Holy City

by Guillermo Orsi

  “The paid-for word, you mean.”

  “That’s how I make my living, Verónica. But at least when I write a report or a clinical record I don’t end them with bombastic stuff like ‘in accordance with the law.’ The meat’s going to dry out if I leave it much longer. Do you like it juicy?”

  He stabs a piece of spare rib, lifts it and holds it under the light so that she can decide if it is juicy enough for her. Verónica suggests they start with the sausages and intestines; she is a lawyer and so follows written legal advice that does not leave much room for improvisation. Although strictly speaking there is no law to cover this eventuality, precedents suggest it is offal first.

  “After that, the meat and salads,” she concludes her speech.

  Bértola again laments the fact that he lives on his own. He does not know how to make a salad. He always ruins them by smothering them in oil and vinegar, he does not know how to wash a lettuce. Hygiene is a female thing, he says: it’s woman’s work. That’s why he’s sorry his wife left him: because of the salads.

  They sit down to eat, still a little uncomfortable but beginning to get used to each other. A roof terrace in Villa del Parque is not the kind of place where foreign tourists eat their barbecued meat. They get taken to cattle ranches or restaurants where steak is paid for in hard currency. There are cattle and gauchos (as plastic as their credit cards), sometimes even “traditional” malambo dances and “typical” boleadores whirled round the gauchos’ heads. A roof terrace in Villa del Parque can offer none of that. It is, though, a good place for a psychoanalyst and a lawyer who hardly know each other, who are work associates more than friends, to begin to glimpse each other’s concerns, to wait patiently for the secrets to be revealed.

  “His name is Mauser,” says Bértola, when Verónica jumps as the dog’s tail tickles her shins under the table. “He’s happy. He’s always happy when there is a barbecue. He dreams of the bones before he starts to chew them.”

  Once she has explained what Pacogoya means in her life (little more than nothing: a good dinner once in a while, love making that is not always so good), Verónica tells him what happened the previous night.

  “I live waiting for a skunk I happen to be in love with to reappear,” she says, “but the only people knocking on my door are ghouls like Pacogoya and Miss Bolivia.”

  “Then don’t open your door. The early hours are no time to go visiting. Nobody who’s in love with you is going to come and ruin your night’s sleep.”

  Just to contradict his arrogant psychoanalyst’s tone, she points out that the last time she saw the skunk was in the early hours.

  “The guy’s a swine, I’m sure he didn’t come to make love, did he?” A sad smile from Verónica. She pushes the intestines to the side of her plate: too greasy for her. “Give them to Mauser. He can eat anything.” The dog snaffles them, but then does not seem too happy to eat them under the table. He prefers meat too. Bértola tells her he does not know what breed he is. “He looks like a cocker spaniel, but he’s the size of a sheepdog and has their eyes. He’s probably one of those fashionable genetic experiments. Alright, don’t talk to me about your love life: I expect it’s the ghouls who brought you here, isn’t it?”

  Verónica explains she senses that something is about to explode. The same feeling she had shortly before the death of Romano, her first real man, the cop.

  “Who killed him?”

  “The police.”

  Bértola’s moon has climbed down from the top branch of the china-berry tree. Now it is creeping furtively across the neighboring flat roofs, skirting the water tanks.

  “I always knew it wasn’t a good idea to be a cop.”

  “It’s a simple story,” Verónica says. “I didn’t tell it to you before, because there’s nothing to tell.”

  “Nothing fits, nothing can really be explained when it’s too simple,” says Bértola, with the look of a Socrates.

  They both laugh. The laughter comes from a long way off, from the need (as simple as the story of her cop) to laugh at all that is impossible to explain, all that is dark and gloomy.

  PART TWO

  Pichuco Opens his Eyes

  1

  Pacogoya drove back slowly from his trip to San Pedro, Verónica tells the psychoanalyst on his night off.

  He chugs along steadily at ninety in the slow lane. Other cars zoom past, almost brushing against his car, as if rebuking him for driving like a human being rather than a madman. This does not mean his road manners have suddenly improved: it is just that he cannot concentrate on his driving the way he had when he left Buenos Aires. He needs to think about what happened, although he cannot get that clear in his mind either. All he sees are images and the feeling that nothing is real, that he dreamt the house by the orange groves and in a moment he will wake up in his Recoleta apartment, his wretched bunk on the Queen of Storms, or in the cabin of some Swedish or German woman who, recovering from their alcoholic haze in the wan early morning light, will peer at him suspiciously, then tell him to get out, in languages only they can follow.

  But deep down he knows he is awake and that there is no way out. To make matters worse, he is returning to Buenos Aires empty-handed: he will have to try to explain, to give all the money back. Because when he arrived and went to look for Uncle in the Florida Garden late that night, there was no sign of him. Not at his usual table, or at the bar, or anywhere around. There is no reply when he telephones his mobile. Pacogoya does not leave a message, then curses himself for phoning: now his number will be registered somewhere that it probably should not be.

  As night progresses, the corner of Florida and Paraguay becomes another planet. Unlike its daytime earthly inhabitants, the nocturnal aliens are stealthy figures on the prowl. They glide along silently, or sit in bars that are about to shut like the Florida Garden, where the waiters gradually close in around them as they pile chairs on tables and finally tell them they have to leave, they’re just closing. The waiters’ union is as homophobic as the rest of the trade unions in Argentina. The only exception is the Queers’ Association, but that is not a real union; they do not sit down round a table with the other labor bosses to decide whether they are going to support the government or plot against it.

  Pacogoya stares back at all the queers he meets in the night world. Sometimes one of them follows him and accosts him; it is only then that he puts the record straight. Although not always: when he feels very alone, as he is tonight, and very lost, like a new-born babe in a world devastated by a nuclear catastrophe, he accepts their invitation. And then in some charming apartment nearby, he fucks or is fucked and earns himself a few pesos or dollars. A reward for taking it up the ass or leaving his manhood to one side, like an umbrella in its stand on a rainy day.

  Tonight he is about to agree to one of these deals with a man who like him is around forty, although he looks over fifty. He is bald and paunchy, wearing a suit but no tie, his shirt collar unbuttoned to show a scrawny neck. Two days’ growth of stubble at least. He makes it clear he is not a pansy, what he is looking for is a warm, inviting ass. Pacogoya’s ringtone interrupts their bargaining: “It’s Uncle, you stinking faggot, get away from me.” He pushes off the decrepit forty-year old, who spits at his feet like a guanaco in the Atacama desert, then waddles off, his bulk heavy as a cow that’s already too old for slaughter.

  Uncle is calling, but it is not Uncle. A murderer’s voice always sounds muffled because of the hood he is wearing. To a killer, a head separated from a body is nothing more than an anatomical curiosity, a subject without its predicate, a flower plucked from its bunch. “We were following you,” the voice says. “In the end we had to overtake because you were fast asleep. What happened, did your Porsche get stuck in second?”

  Whoever it is using Uncle’s phone does not expect him to answer. The caller knows that at the far end of the line there is someone who is about to wet himself with fear, but who wants to do the deal, to keep his promise to his cruise-liner customer
s. “You can come and get your stuff,” he hears. “It’s on the bed. Leave the dough on the bedside table, on top of the Playboy magazine Uncle jerks off over every night. Don’t touch anything or go looking for Uncle. We’re in charge now.”

  Pacogoya’s first reaction is to get out, run away as he did from San Pedro. But it will not wash to present himself to his customers like a popcorn seller who has had his cart stolen. He has to be able to offer them at least half of what they ordered. He could even up the cost. “The market’s difficult,” he could tell them. “Lots of cops on the lookout.” The other option, which he dismisses as moral cowardice, would be to end up in the arms of the pansy for a couple of pesos.

  He has never been to Uncle’s place. He has the card with his address—“but don’t ever even think of coming here unless I invite you,” Uncle warned him the first day they met. It is only three blocks away, on Viamonte. The tenth floor of an old building with windows you can see the river from.

  He has known him fifteen years but never got the invitation. He knows nothing about Uncle’s way of life. They have always talked about business, women, football occasionally—although Uncle prefers polo: “A sport for gentlemen,” he says, “with no riffraff, where it’s the horse that is in control.” He has no children; perhaps that is why he is called Uncle. He does have nephews and according to what little Pacogoya has heard of them—from Uncle himself—they are all up to no good. “They’re like you,” he would tell him. “Nobodies, lightweights, nothing solid, chancers.”

  At first Pacogoya bridled at this. He would get up and leave the Florida Garden. Uncle would sit there watching him walk off, with a wave to him in the distance, mouthing “you’ll be back.” And of course he always did come back: there was no-one like Uncle when it came to deals.

  Besides being old, the building is ugly. And dark, almost as soon as he gets beyond the unlocked heavy oak door—perhaps because they are expecting him. While he waits for the lift—as old as the building, a cage with black bars, cracked mirror, feeble light—Pacogoya tries to assess the possible consequences of going up to recover the drugs. What most worries him is that if he does not do it, he will end the night kissing a guy who forces him to suck his dick.

  Tenth floor, the last the lift reaches. Beyond that there is only a narrow staircase which probably leads to the concierge’s quarters and to the roof terrace, if there is one. Pacogoya imagines it covered in soot and pigeon shit. He rings the doorbell, like an errand boy come to collect a package. No-one opens the door.

  He has left the lift door open, although if he has to get away he will use the stairs. If he runs down, at least he won’t offer them a fixed target. He rings again and waits.

  *

  “This meat’s good,” says Verónica, interrupting her account. She chews slowly, enjoying the mouthful of rump steak. “It’s a bit dry, though; I’m not sure Mauser is going to like it”

  “I wouldn’t have gone in there,” says Bértola. “Two corpses is too much for one day.”

  In the end, he grasps the door handle.

  Pacogoya wasn’t too happy about it either, he tells Verónica. He knew it was a bad idea to step into the trap. Why had they called him when they had the drugs? They could sell the coke to anyone and for more money. They did not need him.

  Yet he steps inside. After all, in fifteen years he has not been allowed in. And curiosity killed the cat, Verónica.

  The apartment is neat and tidy. It is full of ceramic pieces, exotic statues, oriental monsters from Indonesia, Malaysia, Laos: of late, Uncle had acquired a taste for distant climes. “You can even go on excursions in Vietnam,” he told his favorite nephew. “It has museums, good hotels. The Vietnamese who were not killed by the Yanks are all very polite. And before them the French were there. If you close your eyes, Ho Chi Minh City, which used to be Saigon, is like Paris, only cheaper.” Uncle always came back from these trips with fresh statues and new contacts. “We have to open up markets,” he used to say. “The world is globalized, and so are prostitution and drugs.”

  It was true, Pacogoya discovers as he reaches the living room window: you can see the river. And there’s a shadow on the horizon that must be Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay.

  “Don’t move.” The gun barrel pressed against the back of his neck does not give him time to be surprised. If the man telling him not to move had shot first, Pacogoya would not even have realized he was dead. “Don’t turn round. Just look at the river.”

  The river is clearly visible, as if it were daytime. The full moon cannot be the same one which a few hours later comes and sits on Bértola’s chinaberry tree. This moon seems bigger, rounder, more airy, like a Chinese lantern hanging above the estuary.

  The voice is that of the man who called him on his mobile. It sounds clearer now—he must have taken off his hood. That is why he warned Pacogoya not to turn round.

  “Don’t be scared. Nothing will happen to you if you do as you’re told. We’re businessmen, just like you. We like to keep our word with clients.” He talks in the plural, so he is not on his own. He probably never is. In the same chilly, polite tone he tells Pacogoya to put his hands on the pane of glass and to spread his legs. “We want to see all of you, like an X-ray, while we’re talking to you. The coke’s on Uncle’s bed, as promised. Did you bring the dough?”

  Of course he did. He has had the money on him since yesterday. He is the richest dead man walking in Buenos Aires.

  While the voice of the man holding the gun to his head still sounds quite distant, another pair of hands searches him and strips him of banknotes showing the stern faces of San Martín, Rivadavia, Belgrano, all the nation’s heroes.

  “Why the fuck are those gringos carrying Argentine money?” the man searching him complains. “Or did you change it all?”

  Pacogoya shakes his head vigorously. He explains:

  “I pay with what they give me. I don’t go near money exchanges. Too dangerous. And banks want identity documents, so you’re trapped.”

  The man finishes his task. He counts the banknotes more quickly than a mechanical sorter.

  “All here,” he reports.

  Pacogoya freezes in his uncomfortable stance at the window. “Now for the bullet,” he tells himself. “You’re going to die for being so stupid.”

  Yet the voice of the one with the gun has not changed. He seems to be following a pre-established script.

  “When we leave, count slowly to a thousand. Then pick up the coke on Uncle’s bed and get out of here. But before that there’s something you have to do if you don’t want to end up in the river.” He knew it. Nothing is free in this world, not even cocaine, he tells Verónica he told himself, although the truth is that he is not thinking, he is praying while the man explains what he wants. Still behind his back, the one who took his money hands him some sheets of paper and a red marker pen. He tells Pacogoya to sit down, still facing the river, in a small armchair. He brings a standard lamp over to it.

  It is the passenger list for the Queen of Storms.

  “We know you’ve been a tourist guide for as many years as you’ve been a dealer and a cocksucker. We know you have the memory of an elephant, and that on each voyage you make sure you find out the females who are gagging for it and the males who are rolling in it. It’s a good idea, that’s how you manage to put a bit aside. We grow old before we know it, so it’s best to be prepared.”

  “What do you want me to do?” asks Pacogoya. Hearing the story of his life at what could well be his final hour makes him realize how easy it is to be disgusted with yourself.

  “Where it says ‘Osmar Arredri and wife,’ write down the name of the hotel they’re in and what room number. And if you want to be alive tomorrow, don’t get it wrong.”

  “They’re putting people up in corridors,” says Pacogoya, not because he does not know what they are asking him, but because things might have changed and he does not want to die due to an administrative decision.

  “People
like him don’t sleep in corridors. Make sure you write it so we can read it, nice and clearly. Then from that lot choose a dozen who are really wealthy, not show-offs. You know who they are.”

  It is true, he does know. A cruise liner is a luxury talking shop; everybody gossips about everybody else. By the third day the class war has produced its typical alignment: the rich on one side, the nobodies on the other.

  “There are more than a dozen,” Pacogoya says generously.

  “Only the topnotch ones. Take your time, there’s no hurry.”

  He looks down the long list. Starts to put crosses beside some of them. He knows each cross could be their tombstone, but instead of feeling bad about it he is calm, almost excited. Just this once, his choice is what matters. He is the one who decides. Somehow he does not feel he is betraying them: anyone would do the same in his position. This is what too much money in too few hands produces: people like him, like the ones with their guns trained on him, like Uncle. There is a full moon over the river and crosses on the paper.

  Like a diligent pupil, he finishes his exam. The man who searched him picks up the sheets of paper.

  “We’re going now. But we’re watching you. If you’ve got anything wrong, pow!” says the other man.

  “He looks a bit like Che Guevara,” the first one says.

  “It’s true, but Che was a revolutionary and this guy’s a heap of shit. You know what to do—count to a thousand.”

  They leave. Pacogoya cannot believe they have gone, or that the drugs are there, intact, in their pretty little bags on Uncle’s bed. Better not to think about what they made him do. He scoops up the bags, counts to five hundred and goes out into the corridor. They must have walked calmly down the staircase, because the lift is still there with its door open. He gets in and looks at himself, split in two in the cracked mirror.