16
Padilla’s next letter talked about a girl he had met at the hospital and it went off on a long and rather sinister tangent. I promised to tell you how, when I was in the hospital, I settled my dispute with my roommates, he said. Those upstanding young men, rudderless sons of the proletariat (also called lumpen proletariat, thought Amalfitano, who deep down was still a Marxist), treated me the way the Arabs treated the Jews in 1948, so I decided to act, make a show of force, sow fear.
One night, he said, I waited until the whole ward was in the arms of Morpheus and then I got up. Moving stealthily (like a ballerina on the moon, said Padilla) and dragging his IV pole, he headed to the nearest bed (where the most threatening-also the most handsome-boy lay), closed the curtains, and began to strangle him. With one hand he covered his mouth, and with the other, which held the catheter, he throttled him until he gasped for air. When the sleeper woke and opened his eyes and tried to get away, it was futile. Padilla had him at his mercy and he tortured him a little more, then made him swear that the fun was over. The other two woke up and through the curtain they could see the shadow of Padilla on top of their friend. They probably thought I was raping him, said Padilla, but they were so scared that nobody said a word. In any case, the next day the mocking, contemptuous glances had been replaced by looks of fear.
The girl he met was the sister of the guy he had tried to strangle. One afternoon she brought him a present. A huge, juicy-looking yellow pear speckled with brown. The girl sat down next to his bed and asked why he had hurt her brother. The three junkies, remembered Padilla, were smoking in a corner, by the window, while the girl talked to him. Padilla’s answer was: to clear the air. So even the terminally ill aren’t allowed to fuck with you? asked the girl. Actually, I love it when they fuck with me, said Padilla, and then he asked her where she’d learned a technical term like that. The girl raised her eyebrows. Terminally ill, said Padilla. The girl laughed and said at the hospital, of course.
They became friends.
Two weeks after he was discharged he ran into her at a bar near the Urquinaona metro station. Her name was Elisa and she sold heroin in small quantities. She said that her oldest brother was dead and her other brother, the one in the next bed, didn’t have long to live. Padilla tried to cheer her up, citing statistics, survival rates, the introduction of new drugs, but he soon realized it was useless.
Her name was Elisa and her turf was Nou Barris, where she lived, though she bought the drugs in El Raval. Padilla went with her a few times. The dealer’s name was Kemal and he was black. In other circumstances Padilla would have tried to screw him, but sex wasn’t something he cared much about just then. He was more interested in listening and watching. Listening and watching: new sensations that might not offer much comfort but that did slow his despair and make it more deliberate, allowing him to take a more objective view of something that at the same time he realized could not be viewed objectively. Elisa was eighteen and lived with her parents. She had a boyfriend, also an addict, and once a month she saw a married man who helped her out financially.
The letter ended with a description of the girl. Of average height; very thin; too-big tits; olive skin; big almond-shaped eyes fringed with long, dreamy lashes; almost nonexistent lips; a pleasant voice, though trained or grown accustomed to shouting and cursing; well-proportioned hands with long, elegant fingers; fingernails nevertheless chewed and crooked, badly crooked; eyebrows darker than her hair; smooth, strong, flat belly. On the subject of her belly: once, he said, he brought her home to sleep. They shared his bed. Aren’t you afraid that in the middle of the night I’ll fuck you and infect you? No, said Elisa. Which led Padilla to the conclusion, logical after all, that she was HIV positive too. For a while, before they fell asleep, they made out. Unenthusiastically, or in what you might call a friendly way, explained Padilla. The next morning they had breakfast with his father. My father, said Padilla, tried to not show how surprised and happy he was, but he couldn’t help himself.
On the subject of his health he had only vague things to say. His lungs were weak, but why they were so weak he didn’t explain. He ate well, his appetite was good.