فصل سی و یکم

31

The Cat and the Mouse

The night had come, wrapping the last remains of the day in black funeral clothes. Mercedes was in Vidal’s room, holding his baby, the motherless baby, wishing the boy to be fatherless too, wishing him to never meet the man who was leaning over his table, unharmed and unmoved by his wife’s death. Mercedes had never known her own father, but looking at this one she considered herself lucky. What kind of man would his son become growing up in such darkness?

She gently put the boy back into the cradle and covered him with a blanket. His father was holding one of the phonograph records he played all day and well into the night. Mercedes heard the music even in her dreams by now. His hands were so gentle with the records that one could almost make oneself believe he’d used a different pair of hands to break Tarta’s bones and shoot the doctor in the back. She missed Ferreira. He had been the only one at the mill whom she could trust.

“You knew Dr. Ferreira pretty well, didn’t you, Mercedes?” Vidal wiped the record with the sleeve of his uniform, the uniform she’d scrubbed for hours to get the blood out.

Don’t show any fear, Mercedes.

“We all knew him, señor. Everyone around here.”

He just looked at her. Oh, how well she knew his games by now. Don’t show any fear, Mercedes.

“The stutterer spoke of an informer,” he said as casually as if they were discussing what to eat for dinner. “Here . . . at the mill. Can you imagine?” His arm brushed hers as he walked past her. “Right under my nose.” Mercedes stared at her feet. She couldn’t feel them. Fear made them numb. Vidal put the record on the phonograph.

Don’t look at him. He’ll see—he’ll know!

Panic constricted her throat and as hard as she tried to swallow, her fear was like a rope strangling her. Behind her the baby began to softly complain, almost muffled, as if he didn’t yet know how to cry.

“Mercedes, please.” Vidal waved her to the chair in front of his table.

It was so hard to make her feet move, although she knew any glimpse of hesitation would betray her. Maybe it was too late anyway. Maybe Tarta had given them all away. Poor, broken Tarta.

“What must you think of me?” Vidal filled a glass with brandy he kept in his bottom drawer. The tomcat was playing with the mouse; Mercedes had known him far too long to have any illusions about the outcome of this game. Fear filled her throat with broken glass as she sat down sideways, so she didn’t have to face Vidal. And to keep the illusion that she could jump up and run.

“You must think I’m a monster.” He held out the glass to her.

Yes! she wanted to scream. Yes! For that’s what you are. But her lips managed to say words he would hopefully want to hear: “It doesn’t matter what someone like me thinks, señor.” She took the glass almost hastily, hoping he wouldn’t notice her shaking hand. He filled another glass for himself and gulped the brandy. Mercedes still hadn’t touched hers. How could she drink with the glass in her throat? He knows. . . .

“I want you to bring me some more liquor. From the barn.” He pushed the cork into the bottle. “Please.” “Yes, señor.” Mercedes put her untouched glass on the table. “Good night, señor.” She got up.

“Mercedes . . .”

Poor mouse. The cat always gives it that moment of hope.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

“Señor?” She turned around slowly, a fly caught in amber, the tree’s sap hardening around her.

He opened the top drawer of his table.

“The key.” He held it up. “I do have the only copy, don’t I?” Terror stiffened her neck, but she managed to nod. “Yes, señor.” He got up from his chair, weighing the key in his hand as he walked around the table.

“You know, there’s an odd detail that’s been bothering me. Maybe it’s not important but—” He stopped right in front of her. “The day the rebels broke into the barn with all those grenades and explosives . . . the lock itself wasn’t forced.” Answering his glance took all her courage. All of it.

“As I said.” His eyes were as black as the muzzle of the pistol he had shot Ferreira with. “It’s probably not important.” He clasped his fingers around hers when he handed her the key, his fingers that had broken Tarta’s with a hammer.

“Be very careful.”

The tomcat clearly didn’t want the game to end yet. Why else would he warn her? Yes. He wanted to watch her run and shoot her in the back like Ferreira. Or chase her like a deer after he stirred her out of the thicket she was hiding in.

Vidal loosened his grip, his eyes still on her.

“Good night, señor.” She turned once again, surprised her legs were obeying her. Walk, Mercedes!

Vidal watched her leave. All tomcats enjoy letting the mice go. For a while. After they felt their claws.

He walked over to the phonograph and dropped the needle onto the record. One could have danced to the music. Appropriate, as he’d just initiated another deadly waltz and this time the prey was especially beautiful.

Vidal approached the cradle and looked down at his son.

The woman who had given birth to him had been beautiful too, but Mercedes was stronger. Which meant it would be so much more enjoyable to break her, much more enjoyable for sure than to torture that stutterer or to shoot that noble idiot of a doctor. And he had a son now. Someone to teach what life was about.

He would teach him its cruel dance. Step by step.