The Settling Steam

The vibration of the pipe fades slowly against the stone ceiling, until the only sound left in the room is a single drop. It falls from the curve of the cast-iron pipe, warm and stained with a slime of rust that smells of freshly washed iron, and lands right on the back of Eusebio Alvareda's neck. There's no flinch. The body keeps that heavy docility of flesh that still holds the warmth of the midday meal but no longer answers to a start; the coarse cloth of his smock soaks up the dirty water in a dark circle that grows to the rhythm of a pulse that no longer exists. Darío is still on his knees. The basalt floor bites into his kneecaps through the damp wool of his hose, and in the sole of his left foot he feels that dull cramp that climbs the tendon when you've crouched too long.

His hands are empty in midair, his thumbs clenched inward in a foolish gesture of defense.

"Lower your arms," Tarsio says.

There's neither fury nor haste in his voice; it sounds rasped, frayed by the thick air rising from the cracks in the floor and leaving a grit of sulfur at the root of the teeth. Tarsio hasn't moved from the ashlar wall. Eusebio's knife grazes his thigh, and the fingers of his left hand are stained with old grease that leaves dull rings on the rock every time he shifts his weight from one leg to the other. His bare feet almost touch the pool spreading from Eusebio's neck, but he doesn't step back. He only looks at the nail of his index finger, where a hangnail bleeds a tiny drop that dries before it can run.

"The lamp grease is going to go cold," Darío murmurs. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth.

"It was already rancid before this idiot walked in."

Silence.

The mortar in the joints hisses under the pressure and the beams creak half a millimeter beneath the weight of the floors above. The drop falls again on the back of Eusebio's neck. Darío slowly lowers his hands and rests them on his thighs; his legs tremble with the involuntary spasm that comes after a hard blow. On the dead man's right ear there's a smudge of dark blue ink, from when Eusebio was noting bushels of grain in the ledger on the landing. It's still fresh in the steam of the room, three fingers from the wound that opens his throat.

Eusebio's fingers twitch once more, a blind scrape of nails against the floor, and then nothing.

Tarsio crouches without bending at the waist, his hip joint clicking. He wipes his forehead with his sleeve to clear away the pasty sweat that rises from the flagstones and blurs the eyes. He looks at the corpse with irritation, like a man looking at a sack of grain that has split in the middle of the corridor and forces him to sweep before he can go on.

"If the guard looks through the gap under the lintel, they'll think you cut his throat all by yourself," Tarsio says, tearing the scab off his hangnail with a fingernail. "And they won't ask if it was self-defense or an old grudge. They never ask."

"You were here when he fell."

"Then tell them I was watching. See who gives a damn."

The air turns thick as raw porridge. The door doesn't fit its jamb—it hasn't since the summer of the great rains, when the chestnut swelled and jammed the frame—and a draft that cuts at the ankles comes in through the gap at the bottom. Darío sits down on the stone and crosses his legs to protect his feet. His right side hurts, a stab in the floating ribs where Eusebio drove an elbow into him before he buckled.

It isn't a serious wound, just a constant ache when he breathes.

Tarsio walks three steps to the pine table. On it are an earthenware bowl with the remains of cold porridge and a tin spoon with a bent handle. He picks up the spoon, looks at the grayish bottom where the food has congealed, and puts it back in the same place, at the same angle, without taking a bite. Then he rubs the bridge of his nose with the back of his hand. The bones of his shoulders form two sharp ridges beneath the unbleached linen of his shirt, worn thin at the elbows.

"Your people down in the pits will be waiting for the firewood relief," Tarsio says without turning. "The black smoke is already coming up through the vents of the little courtyard. When the flue chokes, the ash comes down in swirls and you can't see three hands ahead."

"It always chokes when the wind turns north," Darío replies.

"Well, it's turning north today."

On the pallet, beside Tarsio's thigh, lies the skinning knife. The wire-bound grip now carries a glossy crust of dried blood mixed with basalt dust. The notched tip points toward the cold hearth, where a pile of shavings waits for a fire nobody is going to light.

If the knife had reached two fingers further, or if Eusebio had kept the strength he had before the mine cough dried out his chest—

Tarsio lowers his hand without a sound.

He closes his fingers around the wire-bound grip. He doesn't wipe the blade. He weighs it in his palm for a moment, testing the clumsy heft of the butcher's iron, and without looking at Darío or saying a word, he slides it slowly into the folds of his rawhide sash.