Tears in Rain Part 35

"Bartolo!"

"Bartolo good, Bartolo beautiful," whimpered the bubi.

By the great Morlay, said Bruna to herself, terrified at the thought of having him in her apartment again. But the creature was so upset that she couldn't prevent herself from stroking its back. She could feel the greedy-guts' agitated heart-or whatever it was those bichos had for a heart-beating against her shoulder.

Still holding Bartolo, she went over to her screen and called the circus. Maio's face appeared, more doglike than ever, bearing a knowing look.

"So, what's happened with the bubi?" the rep asked impatiently.

"Hi, Bruna. You know I like Bartolo, and we get on well, but he's eaten the trapeze artist's sequined costume. And she's told us, 'Either he goes or I go.'"

"Bartolo good," whispered the greedy-guts in Bruna's ear, his voice still choked.

Okay. Okay! The android resigned herself. She'd keep the bubi-for now. She'd find another place that would take him.

"That's okay, Maio. It doesn't matter. And by the way, thanks for saving my life. For everything."

The alien sparkled a little.

"It was nothing. You saved mine, too."

"Is Mirari around?"

Maio twisted around and pointed at Mirari lying behind him on a sofa at the back of the room.

"She's asleep. I'll wake her up shortly for the performance."

"I wanted to know how much it would cost to fix the dressing room. The black plasma left it in ruins."

"Don't worry about it. The circus is insured and the insurance will cover it."

Suddenly, the Omaa stretched his neck and tensed, raising his hand as if he were asking for a pause. A few seconds later, he relaxed and turned back to the detective.

"Mirari was dreaming they were amputating her arm. She has lots of nightmares over that arm. Sometimes they wake her up. But this one's over now."

Maio and Bruna looked at each other in silence for a few moments, and during that time the rep could see the bicho getting darker, until he had turned an intense reddish-brown color.

"Well, good-bye," said the alien in full chromatic flight.

"Bye, Maio. And thanks."

The image disappeared. Bruna became aware that she had a smile on her face. And that her spirits had lifted somewhat. She felt better.

"What's so funny?" asked Lizard.

"Nothing."

Nothing she could tell him about, of course.

They gave the bubi something to eat and then the animal, clearly exhausted, curled up on the couch and began to snore. Paul stood up and stretched. His fingers touched the ceiling.

"I'm delighted to see you're more relaxed, Bruna. I guess I should go."

The rep said nothing, stunned. The inspector's p.r.o.nouncement had taken her by surprise. She had seen herself preparing Bartolo's food together with him, bustling around the apartment as if their being together would continue quite naturally. But now he was saying that he was going. She wasn't expecting it. It was absurd, but she hadn't antic.i.p.ated that Lizard would leave. Nor had she antic.i.p.ated that he would stay. She simply wanted to go on like this, next to him, in this tiny peace, in a time without time, without conflict. She just wanted this postlunch conviviality to last forever. Four years, three months, and nine days. But no, that counting didn't work anymore. There were reps who lived twenty years. Again the dizziness, the abyss.

The inspector cleared his throat.

"It's been good working with you. Maybe we'll get together again for another case."

"Yes, of course."

Don't go, thought Bruna. Don't go.

What was the matter with her? The android had never had any problem asking a potential partner to stay. She'd never had many doubts about how to use her words, her hands, and her tongue in order to have the other person react in the way she wanted them to. Now she was feeling too many things. She wanted too much and she didn't know how to ask for it.

"Thanks for the meal," said Lizard.

"You're welcome. I mean, thank you. You prepared it."

Lizard opened the door, and the android's stomach contracted painfully until it was the size of a marble.

"Would you like a whisky?" she asked in desperation.

Paul looked at her, amazed.

"I'm going..."

"To drink to a successful conclusion! It will only take a minute."

"Well..."

The inspector came back inside, but stood beside the door. The android filled two gla.s.ses with ice and went in search of the bottle. A client had given it to her as a present, but the bottle was still unopened. After she'd poured out the drinks, she gave one gla.s.s to Lizard and held the other one in her hand. She hated whisky, so she didn't take a sip.

"By the way," said the inspector.

"Yes?"

She could hear herself sounding overly eager.

"What killed Habib was a 9mm metal bullet from an old-style gun, probably a Browning Hi-Power."

It wasn't what Bruna was hoping to hear. It wasn't what she wanted to hear, even though it was interesting information.

"Oh, the same sort of projectile used to kill Nopal's uncle, right?"

"More than that. Both bullets were fired from exactly the same weapon...I already told you Pablo Nopal couldn't be trusted."

"Well, if it really was him, this time he saved my life," she replied, too curtly.

Lizard looked at her thoughtfully, his head slightly askew. Then he put his gla.s.s down on the shelf next to the door. A final, definitive gesture.

"Absolutely true. Well, good-bye."

Okay, so he's going, thought Bruna, containing her anger. Let him go then, right away.

"Bye."

Lizard opened the door again. And then closed it again. He leaned back against it, picked up his gla.s.s again and, after draining it, chewed on a piece of ice thoughtfully.

"Just one thing, Bruna. This story is over."

"This story?"

"Yes, the investigation, our collaboration, the reason for our being able to go on calling each other. I mean, it's now or never...the tale is done. Either I stay with you tonight or we won't see each other again."

Maybe it wasn't a very romantic proposal, but it proved enough. The rep walked slowly toward him, noting that there was a silly smile on her face, and feeling that sort of wonderful amazement of the first moments of a long-awaited s.e.xual encounter. It's happening, the android told herself. Better yet, it's going to happen. And so Bruna reached for Lizard and put her palms on his chest, feeling the warmth of that hard yet comfortable body, and, leaning against him, put her tongue inside his mouth. His tongue was cold and tasted of whisky. And the android, who liked only white wine, suddenly found the taste of that perfumed saliva-that strong, scented tongue-delicious.

Desire ignited inside the rep like a sudden fit of madness. Bruna wanted to devour Lizard, wanted to feel devoured, wanted to fuse with him and burst like a supernova. She tore off her clothes, breaking the fasteners and tried to do the same to the inspector, who resisted. They rolled around the floor, panting, biting each other's mouths, squeezing and groaning in a jumble of arms and legs, looking as if they were engaged in hand-to-hand combat rather than a s.e.xual encounter, until he managed to straddle her, catch hold of her wrists and immobilize her.

"Wait...wait...my precious savage. Take your time," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

And in that position, holding her trapped by his weight, Lizard calmly removed the last of his clothes while the rep trembled between his legs and watched him undressing for the first time, taking pleasure in that glorious, wonderful moment when a lover's body is revealed. Both of them were now naked, and slowly, while their bodies were connecting and their skin communicated of its own accord, Paul leaned over her and opened her lips with his own.

For Bruna, s.e.x was a strange and incomprehensible thing. When it was a matter of an occasional lover, when she only wanted to warm her body, it was sharp, loud, and simple. But when her partner was also warming her heart, as was the case with Lizard, then s.e.x became something deep and complex, and the mere act of kissing was like beginning to fall into each other.

They separated briefly to catch their breath; they moved apart to look at each other, to confirm the wonder of being together. Lizard's body was robust, not fat, the skin a little worn with age. How Bruna loved that mature skin, she who would never reach old age. In the middle of his chest, and stretching upward from his pubis, there were two handfuls of hair-surprising in an era when all men completely waxed their bodies. The rep buried her face in the tight curls of the man's s.e.x, enjoying the scratchy feel of that soft undergrowth and the woody smell of his body. She needed to possess all of Paul, to become acquainted with every inch of his skin, kiss his small marks and scars, run her tongue over those hidden folds. That was what the rep was doing-smelling and licking and exploring that warm, marvelous territory-when Paul grabbed her by the arms and, lying on top her, slowly penetrated her. We're blending our kuammil, thought Bruna unexpectedly, feeling round, huge, and complete, totally filled by Lizard. And she pulled herself tightly against him until she had succeeded in touching his heart and killing death.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE.

When Bruna arrived at the Bear Pavilion, Nopal was already there. He was gazing at the gla.s.s wall of the tank in a melancholy fashion. Tons of shimmering blue water, still and empty, were pressing against the gla.s.s. Melba was nowhere to be seen.

"I don't have any luck with that wretched bear. I never manage to see her. Are you sure she exists?" asked Pablo by way of a greeting.

"Positive."

She sat down on the bench next to the memorist without really knowing how to behave. Nopal had called her that morning-after Lizard had gone, luckily. He supposedly wanted to give her back the netsuke that he had kept when they'd had to remove her clothes at the Forensic Anatomy Inst.i.tute. Bruna was still in bed when he rang, protected by the smell of Paul, by the traces of Paul's fingers, and by the memory of the warmth of his body, and when Nopal suggested that they meet, the idea seemed like a good one to the rep. In fact, she was so receptive to the idea that she was the one who picked the pavilion as their meeting place.

Now that she was seeing the memorist face to face, however, the rep was feeling bewildered and uncomfortable. What am I doing here? she asked herself. And then, concerned, she thought she'd made a serious mistake in coming. There were too many unspoken issues between them, and now they were cramming the android's mouth and leaving her mute.

"Here. Your necklace."

Bruna took it. The little man with his sack. The image of a mother, the smell of her perfume, the rustle of her dress; the fleeting farewell kiss on party nights immediately switched on in her mind. She felt a mild unease.

"It belonged to your mother, didn't it? All that business of the kiss at night...It was your mother."

"Yes."

The unease grew. Not only was her memory a complete lie, but on top of that she was also now certain that it was another's memory: Nopal's. And the knowledge that her false memory was someone else's reality turned that falsehood into something much more harmful and grotesque, in the same way that knowing some reps might have more years to live intensified the anguish of dying.

"Keep your d.a.m.ned necklace. I don't want it," said Bruna, throwing the netsuke onto the bench.

Nopal didn't touch it.

"I gave you the best I had, Bruna," he said calmly.

"And also the worst. All that pain-for what? The death of my father-why? The evil and the suffering. None of that makes any sense."

"You have three times as many scenes as other technos. You're much more complex. You know about melancholy and longing. And the emotion that beautiful music or a word or a picture inspire. What I mean is that I gave you beauty, Bruna. And beauty is the only eternity possible."

They looked at the tank of water in silence for a few minutes. That blue, hypnotic wall. Then it was true that she was different. What she'd always felt was now being confirmed. And for some reason, that certainty rea.s.sured her. Four years, three months, and eight days. She bit her lip, annoyed by her instinctive counting. Now, each time that obsessive countdown fired off inside her head, Bruna recalled Copa Square's words with a sudden bitterness: Wouldn't you be capable of doing anything in exchange for living even one year longer? he'd asked. No, said the rep to herself. Not anything. Or that's what she hoped.

Everything had changed these past few days; everything was so confusing. Beginning with the unlikely fact that she was sitting next to her memorist. She sneaked a peek at him, amazed that she wasn't feeling more terrified. Bruna had always believed that she'd be horrified to meet her writer, that she'd hate him for having given her such a painful existence. And yet...The android was unable to define exactly what it was she felt for Nopal. There was resentment, but fascination, too. And something resembling love. And grat.i.tude. But why grat.i.tude? For having created an ident.i.ty for her? For making her distinct and proud? For designing her to be like him? But on the other hand, if Pablo Nopal had made her in his image and likeness, then had she also inherited his killer instincts? All those times when she'd killed-weren't they just the result of her genetic conditioning? Thinking about all that made her hair stand on end.

"You killed Habib, but you saved my life. I suppose I ought to thank you."

"Your life is very important to me, because I gave it to you. But I didn't kill anyone."

"You're lying."

"How would I have known that you were in the Reina Sofia Hospital? Or that Habib was going to attack you?"

"True, those are good questions. How did you find out?"

Nopal smiled.

"Let me tell you something, Bruna. I'm innocent. Innocent. And so are you."

He picked up the necklace from the bench and stood up. Stepping up to her, he placed it around her neck. It was such a natural act that Bruna didn't object. She simply remained seated where she was, like an idiot, looking at him. The memorist bent over and kissed her on the cheek.

"Be good," he said.

And he walked away.

Seconds later, the bear appeared, swimming majestically in the intense blue, her spongy fur waving around her body like sea anemones. The last of her species, that oh-so-solitary Melba. Then Bruna did what she'd spent several days thinking about doing, and punched a number into her mobile. Natvel's moon-face filled the screen. The tattooist looked at the android impa.s.sively and merely asked, "Now?"

"Now. Please."

"A bear. You're a bear, Bruna."

The words of the essentialist didn't surprise her at all. If the rep had come to the pavilion today, it was because she had intuited the tattooist's reply. There is nothing magical about it at all, Bruna told herself skeptically. It was nothing more than a consequence of the nexin, that experimental enzyme that boosted her ability to empathize. She had undoubtedly picked up Natvel's thoughts during their last encounter. But despite her intense dislike of the esoteric, the rep felt strangely moved. She got up from the bench and walked over to the gla.s.s. Melba was looking at her from the other side, eyes like black b.u.t.tons. Bruna pressed her palms up against the gla.s.s, sensing the weight and push of the water, the turbulent power of that other life. And for an instant, she saw herself next to the bear, the two of them floating in the blue of time, in the same way that Bruna had floated in the night and the rain nearly two years ago, next to the dying Merlin; floating on that bed like a piece of flotsam in the midst of a shipwreck. All of which was very painful but very beautiful, too. And beauty is eternity.