Dance With Snakes Read online

  The stink nearly knocked me out. I lit a match, a cigarette and a candle. I found a flashlight next to me and turned it on. The place was extremely tidy. There were no seats except for a single stool. It reminded me of a ship’s cabin. Rows of bottles and cans formed a kind of control panel. There were blankets piled up in the corner. An overwhelming feeling of happiness came over me. This was my space; from now on, it belonged only to me. I lay down on a blanket, turned off the flashlight and smoked. Tomorrow I’d have time to look the place over carefully. I was exhausted and needed to rest.

  Then, just as I put out my cigarette and settled into a fitful sleep, I felt something slippery sliding slowly, revoltingly, against my body. I was paralyzed with fear. There was no doubt. They were snakes. What kind of snakes, I couldn’t tell. Snakes that had been hiding in the darkest corners of the car. I stayed still, trying to calm my beating heart, to clear my mind, to not let myself be carried away by my extreme terror. I could make out at least six ophidians slithering over my chest and between my legs. One of them moved across my neck and under my left ear. I tried to control my breathing. Of course – these were Don Jacinto’s pets, replacements for the wife and daughter who’d scorned him. If I could manage to keep myself under control for just a few more minutes, if I could concentrate enough so they’d feel my vibrations and understand that I was the new Don Jacinto, I’d be saved, and the greatest scare of my life would be transformed into the kind of greeting that a group of pets gives its new master. It worked. I stayed still for about five minutes, feeling as if I were Don Jacinto, as if the pocketknife with the bone-coloured handle were a kind of scalpel I’d used to make an enormous incision that allowed me to penetrate the world in which I wanted to live. The snakes slowly left my body, but I didn’t move until I was sure that my life would continue just the way I’d pictured it. Then I sat up, lit a match and looked for the flashlight. The damned things were there, each one in its place, coiled up and watching me. I lit a cigarette. I started to whisper, to tell them that the filthy old man had been transformed into the person who was now speaking to them. Of course, they understood me. I could see it in their tiny eyes; in the way they moved their tongues when I spoke to them directly. I told myself I needed to name them and learn how to recognize each one. I wondered how the hell Don Jacinto had managed to obtain and tame the snakes. The one next to the stool could be called Beatriz, like the shopkeeper, they clearly had something in common. But this late at night, and being so tired, I couldn’t say exactly what. Now that I knew I was captain of this cabin and master of this fearsome crew, I could relax the way I deserved to, at least until the morning, when I’d know for sure that this hadn’t been a dream, but the real thing.

  Next day when I opened my eyes, I was afraid that I would find myself in my room in Adriana’s apartment and see that the whole thing had been a feverish hallucination. But what I saw was the yellow Chevrolet’s rusty ceiling. Before I even moved, I remembered Beatriz’s deadly eyes and her slippery sliding along my neck. After a while I sat up. They weren’t anywhere to be seen. Clearly, they liked the night. I didn’t snoop around. I knew they were there somewhere and that they’d come out when they felt like it, insolent, and obeying only what I’d inherited from Don Jacinto. As soon as I got comfortable, I took the cardboard off the windshield, put the key in the ignition and kept turning until I heard the reluctant cough of the motor. I moved the little stool in front of the steering wheel. I lit my morning cigarette and told myself that Niña Beatriz would have a pleasant day thanks to my efforts and my desire to move the vessel that Don Jacinto had left adrift. And off we went, at full speed, the yellow Chevrolet, the snakes and I, happy and anxious to get to other parts of the city, where we would begin the adventure of our new lives.

  I made my way to the largest shopping mall in the city, where I hoped the yellow Chevrolet wouldn’t be noticed in the vast parking lot. I parked right in the middle of the lot, surrounded by other cars, so the security guards would have no reason to bother us. I covered the windshield with the cardboard again, turned on the flashlight, and took a bundle of papers out of the glove compartment. I wanted to uncover all the details of Don Jacinto’s life. I found his licence, his registration, some old receipts, a beat-up address book, a pile of letters and a couple of newspaper clippings. He was barely forty-two years old, his wife’s house was located in a well-off suburb, and the letters had been sent by someone called Aurora, who seemed to have been his lover. I got ready to study these missives with inquisitive delight, when I noticed some movement in the corner of the car. They all appeared at the same time, slithering towards me. They didn’t move aggressively. In fact, I’d say it was with caution. There were only four of them, not half a dozen, as I’d thought the night before. Now that I could see the way they each looked more clearly, I was able to name them once and for all. The plump one with the cunning eyes would be Beti; the slender one who moved timidly, almost delicately, would be Loli; Valentina exuded sexuality with her iridescent skin; and little Carmela had an air of mystery about her.

  “Good morning, ladies,” I said. I lay down on a blanket to keep reading the letters and, to my great delight, I found Don Jacinto’s supply of rum next to me. I drank from a bottle, lit another cigarette and started to read. It was a typical tale of romance between a chief accountant and his secretary, both married, he, middle-aged, and she, in the prime of her youth. “It couldn’t have been just a soap opera story. Something more profound, more devastating must have happened to poor Don Jacinto,” I said to Beti.

  She raised her flat head, narrowed her eyes even further, and wagged her forked tongue. “They killed her.”

  “What!” I exclaimed, surprised that they already knew the whole story.

  “Her husband killed her when he found out she was cheating on him with Don Jacinto,” she explained.

  I took another long swig from the bottle. I put the letters and the other documents back in the glove compartment. It would be better if the ladies told me Don Jacinto’s story.

  “He had her killed,” Valentina clarified, without moving. She was stretched out from under the steering wheel all the way to the back of the car.

  Suddenly I realized that I was covered in sweat. Judging by the sweltering heat, it might have been noon already.

  “He never told us the details,” Beti said. “He’d only say that the husband had her killed in a staged robbery.”

  So that was the burden that Don Jacinto had been carrying, I thought.

  “But that wasn’t all,” Loli murmured indignantly, without uncurling herself. “The husband told Don Jacinto’s wife and daughter the whole story, including the murder, to make sure he really destroyed him.”

  That was when I heard the sound of someone circling the car, banging on the body, asking where the old heap had come from. I slipped a piece of the cardboard back from the driver’s side window. It was a pair of security guards from the mall. What a nuisance. The best thing would be to wait until they got tired of being out in the sun and went to eat. Carmela tensed. She was upright and started to hiss.

  “Relax,” I whispered, “they’re going to leave.”

  But they weren’t leaving. They were talking about calling a tow truck to take the car out of the parking lot. A piece of junk like this went against the shopping mall’s regulations, and if one of the bosses caught them doing nothing about it, they’d be reprimanded.

  I got out of the car.

  Surprised, they looked at me with a distrust that quickly turned to hostility. They ordered me to leave the parking lot immediately – this was private property, not a homeless shelter. I told them that I was just going to the supermarket to buy a bottle of water, but they said I was in no condition to walk down the aisles. What would decent people say? Hadn’t I noticed what I looked like? Couldn’t I smell the stink? They stood in front of me with their hands on their clubs, determined not to let me pass, to force me to leave. But I’d carelessly left the car door open. And the ladi
es couldn’t stand it. That was why Don Jacinto had always closed it so quickly when he got out of the car.

  The security guards weren’t so composed once they saw that Beti had got out and was slithering towards them, hissing, her flat head raised, her eyes deadlier than ever. Terrified, they took off like a shot. But Carmela had a different nature; she was barely out of the car when she threw herself in the air and wrapped her body around one of guards’ neck. He couldn’t even defend himself. The impact and the pressure on his windpipe killed him instantly.

  “That’s enough,” I said, so they’d get back in the car.

  But Valentina said they’d come with me to get water; it had been a long time since they’d been out for a stroll and they were sick of being cooped up in the car. I told them to be discreet and try not to make a racket. It’d be best if they followed underneath the cars while I looked for a faucet to fill up the bottles. Then they should go back to the Chevrolet. But there wasn’t a tap anywhere in that vast expanse of pavement, at least not one that I could find, so I decided to go to the supermarket. I went into the mall and, to my great surprise, I saw that the four of them were right behind me, smugly following me down the corridor in single file. This caused quite a fuss. Terrified people ran screaming into the stores. There was no turning back now. I was dying of thirst and I had to get to the supermarket. The problem was that all the commotion was affecting the ladies, especially Loli, the shy one. She hurled herself onto an elegant woman who was coming out of a small and very exclusive boutique, unaware of the disturbance, and bit her on the calf. Stiff with fear, the woman shrieked and fell to the ground, convulsing and foaming at the mouth until she turned purple and was still.

  The mall was suddenly empty, and we turned and filed into the entrance of the supermarket. I ran, because a security guard was hurrying to close the glass doors, but Beti was quicker and threw herself onto his wrist. He rolled around on the ground, howling. He tried to pull out his gun but was overcome with violent shaking. He banged his head twice on the ground and stayed down. The frightened customers were running towards the back of the grocery store. Valentina slid majestically over to them. I drank a bottle of water, then grabbed another and went to get cigarettes, loaves of bread, and some cans of tuna and sardines. Before I walked over to the exit, I spotted Valentina crushing the neck of a young guy who looked like a gang member. Back in the mall, the alarms wailed and I moved quickly, aware that the police would arrive any minute. A security guard at a jewellery store managed to open the plate glass door halfway. He took a shot in my direction, but in that instant, the ladies caught up with me and, furious, they turned to face him. We rushed to the Chevrolet. I took the cardboard from the windshield, sat on the stool, started the car and headed for the exit.

  I drove calmly. I even removed the cardboard from the driver’s side window and opened it so we could get a little air. The four of them were looking at me, surprised. Beti said they’d never seen so much excitement in so little time. I smiled, pleased to see them happy. I reached for the bottle of rum and took a big swallow. I lit a cigarette. Then I realized that I was driving towards the suburb where Don Jacinto’s wife surely still lived. I opened the glove compartment, took out the registration and read the exact address. It was easy to find the house. I parked in front and covered the windshield and window again. I was about to get out, when Beti stopped me.

  “You aren’t just going to leave us here, are you?”

  I told her that if I showed up with the likes of them, Don Jacinto’s wife would die of fright and then I wouldn’t be able to tell her what had become of the old man.

  Loli muttered that it wasn’t fair to leave them shut up in the car; they’d known Don Jacinto longer than I had and they wanted to meet his wife and daughter. Carmela agreed and Valentina shot me a pleading look. I told them I would take them on condition that they stay hidden and not let themselves be seen by anyone in the house. They agreed. I opened the car door and they got out. I lost sight of them.

  I rang the bell. From behind the door, a woman’s voice asked me who I was. I said I had an urgent message from Don Jacinto Bustillo. She opened the door partway, without undoing the chain. She looked at me with displeasure and then noticed the yellow Chevrolet.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  I repeated that I had a message from Don Jacinto for his wife. She told me that he’d disappeared, that he might be dead, that he had no wife now. Although she was looking at me with disdain, I could tell that she was the one I’d been looking for.

  “He hasn’t died,” I said. “He’s in hospital and he asked me to talk to you. They’re going to operate on him, he’s got terrible cancer and he may not survive. He gave me a bank account number and told me the steps you need to follow so that if he does die, they can give you and your daughter the money.”

  She seemed surprised and looked at the Chevrolet again.

  “Doña Sofía, right?” I asked, remembering the name I’d read hastily in one of the letters.

  “I don’t understand,” she said, as though already counting in her head. “What hospital is Jacinto in?”

  “In the one run by the Red Cross,” I said, “in the emergency room.” She finally undid the chain. I walked into a large room with rugs, paintings on the walls, and a small table crowded with family photographs.

  “How do you know Jacinto?” she asked stiffly, without offering me a seat.

  “It’s a long story,” I said. “I’m his friend. He told me about the tragedy, the events that drove him from this house. Where is your daughter?”

  “At school.”

  I wondered whether the ladies had managed to get into the house and where they might be hiding. I went over to the table with the pictures, but I didn’t see any of Don Jacinto.

  “I still can’t believe it,” she said. “You’ll have to explain this bank account thing to me again.”

  I began to despair. I needed a drink; I needed to be away from this place, far from this insidious woman. I asked her to get some paper and a pencil so I could give her the instructions. When she turned around, I took out my pocketknife and pounced. She dodged me, and struggled and screamed but I caught her with my arm. I thrust the knife deep into her stomach. I stabbed her until she went down, her mouth and eyes open. Her nails loosened from my arm. A young maid appeared in the hallway. She stopped when she saw my knife and my blood-spattered clothes. But I didn’t need to act – the four snakes attacked her as one. The poor thing crumbled and convulsed a few times before swelling up so badly that she looked like she might explode.

  “Let’s go.” I said.

  Once I got outside, I realized I was now limping like Don Jacinto. I had a sullen look and a budding beard. We climbed into the Chevrolet, and while I took down the cardboard, I asked them why they’d attacked the maid so savagely.

  “So that wasn’t Don Jacinto’s daughter?” asked Beti, surprised.

  I said no, they’d made a mistake. The girl was at school. They exchanged glances.

  I started the car and went to look for a quiet place to park and rest after so much excitement, but I couldn’t find one anywhere. We went downtown, to the buildings destroyed by the earthquake, the sidewalks packed with street vendors selling piles of used clothing from the United States, the sound of hundreds of stereos playing at the same time, and the crazed crowds of people pouring out onto the streets. The yellow Chevrolet moved at a snail’s pace through the sea of bodies. It was hard to believe that what had once been the historic city centre had now been plunged into chaos, only as a result of the government’s indolence. I wanted to do my good deed for the day and help clean up the neighbourhood. I stopped the car where the crowds were thickest and told the ladies to go out for a stroll. I was worn out and needed to be alone for a while. I opened the car door. I reached for the bottle of rum, lit a cigarette and told myself the solution was to find a group of apartment blocks like the ones where my sister Adriana lived. Somewhere where the car wouldn’
t be noticed for a few days. Why hadn’t I thought of it before?

  The din outside was tremendous. The ladies were in a kind of orgy, biting everything in sight. I had closed the door and window to block out the screaming, but I could still feel the terror of the fleeing crowds beating in my eardrums. In just a few seconds the street had been destroyed. There were dozens of bodies lying twisted on the ground between the vendors’ stalls, as though there’d been a machine gun attack or an earthquake. I thought we shouldn’t call too much attention to ourselves. I opened the car door and yelled for them to come back. They came in excited and out of breath. I started the car while they gossiped liked maidens in a tearoom, which was unlike them.

  We went to the other end of town, near the road that led to the harbour. I found a place far away from stores, pharmacies, or any other businesses. It was on a street near a row of newly built houses, most of them probably still empty, let alone equipped with a phone line. I turned the car off, put up the cardboard, took the beat-up address book from the glove compartment and headed out to find a phone booth. I had to walk about ten blocks. I looked under the A’s and found the late Aurora’s number. I dialled but no one answered. This could mean one of two things: either the guy was at work, or he didn’t live there anymore. Once again, I had nothing to do. I needed a newspaper (had there been any reports that two indigents had died in a scuffle?) and my television, but I couldn’t go back to my sister’s and face her questioning. I decided it was a good time to read the letters and newspaper clippings. The ladies had disappeared. I turned on the flashlight and made myself comfortable, with the cigarettes and rum nearby. First I read what the papers had to say. In the briefs section, I found the story. Mrs. Aurora Pineda, a secretary at the Steel Tube Company, had been murdered while coming home from work by a pair of thieves who snatched her purse, which contained her pay cheque, as well as her wristwatch and a necklace. It seemed the victim had fought back and the criminals shot her in the head. There were no witnesses. That was all. I was surprised that it had happened just three years ago. I quickly arranged the seven letters in chronological order. She was the pretentious type, with no notion of spelling or grammar. She’d be a useless secretary, unless you were sleeping with her. She was also an opportunist – she asked Don Jacinto to buy her clothes and trinkets and to pay her debts. In the fifth letter, her tone changed. She was worried because her husband suspected something. He was watching her. She scolded Don Jacinto for not taking her seriously, for not wanting to divorce his wife and marry her. In the sixth letter, she was no longer worried, but scared. Her husband had found out. A friend of his had seen her in Don Jacinto’s car during business hours. She talked about beatings and death threats. In the seventh letter her fear had turned into terror. She said Raúl had sworn that after he killed her, he’d ruin Don Jacinto. I spent some time turning it all over in my head, picturing this idiot woman getting herself involved in a passionate affair that got out of hand. I tried to figure out how Raúl had ruined Don Jacinto’s life, besides murdering his mistress. I stayed there wondering, mulling over different hypotheses until I fell asleep.