Rage

  Novelist, playwright, poet and screenwriter, Sergio Bizzio was born in 1956 in Villa Ramallo, Argentina. As a child he spent many hours watching films in the cinema managed by his father. He began his career writing screenplays for television and film. His short story Cinismo was made into a film that won four prizes at the Cannes Film Festival in 2007. Sergio Bizzio has written many prize-winning and critically acclaimed novels, of which Rage is his seventh and the first to be published in English. Rage is being made into a film by Guillermo del Toro.

  Sergio Bizzio

  Translated by Amanda Hopkinson

  "`You really give it a lot of importance if you let it control your life like this,' I told him, and he replied: `Would you like to know whether or not I want to hear what you're saying?"'

  "Did he say that?"

  "No. He let me understand that was what he meant."

  Doctor Wayne W. Dyer & Lua Senku, Dialogues

  1

  "When you were born I was just coming..."

  "I don't believe you," said Rosa, laughing, "you can't possibly remember something like that..."

  There were fifteen years between them. Rosa was twenty-five and Jose Maria forty years old. He was so in love with her, he thought himself capable of anything, even down to remembering what he was doing at the time of her birth: was he actually screwing? At that point in time, he was going out with a very tall, very thin girl, who straightened up every time he put his hand on her waist, making herself appear even taller and bonier than she was already. The girl was a good head taller than him, wore tight lycra and ironed her hair, and she had a stammer. In spite of it all, they had sex. Jose Maria had been in a relationship with the girl all year: there was one chance in twenty-eight that theywere actually makinglove on the day that Rosa was born (February). He thought about it in days not in seconds; he was unable to ignore that, according to Dr Dyer, "if an orgasm lasted three minutes, nobody would believe in God"; in addition, if he got his memory to think in such tiny units of time, it would have amounted to putting his own existence in doubt. In any case, it was a joke, a game. And Rosa was enchanted by the very idea. She embraced him.

  He let her cover his face with kisses. When Rosa's ear came close to his mouth, he took the opportunity to ask her:

  "Can I take you from behind?"

  Rosa froze.

  "Oh..." she replied.

  "What's the matter?"

  "I was scared you were going to get around to asking me that one of these days..."

  "Don't you want me to?"

  "It's just that..."

  Rosa often left her sentences unfinished. She was highly excited, but starting and stopping while leaving her sentences unfinished was her usual form of speech; it had nothing to do with her state of excitement. She thought at the speed of light, and her thoughts clashed and intercepted one another.

  "You'll like it..."

  "I'm not sure..."

  "I can assure you."

  Jose Maria regarded her a moment in silence and, since Rosa said nothing, he lowered himself from on top of her, lay down at her side and put his hand on her waist to turn her over. But Rosa arched her back and moved away rapidly, as if Jose Maria's hand had given her an electric shock.

  "What's up?"

  She shook her head.

  "Come on, Rosa, I mean what I'm saying..."

  Rosa propped herself on one elbow across the bed, looked at him and asked:

  "Do you love me?"

  "You know very well I do..."

  "So why do you want to make me...?"

  "My love, how on earth does that have anything to do with it? We've been going out together for two months... Do you really love me?"

  "I adore you."

  "Well, I adore you too!"

  "I knew that one day you'd come to me with..."

  "You knew it because you too wanted it. That's why you knew it."

  "The problem is, it's that I've never..."

  "And I've never done it either!"

  "Really?"

  "Why on earth would I lie to you?"

  "You've never made love like that... with anyone?"

  Jose Maria bunched his fingers and kissed them, swearing on the form of the cross. The two of them were totally naked in a little hotel room down on the Bajo, where they went on Saturdays. The only thing they were wearing was their watches. Only last week Jose Maria had bought two fake Rolexes and given one to Rosa.

  Jose Maria managed to read the time on Rosa's Rolex: it was twenty to twelve. Soon it would be noon. The time they would have to vacate the room.

  "You weren't lying to me?"

  "What do you want, that I swear it you again? I'll swear from here to China if you want. I swear solemnly before God."

  "I believe you. How idiotic, if I tell you `I believe you', you'll think that I'm giving in..."

  "Darling, let's not talk about it any more. We just have twenty minutes left..."

  "And in twenty minutes you want to do... Twenty minutes is no time at all for such a thing!"

  "Rosa, I love you."

  "Yes, I know you do..."

  "What does time matter if we're in love?"

  "It's just that for me it's all very..."

  "Just try it, whatever. Let me try it. Let's try it together."

  "And if it hurts me?"

  "What do you mean, hurts you? If it hurts you, I'll stop."

  "Will you love me just the same afterwards?"

  Jose Maria beamed at her.

  "Come here, give me a kiss..." he told her.

  Rosa kissed him, but only after a pause: she knew that the kiss meant "yes".

  Beneath her reluctance, she was dying for it. She would have given him everything and anything. If he'd had two cocks, he could have given it to her with both. She loved him. Her fear wasn't that it would hurt, or even that he would lose his respect for her. The truth was that she was not afraid of anything. Her desire overwhelmed her, in the exact same way as her thoughts ran ahead of her words; that was all. No, really nothing more: she simply hadn't foreseen the time when Jose Maria would ask to take her from behind.

  They had got to know one another in the queue at the Disco supermarket. Jose Maria was a construction worker; Rosa was a maid in the villa belonging to the Blinder family. He had left the site where he'd been working (as yet still a skeleton two blocks away from the mansion) to buy meat and bread for their midday fryup and had ended up in the line, right behind Rosa, who had been going for her weekly shop: her trolley was overflowing. Jose Maria calculated that the young woman had enough purchases to guarantee a good halfhour at the till. He slid a glance at the tills on either side, but the queues were even longer, and an ill-tempered tutting escaped from under his breath. Rosa heard him: she looked at the red plastic basket Jose Maria was holding in one hand (containing one packet with bread in it and another with cuts of meat) and said:

  "Would you like to go through first?"

  Jose Maria was caught off-guard by her offer. He raised his eyebrows and made a strange movement with his head, both shaking it and nodding at the same time.

  "No, I'm fine where I am, no problem..."

  He wasn't used to any kind of friendliness. That was why, when Rosa began to take her purchases out of the trolley, he interpreted her offer as having been more of a reaction to the impatient teeth-clicking sound he'd made a minute before, when he spotted the huge quantity of goods she had bought and was estimating how long it would take her to get through the till with them.

  "I didn't mean..."

  Rosa turned and looked at him. She looked at him seriously, silently.

  "It's just that I didn't mean..." he repeated.

  Sometimes he found it particularly hard to make himself understood.

  Rosa resumed leaning over her trolle
y and continued unloading her shopping.

  "Thank you all the same," persisted Jose Maria.

  "Don't mention it."

  The till operator smiled and lowered her gaze to the carton of milk she had in her hand, as she typed in the bar code, thinking that this guy and girl had something going, or else they soon would. She wasn't wrong.

  Once Rosa had finished her shopping (she requested the lot be delivered to the tradesman's entrance at the villa) and had come out of the supermarket, she didn't leave immediately. She crossed the street and remained within Jose Maria's field of vision, pretending to window-shop. Jose Maria emerged a minute later, his bag of purchases dangling from one finger. He crossed the street directly over to where she was.

  "Am I bothering you?" he asked.

  Rosa had seen his reflection in the window, but feigned surprise, even starting a little. She went so far as to allow an "Ay..." to escape as she raised her hand to her heart.

  "You gave me such a fright!"

  "I'm sorry."

  "It's nothing..."

  "Are you from around here?"

  "From over there," replied Rosa, pointing at the villa on the corner.

  "Some cottage, eh?" observed Jose Maria. "I work on the opposite corner, just around there..."

  "Ah, yes..."

  "Yes. I always come here to do my shopping."

  "And what's your line of work?"

  "Construction."

  "Well, that has to be good..."

  "Yes. Plenty going on at the moment."

  "What?"

  "In construction. Last year there wasn't any work. Now things are picking up. How about you?"

  "I'm a maid. It's OK."

  Jose Maria smiled to himself as if he had suddenly remembered something, and held out his hand.

  "I'm Jose Maria," he said.

  "Rosa," she said, holding out her own.

  "Pleased to meet you."

  "Me too."

  "So, Rosa..."

  "Yes...'

  "Do you always come here to do your shopping too?"

  "It's the only supermarket around here..."

  "And this place is so well stocked. It even sells records. The other day I saw Shakira's latest on sale... Do you like Shakira?"

  "Wow. She sure has a voice..."

  "What kind of music do you like?"

  "Hmmm... Cristian Castro... Iglesias..."

  "Father or son?"

  "Son, all my life long. The Senora listens to the father when she's alone. But not when other people are around. When there are guests she puts on classical music..." Then she added, smiling, "And they tell her: `Oh please, turn it off, Rita,' but she just carries on... I've no idea why she plays it if even she doesn't like it!"

  "She doesn't like it but she plays it? How weird people are... So it's Enrique Iglesias you prefer. He's called Enrique, isn't he?"

  "Yes, Enrique. But I like Cristian Castro better, he really gets to me..."

  "And you don't like cumbia at all?"

  "I used to. Now I've grown a bit tired of it."

  "Me too. And I grew up with cumbia. My old woman told me that when she was pregnant with me she'd put on the radio and it got to me through the umbilical cord. Think about it. But you're right, in the end you grow tired of it."

  "It's not the same for me. I don't like it just because I never liked it. But there are people who like it and will always like it..."

  "No, the truth is that I never really did. What happened was that I didn't want to offend you because it seemed that you..."

  "Yes, you're right, cumbia touches my soul. Why would I lie to you about that?"

  "Incredible, isn't it? We've only just got to know each other and we're already telling lies..."

  "Well, they're not really lies," said Jose Maria, introducing a sense of proportion. "It's just a topic of conversation, like any other. We adapt what we say out of respect for the other person..."

  "It's prudent. And quite right too."

  "Perfectly."

  "That's the way it has to be. To me prudence seems... Well, when someone tells you the truth just like that..."

  "But you look like you're completely sincere..."

  "Thank you."

  "No, no I mean it seriously! I can look at you and see a sincere person. What did you tell me your name was?"

  "Rosa."

  "Rosa. That's a pretty name."

  "Thank you. Well..."

  "Do you have to go?"

  The conversation ran on along these lines for a few more minutes, because they felt an attraction, and because neither wanted to end it. They hadn't shifted an inch from the spot on which they stood, seeming rooted to the ground; despite the fact they were shifting from side to side constantly, they were essentially skirting around the same place, leaning forwards from the waist, as if the power of attraction had caused them to lose their sense of balance.

  The doorman standing at the entrance to the adjacent building stared at them out of the corner of his eye. He had seen the woman a thousand times previously, always alone, but this was the first time he saw the man, and he didn't approve of the manner in which he observed him address her. Planted at the entrance of the building next door, the doorman was making considerable efforts to overhear their conversation; he caught snatches of it, odd phrases - things like "Who did you vote for?" "No comment, voting is done in secret" - and felt a tide of indignation rising in his throat. It was clear the unknown man was in the act of deliberately seducing the Blinders' maidservant.

  The district lacked a code of conduct, yet everyone behaved as if they conformed to one. Even without it, things ran on much as usual. Rather, there was an instinctive code, running deeper than any externally imposed one (it had to do with the quality of one's clothes, with skin and hair colour, with a way of speaking or walking), and which, of course, included domestic staff. In general terms, what happened was that strangers were "signalled", principally on sight, leaving them with the sensation of being spied on: it was a highly effective form of insolence, swallowed and put into practice by the entire district, even by household pets. In effect, the doorman would rapidly leave off observing them askance in order to stare openly at them, even taking a step in their direction the better to listen to what they were saying.

  He didn't hear overmuch: it was just at the point when Jose Maria and Rosa were saying goodbye. The one thing he managed to hear clearly was the promise they made to meet up again. Rosa then set off rapidly in the direction of the villa. Jose Maria gazed after her for a few moments, then turned around and set off back to work.

  He passed the doorman, whistling and swinging the bag containing the meat for the grill. The doorman, more brazen now that Jose Maria was leaving, took a step forwards as if distracted and wishing to examine something on the edge of the pavement, then put himself right in the way of Jose Maria. It happened as rapidly as if he'd planned it: he wanted to force Jose Maria to go around him, so that he could turn on his heels and follow him with his eyes: a clear insult. What didn't figure in the doorman's calculations (he was a fat and flabby fellow with rounded shoulders, somewhat unobservant despite everything) was that the unknown man would take deep offence.

  "What are you staring at, you idiot?" asked Jose Maria, without halting.

  The doorman was struck dumb, and stood there as if paralysed. By the time he could summon up a reaction, Jose Maria was already at the corner.

  "Good God, he's so agile," he thought. "I bet the guy could leap from one pavement to the next without landing on the street."

  A few hours later that same day, he saw him again. It was six-thirty in the evening, to be precise. The doorman had now washed and changed his clothes and was back in the entrance to his building making his perpetual and enormous effort to appear bored. Jose Maria had completed his day's work: he too had washed and changed his clothes and was now walking towards the Blinders' villa.

  It was the first time that he had taken this route at the end of his working d
ay. As a matter of course he went down the street from his workplace towards the Bajo, where he caught the minibus in the direction of his home in Capilla del Senor. Even thinking about the two hours of journey ahead made him feel tired. He passed the doorman and nodded.

  "Hey you," said the doorman.

  Jose Maria stopped. Then stared at him. He didn't look him up and down, but stared him right in the eyes and asked:

  "What's the matter with you?"

  "What did I do to you?"

  "What d'you mean?"

  "This morning you called me an idiot?"

  "I apologize. This morning I was chatting here with a young lady, and you were eyeing us up and down and... you know how these things are. Do we know each other?"

  "I don't think so."

  "That's why I mention it. It's rude to go round staring at people you don't know like that, plus you pushed me off the pavement. That's why I called you an idiot."

  "I didn't like the look of you."

  "Ah well, what do you want me to do about that?"

  "At least you could apologize..."

  Jose Maria was tired, and hadn't the least desire to get involved in an argument. So he cracked a small smile and carried on walking away. The doorman stood in the middle of the pavement - and, as he watched him depart, considered calling him back a thousand times over, even mentally trying out a number of different tones of voice, but couldn't even manage another "hey you". Frustrated and furious, he went inside his house. He slammed the door so hard that his wife dropped the salt cellar into the saucepan.

  "The fucking whore who gave birth to those damn blacks..." he said as he dialled a phone number. "Hello, Israel?" Israel could hear him swearing at the other end of the line. "It's me, Gustavo," continued the doorman. "Are you busy?"

  Israel rolled his eyeballs.

  "Get to the point, Gustavo," he said. "I'm in the middle of eating..."

  "I'll call back later then..."

  "No, you tell me what's going on..."

  Meanwhile, Jose Maria had paused on the corner of the Alvear and Rodriquez Avenues to gaze at the villa. The windows were dark, all except the kitchen windows on the ground floor, and one more on the first floor. The house was imposing: grey in colour, with patches of lichen, and missing plaster here and there, like smoke rings, but you didn't need to be particularly cultured to observe the splendid aura in which it was enveloped. Without looking any further, even the flight of white marble steps dropping down from the front door terminated in the garden with such plasticity it gave the impression of a tiered wedding cake. "How beautiful," he thought. He scratched an armpit and began repeating under his breath "Rosa... Rosita..." - scarcely moving his lips. It was a call... He had never done anything like this before. He had to be falling in love. Yet his heart was beating just the same as ever, with the same rhythm and intensity. Just then one of those sudden gusts of wind arose that sweep up everything one by one: the wind lifted a newspaper page from the ground in order to deposit it a few yards further on, it shook the crown of a treetop, caused a piece of cardboard to vibrate, rise and vanish into the distance. People began to hurry their steps. Jose Maria raised his face to the skies: great swathes of dark blue, heavy with stars, but the storm was out there, held within no more than a dozen clouds, all on the point of exploding.