by Claudia Pi
Before dessert, El Tano stood up at the head of the table and tapped his glass with a fork. “How disrespectful,” he grumbled, “in movies, when someone does this, everyone falls silent.”
“And do you believe in the movies, Tano?” asked Gustavo. “This is real life, Tanito, real life.” El Tano laughed; all of us laughed without really knowing why.
“Friends,” he said and, to Teresa, “my love, I want to share with you all a very important decision I’ve taken.”
“You’re quitting tennis…” quipped Ronie.
“That, never. I’m quitting Troost,” he answered. And there was a silence. El Tano maintained his smile, and so did Teresa, but hers was empty, her eyes exaggeratedly wide open. I can’t speak for the others, I was too preoccupied with my own reactions; I was finding it hard to understand – my neurons struggled against the champagne bubbles to establish what this Troost was that had suddenly left everyone dumbstruck, as though El Tano were a priest who had announced he was leaving Holy Orders.
“They’ve offered you something else…” Teresa managed to say, still smiling, presuming that her husband was about to take a new leap up the corporate ladder.
“No, no,” he answered very calmly. “I’m sick of dependent relationships. So I’m joining the ranks of the unemployed,” he laughed. Teresa appeared not to find the joke amusing.
“Watch your back, Gustavito, this business could be contagious,” El Tano warned. Martín Urovich appeared to blush, but I don’t know – perhaps it only looked that way to me; perhaps I thought he ought to have done, that, in his shoes, I would have blushed. Maybe I even did blush on his behalf. Or on Ronie’s, since he was also unemployed, fooling himself that he lived on rental income, when those rents were far lower than the costs they entailed.
“No, please, I don’t exist unless I’m inside a corporation. I need my Big Father,” Gustavo answered finally. And Martín Urovich said: “We’re considering moving to Miami.”
“Don’t give me that crap!” El Tano snapped.
“We’re going to Miami,” said Lala. Without looking at her, El Tano said to Martín: “Are you serious?” Martín shook his head. Lala’s eyes filled with tears and she went to the bathroom.
“Does anyone want more tandoori?” asked Teresa.
“Are you happy?” I asked Martín, but El Tano answered me.
“Ecstatic,” he said. “I’ve been planning this for a while. I’m sick of making money for other people; I want it all for myself.”
“And what are you thinking of doing?” Ronie asked.
“I don’t know yet. I’ve got a lot of projects in mind and luckily they gave me a very good severance deal, so, with money in the bank, I can take time to think about which one I get started on first.”
“So everything was coldly calculated…” said Gustavo.
“Coldly calculated,” El Tano replied.
“Before any new project, remember our trip to Maui,” Teresa reminded him.
“That’s going to be my very first project,” said El Tano and he kissed her. It was the first time I had ever seen El Tano kiss his wife in public. She was also surprised, I’m sure. And then he proposed a toast. We raised our glasses and waited for El Tano to pronounce the name in whose honour we should clink glasses. This silent moment of anticipation, with our glasses still held aloft, seemed to go on too long.
“Let’s drink… to freedom,” he said, then immediately corrected himself: “no, even better, let’s drink to ‘real life’… that’s it, to real life.” And all the glasses met each other halfway across the table. Those same glasses that reappeared beside the swimming pool, that September night on which the Thursday Widows prophecy came true for three of our number. They were the glasses that El Tano only used on very special occasions. Such as that one.
37
In The Cascade, Romina feels like a misfit. Juani also feels like a misfit. That must be why they fit together so well. And they make plans to travel the world one day, when they have finished school. He doesn’t like sport; he can spend hours holed up in his room listening to music, reading or doing God knows what. And for the adults of Cascade Heights, that counts as strange. Romina also spends a lot of time shut up in her room. But then she also has dark skin. It’s pointless to deny it. Not even Mariana denies it – she mentions it to anyone who wants to listen. She’s adopted. When she’s out in the sun, Mariana makes her wear factor fifty. “Even if only on your knees – if they look like two lumps of coal at this time of year, imagine what they’re going to be like in the summer.”
Pedro is also dark, but less so than his sister. Sometimes Romina wonders if Mariana’s given him something to whiten his skin. Once she found her washing his hair with camomile and since then she’s been forbidden to enter the room while her brother’s getting his bath. Pedro wears the clothes Mariana likes and speaks how she would like him to speak. And then Mariana behaves as though Pedro were the fruit of her body, as though she had never been told that her eggs were empty. And Romina hates her for it because that lie robs her of much more than a brother.
Romina and Juani meet every night. After having dinner, they go to their respective rooms, close the doors and climb out of the windows. Ever since Romina cut her leg with that beer bottle, she has to give too many explanations if she wants to go out with Juani at night. That’s why she slips out without telling anyone. They meet halfway. Sometimes at the pedestrian crossing by the twelfth hole. Sometimes opposite the Araucaria tree on the roundabout. They go for a walk. Through the windows of their rooms, the quiet night, undisturbed by anyone out pacing the streets of Cascade Heights, looks too inviting. It’s a shame to go to sleep. On nights when there is a full moon, the tops of the tallest trees are flecked with silver, as though painted. You would think the moon out-shone the city. The air feels less contaminated. And the silence. What Romina and Juani like best about their nocturnal escapades is the silence. The only sound to be heard is the song of the grasshoppers and frogs. The frogs, tiny and almost transparent, keep croaking all night. And both of them like summer. And jasmines. Romina more than Juani; it’s her favourite flower and she taught him to how to pick out its perfume from the nocturnal melée.
They walk. They skate. They spy. Romina and Juani are on their night rounds. They carry torches, as they have since they were little; it’s one of the few things that still amuse them at seventeen. They choose a house, a tree, a window. And they spy on it. They don’t get as many surprises as they did at the start. Usually they are confirming what they already know. They know that Dorita Llambías’s husband is sleeping with Nane Pérez Ayerra. They saw them on the night of the club’s anniversary party. In her bed. All the adults were dancing in the function room, apart from them. After a while they got dressed and went off in their respective jeeps, doubtless to join the others. They know that Carla Masotta cries at night and that Gustavo throws glass bottles and plates against the wall when he’s angry. They know that it is a lie that the youngest Elizondo boy broke his arm falling out of a tree. They were watching the night that – after crying and crying because his parents had locked him in his room – he opened his window, removed the netting and started to walk on the tiled roof. He took barely three steps before falling. They also see people who sleep peacefully. Family mealtimes that appear to be cordial. Children on the computer or watching television. But none of this detains them: it’s not what they’re looking for. Because they don’t believe in these scenes. Or they believe in them, but they don’t understand them. There are nights when it is enough to spy on one house alone, and others on which they go from tree to tree without finding what they are seeking. Romina and Juani don’t know what they are looking for, but they do know that, at some given moment, as they watch from a branch through a window, the game ends: it’s enough for one night and there is no need to see any more.
They walk. Music is coming from Willy Quevedo’s house. He must be awake, too. His bedroom light is switched off, but the room is lit by a
glow. Doubtless from his computer screen. He must be in a chat room. Romina wants to stay and watch him; she likes Willy and she still often thinks of him, in spite of what he did. He got off with Natalia Berardi while he was meant to be going out with her. But Juani takes her on somewhere else. They go round the first corner. They climb another tree. Malena Gómez’s dad is putting hairpins in his hair before going to bed. Romina sees him through the window of his en-suite bathroom. And a hairnet. To start with, Juani doesn’t believe his eyes. But they zoom in with the camera that Romina steals from her father on the nights when they “do the rounds”. Malena’s dad goes into the bathroom and has a pee, with the window open and the light switched on. Wearing hairpins and a hairnet.
In Cascade Heights no one worries about what the neighbours may see. The neighbours are very far away, in some distant place behind the trees. Who would ever imagine there was someone spying on them from behind the oak in their very own garden?
38
They took turns teeing off with their one woods at the ninth hole. A week earlier, Alfredo Insúa had invited El Tano to a round of golf. And El Tano had accepted. It was not a sport he liked much nor one in which he could shine, as he did at tennis – but Insúa was the kind of partner that no one who values good contacts would dare to snub. He had long ago recovered from that episode of the plate of shit left for him by his last wife and was happy to parade the new one around on weekends. “Just a quick nine holes, Tano,” he had said, “because I have to be in the office by mid-morning.” More than one person would have envied him this opportunity to spend a couple of hours chatting with the boss of a finance company. But El Tano was curious to know what Alfredo Insúa could need from him. They were not friends, merely acquaintances, although he had been at nearly all Alfredo’s birthday parties, and vice versa. But it was a known fact that an invitation from Insúa always implied a return favour, even when the invited party had no idea of what he was giving in exchange. At any rate, they had already played eight holes and, apart from talking about the economy or finance in general, no subject had been raised from which either one could profit in any way.
El Tano’s ball bounced off the top of a tree and came to rest halfway between the tee and Alfredo’s ball. They had about a hundred yards to cover before it was El Tano’s turn to play again. Each one grabbed his trolley and they walked on. This time they did talk about business. Perhaps Alfredo had been waiting for this precise moment: to be a stroke ahead.
“How are things at Troost, Tano?” El Tano was no longer bothered much by the question. A year had gone by since his dismissal, and he had worked on a serviceable reply.
“Fine, I suppose…”
“Why ‘suppose’?”
“I’m outside the company now; I work with them but I’m not exclusive to them any more.”
“Really? I had no idea…” He sounded surprised, but it was hard to believe that Alfredo Insúa knew nothing about his severance. The “market” is small and The Cascade even smaller. “But the company’s doing OK? Or did you leave because the Dutch aren’t managing the risk well?”
“No, I left because I was sick of it…” Alfredo stopped a moment to remove a stick that had got caught in the wheels of the trolley he used to transport his state-of-the-art Callaway graphite clubs.
“I completely understand. Do you know how often I ask myself what I’m doing, working twenty hours a day in the centre of town? Especially when you see this other world,” he said and his gaze swept across the golf course in front of him.
They came to El Tano’s ball. It wasn’t an easy ball, positioned behind a line of trees. He would have to hit it right over them if he did not want to risk it getting stuck in the lower boughs. Chattering parrots emphasized the silence of the course. He selected a club, rehearsed his swing, lost his gaze among the distant tree tops, took up his stance once more, rehearsed again – and only then did he strike. The ball glided upwards, over the tops of the Eucalyptus trees, then fell two yards from Alfredo’s ball, but behind it, so that it was his turn to hit again. “Nice shot, Tano,” said Alfredo, walking towards the balls.
El Tano, following him, played down the shot: “It almost makes up for the last one.”
“And what are you doing now?” asked Alfredo, when there was only one hole left to play.
“Things have worked out really well: I’m still linked to them and I lend a hand with consultancy. It’s fine, relaxed, good money. I couldn’t be playing golf on a Wednesday at this time of day if I was still working the way I used to.”
“Whereas any minute now my mobile will ring and I’ll have to dash off. Even if it means taking a pay cut, Tano, at our age quality of life is priceless…”
They came to El Tano’s ball. They stopped – El Tano beside his ball, and Alfredo waited two yards behind. El Tano took his shot. Alfredo came forwards and played his ball. They both landed on the green but, at this distance, it was impossible to see which one was closer to the hole. Once more, they walked on together. Alfredo was wearing golf shoes with spikes that dug into the turf with every step. “How strange that they let you come out with spikes. I thought they were still banned on this course.”
“They are. But, as my old man used to say, ‘It’s easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission’. Although, if I’m honest, I don’t much like asking for either of those things, Tanito.” A hare ran in front of them, apparently in flight, then vanished somewhere beyond the lagoon. “Hey, but are the Troost people doing all right?” Alfredo pressed on.
“Very well, as always. Why are you so interested?”
“Because I’m doing something with them – strictly speaking not with them but with their policies. I’m viaticating life insurance.”
“And what does that mean?”
“Buying insurance policies at a discount. You give people the money upfront and become the beneficiary of their policy. It’s a very simple piece of paperwork. You can do it in a couple of minutes. We only do it with policies from reliable insurance companies and Troost has always been one of the best. But of course we’ve seen so many giants tumble that we’re immune to shock, right Tanito?”
“And when do you get paid?” El Tano asked.
“Whenever any life insurance policy is cashed in – when the guy snuffs it.”
Alfredo’s phone rang; he stopped for a minute, gave two or three instructions and then rang off. “And the good thing about this system is that the person who takes out the policy gets to enjoy the money, not the relatives. It started with the whole AIDS business, with those guys whose treatment was hoovering up all their money… so, if they had a policy that predated their illness and it was clear that there was no ticket back – know what I mean? – you gave them the money, the guy could enjoy whatever time he had remaining and later you claimed the insurance.”
“I never knew about this.”
“And the financial markets are like that, things change quick as a flash, you have to be constantly looking out for new ways of doing stuff. When you know how to look, you can always find a new gap in the market.”
“One door closes and another one opens.”
“That’s it, Tanito, you have to be alert and be the first to strike whenever possible. Viatication is one of those nice round business propositions: if it’s properly evaluated, it’s risk-free. Much better than discounting mortgages. You take on the policy at eighty per cent and start making money straight away. Just think that it often yields twenty per cent profit within the year, a bloody fantastic rate, and in dollars, Tano.”
“Impressive.”
“Pretty darn impressive.”
“And do you only do this with people who have AIDS?”
“Far from it. That sector’s gone off a bit now because of the new drugs which end up extending the lives of those guys. I mean, for what? The poor bastards are going to die anyway. But the time-span is lengthened and that makes it much harder to fix a profitable rate. It’s a complicated market – you can mess up bi
g time. These days, we’re offering a better rate for other sorts of catastrophe.”
“Such as?”
“Other illnesses… the kind that no one wants to mention… I don’t know – lung cancer, acute liver failure, brain tumours… I’m not all that sure; that part of the business unnerves me a bit. We have medical assessors who study the case and write up a report… I’m better on numbers, Tanito…”
They arrived at the green. Alfredo crouched down to study the direction of the slope. He examined the drop from different angles. El Tano watched him, feeling no need to crouch down: he trusted his partner’s judgement. Alfredo took out his putter and walked towards the ball. “Hey, Tano, do you happen to have a list of Troost clients? Because if you can bring us policies for discounting, I can arrange a percentage for you. In this business, the obstacle to growth is that it isn’t possible to offer it on a massive scale, do you see? People are shocked to start with. It’s the same with plots in private cemeteries – at the beginning it seemed creepy, and now everyone wants one…”
“I don’t have a list, but I do have a good memory – and a plot in the Memorial Cemetery.”
Alfredo laughed at the joke. “Well, just let me know, if you’re interested. You could easily handle this product and, in any case, we’d give you a little training course; since it’s a sensitive area, it’s important to know which words to use when you’re selling it, you know? We train with neurolinguistic professionals who can give you exactly the right words. Just let me know.”
