‘I’m not sure I understand the title,’ she says, eventually.
‘It’s about a chance.’
‘Sorry? What?’
‘About having or not having a chance. It’s explained in the book. They changed a lot of things in the film. In fact the two are completely different. She doesn’t even appear in the book. And he dies at the end. He’s shot in the belly and bleeds to death on the deck of the boat. Two men show up to help him and ask what happened. He starts to say something, but he’s too weak. A man. He says those words several times: a man. The two guys think he’s about to describe his killer, until he finally manages to say, “A man alone ain’t got no … chance.” They dropped the scene in the film, but I suppose they wouldn’t have dared change the title.’
‘No chance of what?’
‘How do I know? That’s all he says. Of salvation, I suppose, of surviving.’
‘Oh.’
‘You said you’ve brought me two things?’
As though this sudden change of subject puts an end to the reason they’re here, alone in the dark, Alicia sits up and puts her feet on the floor.
‘I’m afraid you’re not going to like the other thing as much.’
‘Try me, Slim.’
‘Don’t call me Slim.’
Walking blindly towards the window should prove no problem for Alicia, but she is barefoot and stubs her little toe against one of the wheels of the bed. Víctor hears her swear, then the sound of the blind being yanked up. Alicia comes back to the bed, searches through her bag for a minute then says:
‘Here, take this. Use both hands.’
She puts a small block of wood in his right hand and a sheet of sandpaper in his left. Víctor strokes the paper, can feel the different texture of each side.
‘What do I need sandpaper for?’
‘Who knows. If you still refuse to do magic, you could be a carpenter. No, but seriously …’ Alicia swallows before going on. ‘It’s an important exercise. The way your hand moves when you’re sanding is very similar to the way it moves when you’re using a cane.’
‘A cane,’ Víctor echoes. ‘The white cane.’
‘Yes. In theory you should do it on a table, but you can practise in bed. The idea is to turn the block of wood into a dice. In the workshops at ONCE, we even ask people to put tacks in it to represent the numbers on each side, but I’ll be happy if you just sand the edges.’
‘But you already know I’m not going to do it.’
Alicia pretends she hasn’t heard. She leans down and presses the button that raises the head of the bed.
‘You’ll be more comfortable like that. Hold the wood in your left hand and move the sandpaper with your right. The most important thing is that your shoulder and your arm shouldn’t move. You just move your wrist. That way you’ll learn …’
‘Alicia.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve just told you, I’m not doing it.’
‘It’s not hard. It’s just an exercise. And it’s not as if you’ve much else to do.’
‘Not this. Not the cane.’
‘It’s important. Very important. In fact, if you’d learned to use it earlier, you wouldn’t be in this situation.’
‘Really? You think I could have fought off the motorbike with my cane? What are you going to do, attach a bayonet to the end of it so I can stab the first bastard who comes too close? Why don’t you just hang a bell around my neck. Like they used to do with lepers.’
‘Víctor …’
Alicia doesn’t want to continue this discussion. She’s getting to know Víctor. There are a dozen arguments she could recite, all intended to overcome the initial reluctance all blind people feel about using a cane, but she knows it would be futile.
‘I went to your apartment yesterday.’
‘Oh. Did you bring me the flower remedies?’
She takes the bottles out of her bag and hands them to him. He opens one and empties the entire contents of the dropper on to his tongue.
‘There’s not even a table any more, Víctor.’
‘I know,’ he says, then adds, ‘I like this one. It must be the walnut.’
‘But you didn’t empty out the studio.’
‘I forgot. Since I never go in there … I hope you left the light on.’
‘Víctor, I’m being serious here. Please tell me the reason you didn’t have it cleared out is because you’re thinking about the possibility of working again some day. Working. Performing magic. Earning a living like everyone else. And if you have too much money, then give some to charity. Because you have to do something.’
‘A man.’
‘What? Víctor!’
‘A man alone ain’t got no chance.’
‘Enough of the movies. Tell me if …’
‘All the things in the workshop were for Galván, Alicia. We spent two years together, recreating those relics of the nineteenth century with our bare hands for a magic show. He wanted to set up a museum and I decided to hang on to them so I could give them to him. But the nineteenth century is the past. Galván is the past. My hands are the past. And a little bird told me I’m supposed to break with the past. Isn’t there a flower remedy for that?’
He opens another phial, opens his mouth and theatrically sticks out his tongue. Alicia grabs his wrist to stop him.
‘No.’
‘You’re hurting me.’
Alicia relaxes her grip but does not let go.
‘It’s no use, the flower remedies, the sandpaper, even me, none of it is any use unless you’re prepared to sacrifice something …’
‘The thing is, I’ve already sacrificed a great deal. I’ve sacrificed my eyes.’
‘I’m going, Víctor.’
Alicia opens her hand and Víctor’s arm falls. The liquid in the dropper spills on to the sheets.
‘But you’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘Don’t count on it.’
‘OK. Well, I’ll be here …’
Alicia picks up her bag and leaves, not even stopping to take the DVD player, the phials, the headphones, the cables. Let him sort them out. Let him ask a nurse. A man. A man alone …
The Gallery of Famous Blind People: III
Learn these lines by heart, Víctor: ‘Come husbands all attend my tale, come wives and widows in your glory, come children all, and hush your wails, and harken while I tell my story.’ Or make something up. It’s not difficult. All you need is one verse to attract attention, after that just come up with a list of easy rhymes. Here’s a few suggestions: wander rhymes with squander, dark with stark, and blindness rhymes with kindness, the word ‘more’ is useful because it rhymes with whore and door and also more or less with drawer – the rhymes don’t have to be exact. According to tradition, you need a stanza apologising for any error, which, obviously, rhymes with terror, and likewise spoon with moon and June, repentance and sentence. Make a mental note that the last verse of the ballad should be: ‘This ballad that you’ve heard me tell is in this chapbook here set down, which for tuppence I do sell that you may give it to any man and call him blessed.’ You’re allowed to raise the price to account for inflation. Tales of crime and passion sell for a lot more these days. But at least you’ll be able to make a living.
They’re called Blindman’s Ballads, because the blind recited them in the streets, the markets, in the squares. That was how they earned their living in the Golden Age. It’s a lot less boring than selling lottery tickets. And easier than performing magic. All it requires is a good memory, something you have in spades. And it pays well. The last line mentions the price because, after the performance, they sold copies of the ballad accompanied by crude drawings. A handful of pages tied with cord. The study of these ballads is called literatura de cordel. The ballads tell of ghastly crimes, terrible vengeance, anguished repentance. Very up to date. It’s the sort of thing you might see on TV. And there’s a guaranteed audience.
There was a lot of controversy in the Gallery of Famous
Blind People when the balladeers were allowed in. Technically none of them, taken individually, was famous. But it is impossible to deny that, taken together, they represent something important, a literary genre some might dismiss as vulgar or even as a precursor to the tabloid journalism of today but one to which whole chapters are devoted in academic studies and in any encyclopaedia worthy of the name. When the dispute was at its height, Homer intervened and said: ‘I don’t see why we’re arguing. These men invented a whole genre, for God’s sake. Just as I did. It’s not their fault if later writers abused it.’ Some suspect that Homer just liked the fact that the gallery was heaving with people because that way he could go round hoovering up any gossip he overhead and then circulate it later as if it were his own.
In the end, the balladeers were admitted but, given that they were famous only as a group, it was on condition that they spoke in unison. Nor were they allowed to recite the last verse, since there was no such thing as money in the gallery. They proved popular for a couple of centuries: they made a lot of noise and the stories they told were fascinating. But after a while, everyone stopped listening. However much they dressed them up with extravagant words and rhymes, the stories they told always involved the same crimes. Worse still, there was no way for them to add to their repertoire since crime did not exist in the gallery. Not, it must be said, because its inhabitants were of superior moral fibre compared to the rest of humanity; it’s just that there is very little point killing or robbing when you’re immortal. You stab someone and the next minute he’s alive again.
Leave her alone, Víctor
It was her when it was simply a matter of speaking. Warm, honeyed words that carried something like a promise in every phrase, but that was only words. She was the one who took the initiative in those first kisses, and goes on doing so now that you have ripped off her clothes; or rather now that you have made them vanish, since that is how dreams work, the clothes suddenly disappear and suddenly your fingers are toying with the mole they’ve discovered on the small of her back, like someone glancing through a foreword, deliberately postponing the excitement because the best is yet to come, the moment when your hand slips down between her buttocks, when she tenses her stomach slightly and your fingers begin to discover flesh, fluid, skin, and perhaps you will hear her voice murmur in your ear, closer now, because only her voice proves that it is truly her rather than one of the thousands of women who could be in her place right now. If this happens, if she whispers a single word, you will want to enter her because her voice is a promise of paradise regained, and though she is tall and strong willed, you will turn her body to your every whim, perhaps you will direct her, lie back, part your legs a little more, move up, move back, tighter, harder; or perhaps you will simply grab her hips and go for the shortest, quickest route. But it’s not possible for you to have sex with Bacall, you might as well know that before you even try. She is made of light, remember? You can’t fuck a ghost. She will cease to be whoever she is the moment you slip inside her. It’s a rule. Even touching her feels like insolence, and if you carry on, if you stubbornly persist in trying to find a sensitive spot, if you dare to brush your body against hers, the dream will probably evaporate. Pretend it is Irina, lick or nibble the collarbone you know so well, taste Irina, or if it’s the unknown that turns you on, convince yourself that it’s Alicia, cradle her slender limbs in your hands and do what you will with her. Or give in to the banal fantasy of imagining it’s a nurse, any of the nurses who traipse through your room giving you more painkillers, the nurse who was here the day before yesterday who showed you how to find the play button on the DVD player, the nurse who knows you have not taken off your headphones since, not even when you go to sleep, the one who opens the door from time to time and finds you still muttering those lines in English at all hours of the day and night, the one who asked you this morning whether the girl from ONCE was coming back and, when you didn’t answer, wanted to know whether you were all right, whether you needed anything. Be vulgar, tell her that there is something she can do, put her in a short skirt with too much lipstick and fuck her hard and fast, but leave Bacall in peace because you’re going to wake up in a hospital bed, your shoulder will ache, you’ll feel like someone ripped your hip out with their teeth, you’ll be alone and the long fall from this towering paradise to the dank basement of reality might prove fatal. You should dream to order, Víctor. Lots of people do it. Before you close your eyes, tell yourself, ‘I’m going to dream about this.’ Something that is not painful. Something beautiful but inconsequential, something that you won’t yearn for when you wake. A poppy field. Wet sand. You’ll know. And phone Irina.
Without Edges
The piece of wood is already a cube, so the only difference with a dice is the edges. They have to be carefully sanded, the edges rounded so that chance can glide across them and show its capricious face. Though he does not always manage to do so, Víctor tries to keep his shoulder and his arm still, as Alicia instructed. He feels like a washerwoman desperately scrubbing a shirtsleeve. When he gets bored, or when he realises that he is holding the piece of wood awkwardly and is about to sand his knuckles, he takes a break.
Darius assumed the cube was a toy and rolled it under the chairs a couple of times. After that he became obsessed with running his tongue over the sandpaper. Now he’s tottering around the visitors’ room, pointing at objects and naming them: chair, shoe, more shoe. Paper, he says just before pushing all the magazines off the coffee table on to the floor.
‘He speak more good Spanish than me,’ Irina says as she gathers them up.
Víctor reaches his hand out and offers Darius the cube. There is the sound of a wooden block rolling across the floor.
‘Tomorrow I’ll be able to pay you for the last few days,’ he says. ‘They’re finally letting me go home.’
‘This no is work,’ Irina says.
‘Of course it is,’ Víctor replies. ‘You wash me, you dress me, you help me find my way through these corridors. It’s work.’
‘Greek-style is work. French-style is work.’
‘Someone really should invent the Romanian.’
‘Sorry?’
‘Nothing. Are you going to shave me?’
‘Of course. All-inclusive price.’
Yesterday, he asked her to bring shaving foam and two or three razor blades. They get up, and Víctor takes her elbow. Irina did not need any instructions to be able to guide him. They start to walk, but Darius is still dawdling behind. She has to let Víctor go, pick up the boy, then offer him her elbow again. They ask a nurse for a washbowl and then head back to his bathroom. Víctor sits on the toilet. Irina drapes a towel across his chest, wets his beard then lathers it with lots of shaving foam. From time to time, she stop to glance at Darius, who has his hands in the washbowl. She starts to shave Víctor, but quickly stops. By the third pass, the blade is already clogged with hair. Víctor tells her to keep going, tells her not to worry if it snags, that it doesn’t hurt, but Irina goes out and asks a nurse for a pair of scissors.
‘Come over here, Darius,’ Víctor says when Irina leaves. ‘Give me a hug.’
They both open their arms. Since the boy is silent, it takes Víctor a second or two to find him. He picks him up, sits him on his lap and says:
‘How much does Víctor love you?’
‘Much!’
‘How much?’
‘Thiiiiiiiiiiis much!’ Darius flings his arms wide, then starts clapping. It’s something he learned today.
What would life have been like if I’d had children? Víctor thinks. I’m forty years old, I could have children in their teens by now. Would they look after him? Would they think he was a pain in the neck? Would they treat him with infuriating pity? Irina appears with the scissors and starts to cut his beard. Víctor likes the click of the blades next to his face. There are a few sounds that perfectly emit the light of the immutable world: the tinkling that slips in through his kitchen window in the late afternoon as mot
hers start to make tortillas; the rumble of the bin lorry that sometimes finds him lying awake in the middle of the night; the clicking of scissors; the muffled sound of Darius’s footsteps. The sounds reassure him that the world is still there, that the cruel disappearance is not yet complete.
Twenty minutes later, Irina has reduced his beard to something closer to three-day stubble and both the towel draped over Víctor’s chest and the floor are covered in hair. Darius is sitting on the bed watching television.
‘Wait,’ Víctor says. ‘Start up here.’ He points to his left cheek just below the sideburn. ‘And just shave down as far as here. I want to see what a goatee feels like.’
‘You are crazy man,’ Irina says.
But she does what he asks. When she has finished, he asks her to shave off everything except the moustache. Irina tells him it looks horrible. Making the most of the fact that their faces are close together, Víctor steals a kiss. A peck on the lips.
‘Prickles.’
When, finally, there is not a hair left, she lathers his face and, dipping the last blade in the washbowl, shaves him again. It feels like the sandpaper rubbing against wood. When she has finished, she runs her fingers over his cheeks to make sure it is perfect. She straddles Víctor’s legs, presses herself against him, his groin, his chest, his face, especially his face. They move their heads, rubbing their cheeks together. They do not kiss; she breathes softly into his ear.
‘Irina …’ Víctor says as he feels a hand slip under his dressing gown, ‘Irina … Darius.’