Delirium by Laura Restrepo Read Free Book Online Page B

fortunately passed us by, and I wanted to say to my wife, who kept improvising caps, wigs, and headdresses for me, Not here, Tina darling, wait until we get home, but I didn’t because I knew too well that for Agustina elation is just one step away from melancholy.
    Then we climbed up to Salmona Towers, through the shadows barely dispersed by the yellow lights of Independence Park; before us was the hill of Monserrate and since its bulk was invisible in the dark, the illuminated church that sits at its summit floated in the night like a UFO. Sheltered in that church is a baroque Christ collapsed under the weight of the cross, the most beaten, broken, and long-suffering of gods, his body covered in bruises and sores and bloody wounds, poor Christ, so grievously mistreated, I thought, How plain your hurt is and how much this city of yours resembles you, this city that worships you from below and that sometimes, oh Lord, rails at you for having been marked with your fate and for being inexorably crushed by your cross. At the top of Guadalupe, the hill next to Monserrate, there rises a gigantic Virgin who tried to fold us in her embrace, and Agustina, watching how the enormous statue seemed to rise up with arms extended, radiating green light, said to me, Look, Aguilar, tonight the Virgen de Guadalupe looks like a plane. As we crossed the park I was on the alert for ambushes while she stepped on the little white buds that fall from the eucalyptus trees to make them release their scent, until sleepiness, which settled gradually over her, turned her features childish, slowed her reflexes, and made her hang from my arm and rest her head on my shoulder. Monserrate kept getting closer, and I thought, Who’s left for you to watch over, old watch-post hill, when down here it seems everyone has been left to their own devices and forced to watch out for themselves.

    EVEN SPIDER SALAZAR, who’s so touchy he instantly pulls his ads from any media outlet that dares to mention him in any way, good or bad, even Spider allowed us to joke with him at those Thursday dinners at L’Esplanade about the most sacred thing of all: his masculinity. That night we’d already downed several bottles of Brunello di Montalcino during the main course, and then we got to joking about sex, you know, the whole macho routine, like whether so-and-so turned out to be a faggot, whether this guy is screwing that guy’s wife, whether the president of the Republic appointed his lover the head of such-and-such an institute, you know how it goes, Agustina, you’re nobody here if you don’t claim to have screwed a long list of women, starting with your own mother.
    And then Spider said, Don’t be pigs, how can you talk about water around a man dying of thirst?, Spider my man, what the hell, don’t tell me that little problem is still bothering you, I said, slapping him on the back, don’t tell me you haven’t been able to get it up yet, and if Spider let us get away with digs like that it was because deep down they made him feel better, deep down the jokes consoled him because they allowed him to believe, falsely, that his ordeal would come to an end, and anyway, we were only kidding around, mocking him slyly, making him think we weren’t aware that there was no remedy for his impotence. Spider, man, there are some saints at my Aerobics Center who’d be happy to work a miracle for you, I said bluntly, like a challenge, and Spider, evasive, said, Believe me, old boy, don’t think I haven’t tried everything, cocaine on the dick, placenta cream, I even sent away for a Playboy bunny and all I did was make a fool of myself.
    But I insisted, Agustina doll, I insisted, trusting in the girls who work for me and eager to boast, I’ll bet you whatever you want, Spider my man, that the babes at the Aerobics Center will bring that dangler of yours back to life, and why did I ever open my mouth, when my ruin, and yours, too, my princess-in-waiting, began the moment