Aura, she said in my ear:
-Varga Vila wrote "Aura o las violetas", in honor of the love he feels for me.
I hugged her and gave her a kiss trying to keep the jealousy out of my head. I took her to a small hotel in the Santafé neighborhood, and we made love.
I promised to tell Vargas Vila about us, so that he would have no illusions.
He insisted that I tell him nothing. I nodded my head. I cleared my throat a bit, and we made love again.
- Mommy! Mommy! The mirror makes faces at me.
-Don't be careful my love.
Sitting on the seat of the mother's dressing table, she
rubbed the glass with her hands, winking at him and looking at the trees and
mountains that reflected the mirror.
-Mirror, mirror, it said. I would like to enter and know
your world.
He gladly accepted. She felt smaller than before. Inside he found a cat and mouse playing like two old friends. Those were the times when cats no longer ate mice, and they did not have fleas or transmit diseases. They were guinea pigs in scientists' labs.
He jumped into a drop of water vapor rising from the damp earth to the clouds. This is how he got to know the natural flora and fauna of the land.
Later he returned in drop of water that fell on a petal of one of the roses in his home garden.
- Mommy! The mirror keeps making faces at me.
-Quiet little daughter; make faces at him too.
And the girl happy because the mother did not notice the stroll in the mirror, she promised to keep the secret.
With each step he takes, it seems that he is going to lose
his balance, and yet when he takes the other, he returns and recovers it.
"How cold he feels, the friend tells me." It was really cold. With
what the money lasted us, we had a few beers. We talk about his profession. He
was a doctor. Doctor of the National University. It ended a few years ago.
Right now he is working at the San Juan de Dios hospital. He's the head of the
psychiatry department. That said. Talk about medicine at all times. That his
father did not want him because he was born on December 24, and because he was
very Catholic, he never accepted that his son was born on the same day as
Jesus. "Waht a silly, he kept
saying." He was - according to him - very dedicated to science from a very
young age, so much so that he made the smallest instruments that man has
imagined. But the great industry stole part of his inventions, and here he is
as an employee in one of the best hospitals that Colombia has. I do not know
what to think. I met him at the Capablanca chess club where he goes every day.
Perhaps it has been one of the few places where students from the early hours
of the morning separate chairs and tables to dedicate ourselves to studying all
day. There are emeralds, detectives, gamblers of all stripes, merchants and
employees of different official organizations, and many other characters. There
are also intellectuals and politicians. he reads and reads. Sometimes you spend
endless hours flipping through a single page. It is slower than the same time.
He think. His writings are from psychiatry. He has them in a bag that he
carries it everywhere he goes. According to him, he owns a house.
-I'm renting you a room, he tells me.
-How value is it, I answer him.
-when you see it we will negotiate.
We were going to see her the moment she remembered some
papers that she had to take to a place she didn't want to say. "See you
tomorrow, he says again."
Here I am still waiting for it.
Before he left he told me a secret. In the hospital, because
it is for the jai (aristocrats, oligarchs and deceitful smugglers; or whatever
they want) they do not allow doctors or students to go without ties. Because he
is very stubborn, he wears a bow tie. He showed it to me. He had it tucked away
in one of the pockets of his jacket, threadbare from the old, discolored from
grime, caked. He's not a believer because of the dad. But if he is found in
heaven, he goes to hell. Swear and swear that he will. Yes sir. To say goodbye,
he searches his pockets and does not find a single weight.
-Brother, loan me for the bus, he says.
Then I see him
walking away with the paper bag in one of his armpits. Go quick. Little hops.
He reaches 10th avenue, and boards a bus that goes to the north of the city.
Amparo
She was nuts the day
his father kicked him in the butt, because he bent down to pick up the pieces
of porcelain that the lunch plate was turned into. She was so mad that she
often ran off naked into the street.
So, the old man, in order not to let her out, would raise
her to the roof of the house, which amused her a lot, because she would go not
only on the roofs of her own, but also those of the neighbors, stamping her
feet and screaming with her arms crossed over her breasts :
- Motherfuckers ...! Son of...!
Chapter 2.
MARLENI
To her, the day I yelled at her in front of my neighborhood
friends:
- Bye, mommy! He wanted to kill me with his eyes.
- Mommy, your mother, son of ...!
We all laughed, and we watched her stride away.
That same day as always, I passed by at night, and I saw
that he was chatting at the gate of his house with his sisters.
They looked at me and smiled.
It was when she was all serious she told me:
-Walk to see what you know.
Chapter 3.
JOSEFINA
Tired of the harassment to which the father had subjected
her with his lewd gaze, and the care that the mother had for her while he was
there, she ran away from home very young with the driver of a taxi, who then
abandoned her shortly after she became pregnant .
Chapter 4.
JOSÉ
Or stick´s foot, as
we call it. From the day he disobeyed an order from his father, he was lame in
a moment of his anger. He threw a stick at his legs. In spite of everything, he
was the only one who did something productive, because he learned masonry with
the neighbors of the neighborhood. The evil tongues say that with his trade he
analyzes his next victims, and disguised he makes mischief with others.
Chapter 5.
JUAN
Or grime shell. He had no choice. He was the youngest of the
brothers. For his sake he went on military service. Before swearing the flag,
he escaped with his entire military force. No one understood why. They found
him at home sleeping, with everything stolen. Today he is serving a sentence.
It is not known what will become of him.
Has long hair. She wears a pleated skirt that covers her
knees and a blouse that reveals her silicone breast. As he walks he outlines
more than a woman.
Say hello to another who is standing in the doorway of a cafeteria.
- What was there woman, how are you doing?
-Good, answers the other one.
There are others that are standing on the sidewalks of the streets, or leaning on the walls of the hotels and brothels in the sector.
The one in the story greets a passerby:
-Goodbye, daddy.
Go to a patrol radio and pick up your pace. The others move from their places.
One of the policemen on the patrol radio yells:
- Hey! You fag! What does a woman's dress do?
-And that to you, what do you care?
The others almost fell apart from the laughter.
I've always been a fantasy salesman. It all started with a friend who founded the first store of these and ornaments for wholesale sales in Bogotá. Before, they were sold in china shops and other businesses of different kinds. Although there were many manufacturers, none of them had the idea of organizing a business dedicated to distributing them. That's how I started. He sold wholesale in the neighborhoods of Bogotá, or in nearby towns. Little by little I was acquiring enough clientele to sustain me. Before I had dreamed of being a legal professional, but the environment got me into this field. However, I was saving nothing. The wholesale fantasy businesses prospered until smuggling arrived that competed with the national one at a better price, and of better quality.
Many manufacturers went bankrupt, while others progressed in
San Andresito in such a way that they changed their businesses for theirs. To
friend came up with the idea of creating a shopping center that would only be
accessories for women and men. Then "La Pajarera" appeared, perhaps
called that, because it looks like one of these. Before it was a famous hotel
called "El Cartagena" where travelers from other regions of Colombia
flock to trade their items in San Victorino. Over the years, "El
Cosmos" and other shopping centers appeared. Thus arose the competition
for those of us who were wholesaling. Sales in surrounding neighborhoods and
cities became more difficult. All the owners of the miscellanies wanted better
prices and therefore the small merchants failed.
I had an idea. I remembered that I had a friend who made
cases for these, and that he sold them at good prices in high-end stores in the
center and north of Bogotá. I copied them. I started making them on my own.
Since I couldn't compete with prices, I took apart earrings to turn into
charms, and made sets with chains and earrings that, packed in the cases,
looked attractive.
At first it was a good deal. With the earnings, I was able to pay for a year or two in college. In addition to the novelty of my activity, it was facilitated so that in the seasons like "Those of love and friendship", "The teacher's", "The mother's" and "Christmas", sales increase.
I made a mistake. I was given the case to offer the friend who founded the first fantasies store and creator of the idea of the first shopping center, who bought them several times at a good price to put pins on them. It turned out to be a good deal, as we say to the articles that in addition to leaving a good profit margin, they sell like hot cakes. Then the friend proposed the idea of making the case cheaper to another manufacturer, and in turn other merchants copied it, until it was discredited for its quality.
I was left without occupation for a long time. Years passed and I continued to survive. However, as many people realized what was in the suitcase, and in the belief that it could be gold, or something similar, I was subjected to robberies and robberies, especially in San Victorino and in the area where I live.
Still, I subsisted. There was an economic opening that facilitated the entry of these goods from Taiwan, Korea and Japan made with better technologies. The market was flooded with these items. The clientele was over since you could not compete with the prices. I decided to retail it on the streets. It was not the same. In addition, the police would not let us work because of the invasion of public space. So I made up a last resort: I got myself a carriel, and there I put the little money that I had, which consisted of a few chains with their charms and a few earrings. Now I get on the buses. It is the fashion business. First I pay the driver to let me do the work. Then I distribute the samples to the passengers. There I command. I encourage them. I make them focus. I use all my histrionic resources to convince them of what I am going to sell them. In short, I teach them the qualities of what I offer. I take one of the chains and turn it several times with my hands on the rail of the roof of the car, and I pull it tightly so that they realize its resistance; then I wet it with the saliva, and rub it with my fingers to show them that it does not lose course.
It´s qualite as my tongue. Sometimes the charms are glass balls that inside have a grain that floats in oil, and which I call mustard for good luck. Others I make them believe that each pendant corresponds to a zodiac sign, so that they can buy the one that corresponds to them. There are many ways that I use to sell. Of course, I always have to check the bus on which I am going to get on, because I risk the value of the ticket that the driver paid for. That is my life. That is my destiny. I live on that.
I'm a salesman, and my job is to do it on buses. Before I´ve
done others in the midst of that law of searching that life in the cities forces
us to do. For days and months I saw how in some shopping centers groups of
children, young and old, gathered, buying books, sweets, garbage bags and other
trinkets that were offered at retail in different sectors of the city. I was
very tempted by the idea of doing the same. I thought it was an easy job, but
no. The first time I boarded a bus to sell some books on natural medicine that
gave me a good result after paying the ticket and asking the driver's
permission, I lost part of the profits. Or rather: That was my first shift, as
the salespeople say in slang.