Give me more morphine. Let’s see… what time is it? No, not yet, you’ll have to wait a few more hours. Why? We’ve got to save it for the night, when the pain gets much worse. So, give me some now, and again at night. No way. What, are you worried about me getting addicted? It’s a possibility, but what I’m really afraid of is that you won’t have the opportunity. It’s a wonderful drug, but the price is high and the bill comes due fast. If your blood pressure drops too much I won’t be able to do anything. Do you have any idea how much this hurts? No, I’ve never been shot. I wouldn’t wish it on you, I feel like I’m being torn apart at the seams. Listen, there’re many ways to deal with pain, and the way you’re dealing with it is the worst. Oh yeah, how’s that? You’re resisting it. What should I do? Relax, enjoy it. What the hell are you talking about? I’m not a masochist. That’s not what I’m talking about. What are you talking about? Have you ever stopped to think about the purpose of pain? To fuck up your life? No, to save it. If there were no pain, you wouldn’t realize you’d been shot, for example, and you’d bleed to death quite cheerfully. You’re right. Pain is the language your body uses to tell your brain that something’s wrong, where it’s wrong and how serious it is. I understand, but it could use gentler words. Pain is a force of nature, and nature doesn’t let its creatures ignore it when it has something to say. You can’t argue with nature. So? So, pain is a signal. And? When you resist it or try to ignore it, it’s not doing its job, and it will keep trying. Which means? Which means it will keep hurting. On the other hand, if you pay attention, it will have carried out its mission and will let up a little. If it were that simple we wouldn’t need painkillers. Painkillers block your perception of the pain for a short time, so you can rest. They help. Especially for men who are such wimps about pain. Are you calling me a wimp? All men are a bit wimpy about pain; if they ever gave birth they’d know what pain was. You can’t compare. What? Giving birth and getting shot. Okay, I won’t compare. Anyway, this business of you calling me a wimp, you’re just taking advantage of me because I’m wounded. If I wanted to take advantage of you, I wouldn’t give a damn about your wound.
Just as the last words are leaving her mouth, Ramona turns her back on him, picks up the tea tray and walks toward the house. Lascano watches her. Her straight black hair dances to the cadence of her walk. He wonders how it would feel sliding down his belly. Desire shines in his eyes, which she can no longer see, desire she guessed at long before Lascano even had a clue he felt it. She reminds him of Eva.
As fleeting as their meeting was, it has left its mark on him, as only true love can. Before Eva, there was Marisa, the woman he loved without a shadow of a doubt and who abandoned him forever when she died, just when he loved her more than ever. His grief lasted until he met Eva, who looked so much like Marisa that it was like she had come back for act two. With Marisa’s death, he’d lost all hope of ever finding love, he’d become some kind of ascetic who could only be aroused by memory or fantasy. Eva erupted into his life with the power of a gale-force wind or, as Ramona would put it, like a force of nature. With her animal love, she reinfected him with the virus of desire. The indisputable urge for a woman’s body. She reminded him that his physical being was subject to the imperatives of the species, imperatives that demand, for moments of dazzling urgency, that this thing hanging between his legs be inserted into one precise spot, that it has a purpose it must carry out. Men disguise this urge to conquer, equate it with the hunting of prey, think we’re in charge when we are really just submitting to the imperatives of reproduction. Not to mention that the best part of the hunt is really when we are being hunted.
The afternoon sun falls slowly behind the eucalyptus trees. The leaves quiver. Friday’s first star makes its appearance in the dark sky. Lascano hears the sound of the screen door opening, Ramona’s steps on the quartzite path set with shells. The breeze carries her perfume ahead of her, announcing her arrival.
Time to go inside. Will you give me a hand? That’s what I’m here for.
Lascano no longer needs help getting up. They both know that, but Ramona leans down so he can put his arm around her shoulders. She holds him around the waist and helps him stand up. Once on his feet, he closes his eyes to better feel this woman’s proximity. In his mind he inevitably makes comparisons. Where he expects to find a curve, there’s bone; where his hand predicts hair, there’s smoothness. His touch remembers, longs for another body. There’s something false about this closeness. His reservations are fleeting, the unexpected makes way for curiosity.
I’m not so sure you still need help. You have no idea how much I do.
When they get to the bedroom, he sits down on the bed; she stands there looking at him. He doesn’t have the patience for insinuations. Just as he’s about to speak, she places her finger on his lips. She goes and switches off the light, walks to the window, opens it and pulls open the shades. A powerful scent of jasmine wafts into the room. Ramona sits down next to him. Lascano lets himself collapse, his head coming to rest on her lap, then looks up at her. The rest of the world is in suspense. She is staring off at the leaves in the garden; he can tell she is also missing someone. Perhaps she too is curious and wants to find out what there is besides this attraction. Maybe she’s afraid, as he is. Then Lascano does what he must, he overcomes his fear, sits up, puts his arms around her, kisses her, touches her, undresses her, caresses her. Slowly, she joins in and starts playing the game, dancing to the music of the breath, the cadence of the blood, the piping of the flutes, the glances, the creaking of wood, the blowing of the bellows, the plucking of the strings, the pulsing, banging marimbas, vibraphones, kettledrums, which bear them aloft to the end, where she, already sated, begs him to come, for now she wants to receive his warm semen, this other semen, a final ringing of chimes, once, twice and again… the telephone, it’s the telephone that keeps ringing.
Leaving Lascano alone with the aftereffects of a stupendous session of loveless sex, Ramona gets up and walks across the room naked, as majestic as the Seventh Fleet entering the Mediterranean. Lascano lies back in bed, enjoying the release of tension and the cool night air on his overheated body. The effort has left him exhausted, and the pain of his chest wound has returned, steady and implacable. From the adjacent room he hears Ramona’s voice but not her words. He hears a tone of urgency, a vibration of alarm. Lascano sits up, suddenly and totally alert. When she returns, the expression on her face tells him immediately that recess is over. She quickly starts getting dressed. Fear propels her haste.
We have to get out of here. What’s going on? Jorge’s dead. What? You heard. How? The official story is that he had a heart attack in his office, but they think they killed him. Who? I didn’t ask; what’s more, I don’t want to know. I’ll help you get dressed. Where are we going? I don’t know, we’ll think of somewhere on the way. Did they tell you we were in danger? They told me we should make ourselves scarce, very scarce.