wife gets frightened. Whatever’s wrong? I thought I heard a burglar, I say, but that’s not it, I take the anxiety to bed with me, because what used not to be a problem at all has turned into four daily problems that I have to find some way of solving one after the other: breakfast, lunch, snacks and supper. Could you spare a bit of money (addressed to one of the acquaintances who didn’t have time to cross the road when he saw me). I can’t afford to buy a loaf of bread or the children’s juice. They can’t go to school with nothing. It breaks my heart when I hear them say to my wife: Mama, there’s no more yogurt, no more cookies, no more cakes. I tiptoe out of the house, close the door behind me as quietly as I can, get into the car (don’t waste gas now, the tank’s almost empty, and how am I going to fill it up), drive to the first bit of wasteland I come to and weep. I sit there on my own, weeping. About the children asking for juice and my wife shouting at me and telling me to do something, because she can’t stand it any more; I can’t perform miracles, that cruel cow says to me—encouragingly—as if this was all my fault. Get your ass off the sofa. The other little girl: Mama, look, my brother’s eaten all the bread and you can’t make me my snack. And they take to school a little bottle of tap water with strict instructions not to remove the label, so that it looks as if they’re drinking mineral water, because it’s healthier, when the other kids have all got their pineapple juice or orange juice or multi-fruit juice with added vitamins and calcium and who knows what else, every enriched juice box costs one euro at the supermarket. How do I pay for that, if there isn’t even enough money to buy potatoes? It’s three months since Esteban stopped paying us, and when I pick up my unemployment benefit, I can accept that my family will only be able to buy the cheaper juice, but there are many days when there isn’t even enough money for that: tap water with a posh label on the bottle or a few drops of squeezed orange juice if it’s in a bottle bearing the label Zumosol.
And you pounce unscrupulously on the person who didn’t have time to cross the road when he saw you: just give me whatever you can, you know I wouldn’t ask if things weren’t really tight, and I’ve always paid back any money you’ve lent me before, it’s just that now . . . The victim feels nervously in his pocket as if he had a knife in his back. He does. I’m holding the knife. Sorry, I can’t, I haven’t got anything on me, it’s just that . . . And I know what he means: this is a kind of mugging, but I pretend not to understand. The man produces a crumpled five-euro note and holds it out to me. That’s all I have, he says and quickly moves off, as if any further contact might infect him with the leprosy of poverty. He leaves without waiting for my proffered thank you, thanks a lot. He doesn’t stop to listen when I say that I fully intend to pay back those five euros. Thank you, I say more loudly, I’ll pay you back as soon as I can, and he, from a safe distance away, explains: Look, I’m broke too. I really haven’t any more to give you, we’re all getting by on the skin of our teeth. Then he averts his face, turns beet red: he feels more ashamed than I do, and I, on the other hand, feel not the slightest gratitude—bastard, I think, even though the man was under no obligation to give me that crumpled note. Bastard, I say again under my breath, and I say it because he’s alive, because he can afford to give me that surplus bill, because he doubtless has more bills, whether many or few, in the wallet he hurriedly put back in his pocket (he covered it with his hand, so that I couldn’t see how much was in it), not to mention the money he’ll have at home, and what he certainly has in the bank. The rotten bastard, I think to myself. But, Julio, where is the feeling that priests, teachers and all good
And you pounce unscrupulously on the person who didn’t have time to cross the road when he saw you: just give me whatever you can, you know I wouldn’t ask if things weren’t really tight, and I’ve always paid back any money you’ve lent me before, it’s just that now . . . The victim feels nervously in his pocket as if he had a knife in his back. He does. I’m holding the knife. Sorry, I can’t, I haven’t got anything on me, it’s just that . . . And I know what he means: this is a kind of mugging, but I pretend not to understand. The man produces a crumpled five-euro note and holds it out to me. That’s all I have, he says and quickly moves off, as if any further contact might infect him with the leprosy of poverty. He leaves without waiting for my proffered thank you, thanks a lot. He doesn’t stop to listen when I say that I fully intend to pay back those five euros. Thank you, I say more loudly, I’ll pay you back as soon as I can, and he, from a safe distance away, explains: Look, I’m broke too. I really haven’t any more to give you, we’re all getting by on the skin of our teeth. Then he averts his face, turns beet red: he feels more ashamed than I do, and I, on the other hand, feel not the slightest gratitude—bastard, I think, even though the man was under no obligation to give me that crumpled note. Bastard, I say again under my breath, and I say it because he’s alive, because he can afford to give me that surplus bill, because he doubtless has more bills, whether many or few, in the wallet he hurriedly put back in his pocket (he covered it with his hand, so that I couldn’t see how much was in it), not to mention the money he’ll have at home, and what he certainly has in the bank. The rotten bastard, I think to myself. But, Julio, where is the feeling that priests, teachers and all good
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