Increasingly locked in the cul-de-sac of the future awaiting me if I remained marooned in those grimy territories, I preferred to focus my thoughts on plans to raid the riches of Faith Oxen. The idea of stripping her, while she was still alive, of the goods she’d shamelessly hid in her bedroom wardrobe, inside a safe embedded in the wall, seemed rather repugnant, not in terms of the larceny itself, but because afterward, I’d be forced to beat it with my booty, and that would deprive me for good of the close contact I so desired with Blondie. I’d still not discounted the remote, if crazy, possibility that I might bend her ear and claim her groin as my trophy. The idea of killing the old girl to steal the pearls and gold trinkets of hers from Moscow or wherever that made her cache so tasty seemed wildly attractive, but Slim would have immediately thought her violent death suspicious and come after a share of the spoils. In the event, trapped as I was between my filthy fantasies on hot nights at the temperate Trinitarians’ and my days spent surviving the dizzy whirlwind of history, I concluded that the most sensible solution was to dance to the tempo of a death that looked increasingly imminent, awaiting the inevitable denouement, so that’s what I did, although that didn’t mean I just folded my arms; quite the reverse, I hastened the end on, sweetening the old girl’s repose with tidbits, pastries, anisette, chocolate bars, and other succulent treats she downed in excess. She was diabetic and peed too much.
I’ve always mocked the recalcitrance of people who, when faced with the disastrous aftermath of their misfortunes, have been unable to grasp a transcendent sense of metaphysical inevitability. Though they call it bad luck, they don’t see it as a set of circumstances prearranged by Providence where attempts to change or redirect are expressly forbidden. That’s the self-deceit they endure. They believe they are champions of freedom but are puppets of destiny. One-Eyed Slim didn’t know what the meaning of his life was but ploughed his furrow, on behalf of short-term gain, in rough-and-ready instant pleasures, drifting from day to day without worrying overly about the mysteries tomorrow might bring. That’s why, when a bomb blew his life to smithereens, in that last second that must always exist, he didn’t experience terror, pain, consternation, or fear — only disappointment. I should add that I was really lucky not to have accompanied him, as he’d intended, to the encounter where he’d been summoned by Esteruelas, along with three other individuals the newspapers never mentioned. My time wasn’t yet up, and consequently, not imagining what the outcome might be, I didn’t jump to his orders, and I let him go to his death, walking up the street to the cafeteria where GRAPO had placed a device that would blast them heavenward.
A drop of caramel syrup spreading over a dish of pancakes was the last thing Slim contemplated before the shock wave smashed his one-eyed view of the world. It could have been worse; his last snapshot might have been the dark circle at the end of a revolver barrel aimed at his watery eye, but that wasn’t the case. Things happen as they do, however much we struggle to change them. Destiny is the text, and happenstance the calligraphy in the book where Providence lists the circumstances of our punishment. Slim concluded his odyssey sundered into a thousand pieces that would never be put back together. He would never have survived these chaotic times at the dawn of the millennium.
Nobody tries their patience today selling books in the metro. Times slough their skins, foreign customs are homogenized, and the masses finally temper their historical role as protagonists, except in the strictly sporting realm. Worship of football has totally replaced the interest in politics that was so much in vogue in Spain. Freedom has turned into a good to be bought and sold, and the people’s anthem, the victory song of fans. It wasn’t the case then. People then went hoarse proclaiming their ideals on the street, and sporting spectacles were restricted to more out-of-the-way locations, in the pigsties of the intellect. Apart from fools and rednecks, nobody ever read the sporting press in public, for fear of a reproachful glance or an irritated gesture from a passerby; now, you know, the opposite is the case, which guarantees rich pickings for all those who know how to derive profit from the general dumbing down. When you’ve done with me, I recommend you do what I did: make the most of the ignorance of others, sell them stickers, junk, or simply air wrapped in colorful cellophane. You just see how you won’t regret it. The crux is to not worry about sabotaging human dignity and to camouflage your profits behind the drivel that is so popular about solidarity, social commitment, the sponsoring of children for a television marathon, or defense of the environment through advertising. Have yourself a ball. The grandiloquent spectacle of wealth basically stupefies the masses and predisposes them to do what they are told. Though the outlandish wealth of a minority demonstrates how shitty a social system that organizes individuals into units of consumption is, there lies the rub: it prospers, and nobody seems to be aware of the disaster. Let them eat trash and cheerfully share the incomparable experience, in the belief that they are free; let them teeter on, while others research new markets and explore unheard-of profit lines. Individual idiosyncrasies, the absurd dimension of people’s presence in this world, are rooted in financial potential. Wealth dignifies, money extends horizons; if one has some, there’s no limit to one’s caprices and they are catered to on demand. The clouds clustered over existence can perhaps only be grasped from that deepest ennui wealth brings or by the extreme vicissitudes of poverty. The enigma of time can solely be perceived from this perspective; past, present, and future are uncoupled from the immediate moment and stand out as metaphors for everything. Only death unveils the cardinal truth hidden in life, what was once ordained and never ceases can only reach culmination in death: the universal diktat of Providence.
I knew, I can tell you, that Faith Oxen hoarded the unknown riches she’d been gathering during her stint on earth in a safe embedded in one side of her bedroom cupboard. Might a watch incrusted with rubies right down to its innermost cogs be lurking in that enclosed, secretive darkness, or could a jewel of untold carats be sitting there silently, or was there a pile of American cash in wads of high-value greenbacks? That treasure was a real riddle that I spent my time trying to unpick. I’d put my ear to the other side of the wall when Faith Oxen was opening it and hang on every sound her hands triggered. There were crick-cracks and metal tinkles my brain absorbed and distilled in its sickly imagination. It all fitted perfectly. The hypocritical old girl had devoted her life to haranguing the masses while behind their backs she espoused the cause of wealth and accumulated rather than distributed. In her heart of hearts, she was afraid of being abandoned, and no social system, not even the one she advocated to the world, would have treated her old age with the reverence she required on the final straight. Mental and physical incapacity reduce a human being to a passive scrap of skin and bone in the miscellaneous hands of third parties. She never revealed to anyone the existence of her hoard — not even notionally, although in the hours of repose after our amatory larks, she’d sometimes drop the names of lovers and the contents of the presents they’d lavished on her in return for her favors. Old age, among other things, confirmed the depths of her pettiness. “You’re like me. You only believe in what you’ve suffered, and that’s why you’ll live on, Gregori. You don’t have any scruples, and one day wealth will knock on your door,” she said, her voice quivering in her throat, “but first the worms must lick my bones clean.”