by Lewis Shiner
I was so dry that my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and made a clicking sound as it came loose. «I have his number.»
«Oh, Beto.» She turned my face toward her with one slender hand and made me look into those deep, black eyes. «I can’t do this alone. If I meet with him, will you come with me? I don’t think I could feel safe otherwise.»
«Yes, of course. There’s…I never want to be anyplace but with you.»
She moved over me. I felt the heat and weight of her breasts against my bare chest, the smooth skin of her thigh between my legs. She whispered, «I don’t know what I would do without you. I need you so much right now.»
I put my hands in her hair and stroked her scalp and neck. «It’s okay,» I told her. «Everything’s okay.»
Our physical beings are only the shadows of our emotions. A panicked mother can lift a car to save her child. Despair can kill a strong man in a hundred different ways, from pancreatic cancer to a reckless accident. Twelve hours’ sleep can leave us exhausted, and sometimes…sometimes we don’t need sleep at all.
She lifted her head to look at me. «Beto,» she said, and her mouth moved toward mine.
*
I didn’t make it in to work until 11:00. Bahadur arrived at my cube a few minutes later. Obviously he’d been waiting for me to show up on the network.
“I’ve decided to talk to La Reina,” he said.
“Isabel? About Monday night?” I felt hollow inside.
“She was close to Suarez. She needs to know what was in those files.”
“You think she doesn’t already?”
“The dates on the payments coincide exactly with the period that Jim was working out of this office. He was the director. We have to assume that he was the one making them.”
“I don’t think it’s safe to assume anything. Isabel was here those same years.”
“As a secretary, and not even as Jim’s secretary. Where would she get access to that sort of money or equipment? And when Jim transferred to Anaheim, the payments stopped.”
“And by that point,” I said, “the dictatorship was on its last legs.”
“Last legs,” Bahadur said. “That’s a good one. Last legs.”
“If you go to her, she’s going to ask questions. If she finds out about those extra copies of the file, and that Elena is out there showing it around, she’s going to fire me.” The thought of being unemployed in Buenos Aires, with no prospects of another job and no more savings than I had, put me on the verge of panic. Sweat broke on my forehead.
“Not if I’m right about her,” Bahadur said.
“And if you’re wrong? I’m wiped out.”
Bahadur didn’t bother to point out that it would be my own fault. “All right, I will make you a deal. I will try to tell the truth without getting you in trouble. If you think you are in danger, you can lie about the copies and I won’t call you up.”
“Out,” I said. “You won’t call me out.”
*
Isabel’s office door had a picture of a crown on it and cutout letters that spelled LA REINA. She looked at our faces when we filed in and said, «Did somebody die?»
«Yes,» Bahadur said. «A lot of people died.» He flipped the CD onto her desk, a desk that held nothing except a keyboard, monitor, and mouse. The blinds were closed on the window behind her and the room was lit by a pole lamp in the corner.
«What’s this?»
Bahadur nodded toward her computer.
«Ave Maria, Bahadur, you’ve got to stop watching so many movies.» She took the CD out of the envelope and slipped it into her laptop, which sat on a credenza to one side.
She watched her screen as the disc spun up, glanced at us curiously, then clicked. Light from the monitor played across her face as the file opened. Then, as she gradually realized what she was looking at, her expression became pained. «Ay, Dios mío, Jim, what did you do?»
She looked at Bahadur. «Where did this come from?»
«Rob—Beto—found it behind Suarez’s desk,» he said. «He brought it to me.» Not the whole truth, but not an outright lie.
«The MS in the notes?»
«We think so, yes.»
«Is this the only copy?»
«I didn’t make any,» Bahadur said.
«Who else knows about this?» she asked.
I tried not to react.
«Who can say?» Bahadur shrugged. «We haven’t told anyone. I don’t think anybody else in the company knows.»
That seemed to satisfy her. I quietly let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
«Thank you for bringing this to me. I’m going to call Jim and see what he has to say. I hope he has a damned good explanation.»
«And if he doesn’t?» Bahadur asked.
«Somebody needs to answer for this,» she said.
*
As we walked out of her office, I felt exposed and vulnerable. I didn’t get much work done the rest of the day, expecting Security to show up any minute and escort me out of the building.
It didn’t help that the sole item on the agenda for that night was contacting Mateo.
Elena got to the apartment a few minutes after me. She did her best to seem affectionate and nonchalant. She didn’t fool either of us. After dinner she took me over to the couch and huddled against me and said, «Can we call him?»
I nodded and got the number out of my wallet, where I’d been carrying it since he gave it to me. She dialed it on her cell phone. He didn’t answer, not that I’d expected him to.
«Hi, it’s Elena,» she said to his voice mail. «We need to talk. I know you have the number, but here it is again anyway.» She recited the digits slowly. «I’m staying at Beto’s apartment, so you can call him if you can’t get me.»
After she hung up, we lay on the couch holding each other. I was on the edge of sleep when her phone rang. She gave me a sweet, apologetic look before she answered it.
«Hola….Yes, I’m okay, well enough….Tonight?» She looked at me, and I nodded. «Okay, where?» She listened for a few seconds and looked at me again. «He says we should meet at the place where the two of you had coffee in the rain. Do you know what he’s talking about? He says not to say the name.»
«Yes, I know it.»
«In an hour?»
I nodded again.
«Bueno,» she said into the phone. «We’ll—» I heard the buzz of the dial tone. Running out of minutes on his phone card, maybe.
We lay down again, now unable to get comfortable. Elena said, «I bet you wish you’d listened when I told you not to get involved with me.»
«You make it sound like I had a choice.»
She squirmed and sat up, putting my legs across her lap. «I grew up believing you could tell a priest when you’d done something wrong and then God would forgive you. They told me God could forgive anything. A man like Cesarino on his death bed could beg forgiveness and still go to heaven. Are we supposed to be like God? Are we supposed to forgive anything?»
«I don’t know much about it,» I said, «but don’t they say that you’re not supposed to even judge who’s right and wrong? Aren’t you supposed to leave that to God?»
«I still believe in God, in some kind of God, but I don’t know if I believe in heaven or hell anymore. Other than the heaven and hell we make here in this life. So how can I trust God to make everything okay after we’re dead? Besides, even with God, you have to ask for forgiveness, no? Make at least some show of regrets? I never heard Osvaldo admit to being wrong, ever, not in my whole life.»
«Maybe forgiveness is too strong a word. Maybe you could say…letting go of him. So you don’t have to always be living in the past.»
«But don’t you see? The past is never over in Argentina. The past is alive and walking the streets and kidnapping people and killing them, and the government and the police don’t care.»
«I just found you, Elena. I don’t want to lose you.»
«Part of me is already lost.» She climbed back on top
of me and laid her head on my chest. «I’m sorry, that’s so melodramatic. I don’t know what I want. We’ll hear what Mateo has to say and maybe something will come to me. Yes?«
*
The night was cool, damp without rain. Puffs of wind tugged at my hair and my coat as if a giant oscillating fan was blowing on the city.
As we approached the door of Arte y Café, Mateo stepped out of the shadows and took Elena’s arm. «Let’s walk,» he said.
He led us away from the noise and life of Avenida San Juan, toward the dark streets around Parque Lezama. For two blocks no one said anything. Mateo stopped at a deserted café and gestured toward an outside table.
Once we were sitting down, Mateo said, «I’m glad you called. I didn’t know if I was ever going to hear from you again.»
The petulance seemed like a bad idea, though Elena responded by touching his hand and saying, «I’m sorry. I’ve had a lot to think about.» It was her first kind gesture toward him and I watched him struggle to control his emotions. «I want to get to know you,» she said. «To start from nothing at all…it’s very hard. I don’t know anything about what your life is like.»
«I’m a fugitive,» Mateo said, still circling the edge of self-pity. «I live in an abandoned building. There is one other from the old days, maybe a dozen or so younger people who come and go. They have a lot of ideals and energy and don’t know what to do with them. Friends from the old days help with money and food.»
«Beto said that you…that you are planning something to do with Osvaldo.»
«We are going to put him on trial.»
«And who’s going to judge him?» I didn’t hear sarcasm or accusation in her voice, merely curiosity. «You?»
Mateo leaned back and smiled without warmth. «In fact, that’s the problem.» He signaled the waiter, holding up three fingers for three coffees.
«No coffee for me,» I said.
Mateo shrugged, not taking his eyes from Elena. «There are so few of us. When the montoneros passed judgment on someone, it had authority. When you have so few, it’s more like revenge than justice.»
«How do you know the difference?» I asked.
«I can’t tell you that. I don’t know who can. When the government condemns a man to death, is that vengeance too? When it’s a man like me?»
«I’m not sure I care,» Elena said. «Whether it’s revenge or not.»
Mateo leaned forward. They had that in common, the two of them, that intensity. I had seen his heredity in her. «You should care,» he said. «You should care with all your heart. In the end, the montoneros were not about justice anymore. We had become what they said we were, we had become terrorists. We killed too many, too willingly, and we lost the support of the people. And so the people thought it was justice when the Triple A took their revenge on us. And when la dictadura took over, most of them were relieved. At least now we will have some peace and safety, they said.»
«Do you have a plan?» I asked. It wasn’t that I really wanted an answer, more that I couldn’t leave it alone, like a sore tooth.
«Yes. There is a plan. Two or three of them.»
«And you have guns?» I asked.
«Yes.»
«So you’ll kill him if he resists.»
«The guns are to make sure he doesn’t resist.»
«But you are professionals. The guns will be loaded, no? You wouldn’t carry them unless you were willing to use them.»
«We are professionals, yes.»
The waiter came with the coffee. I waved mine away, but he was paying attention only to Mateo. He left the three cups and disappeared.
«And when you find him guilty,» I asked, «as of course you will, the sentence will be death?»
«What other sentence would there be? Would you have us sentence him to house arrest?»
«So when do you kidnap him? Do you have a date?» I couldn’t stop pushing, though I knew I was not winning points either with Mateo or with Elena.
«That depends,» Mateo said.
«On what?»
«On whether Elena joins us.»
We both looked at her, like rival lovers demanding she choose between us.
«There is one other experienced person,» she said, «and the rest are young people? How young? I don’t want to risk my life for a fiasco.”
«The youngest is sixteen, the oldest is twenty-eight. One of them built a bomb that did a lot of damage to…a business, let’s say. No people were harmed and much property was. Another shot a cop. Another deserted from the army. Others have organized demonstrations. I don’t want to die without reason either. When we do the operation, it will be with people I trust.»
I thought seriously about getting up and walking away. It was unthinkable that I could be sitting at that table, involved in that discussion. If I did walk away, it would mean deserting Elena. I looked at her. She would understand. She would not blame me for it.
Everything was unthinkable.
At that moment, without taking her eyes off Mateo, she reached out and covered my hand with hers.
I felt sick to my stomach and there was fire behind my right eye.
*
As if to spare me, Elena changed the subject. She asked Mateo if he had ever seen Pugliese’s orchestra.
«Only once in person,» he told her. He was smiling, grateful for the chance to impress her. Somehow she had known that. We were all as eager as puppies for her approval.
«It was December 26, 1969, at Luna Park,» he said. Luna Park is the huge indoor arena between el Obelisco and the river. «It was a festival in his honor and there were eight thousand of us there, every seat in the place full. I was nineteen years old, I’d been dancing for a year, and I had the fire of the new convert. You would not believe the noise in that place. Everyone yelling, ‘¡Al Colón! ¡Al Colón!’»
Teatro Colón is the Argentine Carnegie Hall and the legend has it that Pugliese’s mother would call out «¡Al Colón!» to him as a kid when he practiced the piano, half encouragement, half prediction. It became a battle cry for his fans and in 1985, after the dictatorship fell, it became a reality when he finally played there.
Elena looked entranced. «So you never saw the red carnation on the piano bench?» When Pugliese was arrested, which was often, his orquesta would put a red carnation, un clavel rojo, on his piano bench and play without him.
«That was before me,» Mateo said. «That was Perón, who hated him for being a communist. By the sixties he was an institution, he was on TV all the time. But he never backed down and people never forgot that. At Luna Park there must have been a million red carnations. His music was brilliant, inspirational, but that’s not why those people loved him so much. They loved him for his integrity. That was the lesson.»
I thought he might start crying again. He looked away for a few seconds, then it was his turn to change the subject. «Tell me,» he said, «what happened to your nose?»
It was a question I’d never asked, at first because I didn’t want her to think it bothered me, then because I’d ceased to notice it as anything else than a part of her.
«I was nine,» she said. «Old enough that I should have remembered it, but I didn’t. My mother always told me I fell playing futbol and I believed that. Then, when I was moving out, she told me the truth.»
«Osvaldo,» Mateo said.
She nodded. «Apparently I said something about the name Lacunza being stupid, and hating it, and that my name was del Salvador, and I would always be del Salvador, and he hit me with the back of his hand. It broke my nose and knocked me out. I don’t remember him ever hitting me before or after, and my mother—I mean, Candelaria—said he never did. She said he cried when he saw what he’d done, and he drove me to the hospital himself. That was where he first told the futbol story and after that it got repeated until it became the truth.»
There was something terrible in Mateo’s expression and it was all the more terrible because it was not the helpless anger that some other parent might feel. I h
ated Osvaldo too for what he’d done to her. Not just the broken nose, but the lies and the coldness and the oppressive religion. Like Mateo, I hated him enough to want him dead for it. The difference was I couldn’t imagine doing the job myself. Mateo clearly could.
It was Elena who said, «We have to go.» The waiter had brought the check and Mateo had casually pushed it out of his way. We all stood up and I looked at the check and got a ten-peso note out of my wallet.
«No,» Elena said, «let me—»
«It’s okay,» I said. «I’ve got money.» It was courage that I was short of.
Mateo saw my untouched coffee, shrugged apologetically, and drank it off.
«I’ll call you,» Elena told him.
«Will you?»
«I promise.»
He stood there awkwardly, wanting, and Elena went to him and hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. I could see that he didn’t want to let go. His arms finally fell limp by his sides.
I hugged him too and we kissed each other’s cheeks. «Take care of her,» he said.
«I know,» I said. «Or you’ll kill me.»
Elena gave me a curious look. Mateo burst out laughing. It sounded like a laugh that had been waiting a long time. «That’s right. Or I will kill you. ¡Chau!» He was still laughing as he walked away.
*
Elena had both arms wrapped around my waist as we walked home. «Beto, what’s going to happen to us? What happens if I do this thing with Mateo?»
«I’m not going to leave you, Elena. If you want to get away from me, you’re the one who has to go.»
«But you don’t like it.»
«It makes me afraid. Afraid in general, afraid for myself, afraid for you. I think violence just makes more trouble.»
«Always? If somebody broke into our apartment and was going to rape me or kill me, would you use violence to protect me?»
«Yes.»
She was not one to belabor a point. A minute later she started singing. «Para qué te quiero tanto, si no puedo ser feliz…» Why do I love you so much if I can’t ever be happy? I don’t think she meant anything by it. All tangos are about heartbreak and betrayal.
