‘Why was it a mistake?’
‘Because it put him on the defensive. Don’t take this the wrong way, Samanta, but as soon as I saw him I realized that your dad wasn’t the most assured guy in the world. Or isn’t. He’s still alive, I imagine.’
‘I was fifteen when he left. I know at first he was living in Brazil, then I haven’t heard anything since. What do you mean by assured?’
‘I mean you could see a sort of bashfulness from a mile away, I don’t know how to explain it, something that made him pull back. You could see that he would rather not have come to pick you up, that he would have preferred it if your mother had come. I introduced him to everybody in the living room and it seemed hard for him to shake hands, and it was very strange, a guy that size so reticent. He’s a big guy, your dad, a well-built guy, and there in the living room, with all of us, he seemed sort of shrunken. Your dad seemed like one of those big guys who would rather not draw attention to themselves when they arrive, and seem to have their heads ducked down between their shoulders, as if they were bending down to go through a low door. Although maybe it’s always like that, you know? Maybe that’s always the way it is with someone who just arrives at a party where everybody’s had a bit to drink. You look small even if you’re six feet tall and have swimmer’s shoulders, or at least that’s how I remember your dad. I also remember long sideburns and a strong jawline, I may be mistaken. You have a strong jawline, Samanta, but not like your dad’s. In any case, I had finished taking him round, introducing him to all those people who were staring at him, and then I explained what had happened. The look on his face changed, of course. Where was Samanta, he began asking me, where was his daughter. “She’s upstairs, in my room,” I told him. “She’s fine, don’t worry, she’s asleep and she’s fine, both of them are fine, my daughter too.” That was to remind him that there were two little girls with the same problem, not just one, and if I was here, relatively calm, he could be here too, relatively calm. “And where are the stairs?” he asked me. I pointed towards the hallway, just as I pointed it out to you a few hours ago, and said, “Give me a second, I’ll come with you.” But he didn’t give me a second. I don’t remember him running, or even walking quickly, as one does in an emergency. No, no: he simply turned on his heel, without saying anything to me, a little offended, I think, or indignant, and went towards the staircase without another word. He didn’t have to say anything for me to know what he was thinking. What kind of place is this, that’s what he was thinking, how did my daughter end up here. There are people who don’t know how to deal with the unexpected, and your dad was like that, you could see that too from a mile away. He walked towards the stairs and I saw him go through the doorway, there, on the left, just as we did before. And then I didn’t see him any more. I didn’t follow him, Samanta, and now I’m very sorry that I didn’t. But it bothered me, what can I say: his impoliteness, his rough edges bothered me. I thought: OK then, to hell with him, he’s on his own. Let him go upstairs, look around, try the wrong door, let him find her, see that everything’s fine, throw her over his shoulder and get out of here. To hell with him. That’s what I thought. And then the shouting started.’
‘Coming from upstairs.’
‘It began upstairs,’ said Mallarino, ‘and then came down the staircase, rolling down the stairs like a ball, no, like a stone, like one of those landslides you get on mountain roads. One time, when Beatriz was a baby, I ran into a landslide near La Nariz del Diablo. Have you seen the Devil’s Nose, Samanta? It’s on the way to the tropical lowlands, a huge piece of rock, truly gigantic, that juts out of the mountain and hangs over the road like a bridge. People say that the devil stands there, on top of that stone nose, to make cars crash. The drivers get scared or distracted and lose control and drive over the edge of the cliff, which is extremely high at that point, a cut through the mountain and a fall into the abyss. Down there at the bottom of the ravine are the cars of the victims, and if they don’t die when they hit the bottom they die for lack of help, because no one can get down that far, and if they shout, no one can hear them. . My wife and I were going to spend Easter week in Melgar, I think it was. Beatriz’s first holiday. She was in the back, or rather they were both in the back, Magdalena with Beatriz in her arms. And we ran into the landslide. They’d closed the road a little way before the Nariz and the traffic was stopped and we saw the Nariz, and Magdalena started talking about the devil. “What if we see him?” she said. “What if we see the devil standing right there?” We didn’t see him, Samanta, we didn’t see the devil, but we heard a noise and then everything started to tremble, the car began to tremble and the landslide came down the mountain. A stampede of big rocks that seemed to be heading straight for us, to have us in their sights, and for four or five seconds one thinks well, that’s it, here and no further, because if one of those rocks landed on top of us, no car’s bodywork would hold up. It all passed twenty metres ahead of us, but just thinking that Magdalena and Beatriz were back there. . Anyway, a landslide is a shocking spectacle that would frighten anybody. So, like that landslide, the shouts came crashing down from upstairs. It still strikes me as incredible that neither of you woke up.’
‘I didn’t wake up, at least, I don’t remember being woken up. And your daughter?’
‘No. She was still out cold, in another world.’
‘Has she told you?’
‘What?’
‘Has she told you that she didn’t hear anything?’
‘Well, no,’ said Mallarino. ‘I’ve never asked her. We’ve never talked about that night. The truth is I’ve never talked about that night with anybody: I’ve never had any reason to. This is the first time in twenty-eight years, I mean, and the effort is not inconsiderable. I hope you’ll keep that in mind.’
‘Tell me about the shouting.’
‘The shouts came pouring down the stairs like a landslide, Samanta. I don’t know what went through my head, but I wasn’t the only one: all of us who were in the room stopped what we were doing. Drinks were left on the table. Conversations ended mid-sentence. Those who were sitting stood up. In my memory even the music was turned off, but it’s impossible that the music would have stopped automatically at that exact moment, and nevertheless I remember it like that: the music stopped playing. Your memory does things, you know? Your memory turns off music and gives people beauty spots and changes the locations of friends’ houses. We began to walk towards the stairs, and at that moment Adolfo Cuéllar came down them. That’s how I remember it: Cuéllar came down first. I don’t know when he’d gone up, or what for. He hadn’t asked me if he could see the upper floor of the house, or asked me where the bathroom was, or anything like that. One second he was there, in the living room with us, I don’t know whether saying goodbye or looking for his coat that he’d taken off, if he’d been wearing a coat, and the next moment being chased down the stairs by Señor Leal’s shouts. “Hey,” he was shouting, “hey, come here.” The shouts came in time with his footsteps, pummelling down the stairs like a landslide, Samanta, his loud and hurried footsteps. “What happened here? What did you do to my little girl?” And what happened next I remember like this: all the guests in the corridor leading to the stairs, or a good many of us in the corridor and the rest out here, under that arch, there where the corridor begins. It was like a bottleneck, like a funnel. Cuéllar came down first. He passed me but I didn’t stop him to ask him what was going on. It didn’t seem necessary. Or maybe it didn’t even occur to me. Your dad had come down by then too and he was shouting at Cuéllar across the group of people: Valencia, Gómez, Santoro, Elena, a group that had got in between your dad and Cuéllar purely by instinct, the instinct to avoid a fight. And this is something I’m never going to forget: your dad wanted to smell Cuéllar’s hands. That’s what he was shouting: “Give me your hands! Let me smell your hands!” And he kept insulting him: “Let me smell your fingers, you son of a bitch!” I kept going towards the staircase and headed up. I needed to know what had happened. Or maybe that wasn’t it: not that I needed to know what had happened, but needed to make sure nothing had happened to Beatriz. At that moment Beatriz was much more important to me than you, what can I say. The door to my room was ajar, and I remember having thought, as I walked towards it, that it was odd, because if your dad had been here and had rushed out, wasn’t it strange that he would have stopped to adjust the door. That’s what I was thinking as I opened it. First I saw the blanket, the airline blanket, on the floor, and then I saw you, Samanta. I saw you still asleep, I mean unconscious, but lying face up, not on your side as I’d left you last time, but lying face up and with your skirt raised a little. You had your legs apart, or one leg bent, I think that was it, one leg bent. I looked away, out of discretion, you understand, but I didn’t turn my head fast enough, and I did see something. Then I went around the bed to make sure Beatriz was all right. There I was, on the other side of the bed, crouched down by my daughter’s face, when your father came in and with a quick glance held me responsible for everything. He lifted you up and carried you out. It looked perfectly normal, you with your arms around your daddy’s neck, like all little girls and all fathers. But what wasn’t normal was his left hand, which was gripping your bottom, not to support you, but as if covering you, covering up your underwear. I followed him down the stairs. The dogs had come in, I imagine they were attracted by the uproar, and had started to bark. You and your father left, and from the front door I watched you get in the car, or I watched him put you into the back seat, then get in himself and start the engine and put it in reverse. I remember it had started to rain, or to drizzle: I noticed when he turned on his headlights and I suddenly saw drops. And I stood there for a moment, watching the raindrops floating in the air, and when the car had gone out through the gate I closed the door and went back inside and realized that Adolfo Cuéllar had left too. The dogs were still barking. The fire had gone out. Someone, I don’t remember who, asked for his coat. People began to leave.’