Breaking Lorca

TWENTY-FOUR

Monday nights were always slow at the restaurant. Victor had already read both the New York Post and the Daily News, and now he was trapped in his kitchen cubicle with nothing to distract him from his thoughts. He stood with arms folded, reading the labels on his packages of flour and oil and icing sugar over and over again. From time to time curses came from the main part of the kitchen, where Fidel was listening to a baseball game.

In desperation, Victor set about reorganizing the utensils on his wall rack. But this could not distract him from the feeling that he had compounded his evil by provoking Lorca’s sympathy under false pretences. It was one thing to simply not tell her the truth; it was another to get up in front of a crowd and actively pretend to be a victim. He had no right to any sympathy from Lorca. Victor considered fleeing: he could disappear one night and leave no forwarding address. Still a coward, he thought. Still running away.

He could not continue his deception much longer. Lorca’s new look of tenderness was unbearable, almost worse than any anger could have been. Sooner or later he would have to reveal himself, and the outcome would be the same as running away: he would never see her again. He imagined the horror on her face when he told her. She would spit on him.

The owner appeared at the kitchen door. “Someone here for you, Ignacio. A woman.”

Fidel, the chef, let out a whoop. “Ignacio has a girlfriend! Ignacio has a girlfriend! Bring her back here for all of us to see.”

Victor ignored him.

“This woman must be blind or crazy!” Fidel shouted after him. “You give her one for me, eh?”

The dining room looked deserted. The bartender had gone home, and the owner was entering the night’s paltry receipts into a ledger. A last couple lingered in a corner banquette, holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes. Their waiter stood nearby, leaning back against the wall, his eyes closed.

Lorca hung back, just inside the entrance, as if fearing she would be thrown out. “I could not sleep,” she said. “I hope I didn’t get you into trouble by coming here.”

“No, no. It’s okay. It’s fine.”

She raised her eyebrows at the banquettes, the rich tablecloths. “You never told me you worked in such a high-class place.”

“Oh, yes,” said Victor. “Very high-class.” I will tell her everything tonight, he thought. As soon as there is a good moment.

It was midnight, it was Monday, and it was raining. The avenues were busy, but the cross streets were slick and deserted. A faint mist clung in webs to the street lights. Victor and Lorca walked several blocks in silence, Victor trying to work up his courage to speak. But he began to sense that Lorca too was working herself up to something, and he decided to let her speak first.

They were heading west toward Sixth Avenue, without having discussed where they were going. They crossed the avenue, and when they reached the far corner, Lorca suddenly stopped. Somewhere in the shadows a bottle smashed.

“What’s wrong? Was there somewhere special you wanted to go?”

Lorca curled one hand around his neck and kissed him. Her tongue darted between his lips and out again. “I want to go home with you. Will you take me to your apartment?”

“I thought you didn’t want to be kissed,” Victor said, feeling a foolish grin spreading across his face.

“I was mistaken,” she said earnestly. “Will you take me to your famous Royal Court?”

“We can go there, if you want.”

“You don’t want me to come?”

“No, no, of course I do. It is not the most pleasant place, that’s all.”

“I have seen worse places, I am sure.”

Silence claimed them once more for the walk uptown. Victor became more nervous with each block.

“I will make some tea for us,” he said when they were inside. He didn’t want tea, he didn’t even like tea; but it was an excuse to turn his back to her, to hide his nervousness by fiddling with the kettle and the hot plate.

Lorca stood in the middle of his single room, looking around. Victor was acutely aware of the peeling paint, the mildewed rug he had found on the street. “How much you pay for this place?”

“A hundred and fifty a week.”

“Ignacio, you have no kitchen. And where is the bathroom?”

“Down the hall. Believe me, for Manhattan this is not such a bad deal.”

Lorca sat down on the bed. “Anyway, I don’t want to talk about rent.”

“No. And I don’t want any tea.”

Victor switched off the hot plate and stood with hands on hips, facing her. He felt like a trapped chess piece, unable to move without causing loss.

“I don’t blame you for hesitating,” Lorca said. “I know I am ugly.”

“Don’t say that. I think you are beautiful.”

She gave a short, bitter laugh.

Victor sat beside her on the bed. “You are very beautiful. It’s the truth.” He held her hand, stroking her forearm. He felt the ridged scar on her wrist.

“Don’t look,” she said. “It’s ugly.”

He held his hand over the old wound as if he could soothe it. He traced the jagged scar with his thumb.

“It was handcuffs. They were so proud of these handcuffs. Like children with a new toy.”

He remembered the blood coursing down her body, the scarlet pool on the floor.

She stood up. “Ignacio, would you close your eyes, please? I’m going to get undressed. I don’t want you to see me.”

Victor turned over on his side and faced the wall. He took slow, deep breaths, trying to calm himself. She thinks she loves me, he thought. Lorca thinks she loves me, because she believes I suffered. That would be in her character. After all, it had been the suffering of another, and not her own, that had finally broken her at the little school. He pressed up against the wall so she could slip under the covers.

“Does it have to be so bright in here?” she asked. She had pulled the covers up, almost completely hiding her face.

Victor switched off the light and got undressed. Street light poured through the window, bathing the room in a cool metallic glow. Lorca turned on her side, facing the wall, when he got under the covers. He put a hand on her shoulder, feeling the small muscles tense.

After a time he exerted a gentle pressure, pulling on her shoulder. “Lie back.” The command was gently expressed, but it was still a command, and it seemed to hang in the room like a garish sign.

Lorca hesitated, then lay back against the pillow, clutching the covers up to her chin.

“Let go.” His voice was nearly a whisper. He stroked her forehead with one hand as he spoke. “I want to see your body, Lorca. I want to see your beautiful body.”

Lorca was rigid, shaking.

“Please,” he said softly. He lay a hand over the bony fingers. A pale circular mark glistened where the electrode had burned her. He touched the mark lightly with a fingertip and felt Lorca stiffen beneath him. He pressed his lips lightly to her fingers.

He tugged gently at the covers.

“Ignacio. I am so ugly.”

Wordlessly, he stroked her fingers until her grip on the covers relaxed. He pulled the cover slowly away, revealing her breasts and the livid marks where the electrodes had been attached. “Oh, Lorca,” he said softly. “I am so sorry.” He bent forward and pressed his lips to a semicircular mark. “So sorry.”

Lorca groaned like a patient coming out of anaesthetic.

Victor laid his head on her chest and stroked her belly. Her skin smelt of soap, warm fabric, and faintly of laundry detergent. Desire flowed into him, but the hard white circles on her stomach, ridged like lunar craters, checked it. He remembered her screaming, begging them to stop. He remembered the white numerals on the dial.

“I am so sorry,” he said again, lightly touching a mark near the ridge of her hip bone. Her flesh shuddered under his hand.

“There’s no reason for you to be sorry,” she said. “You didn’t do anything.”

“I wish that I could take back the pain. I wish I could take it back into my hands. My lips.” He began kissing each white mark, moving down her ribs. The current of desire flowed into him, stronger this time.

“No, please.” Lorca took his head in both her hands and held him back. “Please, Ignacio. I cannot.”

He lay still.

“I am sorry,” she said. “I was wrong to come here. To expect-”

“Shh. It’s okay. We don’t have to.”

“Everything is so ugly to me now. They did things to me, Ignacio. They put things in me.”

She turned away from him again, and Victor stroked her shoulders and gently rubbed her upper back. His hands made wide, inexpert circles over her scapular bones. She gave a little moan of relief, and he was encouraged to continue. This was what the human body was designed for, he thought, to bring comfort to another human body. A stroke here, a caress there-it was so easy for the human hand to give pleasure, so effortless and natural. It began to seem possible that he could make up for what he had done to her. If he gave her physical pleasure every time he saw her, over a period of months, say, or even years, might he not make up for the pain he had caused her? He squeezed the narrow cords of Lorca’s shoulder muscles, rubbing with his thumbs. Suddenly she gave out a loud, strangled cry.

“I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?”

The bony shoulders gave a heave beneath his hands, and there was another loud cry. Then a violent quivering, and she pressed her face into his pillow as the flood of tears, so long suppressed, broke free. Her knees drew up as if in convulsion, and she cried as hard as an infant, in huge coughs and bottomless gasps. It was an orgasm far more powerful than the kind he had anticipated, and it went on for so long that it began even to frighten him.

The tears stopped for a moment.

Victor’s hand had been resting on her shoulder the whole time. He moved it slightly, giving her bicep the gentlest squeeze. “Are you all right?”

This unleashed another spasm of crying, then a respite, then a last brief aftershock, and Lorca lay exhausted on her back as if she were a castaway, thrown up onto this bed after weeks at sea.

Victor put his clothes on and made tea. There was no Kleenex, so he went down the hall and came back with a roll of toilet paper, which he handed to Lorca. The tears, he could see, had done her good. The hard set of her features had softened, and there was more colour in her cheeks than he had ever seen.

He waited until she had taken a few sips of tea before speaking. “You must have needed to do that,” he said. “Feel better?”

She nodded. When finally she spoke, it was about something totally unrelated. “The other day ….” she began. She stopped as if she had forgotten what she was going to say.

“Yes? The other day?”

“The other day. At the church. When you spoke-when you told us what happened to you-it really affected me, Ignacio.”

“I’m sorry. I should not have gone on the way I did. It was very childish of me. That woman upset me with her accusations.”

“Yes, of course she did. Of course. But it hit me hard. It hit me very hard, to hear what they did to you in that place. Even for me-it was hard to believe that anyone could hurt a man as gentle and kind as you. That they could beat you, and do those things to you.”

“No, no,” he said hopelessly. “It wasn’t so bad for me. I was just upset. I was nervous. That woman-”

“It made me so angry-I cannot tell you how angry it made me. I am going to testify, Ignacio. I am going to Washington and I am going to testify at those hearings.”

“Do you think that’s smart? How can you be sure it is safe?”

“Maybe it is not safe. But I cannot live like a rabbit, shaking in fear my whole life.” She turned on her side and smiled at him, flashing the broken tooth. “You see? Seeing you, Ignacio-seeing how brave you are, how cheerful in spite of the pain you have suffered-this has taught me not to be afraid.”

“No, Lorca. You are wrong about me.”

“I am not. Now, will you turn around so I can get dressed?”

It was nearly three o’clock in the morning, but he could not persuade her to stay. She wanted to take the subway home, but he would not hear of it, and pressed a twenty-dollar bill into her hand. He waited with her in the cold, damp wind that blew up Broadway until they managed to flag a cab.

“Please think more about these hearings,” he said, holding the door for her. “You are safe now. I want you to stay safe.”

She smiled up at him, and then he was watching the tail lights of the taxi merge into the other lights of Broadway.

Later, he sat for a long time on the edge of his bed, clutching the pillow Lorca had soaked with her tears. She was not a woman to be talked out of anything; it was pointless to try. “It’s the only way I have left to fight those people,” she had said. “I am going to Washington. I am going to the hearings. And there I will tell them all about our little school.”