The Dream of My Return by Horacio Castellanos Moya Read Free Book Online Page A

I soon confirmed when the play,
La vida es sueño
,
Life Is a Dream
, began, a boring wordy play that I barely paid any attention to because my eyes were glued to Antolín’s expressions and gestures, just as Mr. Rabbit had recommended: that I engage with the subject as much as possible through intense observation, that I even try to get inside his head to see the world as he sees it in order to predict his probable reactions, something impossible to do in a theatrical setting like the one we were in, where Antolín was not Antolín but rather Segismundo, the main character in the play. And while I was observing him in his period costume and listening to him speak in that affected voice, I began to wonder what Eva could possibly have seen in such a specimen, what could have attracted her to him, what had she found in him that I didn’t have, questions that began to grate on me and plunged me into a state of odium and a desire for revenge toward someone I was seeing for the first time, someone who had already fucked my woman to his heart’s content and in whose face—hooked nose and all—I began to discern the expression of scorn he was reserving just for me, an expression that would turn into terror and entreaty when I began to make him pay for every single paroxysm he had wrung out of Eva. As bad luck would have it, I ran into Carmen, a friend and colleague of Eva’s, in the lobby as we were leaving the theater, which made me a little nervous, for although I only said hi to her quickly from a distance, I noticed a look of surprise on her face, as if she already knew about the romance between my wife and that two-bit actor and was wondering what I was doing at his play, as I mentioned to Mr. Rabbit when we met at his pickup truck in a spot in the parking lot where we had a view of the theater’s main doors as well as the back exit, because I didn’t know if Antolín had a car (the question would have made Eva suspicious); the plan was to tail him all night to learn his every movement, find out where he lived, and thereby decide on the best moment to annihilate him. Not even fifteen minutes had passed since the show had ended when we saw the leading man leave through the main door and walk toward a white Volkswagen bug, which he got into without suspecting that we’d be following him with the discipline and efficacy of an expert in urban guerrilla warfare, which Mr. Rabbit was, and with the hope that he was on his way home to spruce himself up before going out for the night, thereby to discover his lair and assess the option of eliminating him there, though not that night. Tailing him was easy: he drove to the Periférico going south, then got onto Viaducto and took the Avenida Cuauhtémoc exit, which made me think that luck was on our side and our subject was on his way home, seeing that I knew he lived in Colonia Narvarte thanks to Eva’s first confession, though she hadn’t wanted to name the street for fear that I would act impetuously, nor did I insist, not wanting to arouse suspicion. The whole twenty minutes we tailed him, adrenaline was pumping through my body, I was talking nervously, saying whatever popped into my mind, a bit in a frenzy, to be honest, whereas Mr. Rabbit maintained strict silence, as usual, focusing his attention on the Volkswagen bug until it stopped on Anaxágoras Street and parked, whereas we kept driving by slowly to look for a spot to park a little farther on but with our eyes glued to the rearview mirror, because the worst thing would have been to lose the subject at that moment. “Wait for me here,” Mr. Rabbit ordered when he turned off the engine, in a tone of voice I assumed he used for clandestine operations, and, without giving me time to respond, he got out of the car and walked toward the two-bit actor, who at that moment was entering the five-story building where he probably lived. Mr. Rabbit entered behind him and I stayed put, plunged into a state of extreme anxiety, not