My Tender Matador Read online

  A loud crash awoke the Queen of the Corner on the wrong side of the bed. Who the hell is making so much noise so early?! She grabbed her bathrobe and stormed out of her bedroom to find out what was going on. The house was clean as a whistle, the result of Carlos’s early morning efforts. Two young friends of his were hauling boxes down the stairs; behind them, the woman he said was named Laura, a classmate of his at the university, was giving orders like Cleopatra commanding a retreat. What’s going on here? she exclaimed, between lips puckered without her dentures. Good morning, sir, and please forgive the noise. Carlos said we could take these books, the girl said, with feigned politeness. He could have come and taken them himself, since he was the one who asked me to store them. And please be careful with your cigarette, young lady, these books could blow up like a keg of dynamite. She spoke with casual sarcasm, as if enjoying some secret the girl and the two surprised young men pretended not to be privy to.

  They think I’m some kind of fool, she grumbled, picking up the cushions scattered about haphazardly because of the suddenness of the move. They could be a little more careful with the décor, those young shitheads, she mumbled fairy-fussily, while she looked for her false teeth, left under a pillow during the clamor of last night’s drinking bout. And that’s when she felt the hard plastic, a credit card or identity card that she held up to her myopic eyes. What if it were Carlos’s? And what if his name wasn’t Carlos? What if he had lied and his name was Cornelio Sanhueza, for example. How horrible! How could she still love him if he had the name of a plumber or a blacksmith? She preferred not to know, not to find out anything else about this confusing movie. What with the boxes and the meetings of bearded men in the room on the roof, she had had quite enough, and she thought that one day, at some point, she would be grateful for having kept her gossipy, meddlesome spirit in check. That’s why she forgot about the card, stuffing it into her pocket and turning on the radio to avoid temptation.

  A communiqué from the government’s Office of Communication reports that a subversive plan scheduled for September has been uncovered. It also states that all necessary measures have been taken to avoid violent incidents in the coming days.

  She didn’t give a damn about all the threats and warnings, but a worry settled right on the point of her plucked eyebrows. She wanted to find out more about that report, listen to something from the only reliable source around, the Radio Cooperativa. She turned the dial, searching through an array of music and voices for the by now so familiar jingle:

  Cooperativa, the radio of the majority reporting: The organization of Families of Detained and Disappeared Persons is holding a vigil in front of the Vicaria de la Solidaridad in the Plaza de Armas. They are demanding that those responsible for acts committed against human rights be brought to justice.

  After hearing about this so many times, she had finally become so sensitized, so moved by the subject, that tears welled up in her eyes when she listened to the testimonies of those women who had had a husband, son, or some other family member torn away from them during the dark night of the dictatorship. Now she dared say dictatorship and not military government, as Lupe called it, that military-loving queen, so right-wing and as poor as dirt. That’s why she preferred not to discuss politics with that empty-headed maricón. That’s also why she avoided the issue or changed the subject when Lupe insisted on asking about Carlos. What’s his last name? Where does he live? What university does he study at? Does he have any brothers? Oh, girl, you sound like you’ve got the hots for the boy, she told Lupe irately, to make her stop asking. But a few minutes later Lupe returned to the charge. How did you meet him? Because you only hung out on the corner of the university. Yeah, that’s why they call me the Queen of the Corner, you idiot, she said in her face. On the corner, out in front, what does it matter, Lupe continued, with the innocence of a reindeer. I just hope you’re not acting as a front for anyone. You’d better hope I’m not in the Front, the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, girl, and that my name isn’t Tania the Guerrilla, because I’d put a bomb up your ass so you’d stop asking me so many questions. That spying pansy. But she was thick, Lupe was, that’s why she considered herself right-wing. She really didn’t have any idea what it meant to be right-wing, she just thought that saying she was gave her some kind of status. As if it were elegant to be on the right and to say it out loud and with her jaw hanging open to a bunch of those empty-headed queens who went to the discotheque. There could be a hundred if there was one; they were all the same, living for their next haircut, their waistline, the T-shirt they’re going to wear on Saturday to go shake their booties at the disco where they all fondle one another and make out with each other like the gays in the States, because those fools don’t know what a real man is; they’ve never been with a stud who smells of sweaty balls and armpits and turns you around and inside out. But that’s for old queens, Lupe would tease her, as she stretched out her chewing gum with her fingers. The best is to get it on the sly, when one of them falls into your hands trying to hide from the curfew. We’re all human after all, girl. I’m not going to let the poor young things get caught by the patrols. Anyway, they’re the ones who make the proposition. What would become of us girls without the curfew? We wouldn’t have anything to spread on our buns; we’d all have to enter a convent. That’s why I love the curfew and I love my general, who has established law and order in this country. I love this government that is feeding all us queers. With all the fear and terror, those poor men are all the hornier. Because you can’t deny that with all this unemployment men are free for the picking. Go take a walk along the Paseo Ahumada and into the Plaza de Armas, they follow you, run after you asking for a coin, a peso, a cigarette, anything just to go home with you. And that’s where she left the conversation with Lupe so she wouldn’t end up slapping her face for being such an idiot; she had simply changed the subject because Lupe would never understand anything. And luckily for her, Carlos had entered her life to show her the cruel reality facing Chileans. That infamous tyrant that bosses the country around from La Moneda. And nobody has the guts to tell it like it is and put a bomb under him so he blows up into little pieces. Then she would get some tweezers and pick up a few of the general’s cells and give them to Lupe and say, Here, girl, you can make a teensy-weensy altar to your saint.

  Three days had passed since the night of the birthday party and no word from Carlos. Several times she was tempted to look at the card to find out his identity, but she held back because of a strange presentiment that stayed her hand when her fingers so much as grazed the plastic. Of the boxes he had asked her to store, only two remained, as well as the metal cylinder that was the only décor left in the main room. An enormous sense of abandonment was taking over the house, spreading its tapestry of melancholy into every empty corner. Something about this story was reaching its conclusion; she had a foreboding of the same echo of departure that had derailed her own destiny. She wanted to clean, wax, shine, but she didn’t have the energy even to pick up the broom. With such low spirits, she climbed the stairs to the roof to gain a wider perspective by contemplating the tin roofs over the mildewed city. She wanted to see him appear down there, turning the corner, walking swaybacked, his crotch moist and fragrant. She longed to feel him as close as the other night when, her senses blunted by alcohol, the long-desired touch had become confused with deceptive lust. She could picture the limber inflection of his hurried walk, always coming from or going off on some important errand. Your life is like a marathon, she had said to him one afternoon when he arrived out of breath, just to throw some water on his face, rest for a moment, and go out again. That’s how urgent things are during this period, he answered, running his fingers through hair wet with sweat. But sit, rest for a moment. I can’t, they’re waiting for me. Let them wait. Just look how your heart is pounding, she cautioned him, placing a finger on his chest. My country is calling to me, Carlos joked, sighing with exhaustion. And what does this country of yours ask you to do now? I have t
o deliver this package at noon and I’ve only got an hour. He sighed, looking at his watch. And if I took it? the Queen of the Corner asked suggestively. It’s a delicate matter, very confidential. I love spy movies; tell me where to go. You would do that for me? The Queen sighed deeply. You don’t yet know what I am capable of. Okay, listen to me carefully. Just write down the address—No. Carlos cut her off quickly. You must learn it by heart. It’s downtown, on the second block of the Paseo Ahumada. You must deliver it to a man with a mustache who will be standing in front of a store called …

  The truth was, it was easy to deliver that heavy package and do Carlos a favor. As usual, she asked no further questions, and as she walked to the bus stop, she repeated like a parrot the instructions her love had given her. When she sat down and placed the package on her lap, she felt the chill touch of metal on her legs. They must be tools: screwdrivers, hammers, bolts, nuts, who knows what. Who’s going to ask, either? If the boy requests such a simple favor, surely it’s because he trusts in your discretion. When she reached downtown, two blasts of trench mortars put an end to all conversation on the bus. Out on the streets, people were running, covering their mouths, looking for a place to hide, desperate to escape from air burning with tear gas. Close the doors, close the windows! shouted the Queen, as she choked on the suffocating gas, coughing up her guts. A baby started to cry; an old woman gasped as if she were having a heart attack, struggling to inhale the little oxygen that was left. One woman lost a shoe in the tumult and the Queen of the Corner crawled under the seats to help her look for it. The acrid gas enveloped the bus, and in the confusion she leaped onto the sidewalk, half blinded by smoke. But Carlos’s package had remained on the seat of the bus, which was already picking up speed half a block away. Summoning her courage, she ran and ran, tripping, delving more deeply into the tear-gas hell, until she reached the bus and managed to climb on board, gasping, searching desperately for the package she had left on the seat. But it wasn’t there anymore, it had vanished in the confusion. Are you looking for this? asked a student, pointing his finger at a package that had rolled under the seats. At that very moment, a blast of fresh air wafted through the windows, inflating her enormous sigh of relief. Carlos would never have forgiven me, she said to herself, hugging the package as the bus drove into the acrid cloud of repression. Only a few blocks farther on did she begin to feel dizzy and exhausted from all the excitement. She got off the bus and limped through the crowded Paseo Ahumada, still nauseated from the tear gas. That’s when she felt the leaden weight of the bag she carried in her hands. This shit weighs more than a stiff. Luckily I’m getting rid of it on the next block. And luckily there were no more demonstrations. She hadn’t even finished that thought when a crowd came running toward her, people ducking into shop doorways, shouting, Pinochet—Secret Police—Murderers of our country, and they came at her in a disorderly mob, falling, getting up, tossing leaflets that snowed down on the Queen’s perplexity as she stood stock-still in the middle of the street riot. Run, the cops are coming, and Now he will fall! Now he will fall! Pigs! Cops! Pimps of the state! Careful, they’re coming down the Alameda. Run, they’re like wild beasts, they’re beating everyone in their path. And why would they do anything to me? I’m not going to run, not on your life. They will have to show respect to an elderly woman, a respectable woman. But the shouting mob had already passed her by when she looked ahead and saw the advancing wall of shields, helmets, storm troopers razing everything in their path with the sweep of their billy clubs. Under the onslaught of blows on backs and skulls, women, old people, students, and children fell and were trampled underfoot. There she was, facing the police formation, but the Queen, paralyzed with terror, didn’t move a muscle, and, lifting her nose in an imperious gesture, she walked directly into an encounter with the brutality of the police. Are you going to let me through? she said to the first uniformed man she encountered. The cop was so surprised by the impertinence of this prissy faggot that he hesitated before grabbing his club, before raising his club to bring it down upon that arrogant porcelain head. What, with all these disturbances, I can’t even go shopping peacefully in the supermarket? Are you going to let me by? she insisted to the cop, who stood there with his club raised over his head, burning with desire to smash that sassy-faggot ass. But it was already too late: In the blink of an eye, the Queen had broken through the armored wall and, carrying the heavy bag as if it were as light as a feather, she disappeared into the pedestrian traffic of the public walkway. Once she had gone some distance, she saw the sign of the store Carlos had named and let out another sigh of relief. At the very moment that the church bells rang out the hour of twelve noon, she saw a fat man with a mustache standing in front of the store window. Here’s the package from Carlos, she murmured to the man, who, unnerved by her homosexual air, took the package, thanked her between clenched teeth, and vanished like smoke into the bonfire of tense faces negotiating the noon hour.

  She had done so much for her dear Carlos, and she was capable of doing so much more, in return for nothing more than his delicious company, she thought later, while alone in the room on the roof, her dry eyes drilling into the view she commanded of the street below where she had seen him disappear three days before. Every time he left, this landscape opened up into an unfathomable abyss. Again she thought of him as so young and of herself as so old; he so beautiful and she so ravaged by the years. That young man was so subtly masculine, and she so disgustingly queer, so flagrantly effeminate, that even the air around her smelled of fermented butterflies. So what was she to do? She was like a scrap of tissue paper withered by the moisture of his breath. What was she to do if all her life the forbidden had always illuminated the constricted tango of the impossible?

  Love so true, how could we know,

  would strike our hearts with such a blow.

  When past all hope, alas, too late

  we are merely prisoners of fate.

  When he appeared again, three days after his birthday, Carlos came only to take the few remaining boxes and the metal tube that he carried out wrapped in the taffeta with lace ruffles she had made. Do you mind if I take it like this? I don’t care, but if you’re trying to hide what it is, you’re only calling more attention to it. What, so you know what it is? He was interrogating her as he stood at the foot of the stairs holding the cylinder. Look, cutie pie, pretending to be a fool is one thing, but fortunately love has not turned me into a total retard, she shouted at him, with the wrath of a siren removed from her sea. And she ran up the stairs, pursued by Carlos’s strong, bounding stride, which overtook her in the middle of the staircase; taking her by the arm, he pierced her with the black thorn of his eyes. So why didn’t you ever ask anything? I got sick of me asking and you always saying, “I’ll tell you later, I’ll tell you later,” as if I were the most foolish of all faggots. Because deep down (with a sob in the bubble of her voice) you never took me seriously, you never thought I could keep a secret. That wasn’t it, Carlos said, putting his arm around her waist and helping her up the rest of the stairs. It would be dangerous for you to have access to more information. Why, aren’t both of us involved in the same thing? Of course we are, Carlos affirmed, and she delighted in sharing this both of us and we that he confirmed with dangerous complicity. Do you want me to tell you something I can tell you? Because it isn’t fair that after helping us so much you don’t know anything. Look, sit down, let’s talk. My name isn’t Carlos. I already know that, she said, pulling out the identity card she had stashed away days ago. Where did you find that? I was so worried about it. Don’t worry, I found it here under the chair, and I didn’t even look at the name. Do you want to look now? Or do you want me to tell you? Though I would prefer, for security’s sake, that you know me by Carlos, that’s my alias. What do you mean, alias? Sort of like a nickname, a pseudonym. When I performed in transvestite shows I had a nickname, a drag name, the queens call it. And what was your drag name? And why should I tell you mine if you don’t tell me yours
? That’s totally different, darling—Carlos laughed, putting his card away—this is political; we use a different name so we can function clandestinely. Oh, Carlos (with the shyness of a child), your words frighten me; they sound like those repeated so often on the news of Radio Cooperativa (looking at him with cinematic fear). You aren’t going to tell me that you are part of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front? At this point, Carlos mumbled, We are. It sounds like a song: We are an impossible dream searching for the night. You’re right, but we aren’t searching for the night but rather the daylight, a new dawn after the long darkness our country has been plunged into. There you go, getting serious again, she squeaked like a little girl, twisting a tulle ribbon around her finger. It’s very serious stuff, more so than you can imagine; that’s why I prefer that you know only the bare minimum. And if some day we have to communicate with each other clandestinely, we’ll have to use a code word, a secret password or phrase that only the two of us know. What do you think? I love it (her cheeks looked like peaches in the sun). Can it be the title of a song? It isn’t usually, but if you want, only it can’t be more than three words. I’ve got it, I found it. Do you want me to write it down for you? Never, ever, bellowed Carlos with playful tenderness. A code word can never be written down, it has to be learned by heart. So I’ll whisper it in your ear. Carlos moved his unshaven cheek up to the hummingbird’s mouth that slowly blew into his ear the breath of the refrain.