AS IF THE WORLD WERE ENDING
ENNIO’S ARRIVAL WAS a miracle, as if someone or something had told him that we needed him in this house. The day before, Señor Esteban, who for years had taken care of the garden, was attacked and beaten and ended up in the hospital, poor thing. Señora Andrea was terribly worried, because you know how she gets when spring is on its way: the plants seem to go crazy, growing and growing relentlessly and taking over everything. She used to tell anyone who was willing to listen that she had moved from the apartment to the house so that she could have plants and be in contact with nature, that it relaxed her when she came home from recording hours and hours of soap operas for TV.
I remember I was in the upstairs bedroom, changing the sheets on Señora Andrea’s bed, when the intercom buzzed. I flew downstairs; the house is big, and the señora doesn’t like it when people keep buzzing; it makes her nervous. A peaceful household is very important to her. I answered the door, of course, and I could see him through the peephole: he had come to offer his services as a gardener. He was nice-looking, and said, in a kind of strange accent, that he had references. I asked him to wait while I went to ask the señora.
I don’t know what they talked about a little later, when the señora had finished bathing and received him, or what kind of reference papers he showed her, if, in fact, he showed her any, but she told me that Ennio would come back that same afternoon to start working on the garden. I was to let him in through the garage entrance, which was the one I used for coming and going, as did the dog walker, the seltzer man, and the supermarket delivery boy.
He slept with me, it’s true, in the room where I sleep, because I’ve been a live-in maid here for years. Well, not really all that long in this place because Señora Andrea moved here two years ago. But I had already been working for her at the apartment. At first the señora didn’t know that Ennio spent his nights here. It’s just that when he told me the things that had happened to him and that he had nowhere to go, I couldn’t refuse, and so I let him stay. It was so nice to listen to him, with his strange way of speaking. Besides, he told me things that were so… and he looked at me in a way that’s hard to explain, but later I found out why Ennio was the way he was, with that strength he had in his whole body and that wild sort of smell that made me think about nothing but taking him to bed with me. He would brush against me as he passed by, and the rest of that day I couldn’t think of anything else. I wished with all my soul that the hours would pass quickly and soon it would be time for him to go, so that Señora Andrea would see him leave, and later that night, I would secretly open the door for him so he could come in and stay. Together we ate whatever I brought up to my room, and when we were done we’d climb into bed.
Later on we stopped pretending that he was leaving, and he stayed behind in my room. Till one day Señora Andrea found out, got very angry, and called him over to have a talk with her. I don’t know what explanation he gave her, because in the end Señora Andrea made me take everything out of the little room where she used to store boxes of photos, boxes of her films, and cut-out articles from old magazines and trophies and plaques for the prizes she’d won, carry the boxes up to the attic and make up a bed for him in the emptied space. He accepted the offer, but in fact he always stayed and slept with me.
At first I didn’t even pay attention to what was wrong with Ennio; he made me so hot I couldn’t think, he made me blind, he had a way of touching me that even now I can’t think about it without wanting him here, close to me, again. It must have been about a week later that I woke up needing to pee and then I saw him and realized that he had gone to bed in his sneakers. They were sticking out from under the slightly lifted sheets. It seemed strange, of course, but I thought he had collapsed after working all day among the plants, with the shovel, the pruning shears, climbing up and down trees, lugging rocks in the wheelbarrow for some new flower beds, and, on top of it all, everything we’d done in bed. But honestly I didn’t say anything to him because I didn’t want him to feel uncomfortable and go away. My life had changed so much since he arrived… Why would I want to ruin everything with my big mouth?
He had a passion for plants and trees that I’ve never seen in anyone else, not even a gardener. He would grab handfuls of earth and smell them like they were a bottle of perfume. He would climb trees so quickly and gracefully that he didn’t seem to weigh an ounce. But he wasn’t scrawny; in fact he was pretty muscular, and I liked to feel all his weight on me, his chest, his arms, run my hands over his hairy back. In bed he was like an animal.
Señora Andrea’s dogs loved him, the poodle and the Afghan; sometimes they fought over who would play with him. He got them to do whatever he wanted: fetch things for him, play dead, bury bones, or fight with one another. I told him: they’re going to wear themselves out; if Señora Andrea sees you, she’ll be angry. They’re dogs, Ennio would reply, sometimes they’ve got to act like dogs. And besides, Señora Andrea never gets angry with me.