Humiliation. Paulina Flores
all sounds good. No problem, let’s do that portfolio . . . It’s just that really, I’m a little nervous because I’ve never done anything like this and . . .”
Suddenly a bell sounded. Practically the first noise they’d heard since they’d entered the house.
“Can you give me a second?” asked the man with a smile. He stood up, went to the door, and opened it a crack. A feminine voice—they didn’t turn to look—murmured something that the man replied to, also in an undertone. Then he closed the door.
“Sure, sure,” he said as he went back to his desk. “It’s the first time. I can tell. But you don’t have to worry, your daughters are lovely. The brands are going to love them. They have . . . they have just the look we need.”
“My daughters?” asked the father.
“Sure. It can’t be the first time you’ve heard that.”
Simona turned her head toward her father and bit her tongue. She saw him sink a few inches into the chair, his face red and his mouth agape. She saw him narrow his eyes as if to focus them better. He was just as surprised as she was, bitterly surprised, and Simona felt her heart shrinking, and the big room around them also began to shrink. Like those torture chambers in Indiana Jones movies, where walls with knives close in menacingly, trapping the protagonists.
“Lovely. Just charming. Look at the smile on this little one here,” said the man, turning to Pía, who was grinning saucily at all the compliments. “I bet she gets her looks from her mother.”
“My daughters,” the father repeated to himself, almost in a whisper.
“Yes, your daughters,” said the man, confused. “Well, wherever those genes come from, they’re marvelous,” he added.
“Yes, my daughters,” the father said again, now trying to hide his surprise. “They’re lovely,” he added in a quietly affectionate voice.
“Well, then . . . who should we start with? The little one looks like she wants to go first.”
“Yes. Whatever you say. With her . . . but . . . you know . . .” He paused and forced a smile. “The thing is, I don’t have any cash on me just now, I’d have to go take some out. I’m going to run to the ATM and we’ll come back to take the photos.”
“If you want, you can leave the girls here. You can go to the ATM while we do the shoot.”
“No, I can’t leave them alone, you know . . . their mother . . . she’d kill me.” He apologized and let out an awkward giggle. “But we’ll be right back.”
The man sighed and twisted his mouth to one side. “I understand,” he said, but his eyes betrayed what he was thinking: “Once again, they’re wasting my time.” He stood up, and the father and Simona imitated him immediately. Pía stayed sitting another moment longer, fiddling with her dress, all smiles. The man walked quickly to the door and indicated the way out to the street, which was obvious. He didn’t mention that there was an ATM at the gas station on the corner. He knew they weren’t coming back.
The door closed and the three of them went down the stairs in silence. Simona chewed her lips. She had a knot in her stomach, her body felt weak, and she thought she might tumble down the steps any second. She didn’t have anything to hold on to because there was no railing, and her father was on the wall side. Pressed against the wall. He looked like he was about to fall over, too, but his steps weren’t shaky. They were firm, or at least they possessed a weight and violence that could be associated with firmness. His eyes were fixed on the ground, his hands were balled into fists, and his tongue darted over his lips. She could see a little thread of saliva that went from one corner of his mouth to the other. She wanted to say something to him, but she didn’t dare. She could feel his anger. Because he wasn’t nervous or tense anymore—something in him had come unbound. But it wasn’t something good. Not for her. He was furious. She could almost hear her father’s heart pounding. Instinctively, she glanced at his leather belt. But she didn’t feel afraid, just sad at how old and worn out it looked. She tried to take his hand but he went down faster and faster, she couldn’t keep up. No, he wasn’t going to look at her or give her his hand. And she couldn’t stand it. And the stairs seemed endless.
He reached the ground floor and flung the door open wide, and Simona remembered how he slammed the door when he locked himself in his room, and she ran down the stairs to make it outside. To stay beside him. She couldn’t be left out again.
On the sidewalk, the sun beat painfully into her eyes; she could barely distinguish her father’s shape, silhouetted against the light.
“Do you have a bank card like Mom now?” asked Pía when she joined them outside.
He didn’t look up. Started to look for something in his pockets.
“Dad!” Pía shouted suddenly, the way she did when she was nervous, on days when she stood in the window and shouted “Christmas!” or “Birthday!” She could feel the tension too, then, and needed it to end.
“How stupid,” blurted the father, and he clutched his head with both hands. “How embarrassing!” he shouted, letting his rage loose. “How humiliating!” he said, and turned his face to Simona. He looked her straight in the eyes, which were reddish brown just like his, and she met his gaze and finally she could see her father’s contempt. “What an idiot! How stupid! How humiliating!”
He turned around and started to walk, muttering all the while.
Simona stood paralyzed with her eyes full of tears. Her body was shaking. She thought the world was falling in on her, and that she couldn’t bear the weight of it alone. Because she was alone. She’d been wrong. She’d made a terrible mistake. She had humiliated her father, and he would never forgive her. He’d never forgive her. They wouldn’t sing songs again, he wouldn’t surprise her with tickles. She’d ruined everything, she thought, and just when she felt that all the sadness of the earth was falling on her head, her little sister’s round face appeared in front of her. Her eyes were very wide, disconcerted, fearful. And then Simona saw her sister as she never had before, and she felt pity for her, even more pity than she felt for herself. Because she knew that her sister didn’t understand what was happening, and she did. There would be no french fries that afternoon. And that was enough, that was everything. She took Pía by the hand, firmly, and together they started back toward home, following their father’s footsteps down Bellavista.
She was coming out of the library when she saw him. Their paths had crossed a couple of times before. Three, to be exact. More or less under the same circumstances. He was riding an orange bicycle, and a little girl was standing behind him on the pannier rack. The girl couldn’t be more than six years old, and she had her arms wrapped around his neck to keep her balance. Must be his daughter, she thought. Her eyes met his for a second—both of them at once curious and aloof—and then she went on with what she’d been about to do, which was sit on the steps and light the cigarette she usually smoked on the hour, every hour, to clear her head. The little girl also went about her business, climbing down from the back of the bike. Her shoes raised a little dust when they hit the ground. She was wearing a white dress and she looked dirty and unkempt; after landing like that, it was clear why. The man stood up from the saddle but stayed astride the bike, one Adidas on either side of the frame. He kept one hand on the handlebars and with his free arm he pointed, giving the girl instructions. An invisible line leading into the library.
The library’s walls were glass and the entrance to the bathroom was clearly visible. Any adult could see it, she thought between drags on her cigarette, not taking her eyes from the scene. The girl headed off in the direction her father had indicated. That was the only thing to do: the girl could only look at her father, his charming eyes, and do what he told her to do. The child went up the steps and passed a few inches from her; dirty white dress and long, loose, tangled hair, she was unmistakably beautiful. She went hopping