head cocked, her narrow eyes squinting even more.
No one gave them a second glance. Tony wasn’t the only man in the buoyant company of an elderly woman. No one asked any questions, no one gave them judgemental looks, no one hissed. People took the night as it came. Tony saw a bony man dancing with an overgrown teenager—his daughter, judging by her features. A long-legged beauty with a skirt that was too short and a tragic look in her eyes. They focussed only on each other as they danced. It was more like elegant wrestling, an intense duel. If they hadn’t been clothed, you might have suspected them of public incest. They only stopped to smoke, still gazing into each other’s eyes. Finally, they walked out into the early morning, entwined, and just short of kissing.
The following day, the Calle Defensa, San Telmo’s main artery, was transformed into an elongated flea market, just as every Sunday. And there was El Afronte again, this time in the open air, performing on the steps of a church the colour of a desert, with a silly little amp for the singer. Tony’s inexplicable tears returned and, again, no one took any notice. An elderly charmer of around eighty, dressed as a gaucho, was inviting passing women to dance on the tiny balata-wood floor of about a metre square in size. Mrs. Bo Xiang refused. She didn’t let go of Tony’s arm, except to buy him a CD that El Afronte had brought out themselves. She put ten times too much money into the collection basket, acting like she couldn’t hear the singer calling after her and trying to offer her change, and pulled Tony into a neighbouring parrilla. It was the only thing she’d chosen herself for the week’s sightseeing.
Tony had even grown to love this type of folkloric grill room, part Austrian Weinstube, part Wild-West saloon. Chequered tablecloths, broad-beamed ceilings, battered wainscoting, smoky plaster. On every free spot on the wall hung the preserved head of some kind of animal, with beady eyes and two horns or a set of antlers. There was a whole stuffed cow on the pavement by the entrance.
Anyone going inside had to pass not just the stuffed cow but also the circular grilling area. It was around two or three metres in diameter. The floor and the raised edge were covered in enamel tiles; a knee-high log fire smouldered in the centre. Various animals were arranged around the languid, intense glow, as though around a nocturnal campfire in olden times. Stripped of their skins, hooves, head, and innards, and attached to iron crosses. A coven of decapitated messiahs, confessing the sins of mankind in general, and this metropolis in particular, as they slowly cooked. Hissing and scorching, they took on all the unresolved pasts, and all of history’s sorrows, before being devoured by their faithful followers, the worshippers of the flesh.
Exhausted and pouring with sweat, Tony was finally able to let himself fall forward onto the bed, next to Mrs. Bo Xiang. It was done. He felt more drained than ever before.
Mrs. Bo Xiang seemed to have calmed down, too. Tony had pulled out just in time. He had caught the proof of his climax in his right hand. He wiped it off on the side of the mattress and rolled onto his back, still panting. The synthetic scent of violets had made way for more authentic body odours. The silence was deafening without the squeaking of the bed, even though the fan and the air conditioning were still whirring away frantically.
As always after the deed, Tony was hit by contrarian sadness. Why were they leaving this place tomorrow, already? He wouldn’t have minded staying a little longer. Mrs. Bo Xiang was enjoying herself, too, wasn’t she? A bizarre vision revealed itself, an image of a possible future. The most bizarre thing was that he didn’t feel humiliated by it.
He and Mrs. Bo Xiang should come here more often. A few weeks, a few months, the whole summer. Maybe they could buy a pied-à-terre. Mrs. Bo Xiang had enough money, and he no longer had any objections. Why shouldn’t he pursue the only thing he seemed to do well without too much difficulty? All right, he and Mrs. Bo Xiang would never be a perfect match. They hadn’t had a real conversation yet; he didn’t know what her interests were; this lack of understanding was clearly mutual, and the sex bordered on the problematic. But the same went for even the most straightforward marriages. If the frequency isn’t too high, anything is bearable.
Why shouldn’t he do it—become her permanent male companion? A male geisha offering her a lot of fun, and all kinds of titbits of information, plus the occasional furtive gratification. What was wrong with that? There were worse professions and crueller pacts with the devil. At his age and with his prospects, it wouldn’t be that hard to adapt to profound servitude. And it would amaze him if Mrs. Bo Xiang vetoed the plan. He knew her well enough, by now. He turned towards her.
She lay with her head turned away from him. The poor woman must be recovering, Tony thought. Not that crazy, is it? She had seemed like a mustang trying to throw off its rider. It would take a while to catch your breath after that. At the same time, a terrible presentiment was creeping up on Tony.
He could no longer hear her breathing.
He quickly rolled her onto her back, facing him. She felt clammy but already cold, brushed from top to toe by the cool breath of the fan, which continued to rotate its wings of death above them.
Tony called her name and shook her thoroughly. She didn’t respond at all. The layer of foundation had indeed disappeared. Her face, paler than ever, had a bluish sheen. The lipstick and the mascara had left red and black streaks around her mouth and her eyes. It hadn’t made her ugly or macabre. Her face seemed frozen in deep, delirious ecstasy. Never before had Tony seen anyone radiate such intense happiness. It felt like a betrayal.
He shook the happy corpse once again. He refused to believe what was happening to both of them, and the irrepressible smile on her lips made him angrier and angrier. It was as though she were laughing at him, yet again, once more. As though she’d planned this all from the start. Not just the trip to Buenos Aires, not just the dinners, the tango lessons, the Renoirs, the Jackson Pollocks, El Afronte—but this, too. Especially this. She had used him, tricked him.
He had to refrain from punching her in the face with his balled fists. Again he shook her, as furious as he was impotent.
But all of a sudden, the happy corpse moved. It belched out a cough that was more of a rattle. For a moment, Mrs. Bo Xiang opened her eyes—two strips of shining white were all that was visible, then they closed again. What she did do, without losing her disconcertingly blissful expression, was raise one hand. The trembling claw moved slowly towards Tony, but fell halfway onto the clammy sheet.
Quick, Tony thought, fumbling for his smartphone in panic. To hospital with her! Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe he wouldn’t have to call his creditor, the most famous entrepreneur from Macau to Guangzhou, and tell him his wife had just died.
-
2
Mpumalanga
Tony Hanssen couldn’t bring himself to press the trigger. He didn’t know what was holding him back the most: his fear of failure, his fear of being caught, or his realization that he—yes, he!—was about to kill another living being.
Three times, already, he’d had the rhinoceros’ right eye in the exact centre of his cross hairs while the creature was barely moving. It stood there chewing lazily, staring into space with the slow, short-sighted gaze common to all herbivores. ‘The rhino is an armoured bovine’ a blogger had written on one of the sites Tony had consulted—a site that, ironically, warned against the scourge of poaching—“an armoured bovine with two unfortunate weak spots: its eyes.”
It was these virtually blind, unprotected peepers, deeply embedded in a vortex of skin folds, that unsettled Tony and caused his finger to freeze around the trigger. He saw innocence in that gaze, and a heart-rending plea for mercy. Horses looked like that when they had just been wounded or beaten, as Tony had once been forced to witness in Provence, not far from his former
