A movement of Santa's bedmate, who was moving brusquely in his sleep, interrupted her protracted remembrance of things past and brought her back to the present. For an instant, she considered leaving the bed to finish the night on the sofa or the carpet, but she changed her mind for one reason. Since she had lacked the courage to throw herself into the river back home—which had promised death, oblivion, perhaps even purification—she would punish herself by drowning, instead, in the mud of this stinking, shameful flow of filth!

Three

“Bravo, Hipólito, well done! What did you say it's called?”

“ ‘Welcome,’ ” said the blind piano player, without getting up.

“Let's hear ‘Welcome’ again, then, come on!” shouted the brothel's clientele with one voice, continuing to dance with the girls.

The dance called “Welcome” was passionate and, in spite of its saucy syncopation, truly beautiful. The first part, above all, moaned with a deep emotion that obscured the workings of the chords and bass line; then, in the second part—the up-tempo, danceable part—sadness and inhibitions evaporated in a harmonic transition, leaving only fiery notes in a racy, provocative rhythm meant to draw a dancing couple closer together. The dancers had Hipólito repeat his new composition as many as four times, amid explosive, rowdy applause.

“That song is for me … right, Hipo?” said Santa to the musician when she went to the piano to get his hat.

“Yes, Santita, this one and two others that I'll play when the visitors leave. All three are for you,” declared Hipólito gravely.

Santa worked wonders with the musician's hat as she passed it around. Her exceptional take amounted to almost half a dozen pesos. And, jingling the coins with glee, she stuffed them by the handful into the jacket pocket of the composer, who continued at the piano, rolling a cigarette with the amazing manual dexterity common in the blind. Close to his ear, she murmured:

“Don't think that I'm trying to repay you with a few coins, Hipo. It's only right that these guys pitch in for the music. I really appreciate your thinking of me … Believe me, I really appreciate it.”

The blind man smiled, his eyebrows twitching, and said nothing. And since he put the lit cigarette in his mouth as he began the introduction of another piece, requiring all fingers on the keyboard, it would be hard to say for sure whether the tear that he quickly wiped away with the back of his hand responded to Santa's thanks or to the smoke that wafted into his horrid whitish eyes.

By an odd mutual attraction, Santa and Hipólito had become friends immediately. It was a timid and unconfessed friendship, of course, because of the setting, a place where nobody believed in platonic friendships. The brothel admitted only love, whether real or feigned, and many times—perhaps usually — neither the poor women nor the men who communed with them in relative intimacy could be sure when their love was real and when it was feigned. Hipólito and Santa had become friends, but as soon as they realized it, both hid their friendship in mutual self-interest. If the others found out, Hipólito was likely to lose his job in one of the best houses in the city and Santa would no longer enjoy the special consideration that she received from Elvira and Pepa, delighted at the avid, growing enthusiasm that her fresh flesh awakened in both the established customers of the brothel and the new ones attracted by her sudden reputation.