Maite told her mother she couldn’t speak because she was at work, but then her mother threatened to phone her at home that night. Maite hoped she forgot to do it and almost considered asking her sister if she wouldn’t get her mother off her case.
Around eleven a.m. Maite made up a migraine and said she needed to go home early and explained Diana had promised to finish her work. Her boss didn’t seem pleased, but he said fine, and at one o’clock she took the elevator downstairs and waited for Rubén to show up.
She smiled, thinking if Diana poked her head out the window she’d see her getting into the car.
“Good day at work?” Rubén asked.
“Fine. And you?”
“Work was all right. But worms keep coming out of the woodwork to prop up the president. Look at Octavio Paz and Carlos Fuentes, that couple of boot-lickers. And you should have seen Excélsior: they had a letter signed by José Luis Cuevas, Rufino Tamayo, Ramón Xirau, and all that lot, praising the president. Intellectuals and artists with Echeverría! Fuck them! You hear people saying it’s ‘Echeverría or fascism,’ like there’s no other choice, and you can’t trust anyone these days. Changing things from the inside! The bullshit they spout. And we…even we are not immune to this crap.”
Maite frowned. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“Asterisk,” Rubén said, “it’s winding down.”
“It’s closing?”
“I went to see Jackie before I picked you up. She says it’s too dangerous to keep meeting like we have.”
“She’s probably right.”
“There are so many opportunists waiting for their slice of cake. Political dilettantes. I feel helpless.”
Rubén gripped the wheel. He looked young and haunted; it was easy to feel sorry for him.
When they arrived at Sócrates’s apartment building, he still wasn’t home or was pretending he couldn’t hear the buzzer. Luckily they managed to slip into the building when a couple of people were leaving and walked up the stairs to the apartment, which lay at the end of a hallway.
The door was open a crack, and they walked in.
“Hey there, are you home?” Rubén asked.
On a messy bed someone had left a cup filled with cigarette butts. The light was on in the bathroom. Rubén walked ahead, brushing aside a curtain with wooden beads.
A young man, stripped down to his underthings, sat on the toilet, his chin pressed against his chest and his hands on his lap. Maite immediately noticed the little round burn marks on his skin and the rope binding his feet. He wasn’t moving.
“Is he dead?” she whispered.
Rubén didn’t reply; instead he stepped forward and placed a hand against the young man’s neck. “Yes,” he muttered.
“Oh, my God. What—”
“Let’s go,” Rubén said, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her out of the tiny apartment.
They rushed down the stairs. Their escape was so loud she feared the whole building heard them, but no one poked their head out the door.
“We need to phone the police,” she said when they reached the car and Rubén fumbled with the keys. He looked up at her, his eyes sharp.
“No.”
“But he’s dead. He’ll have to be buried.”
“Get in.”
Maite obeyed, but as soon as she was in the passenger’s seat she spoke up again. “We can’t just leave him there.”
Rubén started the car. “What do you think they’ll do to us if we tell them, huh? You want to end up at Lecumberri? With my history—”
“What history?”
“I’ve been arrested. I’ve had my run-ins with the pigs.”
“But he’s dead!”
“I know he’s dead, and we’ll be dead soon if we call the cops.”
Maite laced her hands together tight, resting them against her lap. Rubén reached into his jacket pocket and took out a cigarette. When they stopped at a red light, he lit the cigarette and turned to her.
“I’m going to drive around for a bit. Then we’ll go back to your apartment.”
“You’re going to let a man rot in a bathroom.”
“Better him than me.”
She tried to think of something, anything to say, but as she squeezed her eyes shut, the image of the dead man haunted her, and she forgot how to utter words. When they reached her apartment, still mute, she decided to boil water for a coffee, but she fumbled with the tin and ended up dropping it in the middle of the kitchen. Grains of coffee spilled across the laminate floor.
She grabbed the broom. The phone rang. She guessed it must be her mother and considered letting it ring, but knowing her, Mother would simply phone again in ten minutes and then get even angrier at Maite because she hadn’t been there to answer the first time. She propped the broom against the wall and took a deep breath before lifting the receiver.
“Yes?” she asked and closed her eyes, already imagining the harsh recrimination she was going to have to endure. Maite, you can’t handle money. Maite, you can’t handle anything. She pressed her back against the refrigerator and waited.
“Hello? It’s Leonora,” a woman said, her voice soft.
She clutched the phone cord, astonished, her eyes snapping open. “Where are you? We’ve been looking all over for you!”
“I was reading the early edition,” the girl said, and then something else Maite didn’t catch; the girl was talking in whispers.
Rubén, who was sitting on the couch, raised his head and stared at her. “Who’s that?”
“It’s Leonora! It’s so good to hear you. What about the early edition?”
“You have the cat? And the box?”
“Yes, and yes. When can we see you?”
“Tell her to hang up.”
“Huh?”
Rubén stood up, whip quick, and rushed toward Maite. He pulled the phone from her grasp, shoving her away. Maite lost her balance and stumbled down. “Hide! It’s not safe!” he yelled into the receiver and hung up.
Maite stood up, holding on to the kitchen counter. “Are you crazy? We’ve been trying to find her for days!”
She rubbed her knee, but he glared at her, as if she’d pushed him and it hadn’t been the other way around.