Free Hopscotch: A Novel (Pantheon Modern Writers Series) by Julio Cortázar Page B

Gregorovius, putting himself in a position so that he would block off Oliveira’s view and be more alone with La Maga, who was looking at the candles and keeping time with her foot.
    “There was no such thing as time in Montevideo in those days,” La Maga said. “We used to live near the river, in a large house with a courtyard. I was always thirteen years old, I remember it so well. A blue sky, thirteen years old, my fifth-grade teacher was cross-eyed. One day I fell in love with a blond boy who sold newspapers in the square. He had a way of saying ‘paypuh’ that made me feel empty somewhere here … He wore long pants but he couldn’t have been more than twelve. My father was not working then and spent the afternoons drinking
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in the courtyard. I lost my mother when I was five years old, some aunts brought me up but they went to the country later on. When I was thirteen there were only my father and I at home. It was a kind of tenement, not a home. There was an Italian, two old women, and a Negro and his wife who fought at night but later on would play the guitar and sing. The Negrohad red eyes, like a wet mouth. I didn’t like them very much and preferred to play in the street. If my father found me playing in the street he made me come in and would spank me. One day while he was spanking me I saw the Negro peeking through his half-opened door. At first I didn’t really catch on, I thought he was scratching his leg, something he was doing with his hand … Father was too busy hitting me with a belt. It’s funny how you can lose your innocence all at once, without even knowing that you’ve passed into another existence. That night in the kitchen the Negro couple sang until quite late. I was in my room and I had cried so much that I was terribly thirsty, but I didn’t want to leave my room. My father was drinking
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in the doorway. You can’t imagine how hot it was because you’re all from cold countries. It was the humidity that was bad there near the river, I think it’s worse in Buenos Aires, Horacio has told me it’s worse, I don’t know. That night my clothes stuck to me, everybody was drinking
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that night, two or three times I went out and got a drink from the spigot in the courtyard among the geraniums. I had the idea that water from that spigot was cooler. There wasn’t a star in the sky, the geraniums had a harsh smell about them, they’re vulgar plants, very beautiful, you have to stroke a geranium leaf. The lights were out in the other rooms already and father had gone out to the bar run by one-eyed Ramos, and I went into the courtyard and there was the empty
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gourd he always left by the door so that the tramps from the lot next door would not steal it. I remember that when I crossed the courtyard the moon came out a little and I stopped to look at it, the moon always made me feel coldish, and I made a face that could be seen from the stars, I believed in such things, I was only thirteen. Then I drank some more from the spigot and went back to my room upstairs, climbing up an iron staircase where once I had sprained my ankle when I was nine years old. When I was about to light the candle on my night-table a hot hand grabbed my shoulder, I heard the door close, another hand covered my mouth, and I began to notice Negro smell, the Negro was pawing me all over and whispering things in my ear, slobbering on my face, pulling off my clothes, and there was nothing I could do, not even scream because I knew he would kill me if I screamed and I didn’t want him to kill me, anything would have been better than that, to die would have been the worst offense, the most complete stupidity.Why are you looking at me like that, Horacio? I’m telling how the Negro in the tenement raped me, Gregorovius did so want to know how I lived in Uruguay.”
    “Don’t spare us any details,” said Oliveira.
    “Oh, a general idea is enough,” said Gregorovius.
    “There’s no such thing as a general