Read Online If I Close My Eyes Now by Edney Silvestre - Free Book Online Page B

find—’
    ‘Found,’ Eduardo corrected him, glad to be back on safer ground.
    ‘ Found something.’
    ‘We found the condoms.’
    ‘We’ve got piles of them at home.’
    ‘Your father and brother are always going with prostitutes. They have to use condoms with them, or they’ll catch a disease.’
    ‘Was it your grandfather who told you that? The crazy grandfather?’
    Eduardo couldn’t remember. He thought he had read about it. But where would it have been possible for him to read about prostitutes and diseases? He couldn’t recall any book talking about things like that. Or newspaper. Or magazine. Not even in Carlos Zéfiro’s dirty mags that he sometimes snitched from the kiosk when he was paying for the German fashion and dressmaking publications his mother ordered. It probably was his grandfather.
    ‘The day he took you to the red-light district?’
    ‘Possibly. Didn’t you know that prostitutes give you diseases?’
    ‘Yes, I did. Antonio told me.’
    ‘Well, then?’
    ‘Yes, you need condoms if you go with prostitutes. You have to wear one. But the dentist … why do you think he needed so many?’
    ‘So as not to have children. So that his wife wouldn’t get pregnant.’
    ‘How do you know that?’
    ‘We have them at home.’
    ‘You never said.’
    ‘We have them.’
    ‘Where did you find them?’
    ‘I saw them.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘In the same bedside table where my father keeps his revolver.’
    ‘What revolver?’
    ‘He has a revolver. From the days when he had to guard the railway.’
    ‘You never told me.’
    ‘I didn’t think of it.’
    ‘Does he leave the drawer open?’
    ‘No, locked.’
    ‘So how come you saw it?’
    ‘I opened it, didn’t I?’
    ‘How?’
    ‘With a bit of wire.’
    ‘You know how to open a lock without a key?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘How did you learn that?’
    ‘I just did.’
    ‘And the rubbers were there? In the locked drawer?’
    ‘That’s right.’
    ‘Your mother and father use them? So as not to have kids? They’re still …’
    ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’
    ‘You were the one who said you had condoms at home.’
    ‘I don’t like to talk about it.’
    ‘All right. But we could have find … found … more things if that crazy old man hadn’t appeared.’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Yes.’
    Silence again. Paulo sat with his back to him. Eduardo heard a sharp cry, but couldn’t tell which bird made the sound. He thought it might have been a flycatcher. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the memory of the woman with dark thighs, fleshy lips parted over dazzling white teeth, her arms flung wide. He couldn’t help crying out:
    ‘She was pretty. Really pretty.’
    His face felt hot. He thought he must be blushing, and was embarrassed. Paulo said nothing: perhaps he hadn’t heard.
    The image of the tall, blonde woman filled his mind. Wrapped him in an unwelcome embrace. He could see the streaks of mud on her face. And on her body. Blood. Cuts. On her hands, her breast, her neck. Stab wounds. Stains. Slime. A breast. Only one.
    ‘Why did he chop her breast off?’
    His question seemed to hang in mid-air. Paulo still said nothing.
    ‘I don’t understand. I can understand stabbing someone. I can understand killing them. I don’t know why he killed, but I understand. But to cut her breast off? Why? What for?’
    Paulo didn’t reply. Eduardo stared straight in front of him. He thought about getting up and going for a swim. But he didn’t move. He heard the same sharp cries. Like shrieks. Even without seeing them he was sure this time: they were fly-catchers. They sounded ominous.
    ‘Eduardo …’
    He had never heard Paulo’s voice at such a low pitch.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Do you remember the cowboy films we saw?’
    Paulo’s big, black eyes were fixed on him.
    ‘Which film?’
    ‘Any of them. The ones where the Red Indians attack the palefaces’ wagons.’
    ‘What about them?’
    ‘When they kill the whites.’
    ‘In the end, it’s the