The Foreign Girls

by Sergio Olguin

  III

  Luca didn’t regret anything. He never had. He had learned mistakes were as important as successes. His affair with Nahuel had awoken in him feelings of surprise, excitement and heightened libido that he hadn’t felt for a long time. At no point, not even in those moments of greatest excitement or arousal, had he thought his relationship with Mariano could be imperilled. He had never expected that Mariano would take it so badly and – to a certain extent – not even get over it. Could it be the start of a crisis in their relationship? Or had the trouble started before then? Had they needed to risk their lives to work this out? He should speak to Mariano face to face, not let the bad feeling turn into something chronic. In time, this state of mind could grow into the kind of aggressive indifference that was a feature of so many marriages.

  While Mariano was handling some admin in his office, Luca was in charge of the reception desk. A young, attractive man came into the hotel. He had slightly tousled black hair, high shoulders, long legs and a look of being lost not only at that moment, but in life and the world generally. The boy possessed a beauty common to many young people: completely unconscious. He wanted a room. Luca asked him for how many nights.

  “Two nights, perhaps three. It depends how long my search takes.”

  “And what are you looking for?”

  “It sounds strange, but I’m trying to find out what happened to the body of a murdered girl.”

  “One of the two foreign girls?”

  “Yes. I knew one of them.”

  Luca stood looking at him, trying to comprehend what the boy was saying to him.

  “Which one did you know? Petra or Frida?”

  “Petra.”

  “Were you a friend of hers?”

  The boy smiled with a certain resignation.

  “Well, maybe a bit more than friends. Her boyfriend, practically.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Gonzalo.”

  The boy placed his rucksack on the floor. With his foot he nudged it towards the counter.

  “I actually thought we had a relationship, but one day she ran off. I never heard anything more, until I saw the news.”

  He looked down and seemed to be thinking about what he was going to say. A confession, a declaration of principles, something for a stranger like Luca to understand, but also for him to understand himself.

  “I liked her very much. I loved her.”

  IV

  On the way to Mechi’s house, Verónica told her that her sister’s case had been reopened, that with Roxana’s testimony, plus the mobile phone evidence, it was very likely the culprit would go to prison.

  “I knew you wouldn’t let me down,” Mechi said, and flung her arms around Verónica’s neck, jeopardizing the car’s stability. Verónica smiled, then she said that she would like Mechi to keep the rucksack with Petra’s things in it.

  Mechi was dying to tell her grandmother that Bibi’s case was going to be reopened. When they arrived at the house, she leaped out of the car and ran to the door, forgetting Verónica, who was walking slowly behind with Petra’s rucksack and trying to work out whether or not the dogs planned to attack her. But both the big one and the mother dachshund were content just to sniff her. Inside the house, Ramona appeared with the puppies. Mechi repeated, word for word, what Verónica had just told her. Her grandmother was happy at first, then began to cry. Mechi squeezed her tightly and told her not to be so soft.

  Ramona was so happy she insisted on giving Verónica a lemon sponge cake she had baked that morning. Verónica put up a weak resistance. Mechi’s grandmother wrapped it up for her with no further word.

  “I promised you something,” said Mechi.

  “That you were going to study.”

  “Something else. That if you managed to get the man who killed my sister sent to prison, I’d give you one of the little puppies.”

  “In principle, they’re only going to reopen the investigation. They’re going to charge the guy and there could be a long time between that and him going to prison.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to keep my word.”

  “That’s really kind, but I’m not very good around animals.”

  “I don’t know if you noticed, but the last time you were here, and today, the same puppy came to see you.”

  It was true: the same little dog as last time had come to nibble at her sneaker. Verónica had tried to shoo her away with light movements of her leg which could be interpreted as incipient kicks. She was a brown dachshund, ugly, clumsy and persistent. She seemed determined to stay at Verónica’s side.

  “I can’t take her.”

  “Take her. She hasn’t got a name yet. What are you going to call her?”

  What would she call a dog in the hypothetical case that she had one? She thought of Paula, but her friend would definitely be annoyed if Verónica called the puppy Paulita.

  “Well, she looks like a sausage, so I think I’ll call her Chicha, short for salchicha.”

  Verónica said goodbye to Ramona and walked with Mechi to the car. She had found a box to put Chicha in. On an impulse, Verónica decided to ring the company that had rented her the car to say she would return it in Buenos Aires. She didn’t want to check in the puppy at the airport. Instead, she would take Chicha with her in the car, even though that meant driving nine hundred miles home. She would spend the night in some hotel on the way that allowed pets. In San Miguel de Tucumán, she’d stop at a vet’s surgery, get the puppy vaccinated and buy her some pet food. And perhaps some kind of coat. Verónica thought Chicha looked cold.

  Mechi saw Verónica off with a heartfelt embrace, one she would always remember. She got into her car and drove away. The cake was beside her on the passenger seat, behind Chicha in her box and Petra’s guitar. Once they were on the main road, she plugged in Frida’s MP3 player. She selected “Random Play” and the voice of Anna Ternheim singing “Bring Down Like I” filled the air. Chicha climbed out of her box and settled down on the seat. Soon she fell asleep. With her right hand, Verónica opened the package containing the sponge cake. She shouldn’t do it, but she was going to anyway. As she broke off a chunk, crumbs scattered in the car. She bit into the sponge: it tasted amazing. She decided to eat all of it before leaving the province of Tucumán. A road sign announced buenos aires – 856 miles. She was going home.

  19 Black Moon

  I

  This guy was the perfect package. Handsome, witty, sweet and attentive. There was only one problem: he was nineteen.

  “He’s a child,” said Petra.

  “But he’s over the age of consent. At least they won’t lock you up,” Frida replied. He was called Gonzalo, came from Tucumán and studied Performing Arts. He wanted to be an actor. Petra had met him on the coach that took her from Córdoba to San Miguel de Tucumán. He had the seat next to hers. Petra had been staring out of the window when the boy said:

  “I saw you putting a guitar in the hold. Are you a musician?”

  They started talking and she told him she was going to meet a Norwegian friend, someone she had travelled with several times, and that now they were planning a trip through northern Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. Gonzalo kept up a stream of questions and she gave considered answers: she told him about the journey through the fjords in western Norway and the time she and her friend had met in Prague then driven together to Budapest. He asked her about her music, how she had come to speak Argentine Spanish so well, why she had separated from her partner. It amused Petra to see how dazed Gonzalo was by such simple things as a person having lived in more than one country. He was a boy who had not been out in the world, and he was eager to live.

  When Gonzalo got up to rearrange something that was about to fall out of his rucksack Petra was able to study him from a better angle: he was very strong. His T-shirt had ridden up, exposing the downy hair around his navel. He had a flat stomach. The bulge in his jeans made her think it might not be a bad idea to keep chatting. When he sat down
again she asked him how old he was. “Nineteen,” he replied. Petra feared she might be about to do something crazy.

  Gonzalo lived with his parents, a doctor and a psychologist. He was the oldest of three children and had been a champion volleyball player with his school team: his greatest achievement thus far and one he talked about with pride.

  Petra asked if anyone would be waiting for him at the coach station. No, he said, he would be travelling on to Villa Nougués, on another bus that was leaving later. That was where his family lived. Petra had heard of Villa Nougués and wanted to see it. They arrived at the coach station. Petra asked if he could help carry her things to the hotel, which was a few blocks away. Her friend Frida wasn’t arriving until the next day.

  Either he was very innocent or knew how to play dumb; either way, he happily accepted. And off they went, she with her rucksack and he carrying the guitar.

  He was innocent, as it turned out. When they got to the door of the hotel, Gonzalo made as if to say goodbye and leave. She had to order him: “Wait.” And he waited while she checked in. Petra gestured to him to go with her up to the room. In the elevator, while Gonzalo avoided eye contact, she wondered if the boy might be a virgin, or gay. In the bedroom she confirmed that he was neither of those things. Just a shy boy. And quite indefatigable, his physical fitness evident in a brown body of pure muscle and long bones and in the way that, once he saw the way things were going, he didn’t stop. Petra felt exhausted and happy, and she didn’t mind that the only interruption Gonzalo made was to call his mother to say he would be arriving a bit later.

  II

  “He’s a child,” Petra insisted, in answer to Frida’s indulgent expression.

  They had arrived at Villa Nougués the day before. They were staying in a little hotel, a refurbished house with just a few bedrooms, a garden with ancient trees which gave the place a bucolic feel, and a pool that wasn’t very big, just big enough to make the most of the summer’s last warm days. Frida was surprised by her friend’s attack of saintliness. If the boy was so gorgeous, why not make the most of him? She didn’t have to fall in love with him or make a commitment. They were on vacation.

  Petra had met up with Gonzalo the same day they arrived in Villa Nougués. Shortly afterwards, Frida received a text that read: I’m going to need the room. His family’s at home. So Frida took her MP3 player and went to sunbathe on the terrace by the pool. Five minutes later someone from the reception desk explained very politely that she couldn’t go topless. Frida put her bikini top on and carried on sunbathing, swearing under her breath. Two hours later Petra appeared.

  “Well, you look freshly fucked,” she said, in her old-world Spanish.

  Before travelling together in Europe, they had always used English to communicate. But on that same trip, Spanish became the common language that both united them and kept other travellers at arm’s length. Since then they had continued to speak in Spanish, no matter where they were.

  “That boy made me feel old very quickly. Happy too, though.”

  “How were things with the little lad?”

  “You know when you go to a patisserie and you eat a spectacular chocolate cake and you think it’s just the most amazing thing in the universe and then you go back the following week and ask for the same cake and it’s still delicious, just not quite as much as the first time? Well, that.”

  “Cloying.”

  “A bit, but still delicious. What about you?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. Except these Mormons won’t let me get my tits out in the pool.”

  In the following days, Petra holed up with Gonzalo a couple more times in the hotel room. She didn’t want to abuse her friend’s patience. Frida was obliging all the same: she liked walking around that town of beautiful houses and winding roads.

  “Gonzalo told me he wants to travel with me. He wants to take a gap year to see Europe and for me to go with him.”

  “Not a bad idea.”

  “I couldn’t stand him travelling on the train as a Young Person, and me as an old person.”

  “A responsible adult. You’d be there to look after him.”

  “That’s what I thought. I couldn’t take him to half the places I’d like to visit. He’s too healthy, too sporty. Admittedly that makes him a fucking machine. But is that what one wants, a fucking machine?”

  “Well … yes.”

  “Yes, of course you would.”

  “OK, sweetheart, keep out of my life, eh. And go and fuck your little machine.”

  Petra decided to arrange a double date and asked Gonzalo to find a friend for Frida. One thing, though: if possible, he shouldn’t be quite as young.

  They met in a pub close to the hotel. Gonzalo arrived with a young man who looked about twenty-five. He was called Juan and had recently qualified as an engineer. For Frida there was no spark right from the start, so the poor boy kept rowing and rowing without ever arriving at port. Frida, in an effort to combat the boredom which she felt creeping upwards from her feet, set to drinking one mojito after another. Since Petra never lagged behind when it came to drinking cocktails, they ended up very drunk, and the guys did too. Petra went to the hotel room. Frida stayed with Juan, who kept insisting on taking her somewhere. He tried to kiss her. She let him kiss her and laughed. She told him he was moving very fast. Outside the bar, Juan tried to kiss her again and she stopped him, saying that he was a lovely guy but that she had just broken up with someone and wanted nothing to do with men. That undoubtedly in different circumstances they would have had a great time, just not that day. Juan kept trying, almost as a reflex. In the end, he grumbled a bit and went off, leaving her alone at the door of the pub. The young engineer had not been very gallant.

  Frida walked to the hotel. Other young people were coming out of the bars and there was a lot of movement in the streets. She didn’t want to interrupt her friend, so she walked on to the park and sat on one of the deckchairs. There was no one there, just the sound of crickets singing. The sky was dark blue. She could have spent the whole night there.

  An hour later, Petra appeared.

  “I thought I’d find you here.”

  “Perhaps I should be sucking off your boy’s older friend in a car. And shouldn’t you be in the room, screwing?”

  “Alcohol wreaks havoc on the young. I sent him home. What were you thinking about?”

  “That when I was trying to think of a lie to extricate myself from the engineer, I actually told him the truth.”

  “Which truth was that?”

  “That love has caused me a lot of suffering and I no longer want anything to do with men.”

  “And where does that leave me?”

  “You know how when you try a chocolate cake it seems like the best taste in the world, and then you try vanilla cakes and coconut ones but they don’t taste the same? Well, that’s how I feel about you.”

  Petra sat down beside her and took her hand. Petra’s face in the darkness looked like the portrait of some actress from silent movies. They looked into each other’s eyes. She had always liked Petra’s dark eyes, that expression that seemed always to be seeking something more.

  “Do you know what the black moon is?” Petra asked her.

  “I’d like to know.”

  “When the moon gets closer to the sun, we can’t see it from Earth. The solar glare is so strong it stops the moon from appearing in the sky.”

  “And am I the sun or the moon?”

  “You’re the sun. I’m the moon.”

  Frida looked in her little bag for her MP3 player and placed the earphones on Petra. “Listen to this song.”

  Petra sat listening.

  “It’s beautiful, but I don’t understand much Portuguese.”

  “It says something like nobody noticed the moon, that life goes on and I can’t stop looking at you.”

  Petra kissed her hand. “I think it’s time we went to sleep.”

  It was after midday when they woke up. Feeling hungry, they went to a
bar and ordered sandwiches. They were still a little hung-over from the night before and neither of them mentioned their conversation in the park.

  When they got back to the hotel, Frida asked what was going to happen to the boy.

  “I think he’s in love. Or something like it. I’d better end it now. I don’t think I’ll see him again.”

  “You should meet him and tell him.”

  “Responsibility isn’t my strong suit.”

  “Write him a song.”

  They laughed.

  “OK then, I’ll write him a song, video it and send it to him.”

  Petra picked up the guitar, while Frida turned on the camera and looked for the function that allowed you to shoot video. Then she trained it on herself and said:

  “I’m sorry, little one, you’re too much of a boy for a woman like Petra. But you know what, kid? Your Italian granny has written this song for you.”

  Petra started singing in Italian. It was a song about the age difference between a woman and a boy. Halfway through the song, a string broke.

  “There’s been an accident,” said Frida, and they both burst out laughing. Frida switched off the camera.

  They decided to go and buy a new guitar string.

  “I don’t think they’ll sell them here,” said Petra.

  “In the pub we went to yesterday bands play live. Perhaps they’ll be able to tell us where we can get one.”

  They set off for the bar.

  “You know what I’m thinking, Frida? That we should carry on with our journey. Head to Cafayate. What do you think?”

  “Maybe.”

  They arrived at the pub. It looked different by day. It had a slightly dingy atmosphere, like a bar for single men. But there was a girl sitting alone at one of the tables.