‘Hey, Javier, come quick,’ she said. ‘Something’s wrong with the girls.’
And that’s how the adults discovered that Beatriz and her little friend had spent the last hour running around the house, visiting every surface where there were half-finished drinks, every table in the living room and every step on the stairs and every shelf where some guest might have set down the last sip of aguardiente or whisky or rum, and now they were so drunk they were pinned out like butterflies on the floor of Beatriz’s room and couldn’t even open their eyes or answer any of the questions they were asked. They had broken one of the framed pictures, which were propped up against the wall, waiting to be assigned a place, and there was the frame and three or four long triangles of glass. Mallarino thought he’d clean them up right away, but first he picked up his daughter; someone, he doesn’t know who, picked up Samanta Leal, and a few seconds later both girls were on the bed in the master bedroom, one beside the other like two pens on a sheet of drawing paper, perfectly unconscious and motionless. A woman whose name Mallarino didn’t remember brought a wet cloth from the kitchen; she put it on the girls’ foreheads, alternately, and on Beatriz’s and Samanta’s pale skin, on their foreheads, emptied of colour, was a fleeting patch, red and damp. Mallarino, meanwhile, had called a paediatrician, and moments later he was striding into the room and sitting down on the bed with efficient movements and putting down on the bedside table, or rather on top of his notebook, transforming it into a coaster, a glass of water with sugar and a teaspoon that glistened when he turned on the reading lamp. ‘A little bit every twenty minutes and everything will be fine,’ he said. ‘A little spoonful, just one, and everything will be fine.’
‘We got drunk?’ said Samanta Leal. ‘I got drunk?’
‘You two drank all the dregs in the house,’ said Mallarino. ‘And it wasn’t funny either. You could have put yourselves in a coma.’
‘I don’t remember at all. I don’t remember your daughter. Were we very good friends?’
‘Not as far as I know. Beatriz changed best friends every week. That’s what it’s like when you’re seven, I guess.’
‘I guess,’ said Samanta Leal. ‘And who looked after us, you?’
‘Every twenty minutes I looked in on you,’ said Mallarino, ‘and gave you each a teaspoonful of sugar water. That’s what the doctor had told me to do. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to get you to swallow it.’
‘I don’t remember, I don’t remember at all.’
‘Of course not. You were both out of it, Samanta, completely out. At one point I even put a mirror under your nostrils, to make sure you hadn’t died on me. A father’s paranoia.’
‘Nobody dies of that.’
‘No, of course not, but what did I know. Or rather, a father imagines anything, that anything might be possible. And you looked like you’d fainted.’
‘Well, we must have.’
‘We couldn’t hear you breathing. You didn’t even snore the way drunks do. You didn’t move either. It was as if you were sedated. I put a blanket over you both, one of those blankets people used to steal from aeroplanes, and the blanket didn’t even move: each time I came back it was exactly as I’d left it, I think I could have painted the folds and they would have stayed exactly the same for as long as it took. As I said, you were both out cold. Naturally.’
‘Naturally?’
‘I mean, that much booze in a seven-year-old body, and not just any drinks, but aguardiente and rum. You might as well have just been gulping down a coma. No, but we really were very worried. And you don’t remember a thing.’
‘Nothing at all.’
‘I see that.’
‘Not a thing,’ said Samanta.
‘Not about what happened afterwards either?’ Silence. ‘The scandal, all that? You don’t remember that either?’ Silence. ‘I see,’ said Mallarino. ‘So that’s what this. .’
‘Yes,’ said Samanta. ‘It’s about that.’
‘I see.’ Silence. ‘But you must remember something.’
Samanta closed her eyes. ‘I remember my dad lifting me up,’ she said. ‘Or maybe not, maybe I only think I remember my dad lifting me up, because I remember my dad putting me in the car, in the back seat of the car. And if he carried me to the car, he must have had to lift me up, right? My dad carried me to the car, didn’t he?’
‘I think so.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘I don’t remember too clearly,’ said Mallarino. ‘You have to understand, I was very upset. Everybody was very upset at that moment.’
‘Because of the drinks,’ said Samanta. It wasn’t a question; it wasn’t even an affirmation. It was something else.
‘No, no,’ said Mallarino. ‘You know that’s not why. The upset over the drinks had passed by then, you two were sleeping and taken care of, I was going in every twenty minutes with my spoonful of sugar water. That was under control.’
‘So then?’
‘You know,’ said Mallarino.
‘No,’ said Samanta, ‘that’s just it. I don’t know.’ Silence. ‘And what I want is to know. I want you to tell me.’ Silence. ‘Let’s see, let’s see. You were taking care of us.’
‘Yes.’
‘You came by with spoonfuls of sugar water.’
‘Yes.’
‘Every twenty minutes.’
‘Yes. That’s what the doctor ordered.’
‘And between one spoonful and the next?’
‘I went to see to my guests, of course. I was still the host.’
‘They were all still there?’
‘Most of them, at least. I don’t remember anyone having left.’
‘Were they all there when my father arrived?’
‘I think so. As I said, most of them. I had just given you two a spoonful, but I don’t remember if it was the third or fourth. There was a fire lit in the fireplace, I remember that, and I had to keep it burning. I went out to the garden, brought in wood, looked for old newspapers to burn, and the fire kept burning. People had taken over the bar, I mean they knew where to find booze and were helping themselves. But now and then someone asked me for something: ice, a fresh glass, soda, cigarettes. I remember that, the smell of cigarette smoke. Or I think I remember that, but maybe it’s just because I had stopped smoking. Anyway, what I can tell you is that I didn’t sit down for a second. Between the fireplace, the things people asked me for and friends who put their arms over my shoulders to sing a ranchera, I didn’t sit down for a second. I don’t even remember having answered the door when your father arrived. Introducing him, yes: I remember introducing him, making him come into the living room where everybody was and introducing him, look, Samanta’s dad, yes, Samanta, Beatriz’s little friend. And everybody stiffening, obviously: he had to be told something, but nobody wanted to be the one to tell him. That’s when I realized I’d screwed up. I should have explained the whole thing as soon as I opened the door. But I don’t know if I answered the door, Samanta, maybe the door was open and he just walked in. That changes everything, don’t you think? When you answer the door to a stranger, it’s easier for something to occur to you, to explain something important to someone you don’t know. But if the stranger finds himself suddenly inside, you might forget, no? Some tiny distraction, any little thing. . It doesn’t matter, it’s not an excuse. I should have explained everything as soon as I shook his hand. But I didn’t, and it was a mistake.’