4
He gets up early because he has to stop by the butcher shops. His wife is still at her mother’s place.
He goes into a room that’s empty except for a cot in its centre. He touches the cot’s white wood. On the headboard, there’s a drawing of a bear and a duck hugging. They’re surrounded by squirrels and butterflies and trees and a smiling sun. There are no clouds or humans.
It had been his cot and then it was his son’s. Products with sweet, innocent animals on them are no longer sold. They’ve been replaced by little boats, dainty flowers, fairies, gnomes. He knows he has to get rid of it, to destroy and burn it before his wife comes back. But he can’t.
He’s drinking mate when he hears the horn of a truck at the entrance to his house. It startles him and he drops the mate and burns himself. He goes up to the window and sees the red Tod Voldelig letters.
His house is fairly isolated. The closest neighbours are two kilometres away. To get to it, you have to open the gate, which he thought he’d locked, and follow the road furrowed on both sides by eucalyptus trees. He’s surprised he didn’t hear the truck’s motor or see the cloud of dust. He used to have dogs that would chase after cars and bark at them. Their absence left a silence that’s oppressive, complete.
Someone is clapping and calling his name. “Hello, Señor Tejo?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“I’ve got a gift from El Gringo. Can you sign here?”
He signs without thinking. The man hands him an envelope and then walks over to the truck. He opens the back door, goes in and takes
out a female.
“What is that?”
“It’s a female FGP.”
“Take her back, okay? Now.”
The man stands there not knowing what to do, and looks at him, confused. No one would turn down a gift like this. The sale of the female would amount to a small fortune. The man tugs on the rope around her neck because he doesn’t know what to do. The female moves submissively.
“I can’t. If I take her back, El Gringo will get rid of me.”
The man tightens the rope and holds out the other end. But he doesn’t reach for it, and the man throws the rope to the ground, takes a few quick steps, gets into the truck and drives off.