping with their arms around one another. I feel equally wiped out but I’m terrified to close my eyes and be trapped in the circles of insomnia. In order to relax, I start tracing what’s left of the snake. Its head is never-ending.
The rain seems to have stopped now. A strong wind has got up and the branches of the paradise tree beat against the window like whiplashes. Tzas, tzas, tzas. I find it hard to believe a new life is about to begin.