Lost in the City: Tree of Desire and Serafin by Ignacio Solares Page B

more from the fantasies than from the running. She passed the keys through the railing and waited for Angustias to enter. She had trouble with the keys, and Cristina kept jumping around and saying between her teeth, hurry, hurry up. She became even more uneasy when Angustias, as she entered the garden, stumbled on the edge of the tile walk that led to the main door, and Cristina had to help her get up and even hold her up because she was limping and, between moans, pointing to her beet-colored knee with its knotty veins so swollen they were about to burst.
    In the house Angustias fell on a large couch covered with red silk and put her hurt knee and foot on the edge of the seat. As Cristina was walking around, very worried, someone would hear them, catch them, a policeman or Papá, and she almost knocked over a cut-glass flower bowl on a table in the middle of the room.
    Angustias waved her bony hands over her injury and told Cristina to get some alcohol from the bathroom.
    â€œThey’re going to put us in jail!”
    â€œBe quiet, you wretched brat! The woman will be gone for a half hour, or longer if she’s seeing her boyfriend. Go to the bathroom for some alcohol.” She shook her fist.
    â€œWhere?” Angustias’ threats immediately had the desired effect on the girl.
    â€œUpstairs. Go look for it.”
    Cristina was looking at things as if she didn’t believe them, as if she knew that when she remembered them, she wasn’t going to believe them: the glass cabinet with small porcelain figures—why so many ducks?—the clock with a pendulum that was like a tired heart, the family pictures in gold frames, the tapestries on the stairs—whose house was it? And what were they going to steal?Before going up the last step, she stopped, stroked the handrail, and looked back at Angustias fussing over her injured knee; the windows with the curtains open so anyone passing on the street could see them . . . Her fear was like lead in her feet, keeping her from moving forward. Who was up there? There was no one who would defend her. She swallowed hard and began saying the Ave Maria. She went down a few steps to look into the dining room at the bronze fruit bowl with grapes, like a sun in the middle of the table.
    Angustias suddenly appeared and yelled at her. “Bring the alcohol right now, you little fool!”
    â€œI’m going to get some grapes. I haven’t had any breakfast.”
    The look that hit her was enough to make her run upstairs.
    But on the floor above, as she went near the first door, she heard a voice . . . A voice? She stopped with her legs rigid and a hand stretched out, like in a game of statues. Then there was someone. She dared to bend her neck closer and heard more clearly: “We-we-well . . . no-no-now . . .” It was a guttural, opaque voice, as if coming from someone speaking out of the depths of a cave.
    She stumbled down the stairs, hardly able to talk by the time she reached Angustias.
    â€œSomeone . . . up there . . . I heard . . .”
    Cristina could endure no more and started to cry. Angustias looked upstairs with an annoyed expression, but said mildly,
    â€œAll right, we’ll go up together.”

15
    Going up, Cristina could not resist the desire to hold her hand, but since Angustias rejected her, she had to content herself with hanging onto her skirt. A Santa Teresa in a flowery frame looked at her with sympathetic eyes, as if caressing her.
    â€œPoor Doña Luz,” Angustias was telling her, “I know her very well. She’s got time all mixed up. She thinks what happened yesterday is happening today and what’s happening today happened yesterday. Her daughter committed suicide twenty years ago, and if you ask her, she’ll say she has just seen her.”
    Angustias calmly opened the door where Cristina had heard the voice. The man with the knife held ready, the police,