E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten
Bazterrica Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird
1. Auflage 2023
ISBN: 978-1-78227-902-0
Verlag: Pushkin Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-78227-902-0
Verlag: Pushkin Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark
Agustina Bazterrica is an Argentinian novelist and short-story writer. She is a central figure in the Buenos Aires literary scene, working as a cultural organiser and workshop curator. She has received several awards for her writing, most notably the Premio Clarín Novela for her second novel, Tender is the Flesh, which has been translated into over 20 languages and is also available from Pushkin Press.
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First the dentures fell on to the blue tiles of your patio. They broke in two, and it was that harsh, metallic sound that stopped you in your tracks. You crouched down to pick up one of the halves. It was clearly old and belonged to an unkempt person, someone with no dental hygiene whatsoever. You wondered who this could be, whether it was some neighbour who’d dropped them or thought to throw them on to your patio. You were about to take one more step, to pick up the other half, but you stood there thinking it was a little ironic that dentures had fallen precisely on to your patio, a dentist’s patio, and it was at that moment that Menéndez’s body fell, seconds after his dentures.
The sound of Menéndez’s body plummeting, breaking, dying on the blue tiles of your patio, that vulgar and profound noise, paralysed you. You clutched the dentures until they cut your hand as you watched Menéndez’s blood stain your patio. You thought you could hear his blood dirtying your tiles; you thought you understood the sound to be like the cold, a cold that’s light, swift and monstrous.
You crouched down, as though by force of habit, and picked up the other piece, which was very close to your bare foot, your shoeless foot, a 1st-of-January foot, at home on holiday, at the start of a new year that would be productive and happy, while your neighbour Menéndez lay dead on the blue tiles of your patio.
You looked at Menéndez’s body, which was naked and had no dentures. You smiled because it would have been very easy for you to fix his dentures and you would have done so free of charge, because Menéndez was your neighbour, had been your neighbour. His mouth was now open, empty. The expression on his face was one of hatred, a hatred that was pure, specific, directed, a hatred targeted at the woman who lived on the ground floor in apartment B, at you.
You saw Menéndez’s red blood, which was essentially black, slowly move towards your right foot, and you became aware that half a centimetre had prevented you from ending up underneath the frail but forceful bones, the yellowed and oily, murderous skin, the toothless mouth of the filthy old man that was Menéndez.
The sound of his body committing suicide on the blue tiles of your patio, that sound, which now seemed faint, almost insignificant but that had been excessive, cruel, had become mixed up with the question of why he’d gone and killed himself on your patio. He’d had several others—abandoned patios, larger patios, flower-filled patios, empty patios, beautiful patios, patios with no neighbour hanging clothes barefoot in a nightgown on the 1st of January. You looked up and understood that the only way Menéndez could have killed himself on your patio was by climbing on to the wall of his rooftop terrace. Menéndez had chosen your patio; he’d chosen you. He’d tried to kill you, or, at the very least, harm you. Menéndez had gone to so much effort, you thought, and yet had been so ineffective.
You shuddered when you saw the blood run slowly, but ferociously, around the edges of your foot. The soft sound of the red liquid moving almost in silence made your body go cold and you wanted to scream, but all you did was stare at the dentures.
You heard the neighbours behind the door to your apartment. So many neighbours, so many patios, so much noise. They rang the bell, knocked, called out your name, but you were looking, mesmerized, at Menéndez’s horribly made dentures and you laughed, because you understood that this was an awful joke fate had played on you, one of those stories that only happens to a colleague’s cousin’s friend’s girlfriend, who tells it in a way that’s humorous and not very convincing at some forgotten gathering, mixing your story, your truth, with improbable urban legends, while everyone laughs and drinks and thinks that a neighbour will never fall on their heads. And you felt that people like you didn’t deserve this, courteous people, professional people, people with their lives together and in order, people you considered to be good, because you were an exemplary person, your values were in the right place and you were destined for success. That Menéndez’s repugnant, naked body was an omen at the start of your year, a sign from the heavens, was simply unacceptable. That an everyday appliance, an object of decidedly little value, such as used dentures, had intervened and saved your young and vital body, your perfect and radiant teeth, from ending up under Menéndez’s decaying bones, his ageing, sweating skin, was an insult.
You remained there, crouched down and clutching the dentures, the two halves in your hand, while someone kicked your door in and the neighbours and police entered, yelling things and crying out, their sentences full of panic, and you heard odd words like señorita, how awful, suicide, neighbour, ambulance, male, shock, police station, poor girl, file a report, what a tragedy, Menéndez, we’re nothing.
Someone put a blanket over your shoulders, though it was the middle of summer in Buenos Aires, and human stupidity seemed so natural to you, the automatic and senseless gesture to protect. Someone tried to move you, to sit you down on a chair, but you didn’t want the edges of your foot to lose contact with the bestial yet almost inaudible sound of the blood; you didn’t want to stop hearing it. They brought you a chair and you sat down, your bare feet red and soaked.
Your fourth-floor neighbour came over. You recognized her by the stench of confinement and ten-cent incense. She put her hand over her mouth and said, How dreadful my dear, how dreadful, what a tragedy, God save us, how awful. She touched your hair and you moved her hand away as if you were ridding yourself of a plague, a venereal infection, a biblical curse. She huffed, indignant, and said something like, The nerve, and, Rude young lady, but she said all the words together, Thenerveofthisrudeyounglady. You asked yourself if there was a wise woman out there who could teach you to behave in a civilized manner next to your neighbour’s naked, denture-less body. She left for the kitchen, taking with her the smell of mothballs and breath saturated with a mix of rancid medication and alcohol masked with coffee. You didn’t care that the other women from the building joined the one from the fourth floor, and that all of these shocked neighbours made remarks, talked, breathed, while they pointed at Osvaldito, which is what they called Menéndez, whom they’d apparently known for such a long time. You thought that the older women who gathered in the hallways with their short, poorly dyed hair, their long, painted nails and small, amputated brains were united by a common misguided imbecility. They shared an excessive passion for tiny, hyperkinetic dogs, controversial breeds that tend to be programmed with minute but shrill yelps. These women come across as completely inoffensive beings, but they live comfortably submerged in a combination of evil and normalcy produced by an unhealthy amount of leisure time, the impunity of old age, and the need to be present for every occurrence that involves someone else in order to talk about it later—in the hallways, in the elevator, during homeowners’ meetings, at the bakery, at the front door, with the superintendent, with the neighbours in other buildings, with those among them who were fortunate enough not to have been in that rude young lady’s apartment.
You looked at them closely and they seemed to you a despicable group of humans. This group had settled into your kitchen, were helping themselves to water from the fridge and smoking impertinently, which you found more violent than the sound of Menéndez exploding on to your patio. Human evil knows no limits, you said. You repeated this sentence, your foot bloody, and thought that you led an ordinary life in which you were happy fixing other people’s ailing teeth and mouths, in which you felt protected cleaning the suction cannula, or a certain power while you held the fifteen-blade scalpel, or the spirit of adventure when you looked for rebellious cavities, or important when you gave threatening and serious talks on oral hygiene. And on occasion, on a 1st of January, something simple could happen, like a neighbour falling on to your patio, and all the talks and all the apparent security of your home would be reduced to an interminable string of platitudes, and to get away from them you would consider it preferable to listen to the opaque silence of the blood touching your right foot.
You lift your gaze from your foot (from that bizarre foot), and from the blood (from that unfamiliar blood). Two people take notes and pictures of the dead neighbour whose body is on your patio. You look at Menéndez as though you’re seeing him for the first time, and you understand that the sound of the naked, toothless body belonging to the filthy old man that he was, the sound of him breaking on the blue tiles of your patio, encased you in anarchy, in the chaos originating in the neighbours who look at you with feigned pity and a certain cordial disdain, in the police who talk to you with words that are imperative, broken, mechanical, in the world that’s oppressively civilized and atrocious.
You cover yourself a little more with the blanket, though it’s a hot day, because now you know, with an acute certainty, that the sound forced you out of...
