The Guard Read Online Free Page B
and reminds me of when I was a boy and accepted a dare to put my tongue on the two poles of a battery, the association with salted meat is overpowering and stimulates my appetite.
Under Harry’s watchful eye, I use the key to roll back the thin metal lid, then cut the corned beef and arrange it sparingly on the bread. There is a festive gleam to the meat.
We eat calmly. We eat politely. Although Harry casts the odd exploratory glance into the darkness around the sides of the basement now and then, we are, for the duration of this meal, first and foremost people who are eating. Just as the whole city, as I imagine it, is populated in this moment by people who, in one way or another, are focusing their attention on their midday meal.
16
I think back on Claudia.
Claudia is in the service of the Olano family. Head of the kitchen. It’s around 2:00 p.m. when the signal sounds and Harry and I turn our heads toward the elevator.
The service elevator signal is easy to recognize. All of the elevators give a signal upon reaching the desired floor. For starters, the service elevator is louder; that seems directly related to its intensive use. What’s more, the signals of the residents’ and visitors’ elevators are subtler, styled as it were to the taste and presumed intellect of the users. Modest, too. Compared to the rather matter-of-fact sound of the service elevator.
Claudia has a gigantic body, curvaceous and relatively firm. She walks toward us holding a plate covered with an upside-down soup bowl. Some people might claim she waddles, but that’s an optical illusion. What they see is the inertia of the mass her hips push up with each step. According to Claudia her parents named her after a film star from the distant past, when they still showed films in cinemas. She says we have to share the meal equally. We eat a kind of poultry we don’t know and can’t picture at all; it is unbelievablyflavorsome. Ever since Chanel, the Olanos’ lapdog, choked to death on a sugar cube, Claudia has arranged the leftovers on a staff plate. She wouldn’t give the hot dinners the organization delivers to us daily to the pigs. Her parents have a farm in the north of her home country with a smokehouse for the hams.
We let Claudia sit on the chair. She asks our opinion. That hint of tarragon, it’s not too strong, is it? Her eyes are the center of any place in which Claudia is located. She has eyes that show pent-up jubilation and speak of a desire no one can quench, which shouldn’t be unleashed for that very reason. Claudia is beautiful to look at, even when she’s depressed. She says that Mrs. Olano has had a hard life and sometimes that impedes her contact with the staff. I eat poultry prepared by Claudia. Harry has already finished his share. I chew slowly and at length, out of politeness. At times Claudia watches my mouth as I chew, as if that mouth will reveal what I really think about the food. I look at her eyes, which are looking at my mouth.
We don’t ask about her parents: whether they’re still alive, for instance, or if she ever hears from them. Harry says that her father must be as proud as punch. A daughter—that’s every father’s dream. In service with the Olanos, in this building. A father could do worse. I ask Harry if he has kids. He shakes his head. He doesn’t want kids, not in this world. By that he means the world in which he’s a guard. He says that real guards shouldn’t have daughters. You can’t put yourself through something like that.
17
Today it’s Harry’s turn: he wipes the inside of the tin of corned beef clean with a piece of bread, soaking up the last bit of taste. When the bread is saturated with his saliva, he swallows it. We staysitting for a moment on opposite sides of the bunkroom door. Then Harry walks all the way to the crusher in the narrow space between Garages 34 and 35 and tosses in the tin. The impact is painful. Not so much the uppercut of piercing decibels, as the
Under Harry’s watchful eye, I use the key to roll back the thin metal lid, then cut the corned beef and arrange it sparingly on the bread. There is a festive gleam to the meat.
We eat calmly. We eat politely. Although Harry casts the odd exploratory glance into the darkness around the sides of the basement now and then, we are, for the duration of this meal, first and foremost people who are eating. Just as the whole city, as I imagine it, is populated in this moment by people who, in one way or another, are focusing their attention on their midday meal.
16
I think back on Claudia.
Claudia is in the service of the Olano family. Head of the kitchen. It’s around 2:00 p.m. when the signal sounds and Harry and I turn our heads toward the elevator.
The service elevator signal is easy to recognize. All of the elevators give a signal upon reaching the desired floor. For starters, the service elevator is louder; that seems directly related to its intensive use. What’s more, the signals of the residents’ and visitors’ elevators are subtler, styled as it were to the taste and presumed intellect of the users. Modest, too. Compared to the rather matter-of-fact sound of the service elevator.
Claudia has a gigantic body, curvaceous and relatively firm. She walks toward us holding a plate covered with an upside-down soup bowl. Some people might claim she waddles, but that’s an optical illusion. What they see is the inertia of the mass her hips push up with each step. According to Claudia her parents named her after a film star from the distant past, when they still showed films in cinemas. She says we have to share the meal equally. We eat a kind of poultry we don’t know and can’t picture at all; it is unbelievablyflavorsome. Ever since Chanel, the Olanos’ lapdog, choked to death on a sugar cube, Claudia has arranged the leftovers on a staff plate. She wouldn’t give the hot dinners the organization delivers to us daily to the pigs. Her parents have a farm in the north of her home country with a smokehouse for the hams.
We let Claudia sit on the chair. She asks our opinion. That hint of tarragon, it’s not too strong, is it? Her eyes are the center of any place in which Claudia is located. She has eyes that show pent-up jubilation and speak of a desire no one can quench, which shouldn’t be unleashed for that very reason. Claudia is beautiful to look at, even when she’s depressed. She says that Mrs. Olano has had a hard life and sometimes that impedes her contact with the staff. I eat poultry prepared by Claudia. Harry has already finished his share. I chew slowly and at length, out of politeness. At times Claudia watches my mouth as I chew, as if that mouth will reveal what I really think about the food. I look at her eyes, which are looking at my mouth.
We don’t ask about her parents: whether they’re still alive, for instance, or if she ever hears from them. Harry says that her father must be as proud as punch. A daughter—that’s every father’s dream. In service with the Olanos, in this building. A father could do worse. I ask Harry if he has kids. He shakes his head. He doesn’t want kids, not in this world. By that he means the world in which he’s a guard. He says that real guards shouldn’t have daughters. You can’t put yourself through something like that.
17
Today it’s Harry’s turn: he wipes the inside of the tin of corned beef clean with a piece of bread, soaking up the last bit of taste. When the bread is saturated with his saliva, he swallows it. We staysitting for a moment on opposite sides of the bunkroom door. Then Harry walks all the way to the crusher in the narrow space between Garages 34 and 35 and tosses in the tin. The impact is painful. Not so much the uppercut of piercing decibels, as the
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