Havana Jazz Club (8 page)

CHAPTER 14

Before making dinner, Billie ran to her room to put on her uniform. She would feel more comfortable dressed like that in Mr. Quiroga’s presence. Besides, the mistress wouldn’t have approved of her completing her tasks in street clothes. She was very strict about such things. She was somewhat uncomfortable about being alone with the master in the house. Maybe it was because of the way he had looked at her in the kitchen or because they had never been alone before. He normally spent so little time in the chalet, and when he was there, his wife and children were too.

When Billie went into the living room to announce that dinner was ready, Quiroga was settled on the sofa dressed only in exercise shorts. His chest was bare. He was leafing distractedly through a newspaper and had served himself a glass of cognac, which he downed in one gulp after Billie’s announcement. As he stood up to go to the table, he looked Billie up and down with that smile on his lips that made her so uncomfortable.

“You didn’t need to change your clothes,” he said. “You looked very nice in that dress.”

“It wouldn’t have been appropriate to serve you like that, sir.”

“Appropriate, appropriate,” he parroted. “It’s summer! It’s hot!”

“But the mistress—”

“Forget the mistress! The mistress isn’t here! Come in. Sit down and have dinner with me.”

“Thank you sir, but . . .” Billie stammered, backing away from the table after serving him the first course.

“Please. I don’t like to eat alone,” he insisted.

Though he was smiling, Billie sensed from his demeanor that this was not a friendly invitation but an order. She didn’t dare refuse. She got another plate and sat opposite him as he hurried to pour her a glass of wine.

“No, thank you, sir. I don’t drink,” she said, covering the glass with her hand.

“Come on, woman. It’s just one day! You don’t want me to drink alone . . .”

Billie had to pull back her hand and let Quiroga fill her glass. Then, he took his and raised it, waiting for Billie to do the same.

“To you,” he said. “Because you’re always so pretty.”

Billie barely wet her lips with the wine before putting it down on the table again. Quiroga, however, emptied his glass in a few swigs.

“Tell me something about yourself,” Quiroga suggested as he refilled his glass. “We’ve never had the chance to talk.”

“There’s not much to tell, sir.”

“Call me Carlos, please,” he said with a smile. “We’re alone. We don’t need to be so formal. You’re Cuban, right? And how is it that you came to Spain?”

“I came with my husband,” Billie replied timidly. “But we eventually separated.”

“Whoa,” he lamented. “Well, these things happen. Relationships are complicated, as we all know. And so? Have you rebuilt your life? I mean, do you have a new man?”

“No, sir,” she replied, feeling deeply uncomfortable.

“Carlos,” he corrected, with a smile.

“Carlos,” Billie repeated, in an almost inaudible voice, looking at the floor.

“That’s better.” He took his glass and held it up again, inviting Billie, with a subtle gesture, to do the same. She obeyed and took a small sip of wine. Carlos Quiroga continued, “I’ve noticed that you don’t usually go out on your day off. Don’t you have friends or family in Madrid?”

“No, sir. All my family’s in Cuba.”

“Carlos,” he corrected again.

“Sorry, Carlos.”

“A girl as attractive as you . . . all alone,” he continued as though to himself. “It’s a shame no man can enjoy so . . . much beauty.”

His voice sounded thick, and in his eyes Billie noticed the intense glimmer of desire that she had seen so many times on the clients at the New York. She jumped up and started to clear the table. As she headed to the kitchen, Ray Charles was singing “Georgia on My Mind” on the record player.

“I love this song,” Quiroga said when she returned, standing up and grasping her by the wrists. “Let’s dance.”

“Sir . . . I . . . have to—” Billie began, as she tried to dodge him.

“Come on, woman!” the man insisted, looping an arm around her waist.

Billie tried to free herself, protesting weakly as she did so, but Quiroga only clung to her more fiercely and firmly drew her closer. He evidently took great pride in his powerful muscles, chiseled by weights and a hard daily training regimen at the gym. He danced very slowly, barely moving. It was obvious that all he wanted was to embrace her. He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled with delight.

“Mmmm! You smell so good . . .”

Billie kept trying to pull away, to keep her face off his naked chest. She grew more alarmed when she noticed his hardened sex pressed against her body. Disgusted, she tried to free herself from him with all her strength, but Quiroga’s arms were clamped around her, effectively imprisoning her.

“You’re a beauty,” he whispered in her ear. “You’ve been driving me crazy for a long time. You know that, right? Of course you do . . . The way you wiggle your hips in front of me, the way you look at me with those enormous black eyes and provoke me with your smile, with that mouth that’s screaming ‘take me.’ Do you know that I masturbate every day thinking about you? You’re a very bad girl . . .”

“Let me go, please,” Billie begged.

Quiroga only crushed her more forcefully against his body. He kissed her neck, his big hands fervently kneading the girl’s back. Then his hands slipped downward, and he squeezed her ass, pressing his hard sex against her, his breathing growing more agitated with every moment. Mustering all her strength, she gave him a hard push.

“Let go of me!” she screamed.

Quiroga stumbled and fell heavily onto the sofa. For a few seconds he was shocked. Then, he burst out laughing.

“Ah, so you like playing hard to get, huh?” he exclaimed, between cackles.

Billie ran to take refuge in her room. Through the door, she could hear Quiroga’s voice, faltering between laughs.

“Come on, baby, don’t be stupid! Just treat me nicely. You won’t regret it. Come on! Don’t be a prude! I know you want it! How long has it been since you had a good fuck?”

Billie locked the door to her room and started to gather her things with trembling hands, crying with rage, helplessness, and indignation. She didn’t know where to go at that hour. Outside, there was nothing, only other villas a considerable distance away. But she had to get out of this house right away.

A few discreet knocks on the door made her heart start pounding again.

“Billie, I’m sorry. Forgive me,” Carlos Quiroga said, his voice suddenly serene. “I drank too much. I didn’t know what I was doing. Open the door, please, I just want to apologize.”

Billie didn’t respond. She sat down slowly on the edge of the bed, held her breath, and stared at the door. She pricked up her ears to listen for the slightest signal of alarm, but she didn’t hear anything except her own agitated breathing, her own pounding heart.

“Fine,” Quiroga said, sounding conciliatory. “I won’t bother you anymore. We’ll talk in the morning. I’m really sorry, Billie. Good night.”

At the sound of his footsteps moving away, she let out a deep sigh. Still, she didn’t dare leave the room. It would be better to wait until the next morning to leave. She was sure Quiroga wouldn’t bother her again that night. Though he had apologized, she knew she couldn’t work in this house anymore. She’d never be able to look that man in the face again, and she assumed that he too would be embarrassed. She had no choice but to leave. She changed her clothes and lay down on the bed to try to rest a little. The long night stretched out before her.

Shortly before dawn, she was awoken by the sound of the key falling from the lock and clinking against the floor.

CHAPTER 15

The door flew open, and Quiroga’s silhouette appeared, colossal and unsteady, in the doorway. As soon as Billie figured out what was going on, she tried to sit up and flee, but he threw himself on top of her, pinning her down.

“Sir, please!” the girl implored, her voice shaking from fear and the effort of trying to free herself.

“Stop being stupid!” he muttered, fiercely seizing her around the neck. “I’ve reached the limit of my patience with you. Now you’re going to be a good girl, and you’re going to give me what I want.”

“No!” Billie screamed. “Let go of me, please! Help! Help!”

“You can scream all you want. You fool! No one can hear you.”

Billie screamed louder, struggling futilely under the man’s crushing weight. He increased the pressure on Billie’s neck as he ripped off her dress with his other hand. She felt like she was being strangled and tried to free herself from the hand gripping her throat. Whipping her head from side to side, she desperately tried to get some air.

“Enough!” Quiroga punched her several times, hard enough to leave her dazed. “Shut up and stay still or you’re going to end up dead!”

Billie stopped fighting, realizing that it would be useless to try to resist. She knew that he was serious and that he wouldn’t stop until he got what he wanted, even if it meant killing her to get it. For a moment, she saw the face of death up close. She felt her life draining away under the increasing pressure of that hand, her breathing slowing, her vision blurring, everything going dark around her . . .

When Quiroga realized she had stopped resisting, he lightened the pressure a bit. He looked at her with a slight smile of triumph.

“That’s better,” he said in a conciliatory tone, stroking Billie’s hair like a loving father who was trying to make an unruly child see reason. “Now be good and nothing bad will happen.”

Billie took several big gulps of air, coughed, retched, and then gathered what little strength she had to push against her aggressor’s powerful hand. She tried to separate it from her throat, but to no avail.

“No, please . . . I’m begging you . . .” She could barely get out a whisper.

“Come on, calm down,” he said, his tone softening. “I don’t want to hurt you, believe me. I just want us to have a good time together. But if something happened to you and you disappeared, no one would look for you, isn’t that right? Who would worry about just another black immigrant? I would have to explain to my wife when she gets home that you weren’t here when I arrived and that you had taken all the jewels and money in the house . . . I would tell the police the same thing if you got the idea of going to them with the story, and I can promise you that you’d be the one who ends up in jail. And we don’t want that to happen, right, beautiful? That’s how I like it . . . so just relax and let me do my . . . Oh! . . . You’re so beautiful!”

Quiroga’s voice had become rough again as he began panting and frantically stroking the girl’s inert body with his free hand. He sullied her with his mouth, biting and licking her breasts, moistening every inch of skin with his tongue, savoring her as if she were an exquisite delicacy.

Billie cried soundlessly and begged in a small voice. He ordered her to shut up with a hiss and squeezed her throat as a warning sign. She finally gave up, exhausted. There was nothing she could do, nobody who would come to her rescue. Clamping her empty gaze on the wall, she stopped crying and mutely tried to tune out what was happening. She just wanted it to be over as soon as possible.

As her attacker separated her thighs, she reflexively tried to resist, but one of the man’s powerful legs pushed between hers, and then his fingers buried deep inside her, digging and playing with her sex like worms wriggling in her warmth. The other hand still circled her neck threateningly, and his weight immobilized her. She released a sob as his hardened member, throbbing and hot, penetrated her. As he bore into her, burning and thrusting violently, his monstrous cries of pleasure reached her like a shameful, far-off echo.

“That’s right . . . that’s right, beautiful . . . You like it, don’t you? You all like it, though you try to hide it. Did your husband do the same thing? I could tell you were dying to . . . you black women are all so fiery—”

He broke off as a moan of ecstasy escaped his throat. He thrust with even more fury, speeding up until it became spasmodic, frenetic, brutal. Then he suddenly stopped with a savage howl.

Billie felt the hot fluid flooding her inside, then the accelerated beating of that foul beast’s heart, his panting breath, his sweat sticking to her body, silence, repugnance . . .

Carlos Quiroga fell beside her, exhausted and satisfied, trying to catch his breath. Billie didn’t move. Nothing mattered anymore.

“You did very well,” he said, giving her a few soft pats on the thigh. “Keep acting like that and you won’t regret it. We’ll have a great time together, you’ll see. I’ll buy you jewelry, dresses, whatever you want. I know that in Cuba people are in need of everything . . . I’ll take care of you, princess, and it will be our secret, alright? But if you’re not nice to me, you already know what’ll happen.”

He closed his eyes and was asleep in no time, snoring loudly. Billie stood up like a robot, put on her dress and sandals, and left the room. She crossed through the living room and opened the front door. The dogs ran up, jumping around her, but Billie passed between them as if she didn’t see them. She opened the garden gate and started to walk down the deserted street, her face blank, lost in the darkness of the night.

The sun had started to rise when she reached the highway. The infernal roar of the trucks barreling past her jarred her from her catatonic state and brought her back to reality and the horrible abuse she had just suffered. Tears filled her eyes, and she suddenly felt terribly tired. She had no idea how long she had been walking, fleeing that abominable being—escaping a man, once again . . . She wondered why such terrible things happened to her. What was it about her that brought out men’s basest instincts?

Truckers honked their horns as they passed her, some of them yelling out their open windows. Billie walked along the shoulder with no idea where she was going, hating her dark skin, her voluptuous body that prevented her from passing unnoticed, turning into a shadow, disappearing . . .

Disappearing . . .

She stopped, drawn by the gray of the asphalt. In her mind, it transformed into a gentle river of mercury, inviting her to sink into it, to drown among the millions of cold drops of metal.

She was being buffeted by the wind from the trucks passing her. She would only have to close her eyes and let go—if she took just one step forward, she would find herself under one of their enormous wheels, and it would all be over.

“Do you need help?” A car had pulled over on the shoulder, and a young man was leaning over the passenger seat and out the window. “Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

She shook her head and started walking again, faster now. The undergrowth stopped her from leaving the highway. The car started rolling slowly, keeping up with her.

“There’s nothing for miles in that direction,” the young man insisted. “You’ll get dehydrated from the heat before you get anywhere.”

Billie stopped again and looked at him. He gave her a cordial smile and opened the car door. She felt like her legs were about to give out beneath her, and she was exhausted. So she climbed into the car, not caring where she ended up, settled into the seat, and stared silently ahead. The young man put the car in gear, sneaking a look at the red marks around the girl’s neck, arms, and legs as he did so. Something bad had happened to her, but he didn’t dare ask any questions. Instead, he put some quiet music on in an effort to ease the tense silence a little.

“Is the music bothering you?” he asked. She shook her head without taking her eyes off the highway. The man asked again, “Are you okay?”

The girl nodded, her lips pressed firmly together. She didn’t seem to want to talk. He sighed and concentrated on driving. Still, he couldn’t stop looking stealthily at her and wondering what had happened. What was she doing walking alone on the highway at that hour of the morning? When he had spotted her on the shoulder, he had felt a shiver—a premonition that she was about to do something crazy.

“Did you have a fight with your boyfriend?” he dared to ask, but got no response. After that, he gave up. “Fine. If you don’t want to talk, I won’t bother you.”

“I need to go to the bathroom,” Billie suddenly said neutrally.

The man was surprised to hear her voice.

“Of course. There’s a service station a few miles ahead. Can you make it?”

She nodded. Neither of them said another word until they got to the gas station.

As soon as the car stopped, Billie jumped out and ran off in search of a bathroom. The young man watched her move away, intrigued, then filled the gas tank and went into the bar. He ordered some coffee and sat down at a table facing the bathroom, his eyes glued to the door.

Shaking uncontrollably, Billie turned on a tap and dampened a wad of paper towels, then pulled up her dress and roughly scrubbed her thighs and genitals. The smell of the sticky semen between her legs repulsed her. She pressed the soap dispenser and rubbed compulsively, repeating the operation over and over again until her skin chafed, but the smell wouldn’t disappear. It was ingrained in her body, her brain, her nose, her mouth.

She vomited.

Then she washed her sweat-stained and tear-streaked face and breathed deeply, trying to calm down. She ripped off her dress in fury and washed her whole body exasperatedly, trying to contain her sobs and not scream. Suddenly the door opened, and a woman stopped, her jaw dropping at the sight of this nude ebony statue. Billie looked at her expectantly for a few seconds. The woman looked unsure whether to go in or back out again. She finally looked down and hurried into one of the stalls. Billie, suddenly calm, dried herself off, put on her dress, and went out to the bar.

The young driver waved at her, and Billie walked over to him.

“What can I get you?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on. Eat something. You’ll feel better.”

At his insistence, she ordered a café con leche. He watched her in silence as she poured in sugar, her eyes fixed on the inside lip of the cup.

“I don’t want to be intrusive,” the young man said. “But something serious happened to you. There you are all alone in the middle of a highway at dawn, with marks all over your body. You don’t even have a purse.”

Billie suddenly realized the young man was right. She had left the house with nothing: no money, no documentation . . . But she could never go back there. Nothing in the world could make her return.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she replied sharply.

“Do you want to file a report? I can take you to a police station.”

She shook her head vehemently and looked at him with terrified, pleading eyes.

“It’s okay, whatever you want to do,” he said. “Where are you heading?”

Billie shrugged. She hadn’t thought about it. Where was she heading? It didn’t really matter. She had no idea where to go. She had no money, no papers, nothing, and Quiroga had warned her that the police would detain her and nobody would believe her story. All she wanted was to get away from here.

The woman from the bathroom passed by them and shot her a furtive look. Billie ignored her.

“Where are you going?”

“To Barcelona,” he replied, surprised.

“Barcelona is fine,” she said.

The young man said nothing. He simply nodded, and paid the check. On the way to the car, he wondered whether he was getting himself involved in a mess by helping this strange woman. But she had such an innocent, helpless look about her that he felt it was his duty to help her.

“If we’re going to take such a long trip together, I’d at least like to know your name,” he said with a smile.

“Billie,” she said, not looking up. “My name is Billie.”

“I guess you hear all the time that that’s kind of a weird name for a girl,” he tried to joke.

“Yes,” she replied plainly.

“Okay, Billie,” the young man sighed. “My name is Mario.”

They got into the car and hit the road.