My Tender Matador Page 8

  As she entered, she heard the needle scratching at the end of the record; farther away, stretched out like a railroad track across the cushions, Carlos was snoring loudly through the whimsical bellows of his open mouth. One of his legs was bent into an arc, while the other, hanging down from the divan, offered up the bulky epicenter of his parcel, taut within the shimmering confines of the half-open zipper: The handle had slipped down the bronze teeth of the fly, exposing the elastic waistband of his underpants crowned by the curly black hairs of his virile pubis. Only a small patch of his stomach could be seen pulsating, pressed in by the belt buckle, a tiny island of skin in the shadow of the pubic bush surrounded by the cobalt sea of his creased jeans. She had to sit down, feeling suffocated by the ecstasy of the scene; she had to breathe deeply so as not to succumb to the oblivion of a fainting spell provoked by the overwhelming beauty of a sight that was further eroticized by her inebriated state. There he was, vulnerable, utterly exposed in his sweet infantile lethargy, that beloved body, that prohibited flesh that had so often vanished from the amorous raptures of her vigils. There she had him, within reach and for her full contemplation, to review inch by inch with her old eyes, which, like a caterpillar, crept slowly along the olive-colored vein of his neck bent over like a ribbon. There he was, offering himself to her drunkenly, like a whore in a port, to the drowsy fingertips of her eyes, which caressed him from afar, to the visual touch, eyes’ caressing breath that vaporizes into an intangible kiss on the budding, damp, violet nipples, like those of a young bitch, under the transparent cotton of his shirt. There, just a few feet away, she could see him with his legs spread apart, the outcropping from the sculpted curvature of his groin pushing his youthful stump toward her, offering that gloved reptile from between muscular thighs sheathed in rough denim. He looks like an Indian god, lulled to sleep by the rustle of the palm trees in the jungle, she thought. A dreaming warrior during a respite from the battle, an unbearable temptation for a faggot like her, who longed for tender sex, hypnotized, driven wild by the raunchy atmosphere of sin and passion. She didn’t even think or feel it when her hand swept like a seagull through the air that separated her from this nectar, her butterfly hand she allowed to flutter gently over the narrow territory of his thighs, her wasplike fingers alighting gently on the metal handle of the zipper to lower it, open it without a sound, as smoothly as one would unravel a web without awakening the spider. She didn’t think—like a watchmaker, she couldn’t afford to hesitate or tremble—as she loosened with the brush of a petal the tight wrapping around the sleeping lizard. She didn’t think, allowing herself to be led down into the abyss, zipper down until she had untied the fetters that lent form to the bolt of flesh wrapped in the white shroud of his underpants. And there it was … finally, only a few inches from her nose; like a baby in diapers smelling of laundry detergent, there was Carlos’s long-desired muscle. He slept so innocently, disturbed only intermittently by her delicate kneading of his inert member. In her doubting fairy head she felt no guilt; this was the art of love that released the mummy from its bonds. With infinite tenderness she slipped her hand between his stomach and the elastic of the underpants and reached down to take hold, as if it were a delicate piece of porcelain, the warm body of that resting babe. She gently cradled it in the palm of her hand and brought it out into the room’s dim light, unfurling to its full length the growing baby boa that, when taken out of its cage, flopped down like a whip. Such length exceeded all her wildest expectations; in spite of its flaccidity, the cane was as robust as a war trophy, a thick finger with no nail that begged for a mouth to ring its livid gland. And thus the Queen obliged; removing her false teeth, she wet her lips so she could slip smoothly down the clapper that would ring between her empty gums. Once she had it inside her moist hollow, she felt it dampen, move, awaken, bucking gratefully under the stroke of her flannel tongue. This is a labor of love, she reflected, as she heard Carlos breathing now with more agitation in his ethereal unconsciousness. It couldn’t be anything else, she thought, as she felt on the roof of her mouth the pulsations of this animal that was coming back to life. With the refinement of a geisha, she clutched it in her fist and slid it out of her mouth, watching it surge up in front of her face, and with her tongue sharpened into an arrow, traced with a trickle of spit the purple ring around its smooth, shiny head. This is the art of love, she repeated to herself tirelessly, inhaling the scent of an Etruscan man exuded by the mushroom-shaped moon. She wondered if women knew how to do this; they probably just sucked whereas we queens work a melodic border around the symphony of the blow job. Women just use suction, whereas the fairy’s mouth first breathes a halo around the gift of the gesture. A faggot first tastes then warbles her lyrical sampling through the carnal microphone that amplifies her radiophonic libation. It’s like singing, she concluded, like singing a love ballad to Carlos, straight into his heart. But he will never know, she confided sadly to the doll in her hand, and it looked at her tenderly with its half-blind cyclopean eye. Carlos, so drunk and asleep, will never know about his best birthday present, she said to the swarthy puppet as she kissed with velvety softness the small slit in its geisha mouth. In response, the loyal doll offered up a large glassy tear to lubricate the parched song of her misunderstood solitude.

  Longing to have you in my arms,

  Whispering words of love.

  Longing to have your charms

  And kiss your lips again.

  When she opened her eyes, she saw Carlos in front of her, still snoring, sprawled out like a Christ disjointed by the pisco’s alcoholic onslaught. The dense brandy had submerged the flaccid paralysis of his long limbs in oblivious slumber. The handle of his zipper was a small bronze train that remained standing halfway down the track, in almost exactly the same place. Everything except this “almost” led her to believe that all the commotion of the previous images had been but part of her frenzied desire. She wasn’t sure, because she wasn’t savoring even a trace of the flavor of human flesh on her tongue. But seeing Carlos so relaxed, watching his baby face in a state of such total abandon, as if he had just finished drinking a pacifying bottle, she allowed herself to doubt. She preferred not to know, not to be absolutely certain if that sublime blow job had been real. And with this sweet doubt lending balance to a body that rose, tottering like a crane, she left the room without making a sound and went to bed.

  The burst of twenty salvos made him leap out of bed and fumble around in his bedside table for his small Luger. It’s just the cadets from the Academy who have come to salute you on your birthday, his wife said as she entered the bedroom, finding him terrified on this bright morning now rendered opaque by the smoke of the gunshots. The Dictator snorted a sigh of relief and turned over to sink back down into his pillow. The boys look so lovely with their red and white pom-poms, standing so nicely in formation outside. I guess they won’t shoot a round for every one of your years because there wouldn’t be a single petal left on the magnolia tree that is just now blooming. They’ve called from all the ministries, and the telephone has been ringing off the hook, so many people want to send you birthday wishes. Gonzalo came early and brought you a couple of very elegant Italian ties, embroidered with iridescent silk, and he asked me to give them to you because he’s worried that you won’t like them. You see how discreet Gonza is, so gentlemanly, so tactful. So totally different from those aides-de-camp who every year give you those horrible copper plates decorated with copihue flowers and peasants dancing the cueca. I don’t even have anywhere to put all that junk. Our living room looks like a tourist information center with all those horns and spurs and stirrups and tricolored blankets. People are so unimaginative when it comes to giving gifts. And this is just the beginning, because at eleven o’clock the ambassadors will start arriving, and then the comandantes and their wives, who always bring you books. As if they wanted to educate you! Just imagine. As if you read those beautifully bound history or literature books with gold spines. I’m not saying they’re tra
sh, because they must be worth a fortune and they do give an intellectual air to the living room; they even match the gold frames on the paintings. The First Lady, sitting in front of the dressing-table mirror, powdered her nose with a puff made of swan feathers. Oh, it’s just not fair; look at all these wrinkles I’m getting on my forehead, Augusto. Look, I have almost as many as you do, and I’m much younger than you are. It must be these difficult times we are living in, all the frights and frustrations I experience by your side. No other woman would have tolerated her husband being treated by the international press as a tyrant, a dictator, a murderer. And even though it is all lies, even though all Chileans know you saved our nation, don’t tell me it hasn’t been embarrassing. Yes, as I said, it’s a nightmare to think that all those penniless Communists who consider themselves writers blow their noses at you. And it’s your fault for letting them back in, and it’s only because you are an old coward who was afraid of your government getting a bad name abroad. You see, I wasn’t wrong when I told you not to let that whole gang of Marxist intellectuals come home. So different from Jorge Luis Borges, who is such a gentleman, who felt so honored when you awarded him the Cruz de Mérito. And they say he lost the Nobel Prize because he said good things about you. Those Swedes simply turned a blind eye to that blind old man. They say his books are very interesting, but to tell you the truth, Augusto, I didn’t understand a thing when I tried to read The Ole, The Haley, The Aleph, whatever it was called. What’s the name of that famous book? I bet you think I’m insensitive, but how was I to know that Borges was blind? And when they introduced him to me, instead of stretching out his hand he grabbed the arm of the chair. You can’t deny that you laughed too, because the room was full of officials and writers who were biting their tongues to stop themselves from laughing out loud. And don’t look at me like that with such disapproval, just because today is your birthday; I’ll say what I like and I don’t care if it bothers you. That’s all we need. Save that ogre face of yours for your troops, but don’t you go ruining this day for me when I have so much to do. And she left the room after ringing the bell for the servants. There was no hope, not even on his birthday could she keep quiet, and from a distance he heard her giving instructions to the maid not to let anybody in until Augusto had gotten out of bed. In the meantime, he remained drowsily between the sheets, attempting to recapture the last oblivion of sleep. And he managed to do just that, for he next opened his eyes upon a different room, whose walls were covered with his childhood toys. Arranged on the shelves were his imperial chariots, his toy trucks, jeeps, and armored tanks awaiting a short battle. The complete sets of Persian warriors, Roman soldiers, Chinese Gurkas, General Custer’s horsemen, Alexander the Great and his miniature legions sculpted in lead, lined up in perfect formation. This was the zoo of war that had surrounded him throughout his childhood, these the toys that inspired the playful fantasies of a massacre. He looked them over, inspecting his miniature troops with the eyes of a boy lynx and trying to figure out what set was still missing from his collection so he could ask for it on his next birthday. That was all he wanted, no cake, no surprises, no parties. None of that. He had learned to hate chocolate, balloons, streamers, and paper hats ever since his mother had decided to celebrate his birthday with a big party. A great big birthday party on the day Augustito turned ten. And she was so excited she had the house painted, printed invitations complete with a picture of Augustito, and forced him to pass them out to all the children in his class. All of them? asked the child with haughty contempt. All of them, his mother repeated with a firm look, because I don’t think at your tender age you already have enemies. All of them are my enemies, Augustito grumbled disdainfully. Now, now, you mustn’t hold grudges, children must learn to work out their conflicts by playing together. So, one by one, his classmates received their invitations, and more than forty times he said, You are invited to my party at five o’clock, repeating those words as if they were the chorus to some hateful song. Nobody could eat lunch peacefully in their house that afternoon, the maid and his mother were running around putting the finishing touches on the orange cookies, the vanilla cupcakes, and the large lucuma cake with ten candles that was placed in the center of the table. At four in the afternoon, they put him in the bathtub, and with a sea sponge they scraped off the black grime that had accumulated on that dirty little boy’s feet and ears. He turned red from so much scrubbing and the talcum powder and fragrant perfumes that they rubbed all over him. At five he was ready, rosy-cheeked and perfectly groomed, with his bangs well greased, impeccably dressed in the starched cotton of his white sailor suit. You look so handsome, my son, his mother said, running after him to pinch those flushed cheeks on that chubby little face.

  Augustito, sitting at the head of the table facing the door through which he would see his despised classmates enter, one by one, didn’t even blink. He was happy while he waited for them to arrive and hover like flies over the appetizing cake. Augustito was jumping out of his skin with excitement at the idea of the cake entering their mouths, at the thought of them asking what that strange flavor was, that strange taste, are they nuts? raisins? ground-up candies? No, you idiots, they’re flies and cockroaches, he would tell them with a macabre smile. All sorts of insects I pulled apart and threw secretly into the batter. Then would come the stampede, the gagging, spitting, and vomiting that would soil the tablecloth. You see, Mommy, you shouldn’t have invited them, he would tell his mother, who would have taken a broom and shooed them out of the dining room. At six, his stomach was grumbling, begging for something to eat, and he appeased it with some cookies and candies. Nobody has come yet? asked the servant from the kitchen where she was warming the milk. Don’t worry, children are always late for these things, his mother interjected, sitting down next to him to wipe away a big hunk of snot hanging out of his nose. Would you like a little chocolate milk while we wait? He didn’t want any, because the rapturous sunset clouded with ocher tears the curtain of the sky, and he sat immobilized like the plaster statue of a small admiral waiting to disembark. At seven, they had to turn on the lights in the dining room so that the seated child would not be drowned in the shadows. The hot chocolate had been heated up and burned three times, and the meringue frosting on the cake had begun to soften and drip onto the white tablecloth. At eight o’clock, the bell had not rung even once, and Augustito was silent when his mother entered, wiping her moist eyes, trying to do something, anything, forcing out an optimistic little laugh as she called the maid to light the candles and told her to serve the three of them as if nobody at all was missing. Trying to cheer him up, the maid and his mother sang an insipid “Happy Birthday to You.” You have to make a wish before blowing out the candles, she told him, as she placed her fingers over his tight lips. That’s when Augustito’s intense blue eyes looked at one empty seat after another all around the table. And the funereal silence of that moment sealed the ominous prophecy. And when he blew and blew and blew and the stubborn flames refused to go out, they seemed to be trying to counteract that dark premonition. Anyway, his mother said in a singsong voice, since there is no cloud without a silver lining, now my darling can eat all the cake he wants because the nanny and I would drop dead of diabetes if we had any. And there in front of Augustito’s anguished eyes, the large kitchen knife cut off a huge slice of cake that was placed in front of him. Now don’t tell me you don’t want any, his mother said threateningly, softening her words by taking a piece on a spoon and offering this insect collection up to the child’s mouth. Come on now, my dear, open wide. Let’s see, one spoonful for me, one spoonful for the nanny, and one for every one of your years. And Augustito, holding back his nausea, swallowed over and over, feeling the scratch of the bits and pieces of spiders, flies, and cockroaches that added spice to the glossy lucuma cake that slithered down his throat.

  You still haven’t gotten out of bed? It’ll soon catch on fire. His wife’s shout woke him up with a start. For once he was grateful for the sudden intrusion of that
tinny voice; it brought him back to the present with a vengeance. He could still feel the disgusting cake in his throat; he needed to drink some water to wash down the horrible aftertaste of that entomological graveyard. Ever since then he had hated cakes, presents, the whole caramel-covered charade of happy birthdays. Five cakes have arrived: pineapple, meringue, Chantilly cream, and two Black Forest. Don’t tell me you aren’t thrilled. And then there’s the eleven-layer cake tonight at the Club Militar that the women from the Chilean Women’s Auxiliary will bring you. Those women are so dear, they put all their employees to work baking that cream cathedral for you. It is ten feet tall and decorated with crossed swords made of marzipan. Don’t tell me that isn’t very touching. The only thing I’m not sure of is what dress I’m going to wear tonight. What do you think of this cream-colored one with the brocade collar? Though I do have this mustard-colored Chanel gown I’ve never worn because Gonzalo says it makes me look jaundiced. What do you think? What are you thinking about there, stretched out like a grumpy grumbling whale? Gonzalo thinks mustard overwhelms my naturally rosy complexion; he says that if I combine it with—That’s the extent of what he could tolerate of his wife’s rosary of chatter. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he pushed the button on the tape player so he could enjoy his favorite recording of the army band playing “Lili Marlene.”