Page 19 - I Live in the Slums: Stories (The Margellos World Republic of Letters)

refugee. It was midnight, and everyone’s house was locked. I didn’t dare knock
on anyone’s door. As I continued walking in the cold, I bumped into a mutt. This
cur wanted to kick me away. Frightened, I ran off, but the dog chased me. I ran
as fast as my feet could carry me, paying no attention to directions, and then fell,
confused, into the tunnel.
When I first fell in, I couldn’t adapt because it was too dark to see anything. It
was just like being blind. Everything was quiet at first, and then I finally noticed
that this was a delusion: many little critters were grubbing around, chiseling
endlessly. Strange to say, three people were sitting among them, doing
absolutely nothing; they just said a few words now and then. I approached and
listened closely: I heard a few vacuous empty words, such as “After a house is
built, one doesn’t have to live there. It’s better to live in the wilderness.” Or
“People, uh . . . People need to know themselves.” They took turns repeating

these two sentences. It wasn’t a good idea to move around. I had to avoid
bumping into any of these guys whose bodies seemed iron-hard. I had to sit
motionless on the ground. Somewhere above, that cur still barked nonstop.
Despite being far away, it was menacing. I looked up and saw a hazy light.
That’s where I had fallen from.
I squatted in the dark place, recalling what had transpired between the master
and me. In the afternoon, as I napped on the stove, he had passed by. He patted
me lightly on the back in a rather sentimental way. “Rat, ah Rat, what are you
thinking?” he said hoarsely. I hated his calling me rat, and I despised his
sentimental manner. I didn’t think this man was one bit masculine. He often sat
in the open doorway and washed his pale feet. He was a narcissistic guy. I
generally didn’t have my defenses up around people, but this time I must have
had a faint foreboding. Who would have imagined that this person could be so

sinister and ruthless? When he fried the poisonous mushrooms, I was sitting on
the pile of firewood next to him. His hands shook, and his dejected, long face
looked more wrinkled than usual. At the time, I still thought he was going to
poison the rat with the mushrooms. It never crossed my mind that in fact I had
become the “rat” that he spoke of. The three poisonous mushrooms were buried
in the bottom of the rice. I saw them when I poked around in the rice. What in
the world was he thinking?! Did he think I would meekly eat them? I already
knew this man was mean—he had killed all the cockroaches in his home—but in
general he had been quite good to me. He was a widower. When I stayed with
him, instead of giving me the leftovers as the others did, he cooked for both
himself and me. I couldn’t figure out what had happened to cause him to change.
Maybe nothing at all. Maybe he was simply showing me how ruthless he was.
An asthmatic old man who stayed at home—how ruthless could he be? Poison
was a coward’s way. I knew, however, that just one of these mushrooms could