The last time he was here, he ate up the sofa, so now he hunkers down on what little remains of the floor, at the edge of the blackness. When I get up at night to go to the bathroom, I have to be careful to put on my glasses and place my feet exactly where there’s still a little bit of floor left in the room. Sometimes I imagine I’m about to take a misstep, or come to the very edge and fall into that void, the void that now practically surrounds me.
There’s no more mirror or shower left in the bathroom. So today I asked Dora if she’d let me shower in her room. I told her I was having problems with the hot water and didn’t want to catch pneumonia. She said yes. Dora’s a very good person. And so I showered and changed, and now I’m back. With a lipstick in my hand, I walk over to the windowpane, where I see myself reflected, and I paint my lips pale pink.
Last night, while I was sleeping, I looked at what’s left of the painting, which is part of the angel, an angel with the body and skin of a young man, with a face that now strikes me as very similar to Botticelli’s own face, as lovely as a girl with those blonde corkscrew curls and those nearly-transparent eyes, and then those little wings with the gray feathers of a big, ugly bird emerging from his back. And I can’t help wondering why most people don’t find angels monstrous, though they would think of a cynocephalus as a monster. When I awoke, the angel and the section of wall where the remainder of the painting rested were no longer there. Then I took a sheet of paper and a pen from the nightstand and wrote the sign that I later stuck to the door with cellophane tape. I don’t want anyone to carelessly come into the room and fall into the darkness.
Now I see him, standing by the bed, how he carefully takes off his jeans, then his shirt, his underwear, the clothes I gave him some time ago. I don’t say anything to him; I just let him be. He folds them methodically, placing one garment on top of another, on the quilt at the foot of the bed. He approaches on all fours, along the edge of the gorge that surrounds me, next to the darkness. He does this completely naked, the same as the first time, as I first met him. He sits on his haunches, puts one paw on the bed. I caress it. He moves his head forward, places his snout next to my hand. And, for some reason I can’t quite comprehend, I know that he is saying goodbye. Everything around me is empty and dark now; the TV is silent. The bed looks phosphorescent, dressed in these white sheets and quilt in the midst of the blackness. The cynocephalus closes his eyes and prepares to fall asleep. I stick my hand under the pillow, take out the lipstick I’ve hidden there, and, before closing my eyes, I paint my lips so that when they find me, I will look beautiful.
SUBMERGED
AND THEN THAT noise wakes me with a start, a rough grinding that scrapes furiously against the hull of the boat. I must have fallen asleep on top of some tarps in the engine room, and the noise, which comes from outside but invades everything here on the inside, has awakened me. The noise multiplies, and now something at starboard scrapes, scratches, drags. I’m alone, there’s no one in sight, it seems like everyone is where the noise is, or maybe everyone is the noise, as if the noise has swallowed them, the others, but not me, because now I stand up and I’m fine, and I smooth my overalls with the palms of my slightly greasy hands, squat, grab the tarps, roll them up, and drag them out of the way. I’ve got to say that since that bout I had a few days ago, I’m feeling better, much better. The noise continues, but my ears are getting used to it and have started to distinguish other sounds, another reality beyond the noise: someone’s coming in, someone who is still nothing more than the tapping of boots climbing down the metal ladder and touching the floor. I move toward the engine room door and determine that the someone is now a body that turns and comes toward the stern, a face that becomes more defined and takes on Soria’s features: a nice guy, Soria, very good-natured. Then other boots: as the noise scrapes, scrapes, scrapes, now they’re going down the ladder; then Soria stops, turns toward the guy behind him. When did they start? I think he’s asking. A while ago, the other man replies with a voice that sounds like Albaredo’s, as they complete their descent. And how do you get them off? Soria persists, with an intensity that struggles to be heard over the roaring, writhing, breaking din. With metal sheets, the other man explains as both of them advance toward the engine room. Argentine style, he adds, skin divers with snorkels, a metal sheet and lots of elbow grease, all by hand. The noise scrapes, scratches, grazes. Those barnacles are tough fuckers; they dig in real deep and they don’t come off so easy, Albaredo explains. They haven’t spotted me yet, I think, because Soria keeps asking: So what’s the big hurry if they’ve been there for years? I dunno, the other one snaps back; there was an order and we gotta follow it. Now you can hear the clack of other boots, and still others, and other voices, and I go back to the engine room and stay there thinking about the barnacles clinging to the metal sheets as if they were the sheets themselves, adding excess weight to the boat and slowing it down, so slow, damaging the hull and making it unable to resist all the pressure it has to resist when it needs to dive deep, all because somebody had the bright idea of building that breakwater and didn’t foresee that when the current changed, the submarine’s hull would fill with those creatures. Neither did they plan ahead to bring it into dry dock for a proper cleaning, and who knows why it occurred to them just now to… The noise scrapes maddeningly, scrapes and scrapes and is deafening. The barnacles dig in like rabid dogs’ teeth into living flesh, like the noise in my ears; they bite, they bite, they crunch. And bite.
The others have started to bring things aboard: provisions, boxes and cases with supplies, medicine, water, gasoline, tools, rocks, more rocks; they unload the practice torpedoes and load the ones for combat; the entire crew goes in and out, checks, arranges, puts things in order, cleans, and here I am, examining the engines again and again. This one’s not working and isn’t going to, suddenly announces Albaredo, who’s working by my side, and those surrounding him grow nervous because they suspect something’s going on, something beside the engines, the barnacles and the noise. Someone standing next to me remarks that today’s paper mentioned some enormous whales near Punta Mogotes; it’s a lie, someone else immediately adds, for sure it’s a lie to distract people. From what? asks the one who spoke first; I dunno, the other guy responds, from something, how should I know, from this. I step outside the engine room, walk a few paces toward the control room, and from the bow I can see Estévez moving toward me, followed by two others, along the passageway that opens up between the bunks at port and starboard, toting a new broom, a bucket, some floor rags. The others carry a case of apples and a bag that looks like it holds potatoes or onions. Here, Gómez, this goes in your bunk, he must be saying to him as he hands Gómez the cleaning supplies with a smile that turns into an explosion of laughter. Gómez lays the things he’s been given on the lower bunk while he finishes setting up his bed. Estévez and the two others with him continue down the passageway, bearing the case and the bag. Gómez stands there looking at them for a moment, checks his watch. Now Polski is approaching along the passageway between the bunks, his right hand clutching the handle of a zippered case that contains a small typewriter, and under his other arm a ream of paper. He’s heading for the control room. I follow behind, and when he stops to readjust the typewriter and the paper, I pass him and continue toward the engine room. I decide to concentrate on the engines and on the work we’re doing with Albaredo. Someone at the other end of the boat asks in a very loud voice if they’ve loaded on the jars of capers; I can’t see him, but he’s an officer, I say to myself, judging from the question and the tone of voice, and the noise picks up again with its racket: rrra, rrra, rrra, which doesn’t let me hear the answer; though, really, what does the answer matter, what do we need capers for if the engine’s screwed up? Rrra, rrra, rra, that noise… What for, if that’s going to make us spend more time snorkeling in order to charge the batteries? Rrra, rrra, rrra, rrrrra… if that makes us more vulnerable, why the fuck do we need capers, rrra, rrra, rrrrra… Something’s going on, I know it, we all know it, even though no one says a thing, and for days now—I think, because I’m starting to lose count—for days I haven’t moved from here. It’s nighttime when they load on; I know it’s nighttime because down here they turn on the night lights and the red ones in the control room to avoid reflections and to keep us from being seen from outside. Someone mentioned spies today; I heard him during a pause when the noise had stopped, Chilean spies, and someone else said no, they were North Americans who were staying in an apartment in one of the buildings on the other side of the avenue, opposite the base; Russians, someone else interrupted, they have to be Russians because the North Americans are on our side. Whatever, spies are spies, snoops holed up in an apartment from where they can watch all our movements; you can see movements on the base from anywhere; what a shitty location that base has. Now a different voice, from the periscope area, says: In the end everybody heard it on TV; nobody said anything before; but how is it possible that we have to find out about it on TV like everybody else. No one replies; everyone remains silent, me too, all the time thinking that anger is what’s keeping us silent, so silent you can hear our breathing and even the momentary absence of the noise. Then someone who’s climbing down the ladder at the bow, carrying boxes of crackers, points out that there’s no moon tonight, that everything is black outside, completely black, perfect for hiding, for hiding what we’re doing, what we’re carrying, like well-trained little ants. The sea must also be black, I imagine, rhythmically black, and I start to feel sleepy again, the heavy sleepiness that suddenly takes hold of me, ever since my illness, dutifully forcing my eyes shut, till everything else goes black, too.