Necropolis

by Santiago Gamboa

  Gunard listened to him, looked again at the chessboard, and said, you’re right, not all of them are aces, but being an ace doesn’t always ensure a happy life; the six of spades may end up much happier. Ah, great lives! Usually they’re people who suffer, maladjusted creatures; some because their vocation was so overwhelming that it put an end to anything that didn’t serve its purposes, others because their longings were never satisfied; others because they pursued the vanity of fame and success fruitlessly; others because sometimes talent is associated with terrible defects and vices, serious shortcomings . . .

  Then the two men would fall silent and finish their game, and then spend a while analyzing the positions. When they could barely see their pieces, they would gather everything up and go off to a bar on the beach, near the walls of the port of Jaffa, and drink a few beers and continue talking about life and its curious variations, until at dinner hour they would walk to the Nightingale of Odessa where Gael would serve them pizzas with vodka and herrings in vinegar.

  Sometimes Cécile came with Gunard and the four of them had dinner on the second floor of the restaurant, which was an uncomfortable space, a low-ceilinged mezzanine that filled with steam from the kitchen, but there they could sit down alone and chat: all this in spite of the fact that Gunard and Cécile were rich, rich in the best meaning of the word, that is, they did not have to work in order to live and enjoyed a comfortable lifestyle, but that did not mean that they closed the door to people of lower financial status, which was why they always preferred to meet in that cramped space and not in fashionable restaurants or hotels.

  Although Gael and Cécile only knew each other through their husbands and were not obliged to become friends, they, too, developed a friendship that grew and put down roots. After a time, Gunard and Cécile decided to rent an apartment in Tel Aviv that would allow them to spend the weekends with their friends, a beautiful penthouse on Rothschild Boulevard, not far from the Allenby district.

  The lives of these four friends went on like this, placidly, for six years until, once again, the fates got angry, or else grew bored and turned their gaze to them, and something very sad happened, which was that Cécile found a lump in her breast, a little ball just under her right nipple, and the subsequent tests determined that the cancer had spread to sensitive areas like the pancreas and the liver and that a swelling of the tissue of the lung was in fact emphysema. Radiation treatment began immediately and Cécile foundered, in spite of the efforts of Gunard, Gael, and Ferenck, who constantly invented new and extravagant ways to distract her, to make her feel happy and lucky.

  Every human being has his limits, and seven months later Cécile lay dying. She weighed eighty-five pounds, her skin was the color of linen, and Gunard prayed for a quick, painless death. The gods heard him and a few hours later Cécile’s heart stopped. Oslovski and Gael were at the hospital and they were the first people to receive the news from the doctors. Gunard was so absent, it was as if he was under the effects of a drug. Of the following seventy-two hours, he retained only chaotic, disjointed memories. A sumptuous funeral, with Cécile’s family present, meetings with rabbis and lawyers to settle the inheritance, and then it was all over and Gunard decided to settle in Tel Aviv, near the only friends he had in the world.

  Oslovski and Gael looked after Gunard as if he were their son. They took turns being with him, making him lunch and dinner, or going out for walks with him. Ferenck’s company was more beneficial, because with him he could descend into that deep cave that was chess, which took him away from the surface, where all the pain and absurdity was, where the memory of Cécile waited for him with its daggers and its hot irons, and so the two friends grew closer than ever, to the point where Ferenck would spend the weekend in Gunard’s apartment, and Gael would come there to sleep and be with both of them. On one of these weekends, Ferenck and Gael told Gunard that it was time to throw out Cécile’s things, and that they had found a charitable association that took used clothes and sent them to less fortunate countries. Gunard liked the sound of the association, but refused to allow Cécile’s things out of the apartment. They were his and he wanted to keep them. Ferenck and Gael shrugged, and that same night, after dinner, Gunard appeared in a striped dress, green nylon stocking, high-heeled shoes, and jewelry. Don’t worry, he said to them, I do it to find a bit of peace, I’ve always done it; Ferenck, who had already drunk a few vodkas, said, if you have to confess to us that you’re a fucking queer, do it now, nothing will happen, but he said, it isn’t that, Ferenck, this calms me down, not many people understand, but Cécile did.

  Gael intervened to say, that’s enough, don’t say anything more, just let me tell you, that color really doesn’t suit you, you look like a madwoman in a beauty parlor; Ferenck, overcoming his initial rejection, finally said, it’s O.K., forget it happened. That settled the matter, and every night, after dinner, Gunard performed his ritual with Cécile’s clothes and chatted with them for a while, before going to the window of his room to look out at the night, which from there was mostly lights on roofs and buildings rising in the darkness, and ask it his many questions, his sad, disconsolate questions.

  His participation in local tournaments, although increasingly sporadic, led a chess correspondent from the United States to take an interest in the case of these two players who had decided to live in anonymity. He researched who they were, and what struck him most was that neither of them had striven to reach the heights. They had both been content to break off careers that could have led farther. The journalist wrote for the Chicago Tribune and his name was Earl Coltodino. One afternoon, after a couple of fruitless calls, Coltodino went to the beach to look for them and found them near a terrace. They had a roll-up chessboard held down by stones and were analyzing a position, with bottles of Diet Coke that they kept cold in a bag filled with ice, plus chicken sandwiches that Gael had made for them that morning. In another bag was a thermos of hot coffee and a bar of chocolate. They were well prepared. At the bottom, ready for the end of the afternoon, was a quart of Smirnoff vodka.

  Coltodino observed them from a distance and concluded, from the way they joked, that they were kindred souls. They reminded him of the uncomplicated friendships he had had as a child, back in the old neighborhood. He went closer, feigning interest in their game, and saw a complicated position from which his own knowledge offered no way out. He ventured to speak to them, saying he could not understand why the whites had given up.

  Are you interested in chess? they asked, and Coltodino said, yes, very much, it’s my favorite game.

  Gunard sipped at his drink and said, look, the next move is this, and then this, and that way you get to this. He explained it very quickly, and Coltodino did not even understand, but did not say so. He asked them if they always played on Sun­days. Oslovski looked at him and said, we come to the beach to play in peace. Coltodino begged their pardon, I’m sorry, I didn’t want to disturb you, to which Oslovski replied, I’m not saying that because of you, if you’re interested in chess you have something in common with us, come, sit down, and so Coltodino was accepted that Sunday afternoon and was able to chat with them and ask them things, until he said, you both play really well, you must have won a few tournaments in your time, I guess? Ferenck and Gunard looked at each other and nodded, but Oslovski added, all that happened a long time ago, it isn’t worth remembering.

  Coltodino drank his beer as he listened to them, and said, how is it that the two of you, who not only have a passion for chess, but also play it brilliantly, never wanted to take it farther? and Gunard said, there’s too much pressure to deal with. Oslovski confirmed his friend’s words, and added, what prize in the world is greater then this? Watching the sun set over the sea, playing with a friend, eating and drinking, eh? That’s life, friend, what a privilege it is to be alive, would you like a sandwich?

  Eric Coltodino took many notes in the three days he was with them. Before leaving he confessed to them who he was and what he was planning to do with
their story. Gunard shrugged and Oslovski said, at least offer us a few drinks, and that resolved the matter, much to Coltodino’s relief. He took photographs of them with different backgrounds, the port, the sea, and the walls of Jaffa.

  The article was published two months later in the Chicago Tribune, under the title The Oslovski & Flø Variation, the name Coltodino chose to describe their approach to the game. It was a great success. Never before had he received so many letters or comments from readers.

  I was one of those readers, my dear listeners, and I want to tell you, by way of conclusion, that until a very short time ago you could still see that couple of old men moving the chess pieces on the sand, drinking vodka and waving their hands as a sign of disagreement over some game, which was the greatest thing in their lives.

  And that is the end of my story.

  2.

  THE SURVIVOR

  (AS TOLD BY MOISÉS KAPLAN)

  The events I am about to relate all happened to a man named Ramón Melo García, who lived in the town of La Cascada, in the department of Meta, in the Plains region of Colombia. Ramón was a good man, hardworking and honest. By the time he was twenty-nine, he already owned three auto repair shops, two in the town and another on the road to Granada, where he also sold soda, coffee, meat pies, and donuts. He had a total of twelve employees, working for minimum salary but with a percentage on outside repairs, Christmas bonuses, paid vacations, and health insurance. They all liked Ramón, because he wasn’t a boss who gave orders from his office, but a worker like them, with his greasy uniform and his fingers covered in cuts and blisters. The little finger on his left hand was missing: at the age of fifteen he had caught it in a fan on a bus. As he would say, God cut off the finger I used for cleaning my ear, which must have been a message to stop listening to so much crap. And he would get back to work.

  In the evenings, after work, he would go to see his girlfriend, Soraya Mora, who was twenty-six, had studied IT and secretarial skills, and worked in an internet café called La Maporita at the corner of Calle Tercera and the Parque Boyacá. He would sit down at one of the computers, look at his messages, check his Facebook account, and sit there for a while, chatting, drinking soda, and showing her photographs of his friends. At eight o’clock they would both go to Soraya’s house for dinner; her mother, Doña Matilde, would make fish soup and pork and sometimes corn pancakes, because she was a peasant woman from Santa Fe de Antioquia.

  After dinner, they would sit in the doorway and watch the people passing by, and Soraya would say, when are you going to ask for my hand, Ramón? you’re putting me to sleep with all this waiting, and he would say, calm down, Sorayita, you know I will. Of course I know, but when, next year? my mother asked me the other day, and so did my brother. Is your brother back? Yes, he just got back from Medellín, he’s working in an office. And what kind of work does he do? What kind of work do you think? office work, I don’t know, but it’s well paid, about a million and a half pesos, maybe even more, yesterday he brought Mamá a gold necklace, and some earrings for me. Tell him I’d like to see him, tell him to drop by the shop whenever he likes, and we’ll go have a few beers. Then Ramón would go home to sleep. He lived with his mother and an aunt, who were both seventy years old. At weekends, he and Soraya would go out dancing and drinking, almost always with his best friend, Jacinto Gómez Estupiñán, and Jacinto’s wife Araceli Ramos. Most times, they went to a nightclub called the Rey de la Pachanga, on the road to Cubarral, next to the bridge over the River Ariari, and there they would drink and dance until it was time to spend a while at the Llano Grande motel. Jacinto and he had studied at the teacher training college in Cubarral and then taken their higher certificate in Villavicen­cio. As both were only sons and their mothers close friends, they had grown up together. Jacinto had a farm near Lejanías and raised cattle.

  But the situation in the region was becoming complicated.

  The 39th Front of the FARC operated around La Cascada, under the command of Mono Jojoy, and in 2004 the Héroes de los Llanos, an urban paramilitary militia, arrived, led by a man known as Dagoberto, a former lieutenant in the army who had worked as a foreman on a farm growing African palms before taking up arms again. La Cascada had become a strategic route in the drug trade and the paramilitaries began extorting money from local businesses and asking for information about FARC members. About a week after they arrived, the first bodies appeared in ditches. One of them was the body of Braulio Suárez Acevedo, a waiter from the Brisas restaurant, and the other, Alfredo Mora Cañizares, an assistant at the Don Saludero drugstore. They had been tortured with candles, their testicles had been cut off, and each had been shot three times. They had signs pinned to their backs that said: I am a traitor to my country. The people who saw them did not dare approach, and the bodies lay there almost the whole day. Just after nightfall, the police arrived in a van, identified them, and took them to the morgue at the local hospital.

  Ramón did not see the bodies, but he had known Braulio Suárez Acevedo, who, as far as he was aware, had no connections with the FARC. One of his employees said to him, no, Don Ramón, of course he didn’t have anything to do with the FARC, what happened was that he didn’t want to pay the paras, that’s all, anyone who doesn’t pay them, they say he’s with the guerrillas and they take him away, yesterday apparently they took Jesús Torres, the guy who works at the La Ceiba pool hall, who didn’t have anything to pay them with and didn’t want to give them the deeds to some land he owned, so they took him away, he’ll show up in a ditch, that’s for sure, nobody escapes those guys.

  They hadn’t yet come to Ramón’s auto repair shop to ask for money, but he knew it was only a matter of time. A few days later, they did come, not to ask for money but to leave him two vans to be repaired. One had a blocked carburetor and the relay was missing; with the other one, he repaired the starting mechanism and the spark plugs and changed the brake pads. When they came back for the vehicles, Ramón handed the bill to the man known as Dagoberto, who looked at it, put it in his pocket, and said, thanks, I hope you did a good job, I’ve been told you’re the only reliable mechanic around here. Ramón looked at him without saying a word, turned, and continued with his work, which involved stripping a camshaft on a Chevrolet dump truck.

  More or less once a week, they left him vehicles to fix. One day they brought him a Cherokee with seven bullet holes in it, and said, Ramón, let’s see if you can do a job on this piece of shit, look what a mess they made of it. Come back in a week, I’ll get rid of those nasty holes, it’s a nice car. They did not come for it after a week, but one of the men said to him, Dagoberto told me to tell you that he’s selling it, so keep it and you can pay him later. But I don’t know if I can afford it, it must be worth about thirty million, right? better if you take it away, I don’t have the money. The chief said we should leave it, if you don’t want it, talk to him about it. They went away and Ramón left it parked in back of the shop.

  As it was Saturday, he went to La Ceiba to meet Jacinto, because Soraya had to stay at home to look after her mother. They had a few glasses of aguardiente and he told his friend about the car. This Dagoberto guy told me I should keep it and pay him later, but I don’t have the money, a pity, it’s a great car. But Jacinto said: if I were you I’d hold on to it, these guys have a lot of money, they might get themselves killed, and you end up with a car, so don’t be stupid, tell them yes, they haven’t even told you when you have to pay, so do it, if the worst comes to the worst you can pay them off by doing more repairs for them. No, Jacinto, I don’t like these people, I prefer to have things I bought with my own money, not like that.

  The next day he told Soraya about it, and said he was going to give back the car that evening, but she said, oh, Ramón, you really are an idiot, why give it back if they’re giving it to you? I love that car, it’s really classy, it looks great, keep it, you won’t be sorry, you’ll see, in fact, why don’t you take me out now for a drive? No, Sorayita, if I use that car and somethi
ng happens I’ll be in trouble. What’s going to happen? If something does happen, you can fix it, you’re a mechanic, aren’t you? go on, give me a ride, Ramoncito. O.K., darling, but only a short ride, come on.

  On the Wednesday of the following week, one of the paramilitaries came to the shop and said to Ramón: Dagoberto wants to know when you’re going to pay him the thirty million you owe him, he needs it by the end of the month. I don’t owe him any money, I already told him I can’t buy the car, I don’t have that kind of money. What do you mean you’re not going to buy it? you already took your girlfriend out for a drive, didn’t you? Dagoberto wants the money by the end of the month. No, look, this is a misunderstanding, the only reason I took it out was to test drive it, because I also had to fix the electrical system, that’s why I gave it a spin, to charge the battery and leave it ready, it’s parked out there, you can take it away with you now if you like.

  Another week passed, and nobody came until one day the police from Villavicencio showed up. They gave the Cherokee the once-over, checked the serial number of the engine, and told Ramón that the car had been stolen in Bogotá, was it his, if not, whose was it? Ramón said it belonged to a man he didn’t know, he didn’t even know the name. And what kind of work did you do on it? We fixed the ignition, the starting mechanism, and the condenser. I have it parked out there to see if they come for it, but I don’t know who it belongs to. The police towed away the Cherokee and took Ramón with them. As they left town he saw two of the paramilitaries in the Caleñita store. They both watched him until the police car disappeared around the bend.