"A few months ago I saw a dead woman through the window, lying on the sidewalk," "without any clothes." "That same night I dreamt about a field." "I was lying on the grass in the daytime." "There was a light breeze." "I sunk on the ground," "The earth covered me little by little." "It was dark below and I was alone." "And there was silence..." "It was still and warm." "My hands would move... the stretched-out fingers became roots, roots like knots, knots that climbed and perforated the surface." "Please leave the premises." "Why didn't you turn the light on?" "Women... that's just the way they are." "She called me and left a message:" ""Call me at any time"." "I know Mathias gets up early to go to school." "I can't call her at "any time"." "But things are all right with her." "Yesterday I picked the kid up at school." "It's crazy the way he changes when we pass by a candy store." "He turns into..." "It's astounding." "Now I have to settle the mortgage for the apartment." "Did you know that insurance companies can go bankrupt now?" " Yeah, sure." " Well, that's another expense." "I owe money, I have debts." "I owe you money." "They're hiring doctors at the Santa Ana Clinic." "You're name was mentioned." "Where do you stand on that?" " Make yourself comfortable." " I just came to bring you the keys." " Got a cigarette?" " I quit." " Good night, uncle." " Good night." "Did you notice he doesn't kiss you anymore?" " Do you want to tell me anything?" " No." "I just thought..." " If you ever want to talk..." " I know." "Thanks." "It's nice to have you here." "You remind me of Dad." " Do you ever think of him?" " Sometimes I do." "Should I turn off the light?" "No." " Still afraid of the dark?" " No." "Turn it off if you want." "Did you leave that for the end?" "These are the pictures I need for the end." "I'm choosing one..." "These here..." " And these also?" " No." "Not those." " These are the ones I'd need for the end." " Fine." " All right?" " Sure." " I'll call you." " OK." "See you." " See you." " Take care." " I'll help you." " I can manage..." " Can you manage?" " Yeah, yeah." " Are you sure?" " Yeah, sure." " Going far?" " No, just a block." " I'll walk you." " No, it's..." "Thank you." "It's here." "Just a second..." "Thank you." " Would you like to come in?" " I have to pay at the café." "So, pay and come back." " OK." " OK." "My name's Erika." "I have no alcoholic beverages." "Would you like some tea?" " Thanks." " You're welcome." "You were drinking gin at the café, weren't you?" "I love gin." "It's a fiery drink, but I love it." "Or maybe I love it because it's fiery." "But I'm trying to avoid it for the moment..." " Are you a cop?" " No." " It just came to my head." " No." " What do you do?" " I'm a surgeon." "A good doctor?" "I'm not practicing anymore." "But they said I was good." "Why did you stop practicing?" "I'm sorry." "I keep asking you questions." "It's just that I'm going through a bad patch." "I haven't spoken to anyone for a while." " You were talking to the barman..." " Yes, I did talk to him." " Do you live nearby?" " Yes." " Alone?" " No, I'm living with my sister." " Separated?" " I'm not married." " How many months pregnant?" " Thanks, it was becoming an interrogation." "Five months." " Do you know the sex?" " No, I don't know." "I'm single." " What's your name?" " Axel." " I'm Erika." " You mentioned that." "Right." "I'm tired of teaching." "And I like it." "I suppose I like it." "Well, I can't complain." "The kids are older." "They don't need me so much." "Anyway..." "They say we always wind up smothering them." "So, some fresh air... some money..." "Look." "Touch here." "Squeeze harder." " Can't you feel anything?" " No." " You're a surgeon." "You should..." " Go see your doctor, Laura." "Yea, I'll go and see him." "But I felt a hardness here." "A tiny hardness." "Are you upset?" " Yes, you're upset." " No." "You know, to me doctors are like priests," "they may surrender the frock, but they're still priests." "Ok, Laura, Ok." " Aren't you too young to be smoking?" " I don't inhale." "Are you going to tell Mom?" "Do you like it that much?" "I'm not sure but..." "I brush my teeth afterwards." "Do you like it?" "Not as much as before, but it's not bad." "I'm pleased." "I like days like these." "Not much of a talker, are you?" "I thought you weren't coming." " Do you have a job?" " Not at the moment." "I was living with a friend who killed herself." "I have trouble sleeping now." "I think about death..." "and stuff like that..." "It's unfair, but I'm angry because she didn't wait for the child to be born." "I have to go." "I've got work." " Can I come along?" " Not today." " But promise me you'll be back." " I promise." "Which one do you prefer?" "And you?" "This one." " Does she turn you on?" " Not much." "So where is your mother?" "She left." "She's coming back late." "She told me to take care of him." "Why didn't you have any kids?" " I don't know." "Just because." " But why?" "I don't know." "Just because!" " Would you have liked to?" " No." " I don't think any of these can be a mother." " Why not?" "Because their bodies change after childbirth." "Once I saw Mom leave the bathroom naked." "And her tits were not like these." " Really?" " Really." "That's because she matured and changed." "People change." " You'll change too." " Yeah?" "Yeah." "Come on, hide the magazine and go to sleep." " Why don't you turn the volume up?" " Don't feel like listening." "Aren't you going to ask me any questions?" " Do you know who I was with?" " Yes." "Aren't you afraid of leaving the kids by themselves?" "No." "Pedro's a big boy now." "And they love being left alone." "Just like we used to." "Remember?" "I can't bring him here." "I mean, we can't come here together." "The kids would get the wrong idea." "It's better this way." "It's clearer." "Anyway, I'm under no illusions myself." "If it didn't work out for so many years, why should it work out now, right?" "I enjoy the the lover's role." "He used to cheat on me with her." "Now, he cheats on her with me." "It had been a long time since anyone caressed me." "That's stupid, isn't it?" "Sometimes I feel that I pester the kids." "I kiss them a lot, I caress them." "Pedro gets angry because he's older now." "He doesn't seem older to me." " How's he doing?" " He's... fine somewhat better..." "What does it matter?" "I'm off to sleep." "I have to get up early tomorrow." "See you tomorrow." "You were leaving without saying goodbye." "Like a thief who comes in noiselessly and then leaves." " Where are you going." " To a friend's house." "Dare you say it's a woman?" "Yes." "A woman." "And here I thought I was the only one." "You're the most important one, but not the only one." " Are you going to tell me?" " No." "If you hang on a sec, I'll iron your shirt." "It's all wrinkled." "It's fine." "Can you wait a minute so I can walk with you?" "I feel like walking." "Sure." "Every time it rained, Mom would tell us the story of the day you were born." "It was raining and she was all alone." "I wasn't there." "I was at a school mate's house or at school." "Mother tried to call on the phone but the lines were all busy." "She was in pain and her contractions started, so she grabbed some stuff and ran outside." "She knocked on the neighbor's door but she wasn't home." "So she just stood there on the sidewalk, getting soaked." "Because in her rush she had forgotten her umbrella." "And all the taxis were taken..." "She always said it was a question of minutes, but it seemed like hours to her because... she was so afraid of having you on the sidewalk with all that water..." " And losing me through the storm drain." " Yes." "It didn't come to that." "Then someone saw her and felt pity..." "She was all wet and in pain..." "He took her to the hospital." "They dried her up on the stretcher, on the way to the delivery room" "She was trembling." "She was cold." "She was dizzy." "She was dizzy because when you were born... and they held you in front of her," "she thought for a moment... that you were wet on account of the storm." "Then they put you in the incubator, that's how I first saw you, behind a glass." "Dad would take me to see you every afternoon." " And how was I?" " What?" "How was I when you saw me in the incubator?" "You were like you are now." "But tiny." "And I'm leaving, because if the baby wakes up and I'm not there..." "He's been having nightmares, you know." " He's afraid of the dark." " Off you go." " I'm fine." " That's what matters." "Send a kiss to the kids." " Tell them to really misbehave." " You too, really misbehave." "I had half a pleasant dream." "I won't forgive you for this." "Come." "Your hands are cold." "Surgeon hands." "It's moving." "Can you feel it?" "Here." "Stay like that." "I'll fall asleep." "They're glad." "Yes, when the camera's on." "Who shot this?" "The guy from the café, I suppose." "He gave it to me." "I edit it and add music." " You don't shoot?" " Yeah, we shoot with Ana." "I mean we used to shoot." "We were partners." " And you make a living of this?" " Yeah." "It's a good job." "And I get to snoop on other people's lives." " How is it?" " What?" "Other people's lives." " What?" " I didn't say anything." " I thought you had said something." " Nope." "Look." "That's Ana." "Lately, we would fight non-stop." "I meant to talk to her several times." "I don't know why, but everything she did annoyed me." "Still, she was very funny." "There were times when we would start laughing and just couldn't stop." "I have nothing left of her." "Not even a photo." "Nothing." " You talked in your sleep last night." " Impossible." "Impossible?" "You were asleep." "How would you know?" "Because I know I don't talk in my sleep and because no one's told me about it." " Maybe nobody heard you." " So what did I say?" "I don't know because it was rather incoherent." "You said something..." "I didn't really understand but I felt you wanted to tell me something." " What?" " I don't know." " It's been three months together." " Yes." "Three months." "Yes, I know." "Three months." " You're not going to ask me what he said?" " Excuse me?" "I went to the doctor." "He told me he or she is all right and healthy." "I didn't want to know its gender." " Don't you want to know who the father is?" " No." " Aren't you curious at all?" " No, I'm not." " I need to tell you." " I don't need to know." "Can you carry that box?" " Right now?" " Yes." "Yes, sure." " I want to be alone." " All right." " Can I offer you some coffee?" " That's kind of you, but no." "Since you took the trouble of bringing all this, the least I can do is to offer you some coffee." "OK." "But I don't have much time." "The world won't stop for just a few minutes." "And it's so good to talk to someone." "My husband barely speaks ever since all this happened." "He never spoke much before, but now..." "Shall we go to the garden?" "So we don't upset him with our chat." " Did you know her?" " Erika talks a lot about her." "Sugar?" " Nice things?" " Yes, very nice memories." "I'd like to remember her like that, but it's hard." " Do you have any children?" " No." "You're lucky." "I don't have any other kids either." "Twice I became pregnant after Ana, but I miscarried." "Ana had become almost a stranger to me." "She'd come around every once in a while to ask for money..." "That was her only interest in us." "But she always said that she would pay it back." "And if I didn't give it to her, she'd steal it from me." "She was like that since she was a kid." "She would rummage through the drawers, through my friends' purses." "I don't know..." "Maybe it's something I did..." "I hardly ever saw her." "She would see my husband more often." "But I didn't want him to tell me anything." "Except if he found her too thin... or maybe somewhat disheveled..." "It was a very painful birth... at first." "Because... later on," "I felt a certain pleasure... a pleasure like never before, a pleasure I would not feel again." "When they placed her on top of me," "I felt that... if that tiny little person had given me so much pleasure," "she had to be a very special." "She had to be someone very special." "I've been told that on the night everything happened, she was with someone." "With a man." "But they never found him." "I would have liked to ask him a few questions." "I don't know..." "If she laughed..." "If she had said anything to him." "It isn't good to survive your own children, don't you agree?" "It's not natural." "Hang on." "Could you deduct this?" " 4 pesos." " And minus this?" "3 pesos 30 cents." "Well... then I'll take only this and this." "That would be 2.40." "You place the scalpel... and you cut the skin, like a cloth." "Is the skin hard?" "No." "It's like a fruit skin." "Then there's the flesh... the bones... and the rest." "How can you still enjoy a body after seeing all that?" "There's nothing in that box." "I put it away and it was empty." "I emptied it out and put it away." "And what used to be inside?" " Remember the little tokens when you were a baby?" " Yes." " You would play with them as a puzzle." " Yeah." "Well, the tokens disappeared, they got broken." "And where are they now?" " I threw then away, they were broken." " Everything's in the garbage pail." "Yeah, in the garbage pail." "No!" "But do you know what was in there?" "I had some stuff and it all got broken!" "I'll be right back." "There's a period that doesn't belong to me." "Not in front of me, not behind me." "A period where I never arrive." "Whenever you're buried and forgotten, you return." " How am I looking?" " You're looking good." "Too old for your taste?" "No." "I thought about you a few months ago." "I always remember the day we met." "Not because we met, for some other reason." "I'm still working as a nurse." " Really?" " Yeah, part time, at the infirmary." "I also make those trinkets." "They sell well in some places." "Are you by yourself?" "Not always." "I have a bad reputation in the town." "But I'm respected." "I'm a good neighbor." "Why?" "Why not?" "Because." "Excuse me." "Look." "I never understood why you gave it to me." "How old were you?" "I don't know, 13, 14..." "You looked happy." "They were snapping a picture, I was happy." "I was going to throw it away." "Do you want it?" " Anything you want to tell me?" " No." "Why did you come?" "I leave home early." "I have to be at the infirmary at dawn." "There's a large moisture stain." "But it's easy to fix." "Change the plumbing, plaster it up..." "In a few days it's dry." "Then you paint." "There might be scorpions there." "Below the stain." " There might be a scorpion's nest." " No scorpions around here." "When you leave, use the back door." "Leave it unlocked." "Should I turn the light off?" "No." " Is it nighttime?" " Yes." " Did you work?" " A little." "What did you do?" "What about the dog?" "When I woke up yesterday, it was gone." "It must be far away by now." "And you can't search for a dog without a name." " It might return." " It might." "Are you sleeping?" "No." "But I'm trying." "I can't sleep myself." "After you die, in about twenty years or maybe less, and if nobody's paid up, they remove the tombstones and burn your bones." "There's nothing left, not even your name written anywhere." "I was thinking about that." "I don't understand." "What is it with the worms?" "What about them?" "How do the worms get in if the casket is hermetically sealed?" "How do they get in?" "Unless they're inside the bodies, waiting as if they were larva." "Is that it?" "I'm just sorry there's nothing left afterwards." "Nothing left of us." "Not even a place... some music..." "I want to go dancing." " You feel like dancing?" " Yes." " Is that a craving?" " Yeah." " Would you like to go dancing now?" " Yes." "subtitles: scalisto for the KG tracker."