Free Rage by Sergio Bizzio Page B

happened, to listen to it on his own, when he got in
from work - so he couldn't be entirely certain whether or not this was the same one. The fact of the matter
was that Cristian Castro's voice caused him to drop his
guard, even to drop off to sleep.

    This was when something extraordinary happened.
    (This isn't what follows. What follows is merely an
infidelity.)
    Made drowsy as he was by the music, Maria didn't
notice that Senora Blinder had escaped from the table,
or from the dinner party, still less from the dining room,
and that she'd just hooked up with her male guest
halfway up the staircase, in the shadows.
    There was nothing in principle to suggest, from the
attitudes adopted by either party, that the two of them
were lovers. Quite the opposite, in fact: it was evident
that they had been good friends for many years, to
the point where they had almost nothing left to tell
one another, but it was also plain that they were fed
up with longing for each other in secret. Desire and
its repression were such a powerful force between
them that when they met halfway upstairs (one going
up and the other coming down), it was as if they were
strangers.
    When Maria had realized how close they were to him,
he had moved back. Now he decided to advance a little
again. He couldn't see them, but he could hear them
absolutely clearly.
    She gave the impression of being somewhat agonized.
    "All of a sudden, I felt such a vast emptiness, so very
vast, that it made me feel as if I was entirely swallowed
up by it," Rita Blinder was saying. "I don't know if that
makes it like a religious experience, most likely it does.
I feel as if I exude the symptoms of religious withdrawal.
First I feel utterly empty, then utterly filled, but with a
longing to enter a retreat. I keep thinking of something which Epictetus said... you do know who Epictetus is,
don't you?"

    A silence.
    Maria visualized the man nodding vaguely.
    "Epictetus," Rita Blinder went on, "said that when
God is no longer able to supply us with faith, or love, or
anything else, he gives us a sign of retreat. He just opens
the door and invites you in with: `Come'. And you reply:
`Where to?' Then He tells you: `Nowhere in particular.
Only back to where you have come from, to things you
warm towards and places you have an affinity for, back
to the elements."'
    Another silence.
    Maria imagined Senora Blinder fixing the man with
her gaze, anticipating some kind of a response from
him. He could as good as see the man casting about
desperately for something to say. He could hear the
man clear his throat.
    Finally he heard him say:
    "Sometimes I think I know everything, and at others
nothing. My dearest, this is one of those occasions when
I feel I know nothing. Believe me. The honest truth is
that I don't know what to say to you."
    There was a pause and then what followed was a deep
sigh, emanating from Senora Blinder. She sucked air
into her lungs as if her head had only just surfaced above
the water - and she started to descend the staircase. The
man, despite the fact she had met him on his way up,
followed her down.
    That was when Maria heard the sound of shattering
glass. He looked right, towards the stairs going down
to the service wing, from where the noise had reached
him as if echoing from a tomb. He followed the sound,
and heard a slam, the sounds of a struggle, then the sound of another slam. Again, silence. Maria was now
on the bottom step of the service stairs, at the start of
the corridor. He leaned his face forwards and Alvaro
just entered his line of vision.

    The door to Rosa's room stood open. Alvaro, his back
turned towards Maria, was propping himself up against
the wall with one shoulder. He was struggling to unstick
the shoulder but his legs weren't helping. In fact, his
knees were buckling. Finally he managed to achieve
lift-off and, making the most of his sudden success, he
zigzagged his way to the kitchen,