“It’s not that big,” she replied, a little defensively, because that was the same thing her mother said when she complained about Maite’s lifestyle: “Maite, you spend all your money on records and books and comics and nonsense.”
He bent down and grabbed a copy of the comic book she’d left on her chair. “Secret Romance.”
“Oh, yes,” Maite muttered, feeling even more flustered and clutching her hands together as he flipped through the pages. “Let me put that away.”
He handed her the issue. “Does this one have the Aztec sacrifice in it?”
“No, it’s not the one.”
Maite tucked the comic book away and put on “No Me Platiques Más,” not because she felt particularly like she wanted to hear Vicente Garrido’s romantic lyrics, but because she couldn’t make up her mind. She wanted to impress Rubén with her taste, but she also suspected it would be futile.
“I wanted to say I’m sorry, by the way.”
“Sorry?”
“Yeah. I’ve been a bit rude, you know. Saying you don’t read the papers or know anything. Saying you read syrupy stuff—”
She didn’t want him talking about her reading habits. Nurse romances, that’s what he’d said, like it was very funny. And so what! What if people wanted a bit of romance once in a while? A bit of fantasy? Didn’t he fantasize about things? People? Maybe about Leonora?
“I suppose you read important books, being a literature major,” she muttered, even though her instinct was to shut her mouth. Speaking would invite further commentary.
“Not lately,” he said.
Rubén had moved from one side of the room to the other. He stood by the window and looked out, even if there wasn’t anything to look at. Just another building, very much like her own. The blinds traced dark lines over the worn square of red-and-white carpet she’d bought from a Lebanese shopkeeper. She told herself it was a Persian rug, but knew it was not. It was a fancy she had, like calling this room the atelier.
“It might be dangerous, getting involved with those people in Guerrero.”
“Better than being dragged to Lecumberri and rotting in a cell there,” Rubén replied with a shrug. “And don’t doubt it, we’ll all be dragged one day, over nothing. I’d rather be running from the cops around Guerrero than ending up a political prisoner.”
“It can’t only be those two options.”
“That’s what people like Emilio say, but trust me, in the end you either fight or lie down to be trampled.”
“But what does a print shop worker know about guerillas?”
“There’re all kinds of people with the guerilla. Lucio Cabañas used to be a teacher. You might say, what does a teacher know about revolution? Hell, what did Emiliano Zapata know about revolution when he organized a bunch of peasants?”
“I guess I can’t see how you’d change anything. It all feels complicated. And the cops! We all know what the cops might do to you.” She took a couple of Elvis Presley records from the shelf and flipped them over, looking at the song list. “Love Me Tender.” She slid her nail along the record sleeve.
“You’re direct.”
“I’m not trying to be cruel.”
“Nah. You’re good at hiding your head.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that! If more people minded their own business the world would be a better place.”
“I strongly disagree.”
Maite brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and bit her lip. She quickly switched her record, putting on “Piel Canela” and flipping up the volume, then she sat down on her corner chair and crossed her arms, her foot moving to the music.
“You mind if I have a smoke?”
“Not here,” she said, not so much because she didn’t like cigarettes but because she wanted to punish him. He was irritating. Nice one moment and then annoying the next. No wonder Leonora had dumped him.
“Whatever you say,” he muttered and stepped out of the room.
After a couple of songs Maite also left the atelier and peeked into the living room, to see if he’d taken refuge there, but no. He was leaning in the doorway of her apartment, his head turned toward the hallway.
She thought to tell him that there wouldn’t be cigarettes in the sierra, that he wasn’t nearly as interesting as he thought he was, and his little fantasies about guerillas and guns and revolution weren’t any more solid than her own daydreams. But then she didn’t know if there was a point in bickering, and she suddenly felt very tired.
The way he stood, he also looked tired, and something about the way his shoulders were slumped made Maite guess he was thinking about Leonora.
Maite fed sunflower seeds to the parakeet while watching the young man.
21
IT WAS TOO early to drop by La Habana and talk to Justo, so Elvis went by Maite’s building and gave the Antelope a chance to rest for a few hours. He had already sent El Güero back to the apartment after they’d stopped to place their ad in the paper. Alone in the car Elvis dismissed one station after another, settled on Stereo Rey as he usually did, and smoked cigarettes, patient, drumming his fingers against his thighs. “Dream a Little Dream of Me” was playing.
A few songs later, Maite stepped out and into a car with the same man he’d seen her with before. The hippie with the unibrow. Elvis followed them, but after a good fifteen minutes he lost track of them when a taxi veered to the right and blocked his path. Fucking drivers! You couldn’t shadow someone properly in this city, not with the multitude of fucking cars and buses and taxis and pedestrians, although the truth of the matter was that maybe Elvis wasn’t cut out for this shit.
Maybe El Güero was right that he was a marshmallow, a softie, and he couldn’t measure up to El Gazpacho.
Damn it! The woman. Where could she have gone? For a minute he panicked, thinking maybe she was meeting with Leonora, but then he calmed himself down. No, Leonora was still in hiding; she wouldn’t read the ad in the newspaper until the next morning. Could be the woman was visiting Emilio Lomelí again. That’s where she’d gone the last time. He remembered his address quite clearly, along with other details in the file.
Or maybe they were driving to the art collective? He doubted it, judging by the direction they’d taken.
Fucking shit. He was too tired and too tense, that was the problem. He still ached from the beating, his muscles screaming about the mistreatment inflicted on them. In particular his back, his spine, they burned like holy hell, and it was getting worse, as if every nerve ending was waking up to the reality of the situation.