This morning Miranda has come to this working-class neighbourhood in Villa Del Parque dressed as a construction worker. He’s sitting down in the street and leaning against a wall, his legs crossed and his yellow hard hat pulled down to his eyes, spying on the house where his wife and son live. Fernando, his son, is the first to leave. He’s on his way to school. Mole is both distressed and pleased to see how much the boy has grown; such a short time ago he was just a child. For some reason he can’t quite figure out, he’s putting off his encounter with him. Fernando takes out a Walkman and turns it on. He puts the earphones in his ears and places the player in a small pouch attached to his belt. Miranda remembers that at his age he carried a gun in the same place. He waits. He hasn’t yet seen any signs of men hanging around. Not during the day or at night, when Fernando goes out and she stays home alone. In the room on the first floor, at about ten at night, the blue light of the TV goes on, and less than an hour later it goes off, and nothing else happens all night. Duchess goes out very little, and then only to buy groceries. Sometimes, in the afternoons, she gets a visit from Pelusa, the neighbour who lives on Pasaje El Lazo, and they sit in the kitchen drinking mate.
Susana leaves the house and walks toward Jonte. Miranda stands up and follows her. She’s walking in front of him in her flowered housedress. He knows all too well what’s beneath that innocent-looking article of clothing. The whole time inside he was longing for that body, and now he has it, right here, almost within reach. His plan is to show up tomorrow, then take things from there. There’s no other man in the picture, he’s made sure of that. She stops at the grocery store, then the greengrocer’s. When she enters the butcher’s shop, Miranda keeps walking till he gets to the bus stop. The sun’s reflection off the shop window of La Vaca Aurora doesn’t let him see what’s going on inside, but he can watch the door from where he is now.
When she enters, Pepe looks up and smiles at her. She lowers her eyes and waits for him to finish attending to her neighbour. After his wife died he started looking at her in a different way. He always gives her the feeling he’s about to say something but that he never quite musters the courage. They’ve known each other for years, he knows who her husband is, and maybe that frightens him off. He used to be bolder before his wife died; he flirted with all his women customers, flattered them and shot them suggestive glances. Now he seems more reserved; he must feel more vulnerable. Through the curved glass of the display case, Susana watches him work. He plunges an old knife that is by now almost all handle into the sirloin steak on the wood slab. With quick confident movements he hones the new knife with the sharpening steel. He places his hand flat down on the meat and starts slicing off cutlets with highly skilled precision, each movement identical, each slice the same thickness, all falling gracefully one at a time in a neat stack that mimics the original shape of the steak. You said a kilo? He asks her only as an excuse to talk to her, only so she’ll look up at him, only so their eyes will meet. She does so briefly, and nods. Will he ever summon the courage to say something to her, to ask her out? He doesn’t believe she’ll say yes, but he keeps asking her with his eyes. He keeps asking her when the scale reads a kilo and a quarter, and he charges her for only a kilo. And she feels flattered, he makes her feel beautiful, desired; she likes it. She walks out with her skirt swaying just a little more than usual, carrying with her the butcher’s gaze, glued upon her.
That night, impeccably groomed and dressed to the nines, Miranda arrives at the house and waits patiently until the door opens and Fernando leaves. Duchess says goodbye to him from the doorway, where she continues to stand as she watches him disappear around the corner. That’s when Mole crosses the street and rings the doorbell.
I thought you’d never come. Well, here I am. You sure took your time. I had things to arrange. You’ve been spying on me? A little. Are you going to invite me in or are you going to bring the chairs out here for us to sit on in the street? Come in. Fernandito is old. Yeah, so are we. Time waits for no man. What are your plans? I have some business to take care of…
They’re both thinking that some things, no matter how you look at them or twist and turn them around, simply can’t be fixed.
… Look, I don’t want to know anything, but this can’t go on. But I haven’t said anything yet. When you say you have some business, I know I’ll soon see your picture in the papers. I’m tired of this, Duke, of living with a lump in my throat and a prayer on my lips. This time it’ll be different. Don’t give me that crap, it’s always different and it’s always the same. No, Duchess, I swear, this time’ll be different. I’m going to start a business, we’re going to live well, without all the hullabaloo, on this side of the law. A business… what kind of business? You’ve never been in business. I’m going in with a guy… don’t look at me like that, he’s got nothing to do with that world, he’s a Jew who imports kitchen appliances. We’re going to open a first-class shop downtown. You’ve got to believe me. Are you staying? I don’t know, are you inviting me? You hungry? A little. Come to the table.
While Duchess is in the kitchen preparing him a bite to eat, Miranda notices she’s wearing her high heels. She was waiting for him. She knew. Duchess always knows. This is the woman he wants, hers the body he desires, she his partner, his perfect fit, with whom two becomes one. His memory brings back everything now hidden under that tight dress, which is a bit bold, provocative and modest all at once. Miranda knows that when that dress comes off, the other Duchess appears. Wise, receptive, generous, a duchess who’s not disgusted by anything and can do it for what seems like an eternity, capable of carrying him to the highest peaks of arousal only to lower him gently, again and again, as many times as she wants, leading him from the valleys to the mountains with sure hands through the steep curves, boldly bordering the cliffs until finally she releases him and lets him come inside her — open, satisfied, languid, happy, adored. He can imagine nothing better than coming in her arms. Miranda has been with many women in his life, but not one gives of herself so fully in bed. She offers up her entire being because she is one of those rare women who derives her own pleasure from the other’s pleasure, her happiness from that of her companion.
What are you looking at? I’m looking at you. Don’t get your hopes up, it’s not going to be easy. I’m hooked on you. We’ll have to correct that. You’re right, when do we start? Get your hand out of there. Remember when you used to say, “You’ve got half an hour to get your hand out?” Now you’ve got half a second. A minute? Get it out. Just a little, sweetheart, I’ve missed you so much. No, really, we have to talk. I don’t want to live this way any more. Me, neither, I swear. I found out about Noelia’s illness. How? The last time Screw came to bring me money he was almost collapsing, and all I had to do was say one word and it all came gushing out like a broken water main, the whole story in one big burst. Poor guy is a mess. He also told me you were about to get out and that I probably wouldn’t see him for a while. He seemed afraid. Of course, how could he not be afraid? I mean, not about his daughter, but about you. Me? Why would he be afraid of me? I think he spent all your money. I saw Screw, I know everything, and everything’s been worked out. Yeah, but you don’t have any money. What are you going to use to start your precious business? Someone’s going to loan it to me. Listen, Duke, I don’t want to know anything about it. I love you, you know that, but I can’t take it any more. I can’t stand knowing your life is in danger or that you’re going to spend the next few years in jail. We’re not twenty any more. Eduardo, promise me, swear to me that you aren’t going to arrive home with the police following you. I live with my heart in my mouth. Every time the doorbell rings I think they’re coming to tell me you’ve been killed. You know I’ve forgiven you foreverything, but I would never forgive you if they killed you in front of Fernando. I know I can’t ask you to go buy the newspaper and look for a job. Duchess, you’ve got to trust me. I love you and Fernando more than anything else in the world. Give me a chance to sort things out, then I’ll stop forever, all I want is a peaceful life. Oh, Duke, I’m so worn down I don’t even have it in me to think things through…
Silence settles over the kitchen, one of those marital silences that hovers in the air like the poisonous vapours from a swamp. It’s an uncomfortable, painful silence that conjures up all past frustrations, allowing all the disappointments and sorrows to appear one by one, while amnesia makes all the once-shared joy vanish. Duchess is looking at him as if from behind a glass wall or from a thousand miles away, and all she feels is fear. Fear of her own feelings, fear of having regrets, fear of what she’s going to say and, more than anything, fear of continuing to feel fear. She feels as if she still doesn’t have the words she wants to say to this man she loves so much. She feels all dried up, dry and tired. Her voice is pleading.
Right now I want you to go. Don’t do this to me, Duchess. What do you think, that I don’t want it too? For four years I haven’t had any either. Sort things out, as you say, then come back and we’ll see. Okay, you’re right. Just remember one thing: this is the last time, Duke, the very last time.
Her words evoke the possibility that he’ll be gunned down one day by the police, an echo of his own conviction about his fate, the one he usually manages to shunt away. He also understands what Duchess didn’t say, but the message, a stern warning, was right there, behind her words. If what she said were to happen, she would let the city bury him, she’d never mention him to their son and, when his flesh rotted away, his bones would be thrown into a common grave, without a flower or a tear, without anything. That, for Mole, would be worse than death itself. The life he has led has kept him away from his son for long stretches at a time, and that’s what has always troubled him most about his profession as a bank robber. If, in addition to this, he were forever erased from Fernandito’s memory, even he would never forgive himself.