Condemned

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In this absurd world where the absurd is credible and far from the fantastic, Montiel dialed the number he thought he remembered. The phone rang, it made that hoarse sound you hear while waiting for a person to answer. A woman received the call.  Good afternoon," she said. Good afternoon," replied Montiel. I would like to speak to Mr. Carlos if he is present. She, who had not yet said her name, said that no Carlos lived there and the call ended. For Montiel, the opportunity of that day was lost, there was no possibility of calling again until the following day and the worst, he had already discarded all the numbers he thought he remembered, so the next day he dialed again, another attempt, another insistence, not for pleasure but for necessity. The same lady replied, Carolina was her name, but as he did not know it, he called her sweetheart. Maybe that's what made her not hang up the phone, although if she had known what she would do after talking to Montiel, she would have hung up the call. With a loud but sweet voice Montiel said to Carolina:

          -I need to talk to my father, Carlos.

          -I don't know where he is, he sold us the house and didn't tell us where he was going.

          -My father must have said something, think, I need it urgently.

          -I can't help you, I don't know anything about your father, I have to go, my husband has just arrived.

Carolina was astonished for a moment, she always knew that something was wrong with that house, with that gentleman who appeared to be well and looked poorer than a rat. As a result of her discomfort with the house, Simon, her husband, had decided to remodel it.  That's why Carolina spent the day cleaning an old desk that smelled like nausea and was screwed to the floor. She emptied the drawers and found a picture in one of them. She could recognize Carlos because she had seen him the day he bought the house. In the photo there was also a young man that she did not recognize, however, on his face there were some lines in relief. Carolina turned the photo over, if she had known what awaited her, she would never have read that address, she would never have cleaned her desk, but above all she would never have told Montiel.

          Montiel called at the time he did every day, she told him about the address she had found on the back of the photo, encouraged him to go and find his father. But Montiel told her that he couldn't go. She did not ask any questions and hung up the call. The phone rang for three consecutive days and only once did it get an answer.

          - What do you want me to do?

          -I need you to go to that address and find my father.

          -I don't understand why you don't go.

          -I can't, I told you.

Carolina hadn't decided if she should go or not, so she asked for some time. Unfortunately for Montiel, time was the least he had, but he had no other choice. With more faith than a believer, he called every day, hoping that Carolina would make the decision to help him find his father, he needed him as he had never needed him in his life. But each call took different paths, so different that they never had to travel them. That's how one got to the root of the other. For him the best moment of the day was to hear Carolina's voice, she longed to answer the phone and listen to what he had to say, chained words that he invented throughout the day.  Things like, "If thistles entangle your soul, show them that you're made of sunshine. Perhaps that phrase was the most ingrained in Carolina's heart. Because that night, like many others, she couldn't sleep thinking about Montiel, the handsome boy in the photo.  If she had known that he was no longer like that, if she had known that that dream would become a nightmare, she would have stopped dreaming at that moment and would have returned to sleep in the serenity of her bed.

          Carolina went to the address she had found in the photo. When she arrived, the night was still dark, the sun was far from being seen. For what she thought was good luck, she found Carlos. She found him wrapped in rags and smelling like nausea, tied with a chain to a column. Carolina shook Carlos hoping he would react. On a three-legged table, unbalanced on the floor, Carolina spotted a key. She went to take it to release the lock that chained Carlos. She took the key and when she did, a piece of paper fell to the floor. "Your son must die, let them release you when that happens." Carolina didn't understand anything, although she could understand Montiel's urgency to find her father. She freed Carlos from the chains, as she could she put him to his feet, and carried him, rather, she dragged him to the car.  She took him up with her to take him home, to give him a break from what had brought him down. She wanted to be home just when Montiel called. However, the telephone rang and rang without finding an answer.  A week later, someone answered.

          -Hello, I longed to hear your beautiful voice that liberates my confinement.

          - Who's this?

          -You're not Carolina.

          -No. I'm her husband. What can I do for you?

          There was a long silence. Very long. Many days. So many that Carolina recovered from the alleged accident that occurred when she left Carlos' house. A car chased them for a few blocks. Carolina made some maneuvers to avoid it, some right turns, some left turns. But in the end the other car accelerated, accelerated more than she had the courage. Maybe it was the speed that made Carlos wake up for a moment. "Tell to my son that...he breathed" ... when both cars were aligned, there was a horizontal rain, of shots. That sent Carolina to the hospital, wounded, incomplete, inconclusive of those words that Carlos did not say, and could no longer say from the morgue.

Two weeks later she returned home with her teeth tied in a tongue knot, she arrived wounded, entangled with her husband who accused her of having a clandestine romance, as if she could not, as if she had to answer to someone. However, to keep the party in peace, she lied, as anyone else would have done, she told him that nothing was wrong, that he was simply the son of the one who had sold them the house... she told him everything, except that she had fallen in love. She sat by the phone, waiting for the call, wanting to hear the voice. Maybe she didn't want to hear it. Maybe she didn't want to tell Montiel that her father had died.

          Carolina felt guilty, by the time the phone rang again she had pulled all the thorns out of her heart. And the voice, his voice, Montiel's voice, made her bloom all the thorns of a single sound.  I dreamed of you," he said. 

          -I'm going to die," he added.

          -Your father is dead," interrupted Carolina.

When she said that, the phone clotted in silence, the phone had its horns watered, the wires got wet, and the tears slipped down the endless waves that carry conversations from all over the world before falling to the ground.

          - What do you mean you're going to die? - Carolina replied.

          -Federal prison, I'll be executed tomorrow.

          -Again talking to that man.  We had already discussed this. - interrupted the upset husband as he broke the phone.

          - What have you done? He's going to die, unable to talk to his father, alone.

The world turned upside down in an instant, but Carolina didn't react until she realized that there would be no more calls, that she could never hear him or tell him how her disaster life was going. Worst of all, Montiel would die alone and that was the least he wanted, he told her in one of the many talks they had, he had a horrendous and terrifying fear of dying alone. Carolina didn't sleep that night. Insomnia lodged in her like a snake engulfing a living being. Without thinking about it once, she left her house before the beginning of the morning, her eyes were pale and her skin was reluctant to the world. She passed between people without touching them, as if she was allergic to existence itself. She arrived at the prison before the awakening of the prisoners. The policemen at the door did not want to let her in, she was nothing of Montiel, only a voice that sounded on the telephone.

Inside, in a room that smelled like nausea, Montiel was being tied up. Four injections would go straight to his blood to send him non-stop to a place from which one never returns. And they opened the curtains. Montiel was alone. A large space full of chairs housed the emptiness. They read him the charges for which he had been sentenced to death. No matter, all that empty space hurt him more than death itself, it was so sad to see that fear in his eyes.

Carolina managed to get into prison. She ran. She left her shoes in that newly waxed corridor. Barefoot she placed her foot in the cold marble that led to the execution room. But the verdict was read. As Carolina ran, the huge space in front of Montiel's eyes was shrinking. It shrank so much that it felt like a coffin. Carolina opened the door and shouted: I am here, with you, always!  But the curtain began to close, slowly, along with Montiel's eyes. When the curtain was fully closed, the phone rang. But no one answered.

F. JaBieR