While the Women are Sleeping (14 page)

The butler paused long enough for his last comment not to appear rhetorical, and I stood up and said:

‘Yes, that’s why you have to be careful who you touch.’

The butler said:

‘Exactly, you might not think much of someone or even think very badly of them, then suddenly, one day, by chance, on impulse, out of weakness, loneliness, fear or drunkenness, one day, you find yourself caressing the person you’d thought so little of. That doesn’t mean you change your mind about them, but you do grow fond of someone you’ve caressed or who has allowed themselves to be caressed. And I had acquired a little of that elementary affection for her, after caressing her breasts with my white gloves while she was watching
Family Feud—
that was at the beginning of her pregnancy, during which, because of that incipient affection, I was more patient than usual and brought her whatever she wanted without complaint. Afterwards, I lost that affection, well, after the baby was born. But what made me lose it once and for all—what caused me to feel only disgust for her—was the death of the child, who survived for even less time than expected, two and a half months, not even three. My boss was away, he still is, I told him about the death yesterday by phone, he didn’t say much, just: “Oh, so it’s happened.” Then he asked me to take care of everything, of the cremation or burial, leaving it to me to choose, perhaps because he realised that, in the end, I was the person closest to the child. I was the one who picked her up from her crib and called the doctor, I was the one who, this morning, removed her sheets and her little pillow
—
I don’t know if you realise this, but they make tiny sheets for newborn babies, and tiny pillows too. This morning, I told her, the mother, that I was going to bring the child here, to the thirty-second floor, to have her cremated: they offer a very high-quality service, one of the best in New York; they really know their business; they occupy a whole floor. And what do you think she said? “I don’t want to know anything about it.” “I thought you would want to come with me, to accompany her on her last journey,” I said. And what do you think she said? She told me: “Don’t be so stupid.” Then, since I would be in this part of town, she asked me to get some tickets to the opera for some friends who are coming over in a few weeks’ time. She, of course, has a season ticket. She has a future, you see, unlike the baby. So I came on my own with the baby inside her little coffin, as white as my white silk gloves. I could have carried it in my own hands, white on white, my gloves on the coffin. I didn’t need to, though. The very efficient company on the thirty-second floor had thought of everything, and they came for us this morning in a hearse and brought us here. She, the mother, leaned over the banister, on the fourth floor, just as I was about to leave with the child and the coffin, because I was already going out of the door with my coat and my gloves on. And do you know what her final words were? She shouted down at me in that strong Spanish accent of hers: “Make sure they have lots of carnations, lots of carnations, and orange blossom!” That was the only instruction she gave. Now my hands are empty, I’ve just come from the cremation.’ The butler glanced at his watch for the first time since we’d been stuck in the lift and added: ‘We’ve been here nearly half an hour.’

Orange blossom, he had said: the flowers that brides in Andalusia wear, I thought. But just then the lift began to move again and, when we reached the ground floor, the butler wished me a pleasant stay in his city and vanished, as if the half hour that had brought us together had never existed. He was wearing black leather gloves, which he kept on all the time.

(1990)