The dead hour

Three is a bad time for business. My only customer read without moving a muscle except to turn over a page or occasionally look out the window. Otherwise, all other action only unravelled throughout the pages of her book.

The only money we were going to make before four o'clock was from her coffee, but even so, seeing her there, with her glass left to one side, bothered me. Was she waiting for someone? No one was coming. Who would? I certainly wouldn’t have wanted to keep an appointment with someone like her. Not because of her looks: ugliness wasn’t one of her traits. It was more due to the lack of emotion in her face. Or maybe the real thing was that she just didn’t have any traits. She gave me the creeps: like being too close to an angel of death.

The door opened and my colleague came in to start her shift. She said hi, went to the toilets to change, and returned shortly. I seized the opportunity. “Go ask her if she wants anything else”

My colleague blinked and glanced round the café. I was wiping the bar, shifting grime form one end to another. Realizing she wasn’t reacting, I added, “The girl. By the window. With the book.”

“What girl?”

I turned to point her out. There was no girl, no book, no glass. Just the screech of brakes, a thud, and screams in the street.

Alizarin Crimson

Mum would have been the best mum in the world had it not been for the bodies. She had one of those permanently laughing faces: white freckled skin with healthy, happy, rosy cheeks, vacant yet twinkling blue eyes that laughed when her mouth got too tired from the muscular strain of smiling. But she didn’t just look benevolent. She put up with shit no other parent could ever have dealt with so patiently. Constantly failed exams were just the starter course, closely pursued by less than typical teenage pranks.

She was an active woman: I don’t remember ever seeing her sitting down at home. The smell of cookies and oil paints impregnated the air in every room, every minute of every day. Even that time I had gastroenteritis, after crapping my arse raw, the bathroom still smelled of chocolate, cinnamon and alizarin crimson.

Between batches of cookies, she painted poppy fields. Standing up, of course. Her wide eyes guzzling up colours and spraying them on the canvas, swiftly followed by the brush. Bright red standing out like bloodstains on green and blue.

Until the police came. She let them in with a smile, offered them tea and put a dozen freshly baked cookies on one of her hand-painted plates. They refused all. Read her her rights. Cuffed her. Marched her out into the street. Roughly pushed her into the car parked outside. They weren’t smiling. They looked relieved and angry at the same time.

I can see her in my mind, in the interrogation room, where good cop stares at her, unbelieving. Bad cop scowls, frowns and growls at her, laying out close-up photographs in groups according to name of victim. “This,” the detective shudders as he lays out 5 pictures, “was J. K. S.” Another group of 6 pictures are placed on the table as part of the A. D. G. jigsaw. And so on, until the pictures of 11 dismembered bodies lie on the table. She smiles as she looks at each and every one, sliding the odd one to a different group of pictures, reorganizing them, beaming pitifully at the one asking the questions. “Doesn’t this foot goes with that other leg?”

They called it an “open and shut case”.

Another body turned up a few days ago and the newspapers have gone ballistic.

Today, Mother’s day, I thought I would send her a pressed poppy.

Carmesí Alizarina

Mamá hubiera sido la mejor mamá del mundo, si no hubiera sido por los cuerpos. Tenía una de esas caras permanentemente risueñas: tez blanca pecosa, mofletes saludablemente felices y rojizos, y ojos vacantes, mas brillantes, que se reían cuando su boca se cansaba del esfuerzo muscular de sonreír. Pero no sólo era de semblante benevolente. Aguantó una cantidad de mierda que ningún otro padre podía haber tolerado con tanta paciencia. Exámenes constantemente suspensos siendo sólo el primer plato, seguido apresuradamente por otras faenas adolescentes algo menos corrientes.

Era activa: no recuerdo jamás haberla visto sentada en casa. El olor de las galletas y óleos impregnaban el aire en cada habitación, cada minuto de cada día. Incluso esa vez que tuve gastroenteritis, tras cagarme pata abajo incluso las entrañas, el cuarto de baño olía a chocolate, canela y carmesí alizarina.

De tanda en tanda, pintaba campos de amapolas. De pies, claro. Sus enormes ojos engullendo colores y rociando el lienzo, acompañados seguidamente del pincel. Rojo sangre salpicándose sobre un fondo verde y azul.

Hasta que llegó la policía. Les dejó pasar con una sonrisa, les ofreció té y puso una docena de galletas recién sacadas del horno en uno de los platos que había pintado a mano. Rechazaron todo. Le leyeron sus derechos. La esposaron. La sacaron a la calle. La empujaron bruscamente al coche aparcado fuera. No sonreían. Parecían aliviados a la vez de enfadados.

Puedo verla en mi mente, en la sala de interrogación, donde Poli Bueno la mira, incrédulo. Poli Malo frunce y gruñe, colocando primeros planos en grupos según nombre de víctima. –Éste, –el detective dice con escalofríos según dispone cinco fotografías– era J. K. S. Otra agrupación de seis fotos forman parte del puzzle denominado A. D. G. Y así sucesivamente, hasta que yacen once cuerpos desmembrados a cachos fotografiados sobre la mesa. Ella sonríe y mira cada uno, en ocasiones deslizando una imagen de un grupo a otro, radiando el interrogador con su sonrisa. –No va este pie con esa otra pierna?

Lo llamaron “un caso claro”.

Otro cuerpo apareció hace unos días y los periódicos se han vuelto locos.

Hoy, Día de la Madre, he pensado en enviarle una amapola prensada.