by Cesar Aira
An unforgettable spectacle was about to unfold. The broadcast was charged with anticipation: millions of viewers were following the events in real time. The rain had broken all the records and its density and violence were still increasing. The shantytown must have been flooded, but the action was rushing on regardless, without waiting for conditions to return to normal. The apocalyptic downpour was becoming a mere backdrop to the adventure: people were beginning to act as if it were some kind of special effect.
And the rain served as a bridge to convey the sense of adventure because it was raining both on the scene where the events were taking place and on the houses of the people who were following the coverage; the rain was beating on the roofs and the walls, seeping in under the doors. . . . Cabezas shifted on his seat and noticed that there was water underfoot. The floor of the pizzeria was submerged. The streets outside were a sea: the water was already up to the windows of his car, which was parked in front of the door. Twice a minute, flashes of lightning lit up the view.
Cut to the helicopters, which had reached the shantytown and were circling over it. The view was dizzying because of the height, the movement and the darkness. It had been a feat, as the commentators were quick to point out, to fly there in that weather, defying the rain, the headwinds and the lightning. The blades were spinning in a mass of almost solid water. The uncontrollable lurching resulted in shots of the nightbound city in which the horizon was vertical or sloping, sometimes even upside down. You could also see the other helicopters battling with the elements, and gauge what the storm was doing to them. SUICIDE MISSION TO BRING YOU THE NEWS, said the lettering on the screen, leaving nothing to the imagination.
Nevertheless, the airborne cameras kept aiming downward, and were able to provide vertical views of the shantytown from about seven hundred feet directly above its center. You could see the whole circle traced out in those famous, over-abundant lights, each little bulb a twinkling signal fixed in the rain-drenched darkness.
Quite apart from the unusual circumstances, the spectacle was interesting from an intellectual and aesthetic point of view. No one had ever seen the shantytown like that, in its entirety. It was a ring of light, with clearly marked lines going in at an angle of 45 degrees to the circumference, none of them leading to the center, which was dark, like a void. These “geometrical” shots were brief because of the buffeting, but also because they were interrupted by images from the ground, where, like amphibious creatures, the patrol cars were speeding along, followed by the news trucks, and taking up positions all around the shantytown. Nevertheless, the shots from overhead kept getting clearer. The ring was not evenly bright, but composed of ribbons and twirls: a profusion of tiny figures that, given more time and tranquility, the eye might have been able to decipher.
Suddenly, Cabezas let out a startled cry. He had been visited by a sudden “illumination” and not just metaphorically. A complete and convincing solution to the enigma that had resisted him for years was swimming into view. It was all thanks to the aerial shots, the “electrical map” — and, of course, the corresponding synapses in his brain. The broadcast that he was watching had also played its modest part: the style of the news channels, superposing images and text, favored or rather maximized redundancy. Once the picture was complete, it all seemed so clear, so utterly self-evident. When you tuned into that frequency, titles began to appear over your own mental images, and that was enough to throw a powerful light on the old mysteries. In this case, the caption that lit up in Cabezas’s brain said: THE PATTERNS OF LIGHTS ARE USED TO IDENTIFY THE STREETS OF THE SHANTYTOWN. Those quirky garlands of bulbs — no two the same — at the entrance to each oblique street were “names” in a code that the dealers had been using, quite openly, to guide their clients. The system was foolproof: they used names that were easy to remember (like “the square,” “the triangle,” “the parallel lines,” or “the hair”), changed the location every night, or several times a night, and waited until the buyers were already circling the shantytown before calling them on their cell phones to tell them where to go.
But it was like the Nazca lines: the inspector had been able to discover the pattern only by seeing the whole thing from the air, as no one had ever seen it before. Most of the dealers in the shantytown were from Peru or Bolivia, and they may have drawn inspiration from that Pre-Colombian land art, adding electricity to bring it up to date, or maybe they were using an ancestral communication technique whose secrets had been handed down from generation to generation.
Not only was the system as a whole revealed to him in its abstract form; thanks to the Pastor’s fatal mistake, Cabezas also knew where the proxidine had been stashed that night. “Seventeen duckling” . . . the “duckling” was obviously a configuration of lights at the entrance to a street, and “seventeen” referred to a particular shack. He had seen the roughly painted numbers and he even thought he remembered, somewhere on the perimeter, a string of lights that looked like a duck in profile. It wouldn’t be hard to find, anyhow. And the Pastor had died before he could tell anyone that Cabezas knew the address. So the proxidine would still be there . . .
By association, this insight led to memories of the magical drug whose benefits he had so liberally enjoyed. And that was when the last pieces of the puzzle fell into place. As well as kicking himself about the street signs — “Why didn’t I see it before?” — now he was thinking, “How could I have forgotten the proxidine!” This was yet another confirmation of the method on which he had based his police career, which consisted of keeping all the relevant data in play at once. It was the only way to solve a case, and if on this occasion he had abandoned it momentarily, and as a consequence lost heart, he did at least have an excuse: the situation was truly exceptional; he was staking his fate on a single card. In fact, he hadn’t altogether forgotten about the proxidine but he had only been considering its exchange value. Now, remembering its intrinsic value, he realized, finally, that it held the key. Because the drug’s much-touted effect, which was to increase the proximity of things, applied above all to the elements of a problem: by bringing them into sudden contiguity, it brought them closer to the solution.
Of course! The proxidine! What was he thinking? And suddenly it was there, within reach. . . . Although it wouldn’t be quite that easy. He still had to go and get it. He had a vague hunch that it wasn’t just the regular stash they needed for a night of dealing. There was a reason why they had all decided to launch a final offensive, in spite of the rain: himself, the judge, those two brats, and the Pastor. . . . True, some were following others (he had followed the girls, for example), but it wasn’t a vicious circle. The Pastor wouldn’t have been standing there on the esplanade in the rain unless something special was happening. And to have reached the scene of the crime two minutes after her son’s death, the judge must have set out well in advance, with all her men, too, armed for battle. The Pastor must have been waiting to tell her about the location of the shipment — and instead he had told Cabezas. Even the television crews must have been tipped off. . . . They had their own contacts, as well as being big consumers (a while back one of the networks had been accused of running a subliminal ad campaign for proxidine because of its slogan: “the news up close”).
A big shipment . . . or something better: the mother of all drugs. Cabezas had heard of “super-pure proxidine”; people were always talking about it, but he’d never really stopped to think about what it might mean. Perhaps it was unthinkable. The expression itself was hyper-redundant. But the thing to which those senseless words referred was his talisman, the only thing left that could free him from the judge’s fatal embrace.
By going back to the shantytown, he would, of course, be putting his head in the lion’s mouth. He did, however, have the advantage of knowing exactly where to go, and with the confusion produced by the manhunt as well as the rain, his chances of slipping in under the radar were, paradoxically, better than ever.
He had made up his mind. He got to his
feet, then noticed the two girls sitting at the table. That pair of airheads still hadn’t run away! Just as well: he could use them to create a diversion. He took his cell phone out of his pocket and put it on the table:
“Listen carefully. When the rain stops, go home. But first, right now, or as soon as I’m gone, call the judge and tell her that I’m not holding you hostage, you’re free, and I’ve gone to Paraguay; tell her to catch me if she can.” He paused for a moment, then added: “All you have to do to call the judge’s secret number is hit zero.”
He splashed out the door. The current outside was so strong it almost toppled him. But he reached his car, got in, started it, and drove away gunning the engine and parting the waters, like a new Moses.
XII
As soon as the killer policeman was gone, Vanessa astonished her friend, who had already opened her mouth and was about to launch into a commentary on what had just happened, by demanding silence with a peremptory gesture and turning toward the table where the pair of sweethearts were sitting, still holding hands, as silent as two objects.
“Heddo,” she said, and tried again, grimacing, but without any more success, on the contrary: “Geddgo . . . leglo . . .” Then, finally, she got it right: “Hello!” She apologized with a smile: the nervous tension had made her tongue go numb. “I didn’t say hello before because I didn’t want that madman to notice you. Do you know who it was? Did you hear him?”
“Ma’am, yes,” said Adelita — it was her.
Jessica turned her head with a look of shock and horror, as if to say: “This is too much! If there’s one more twist in the plot . . .” And perhaps her dismay was justifiable. As a beekeeper may be killed by just one more sting because of all the toxins that have accumulated in his system, although a bee sting in itself is almost harmless, there may be a limit to the quandaries that a mind can accommodate. Vanessa, who was more than willing to explain now that she had recovered the ability to speak, enlightened her friend immediately:
“She works on the third floor in your building. She was the first person I turned to when this all started, don’t you remember? I told you! The Pastor’s friend . . . which reminds me,” she added, spinning around to face Adelita: “You know he’s dead? He was killed by that guy who was here with us. We were witnesses.”
“Ma’am, yes. I saw it on television,” Adelita said, pointing at the screen. “But he wasn’t my friend. You saw me walking with him, but that was the only time we ever spoke.”
“And what did he say to you?”
“Ma’am, he told me to believe in Jesus and things like that. But I didn’t listen.”
“Good for you. It was all a front. Luckily the truth always comes out in the end.”
Talking had restored Vanessa’s confidence, and she wanted to regain control, to wrest the initiative away from the television. She went and sat down at the couple’s table; Jessica followed. Perfunctory introductions were made:
“This is Jessica, my best friend. It was pure chance that we got dragged into this business.”
“Hi.”
“Hi,” said Jessica.
“Hi,” both girls said to the boy, who was fugly and insignificant and hadn’t opened his mouth.
“This is Alfredo, my fiancé.”
“Uhuh? You’re engaged?” asked Vanessa in a slightly supercilious tone, thinking, “Birds of a feather.”
“Ma’am, we were separated for a while but we got back together again tonight, thanks to your brother.”
“Maxi!? You know him?”
“Ma’am, yes. He’s a saint.”
“He’s a saint,” echoed the fiancé Alfredo, rustily, as if he had gone for years without speaking.
“Maxi, the things he does!” said Vanessa, shaking her head.
“He’s really sweet,” said Jessica. “But he’s too naïve.”
Adelita seemed to be on the point of stepping in to defend him, but she kept quiet. There was a silence. The four of them looked out of the windows: the storm had resumed in all its fury, as if it were starting over again, with a lavish festival of thunder and lightning, and the rain pounding like millions of drums. They had to rest their feet on the crossbars of the chairs because the tiled floor was under four inches of water. The waiters were sitting on the bar. There was nothing to do but wait. Vanessa heaved a long sigh and said:
“Well, now that it’s all over . . .”
“Ma’am!” said Adelita, interrupting her. “If I may . . . I don’t think it’s quite over yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“I think your brother is in danger.”
The look of shock on Vanessa’s face expressed a bewilderment larger than the girl herself. It was as if she didn’t even know who her brother was.
“Maxi?” It looked like she was going to say, “You know him?” again. But instead she said: “What’s he got to do with it?”
“Maxi!” cried Jessica simultaneously. “Of course! We forgot about him! Where could he have got to?”
“What’s it matter?” said Vanessa and added, addressing Adelita: “Don’t worry about him. He might seem really vague but he knows how to look after himself. And even if he does get a bit wet, it won’t do him any harm.”
Adelita shook her head stubbornly.
“Ma’am, I wasn’t talking about the rain. They found him a place to sleep in the shantytown because he couldn’t stay awake.”
Vanessa burst out laughing.
“He’s such a baby. He falls asleep on his feet as soon as it gets dark.” But thinking about it, she frowned. “Did they put him to bed?” And in an aside to Jessica: “I hope the sheets are clean. He’s so fussy . . .”
“So what’s the problem?” Jessica asked Adelita.
“Ma’am, I’m worried that the man who killed the Pastor might have gone to kill Maxi.” The two girls gaped in amazement. “Because he was following him today, wasn’t he?”
“We were following him. We wanted to see what he was doing. But Cabezas . . .” They looked at each other. “Come to think of it, it’s suspicious the way he turned up right then. Could he have been following us?” They both spoke at once. “But why would he want to kill Maxi? And how would he find him, if he’s asleep in a house in the shantytown?”
“Ma’am, it was the Pastor who hid Maxi and maybe he told that man something before he died. You didn’t hear anything?”
“Yes,” shouted Vanessa in a panic. “He gave him an address. Something with ‘seventeen,’ could that be right?”
“Ma’am, that’s where he is,” said Adelita in a dramatic tone of voice.
“Maxi’s doomed, Vanessa! That madman’s going to kill him! And it’s our fault!”
“But he said he was going to Paraguay! And he won’t go to the shantytown; that’s where the Judge is looking for him . . .”
“Ma’am, I think he was lying. Didn’t you see that he headed off in the direction of the shantytown . . .”
“That’s true . . .”
Alfredo jumped up, plunging his feet into the water.
“We have to go and warn Maxi! Come on, Adela!”
“No, wait a minute. We wouldn’t get there in time.”
“And we’d drown on the way,” said Jessica.
In spite of everything, Alfredo was ready to rush off, but Adelita grasped his arm.
“I’ve got an idea.” She pointed to the cell phone that Cabezas had left on the other table. The two girls looked at it too.
“We forgot to call the judge!” exclaimed Vanessa. “We can call her now and tell her to protect Maxi . . .”
“Ma’am, she won’t be able to do anything, but I can call the people who are hiding him . . .”
They handed her the phone at once. She examined it for a moment, then punched in a number and lifted it to her ear.
Alfredo turned to the two middle-class girls and said confidentially:
“Adela’s very intelligent. She always works things out. Since she came here from Peru, she’s succ
eeded in everything. The only thing she couldn’t do was find me. Luckily Mr. Maxi came along.”
“Did you run away? How come? Were you scared of getting married?”
“Something like that. But it’s all behind me now: water under the bridge.”
“Well said.”
Meanwhile, Adelita had been speaking in a shrill voice, very different from her usual whispering. She hung up and said:
“It’s all sorted. They’ll take care of it. I asked them not to wake him up. He’s so tired, the poor thing . . .”
Jessica and Vanessa smiled, imagining the scrawny little guys from the shantytown carrying Maxi’s gigantic sleeping body. There’d have to be twenty of them at least.
“But will they be able do it in time? It’s been a while since that criminal left, you know.”
“Ma’am, they have all the time in the world.” She seemed very calm about it all, and to put them at ease she said, “Didn’t you notice how, earlier on, extra time was needed too, for Maxi to get to the shantytown when it started raining, and reunite me and Alfredo, and let the guys put him to bed, and then for the Pastor to get back to the esplanade?”
“That’s true. We got there by car in a few seconds.”
They relaxed. Now there really was nothing more to do. They looked idly at the television, which was showing a series of dim shots of the shantytown’s outer alleys. Alfredo sighed:
“It’s such a long time since I saw the old shantytown . . .” Adelita took his hand and squeezed it. The others were imagining that as soon as the rain stopped, the young couple would go there and consummate their delayed marriage. But was it ever going to stop raining?
“I just thought of something,” said Jessica. “Shouldn’t we call home?”
“You’re right! My mom’ll be having kittens. Is there a public phone here?”
