Читать книгу The Foreign Girls - Sergio Olguin - Страница 15

They spent most of the day in the sun, getting in the water every so often or going to the kitchen for drinks and snacks. The only time they left the pool area was at lunch, when they ate a salad of chicken, lettuce, carrot, sweetcorn and tomato in the cool shade of the veranda. As evening fell, they went to their rooms to shower and get changed. Verónica took the opportunity to lie on her bed for a bit and read the Marta Lynch novel she hadn’t yet finished. Then she had a shower with warm water that felt boiling. Despite using sunscreen, her body seemed sensitive to the heat. She stepped out of the shower, dried herself and looked for her Méthode Jeanne 46Piaubert moisturizer. For a moment she remembered Frida’s hands putting cream on her back. She thought that she shouldn’t spend so much time alone.

It was dark by the time she went through to the living room. Frida had opened a bottle of white wine and was working her way through a block of provolone. Petra was sitting in an armchair, tuning her guitar. Verónica brought out a jar of anchovy-filled olives, a liver sausage with herbs, blue cheese and some crackers. Thinking the Roquefort might taste best with pasta, she set off to find butter, whisky, Tabasco sauce and a dish. She mixed a couple of ounces of butter with the Roquefort, a splash of whisky and a few drops of hot sauce, then put it all in the microwave and twenty seconds later, with a bit of forking, it had turned into a serviceable pasta sauce. Frida was still grappling with the provolone.

They sat around the coffee table, Frida and Petra in the armchairs and Verónica on the sofa with her feet up. What did they talk about? Everything and nothing – and perhaps that was the best proof that in twenty-four hours they had built a friendship: they could glide over any subject, leave an idea half-finished or jump to another story without the need to finish the last or spend an hour analysing some anecdote. If, days later, someone had asked Verónica what they had talked about that night and during the subsequent days, she would have struggled to supply a precise answer.

At some point in the evening, Petra picked up the guitar and sang some of her own compositions. Her music was like her character: ironic, funny, sometimes dramatic or overblown. Verónica observed as much to her.

“I’m an Italian who’d like to be Argentinian. What would you expect me to be like?”

“I don’t know. Like Mina Mazzini?” 47

“I never liked Mina very much. I prefer Iva Zanicchi.” Petra started singing: “Prendi questa mano, zingara / Dimmi pure che destino avrò / Parla del mio amore / Io non ho paura.”

Petra accompanied herself on the guitar, although at times she scarcely touched it. Her voice was her favoured instrument.

“Mi hai detto ‘non scordarti di me’ / Il cielo già portava l’autunno / L’estate se ne andava con te / Ed io, io t’ho visto andar via senza di me / Portavi la mia vita con te / Fra noi è finita così.”

Frida had gone to fetch another bottle of wine, and when she returned she sat on the sofa next to Verónica. As Petra finished the song, Frida raised her glass to Verónica.

“Let’s toast our songbird.”

Frida was slightly drunk and, for a moment, Verónica thought that she was annoyed to see Petra at the centre of attention. Or to see her, Verónica, paying more attention to Petra. As they clinked glasses, Verónica wished she could think of something to say specifically to Frida, but nothing came to mind. She closed her eyes and, as if the absence of one sense sharpened the others, she smelled Frida’s sweetish perfume. Eighteenth-century English gardens must have smelled like this when heroines fainted of love. Without opening her eyes, she asked:

“What perfume do you use?”

“Flowerbomb, by Viktor & Rolf.”

“It smells like you’ve escaped from a Jane Austen novel.”

“To escape you have to run. Are you saying I smell of sweat?”

She felt Frida’s hand stroking her cheek. The perfume exploded in her face. She kept her eyes closed.

“No. I’m no perfume expert, but your hand smells of flowers.”

“I smell of ancient history.” 48

Frida’s fingers stroked her chin. Verónica could have sat for hours enjoying the caresses on her face. That girl. She opened her eyes. Frida was smiling at her, amused. Petra was no longer in her chair or anywhere in the living room. Frida took her hand away but kept looking at Verónica, observing her in the way that a mother looks at a child who’s woken up after many hours asleep.

“And Petra?”

Frida gestured towards the garden. “I think she’s gone out to smoke.”

“I need a cigarette too.”

It was hard to see Petra standing in the darkness, far from the lights of the house. She was smoking and looking at the sky. Verónica asked her for a cigarette.

“I love these moonless nights,” Petra said. “Guarda le stelle – they’re like gemstones on a velvet mantle.”

“Maybe. I’m not a big fan of nature.”

“I’m going to show you something that has nothing to do with nature. Concentrate on the sky. Let me see… Look over that way. Where the swimming pool is, above the light coming from that house in the distance. What can you see?”

“In the sky? Stars.”

“Look harder, city girl. There’s a star that’s moving to the right.”

“A moving star? Hang on, yes. A star’s moving!” She almost shouted it. “It’s the first time I’ve seen a shooting star go so slowly.”

“It’s not a shooting star. It’s a satellite. Perhaps one belonging to NASA, or the European Union. Perhaps a spy satellite. But tell me it isn’t poignant to see that little light lost in the immensity of the cosmos.”

“Are there others like that?” 49

“If you stayed out here a while, you’d see several other satellites.”

“I don’t think I’m patient enough.”

“Patience makes us wise.”

“I’m not patient, I’m curious.”

“And curiosity killed the cat. We’d better go back inside – Frida will be getting bored.”

But when they went inside, Frida wasn’t in the living room any more. After another glass of wine each they concluded that she must have gone to bed. Petra cleared their plates from the coffee table and Verónica put away the leftovers. Finally on her own, she poured herself one last glass of wine; she would have preferred whisky, but didn’t have the energy to go and get it. She wondered why Frida had gone to bed without saying anything to them. And also if it had been a coincidence that Petra had gone out to the garden when Frida was stroking her face.

Suddenly there was a blow against the door to the garden, as if someone outside had thrown something at it. Verónica jumped. She waited a few seconds but didn’t hear anything else unusual. Then she got up from the armchair and walked towards the window, holding her glass like a defensive weapon. The outside light was on and she could see nothing out of the ordinary, except for something on the ground. A small animal was lying there. She opened the door and from the doorstep could see it a bit better. It was a mouse or a cavy, or something similar. The animal was dead and streaked with blood, as though it had escaped from a predator. Not a clean escape, though. Had it crashed into the door? Swallowing her fear of rats and similar creatures, she approached the animal, prodding it with the toe of her shoe to make sure it was dead. She crouched down and studied it more closely. The area around the neck was ravaged. The blood was still sticky and 50smelt vile, but Verónica didn’t flinch. One leg seemed to have been yanked out of place, exposing a reddish bone. Without thinking, she put her free hand on the animal’s back. The body was still warm and soft. From the darkness, among the shrubs, came a noise. Verónica quickly stood up and tried to see if anything was there, but she could make nothing out. It must have been whatever predator had caught and killed this rodent. For a second, Verónica imagined the beast was going to launch itself at her. Could it be a puma, a fox, a wild dog? She stood and waited, alert to an attack that never arrived. Then she walked slowly backwards, without taking her eyes off the black denseness beyond the garden. Entering the house, she closed the door, still watching, but the quiet now was absolute. Seen from this distance, the rodent’s body was no longer repulsive. It was a stain, easy to forget. But she had seen it up close. And details are hard to forget.