HYENA

Bookshelves...

2012-01-08T11:47:00.001-05:00

The Black Sea

2012-01-08T11:03:00.001-05:00

Juan Federico Guzarrez had never heard anything like it.

Gazing upon the prehistoric face of Annuska Lorenzo he listened as she described the events that had landed her in this Madrid apartment seventy years earlier. It was All Saints Day and the neighborhood sat silent in the suffocating majesty of an unseasonable front, a gust of hot air, like a drunkard’s breath, squatted over Madrid and was forecasted to last through the week. The sills that ordinarily displayed husband’s shirts hung loyally by their wives sat empty. The alleys that echoed soccer balls lay hushed and lethargic in siesta. With nothing better to do Juan imagined the local’s faces amidst the balmy walls of their apartments, faces who, a day before, were enjoying glasses of roja along the Calle de Maestro.

Annuska Lorenzo was a recluse and, from what Juan had heard, mad as a bat. A woman whose superstitions grew in direct relation to her age, an age, guessed Juan, well past eighty and quickly approaching ninety, for her eyes, upon closer inspection, displayed the trials of some sage. Until a week ago Juan had never spoken to her, had only seen her from a distance, amidst the profusion of local shops or mounting her way up the stairs when the elevator had stopped working, dressed like a gypsy and mumbling nonsensically to the cats, having spent the day – he inferred - tossing breadcrumbs to pigeons. Since moving to Leganés he’d heard murmurings about her eccentric traits, her pendulum of moods, the scent of hyacinth that escorted her wherever she went. Over time Juan had overheard a hundred different theories on Annuska’s circumstances, from being the exiled member of some royal family (how else to account for the strange name?) to being an international fugitive nestled in the anonymity of Madrid. Still, others, more sympathetic, believed her exile was the result of some childhood tragedy. In truth, no one knew. The only indisputable fact was Annuska had been a tenant in the same flat - purchased in cash, said some - longer than anyone could remember, a detail that mattered little to Juan who kept to himself, under the impression that most of his neighbors were simpletons anyway, what with their thick bellies and endless gossip carried on the breath of halitosis and cheap wine and, besides, he had the matter of his depression to deal with.

At 35, Juan Federico Guzarrez was newly widowed and the role fit like an over-sized suit that he would spend the rest of his life trying to grow into. He had always been an optimist until the death of his wife when he quickly donned the traits of the brooding type; the heavy brow, the downcast eyes; the type who beg to be cheered up but then belittle people’s attempts. Juan didn’t enjoy the part. It bored him to tears. But he had forgotten how to do anything except brood, brooding upon everything from old age and death to the cost of his electric bill. Nothing satisfied him. Even a good meal lacked the pleasure it once afforded. Roasted lamb was the same as cold lentils. Food was sustenance. Music mere noise. Good weather an affront. Everything was serious and nothing garnered joy or left him feeling anything more than the emptiness of a shell with no sea inside. Six months after his wife’s death Juan packed his things and departed the neighborhood where he’d grown tired of the pitying glances, the how are you expressions and platitudes of condolence. He’d begun to loathe their tokens of sympathy - a pat on the back, a cooked meal - and in a sense felt bad for them. He began to pity their pity. They had good intentions, he figured, but when have good intentions ever done anything good? With growing disdain and finally an outright incredulousness, Juan broke his lease and left in the middle of the night for another part of Madrid where he’d found a one-bedroom apartment on the eighth floor of a newly remodeled but inexpensive building. Exactly two years to the day, as Juan returned home from his job as a civil servant, he bumped into Annuska, dressed in a dizzying array of patterns: a peasant skirt clashing with a kerchief of paisleys that enveloped her skull. She was a shriveled piece of work, thought Juan, and could’ve probably used a cane which - he later learned - she stubbornly refused, though her hunched frame betrayed the vitality of her green eyes, eyes that ingested Juan in a single gulp. She must have liked what she saw for she approached, smiled and invited him to dinner the following Tuesday. Before he had time to make an excuse she grabbed Juan’s wrist and tightened her grip like the suctions of a cephalopod. She insisted. Juan thought fast, next Tuesday, he remarked, isn’t that the evening of All Saint’s? Whereupon Juan was presented, up close, to Annuska’s pinched face: Humphf, she barked, the Saints don’t bother with us! Thus it was settled and Juan found himself staring at the gothic knocker of her door located only three apartments past his own.

Following the invitation Juan had scoured the newspaper looking for the times of the movies. If there were a chance of cutting the visit short he’d have time to see a film as his sole comfort, since losing his wife, was the movie houses of Madrid and nothing gave him more pleasure than immersing himself in the oblivion of a dark cinema accompanied by the agile ticking of the projector which, he’d come to believe, was his favorite sound in the world. Often he’d forget where he was, even what film he was watching as the reels soothed his soul and he would contemplate better times when his parents were still alive or his sister hadn’t yet left for America. At these moments Juan may have well been dead or alive or amidst that unnamed chasm between the two. It didn’t matter. What mattered was a moment existed where he was outside of himself and the everyday receded like a dream, the theater more real than the world that surrounded it.

As soon as the door opened Juan realized he wasn’t going anywhere; the scent of a long-prepared meal wafted past his face. Annuska had removed the kerchief and a shock of white hair rested on top like a bed of moss. She made an expression halfway between a smile and a grimace and Juan realized she was older than he’d first assumed. Wrinkles, like folded newspapers, crossed her face, testaments to a rather dubious longevity. Blemishes, half-coaxed by the light of the hall, burgeoned along her brow. She was adorned in another outfit that conjured images of Central Europe a century before. Come, she said in an accent buried beneath decades of living in Spain. Hesitant, Juan followed. He had always imagined an old person’s apartment being the most depressing place on earth; a mausoleum inundated with bad odors and dust, the memories of a life which was all too soon to pass. Old age, figured Juan, was simply flirting with the oblivion that waited at the next corner. He envisioned medicine bottles and gloom, the smell of mentholatum and neglect, with pieces of furniture jabbing one in the knees or groin; a place with no light and visitors groping with their hands to navigate the terrain. Annuska’s flat challenged this notion; Juan found himself in an apartment bursting with light and plentitude. Past the entryway he was met with walls of books; original pieces of art hung sporadically between dozens of black and white photographs with their subjects – in cork helmets or winter coats, on sleds, in cafes, riding on trains - long since passed. The spines of the books suggested a person who enjoyed literature: Chekov, Stendhal, Melville, and Krúdy to name a few. Past the shelves was the living room and a large bay window that looked onto the adjoining courtyard. Even the furniture was modern and clean and Juan was asked to take a seat on the sofa while Annuska finished preparing the Turos csusza, a Hungarian dish. Is that where you’re from, he asked, Hungary? She concurred with a nod before plodding off toward the kitchen. Ten minutes later dinner was ready and Juan sat across the ancient woman who, it appeared, had aged even more whilst preparing the Turos csusza, a noodle dish heavier than what Juan was used to eating.

They sat at a nook in the kitchen that contained only a booth and a single chair with Juan, the guest, sitting in the chair. The conversation over dinner was general. Sports: neither were interested. Children; neither had any. And what did Juan do for an occupation? He wasn’t sure. He feigned diligence. He showed up on time at the same office each day. He moved papers from one place to another, sent occasional emails and smiled at his supervisors. This managed to get him paid twice a month. Besides that, he shrugged, I really don’t know. Annuska studied Juan whose reticence many confused with an unchartered intellect and which some women, not many, found to be attractive. It wasn’t like that in my time, Annuska asserted, everyone knew what they did. If you had a job you knew what that job was. Juan agreed. But it’s not like that anymore, he said, there’s a lot of people and not a lot to do. At least that’s my impression. Did he enjoy it at least? He didn’t enjoy it or loathe it; it allowed him to pay his rent and see movies and occasionally go on a trip, although he hadn’t taken one in years and with this Juan recalled the last vacation he’d taken with his wife. They’d gone to Toledo and she seemed more vibrant than we they had first met; they’d visited Cathedrals and Quixote’s windmills and spent afternoons slightly drunk from stuffed partridge and red wine. At night it became cool and they would retire early to make love, falling asleep naked, something they never did at home in the city. With this Juan turned reflective, something Annuska appeared not to notice, or was indifferent to, for she slurped her remaining noodles doggedly and quickly removed both their plates.

After dinner Juan was offered espresso. Espresso? Yes, she said, observing his surprise, I have an espresso maker. One must enjoy life’s small pleasures, don’t you think? Juan agreed. The spoils of life, she added, handing Juan the miniature stirring spoon. Juan returned to the couch and gazed at the black and white photographs that festooned the walls. One in particular in which a young woman – Annuska? – stood proudly in Red Square during some military parade. Another showed the same woman in a sled outside of a cabin. Five minutes later Juan sat facing her as they sipped the dark brew which seemed to alight something in Annuska’s mind for her eyes began to glow like a person who has just awoken from a heavy slumber and is surprised at their own consciousness. Juan relaxed and found himself speaking more easily, poking fun at the neighborhood and their obsession with the local soccer team. Annuska agreed but explained that a healthy obsession with sports kept the citizens pacified. He wasn’t sure when she began mentioning the curse. Later, when he looked back, he realized she’d said the word since his arrival and with alarming frequency, spoken with the naturalness of words like bread or bicycle. She had mentioned the curse over dinner with the subtlety of a piece of furniture meant for a corner, no different than a chair or an end table. It must have been after the espressos when it finally struck him that it had been a steady theme throughout his visit. Cursed? He finally said, stopping her, how do you mean? Here. My life. Look around. She raised her arms for effect, this is my curse. Juan was confused. The shelves of books – philosophy, literature, art. The Turkish rugs that couldn’t disguise their good taste (or cost). The apartment walls decorated by photographs of friends and original pieces of art; Juan realized that Annuska’s flat mirrored his unconscious image of the perfect dwelling. If this apartment were a curse, he thought, I wouldn’t mind being cursed! If I may say so, he said, your flat is very nice, nicer than I expected actually. You’ve carved out a meaningful existence here. And your photographs, assuming they’re all yours, display an eventful life. How can you call yourself cursed? Annuska started to speak and thought better of it. Forget it, Juan Federico. Forget I’d said a thing. Now he was intrigued. Cursed, he wondered. There are people who die in childhood, hit by a bus or kidnapped. People struck with cancer in their 30’s, like his own wife, diagnosed and dead within the same month. Annuska had lived a long life and should be thankful, even if it had been a bad life, a hard one, she had survived and that in itself was something. He told her as much. The old woman pursed her lips and seemed resigned to some private decision. She indicated that she would make two more espressos for each of them.

I was raised in the Buda hills of Hungary, she began, handing Juan his tiny cup of pungent coffee, before Buda and Pest were joined by name into a single city. My father was a successful merchant who lost his life in a duel when I was six, although my mother always insisted his ego had cost him his life not the bullet that pierced his lung. I have scant memory of the man, only the withered scent of schnapps and the touch of his chin when he lifted me in his arms. He was kindhearted. Gentle. My mother, on the other hand, was a bitter women, taken by fits of rage that arrived like a storm, unannounced and swift, departing as quickly as they arrived, but not before leaving their mark. Being an only child I was often the object of this rage. More so when my father died. The man he’d challenged to a duel was a Cossack of ill repute and the story goes that he offended my father in a Pest tavern when he began making comments about the easy virtues of Hungarian women. The Cossack was a brute, enormous, with two dark eyes as large as plums. He had been discharged from the army, suspected of killing members of the Imperial Guard and had fled Russia for fear of vendettas or, perhaps even worse, labor camp. No one in the tavern wanted to defend the honor of the Hungarian women except my father. Heated words were exchanged and it was decided a duel was the only solution for the honor of both men. They gave themselves an hour to find seconds and then marched through the winter snow, past the city square to a patch of woods and beyond that to a clearing. By all accounts my father died quickly. He struck first, injuring the Cassock in the belly. The Cassock fell on one knee but managed to answer with a bullet to my father’s lung. The next morning found my mother on the divan dressed in the mourning she would wear for the rest of her life and which shared the same color as her heart. My father’s second, a middle aged man still holding the pistol, sat beside her and tried to console my mother, not realizing the fiendish woman had found the role of her life and a role she would perform with relish until the day she died. Yes, my mother was unnaturally cruel. By unnatural I should say strangely talented, or especially gifted. Cruel parents weren’t a novelty in those days, especially in Hungary, where a dispute between discipline and barbarity has always existed. But my mother felt good when I felt bad, as if our emotions were an inverted scale in which one relied on the other. If I were caught smiling she would thrash me and wear the smile that she had stolen from me. Later we left the Josefstadt neighborhood of Buda and moved to the country. My mother claimed it was finances which had forced us out of the city, that my father had squandered the family’s savings on gambling. I’ve come to believe it was so she would be left alone with me. For as soon as we moved her persecution of me became more brutal and, dare I say it, focused. I was made to sleep in a lean-to connected to the hut. I was forbidden to go to school. Anything having the slightest chance of bringing light into my life was snuffed out. Books were forbidden. Music too. Beatings were an almost daily occurrence. In the evenings, after an extensive list of chores, I would see a cloud cross my mother’s face and know I was in for a thrashing. The punishments she found were extensive and wholly original. She began flirting with witchcraft and mysticism and the peasants in our village began avoiding her and, as an extension, her daughter. What little money she made was from reading palms, mostly travelers on their way to or from the capital. Even as a child I knew she was a fraud. Nothing about the woman was authentic except her abhorrence of the human race. I had no friends. I collected stones and would talk to them by candlelight. I’d begun to develop a stutter, for my mother made sure my development was stunted; I was literally regressing. Other children avoided and mocked me. By the time I was eleven I knew I would run away and if I had to, kill my mother in the process. One night, several years after moving to the country, I was awakened by a movement in the lean-to. My candle had long gone out. I lay still, my heart throbbing inside my chest. Then another movement. Something was inside the shed, but what? My mother rarely if ever visited and when she did she made her presence known. I waited, part of me believing my mother’s slapdash mysticism had finally caught up with her, had conjured some spirit bent on killing the evildoer’s daughter. By good fortune there was a full moon and between the boards the moonlight exposed my guest: a small gray rabbit. I can’t explain to you what this meant, how it felt to have another living creature inside the shed. And me, a child who literally had no one on earth to speak to. My solitude suddenly vanished. I envisioned adopting this creature and raising it as my own. In short, a glimmer of light, of promise, had entered my existence. That same night I closed the opening with a piece of firewood and embraced the creature as I imagine a young mother does with a newborn. I kept the animal a secret and fed it with vegetables stolen from the neighbor’s garden. I named him Kázmér after my father. At night he would sleep between my feet and somehow, perhaps instinctively, knew to stay hidden during the day, for his survival depended on it. Luckily rabbits are quiet creatures and we got along this way for more than a year, with Kázmér hidden in a mound of straw during the day and bundled between my feet at night. We had rituals that to an outsider would appear outrageous but to me and Kázmér were perfectly natural; I would enter the hut and after securing the door Kázmér would inquire about my day. I would give him a detailed account of events, cataloguing what I had done and how I felt to the weather outside to the wretchedness of my mother, for that never changed. After twenty minutes of telling Kázmér about my day I would inquire about his. This took another twenty minutes as I would inhabit Kázmér and speak for him, through him. And this was how we, or I, managed the solitude.

One evening my mother made stew, nothing strange in itself as it was one of the few dishes she could make without ruining. It was a stew that she was only too happy to mention afterward contained, among other things, hare. You know, she said mischievously, gray hares are the most delicious, the most delicate of hares. Their meat the most tender. They must be killed slowly, yes? Their fur removed with the utmost precision …she was still talking when I ran outside. The shed of course was empty. Kázmér gone. My mother greeted me at the steps, attired in the mourning she’d already worn for five years. I began to vomit. I stopped in order to sob. Look at you, she said, a disgrace. You’ll never have any friends, she gloated. No one will ever love you. Papa loved me, I managed. Yes, and look what happened to him. She said other things too, trying as always to poison the memory of my father. He was a drunk, she said, he was lazy, she said, he was a womanizer. He’d fathered countless children and only stuck around because he’d grown tired of his philandering lifestyle. You probably have a dozen half brothers and sisters in Buda alone, she laughed. I didn’t wait around. I packed what clothes I had and left. I didn’t go far. At midnight I slipped back into the house with every intention of killing her. I’d acquired an axe from God knows where. I can’t even remember where I picked it up. But I had one. I stood over her sleeping figure. Usually she wore a kerchief but had taken it off to sleep. I was dumbfounded to see her hair had turned a vibrant white, a white so luminous it seemed to glow. I watched her chest rise and fall. Who was this woman, I wondered, whose face evoked nightmares, lunar landscapes, deserts? The gypsy features that I couldn’t help but to inherit? A mere human who slept like the rest of us but sheltered such inexplicable fury? What nameless war had been waged inside of her? I stared in admiration and horror. This witch, this djinn that had given me life only to afflict it, who possessed a gaze both impervious and indifferent to the attitude of others. Whose crescent nose smelled its surroundings with ruthless skepticism, as if nothing in existence had ever met her liking, who donned the mourning of her dead husband with such ease it seemed she had sensed his defeat years before, as if her courtship, marriage and subsequent motherhood had been no more than a rehearsal for the widowhood she had planned all along. A human like the rest of us, who had instilled in me a fear both prehistoric and ageless that no amount of alchemy or hypnosis could vanquish. What had construed her? What had she been made of? She lay before me like some tableau constructed of nightmares, her incandescent hair like some astral projection not of this world. I don’t know how much time went by but after a time I realized we were both staring at one another. She had awoken and without moving a limb was looking into my eyes. Well, she finally said, breaking the silence, are you ready to do it? Is it in you? Annuska shook her head, it wasn’t in me Juan Federico. And my mother, remorseless to the end, laughed as I set out through the Hungarian countryside with no moon, only the glow of her hair as she regarded my departure from the window. I felt her laughter resound against my back as I ran, as I approached the unknown adulthood that awaited me. I was only eleven, turning twelve, and all of Europe lay before me. There’s a cruelty that exists, you see, which can only be laughed at. It can’t be defended or reasoned with. By its sheer absurdity one can only laugh in its face, and must, if they are to remain competent, feeling, human. My mother was this lesson to me, a lesson most everyone in Europe was to learn during the second Great War.

The next fifteen years were an aimless migration, she continued, I traveled. Grew restless. Moved on. I was a tenant of the world. I spent my time in rented rooms above taverns and bordellos. Cities excited me, especially the underbellies of cities where avenues branched into alleys and that’s where the excitement was. That’s where life had a pulse, surged. My closest friends were artists, thieves, pimps and if you’ve ever known any you’d know they’re one in the same. My upbringing, or lack of, had instilled a recklessness in my soul. I had trouble staying in one place: Warsaw. Frankfurt. Marseilles. I always found myself in the subterranean districts and the Latin quarters. By good fortune languages came easy: Voyez-vous comment il est facile? When I first left Hungary I did what I had to do to get by, usually dishes at a tavern, but eventually I graduated to tending bar and with this came the habits of the nocturnal creature. During the day I slept. At night I tended bar and frequented parties where I drank absinthe and listened to jazz. I met different men. I fell in love (although there were more men who fell for me than I for them). In any event, one night I found myself in Bucharest and began a torrid relationship with Dmitry, a stevedore and seaman who worked the trading routes along the Black Sea. He was a Slav with enormous arms and a deep sonorous voice that emerged from the pith of his soul. When he spoke I could almost envision his wind pipe pulsate. He was bad news and that’s what I found most attractive. I was 29, brash, with an impulsive streak, not dangerous per se, but unafraid of consequences. I was thrilled by Dmitry who I believed to be the ideal man: he was strong, possessed a fiery temper and, like me, was afraid of nothing. We both appreciated one another’s spirit for adventure and one night, after an especially long bout of drinking, we had the idea to get married. Before I knew it we had visited the Cathedral and were husband and wife. Less than a week later found us in route to Russia to visit his family. We were given quarters on The Vigilance, a shipping vessel whose destination, Novorossiysk, was the port where his family would be waiting. Dmitry had smuggled several bottles of champagne and cognac on board which we immediately indulged in. Soon thereafter we found ourselves in matrimonial bliss. A bliss, I was soon to discover, very short-lived. After making love my groom began to talk. And talk he did. He spoke of his countless feats over the course of decades, not ignoring the various seductions and conquests of other women. He’d been in numerous wars and campaigns. He had fought in Northern Africa. Did I know this? I shook my head. Of course not. What did I know of him really except that he enjoyed sex and flaunting his muscles in public? He had been to Finland and Norway. China too. It seemed as if decades of Dmitry’s life were dedicated to incessant combat. Proudly he flaunted his various wounds; he displayed tattoos he’d acquired in the Caucasus. Many of these tales were colorful, filled with debauchery and violence which, I must admit, I enjoyed. But still, something about this man was beginning to bother me and I couldn’t put my finger on it. The more he spoke the more anxious I became. Was it because he was infatuated with himself, boasting to make himself look larger in his wife’s eyes? No. I doubt it. All men do that. I’d learned that as a child. Was it his promiscuities? No, not at all. I’ve never been possessed by jealousy. Was it because he was beginning to display his age, highlighting the enormous difference between us? No. Although he appeared reasonably young, the events he described made it obvious he was much older than me (he had been in Africa before I was even born and his children, I discovered, were adults). But no, I wasn’t concerned with such banalities as age. Than what was it? What was crawling beneath my skin, making it difficult to breathe? Was it the sense that he was lying? No. It wasn’t that either. In fact, when I asked myself this question: is my husband not only a braggart but a liar? That was the moment I was overcome by horror. I realized my anxiety was because he was telling the truth. Everything he had said to me was true. How old was Dmitry? What did I truly know of him? He eyes shone with the brilliance of a person hungry for life but his flesh...suddenly I wanted him to stop, could you finish tomorrow, sweetheart? I cooed in his ear. I feigned exhaustion. I told him the champagne had upset my stomach. But he was enjoying himself too much, bloated by his own sense of himself and his colorful history. In a minute, he said, stroking my cheek, I’m in the middle of my story about the bastard I killed in Hungary. The world suddenly stopped. Without realizing, I’d been attempting to save this monster from himself. It was this I had been fearing. Some indefinable voice warning me, clairvoyance perhaps, a prophecy, something which sensed the precipice we were fast approaching, a precipice that marked a fundamental line between what came before and would happen after. You were in Hungary? I asked. He laughed, a duel! Can you imagine? Have you ever heard of anything so provincial? And me, a Russian! He gulped his cognac, I killed the man but not before being gravely injured, he pointed to his guts, it was the closest I ever came to death. I was forced to stay in a sanatorium on the outskirts of Budapest to avoid the authorities until I recovered. What happened, I asked, knowing it was too late to ever go back. Simple, he said, I killed a man in a duel. I have the scar to prove it, give me your hand and before I could stop him I was caressing the raised patch of purple flesh along his belly (I didn’t know if it were purple or not, but that’s how it felt). Annuska studied Juan’s face, so you see then? I had married the man who had killed my father. But how could you be sure, Juan asked. Annuska dismissed the question with a wave, the injury was exact, she said, and his story, which he resumed, matched precisely what my father’s second had told my mother. I listened to him divulge a story I knew all too well, this time, of course, told from the vantage of the perpetrator, not a witness but an actual character in the tale and missing, thankfully, the theatrics of my mother. Yes, Dmitry may have said some scandalous things about Hungarian women one cold night in a tavern, but then again, he was drinking a lot back then and memory had never been his strong suit. This man whom I’d just wed, whom I’d allowed between my thighs, had murdered the only person able to give my childhood some equilibrium and had, in a sense, unleashed my own mother upon me. In the vast continent of Europe, with its millions of people and thousands of villages and dozens of borders, amid the brief window between two world wars, amidst all of that arbitrariness, how? How had I met and married this man (a man, incidentally, younger than he should be?). What were the odds? And yet the mathematics of the situation were insignificant next to who he was and what he had done. I was repulsed by this man but at the same time wanted to caress his wound, for it occurred to me that it was my father’s last act in this world. A mark given by my father moments before being struck down, his life’s blood spilling into the snow, an image etched into my mind since I was six.

I felt the waves slap against the sides of the ship. I stroked my father’s scar until Dmitry fell asleep. I looked upon this enormous, gloating, utterly remorseful giant, snoring in some cognac-induced bliss and did the most sensible thing I could think of. I retrieved a letter opener from my portmanteau and stabbed him in the side. Strangely it wasn’t blood that emerged but air, yes, a gust of air emitted by his body. The blood came later but first it was this strange burst of air that caught me off guard since, as anyone knows, when you stab a person or even cut yourself, one expects blood. That’s simple biology. I removed the letter opener and stabbed him again. The next thing I knew he was conscious, staring at me, his face twisted in the most outrageous expression I had ever seen. Not angry mind you, perhaps a trifle surprised, but quickly breaking into a smile and not of concealed pain or feigned bravery but a smile of, well…of freedom. A smile that seemed to say, thank you. I planned on removing the letter opener and stabbing him again but his smile had caught me unawares. What are you doing, my little one? He managed, making no effort to remove the letter opener from his side. You do know your wife is Hungarian, I finally said, regaining some composure, do you not? He smiled, what difference does that make? Nationality plays no part in one’s greed. You have killed me for my money and will pay for it longer than you can imagine. Money? I shrieked, I don’t know what money you speak of but it’s not for greed but revenge. It was my father you killed in that duel! I thought this would stun him but it didn’t even coax a reaction. Who knows? Maybe the cognac together with the stabs from the letter opener had removed any inclination for alarm. I can’t say. I only know that he replied with anti-climatic calm: your father you say? That’s rich. That makes all of this even better for your father was a man with cruel aim. My hands were now covered with his blood, blood, incidentally, which was cold, not warm, not like the blood which leaves a living animal or even an animal on the verge of expiring, but ice-cold, as if it were coming from an icebox. And then he quite simply died. The smile never left his lips.

The money he spoke of was in his trunk, hidden in a box beneath some woolen trousers; bundles of rolled bills from Germany, Russia, Portugal. Dmitry was obviously shipping more than he let on. Only later did his other words: I will pay for it longer than I can imagine, truly sink in. Simply put, his murder had cost me my own death. He had finally been granted death, a death he’d been trying at for years - the duel with my father being only one in an infinite list of attempted self-assassinations. It seems he’d been going around for years speaking ill of the women in whatever country he happened to be, a tactic that seemed effective but nevertheless never got him killed. He would frequent bars and when he was sufficiently drunk he would insult the most dangerous looking men, which didn’t seem to matter since people are more reluctant to kill than you can imagine. And the wars he fought weren’t for politics or country, no, they were attempts at dying. After the money I found his identification papers: Dmitry was born in 1806, making my dead husband one hundred and thirty-eight years old. Dmitry was born a serf, a lost soul, as it were. When the Tzars were destroyed Dmitry was already past a century, things I learned about later after much research. All his papers were in Russian; I couldn’t read them of course, but the dates were obvious. Annuska shook her head, there are no words to this curse Juan Federico. No directions. Everything is vague and one becomes aware of its laws only through experience. For instance, the first time you try and commit suicide and wake up to hear the Gods laughing. Or each time you beg a stranger in a cantina to shoot you and their expression at your insane request (a request which is anything but insane). Yes Juan Federico, getting killed is more difficult than you can imagine. It is a curse never explained, only felt. Slowly, as the decades passed, I joined the half-world of ghosts, condemned to this flat where I observed the neighborhood with a detachment that only comes with the interminable verdict I’ve been dealt. Yes, this neighborhood that’s like any other neighborhood in any other city on this planet with its crying infants and car accidents and cheating spouses and soccer teams. Madrid or Copenhagen, what’s the difference?

The air inside the flat had finally cooled; outside the sounds of citizens returning from different locations penetrated the night. And his body? Juan pursued. What did you do with Dmitry’s body? Annuska’s hands were trembling and Juan couldn’t tell if it were nerves or old age. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the Black Sea, she said, I don’t know if you’ve ever seen photographs. I don’t even know if you’ve ever left Spain, or Madrid for that matter (Madrid is a cesspool, by the way) but that’s beside the point. I don’t know if you can conjure even a fleeting image of what the Black Sea looks like the night you learn that your husband is your father’s murderer. Every place has its own character based on how the person sees it. Each place reflects what that person is going through. A city may offer all the history or culture in the world, but if your heart is broken or your stomach aches, isn’t that place tinged by the color of your own discomfort? Isn’t a beautiful canal nothing more than a strip of rancid water if viewed by a soul reeling from loss? What does beauty mean when you’re in pain? Can the Roman Coliseums or the Louvre be appreciated by one suffering from the flu? In other words, we’re all victims of our own subjectivity. It’s inescapable. Paris to you is not Paris to me. So no, I can’t be objective about the Black Sea, I can only tell you I found it the darkest, most desolate spot on earth. I heard a thousand ghosts moaning from its depths. And the water - inky, choppy, utterly unwelcoming - was beckoning for the corpse of this wretch, a task I was only too happy to accommodate. And it was easier than I expected; his heart had stopped pumping blood long ago, hence the gust of air that left his side when I stabbed him. Dmitry weighed no more than the suit of clothes I dressed him in when I tossed him overboard. Like the night Kázmér joined my life there was a fortuitous full moon that accompanied me as I slung the Cossack over the side of The Vigilance; quickly he was enveloped by the Black Sea. I can’t say what Dmitry’s family thought when he didn’t appear at the port in Novorossiysk. I avoided the eyes of everyone on shore.

Immediately after leaving The Vigilance Annuska took a train to Sebastopol. From Sebastopol she boarded another ship going east. Thus began more years of aimless travel. She boarded trains. Crossed borders. The sort of exploits that would be impossible today without any identification because of the world’s bureaucratic machinery. She spent six months in Sofia, five in Lisbon. Two years in Glasgow. She was a specter, isolated and adrift. And Spain? Juan asked. No reason. Spain was the place where I finally grew tired of my travels and Madrid the city where I decided to retire from my roaming. Juan regarded the espresso cup as if he’d never seen it before. He set it on the table. I am older than time, she lamented, looking past her feet toward the window and beyond to the darkened streets of Leganés, details he wasn’t certain she could perceive since both her eyes had become clouded by cataracts as her story progressed. Other details too; Juan noticed the pallor of her face becoming more and more translucent, like the parchment in a dead person’s diary. So you see Juan Federico? The curse, which would’ve been my father’s had he won the duel, became mine. I will stay alive indefinitely. I will remain alive unless I am murdered. I can’t even kill myself. My organs will fail, my bones will break - it means nothing. This prompted Juan to shift in his seat. Don’t worry, Annuska said, I wouldn’t ask that of you. I recognize a killer when I see one. I knew you couldn’t kill me the moment you walked in. As soon as we finished dinner I returned the revolver to its drawer. Juan hesitated, how old are you then? She smiled, that’s a silly question. A family of muffled voices erupted from down the hall. Someone shouted something to another person on the street. Slowly, the pulse of the neighborhood returned. Annuska, cloudy-eyed, distracted, had fallen into a reverie and Juan, not wanting to interfere, stood quietly and let himself out. He didn’t see her again.

Several months later Juan accepted a transfer to Barcelona and soon thereafter married a young woman named Ángela. He often thought of Annuska but always with a tinge of dread. In his sixty-sixth year he found himself in Madrid for the first time in decades. He was attending a conference for work but during a free afternoon decided to visit his old neighborhood. The building in which he’d resided (while he nursed the wounds of widowhood) still stood, largely unchanged. He remembered the floor he had lived on and in spite of his better rationale found himself climbing the stairs toward the eighth floor and Annuska’s flat. It was easy to spot as the gothic knocker still projected itself with garish endurance. He stood before the door and considered knocking. He hadn’t yet decided when the acrid scent of espresso slipped beneath the door. Juan recoiled, for in his soul he knew she was there, perhaps making a cup for each of them, shuffling across the tomb of her apartment, drinking ever-increasing amounts of espresso of ever-increasing strength, setting her false teeth inside a glass each night while the earth revolved infinitely in perpetual sabbath. Juan retreated, overcome by the urge to leave Madrid, to forget the conference altogether, for he had a wife waiting for him at home and a daughter who would be attending college in the fall. He did in fact skip the rest of the conference, calling a taxi service from the hotel after collecting his things. Though surprised at Juan’s request, and after some negotiation, the driver agreed to drive to Barcelona and from the back seat of the taxi, as Madrid vanished like some illusion, Juan called the airline in hopes of getting a credit for the return flight, which, in spite of his best arguments, they politely refused.

Battle of the Marching Cocks

2011-05-28T00:39:00.014-04:00

Buenos Aires March 1973

Dear Señor,

This letter is to correct many of the mistakes you made in a rather unfortunate dispatch that, I can only imagine, was sent in either a lapse of judgement or that unenviable trait common to some Columbians called retardedness. I've met many Columbians in my life however, and liked them all. And so, not knowing you, I will assume the former. However, since you felt obligated to also publish a copy of the very letter you sent me in your Medellín newspaper I could not abide remaining silent any longer.

Shall we begin?

Item #1: In regards to me juicing my birds (for I believe this is the first accusation leveled at me) I have never, not once, given performance enhancing drugs to my fighting cocks. More specifically, Horacio has been and will continue to be tested before every single fight. Long ago, when I was a chaste and angelic simpleton, fresh from the Dry Pampas and only beginning the circuit, I was approached by a swarthy man whose sunburnt sombrero was the harbinger of ill intentions. He skulked toward me and lifted the brim of his sombrero just enough to mutter, pills, yes? Being a novice to the circuit was no excuse to play ignorant. I realized a fork in the proverbial road had been presented and a decision - a moral decision - must be made. I gathered what stamina I could, what, from a diet of cassava bread and stale coffee, and shook my head in the negative whilst covering the eyes of my beloved Bernhard, a Polish Stag whose enormous bouffant and crest of feathers was an argument for the belief in a decent and benevolent God. I turned away that day and never saw the man again; though I saw his type for years populating every village and plaza I went to as I lived the life of a degenerate, a man of no faith, a life unfulfilled except with the knowledge that some day my birds would win the bouts and the derbies and the circuits and ultimately the nationals and not because of juicing, as you so recklessly suggested, but because of love and training and the human kindness of discipline that comes with these emotions. I also felt I would one day go from living in the backs of barns and flophouses and the filthy mud huts of shanty towns - a squalidness enough to make a decent man sick to his soul - to the rented flats and carpeted condos and finally the pastoral Hacienda in which I am currently writing this letter. I knew I would find love and not the love of a whore which is merely the shadow of love since it's paid for with coins, but the love of a pious and honorable woman. A woman whose hips are made wide to bestow the earth with as many children as possible before dying from typhus. Yes, a love quite comparable to the love I have for dear Horacio, the bird you slandered so foolishly in your provincial Medellín newspaper. Don’t you understand? When you insult Horacio, you are insulting the love I have for my bird which is comparable to the love I have for my late wife Rosalinda, which is comparable to the love I have for God.

Sir, are you a God-fearing man? Are you a man who believes in something greater than himself? Or are you of the new generation? Are you of those who believe they are the paragon of all power? Are you cut from the cloth of those who think strength lies in decadence and poor breeding? If so, you are cut from a weak fabric that easily tears and has no adhesive but a quick death which will, forgive the sloppy metaphor, sew itself closed upon your last breath. So you see, when Horacio wins he not only wins for himself and for me but for the greater glory of God whose benevolence is boundless and succors my soul when it aches from the emptiness of this poor vessel called human flesh.

Yes, I spent many years in the beds of strumpets, celebrating the glory of my fighting roosters (Ahab Prince-Anthony and Ignacio del Toro and Henrick Lopez de Salzabar to name but a few) which won me everything from acclaim to money to invitations to the dining halls of viceroys in and around Argentina and yet only managed to hollow out the crux of my being. For I had to survive the years prior to success, years I was hungry but for what I did not know; years where my paltry winnings merely afforded me handjobs and nothing else. Senor, do you know what it’s like to suffer years upon years of handjobs with no reprieve but the dirty allusions these jezebels whispered but only a richer man could purchase? Handjobs are all well and good but there comes a time when the handjobs must cease! A man reaches a limit when the course of his seed must find a receptacle. Of course I didn’t know God would speak to me and touch my soul as he did one night much later, a night which I will describe momentarily.

This brings me to the 2nd item in your letter. You make mention to lag times in Horacio's fights. There is no lag time, as you so indelicately put it, between the rounds. In Horacio's fights once the bell has rung my bird doesn't stop until the other bird is dead. It’s that simple. Horacio often toys with his opponents but never, never, is there a lag in the match. The shot is fired and Horacio hunts his foe with unparalleled wrath. Often a match begins and one sees a plume of sawdust and nothing more until, moments later, Horacio with heaving chest, looms above the corpse of his opponent, his shadow inflated across the moist brows of an awestruck audience. And yet, I would absolve myself of these accusations. I would consider them the rhetoric of a myopic and jealous turd of a man, but I cannot. Something inside me, perhaps the same trait that taught me to stand up for justice and goodness instead of evil, the same voice of divinity that accosted me whilst I lay slumbered between a whore's legs to say, Antonio, this is not the life of a man. You must find another path; pay her and leave - it is this same quality that turned my away from that filthy strumpet without so much as a decent tip and into the bosom of God. Yes, God visited me. Not once, señor, but twice.

And your accusations are made more absurd since they come from a meager cocker like yourself. Yes. I know your record. I know your birds have weak chins and bad bloodlines, facts I would've been ignorant of had I not possessed a scout - a shortish gringo with a suspicious limp named Simon - who was, well, scouting cocks for me around Medellín where a top breeder had retired in the sixties but was rumored to be raising an elite coup of Hatch Clarets. Simon stumbled upon a bout with your trifling roosters and, knowing you to be the author of that now famous diatribe, watched as your tired birds were hacked to death by the talons of not-so-great birds themselves (one with the absurd title Diablo de Queso). Yes, I can bear slander from a successful cocker, even a mediocre one wouldn’t dampen my spirits, but the more I had my scout investigate the more sick I became. Simon has the illustrious trait of ambition common to most gringos and asked if I wanted you killed. Was there any money in it for him? I considered this for many days as I asked myself: what made you write to me? What made you accuse me not only privately, but publicly? Was it something as petty as jealousy? And it was then that God arrived once more, without warning or fanfare. God forgave me my murderous thoughts; I once told you to leave the whore, did I not? Yes, I replied. And you met with great success in the cockrings and later met Rosalinda, is this not true? I affirmed that it was as I fell on my knees and wept. It was a full moon that night and the chill of an Argentine winter had settled in my bones. I had suffered from pride and I knew this. The Hacienda was quiet as I had sent the help home for the evening and all my children were safely nestled in the most expensive boarding schools across Europe. I felt the winds blow from the summit of Aconcagua as God touched my lips and told me to not only forgive myself, but to forgive you. Thus, you are bound to me. What will you make of yourself? What will you do to prove I made the right decision? Write back. Tell me. Ease my conscience for it will help us both sleep better.

Parade of the Inconsolable

2011-02-17T21:32:00.015-05:00

I remember Lisbon and the endless lanes of hallucinated women who sold cages of vibrant birds, the boxes of brandy pawned by stony-faced men who hadn’t seen a sunrise in centuries. The old-time junk dealer with an anemic face whose words dribbled like a leaky faucet, three dollars, yes? No. An emphatic no. I pushing his hands away, blocking the advance that, looking back, contained a grotesque sexuality. He looking aslant, almost winking as if drunk, though it could’ve just as easily been the onset of blindness or rheumatism. And I shuddering at the events of a day before while outside serpentine stretches of Renaults and Fiats lined up for the national day of mourning, the funereal faces of citizens who could look forward to a five day binge once the horns had blown, once the gates to the National cemetery had shut and the toothless widows whose scarves had been thrown in countless processions had returned to the melancholy of their apartments. Five days of fighting and rifle shots and cheap fireworks refracting against the faces of the young who were never told that night could last so long. Five lugubrious nights of vomiting and fistfights and if I couldn’t find a way out, a quiet lane to the countryside or a taxi to the airport, I’d shoot myself. Five infernal days that felt like a slow tyranny, an illness or flu that dissipated only to return stronger. The musket-blast stench of armpit and crotch that assaulted the senses once a person reached street level. It was like the running of the bulls but with no bulls. A parade with no purpose except to weep for one’s own existence; a day meant to mourn the lost and we, the living (always a selfish pack) cursing our own lot.

Entire crowds contracted in the windows like caricatures of themselves while congested alleys vomited out more faces, spectators freshly arrived from the soccer stadium where a riot had occurred because Peru had beat Portugal and I pitied myself but pitied more the Peruvian athletes who wouldn’t last an hour without bodyguards or guns. And the deformed faces on balconies, jumping atop iron facades wrapped in geraniums, the grilles looking ready to crack. A brawl on Avenida de Berna that escalated to include housewives and nuns who swung rolling pins like professionals and the powder from their latest loaves expanding in white mist. Looters shouting arpeggios while the tourist’s faces ossified in the sun. And instead of the authority of riot police drunk off their own power there was this chaos of sunken eyes and lantern jaws and a sun so strong even the shadows had fled. And I panicking. I leaving the hotel. I making for the alley, fighting against the rush of bodies whose sole purpose was to keep me in place; the harder I pushed the more resistance I felt, though finally I made a breach, a gap no larger than a mastiff, and ran past the cobbled steps of ancient alleys where antiquarian bookshops and dance studios had their windows shuttered. I had been in Lisbon once before, for the same reason, and again I cursed the dirt it was built upon. Again I cursed the caravels at sea and the bitter taste of coffee and the perennial walls aged by self-contempt. I made it past the wilderness of faces and the shouts at my back to the outskirts and a little later, in a suburb whose name I've forgotten, I passed a woman with eyes like stars who was hanging her clothes, oblivious, as if the insanity of her city was of no concern, a tradition, no? A little bit of silliness, so what? Small price to pay to live so close to the sea. This was the conversation we had in my head even though we exchanged only two words: Ola, she said. Ola, I replied and suddenly realized I was smiling because Lisbon was behind me and the day, though sultry, promised rain.

Poisoning Richter

2010-08-18T08:36:00.012-04:00

"There are several ways of poisoning a man," I assured Eldridge, pouring him another finger of scotch.
"I agree, but Richter is another matter. He is no ordinary man. He's a touch...madder, a depth deeper, a maniac to be sure."
"I don't doubt you," I offered, "but Richter's mind has no bearing on my assignment. For I'll kill a madman no different than a sane one."
Richter had been elected to office the previous winter against the better wishes of powerful men and their incumbent. Since then not a week had gone by without an attempt on his life. He was shot twice. Set afire once. Carriage-jacked thrice. Pussywhipped five times. Bullywinked eight. Yet it seemed, for all their efforts at murder, the stronger Richter grew. Physically astute, with a brow of great dignity, women swooned at Richter's good looks and easy charm.
"But that's just it." Eldridge argued "It does have bearing. Listen to my account and you'll see. Richter was accosted last May in the fields of the Midwest, befriended by hired culprits and given a jockey full of morning glory seeds, enough to kill a family of Protestants."
I waited. "And what happened?"
"Fool! I'm here aren't I? He's still alive! The man was unaffected! In fact - claim the very men who attempted his assassination - he seemed stronger on the morn that followed, particularly so, like he'd just lain a week in a whore's bed! He made himself a pot of coffee over the fire and drank it down like water. Then pissed like the healthiest horse the whole next day."
"Well," I pondered aloud, "often the systematics of a seed like that are in flux. My brother-in-law Walter is an ethnobotanist and he'd agree."
"With what?"
"With the notion that what's bad for one may be good for another. For example, I could drink an ounce of strychnine and my muscles could convulse and I could die. But perhaps you, or your Richter fella could drink this same ounce and not even retch. I'll hatchet the man. Trust me. And I'll make sure it looks natural."
"That's all I'm asking. People tell me you're the best."
"Well,” I laughed modestly, “I don't know about that. But I do get the job done."
We retired to my sitting room where I intended on showing Eldridge my collection of Zebra stamps and nature photography. I had a certain stamp from my 'Congo Collection' that I was especially excited at showing off, as it had tripled in value in the past week because of a mistake made by the Postmaster General, a known drunkard and opium-head who only acquired the post because of his friendship to President Taft. Before I could reach for my albums however, Eldridge laid into me with more questions. He wanted to know how I would assassinate Richter.
“You mean the fashion?”
“Yes. What are your intentions on his murder?”
“Haven’t given it much thought to be honest. Really, it’s neither here nor there. I could stab him repeatedly."
"God no!” He waved his arms. “It has to look natural."
"And it would.” I said. “Ever heard of someone falling on top of a knife and when they remove themselves off the blade the very shock at their own injury impales them once more upon the weapon? And this goes on ad nauseam until they die?"
Eldridge sized me up like I'd said something outrageous. "Don't use a knife."
“Very well. Now I have a collection of stamps that have no peer in the city…”
“If not a stabbing then what? Arsenic?”
“You’re really consumed with this, aren’t you?”
“It’s why I’m here.”
“And yet I feel quite strongly that we’ve discussed the matter. My price. The making-it-look-natural aspect. And now, being a courteous guest at my home, I’m inclined to show off a certain hobby of mine, although some who know me better might call it a compulsion or obsession. It’s the civilized thing to do. Know anything about stamps?”
“Please, my handlers would rest easier if we knew the details of the execution.”
“Jesus. Well, seeing as you’ve just hired me this evening I can’t tell you what I don’t yet know. But I see you need some sort of guarantee. Fine. There are sundry ways of killing a man and making it look natural, as you say. Remember Judge Lionel last year?"
"I do. He was hit by a train."
I nodded. "That was my work."
"But that's not natural at all! It's suspicious as hell in fact! Jesus, it's still under investigation."
“Let ‘em investigate. They won’t find anything. I chased him through a field, up a small hill and saw him smashed by the 418 from Charleston.”
“That’s not the point. The point is to avoid an investigation in the first place. At all costs.”
“At all costs you say? That mean I’m getting a raise?”
“That’s not what ‘at all costs’ means!”
“Let's not be touchy Eldridge. We'll figure this puzzle out. I could always slander him to death. Takes longer but it works.”
"Slander him to death?"
"For sure. I’ve done it. I started rumors about a man, vicious, false rumors of course, and I was dogged. I spread rumors with enough vigor to make his wife leave him and take with her their three sons. Two months later he was leaving a haberdashery and was struck by a trolley.”
“It wasn’t the slander that killed him you mongrel! It was the trolley!”
“Oh no.” I huffed. “Ever heard of cause and effect? Had I not slandered him ruthlessly, had his wife and three sons not moved to Pittsburgh, had none of what I’d begun been put into place, no different really than the tipping of that first domino in a elaborate pattern, then this man would not have met his death by trolley.”
"Absurd! Following this logic, if I delayed a man leaving a diner by asking the time and then he was struck by lightning outside you would consider me his killer."
"As you would be."
"Then in your mind almost all of us are murderers."
"At one time or another, yes. The only difference is that I am paid."
Seized suddenly with a sort of pain in his guts, Eldridge doubled over, his face contorted in terror.
“I blame the smarting in your intestines, “I said, “on the gastronomical gamble I took. You speak of Eldridge, ‘make it look natural! It has to look natural’ Yes. It seems to be an obsession of yours. Well there will be no discussion about how you died. No, my friend. I added some bug powder to your starch before dinner and this is what has happened. Cause and effect, right? Undisputedly, unconditionally natural.”
My front door opened and Richter strode inside, cutting a marvelous figure. Removing his top hat, he stared at Eldridge’s still-warm body with satisfaction. I couldn’t stop looking at Richter. He had paid me by courier and besides his face in the newspapers, I had yet to see him in person. The women were correct: he was a curiously, almost abnormally handsome man.
“Tell me Richter; before you leave do you have time to indulge me? It’s a hobby of mine, fairly new. They call it stamp collecting.”