The woman started swaying on her chair again and looked at the screen. The heroine in the soap was having a lousy time. Fine, thought Conde, that’s the price you pay for being a heroine in a soap.
“Did you get that, Jose?” the Count then insisted, craving the attention he thought he’d lost.
“Yes, I got you… And what if you don’t like what I find out? Hey, Condesito, let me tell you something. You know you’re my son too and that I’ll find out what you want to know. I’ll act like a policeman. But you’re making a mistake. I’ll tell you that for nothing.”
“Don’t worry. You help me. I need some badly… And is the little fellow awake yet?”
“I think he’s listening to music on his headset. He just asked me if you’d rung… There’s some fried rice for you in the pot on the stove.”
“Hell, you really are my mother,” said the Count and, after kissing her on the forehead, he started to ruffle her hair. “But remember I want that info.”
The Count entered his friend’s room, a plate in one hand and a chunk of bread in the other. His back to the door, his gaze lost in the foliage of the banana trees, Skinny was singing very quietly the songs he was listening to on his headset. The Count made an effort but couldn’t identify the tune.
He sat on the bed behind the wheelchair and, after lifting the first spoonful to his lips, kicked the wheel nearest to him.
“Say something, savage.”
“You’ve put me on the scrap heap,” Skinny protested, as he took off his headset and slowly swung round the chair he was sentenced to.
“Don’t gripe, Skinny, it was one day I didn’t call on you. Yesterday life got very hectic.”
“You could have rung. Things must be going welclass="underline" look at the bags under your eyes. So? Did you dance her?”
“We danced, but I didn’t get to dance her. But look,” he said, pointing to his shirt pocket, “I’ve got her here.”
“I’m happy for your sake,” said Carlos, and the Count noted a lack of enthusiasm in that declaration of happiness. He knew Skinny was thinking how a relationship like that would deprive him of nights and Sundays in the Count’s company, and the Count also knew his friend was right, because at root nothing had changed between them: they continued to be possessive, like insecure adolescents.
“Don’t have a go, Skinny, it’s not the end of the world.”
“I really am happy for you, you beast. You need a woman and I hope you’ve just found one.”
The Count put down his plate that looked as if it had been washed clean and flopped onto Skinny’s bed, glancing at the old posters on the wall.
“I think this is it. I’m in love like a dog, like a mongrel. My defences are all down: I don’t know how I can fall in love like this. But she’s beautiful, savage, and intelligent.”
“You’re exaggerating. Beautiful and intelligent? Hey, you’re talking a load of shit.”
“I swear by your mother she is. If it’s a lie, she needn’t save any more fried rice for me.”
“So, how come you didn’t lay her?”
“She told me to wait, that it was too soon.”
“You see, she can’t be that intelligent. How can she resist the ardour of a brilliant, handsome good dancer like you? I mean…”
“Just go to hell, will you? You know, Skinny, I’m fucking worried. That night, after listening to Andrés, I couldn’t stop thinking about what he said. I know he was half drunk, but he spoke with feeling. And now something really upsetting has just happened to me.”
“What’s that, brother?” he asked, knitting his brows. In the old days he’d have swung his leg when asking a question like that, the Count told himself, as he recalled his conversation with José Luis.
“Can I tell you something, savage?” asked Carlos, as he interrupted the movement he was about to make in his chair. “If you put yourself in the skinny kid’s place you’ll realize that basically he’s right. Remember one thing: a school is often like a prison, and he who talks, loses out. The pay-off for the piper. He’ll have a reputation for being a snitch the rest of his life. Would you have talked? I don’t really think so. But though he didn’t talk, he gave you a crumb: something or everything’s up. The marijuana scene, the teacher’s affair with the head and God knows what else. That’s why he didn’t talk, because he knows something, or at least imagines he does. He’s no cynic, Conde, it’s the law of the jungle. What’s terrible is that there’s a jungle and it’s got a law… Look at yourself: you spend your life remembering. Don’t you recall how you knew about that fraud when the Water-Pre scandal broke and you shut up like the rest and you even went into the exams knowing all the answers in advance? Didn’t you know that when they came to paint Pre-Uni they stole half the paint and so couldn’t paint inside the classrooms? And don’t you remember how we won all the banners and all the competitions in the sugar cane because there was an insider in the warehouse who gave us sacks that weren’t ours? Have you forgotten all that? Hell, what a policeman. My friend, you can’t live on nostalgia. Nostalgia deceives: it only reminds you of what you want to remember and that can be very healthy at times, but it’s almost always counterfeit currency. But, you know, I don’t reckon you’ve ever been fit for life. You’re beyond the pale. You fucking live in the past. Live your life now, guy. It’s not such a sin. No kidding… You know, I don’t often talk about it, but I sometimes start thinking about what happened to me in Angola, and I see myself back in that hole under the ground, three or four days without a wash and eating a mouthful of sardine and rice, sleeping with my face stuck in that dust smelling of dried fish that’s all over Angola, and I think it’s incredible anyone can live like that: because what’s curious, is that it didn’t kill us off. Nobody died from that and you learned something existed like another life, another history, that had nothing to do with all we were going through. That’s why it was easier to go mad than die, stuck in those holes, without the slightest fucking idea how long it would be for and not once seeing the face of your enemy, who might be any of the people we met in the villages we passed through. It was horrific, brother, and what’s more we knew we were there to die, because it was war, and it was a lottery and you might strike lucky and get the number to get out alive: it was that simple, and totally out of your hands. So it was better not to remember. And those who forgot everything resisted best: if there was no water they couldn’t wash, spent three or four days without washing their face or teeth and even ate stones if they could soften them up and never said they were expecting letters or talked about how they were going to die or were going to be saved, they knew there were going to be saved. Not me, I acted like you, shit full of nostalgia, and I’d start reckoning up how I’d got there, why the hell I was in that hole, until I got shot up and then they did take me out. I got my bloody number in the lottery all right, didn’t I? I don’t know why you force me to remember all that. I don’t like remembering because I was a loser, but when I do think about it, like now, I draw two very clear conclusions: Rabbit is a bastard if he thinks that history can be re-written, and I’m fucked, as Andrés says, but all the same I want to keep living and you know it. And you know you’re my friend and that I need you, but I’m not so selfish to want you to be fucked here next to me. And you also know that it doesn’t make sense for you to spend your life blaming everyone else and blaming yourself… The skinny lad is probably a cynic, as you say, but try to understand him, pal. Come on, solve this case, find out what happened at Pre-Uni and do what you have to do although it pains your soul. Then shag Karina and fall in love if you have to and enjoy it, laugh and screw, and if it all goes pear-shaped, take the pain, but keep living, because we have to, right?”