“Don’t worry, my dear, your luck will change, too. Give it a little time,” Abel said as he walked back to where they were sitting.
“I’m glad you’re feeling more relaxed,” Montserrat said, which was a diplomatic answer considering she had been ready to strangle the old man only twenty-four hours before. “By the way, I have your duplicate here.”
She reached into her purse and held out a small can of film. “I have the original at Antares’s vault. You need to find a safe place for it, maybe at the Cineteca.”
“Not my freezer, then,” Abel said with a smile.
“I’m not letting you have it back unless you promise it’s never going to sit next to your ice cube tray again.”
“I promise. And I have something for you, my dear, to thank you for the sound editing you did.” Abel handed Montserrat a book. “It belonged to Ewers. It’s one of the souvenirs I keep.”
“The House of Infinite Wisdom by Wilhelm Ewers,” Montserrat said, opening the book and reading out the words printed with a simple typeface on the first page, for the book was hardbound and lacked a dust jacket. “It looks like a manual.”
“It’s part of the literature he distributed to his followers. I thought you could use it for your TV segment.”
She looked up at Abel in surprise. “You’ll do the interview?”
“Why not? Maybe after my retrospective is solidified, but it’s as you said: free publicity. Now, do we need to get more olives onto this table?” Abel asked, picking up the bowl that Tristán and Montserrat had ransacked.
* * *
—
It was late by the time they stumbled down to his apartment. Well, Tristán stumbled. Montserrat drank little and tended to keep her head straight even when intoxicated. He, on the other hand, did not struggle with inebriation. He let it wash over him.
Urueta’s music was still ringing in his ears, and he hummed that tune sung by Billie Holiday that played as they had said their good nights. “For Heaven’s Sake.” He couldn’t remember the third line, so he kept repeating the first two as Montserrat guided him to the bedroom.
“Is it that late?” he asked, the digits of the digital clock jumping at him in the semi-darkness of the room. He bumped a leg against the bed.
“Yeah.”
“Wow. We kept at it for a while, didn’t we?”
“Sure did.”
He peeled off the sweater he’d been wearing as he sat at the edge of the bed and yawned. “Does that mean you’re not angry at me anymore?”
“The problem seems to have resolved itself. Lucky you.”
“Luck,” he said, grinning as he took off one shoe, then another. He rubbed one foot against his ankle and yawned. “I’m horny.”
“You’re drunk.”
“Well, I get horny when I’m drunk,” he replied, flopping back on the bed and staring at the ceiling. “You should slip under the covers and whatever happens, happens.”
“That would be a lousy idea.”
“That’s the whole point of being drunk,” he said, closing his eyes. “It’s doing every stupid thing that comes into your head and then worrying about regrets in the morning. By the way…I feel bad about yelling at you. I know you’re not my maid, or my chauffeur. I was angry. And dumb. Very dumb. Sorry.”
“Good night, Tristán,” she said, and he felt her fingertips against his forehead for a second, brushing a strand of hair away from his face.
“Yolanda said we had a codependent relationship. I think she got that from one of those self-help books she loves to read. But I like to think we have a partnership.
“I feel so alone sometimes, you have no idea. And the loneliness seems to seep into my bones and I get scared because I feel numb. Not depressed or upset: I’m a blank tape. Like someone dragged a magnet against the tape inside my brain and erased all the information. There’s nothing left to feel. I felt it all and I’ll never feel anything new again and I’ll always be alone.
“But when we are together, it’s like when you explained about control tracks. Every videotape has this track that allows it to calibrate properly and ensures it plays back at the right speed. Only sometimes you need to adjust the dial to align it. That’s you and me. You’re this dial, that when it’s turned properly it makes the picture clearer, better. Everything is suddenly in perfect unison and I’m not empty. Do you understand?”
There was silence. She had left. Not that he had expected her to stay, or his speech to be anything but a monologue meant for himself.
“Momo,” he muttered.
When he woke up it was still dark. He rubbed his eyes and made his way to the bathroom. He stubbed his toe against a table in the hallway before stumbling forward and into the bathroom, where he slapped his palm against the wall until he landed on the light switch.
The bathroom lights turned on, making him blink in discomfort. The tap was dripping again. He’d have to call the plumber.
He peed, then sleepily thrust his hands under the faucet and closed it with a sigh. He left the lights on and the bathroom door open to help guide himself to his bed and avoid crashing into another piece of furniture.
As he walked back toward his room, he saw a figure standing in the hallway. The apartment was in semi-darkness, and he was still half asleep, but even in that twilight space he could tell it was a woman. He couldn’t see her clearly, though, because of the angle at which she was standing; her back was to him, and her clothes were dark. She looked like a black smudge against gray paper.
“Momo. You stayed?”
He took a couple of steps toward her. The woman’s shoulders were slouched, and she was pressing her hands against her face, as if sobbing or hiding from him. The woman shivered.
There was something about her posture that didn’t correspond to Montserrat.
There was something wrong, very wrong, about her.
In the bathroom, the tap was dripping again. Tristán had sobered up, and he swallowed.
“Momo,” he whispered, even if he already knew it was not Montserrat. The sound came unbidden. It was a plea for help rather than an attempt at recognition.
The woman turned around and slowly lifted her head. The light emanating from the bathroom was not enough to allow him to glimpse her in her entirety, but he saw her eyes and he recognized her: Karina.
As she shuffled forward, he got a better look at her. Karina Junco. With her same makeup, her same hair, the locket with the gold “K” she liked to wear around her neck.
Only Karina was dead. She’d been dead for ten years, and the last time he’d seen her she’d been crumpled against the wheel of the car, with glass slicing her skin.
Now she stood in his apartment, her movements slow and somewhat delicate, somewhat monstrous.
Tristán pressed himself against the wall to keep himself upright and stared at her, his mouth open, and then Karina opened her mouth, too. Her tongue darted out of her mouth, as if she were attempting to wet her lips and failed. Or perhaps she meant to speak.
If I blink she’ll be gone, he thought, but he couldn’t stop staring at her. His eyes were pinned open. His breath was shallow, and he felt nauseated.