slabs of slate in the Villa of Pigeons
(VIII Literary Contest Finalist Vila de Gracia.)
And
the hall of the house of Cristina Montagut, there is a corpse. It is the corpse of a man about fifty years long, which lies face down at the door, amid a pool of blood. The name of the house is "Villa of doves, a sign painted ceramic makes it clear to the street next to the entrance gate to the garden. The fence surrounds the garden and the garden surrounding the house. The garden is filled with trees: cedar, fir and pine, which Mr. Fermin Soldevila has been planted over the twenty-two years ago living in the house the same years that were married. The soil of the garden is covered with grass Segado perfectly. At the rear of the house (the piece of garden that is hidden from the prying eyes), there is a swimming pool. Soldevila Susanna, the daughter of Cristina and Fermin, they bathe often. He likes especially to swim there naked full moon nights.
Currently, Suzanne is the upstairs of the house, in a bathtub filled with foam. It feels strange, because today, while not very long ago, has behaved differently, we could say he has done something she never would have thought that would be able to do.
phone rings. Susanna does not need to leave the cockpit to pick up the handset. Therefore, almost undaunted, extends his arm, grabs the device and brings it below the right ear.
-Tell me?
-Susi?
-Mama? You?
Yes, I am? How?
"I'm bathing.
-A pool?
-No. In the cockpit. I'm swimming in the bathtub. And while I drink a vodka with orange.
Do not drink like that.
I know, mama.
-What's your father here? Say it please.
it in. I can not say, breast. Or rather, I can tell, but he m'escoltarà.
-Give 't put broccoli and say it!
-check, the name is there, but I feel not so dead.
-I do not like such jokes.
It's dead, mama, I've killed myself. Pope's death is no joke.
-Susi, enough! Tell your father put it!
The tension lasts about ten or so minutes. Finally, Cristina Montagut just making an attack of hysteria. Susanna, however, is very quiet. His mother, dominated by hysteria, informs you that right now will take the car and head for the Villa of the Pigeons. Susanna estimates it will take about five and a half hours to arrive because it is in Madrid, six hundred kilometers away, long enough for her to bury the body and leave everything clean as a paten. Sherbet, although a final shot of vodka with orange before leaving quietly in the bath and be ready to begin work.
II
Cristina, naturally, press the accelerator too over His journey from Madrid to Barcelona. His heart beats like a machine gun. Convinced that her daughter is not telling the truth is impossible that the girl has killed her father, makes no sense. However, the very absurdity of the words of his daughter's full of fear. He goes head to call the police, but what need is there to mount a scandal when it is most likely that the girl has taken such a pill today distributed to clubs and have begun to imagine be nonsense? But ... and if instead of imagining them, are made of? Will call in the morning, the neighbor, is a gossipy and the risk that any future urbanization know the folly of the girl, but not more. Stops the car in an area of \u200b\u200bthe highway. Remove the phone and nothing! No cover. Crying loudly. Exit the car and moves a bit, lest, at some point in the area, the wave arrived best, no way. He comes a noise from behind a bush, like someone to move nervously, swearing and they go running back to the car. Take the revolver from the glove box that her husband always insists to carry and put him in the pocket. We heard the noise again. Sliding. A cat ran fast passing vehicle. Breathe quieter. The night sky is completely rinsed. Match the white dust of the Milky Way and the main constellations. The celístia illuminates the barren desert landscape of the Monegros. Sighs, and for the first time for many years, gets to pray. As well as her life was before all this happened to him and did not realize it! Need to restore tranquility.
parked car braking suddenly in front of a painted tile from the Villa of the Pigeons. The light is on pumpkin garden. Open the gate abruptly, while shouting "girl" with the broken voice. Receives no response. The door of the main building of the house is open. Back to call "girl." Log distraught at the ground floor rooms, are empty and strangely tidy. Upload the first floor. Enter the bathroom where a few hours ago Susana relaxes. It's empty and everything clean and neat as a paten. Check the rooms one by one. No one in the Villa of the pigeons, neither alive nor dead. Exit the Garden. Called "Susanna" with all his might. Do not come any response. Back inside the house. He sits on the couch and burst into a despairing cry. At this moment, the phone rings. The anxious grabs.
-Tell me?
-Mom?
-Susanna ... where the hell are you? Her voice breaking.
It's just where I am, mama. Listen to something.
What ...?
-Above the fireplace ...
pussy-you tell me where are you? Asks him abruptly, cutting it.
-Mama, let me talk or I do not see anymore.
What do you mean?
-Above the fireplace there is a DVD, see?
rose with accelerated respiration. Take a transparent box with a disk inside that has no reference.
"You got it! Now what?
Put the DVD player and watch it for.
Why I do this, Suzanne? What's happening?
-Watch 't talk about the DVD and then-the tone of his voice has a strange warmth. Upload without further explanation.
III
trembling Put the disk inside the device. The snow on the TV screen gives way to sight in the bedroom of Mr. Soldevila-Montagut. Sitting on the quilt point, there appears Susanna crying and expression of horror. The picture is taken almost from the ceiling, and clearly that has been obtained through a hidden camera. Susanna front, Mr. Fermin Soldevila nervous walking up and down the room. "Be a good servant, Susi, how long have you been" he says with a strange tremble in his voice. She continues: "I have my needs, and you've always understood! Why not now? Tell me ... why? ". Susanna explodes in Bram and wins hands to the face. "Because I have big papa! Because I realized what you were doing with me during my entire fucking life, "the girl's voice is difficult to understand because it is mixed with tears. "I remain so, because otherwise ... suïcidaré me, I can not bear. Maybe this is what you want ... After the end of a bitch! "The man's voice is exhausted, leaving room to walk and sit next to her daughter. "I do not care, Dad. Has reached a point that you can do with your life just like I do not care "The girl says while crying. "But that is not t'és as having died so young, with only eighteen, is it not?" Says Fermin Soldevila very slowly. "What you're saying, dad? No nonsense insinuate "The Susanna makes the effect is not taken seriously the threat of his father, who continues in this tone: "I will not step, I do not have enough courage, I admit. But if you give me pumpkin, if you're not gentle enough, if not m'obeeixes ... I have ways and money to finish with you, with your boyfriend, your friends ... And I swear I will! Why you believe you have been gone, leaving all the guys who've gone? Some wisely understand my threats, not a transfer, and ended badly ... "The girl screamed and fell to his knees before his father. "Ignacio!", Calling it "was not an accident! The vessel kill you! ". The man tells him not cynically must be lifted ground that the position is because he is pretty good now facing the same intend to do with it, and make it clear that not only says ironically, comes at the consummation of the event with a display of violence difficult to digest for anyone with sensitivity, and impossible to digest by Christine Montagut, who watches everything with their mouths open and eyes with tears denied. Deeply contorbada, the player stops and starts crying, it feels like another world, as if everything that is going to be unreal. Just at that moment the phone rang again.
-Say 'm! It sees him crack.
-You have seen, mama?
My dear, how is it possible? I can not believe! -The exclamation of Cristina again become a sob that breathtaking -. So sorry ... Never have imagined that ...
Leave it be, breast ... Susanna-making, cutting the -. Now you know why I killed the pope, right?
Yes, but did not need a girl ... It was not necessary! If I'd said, we fixed it another way. My daughter, should call the police!
-No should avail. The police would not have killed the Pope and I, however, yes.
-I am very sorry. I ...
-enough breast. The regrets are useless. Now I'll tell you what. It is important to listen to.
Tell.
Now, mama, I'll kill you. This is what I will, mama, I suïcidaré.
Do not say this creature, I do not do more damage. What will draw to kill you? Return here soon! Do not say nothing than to the police. Explain that the pope has left and we do not know where it is.
No, mama. I have no reason to continue living. And not only because I was the pope, you know?
Well why more is my daughter? Say! Why?
-There is another DVD breast.
-Another DVD?
Yes, mama. Look under the mattress in my room. Then, if you want to talk back, and you'll see how I'll reason, tell me what I do is kill myself.
Do not say this treasure. Do not say that! Call-out if Cristina Montagut. But Susanna can no longer feel that he uploaded.
IV
The second viewing of this DVD brings Christine Montagut at the gates of fainting, because you can see herself making love with Edward, the current boyfriend Susanna. They say that sexual intercourse is one of the finest practices do, and ugly to look (say, of course, those who are not fans of pornography, Cristina is not) and it is even more frightening to Cristina because she's seen with his forty-seven years rolling to his own bed with a boy of twenty-one, which also has considerable potential to become his son-. Within eight months, he and Susanna were married. The story does not end here, because after this relationship (recorded in detail) with the boyfriend of her daughter (quite passionate and imaginative, it must be said, sexuality is an art with many possibilities) Cristina appears on the TV again, this time to embrace Philip, her husband's best friend, both naked, and also in bed, screaming in ecstasy as the two possessed with a craze difficult to describe with words.
After two hours of torrid images, the DVD returns to the snow on the TV show, and Cristina does not react. It looks at the tiny screen flashes (flashes that experts attribute to the background radiation of the universe) and feels that would melt, disappear. Death for her at this time would not be sufficient; what it should not have ever existed.
the phone rang again.
-You see, mom? I need to kill.
Do not say that. It is I who should be killed, not you!
-Pope scares the guys, and even kill them to me, and you take them to me, his voice still strangely similar cold and quiet.
-Iba drink, you understand? The night that happened with your Edward, was completely drunk! I was only once!
God do there, what perversions, good drunk and go! What would you say, mama? I do not know whether to believe me. And that they were not drunk ... 're a promiscuous! Look at the Philip! That, indeed, so I do not care to get it to Philip, I put the DVD only to contemplate your flaw, so I did not realize that Mamo finger and I know what stuff you are done.
- have no right to speak to me as well. I, Philip, I love. And if I left your father, it's because I've always been convinced that he would do much damage. Escaping with his best friend! Can you imagine? Today showed me how my husband! And if I get to know before what kind of monster is ... I swear that would have sent to hell without me even a second thought! I love the Phillip! For years we understand! If you want to call me adulterous do it, but I have no fault to be a friend of your father. ! And you do the favor back home now, my life, that death does not fix anything, it worsens it! Back, please come back! -And gets yelled at.
-Me you have made too big, mama. Finished everything. Now hang and descansaré once.
-T 'I love my daughter! If it serves you something: what is past is past, I love you! Please come back! Speak their eyes staring at us! And then if you still determined to kill you, I would not put me there.
There is a silence.
After a few seconds, still mourn his daughter Cristina, then breathing slow and heavy.
-OK, says Susanna finally -. Will return only one condition.
Tell me, my life!
-Pope is buried in the garden, next to the apple tree, ran to the pool. Inside the pocket of his jacket, at breast height, there is a letter with a letter. I left there for one day if someone found the corpse. I want to dig up the potatoes and take the writing. In three hours we called again and you ask me read the letter. If you do, come back home and talk. If you do, kill me.
But why ...
Do not ask, mama. Do it! -And hung up, leaving Christina and defeat point of collapse.
V
not stop sobbing when step closer to the pool, near the apple tree in the garden the only area where the family Soldevila-Montagut still no grass cultivated because they intend to install it soon llicorera slabs of slate. There he discovers the earth removed, tender, dark. Start making hole with the help of the blade of her husband. She is a drink. Must stop. Perboca. Wipes lips with a tissue. Continue digging. Occasionally he stops and lifts his eyes to heaven; continues rinse. A shooting star firmament flows down like a tear of light melts. It proposes to call on Philip to tell him the drama, because most can not. He knows that it can not, they are five in the morning and Philip is with his wife at home. Try to dig faster, want to end this once and martyrdom.
Around quarter to seven in the morning, he seems to feel a body with the blade. Increase the intensity of his crying and wins hands to his mouth. Immediately recuperates, can not afford delays; Day will soon be Susanna and will soon call it. Away, with care, the land of the dead body lying face down in the hole. Leave the shovel, and with much agony introduced into the huge hole and tries to turn the body to access the front pocket of his jacket. It costs much more than previously thought. Finally, he succeeds and nails the look with fear on the face of the deceased. It is cold, the death is not her husband, but Philip. Chest out a shriek that you do not know to stop. When the eye upward gaze discovers the cold of her daughter that looks out from the grave.
-We have understood, now, mama?
What is going on? -She moans with so much suffering that it hardly understand it. Behind Susanna removes any firm Soldevila, her husband, who is alive and that he looks with a hint of mischief in the eye.
-You'll treasure, Susanna and I, we love force, we thought you might like to spend eternity with your love, and we build this theater, we are sure that will have been very intense for you. Is that so?
Cristina screamed like a possessed and still others can not react any other way. After a few minutes, begin to articulate some words.
That did not need repeated-looking firm -. We could have divorced, and there have been enough.
-You're right-he does, with much phlegm - but divorces are expensive, you know? With this method, get more money. And do not you take wrong step, do not keep resentment. Adds. And then in front of the impassibility Cristina firm kisses the lips of his daughter, he returned the gesture with passion. Then in one of the peaks rise Soldevila Fermin who was thrown ran the hole with the intention of ending the life of his wife, Cristina, but removes the revolver from his pocket and points the face of her husband. Nerve was moving the arm of her husband to his daughter, his daughter to her husband.
What are you doing mama? Groans, Susanna, lívida -. I am your daughter, t'acudirà not kill me, right?
is still firm, cut with the statement.
Leave the gun, woman, we can talk about it ... Says nervous.
Cristina distressed panting. Finally, launches a shot toward the sky where the light is beginning to emerge. N'engega another and another.
soon open the windows of neighborhood houses.
Twenty minutes later a police car comes around the stapes Villa of Pigeons.
Two months later, when everything has already happened, Cristina goes to buy slabs of slate that had long thought they had put ran the pool. There will be good.
*
