فصل هفتم

7

Razor Teeth

Vidal’s razor was a wondrous thing with its shining blade, sharper than the teeth of a wolf. It had an ivory handle and the steel was German-made. He had taken it from the window of a looted store in Barcelona. A high-end store of gentlemen’s articles: travel kits, grooming kits, pipes, pens, and tortoiseshell combs. But to Vidal this razor had never been just a grooming tool. It was a tool that allowed a man to slash and bite. The razor was his claw—his teeth.

Men were such vulnerable creatures, no fur, no scales to protect their soft flesh. So Vidal took great care every morning to turn himself into a more dangerous beast. When the razor swiped his cheeks and chin its sharpness became part of him. In fact, Vidal liked to imagine it turned his heart, scrape by scrape, into metal. He loved to watch how the blade gave his face the order and shine this place of exile was lacking. He wouldn’t rest until this dirty forest was like the clean-shaven face he saw in the mirror each time the razor had done its work.

Order. Strength. And a nice metal shine. Yes, that’s what he would bring to this place. Blades cut both trees and men so easily.

After he’d taken care of his face, there were of course his boots to polish. He polished them so thoroughly, the leather reflected the morning light. It whispered, Death! in its shining blackness and while Vidal inhaled the smoke of his first cigarette, he imagined the sound of marching boots mixing pleasantly with the music his phonograph was spilling into the morning. The music Vidal listened to was playful and strangely different from the razor and the boots. It gave away that cruelty and death were a dance for him.

Vidal was just giving the boots the last bit of polish when Mercedes walked in with his coffee and bread.

She couldn’t help but stare at the two scrawny rabbits lying on the table next to the pocket watch they’d all been warned never to touch. The kitchen maids had been gossiping all morning about what Vidal had done to the poachers who’d been looking for food to feed their family. Father and son. Mercedes took the metal coffee mug from the tray and placed it between the rabbits. So much cruelty. She’d seen too much of it in this place. Sometimes she wondered whether it covered her heart like mold by now.

“Mercedes.” It always sounded like a threat when Vidal said her name, although he usually spoke to her in so soft a voice it reminded her of a cat hiding its claws under velvet fur. “Prepare those rabbits for dinner tonight.” She picked them up and inspected the skinny bodies.

“Too young to make a good meal.”

Where were the sick girls they’d been supposed to feed? she wondered. Out in the yard one of the soldiers had imitated how the old man had begged for his son’s life. He’d laughed while describing how Vidal had killed them both. Were they born that cruel, all these soldiers slashing and burning and killing? They had been children once like Ofelia. Mercedes feared for her. The girl was too innocent for this place and her mother wouldn’t be strong enough to protect her. She was one of those women who looked for strength in men instead of finding it in her own heart.

“Well,” Vidal said. “A cup of stew, then, and the meat of the hind legs.”

“Yes, señor.” Mercedes forced herself to look straight into his eyes. She didn’t lower her gaze when he got up from his chair, although she feared he’d see the hatred in her eyes. If she lowered them, though, he might read that as guilt and fear, which was far more dangerous. The guilt would make him suspicious and fear would make him hungry for more.

“This coffee is burned a bit.” He liked to stand close to her. “Taste it yourself.”

Mercedes took the black metal mug with her left hand, still holding the two rabbits in her right. Young dead things. You’ll soon be as dead as them, Mercedes, her heart whispered. If you keep on doing what you’re doing.

Vidal was watching her.

“You should check on all these things, Mercedes. You are the housekeeper.”

He put his hand, so smooth and clean, on her shoulder. Mercedes wished her dress were thicker, when he slowly moved it down her arm. The fabric was so worn, she felt his fingers on her skin.

“As you wish, señor.”

Vidal had a great appetite for women, although they all knew he despised them. Mercedes wondered whether Ofelia’s mother didn’t notice the contempt in his eyes when he held her in his arms.

Vidal didn’t call her back when she walked out of the room, but Mercedes felt his gaze between her shoulder blades like the tip of a knife.

She took the rabbits down to the kitchen and told Mariana, the cook, the capitán had complained about the coffee.

“He is nothing but a spoiled brat!” Mariana said.

The other maids laughed. Rosa, Emilia, Valeria . . . most of them had no reason to fear the capitán, as they rarely even saw him in person. They didn’t want to see what he and his men did. Mercedes wished she could be that blind. Though maybe the older women had just seen too much to still care.

“We need one more chicken and some beef for the dinner.” Mercedes filled two buckets with boiling water one of the maids had prepared. Ofelia’s mother had requested a bath.

“One more chicken and some beef? Where are we supposed to find that?” Mariana mocked.

She was from a village close by and had two sons in the army. “Men want to fight,” she liked to say. “That’s how they are born.” And it didn’t matter to them for what they fought. What about women?

“He invited them all,” Mercedes said. “The priest, the general, the doctor, the mayor and his wife too . . . and we’ll have to feed them.” “And they all eat more than a stable filled with hungry pigs!” the cook called after her as Mercedes carried the buckets to the stairs.

The maids were all laughing as they brushed the rabbit blood from the table.

They didn’t want to know.