— Shameless! Scandalous wench! And the kitchen still looks like a pigsty!
Whispers, murmurs! The three of them lying in wait inside the zaguán: the One-in-Blue, the One-in-White, the One-in-Green. Three fulsome young bodies, laid out across the cool porch tiles, O grace! And standing at the threshold, two adolescent girls overseeing the street with vulture eyes.
The One-in-White purrs softly into the avid ear of the One-in-Blue; and the One-in-Blue listens, breathless, mouth half open in an enigmatic smile, eyes lost in an enigmatic gaze. And the One-in-Green? Very grave, she has brought her golden head close to her two companions’ heads. The One-in-Green would like not to listen, but listens; she wishes and wishes not to listen, and she hears with her ears, with her eyes, with her trembling skin. She’s listening, the One-in-Green: whispers, murmurs!
With a start, the One-in-Blue sits up, eyebrows arched, pupils dilated.
— No! she exclaims, incredulous. It can’t be!
— No doubt about it, confirms the One-in-White with a deep, insinuating, significant look.
— What about her? asks the One-in-Blue, still not over her astonishment.
With her index finger the One-in-White beckons to the eager heads of her companions. Their lips move: whispers, murmurs. Suddenly the One-in-Blue, who hasn’t missed a word, raises her head and bursts into uncontrollable laughter, eyes half closed, mouth wide open revealing gums of coral, the white pinions of her teeth.
— Oh, oh! exclaims, laughs, sobs the One-in-Blue.
Still laughing, she falls back in slow motion, so that her skirt rolls back like a wave, revealing tanned knees and the troubling zone where her thighs begin. And still the skirt shrinks back!
— Ah, ah! moans the One-in-White as she half sits up.
She is shaken by a gust of laughter; she bends like a palm tree in the wind. The straps of her gown slide down over her shoulders to reveal a Hesperides of incalculable abundance. But the One-in-Green does not laugh: she has reclined on the tiles, her nostrils flaring as though she scented a region of fire.
What are the two adolescent girls up to? The two adolescents, upon hearing the explosion of laughter, have turned their eyes back toward the interior of the zaguán, toward that world still barred to them. Now they look at one another, as if wondering: they smile, enigmatic. Perhaps they guess! But their sharp eyes go back to scrutinizing the street, and suddenly their birdlike faces light up.
— The guy with the hat! they shout. The guy with the hat!
— Where? the One-in-Blue wants to know.
— Right here on the sidewalk.
Escaping La Hormiga de Oro, Adam Buenosayres tasted a mixture of shame and indignation. How long was he going to let himself get caught up in the subtle webs of female creatures? Just now, pompous as a peacock, he’d been contriving lofty concepts about life and death. And a few cute moves by Ruth were enough to bring the entire machinery of his speculations crashing down to the ground!
— But all the same, hell of a girl! If that old bag hadn’t stuck her nose in… And now, the nymphs in the zaguán. Careful, now!
Twenty metres up ahead was the opening of the zaguán with its red paving tiles. Heads up! Where were the nymphs? Suddenly Adam heard their hot whispers, their stifled laughter. Should he turn back or cross the street? Too late! The two adolescent girls standing guard at the entrance were already drilling four malignant eyes into him. They sensed his hesitation and smiled wickedly.
“Glare at them ferociously, they’ll bow their heads. Or stare at them lasciviously, and they’ll look away with a smile of tacit consent. The real danger is with the hidden nymphs.”
Adam Buenosayres forged ahead. Nearing the zaguán, he nailed the girls with a Gorgon stare. They backed away. The easy victory seemed to boost his daring, for when he got to the zaguán itself, he explored it with firm eyes. A single glance took in the cluster of women frolicking and on fire: the One-in-Blue, the One-in-Green, the One-in-White, semi-reclining, propping one another up, their heads together, mouths pressed against attentive ears, lips displaying the entire curvature of laughter, audacious forms being laid bare as dresses ebbed, eyelids drooped, nostrils flared. Whispers, murmurs! Moving on, he thought he could feel eyes biting him from behind; the women in the zaguán must have broken with their poses to poke their heads out and watch him go by. And he was right; a chorus of tremendous laughter filled his ears.
“They’re laughing at my hat. Ergo, they’re not laughing at me. That old rascal Alcibiades!”
But the gaggle of girls had stirred up in him a dark elation.
“Devilishly pretty, and strong! Armed for combat: line of redoubt, parabolic fortress, bastions of curves and angles. Ready for offence or defence. And graceful as colts. A yearning to stroke their sleek necks, or give them a thrashing.”
A dark exaltation, desire for triumphal violence. In short… Adam frowned: he’d just noticed the Flor del Barrio,11 and at the same moment Juancho and Yuyito, who were cautiously manoeuvring in her direction with a mischievous expression on their childish faces.
“Those brats are up to no good,” he said to himself.
Decked out and heavily made up as usual, the Flor del Barrio stood in her doorway, facing down the street in the same direction as always, showing no other sign of life than the feverish activity of her eyes. He would find her standing like this at any time, in any season, peering eternally at the same point. The bride waiting in ambush, perhaps, a terrible image of waiting. So, too, did the men on the street see her, never getting to the bottom of her mystery, maybe not even noticing the presence of an enigma in those unhinged womanly eyes, never wondering what absent love, what stranger might arrive through that sector of the street watched over so agonizingly by the Flor del Barrio.
Yuyito and Juancho were now close to the woman.
— Flor del Barrio, isn’t Luis on his way? they asked, laughing. Flor del Barrio, where’s Luis?
The woman appeared not to have noticed them at all. Yuyito darted closer and lifted her flowered skirt a bit.
— Doggone little brats! Adam rebuked them. How ’bout I fetch each of you a clout!
Cool as a cucumber, Yuyito stared at him attentively. Turning to his buddy, he posed the following question in a singsong voice:
— Who kicked the butcher’s cat?
— The guy in the goofy hat! Juancho sang in serene reply.12
The two of them took off up the street. Watching them flee, Adam had no idea that their childish hands were soon to untie the easy knot of war. He’d crossed Murillo Street and was now walking along blackened walls, amid pestilential wagons, all belonging to the Universal Tannery. The workers of the third shift were stretched out on the ground, sleeping heavily with their caps under the nape of their necks, waiting for the wail of the siren that would soon call them back to work. Adam stole quietly among the sleeping bodies and observed their half-open mouths, their wheezing chests, and their hands scattered here and there like discarded tools.