This Puss in Boots has pretty legs painted in golden glitter. She is portrayed as if crouching in mid-air, or rather falling backwards towards the ground, her body arched at an incredible angle, one leg stretched out straight, the other doubled beneath her buttocks. She is wearing a black skullcap with a mask and cat’s ears, red patent calf-length boots, and her pert rear culminates in a bright red tail. The Selecto also puts on second-rate variety acts, with singers, jugglers and comedians who once enjoyed a fame of sorts in the popular musical reviews at the Paralelo theatre, but whose glory days have long since passed. Minors are forbidden entry to these shows, as he is well aware. Pinned to another board are blown-up stills from the two films being shown that week: “Seventh Heaven” with Simone Signoret, and “The Cat and the Canary” with Paulette Goddard. He is crazy about both these cat-like stars: their charms have often left him hot and bothered between the sheets. Now, though, he only has eyes for Puss in Boots. Why does her stomach fold in so softly above her groin? The curve of her thighs and buttocks seems to him strangely immaculate and poignant, far more beautiful than anything he has ever seen before on movie posters or the handbills he collects. Slowly, he traces the outline of her thigh, then strokes her golden skin and senses the inner tautness that propels her leap high into the air. Reflected in a window on the far side of the street, the sun’s rays make the glitter sparkle for an instant, but do not spoil or lessen the urgent tension of her inner thigh, a generously delicate muscular promise he finds profoundly disturbing.
“What are you doing, my lad? What are you staring at?”
He turns round. A small, stooped man with slumped shoulders is standing on the manhole cover, blocking his path. He tries his magic trick — blinking his eyes twice — but the little man is still there, peering sternly at him.
“Me?”
“Yes, you. What are you looking at, if I might ask?”
“Me? Nothing.”
“Nothing, you say. But you’re fascinated by the way that little Chinese girl moves.”
Ringo looks at the poster again.
“But she isn’t moving …”
“She isn’t? Can’t you spot it? Those exotic dancers are never still, lad. Especially if they’re Chinese and from the Paralelo.”
He blinks again, and it’s true, her thighs do move. The little man is scarcely taller than he is, and is clasping a leash in the fingers of a bony hand with a delicate, casual gesture as if holding a cigarette. At the other end, something is growling softly at his feet: a small, emaciated dog with a rat-like muzzle and ragged tail. It has one leg missing.
“What’s that sticking out of your pocket?”
“My music book.”
“Oh, my. So I can see you’re a sensitive boy,” says the stranger almost inaudibly. “You are sensitive, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know.”
“And someday soon you’ll be a nice, good-looking and respectful young man. I’m sure of it.”
“No, sir. I’ll be a pianist.”
“Oh, that’s very good. A pianist.” The dog raises its head and stares at its master with yellow, rheumy eyes. “And what are you doing here?”
“Waiting for my father.”
“Thinking dirty thoughts, that’s what you’re doing. Come on, don’t deny it.” A sound like a rasping file or fingernails scratching iron is coming from beneath the manhole cover. Alerted by something, the little man suddenly turns round, and his bird-like silhouette stands out against the grey solitude of the entrance to Plaza Trilla on the far side of the street. “Mind you, I’m not blaming you, you scamp. But listen carefully to what I say,” he goes on, drawing closer, a sharper edge to his voice. “I bet you she can do things you couldn’t even imagine, not if you stood here looking at her for a thousand years.”
“You don’t say! My goodness! A thousand years! Are you serious?” the boy asks, his voice deepening. “I could be here looking at her for a thousand years? And she could be dancing here for a thousand years, dancing the dance of the seven veils like Salome? Could she really?”
This is how some see him: a lively, observant youth alert to certain absurdities, endowed with a keen perception of other people’s most extravagant, unlikely illusions, and ready to launch himself into whatever deception or intrigue the world lays before him. That’s how he will be remembered: diligent, polite, steeped in the future. He does not blush, hesitate or muddle his words: he knows what he means to say at all times and why, and yet he is only too pleased to step resolutely over the threshold of the improbable or imperceptible. He stands quite still, facing the stranger on guard, noting the bony eyes with sparse lashes in a long, hollow-cheeked face, the small, pursed mouth, the shirt’s crumpled collar and the black suit with shiny knees in trousers that are too wide and too big and sag over a sad, tame-looking pair of house slippers. He looks down at the crippled dog, and adopts an expression and voice to fit the melodramatic aspect of what he can see before him: “She’s my stepsister, you know.”
He wonders whether to add that the dancer’s real name is Diana Palmer, once Edmund Dantés’ other true love, and then the secret love of Winnetou, and now is linked to the villain Rupert de Hentzau, and that she could have been his half sister, but with a Chinese mother, and that she ran away from home to be a dancer because she wanted to see the world and was ashamed of having a father who was a rat-catcher and whose great paws always stink of disinfectant or sulphur or worse. But instead he only thinks all this, and the only thing he adds is: “My poor eldest stepsister. I have five more …”
The little man raises his hand to silence him. There is a sudden gleam in his ravaged eyes.
“So we’re a little liar, are we?” Offended, he stamps on the manhole cover three times, as though giving a prearranged sign to the rats that live in the pestilential shadows beneath. Then, pointing to the poster, the stranger adds in his fluty voice: “Well anyway, let’s concentrate on what’s important. Besides being an exotic dancer, this lovely girl is a contortionist. Do you know what that means?”
“Of course.”
“That she knows how to move in a special way.”
“Of course.”
“And she’s really pretty, isn’t she? So pretty it hurts to look at her, doesn’t it?”
“Excuse me, sir, your dog has only got three legs but it stays on its feet very well, doesn’t it? What’s it called?”
“Tula. It’s a little bitch. And what’s your name, my boy?”
“Ringo. I won’t shake hands because I’ve touched rat poison. Ringo Kid, that’s my name.”
He kneels down to look at the little dog, feigning a sudden interest. It has almond-shaped eyes and stiff ears. On one of them he sees a tick as round and shiny as a pearl. It’s so fat you would need a pair of pliers to pull it off, he thinks.
“That’s some ti—”
“Keep away from toxic products that aren’t edible,” the little man cuts in. “That’s my advice to you. And as for that Chinese girl …” he hesitates a moment, gazing sorrowfully, his skinny finger pointing at the dancer in the poster, “stay away from her too. You should know that this week’s programme is not suitable for minors. How old are you?”
“Eleven, almost twelve, sir.”
“Besides, they’ve fumigated the building, so for now it’s closed and sealed off.”
“I know.”
“So what are you doing here all on your own?”
“I’ve just told you, I’m waiting for my father.”
“And where is your father?”
“In the cinema, catching rats.”
“That’s good. Rats bring the black plague.”
“The plague these days isn’t black, señor, it’s blue. My father said so.”