Rage by Sergio Bizzio Page B

it. He was no more
than two steps away from his lover and all he got was:
engaged!
    The line stayed engaged for at least another half-hour
or more. He was inclined to keep trying (after all, he
had all the time in the world: there had never been a
man more absorbed in what he was doing and with so
much time to be doing it), but he heard the sound of the
street door opening, and the voices of Senor and Senora
Blinder as they came inside, arguing. So he put away the
directory and the handset (it was a free-standing one,
a half-moon of transparent plastic, with all the internal
chips and cables exposed, some apparatus which seemed
to have been dropped there from another planet) and
took it to his room with him.
    He closed the door and resumed dialling once more.
    This time the phone rang.
    (Brilliant.)
    The phone rang seven times before it was picked up,
and a woman's voice spoke:
    "Hello?..."
    Maria cut it short and hung up.
    It hadn't sounded like Rosa's voice. "OK," he said to himself, "I don't even know if I'm really calling home or not."
After all, it might not have been "his" Blinders' home number. Had he been lucky enough to get it right first time, the
only way to be sure was to ask for Rosa by name, and to be
allowed to speak to her. So he redialled yet again.
    While the phone was ringing, he asked himself what on
earth he'd say if Senora Blinder happened to answer...
    This time the woman picked it up at the second ring,
before he'd had a chance to gather his thoughts.
    "Good afternoon," he said, faltering. "Please may I
speak to Rosa?"

    "Rosa who?"
    He put the receiver down.
    It wasn't her.
    He felt relieved that it was the wrong number, so irrationally and profoundly relieved that he frantically
dialled the next number, as though he'd suddenly realized that his relationship with this telephone would be
sufficient once and for all to modify his entire genetic
make-up.
    Another woman responded this time.
    "Good afternoon. Please may I speak to Rosa?"
    "Who is it?"
    "A friend... one of Rosa's friends. Is she in?"
    "There's nobody called Rosa here..."
    He hung up again.
    Then he dialled the next number.
    "Good afternoon. Is Rosa there?"
    "You've got the wrong number." Yet another woman.
    It seemed to him as if that night there had to be some
reason why all the Blinders in town were next to their
telephones. So he went on to the next number listed.
    As the phone rang, he suddenly felt as if he were immersed in a world of irrationality and chance. He had
crossed his legs, as he always used to before settling himself in at home in order to listen to the lottery results on
the radio. Even now, he could feel the palpitations...
    "Hello?"
    Yet another woman on the line.
    "Hello?" she repeated.
    Maria paused. It was her! It was Rosa!
    Impatiently, Rosa hung up.
    Maria dialled the number again.
    He dialled with his right index finger, carefully holding
the telephone steady. But his left hand (resting on the telephone directory, with its index finger underlining
the correct number) was trembling.

    "Hello?" enquired Rosa.
    "Rosa?" enquired Maria.
    "Yes, that's me. Who is it?"
    Rosa sounded indifferent, formal, as if, having spoken
to "the man who called her", any other voice that didn't
belong to "him" would necessarily be for the Blinders,
and that he - and the rest of the world - were something
in which she didn't have the remotest interest.
    Maria could sense it. He had been with Rosa on
other occasions when someone rang, requesting to
speak to one of the Blinders. He knew the timbre,
the form, the waves of indifference her voice could
transmit, all of which contrasted with the urgency
which formerly only he could elicit from her. It was
no longer jealousy he was experiencing but pain. The
pain of exclusion.
    "It's Maria," he said in a tone of voice which belonged
to a man cast out of the world, with nothing but a coin
in one hand, and a telephone in the other.
    "Who?" she asked.
    "It's