and yet I come right out and do it: when I get home I ask Agustina who the man in the hotel room with her was. Gesticulating like a Mexican matinee idol, I demand explanations, I throw a jealous fit, shouting at her, she who already has enough turmoil in her head, who cries at the slightest provocation, who defends herself by lashing out fiercely, who doesn’t even know what’s happened to her.
And since she doesn’t respond I keep mercilessly insisting, I probably even shake her a little, So you don’t remember? I’ll make you remember then, I say and I play the man’s voice recorded on the machine; third and last message (but first in order of appearance for someone playing back the messages, because on this ancient answering machine time is recorded backward), the speaker very abrupt, Isn’t anybody there? Where the fuck can I call, then? Second message, same voice, which is beginning to sound impatient, Is anybody there? It’s about Agustina Londoño, it’s urgent, someone should come and pick her up at the Wellington Hotel because she’s in bad shape. First message, same voice, still neutral at this early stage, I’m calling to ask someone to come pick up Agustina Londoño at the Wellington Hotel, on Thirteenth Road between Eighty-fifth and Eighty-sixth, she isn’t well.
I really don’t know why I need to upset Agustina by making her listen to this, my nerves must be shot, or it must be the urge to know what happened while I was gone, or the exhaustion of all these sleepless nights, or jealousy, jealousy above all, what a terrible thing jealousy is.
You know, Agustina, I asked myself a thousand questions that Sunday after I listened to the messages, as I sped in the van to the Wellington to pick you up, questions like why they were calling from a hotel and not from a hospital if something had happened to you, and is she really in such bad shape that she couldn’t let me know herself? And why didn’t the person who called identify himself? If it’s a trap what kind of trap could it be? Could you have been hit by a car, kidnapped, could you have fallen, broken a bone, had a fight with your mother, could it have been a stray bullet, a mugging, but then why call me to a hotel? Someone else might have suspected that his wife had shut herself up in a hotel room to kill herself, but I never considered that possibility, I promise you, Agustina, it didn’t even occur to me, because I know that suicide isn’t part of your extensive repertoire. Do you know how many questions a person can ask himself over the sixty blocks that stretch from our apartment to that hotel? At least four a block, which means 240 questions, all pointless and absurd. But among them one question stood out, a doubt more pertinent than the rest, and that was whether you’d love me, Agustina, whether you’d still love me despite whatever had happened to you.
I press the repeat button on the answering machine, and Agustina, who has remained silent throughout, twists her wrist out of my grip, goes into the kitchen, brings back a jar of water, and pours the whole thing on the sofa. It’s got to be cool, she says, hot things are bad, hot things hurt.
BUT LET’S GET BACK to our story, Agustina doll, let’s get back to the bet that was made that Thursday at L’Esplanade. We were so carried away that we talked about nothing else all week, phone calls back and forth, big laughs at the expense of Spider and his limp dick. I made all the preparations for the first round, which was set for Friday at nine, and the others kept stopping by the Aerobics Center or giving me a buzz so I could bring them up-to-date. To refer to the matter without setting off any alarms we started to call it Operation Lazarus, after that resurrection thing.
In an unrelated turn of events, I get a visit at the Aerobics Center from a trio of fat harpies who step out of a shocking lime-green sports car as big as a boat, three dark-skinned blondes so brutally bleached
And since she doesn’t respond I keep mercilessly insisting, I probably even shake her a little, So you don’t remember? I’ll make you remember then, I say and I play the man’s voice recorded on the machine; third and last message (but first in order of appearance for someone playing back the messages, because on this ancient answering machine time is recorded backward), the speaker very abrupt, Isn’t anybody there? Where the fuck can I call, then? Second message, same voice, which is beginning to sound impatient, Is anybody there? It’s about Agustina Londoño, it’s urgent, someone should come and pick her up at the Wellington Hotel because she’s in bad shape. First message, same voice, still neutral at this early stage, I’m calling to ask someone to come pick up Agustina Londoño at the Wellington Hotel, on Thirteenth Road between Eighty-fifth and Eighty-sixth, she isn’t well.
I really don’t know why I need to upset Agustina by making her listen to this, my nerves must be shot, or it must be the urge to know what happened while I was gone, or the exhaustion of all these sleepless nights, or jealousy, jealousy above all, what a terrible thing jealousy is.
You know, Agustina, I asked myself a thousand questions that Sunday after I listened to the messages, as I sped in the van to the Wellington to pick you up, questions like why they were calling from a hotel and not from a hospital if something had happened to you, and is she really in such bad shape that she couldn’t let me know herself? And why didn’t the person who called identify himself? If it’s a trap what kind of trap could it be? Could you have been hit by a car, kidnapped, could you have fallen, broken a bone, had a fight with your mother, could it have been a stray bullet, a mugging, but then why call me to a hotel? Someone else might have suspected that his wife had shut herself up in a hotel room to kill herself, but I never considered that possibility, I promise you, Agustina, it didn’t even occur to me, because I know that suicide isn’t part of your extensive repertoire. Do you know how many questions a person can ask himself over the sixty blocks that stretch from our apartment to that hotel? At least four a block, which means 240 questions, all pointless and absurd. But among them one question stood out, a doubt more pertinent than the rest, and that was whether you’d love me, Agustina, whether you’d still love me despite whatever had happened to you.
I press the repeat button on the answering machine, and Agustina, who has remained silent throughout, twists her wrist out of my grip, goes into the kitchen, brings back a jar of water, and pours the whole thing on the sofa. It’s got to be cool, she says, hot things are bad, hot things hurt.
BUT LET’S GET BACK to our story, Agustina doll, let’s get back to the bet that was made that Thursday at L’Esplanade. We were so carried away that we talked about nothing else all week, phone calls back and forth, big laughs at the expense of Spider and his limp dick. I made all the preparations for the first round, which was set for Friday at nine, and the others kept stopping by the Aerobics Center or giving me a buzz so I could bring them up-to-date. To refer to the matter without setting off any alarms we started to call it Operation Lazarus, after that resurrection thing.
In an unrelated turn of events, I get a visit at the Aerobics Center from a trio of fat harpies who step out of a shocking lime-green sports car as big as a boat, three dark-skinned blondes so brutally bleached
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