“You brought me that vaina?” he asked from behind her, almost brushing her nape, a hoarse voice that of course was his, you didn’t have to be a magician to figure that out. She jumped. She hadn’t expected it to happen like this, that he would surprise her from behind, and she must have grown suddenly, because when she said hello, her voice sounded like an impostor’s, like theater parley. He, on the other hand, was very calm as he sat beside her. He was, in fact, grinning.
“A pretty smile,” Lorenza told Mateo. “Your father had a pretty smile.”
“He hadn’t lost the tooth yet,” Mateo cut in. “He used the word vaina? You’re saying Forcás told you vaina? He used that exact expression, You brought me that vaina? It’s so Colombian.”
“That’s what he said. He must have already known where I was from.” Aurelia knew right away that the man beside her smoked, it was the first thing that her nose registered when she met a person. But she noticed another smell as well, one that she liked, the smell of raw wool from the heavy pullover he wore.
“His famous thick wool pullovers.”
“This one seemed woven by hand, and it emitted an aroma that inspired confidence, a pleasant animal smell.”
“A pleasant animal smell or the smell of a pleasant animal?”
“A smell like sheep. I’m just trying to tell you that he was wearing sheep’s wool. But your father also smelled like a third thing. He radiated energy and youth, and that smells too. It smells strong and is alluring.”
“It’s called testosterone, Lolé.”
“I wouldn’t have called it that. But now that you’ve said it, he was a hunk of a man, your father. Of course he exuded testosterone.”
“If anybody questions us, let’s just say that we met in your country, last year,” Forcás proposed, to get their minute straight.
“Got it,” she responded. “And what were you doing there?”
“I have an export business.”
“What do you export?”
“Leather goods: When we parted there, you said you would call me as soon as you arrived in Buenos Aires, so that I could show you the city.”
“Nice. And who introduced us in Colombia?”
“Someone in your family. You tell me who.”
“My brother-in-law?”
“Your brother-in-law was my contact for the sale. Give him a name.”
“Patrick.”
“Patrick what?”
“Patrick Ferguson. Let’s say he’s an Australian.”
“If they ask you anything else, say we’re just getting to know each other and don’t know a lot about each other.”
“Not even names?”
“You’ll say my name is Mario.”
The place was loud, and Forcás spoke very softly and with a pronounced Buenos Aires accent, so she had trouble understanding everything and had to lean in closer. Maybe it was because of this that at first she smelled him more than watched him. A little bit later, when she leaned back and adjusted her angle of vision, she noticed that indeed his shoulders were wide and his hair was pretty, not exactly the color of honey, more a light chestnut, but it was the same, it was still handsome, everything about him was handsome, Sandrita had not lied about a thing.
“So then it’s true, my father has wide shoulders like Patrick always said. But you didn’t tell me what happened with the chat.”
“What chat?”
“The one you left in Humberto’s Mercedes.”
“Shawl, kiddo, shawl, the scarf.”
“Right, right, shawl.”
“I never found out. Since I never saw them again, I never knew what became of the chat.”
“And the boxes?” Mateo asked.
“The boxes?”
“The ravioli, Lorenza, the ravioli.”
“That’s exactly what your father asked on the day we met at the table in Las Violetas. He asked me what was in the boxes, and it surprised me that he was surprised.”
“Oh, I just brought you this vaina. It’s ravioli,” Aurelia told Forcás.
“Ravioli? Are you nuts? Who would be stupid enough to walk around with boxes of ravioli on a Monday?”
“You see, Mateo, why I was so sure that our first meeting was on a Monday?”
“What was wrong with ravioli on Monday?”
“Very bad. When Forcás threw it in my face like that, I started blubbering, embarrassed that I had screwed up again. ‘But she told me,’ I tried to explain, ‘yesterday my contact told me … ’”
“Listen, yesterday was Sunday, nena,” Forcás whispered in her ear. “The ravioli would have been good yesterday, but not today. The pasta makers are closed on Mondays. It’s suicide to walk around with that on Monday. Except for you, there’s no other retard walking around Buenos Aires with boxes of ravioli. No one eats ravioli on Mondays here.”
“You’re the one who switched Sunday to Monday, how was I supposed to know? How should I know what they eat here on Mondays, as far as I am concerned they eat shit,” she exploded. Sandrita had already lectured her and now this Forcás was copping an attitude from the start. “Besides, I’m warning you,” she told him, “don’t start calling me stupid, or petit bourgeois, and definitely not retard or nena, because I am not a nena, and will not put up with this shower of insults, I’m up to here with all of it.”
“Did the comrades harass you too much?” Forcás asked, softening his voice to placate her and unleashing his seductive smile.
“That’s all they’ve done lately.”
“There must have been other fuckups like this one. It’s stuffed, this one with the ravioli. What about the other box?” Forcás asked, half mocking.
She turned red again because she knew he was right, she had to be more careful or there would be a catastrophe. By then he would have lit one of the green-label Particulares 30, which he sucked on willfully, as if eager for cancer.
“Okay, so now tell me why they called my father Forcás. Aside from the sheep smell, what else made him seem like he was from the country?”
“Just that, the sheep smell. I learned later that your grandmother Noëlle knitted those pullovers for him, using wool from the different types of sheep they raised at the farm in Polvaredas.”
Maybe if she had observed Forcás with a more prophetic eye, she would have even then picked up on how aggressive he was, which was evident in the violence of his movements and his intransigent opinions. Although it had to be that way, more so because he was a soldier than because he was from the country. The truth was that on that first day, Aurelia didn’t see him as someone from the country, perhaps because all she noticed was that he was the most attractive man she had ever met. She never found out what time he had arrived at Las Violetas, or if he had already been there when she arrived, watching her and waiting until the last minute to appear. The thing was that he was there now, seated beside her, gazing at her with those presumptuous eyes and quizzing her on why she had brought so many boxes.