Breathing Through the Wound by Víctor Del Árbol & Lisa Dillman

Author:Víctor Del Árbol & Lisa Dillman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Other Press
Published: 2020-04-27T16:00:00+00:00

FOURTEEN

On the wooden countertop lay a newspaper whose front-page headlines told of a tragic fire in a nearby building. The doorwoman stopped reading when Guzmán walked in. She was middle-aged, and clearly hadn’t waxed her moustache in quite some time. After greeting Guzmán, she leaned on her broom with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, the filter stained with lipstick.

“The antique dealer’s next door—do you know if they’re closed? No one’s answering the bell,” he said.

“Dámaso closes up shop before five o’clock. He won’t be back until Monday.” She exhaled smoke through the gaps in her teeth as she spoke.

Guzmán feigned annoyance.

“That’s too bad. I’ve got something he’s really interested in. You couldn’t tell me where he lives, could you?”

She glanced at him with mistrust. Instinctively, she straightened her shoulders, clamped her teeth down on the cigarette, and then—sounding affronted—began enumerating her many chores and responsibilities: sweeping the staircase, taking out the garbage, seeing to the gas men who were coming to do an inspection. How did he expect her to keep track of where every shop owner on the street lived? And even if she did know, why should she tell him? People might think doorwomen talked too much, but she—and with a thumb, she jabbed her own chest emphatically—was not the type to sit at her desk all day reading Hello! or Lecturas. She spent her days working.

Guzmán smiled. And behind the smile, he pondered how easy it would be to wring her little chicken neck with one hand.

“I understand. I’ll come back on Monday when he opens.”

He walked out onto the street with a sense of relief and sat down at an outdoor café, choosing a table where he could keep an eye on the lobby of the building and the antique dealer’s connected to it. Now all he had to do was wait.

When he’d yet to touch his coffee, the doorwoman left the building and walked down the street, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke in her wake. Guzmán walked back to the building and pushed open the front door. The reception area was empty, inhabited only by the heavy sweetish smell of burning tobacco and the voices that carried through the elevator shaft. Music came from somewhere, a Chilean bolero that Guzmán recognized, by Lucho Gatica: “Contigo en la distancia,” it was called.

There’s not a moment of the day

I can stand to be far from you

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