Graciela, Juan’s doctor, together with two bodyguards and some assistants, had moved into the house next door: the neighbors, who were renting, handed it over immediately thanks to an exorbitant cash offering. Still, we could ignore their presence. My uncle visited us too. My friends weren’t going to come until they were invited. Nothing interrupted our days of exploring and reading, of dancing naked in the kitchen in the light of the open refrigerator, or of telling secrets without fear of being overheard. I thought I had gotten pregnant during those weeks, and I cried when I found blood on the sheets. The mattress was bloodstained too, and Juan flipped it over.
After the first two weeks, the subtle changes began. Stephen still wasn’t back, I think he’d gone to Athens, one of his favorite destinations: he chased heat like a lapdog. The first sign happened at night, when Juan got up and didn’t come back to bed. I wasn’t asleep yet, I was reading with the bedside lamp on, and I waited for him, sure he’d gone to the bathroom. When he didn’t come back, I had déjà vu of the night of his Manifestation in Puerto Reyes. At first, I had the hope, though faint, that he was only feeling bad. He’d had prolonged arrhythmias despite his medication, but we hadn’t informed the doctors: he asked me not to, and I went along because I understood that he also needed a break from the constant examination and groping of his body. I found him in the first-floor hallway, looking all around and toward the stairs, that iron staircase that had so beguiled Stephen. Did you hear something? I asked. He and I both knew that the possibility of an intruder was remote, since one of the bodyguards stayed awake all night and the house didn’t have many doors, just the front door and an emergency entrance. He nodded: his eyes were shining. Can you open that door? He pointed. It was one of the smallest bedrooms. My hands trembled as I took hold of the doorknob, but behind the door there was only a narrow bed lit by the moon, a small armchair, and two paintings by Forrest Bess that Stephen had bought from a New York gallerist.
He went back to bed without a word. Did you think it was one of those doors you could open in Argentina? He embraced me and nodded, but that night he didn’t get up again. In the morning, he hardly spoke at breakfast. There’s something there, he told me, after toying with the toast that he couldn’t eat. It’s not a presence or a discarnate, it’s much more powerful. I can’t explore it alone. There are two of us, I said. Not enough, he replied. Why did Stephen choose this house? No one ever realized? Not even Laura?
Juan was always very suspicious, much more than me.
Let’s go in, I said.
No. We need Laura and Stephen. You won’t be enough.
I went for a walk alone, frustrated. I wanted to be his companion in this as well, to follow him into the unknown; I was never afraid. But I can only help him in minor things, with my stupid protections. He hates when I call them stupid because he loves and respects me, but they are. All the little spells in this world are dust, they’re nothing, they’re specks of dirt in the blood of someone like him.
When I got back from my walk I called Laura, who arrived in under half an hour. Judging from her expression when I opened the door, she thought we’d invited her to a dinner party, one of our fun-filled nights at Cheyne Walk. She realized her mistake when she saw Juan. They sat down on the rugs and he told her what he’d felt. She denied having perceived a door before—I believed her, I still believe her—and, to my surprise, she refused to go with him. The excuse she gave made me gasp in shock.
The Book doesn’t say anything about opening doors, she murmured. What does that matter? asked Juan. He got up from the floor calmly, his hands folded, and went over to Laura, who looked so small sitting there, her head at the level of his knees. Why are you talking about the Book? Laura was trembling a little: I put my arms around her shoulders. The transcriptions don’t say anything about any door or any house, she repeated. Juan got angry and told her: I have no doubt that there is something important and repulsive behind that door, and I don’t believe in the transcriptions, and neither do you. Why are you so afraid? He looked at her, and his eyes were dark green.
“Because to follow you is to disobey,” she said.
With his index finger, Juan touched Laura’s patch, just barely.
Who took it? Rosario didn’t tell me anything. She keeps those kinds of cruel secrets to herself. In the Order they say it was your father who pulled it out, and that was why Anne adopted you. That’s the lie they tell. A brutal father who emptied out your eye socket because he didn’t want a daughter with second sight. Your father was a gypsy? A traveler? That part is true? I’m sure it was Mercedes who did it with her own two hands. Though Florence would also be capable. They believe in pain more than anything else, they lie when they say those methods are in the past. If, as Rosario says, gods resemble their believers, then this cruel god is the one who wants and allows them to mutilate you. I’m not going to spell out what they did to me, or to Eddie, or to all the others. Did your father sell you, too, like mine did? We are servants to those people, we are the flesh that they torture. We’re the rickshaw drivers transporting rich little girls in India. I’m the lumberjack who fucks the plantation owner’s daughter. You’re going to have to disobey them if you want to follow me. There is something behind that door and I need you. Don’t be a coward.
Laura slipped between us and ran out. She left the house, but stayed sitting on the front steps. She was crying.
Juan went upstairs. I followed him, angry. I told him there was no reason to treat her like that. But he wasn’t furious: he was devastated. I asked if he felt bad and he shook his head, but I took his pulse and it was so fast I made him lie down. He put my hand on his chest so we could monitor his tachycardia together. I don’t like to talk to her like that, he said, but I need her. If she follows me, she’s going to have to keep the secret and turn against them. You’re going to follow me and you don’t mind betraying them. But Laura is different.
He put a pillow under his head and undid his pants. That summer he was wearing very dark corduroys that only made him look taller. Come here, he said, and I got on top of him. Why does Laura smell like that? he asked. She never washes well after she does her spells, I explained. She stinks like a butcher, he smiled, and I added that sometimes she also stank of death. When he entered me, I felt vertigo, a sensitivity in my uterus that scared me. I stayed still, looking down at his glorious face against the pillow; he is glorious, his body, his feigned coldness, his sweat that smells of chemicals. Don’t destroy Laura, I said, and he told me he was trying to do just the opposite. I closed my eyes and imagined the three of us on chalk circles; he could split Laura in two, she’s so little. I always pay lip service to my preference for gentle, soft men. Just two weeks ago I was arguing in class about the authoritarianism and hypermasculinity of Christianity, saying how sick I was of phallocentrism and Eurocentrism, but when Juan dominates and orders me around, I start panting like a submissive dog. He sat up and toyed with my earrings, the giant lightweight pentagrams that I always replace when they break.
Juan told me that he would like to buy this house. I guided his hand to caress me the way I like. I thought about taking a tab of acid—Stephen had brought me a lot of boxes that I kept in my drawer. I told him the house was going to be his, everything would be his, because we were going to get married. I’d been thinking about our last conversation with Florence. It’s not possible for you to have nothing. The Order owes everything to you. I asked him to bite my belly and I circled his neck with my hands to feel his irregular pulse in my fingertips. I always liked to see in his eyes that he is unafraid of dying, or, at least, that he doesn’t mind as long as he dies with me.