Lying on the grass, wracked by the pain issuing from his battered anatomy, Mario Conde realized he couldn’t pinpoint how long he’d needed before finally daring to open his eyes, because in spite of his wishes, only one eye raised its lid, the bare minimum necessary to see that night had fallen and he was alone. He closed his working eye and felt the other, only to find a moist, latent swelling extending from his eyebrow to his cheek. Had they knocked an eye out? he wondered, momentarily forgetting his conversation with the Enlightened One, because thirst and pain were pummelling him, and he felt a desperate desire to cry from his surviving eye. He fought off the pains shooting up his back, knee, stomach, face, the nape of his neck and, especially, from inside his head, pulled himself up and, hands against the ground, rode out a dizzy spell that was regrettably non-alcoholic. From the heart of darkness he saw he was on empty wasteland and a few minutes later glimpsed, 200 metres away, a poorly lit street along which the odd car sped. He wondered if it would be best to crawl to the street, but was afraid he might cut his hands on the broken glass that was no doubt scattered among the grass. He summoned all his energy, pulled himself up on his knees and, holding his battered head, made the supreme effort necessary to totter to his feet as if in one of his most drunken moments. He then realized that he was barefoot and, when he touched his chest, that he was bare-chested too. And what about that eye? Had they really knocked it out?
Twelve falls later, burnt by the thirst searing his throat, with a new sharp pain in the sole of his left foot, the remnants of Mario Conde finally made it to the road, and he saw he was near the silent, rusting power station that cast its gloomy, geometrical shadows over the wasteland. He thought his best option would be to cross the street to the service station and try to locate Yoyi or Manolo from there, but doubted he had the strength to make it that far. Before attempting such a risky crossing he’d have to recoup energy; he flopped to his knees in the grass, and was unable to stop his body from collapsing in the direction of the pavement. He probably lost consciousness as he fell because he felt no pain when his face hit the concrete.
The hand swabbing his sore eyebrow and cheek brought him back into the land of the suffering. The stabbing pains were so severe that the Count struck out.
“Hey, easy does it, Bobby,” said a voice. “They gave you enough to eat and take away… Let me clean you up a bit, then they’ll X-ray you up to your ears.”
Conde realized the voice wasn’t his enlightened friend’s and, imagining he must be in a place as mundane and nasty as a hospital he asked: “Did they knock one of my eyes out?”
“No, it’s still there but in a mess.”
“Who are you?”
“A nurse. The doctor gave you a painkiller and we’re going to stitch you up now.”
“With a needle?” asked the Count, appalled.
“Yes, of course, though you’ve got so many holes we could use a sewing machine… Up you get… now faint again, I’ll start on the eyebrow…”
“Wait a minute… Let me weep a few tears first…”
“All right, but make it quick.”
“Hey, by the way, you ever seen a big guy around here in an orange tunic?”
“Yes, he was round and about, but went off to the carnival. Come on, faint, then I can get on with it.”
Five minutes or hours later the Count moved his eyelids and suspected he really was dead – definitively, unequivocally dead, as if someone had ignored all his sins and he was ascending to heaven, where an angelical voice said: “It’s him, it’s him.”
When he opened his working eye, he could see, from his supine position, Tamara, Candito, Rabbit and Yoyi’s faces: his blurred brain worked out that the voice he’d heard belonged to none of those archangels. He dropped his head to one side and found himself level with the face of Skinny Carlos, leaning forward in his wheel chair.
“Hey, brother, you got one hell of a pasting.”
“You’re kidding, Skinny, they didn’t even take an eye out.”
Mario Conde refused to report the incident. He thought it would be absurd, a sign of softness in the head, to start telling a policeman that some bad guys had kicked him to pulp because he’d poked his nose somewhere he wasn’t invited. Besides, who could he blame for his drubbing apart from himself, his own naivety and stupidity? The unlikely names of Veneno and Michael Jordan were the ones that came to mind as possibly being behind the attack, but lack of proof and his conviction that both would have set up good alibis were grounds enough to see that making a statement would be futile. To cap it all, in the depths of his battered self he felt gratefuclass="underline" they were only telling him he was unwelcome in the barrio and bidding him farewell in their time-honoured manner.