Daniela didn’t give a damn about my refusal, of course, but when she found out that Edgar wasn’t coming either she started to panic. Swallowing her contempt, she made up her mind to talk with me during recess, escorted by her best friend, a girl named Gina, a really nasty girl who loved to spread horrible gossip about Daniela — that she slept around with guys from other schools, that she popped pills, that she’d had an abortion — when the truth is that both of them were crude, dumb girls, real sluts, both obsessed with being the beauties of the class when they were actually pretty average, Daniela with a boob job and her face always smeared with makeup, like a high-class escort, and Gina short and fat, an Indian-looking face with slanted eyes, which in that city meant she was the kind of girl that all the guys ended up with at parties when they were already drunk and stoned and none of the other girls would put out, anyway, Gina and Daniela sought me out during the long recess and found me in the place where I was reading, on the waste ground at the far end.
Manuel, said Daniela, I felt really bad when I found out you weren’t coming to my party, I mean, like, that’s terrible, the whole point is so we can all be together! So I asked my mother to call your house and speak with your parents, and guess what, she’s just sent me a text saying that she talked to your mother and there’s no problem about you coming.
I hated them, Consul, because of the stupid importance that women give their birthdays, but I restrained myself, I didn’t want to give them the satisfaction of insulting them, so I said, look, Daniela, I don’t like parties, I won’t be good company, don’t take it badly, but she glared at me and decided to lay her cards on the table, of course I take it badly, she said, very badly, not because I give a damn if you come or not, it’s your life, right? nothing to do with me, but it’s just that Edgar says he won’t come either and of course that’s because of you, so I have to ask you to come, I’m asking for a favor, just one little favor, nothing more, I’ll give you whatever you want, I’m quite serious, it’s important to me that he come, when he arrives you can go, if you like I’ll get the chauffeur to drive you home or wherever you like, but don’t spoil this for me, all right? it’s my birthday, dammit!
I told her it was too much: if I left home I couldn’t go back half an hour later, so she said, all right, then tell me what the hell you like to do and I’ll treat you, maybe you’d like to go see a late-night movie? would you like to go to a restaurant? I really will treat you, whatever you say, ask me for whatever you like, shit, there must be something you like, isn’t there?
Deep down she was suffering, so I said: I’ll try to persuade Edgar but stop fucking me around. You already screwed things up for me calling my house. And don’t worry, you’ll never understand what I like, not in a thousand years.
Before the end of recess I talked with Edgar and told him he should go to the party, it mattered a lot to the girls. Then he, being the unpredictable person he was, said: I have an idea, man, a great idea! I’ll take my mother’s car and we’ll go to Daniela’s for a while. And then we’ll go whoring, okay? The hour has come to live the life of the Parnassians, to explore brothels, which is where real life is, the real world, are you up for it? I told him I was.
And we went there, Consul, in a Citroën I’d never seen before. I was very nervous because Edgar didn’t have a license, although with his contacts and his luck it was unlikely anything would happen. When Daniela opened the door her face lit up. The pounding of the music hit us full on. She hugged Edgar and gave him a kiss as we went in. She was wearing a tight miniskirt, fishnet stockings, and very high heels. The perfect drawing-room whore. Edgar handed over his gift and, without looking at me, she grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside. I stayed back, with my gift dangling from my hand.
I preferred not to go where everyone else was, so I went and sat down in the living room, by a window. A minute later a waiter passed with a tray of drinks and I gestured to him, but he didn’t stop. Then I moved to a second living room from where you could see the parlor. All my classmates were there, and people from other years. Some weren’t from our school. They had set up a big screen to show videos. I thought to go out on the terrace and smoke a cigarette, but at that moment a woman in an apron approached and asked me if I wanted to eat something.
I said yes, but then didn’t see her again.
Sometime later I saw Edgar among the others. He was dancing with Daniela and around them there were other girls raising their glasses and drinking toasts in time to reggae or rap or some other kind of music. I looked at my watch: an hour and a half had gone by. I felt hungry and was starting to get impatient. It didn’t look as if Edgar wanted to leave. Slowly I walked back along the corridor, opened the door, and walked to the elevators. When one of them opened, two classmates who were arriving late came out, laughing loudly.
How’s the party? they asked, is it good?
Very good, I said, and pointed to the door at the end of the corridor. They didn’t even register the fact that I was leaving.
I went outside. It was drizzling.
I didn’t have money for a taxi so I started walking without worrying about the drizzle. I’d have liked to have my paint cans with me, and I thought that if it stopped raining I’d go to the wall. I had an urgent need to express something: revulsion, anger, humiliation. I missed my colors, but there was still quite some way to go. After a few blocks I noticed something in my jacket pocket. I put my hand in, it was the gift I hadn’t managed to hand over. I opened it to see what Mother had bought, and to be honest I was pleased I still had it with me. A box of handkerchiefs. I threw it in the nearest trash can and carried on along Seventh. If I was lucky I could find a bus that went to Usaquén.
When I got home the lights were still on, so I decided to wait. Father and Mother were watching television in the living room. I took out my cell phone, thinking I might call Juana, but then remembered she was traveling. Under the eave of the garage there was a dry spot and I sat down to wait. It was still raining, more heavily now. I was cold and tired, but I’d received a lesson that was more important than the cold and the tiredness.
I never went back to Edgar’s house, in spite of his repeated invitations. We’d see each other at recess and he’d ask me, what’s up, brother? but I’d say, nothing, problems at home, I’ll tell you later. He told me about the party, how the time had passed and they’d gotten him drunk.
I fucked Daniela in the bathroom, man, he said, on all fours and against the washbowl, and I almost fucked the other whore too.
But I didn’t listen to him, just smiled and shrugged. With time he got tired of seeking me out.
It was better that way.
Losing my only friend strengthened me, Consul. Solitude accentuates what you have inside you, so now I devoted myself to walls. I had already seen one in the upper part of Usaquén, more than three hundred feet high. It was on the edge of a lot where they were going to start building something. It wasn’t completely clean, of course, it already had a few things on it, rude drawings, the odd word, hearts, a few old posters, but, far from bothering me, this gave me strength, as if the soul of the wall was in a crude state, just waiting for an image.
I went the next day, still feeling revulsion at the previous night. My hands were shaking as I grabbed the spray can. It was my first wall outside my own neighborhood and that was tantamount to a conquest, to pushing back the frontiers, broadening my horizons. I looked at it for a while from the opposite sidewalk and felt it palpitating, so the first thing I painted was just that, the silhouette of a palpitating heart, a heart that was at the same time a small continent drifting, and as I contemplated it from the sidewalk, it acquired relief, its veins and folds emerged, along with the outline of the surrounding water, the devouring monsters, the storms that lay in wait for it.