Page 13 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

resumed filing keys. The file made a rasping sound against the copper. It gave
me a headache. I was going crazy. Holding my head, I dashed outside.
The hemp rope on the black goat’s foot had broken, but he hadn’t run off. He
craned his neck in the direction of the dark house. The goat was a slave by
nature; no matter what, he couldn’t leave his owner. Just then, the woman of the
house came out with a new rope coiled on her arm. The goat wanted to run, but
the woman clamped down on him with hands like iron tongs. As he cried
sorrowfully, his leg was tied up again. The rope was tied on top of the old injury;
I couldn’t bear to look at it. The woman returned to the house, and the black goat
seemed to lose all his energy. He lay torpidly on the ground without moving. I
couldn’t bear this scene. I squatted down facing him. I wanted to bite the rope
and break it for him. The rope was new hemp and very strong. Still, my teeth

weren’t bad, either. I squatted there, biting and daydreaming. I imagined I was
guiding the black goat to escape to the east end of the slums where there was an
empty pigpen. People had once raised a spotted pig there, and then it died of
poisoning. He and I could take refuge there and depend on each other. Wherever
I went, I would take him along and not let him sink into slavery. As I was
thinking this, I was hit hard on the head and nearly fainted. He had kicked me
with his free leg. I hurt so much I couldn’t even describe it. I rolled around in the
mud for a long time. When the pain subsided a little and I held my head and
moaned weakly, I noticed the black goat standing there as if nothing had
happened. This guy was extremely wicked. How could this kind of animal be
raised in the slums? Hard to say. Weren’t there also the house mice? If one had
no contact with them, one wouldn’t know how ruthless they were. Really, he
was standing there basking in the sun as if nothing had happened. Now and then,
he also took a few bites of that small smelly radish. He was as complicated as
the couple inside the house: there was no way to tell what was in his mind.
Something poked me from behind. It was the midget. Didn’t the midget

belong to the world above? How had he gotten down here? “I took the elevator
down,” he said. “It’s great because it allows me to be above and below at the
same time. Hey, your skin is too white.” Was my skin white? My skin was khaki
colored. Why did he speak such nonsense? Let me think. That’s right, he was
color blind. Maybe people living in glass houses were all color blind. The
midget and the black goat glanced at each other. I thought they were
communicating. Maybe I was too jittery. “My parents were living down here,”
he said. I was surprised to hear this. If he was from here, how come I had never
seen him around? “Because I’m in the elevator. Ha-ha!”
The midget called me “Rat.” I wasn’t at all happy with this form of address.
How could I be considered a rat? I was much larger than a rat. He let me go
inside with him. The man and his wife had disappeared, and the house was quiet.