Remember the Scorpion by Isaac Goldemberg

Author:Isaac Goldemberg [Goldemberg, Isaac; Tittler, Jonathan; Sosnowski, Saúl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781939419316
Publisher: The Unnamed Press

Weiss opened the door with his key, entered, crossed the lounge bar, and went straight to Margarita’s room. Leopoldo watched him pass, perplexed. Margarita, standing, elegantly dressed, watched television. She had switched from macabre footage of the earthquake to a soap opera, and she let herself wallow in its histrionics.

“I’ve been calling and calling you all night and again all day today. Where have you been?” she said, still staring at the television.

Weiss covered his face.

“Simón, what’s the matter? What is it?” she said again.

Weiss took her abruptly by the shoulders and looked in her eyes.

“Margarita, you know how much I love you,” he said, stammering. “And that I’d never do anything on purpose to hurt you.”

Seized with a chill, Margarita said yes with her eyes.

“And that we’ve always been honest with each other.”

“For God’s sake, enough mystery already. Just say it,” she said with alarm.

“Margarita, I’m madly in love with you, you know that.”

“But,” her voice lowered in warning.

“But what’s happened is that I’ve met someone else. Someone whose connection to me is deeper than anything I can control.”

Margarita slapped him and immediately embraced him, moaning desolately. Then she stepped back from Weiss.

“Who? Who is she?” she implored.

“No one you know. I just met her yesterday,” he said.

Margarita’s voice tried to be neutral, but it gave away her pain.

“Yesterday? Then it was love at first sight, like with us.”

“Like I said,” said Weiss, lowering his head, “It’s something beyond either one of us.”

Margarita felt like her head had turned into a hornet’s nest.

“Who is she? What’s her name?” she demanded, grief stricken.

“Olga. A girl.”

Weiss’s words caught Margarita looking at herself in the mirror, studying her appearance, thinking about the relentless passing of time.

“A girl? What do you mean a girl?” she asked, covering her face.

“Margarita, your public awaits you,” shouted Leopoldo from the other side of the door.

As if mimicking the movements of an automaton, Margarita went through her final motions, dried a tear, and applied a bit of rouge. Her lips outlined a bitter grimace.

“Coming!” she shouted, all the grief spilling with that one voice.

Margarita left the room, followed by Weiss, who had grabbed his guitar. The television screen showed scenes of the earthquake, again, as if the soap opera could not block the devastation from coming through for very long. The announcer’s voice whispered:

“In several sectors of the capital many buildings and homes continue to collapse…”

Margarita entered the lounge and went straight to the microphone. She was welcomed by the audience’s applause, an applause that she couldn’t register. Weiss sat on a stool. Leopoldo sat down at the drums. Weiss waited for her to tell him what she was going to sing, but Margarita’s mind was a fog. Suddenly, a voice arose from the back of the room. It belonged to one of the prostitutes.

“Margarita, sing ‘Blind Love,’” she requested.

There was a brief silence. Margarita remained lost in thought. Weiss and Leopoldo started playing, and then, with a shaky voice, Margarita sang:

“No, don’t leave me all alone,

You know I’ll die if I’m not with you.

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