The Manual of Darkness

  He picks up the receiver and brings it to his ear, but does not say anything.

  ‘Hello? Hello? Anyone there?’

  Víctor is about to hang up when he hears his name.

  ‘Víctor Losa?’

  It sounds strange, his name on a woman’s lips. He wants her to go on. He wants to be able to listen to her without having to say a single word.

  ‘Is that Víctor Losa?’

  ‘Yes.’

  This is as much as he is prepared to concede: a monosyllable, the minimal possible confirmation, though all she hears is the phlegmatic timbre of a throat scarcely used. The woman introduces herself: Alicia. Just Alicia, no surname. She tells him she is calling from ONCE, though she does not use the acronym but gives the full name: Organización Nacional de Ciegos de España. She tells him she is to be his Rehabilitation Technician. Víctor can hear the capital letters in her voice. He finds the job title amusing, as though blindness were an addiction from which he might be rescued. Alicia offers her apologies that he has had to wait a whole year, tells him what a tremendous pleasure it will be to begin working with him and asks whether he has any free time tomorrow so she can visit and make initial contact. These are the words she uses: initial contact. Víctor listens as though this were someone else’s conversation, a recording. Initial contact. Like the spark between electrical poles, he thinks. Or between neurons. Contact. He says yes. A very useful thing, this monosyllable. So far, he has said nothing else. An awkward silence follows. Perhaps she is hoping for something more enthusiastic, less passive, something more akin to a conversation. Eventually, in a strangled voice, she asks whether 9 a.m. would be convenient. Yes.

  Víctor hangs up, stands next to the telephone, then takes a step back and says: ‘A year.’ His head jerks round like a wary bird’s, as though the voice he has just heard was not his but someone else’s. He frowns. He is not thinking about the darkness, the depression, the seclusion, about the constant fear, the bruises, the dozens of times he has burned himself, hurt himself during that year. He is not thinking about the loneliness, the unremitting exhaustion that has made it possible for him to get through it, as though only by doing as little as possible, keeping his body lifeless and his mind anaesthetised, can he forget the pain of not seeing.

  One year without sex. This is exactly what he is thinking. He has only just realised the fact, and cannot quite believe it. As though the terrible pain of all the things he has been forced to give up has prevented him from noticing this one.

  He says her name aloud: Alicia. He can find no way to sink his teeth into it. He closes his eyes and tries to imagine her. He still does this. Even after a year, he still closes his eyes. The first thing he sees is a pair of lips. Nothing remarkable about them: just lips. He raises his hand and allows it to hover in the air. Mmmm, he thinks. This is the sound inside his head: mmmm. It is as though, over the past year, the eagle inside his brain has devoured every vestige of articulated speech. He presses his tongue against his palate, as though he has just eaten his first late-season cherry.

  He goes back to the phone and calls directory enquiries. Three times he dials the wrong number, but the fourth time a woman answers, young, to judge by her voice. He asks her for the number of an agency.

  ‘I’m afraid agency on its own is too general a term,’ the operator says after a brief silence. ‘Could you be more specific …?’

  ‘An escort agency.’

  ‘An escort agency,’ the woman repeats, her tone absolutely neutral. ‘In Barcelona city?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Let’s see …’ A smile flits back and forth across the telephone line. It is as if both of them have decided to behave as though he has asked for information about a china shop. ‘Let’s try under massage parlour … ay, there are a lot of listings. Do you have any preferences? Sorry, I mean about the area?’

  ‘Whichever one offers home visits.’

  ‘Home visits … there’re quite a few.’

  ‘How about in the centre of town?’

  ‘OK, have you got a pen …’

  ‘Just a minute,’ Víctor interrupts. ‘If you don’t mind, could you just read the number twice. And very slowly, please. It’s just … I don’t have anything to write with.’

  ‘No problem, sir.’

  The operator repeats an 803 number twice. Víctor thanks her and hangs up, repeating the number aloud to himself, then tries to dial it immediately. Though he can easily imagine the keypad – 1 at the top right corner, 0 at the bottom – his fingers seem unable to follow through. He strokes the keys as though reading a text in Braille. Several times he dials the wrong number. Eventually he gets through to the massage parlour and asks for a home visit. This is his first time, but he finds it no more difficult than he does ordering peanuts from the supermarket. Without any shame, or guilt, or embarrassment. He is asked to repeat his address then asked at what time he would like the appointment.

  ‘Now,’ he answers.

  ‘Now … I have Irina available.’

  ‘Irina.’ Víctor repeats the word, as though it were a brand name. ‘Irina. That’s fine.’

  Irina

  As she walks, she thinks that it’s a strange time for an appointment. It’s only just after 7.30 p.m. She has been doing this for two years now and it still seems strange to her that there are so many men who want to fuck in the middle of the afternoon or early evening and who are prepared to pay for it. She puts it down to a statistical anomaly. Maybe it’s just that all the strange guys pick her? Not that she’s complaining: the timing suits her, it means she can drop her son Darius off with a neighbour and save on a babysitter. Though money isn’t a problem. She makes a good living.

  She takes a piece of paper from her bag and checks that she has the right address. She presses the button on the intercom and is not surprised when the door immediately buzzes to let her in. It makes sense. They’re always waiting for her.

  She is sorry to see there’s no lift, not so much because she has to climb six floors as because there’s no mirror so she can touch up her make-up. Just as she arrives on the top-floor landing, the light in the stairwell goes out. A tiny indicator light, a red dot in the darkness, makes it possible to tell where the switch is. She steps towards it, her arm out, feeling her way. Her fingers are only inches away now. She stretches out her hand.

  ‘Don’t turn it on.’

  The voice is barely a whisper, but it carries the weight of authority. So much so that she obeys, draws her hand away. But it is a friendly voice. In spite of her apprehension, Irina does not think of running, she is not afraid that the owner of this voice might harm her in any way. A sixth sense tells her if she takes another step, she will come to the door, that the door is ajar and that he is behind. Whoever he may be. There is no light on inside the apartment either. She says nothing. Waits for instructions, but what comes is a question.

  ‘Irina?’

  She hesitates before answering. Now she feels something like a threat. Here, whispering in the darkness, the name is charged with intimacy. As though she were standing in front of a mirror, she stands up straight, smoothes the creases from her dress, brushes away the wisp of hair that has fallen across her face. The questions sounds like an examination. As though today she will be judged not by eyes looking her up and down, or by a hand stroking her body as a way of a greeting, but by something as arbitrary as her name.

  ‘Yes,’ she says, ‘I’m Irina.’

  The name sounds different in her mouth. The first ‘I’ is longer, almost liquid. The rest sombre. Irina, a Romanian whore. He is smelling her. She thinks he is smelling her.

  ‘Come in,’ the voice says, still serious though a little farther away, as though the owner has moved away slightly, or turned his back.

  Irina takes a step forward, her arm out, and touches the door, which yields to the pressure without a sad whimper of its hinges. Another step. She is inside the apartment. Without realising it, she has closed her eyes, as children do when t
hey’re hiding in the dark. She leans back against the door, pushing it slowly until it closes. She opens her eyes. There doesn’t seem to be a single light on in the apartment, nothing but the dying embers of evening, barely enough to make out the dimensions of the hall and the corridor down which the man disappears. She follows him and, as she turns the corner, sees him for the first time, from behind. He is naked, barefoot. He walks down the hallway with his back very straight, the reach of his arms a little wider than his body. Short steps. He brushes the wall with his fingers as he walks. Without turning, the man says:

  ‘My name is Víctor, Irina.’ She says nothing. What could she say? Pleased to meet you? ‘Your money,’ he says as he comes to the end of the corridor.

  Once in the living room, he holds out his hand, waving it so she can see it is empty. He makes a fist, brings it up behind his neck, then opens his hand again to show her a hundred-euro note. As though he has plucked it from his ear or from behind his neck: a child’s magic trick. Without lowering his hand, Víctor rubs the banknote between thumb and forefinger, fanning it out so she can see that in fact there are three of them, two hundreds and a fifty. He sets them on the living-room table and carries on walking. At the door to a room, he stops, opens it and goes inside without turning on the light.

  Irina stands next to the table. She does a quick calculation. It is €20 too much, but in this situation nobody expects you to give them change. She is about to say thank you. Not for the tip, but for sparing her from having to ask for the money up front. She puts the notes in her purse and, as though doing so signals the beginning of her professional assignment, she slips off her shoes. She puts her bag on a chair, places her shoes under the table. She opens the zip that runs down one side of her dress, pushes the straps off her shoulders and lets it fall to the floor. Quickly, in a single movement, as though removing an outer shell. Her bra is expensive but elegant, a hint of lace supporting her breasts. She takes it off too. Slowly she goes into the bedroom; she feels extraordinarily relaxed as though she were not approaching this vast white bed to do her job, but to get some sleep. He is lying face down in the middle. Irina lies down next to him and places her hand on his back. She doesn’t speak. On the contrary, she is grateful to Víctor for his silence, she almost holds her breath in support. She is waiting for him to turn over. Perhaps then she will know the reason for the strange, shadowy welcome – some embarrassing deformity, a harelip, an old scar, the ravages of smallpox.

  Víctor turns over. He raises his hand as though to caress her, but leaves it hovering, suspended, hesitant. Irina looks at his beard and it reminds her of a rabbi, a tramp, a castaway. She thinks he is trying not to look at her because his eyes barely graze her, as though something, something she cannot see, a few inches from her face, demands Víctor’s attention.

  ‘Víctar,’ she says, trying to pronounce the name properly. ‘Víctar.’ She fails again.

  She does not know what to think of this man, but she feels that she can trust him. She dismisses curiosity, it is a bad investment. She isn’t being paid to ask questions. Or perhaps she is, she doesn’t know yet. Time to act, she thinks. Too much talking. But it is he who acts. His arms, like his voice, are warm and powerful. With no apparent effort, Víctor turns her on her side and hugs her from behind. Then he is still. They lie like this for some minutes, like two spoons forgotten at the back of a drawer. He buries his face in her neck, his nose in her hair. Now he really is smelling her. Maybe that’s all there is to it, thinks Irina. Maybe nothing is going to happen. She’s heard of punters who only want someone to hold while they sleep, a hug, or a chat. She wouldn’t mind.

  This is clearly not the case with him, though. Irina quickly feels this between her legs, or more accurately between her buttocks, because it is here that Víctor slowly presses his erection, playful at first, almost tender, but then insistent, brusque. She should have expected it: no one asks for someone to come round at seven o’clock to take a nap. It’s better this way. Whatever is going to happen, let it happen quickly. Víctor slides one hand across her hip. Covers her belly with his other hand. He enters her. Irina cannot see his face. She slips a hand down between her legs and finds that Víctor has put on a condom, though she does not know how or when. She has only a moment to think about how strange this man’s hands are, the mysteriousness of his gestures. Well, she too has her tricks. She cups his testicles with her hand, not clutching, not even stroking them, simply lifting them slightly. A lot of men like this, but that is not why she is doing it. She does it so they come quickly. But it is not going to be so easy. Víctor moves her hand away and, for the first time since he penetrated her, he speaks:

  ‘No.’

  This is all he says, speaking in a low voice but so close to Irina’s ear that she begins to realise how together they are, and though she tries to perform another trick to bring him off quickly, moving her pelvis in long, slow, distinct thrusts, he places his left hand firmly on her hip to stop her. His right hand under her body is folded back against her breasts, though he barely touches them, as though he wants only to cover them lest someone should see. Irina knows she is literally in his hands, that nothing that happens from this point forward will be determined by her. Víctor moves his lips along her spine; from time to time he holds a piece of skin between his teeth, although he does not bite; it is as though he is keeping time, following the same rhythm she can feel in the steady pulse of his penis. It’s only blood, thinks Irina, blood pulsing to the beat of his heart. Yet it beats with the cold, clinical precision of a metronome. Almost without realising it, Irina makes the mistake of echoing this pulse in the muscles of her vagina, the way an audience’s feet sometimes tap to the rhythm of an orchestra. Other men have tried to bring her to orgasm, generally thrusting into her brutally as though this role reversal were the mark of a real man: the ability to make a whore come. This, Irina thinks, is not why she is here. It is important to know where she is and why.

  She decides that she has had enough and fakes an orgasm. Or rather, she starts to fake it. Without overacting, without crying out, without pretending to shudder. She breathes heavily and purrs. Another mistake. Without moving his arm, Víctor pivots his hip, turns his body slightly and both of them are now lying on their backs: her on top, him below. Him inside her.

  A lot of men have struggled to impress her with all sorts of gymnastic, sometimes impossible, positions which they’ve dreamt of or read about in a book. Nothing as simple as this, which Irina finds comical, naive, a little clumsy. Here they both are, staring at the ceiling. And this guy is so thin that if she moves, she might crush him. She quickly realises there is a reason for the move: it allows his hands greater freedom. With the fingers of his right hand he grasps her nipple. He does not rub it or press it or pinch it: he simply holds it firmly between his fingertips, perhaps pulls at it gently. With the fourth finger of his left hand he finds her clitoris.

  Now it is Irina who says no. Or wants to say it. She thinks it three times, four, and bites her lip. Víctor moves inside her slowly. In and out. Irina tries to avoid it, clamps her vagina around his finger, trying to suck him in, to stop him, she wants him to stop, she clenches her thighs too, and her teeth. She is not going to let herself go, she doesn’t want to go. She thinks about Darius. It is a way of bringing herself back to reality. She plants her feet firmly on the bed, tenses her back, jerks her hips and manages to break free of Víctor’s embrace; then she straddles him, her back to him and rides him hard and fast. She wants him to come. She needs him to come. She wants him to feel his heart heave into his mouth. They call it professional ethics: nothing to do with desire. After all, he has paid already, and given her a tip. Up and down, up and down. Like a frog, like a crazed kangaroo, she bucks and bucks on him, cursing his staying power until a pulsing jet from his glans tells her she has achieved her aim. She stops abruptly, still pressed against Víctor, surprised by the heat of the cum she feels inundating her in spite of the condom.

  With a gentle mo
vement, Víctor pulls out of her and, with a quick flick of his fingers, peels off the condom. Irina begins to understand. Or perhaps she does not understand, but she senses: from Víctor’s movements, his deftness, the things this man does with his hands. A magician’s hands. Still lying on his back, his voice somewhat drowsy, Víctor says goodbye.

  ‘Thanks, Irina. I’ll call you again. Your money is in the hall.’

  ‘No. You are paying me already.’ She is flustered, angry that she cannot conjugate verbs in this language she can barely pronounce. ‘You have paid me already,’ she corrects herself in a murmur.

  ‘No,’ Víctor says. ‘It’s on the dresser in the hall. You know the word “dresser”? In the hall.’

  From the bedroom door, Irina manages to make out the rumpled bed, the damp stains on the sheets, the man half asleep. There is something familiar about the image, something domestic which unsettles her. She goes into the living room, dresses and puts on her shoes. She thinks about what she will make for dinner. Chicken. Grilled chicken for Darius, grilled chicken for Irina and then bed. She is exhausted and a little sore. She opens her purse and takes out the three banknotes. But they are not banknotes, they are blank pieces of paper. It’s not possible. She saw them with her own eyes, she could swear she counted them. A magician’s hands, she thinks again. On top of the dresser she finds €300 in fifty-euro notes, held together by the pen clip shaped like an arrow. The pen looks old, though not necessarily valuable. She holds the money in one hand and, with the other, she clicks the top. Several times. Click, click, click. She puts back one note and keeps the others, still staring at the Parker pen. She has never stolen anything in her life. She’s not a thief, she’s a whore. And she doesn’t need it.

  ‘Not the pen,’ Víctor’s voice warns, just in case. ‘It belonged to my father.’