It was almost five o'clock and the pink stone of the Casa Rosada, the Presidential Palace, was lent a softer coral hue by the late afternoon sun. Reuben picked out the balcony where Perón and Evita had waved to adoring crowds of more than a million; the same spot where Galtieri had accepted the cheers of the crowds after the invasion of the Malvinas; where more recently Alfonsín had waved to his jubilant supporters after the elections
The bells in the cathedral chimed the hour. The monument was encircled by a throng of shuffling, solemn women. The Mothers of the Plaza, Las Locas, 'the crazy women', as the military had labelled them. They carried placards around their necks, each with a blurred photograph pasted on it - here a teenage girl with a violin, there a serious young man with neatly combed hair in his first suit. Underneath there was a date and the word: DESAPARECIDO. A few of the women had on expensive suits and sweaters; most wore the drab jumpers and woollen skirts of the barrios. But they were united by the white scarf they had on their heads, the symbol of their protest.
They circled the monument in silence. These mothers all looked so old, even the younger ones. The only sound was the shuffling of feet.
***
Avellanada was another Buenos Aires: there were no bright-lit boutiques and restaurants and cafés here. Reuben sniffed the dank and oily breath of the docks. The cranes and gantries and container ships of the Richuelo waterfront were silhouetted against a dirty orange sky. The streets were littered with garbage, pi-dogs nosed around for scraps, filthy barefoot children kicked a tin can along the pavements.
He guessed that her brother would still be here. Most porteños lived in the same house all their lives. He climbed the cement stairwell, recoiling at the stink coming from the dark corners. She had grown up here.
He remembered what his father had said: she's only marrying you for your money. You're her passport to an easy life. Well, she got that wrong, he thought, bitterly.
He hesitated on the landing, took a deep breath, preparing himself. He heard a television blaring inside, a Brazilian soap opera. He banged twice on the door.
It swung open and Reuben found himself staring at a teenage boy in a white vest and badly fitting jeans.
“I'm looking for Domingo Goncalvez,” Reuben said.
Chapter 43
THE BOY LOOKED him over, took in the polo shirt and Italian loafers and neatly pressed grey slacks. He looked like he was thinking of shaking him down for his wallet and his watch.
“Tell him it's his brother-in-law.”
The boy turned away, leaving the door open. There were peeling plaster walls, a black and white television, a calendar with a photograph of the Boca Juniors football team. He heard an urgent conference taking place over the blare of the television.
Domingo appeared in the hallway.
He was just as Reuben remembered him. He was a little greyer perhaps, his weather-beaten face had a few more lines, but he was still lean, his body wiry and hard underneath the white vest. There was the same truculence in his grey eyes; eight years of poverty and four digit inflation poverty had made him no more amenable to his in-laws.
“You.”
“Domingo. It's been a long time.”
He leaned on the door jamb. “I don't believe it.”
“You thought I was dead?”
“As if.”
“Can I come in?”
Domingo looked down at Reuben's shoes, the Rolex on his wrist, left over form that other life. “You put one foot inside here and I'll slit your throat.”
They stared at each other. “What happened wasn't my fault,” Reuben said.
“What did you come back here for?”
“I want to find out what happened to Gabriella and the girls.”
Domingo gave a short bark of laughter. “You are really something.”
“Por Dios. Please, Domingo. I need your help.”
“You think if one of your daughters was alive, she will want to see you? After you ran out on her and her mother?”
“I didn't run out on-'
“Fuck off!' He hawked deep in his throat and spat. He slammed the door in his face.
Reuben looked down at the glob of saliva on his polo shirt. So, there was his answer. He should not have come back.
***
When he got back to his hotel Reuben stripped off his clothes and climbed into the shower. He closed his eyes, rested his head against the cool tiles. “What else could I have done?”
The answer was obvious, wasn't it? He slid down the wall and sat there, letting the water run. If he had gone back to the apartment they would have disappeared him. He had assumed they were there waiting for him, he didn't think they would take Gabriella and the girls. He planned to send for them as soon as he reached Mexico.
Really, Reuben? Is that how it was? Or did you just run?
He got out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist and sat down on the edge of the bed. He stared at the list of names he had brought with him; old friends of his family's, former business associates, team mates from the university rugby fifteen, friends from university. His eyes fell on his polo shirt lying on the floor, with the spit stain on the collar, and he almost lost all enthusiasm for it. Did he really want to know what had happened? Hadn't he forfeited all right to know the night he abandoned them?
But perhaps there was one man who might be able to help him. If anyone would be able to find out what had happened to Gabriella and the girls, it would be a journalist.
His old friend, Julio Castro.
Chapter 44
THE LA PRENSA offices were on Azopardo, down towards the old San Telmo district. Nothing fancy there. What a dump. There were linoleum floors, banks of metal filing cabinets and Formica-topped tables supporting yellowing piles of discarded copy and back issues. The air stank of stale cigarette smoke, and shirt-sleeved journalists toiled over ancient typewriters under dreary strip lights
Julio worked on the first floor in a partitioned cubicle behind a bank of metal filing cabinets. Reuben almost walked right past him. He barely recognized him; Julio had put on weight and lost a lot of hair. He was dressed conservatively, in a dark suit and white shirt, his hair cut much shorter now. But then everyone had become more conservative under military rule, it seemed. It was a tactic of survival. Long hair and untidy clothes branded you as a leftist.
Still, it was sad to see his friend already in the throes of middle age.
“Julio!'
Julio looked up from his typewriter, startled. He looked like he'd seen a ghost. He turned pale. “Reuben?”
“Hello, old friend.”
Reuben stood up, and put his arms around him. “I thought you were dead!'
“No, they didn't get me.”
All around the office, people were staring.
“Por Dios! I don't believe it. I thought you'd been disappeared.”
“I thought the same. Last time I saw you, you said you were getting out.”
Julio just kept shaking his head and saying: “I don't believe it!'
“Do you have deadlines?” Reuben asked him.
“To hell with work,” Julio said. “Let's go and get a drink.”
***
They went to a whiskería on the corner of Azopardo and Belgrano. It was five o'clock and the bar was hot and crowded. It was noisy, there was the clatter of cups and glasses, and the steamy hiss of the espresso machine.
“Por Dios,” Julio was saying. “They were bad days. It's still hard to believe it's over.”
“For some of us it will never be over.” Reuben finished his ginebra -Dutch gin - and ordered two more. Julio insisted on paying.
“So many of our friends were disappeared.” Julio stared moodily into his glass. “Marcello Bolsi. You remember Marcello? Alfredo Gil, Pola Albrecht, Sixto Reboratti. Those dirty bastards killed them ... but we mustn't think about that any more, right? Argentina is going to be great again. Now it's over, our new president has promised to get those fascist cretinos, every o
ne of them. He's set up a National Commission on the Disappeared.”
Reuben shrugged. He would celebrate when he saw results, not before.
“You remember Victor Marta, at university? He played hooker that year we won the Inter University Cup. They sent him to the Malvinas. Some British paratrooper shot him in the back. He's in a wheelchair now. You should see him, just sits there in his own shit. His mother has to clean him up.” Reuben noticed Julio's hands were shaking. “But we should think about the future now. So, what about you? You've come back here for good?”
“I don't know. I haven't made up my mind.”
“How do you like Mexico, huh?”
“It's the biggest smog bowl in the world. My eyes burn all the time and I have a chronic sore throat. But they saved my life.”
Julio ordered two more drinks, and still would not let Reuben pay. “This is a celebration, Reuben! I thought we'd lost you! You keep your hands in your pockets!' He laughed again, a little too loud. “So, tell me what you've been doing there.”
“I'm working in a big Mexican bank. I have a quiet life. That's all. There's nothing to tell.”
“You married again?”
Reuben shook his head.
“Shit, I'm sorry, Reuben. What happened to Gabriella-'
“It's okay, you don't have to say anything.”
“When I heard what happened ... how did you get away?”
“I got a telephone call.” He hesitated. Maybe he could justify it to himself but he had never been able to tell anyone else the story. He knew how it sounded, and that was probably the way it really was. “I wasn't home that night. I was ... somewhere else.”
A burst of laughter from a group of journalists in the corner. Reuben stared at his reflection in the mirror behind the bar. The Catholics said confession was good for the soul. He didn't think so.
“Who would have thought they would do something like that? Make war on mothers and their children?”
Reuben stared into his glass. “So you're a big shot journalist at La Prensa now?”
“Sure. Real big shot. You saw my new office? I have a great view of the airconditioner.”
Reuben drained his glass, felt himself getting a little drunk. Julio ordered two more ginebras. Well, the hell with it. Why not? Let him pay if he wants to. He'd bought him enough drinks in La Boca in their student days.
“Married?”
Julio looked sheepish. “Four kids. Imagine it. Me! I was the one who was never going to get tied down!' He realised what he'd said and the laughter died in his throat. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything.”
“It's okay.” It was surreal, to be talking to Julio again, about the past. Like they were analysing a big rugby game they had lost. “So. They never found those articles you wrote, huh?”
“No. I was lucky, I guess.”
“You remember how you came to see me that afternoon? You were shitting yourself.”
“Sure. I remember.”
“So how come they never arrested you?” Reuben said.
“I don't know. Just got lucky, I guess.” He raised his glass in toast. “To the disappeared.”
They drank. It was suddenly too hot and airless in the little bar. He loosened his tie. “I told you to go to the Mexican embassy, remember?” He gave a hollow laugh. “Funny how things turn out.”
Julio drained his glass. Por Dios, Reuben thought. This is like being a student again, I don't think I can keep up.
“It's good to see you again, Reuben.”
“It's good to see you too.”
“Look at you. You haven't changed a bit. Not like me, huh?” He patted his stomach. “Too much of my wife's good cooking. You're lucky, you've still got all your hair. I woke up one morning someone had stuck this shiny soup plate on the back of my head.” He laughed at this little joke against himself. He held up his empty glass. I can't even get drunk like I used to. Remember university? We'd drink all night and then go out and score four tries each the next day.”
“I never scored four tries in my whole life. I got two in three years.”
“Poetic licence.”
“I don't drink so much these days,” Reuben said, and realised just how easy it was to lie these days. “If we keep this up I'll be lucky to be on my feet in another half an hour.”
“What we need is some food inside us. You got plans for tonight? You should come home and have dinner.”
Reuben nodded. “All right.”
Julio slapped him on the shoulder. “Good. Come on, let's go and find a cab. You can meet my wife. Maybe you remember her.”
“What's her name?”
“Carmen. She used to be a friend of Gabriella's.”
“Sure,” Reuben said. “I remember Carmen.”
Chapter 45
CARMEN HAD CHANGED, too. Not easy raising four kids on a journalist's salary, he supposed. When he arrived she was in the kitchen cooking dinner with a toddler hanging on to her skirts. He could hear a baby crying in another room. Her figure had gone and even her smile looked tired.
This wasn't Carmen, not the Carmen he remembered anyway. When she saw him she kissed him on the cheek as casually as she would any old friend. She was probably a better actress than he was. Reuben wondered if Julio knew, or had guessed. He wondered anyway if it even mattered now, after all these years.
The children were all boys, one of six, another four, and twins, almost a year old.
“You've been busy,” Reuben said to Julio who smiled, as if it was a compliment.
***
They lived in Acassuso, a middle class dormitory suburb half an hour north of the city. The house was comfortable, but not extravagant. There were three bedrooms, a garden with a pit for the asado - the barbecue pit - a Fiat in the garage. Julio was not a rich man, but he had survived, more than many had done during the seventies.
But it had taken its toll;he chain-smoked cigarettes and chewed his fingernails. In many ways he was not like the Julio he remembered at all. He guessed that it was only when Alfonsín took over that he finally knew those articles he had written in his student days could no longer hurt him.
They sat on the patio. The air was heavy with the scent of jasmine flowers. An old pepper tree had dropped red berries on the flags. They drank beers and talked while Carmen put the children to bed. He suddenly remembered her standing naked in the living room of her old flat, holding the phone out to him: “It's Gabriella.”
Julio lit the asado, and Carmen brought out some beef ribs which they grilled over the coals and ate with pimento, onions, bread and a bottle of white wine.
They laughed and drank wine. The food was delicious. Look how well we pretend we're normal again, he thought. It was surreal; these two people figured in a nightmare that had kept him sleepless for eight years and here he was laughing with them about pranks they had pulled in university. As if anything that had happened before that night really mattered. He and Julio should have been beaten and tortured and pushed out of a plane; instead here they were, eating barbecued ribs and growing older, forgetting.
Carmen packed up the plates and left them alone on the patio. Julio kept up a beer-fuelled monologue on rugby, the economy, politics. All talk of the Dirty War was avoided.
They drank some more Quilmes and Julio got very drunk. He began to slur his words. “So. You're going to come back and live in Buenos Aires?” he asked him for the third time that evening.
“I told you, I don't know. All I want to do for now is try and find out what happened to Gabriella and my daughters.”
“Perhaps once they get this commission under way, they'll help you.”
“Perhaps.”
“They say Mexico City is full of exiles.”
“I suppose it is.”
“You run into many people you know?”
“It's a big city and I don't mix much anymore. I have my own apartment, I go to work each day, I came home at night, I go to cafés, I read. It's a quiet life but then I guess you don't apprecia
te peace until you have lived without it.”
“You didn't get married again?”
“No. I don't think I'll ever marry again. Besides,” he stopped, tried to find the words. “I don't think I can ever forgive myself.”
“What are you talking about?”
He took a deep breath. “I should have come back for her.”
“What good would that have done? They would have just killed you, too.”
“If they had me, they might have let them go.”
“Those bastards never ...” Julio stopped. “What happened to the rest of your family? Your parents, your brother?”
“All gone.”
“Por Dios!' He opened another beer. And I thought I drank too much! “I never understood why you did it. You were the last people I thought would have got into bed with the comunistas.”
Reuben sipped his beer. Something nagged at him. “When did you find out?”
“About what?”
“About my father and the Montos.”
“There were rumours. They started the next day.”
“Where did you hear them?”
Julio hesitated. “At La Prensa.”
“I thought the government kept a lid on it, said it was a foreign exchange fraud.”
“You can't hide something like that. We heard the stories, we just couldn't print them.”
“Is there something you're not telling me, Julio? If there's anything, anything at all, please ...”
“Shit, Reuben. You think I'd hold out on you about something like this?”
Reuben felt blurry from drink. “No, of course not.”
Carmen brought out the coffees and the talk turned to other things; children, inflation, the problems of owning a car. Finally, Reuben said: “I have to go now,” and stood up. Julio rose too, unsteady on his feet. He put a hand on Reuben's shoulder. “You don't know how good it is to see you again.” He embraced him. “How long are you going to be in Buenos Aires?”
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