Even though he acts like it’s nothing, I know it’s not. Sometimes I watch and imagine things.
Offensive things. Unspeakable, really. Things like the larval beginning of total disorder. An imperfection that’s small and invisible for now but points to grave repercussions. A gradual paralysis in Dux that’ll stiffen all his muscles over time. A sign of his future defeat.
This is all speculation. Evil thoughts from my own mind. It should be that, and no more, but when I spot that moment of contraction, of magnetic shock in the little toes of his right foot, I can’t help thinking of a slow but inexorable petrification of his whole being. A seed of chaos that will grow inside him like an unwanted guest. And that would be, or could become, a challenge to Dux’s devotion to order. The hidden face of his obsessive need for perfection.
These are near-baseless thoughts that I obviously don’t describe to Malicia; I can’t even bring myself to mention them. Ever the philosopher, she’d just say I’ve discovered warm water, no shit, Sherlock, nothing you’ve said is a surprise. She’d say none of that is exclusively Dux’s problem, because who’s really free of carrying inside them the embryo of inevitable death, disorder, and ultimate defeat.
Over the years, we’ve established responsibilities and routines for our poker trips, and we honor them every time. As soon as we arrive, Dux, our Top Chef, crowns himself with the tall, white chef’s hat and gets going on the food we’ll soon devour. The meal contributions are meticulously planned: the ones with money—everyone except me—bring the liquor, wine, seafood, cold cuts, and other meats.
Nobody says it aloud, but everyone knows I can’t pitch in much, so I’ve been assigned the breakfast fixings. I bring milk, cheese, arepas, coffee, eggs, oranges, and a few other more or less inexpensive things. We play dumb about the financial gulf between me and the rest of them.
How to explain such largesse? To be honest, I don’t know, but it might be because my mother’s surname marks her as coming from a good family, and my grandparents were rich back in prehistoric times. That’s probably it; I have no other explanation.
After breakfast comes the obligatory, old-school soccer game, and then we lie facedown in the sunshine, by the water. We play poker until dark, sing old songs, and tell familiar stories, drinking day and night like guapucha fish.
Even though Dux owns everything, it’s Tarabeo who’s really in charge: he’s the natural boss.
Tarabeo has the bearing, the presence. He knows everything, and what he doesn’t know he makes up. He’s a distinguished white-collar thief who’s hustled his way into millions, which he triples on the black market. But he does it all with sex appeal and style, no expenses spared. What does Táraz contribute to the trip? I can’t tell. He offers all the time and ends up assigned nothing, but that’s the least of it: Dux may be duque—the duke—but Tarabeo is rex.
My king, Tarabeo, Táraz, Taras Bulba, Dino-Rex, the Great Rexona: primus inter pares, leader of the Tutti Frutti clan. He makes decisions and the rest of us comply; he initiates, we follow.
Baby-Boy, a.k.a. Muñeco, is the bartender, and I’m the DJ.
All around us, silent and invisible, moves an army of gardeners, drivers, bodyguards, and maids.
“Give me a break, we have a good time,” I tell Malicia, who’s still dragging her feet, and she seizes on the chance to call us the spoiled oligarchs we are.
“They’re the oligarchs. I’m from the vile middle class, the part of it that’s falling into ruin,” I protest.
“You act just like them when you’re together,” she says, to cut me.
“We’re one way with some people and another way with others, wouldn’t you say, Alicita my love.”
Alicita my love. That’s what Duque calls her when he wants something from her. Malicia gets my drift.
The conversation is getting harsh, and that works against me: my goal is to get her on the trip, not push her away. But I’m right, she becomes unrecognizable when she’s with Duque, demure and pliant. She probably thinks I’m saying it out of jealousy, because I’m wounded. Could be. The thing is, I can’t stand her when she’s all melted with her boyfriend, it seems fake, or like she’s trying too hard. It makes me want to hold a mirror up to her and show her: look at yourself, Alicia, look at what you become.
Malicia is the one big exception, on the poker trip, to the strict rule that no relatives can come. Only we go, the five men of the Tutti Frutti, plus her in her role of owner’s girlfriend, as well as by her own right. I think we’re all in love with her deep down. All of us except her boyfriend, Duque, whom she’s planning to marry next year.
We bring no relatives, that’s ordained, but on the other hand it’s not like we have that many people to leave out. Well, except Tarabeo’s wife, María Inés, but she doesn’t like going. And Tarabeo doesn’t like her there either. People say he’s got a perfect marriage. Perfect, ideal, and exemplary, even though it’s been troubled since the beginning according to rumors that come and go and that Táraz himself won’t confirm or deny.
As far as the rest of us, there are few family ties: none of us has children, good old Pildo is sadly divorced, and Muñeco and I are eternal bachelors.
During the poker trip, we toast with Kilbeggan on the rocks in tall glasses and hug so we can always remember how strong our love is. And we swear in God’s name that we’d do anything for each other, one for Frutti and Frutti for Tutti: united in the sacred bond of our sect, our mutual aid society, come what may.
The further apart we grow in our daily lives, the more emphatic those declarations of loyalty become during the ceremonial days of Atolaima, as if it could make up for the softening of friendship, or, at least, the slow loss of enthusiasm brought on by the years.
And Malicia? What does she do when she joins us? She reads a little, knits a little, sunbathes, splashes around in the pool. But she also laughs at Duque’s jokes, lathers Duque with sunscreen, accompanies him on his siesta, trims his beard with tiny scissors. And worst of all, the thing that’s pissed me off the most: once I watched her pop a pimple on his back with all the fawning of a geisha. Horrible. Until the poker games bring out the beast in her; then she destroys him without mercy.
Malicia also fumes and foams at the mouth when arguing about politics with the right-wing Tarabeo. And she talks with me for long stretches at a time when the two of us go for a walk along the river. But at night she shuts herself into the bedroom with Duque.
We’ve met up today at Crepes & Cakes; we’re here to discuss her presence or absence at our next poker trip, really get to the root of things. She orders a roast-beef-and-asparagus crepe, while I get Nutella and banana. Coffee for her, tea for me.
I’ve never invited her to my apartment, I almost never have anyone over, it would be like cheating on my solitude. I don’t know whether I’m making myself understood. It hurts for anyone to invade my territory, the fifty-three square meters where I hoard my treasures: my movies, my books, my collection of comics, my CDs, my photos, my vinyl. My unease is so intense that I won’t even let in a housekeeper: I’d rather tidy up myself and prevent anyone from moving or losing my things.
In general, I can talk to Malicia, be real with her. With the others there’s the banter that flows between guys, nothing too personal, always messing around, on the lighter side. But it’s different when Malicia and I meet up in some café or in what we call the “office”: a particular bench in El Virrey Park, where the wind murmurs through the eucalyptus. I don’t think she’s told Duque that she hangs out with me like this, and I for one would rather not go shouting about the friendship under the surface of our friendship.