Betty Boo

by Claudia Piñeiro

  For a few miles they drive in silence, not because they have nothing to say but because they can’t say it. It’s getting dark and in the rear-view mirror the Crime boy sees the sun, still blazing, about to set. Why would he have wanted to live there? he asks, only once they have left the Pan-American Highway and are on the road that leads to La Maravillosa. I don’t know, says Brena, I really don’t. I have a theory, the boy admits. Can I say something awful, even though it’s not politically correct? Go ahead, I’m sick of political correctness. Sometimes I think women are more equipped to cope with something like that than we are, says the boy, that they fear rape but also have more awareness of it. Somebody, at some point in their lives, has warned them that a man can hurt them, that they need to be careful, that they should avoid places that are dangerous or dark or close to the tracks – I don’t know, all those things that my mother used to say to my sister and never to me. Men don’t talk about stuff like that, it doesn’t belong to us, nobody warns us that we could also be sexually assaulted or raped so, when it happens, we’re completely lost, we go to pieces or we feel dead, like Casabets did, because what’s happened could never happen, not to us, and so we even doubt our own perception: what happened didn’t happen, it’s impossible, it isn’t real. For Casabets, the fact that they lied to him so many years later, that they made him doubt what he had gone through, that the men who had raped him continued to deny that what had happened, happened, must have affected him like a second rape. First they raped his body, and then his mind and his memory. And his pain. He couldn’t heal the first rape, but he could heal the second by going to the place where the outrage took place, recognizing the walls, finding those complicit witnesses, silent and faithful, recovering those memories that he had tried to kill for years. In order then to kill them himself, this time as a deliberate act, his own decision, to wall them in behind a door and hang a shield over it, a shield that looks like a wounded heart crossed by a silver thread. The boy stops talking then and Brena looks over at him. Am I talking crap? the Crime boy asks. No, you’re speaking the truth and you put it beautifully, with feeling, almost poetically. You’re going to be a good writer one day, kid, if you read a little more, one day you’ll really write something.

  When they get to the entrance gate, they don’t care about the guards wasting their time or about the different controls through which they have to pass. Not today. Today there’s no room for arguments or even irritation. The Crime boy complies with everything they ask of him. And Jaime Brena waits without getting annoyed. When they arrive at Nurit Iscar’s house, she’s waiting for them on the gravel drive. One look at the men tells her all she needs: You look as if you’ve been hit by a truck. She makes coffee while they tell her everything. Is there no possibility that the murderer is Casabets himself? Nurit asks. No, I’ve totally ruled that out, Brena says. All my years of seeing murderers and victims have taught me something, and that man isn’t capable of murdering anyone. Besides, if we believe his wife, Casabets hasn’t left the farm in three years, the Crime boy adds. His reaction to the deaths of Miranda and Collazo seemed genuine, as did the fact that he made no attempt to seem the slightest bit sad about that, or about the deaths of the other members of the group. Now I see why Collazo was more worried about the truth getting out than he was about the possibility that he might also be killed, says Nurit. Yes, it makes sense now, Jaime Brena agrees, and asks the boy to take out the photograph again and show it to her. The key is in this picture; I saw that in his face. Casabets says that there is a seventh person out of shot, and he implied that that person, besides being a witness to what happened, is also the murderer. Have you got a magnifying glass? Brena asks. Perhaps there’s some detail too small to see, like a foot or a hand hidden behind one of them. Nurit doesn’t answer; she doesn’t know whether or not there is a magnifying glass in the house, nor does she care – she’s intent on the image in front of her. Have you seen something? Brena asks. Yes, you’ve seen something, he answers himself. It’s not what I’m seeing, she corrects him. Hasn’t it occurred to you that what we’re looking for may not be hidden behind them but in front? Where in front? says Jaime Brena. How do you mean, in front? asks the Crime boy. A photograph is testimony to something real, and the witness is the photographer. There’s always a photographer. He’s the seventh man, says Nurit. The photographer, Brena repeats. We have to find out who took this picture, says the Crime boy, we can put pressure on Casabets’ wife to tell us. We don’t need to ask anyone, says Jaime Brena. I know who took this photograph. Who? asks Nurit. Roberto Gandolfini: he went everywhere with them, they let him tag along but he didn’t belong to the group. He took this photo. Are you sure? Nurit asks. Almost, says Brena. The mother used to make his half-brother take him everywhere, even on the school-leavers’ trip. She made him into a kind of hobble. Can you imagine how fondly those guys would have looked upon the boy? I can well imagine, says the Crime boy, and he’d have had to endure them, too. I’m convinced that he was also at the Chazarretas’ farm that night, says Brena. He is the witness. The avenger. But would the pain of witnessing the barbarities they carried out really have been so great that it warranted killing all of them? the Crime boy asks. What constitutes a sufficient motive for murder, and what doesn’t, is a question that has no logical answer for us, kid, Brena says. If it was him, that would also explain why all the news stories about Miranda’s death in New Jersey only broke a few hours after he told you about it, says the Crime boy. He knew about it before anyone else. What I don’t understand is why he said that the sixth friend was called Vicente Gardeu. Gandolfini knew very well who the sixth friend was and who Vicente Gardeu was. He was sending a warning to Brena, says Nurit; if he got close to the truth, he wanted him to know. Know what? the boy asks. Who he was getting involved with. Gandolfini went to that meeting to size you up, to see who it was who’s going around asking questions about him and his victims, Nurit Iscar concludes. Then, looking at Jaime Brena, she says: He wanted you to know that he knows, that he was already on to you that time you met in the bar. He knew who you were and why you wanted to see him. He was putting out a warning. Or perhaps it was bravado, says Jaime Brena, a way of bragging about what he had done. It was more than that, says Nurit. I think he meant to threaten you. The three of them sit in silence, nobody refuting Nurit’s theory. What next? the Crime boy asks after a while. So far we have conjectures, says Jaime Brena, but we may not be far from the truth. Gandolfini is a powerful businessman, with enough money to pay a hitman, or several of them. He could have taken out a contract for his brother and friends to be tidily dispatched, he could have contracted someone to kill each of them in the most suitable manner. And if that was the case, we’ll have our confirmation tomorrow, Brena concludes. What’s happening tomorrow? the Crime boy asks. I’m going to drop in at his office and run our theory by him. You’re mad, says Nurit. Didn’t I just say that the guy was threatening you and you plan to turn up there, just like that? Don’t think about it, Brena, the boy agrees, he’s a dangerous guy. Not to me; why would he do anything to me? Because you know. I don’t think he cares about that; after all, we’ve got no proof. He warned you off that evening in the bar, he threatened you, Nurit insists. But he didn’t kill me. He’s known that I know for a while and he hasn’t done anything to me, Brena says. I don’t think it’s sensible for you to confront him. To say what, to confirm what? says the Crime boy. Jaime Brena interrupts him: It’s my job, kid, he says firmly. The boy looks worried, Nurit too. It’s crazy for you to go, she says, he’s waiting for you. It’s my job, Brena repeats. The boy looks at him, hesitates, then says: No, it’s not your job, it’s mine now. You’re not on Crime any more. Jaime Brena is not only surprised by the boy’s retort, but disarmed, almost offended. It’s not as if he’d forgotten that he no longer works on Crime, but these last few days with the boy and Nurit Iscar he’s enjoyed the illusion that, despite everything, despite the transfer, despite Rinaldi, despite the stupid reports he has to read and rework, he�
��s been back where he most wants to be. But no. It really was only an illusion. Jaime Brena looks at Nurit Iscar but she says nothing, and it’s clear by her silence that she endorses what the boy has just said, even if only as a means to protect him. He shakes his head a couple of time, sighs, seems about to say something then thinks better of it. Then he opens his wallet, takes out the card that Gandolfini gave him a few days ago and tosses it onto the table. If it’s your job now then there’s the address, he says to the boy. If you’ve got the balls for it. Then he puts away his wallet, puts on his jacket and says: I wish you both luck. Where are you going? Nurit asks. Home, he says. How, though? I’ll walk to the gate and call a taxi or a minicab. Don’t be an arse, says the boy, I’ll take you home. I am an arse, agreed, says Brena, but sometimes being an arse isn’t such a bad thing, if it means maintaining your dignity. And dignity is important on those occasions when everything around you is shit. Jaime Brena makes the gesture of tipping an imaginary hat, this time only for Nurit Iscar’s benefit, then leaves the room. The boy is fretful. I just wanted to protect him, he says. I know that, says Betty Boo, and Brena knows it too. He knows very well. But he’s pig-headed and he thinks he’s immortal, which isn’t a good combination. So what next? the boy asks again. I don’t know, Nurit says, I still don’t know. Perhaps we need a few hours to think things over. Let’s get some sleep and then decide what to do tomorrow afternoon. As Brena said, we only have conjectures, however plausible. What do you reckon? I think that’s a good plan, says the Crime boy. Come to the kitchen, says Nurit, and have another coffee before you hit the road. She shows him the way. You go and plug in the coffee maker while I draw the curtains; I’ll be down in a minute, she says. The boy nods and goes out. But she doesn’t do what she said. Instead she walks back into the room, picks up the card Jaime Brena threw onto the table with Gandolfini’s address, reads it, tucks it into a trouser pocket. Only then does she go to the kitchen to make coffee.

  25

  At eleven o’clock the next morning, the minicab used by the newspaper comes to pick Nurit Iscar up from La Maravillosa. The night before she had asked if it could be earlier, but the taxi driver reminded her that he lived in Lanús and that from there it was a “nightmare journey”. Nurit found herself considering this use of a noun as an adjective. She wondered if it should, strictly speaking, be a “nightmarish journey”, or if it would be better to invert the phrase and add an article: “it’s the journey of nightmares”. She can’t decide. While she’s lost in pointless disquisitions about the use of language (ever since childhood, she’s concentrated on words as a way to ward off anxiety and not think about what’s really bothering her) the minicab driver is warming to his own theme: Do you know what Avenida Pavón is like at this time of day? She doesn’t know what it’s like, but she can imagine. In fact there is no reason for Nurit to feel hurried, other than nerves and a fear that the Crime boy may ring to ask for Gandolfini’s business card, which Jaime Brena left and that he forgot to take. She’s asked Anabella to come to the house again for a few hours and leave it looking spotless; although their arrangement was that she would work only on the weekends, she imagines that she won’t be in La Maravillosa much longer and before leaving she wants to be sure that everything is as she found it. Or better than she found it. She’s got her mobile in her bag in case of emergencies, but it’s switched off: she doesn’t want Jaime Brena or the boy to find her or they’ll try to stop her, as she did them.

  At the barrier, the driver hands back the card he was given upon entering the compound, then the guard checks the boot – “Boot please?” – and they are out. It’s always easier to get out than in, says the driver. And again Nurit finds herself latching onto something as abstract as a sentence, an eight-word observation and wondering if this would make a good title for her next piece (perhaps her last piece?) from La Maravillosa. “It’s always easier to get out than in.”

  Just as the car is exiting La Maravillosa on its way to a meeting with Gandolfini, the Crime boy is leaving his house to set off for the newspaper. It upsets him to think he’s damaged his relationship with Jaime Brena, but he had to stop him, whatever it took. Perhaps he should have found another way to do it, explaining his reasons better rather than resorting to cheap shots, and especially without mentioning his banishment from the Crime section from which, as the boy now knows, Jaime Brena should never have been forced out. But yesterday the only thing that came to mind was: “No, it’s not your job, it’s mine now. You’re not on Crime any more.” Of course, now that it’s too late he can think of a hundred better ways to put it. He could even have suggested that they go to see Gandolfini together. He was scared, though; he sensed that Jaime Brena was hurtling towards disaster. He had to be firm. But – and he can’t forgive himself for this – he knows that as well as being firm, he was cruel.

  As the minicab carrying Nurit Iscar passes through the tollbooth, the boy is getting into a taxi and Jaime Brena is leaving his house, having decided to walk to work. It’s twenty blocks and he isn’t in the best shape, but he feels like walking. He needs to walk. To think. Waiting on a corner at a red light, he finds himself sharing the kerb with a dog-walker. And with his pack of canines: a confusion of leads and barks. That’s something he’d never do – have a dog then get someone else to take it out, in the middle of an inevitably resentful pack. Jaime Brena would like a dog so that he could take it out for walks on its lead. And take it to some park, and have it wag its tail when he got home. It’s the only kind of company that he could stand to have living with him. He has gradually been turning into a solitary man, Jaime Brena thinks as he observes a Dalmatian looking at him with its head to one side and its tail wagging amiably. It occurs to him that he was solitary even before separating from Irina. Solitude comes from within and can be experienced even in the company of others, he believes. Of course those other people, if they aren’t solitary like you, end up losing patience, as Irina did. And he believes it is that, his solitary nature, paradoxically, that links him to other people. The solitude that bonds. Or that joins. A fellowship of loners. With Karina Vives, for example. With the Crime boy, though he doesn’t even want to see him today. With Nurit Iscar. Nurit, he’d be willing to bet, is a solitary woman, even if she is surrounded by friends. A loner to the core; you can tell. Just as you can tell with him. Being solitary is constitutional, a matter of nature, and not something that changes with the passage of time or whenever the house fills up with people. If he and Nurit Iscar had something, some day, if they got together as some kind of couple, they would still continue to be loners at heart. Happy, perhaps, enjoying each other’s company, tenderly demonstrative towards one another, with great sex, but still two loners. And that doesn’t sound so bad to him, he almost thinks that may be the kind of relationship he needs: to share what is left of his life with a woman who’s as solitary as he is. Only a solitary person is able to be at the side of another without feeling the need, the obligation to possess him or to change him. And what’s suddenly brought on these thoughts of Nurit? I’d better stick to the dog, he tells himself.

  Gandolfini’s office is in a tower block in the Catalinas business district, on Avenida Leandro N. Alem, one of several clustered around one side of the Sheraton Hotel. To avoid going the long way round, the minicab driver leaves her on the other side of the road and tells her that he’ll wait for her there, but that if she doesn’t see him when she comes out it will be because someone asked him to move, in which case he’ll drive around the block and come back. Or maybe around several blocks, because a lot of the streets are pedestrianized, you know? Any problems, just call the mobile, the man says. I’ll call if I need to, she promises. As Nurit Iscar crosses the street, the wind almost knocks her sideways. She hadn’t realized that it was such a blustery day. Perhaps it wasn’t. She’s always found it curious how strongly the wind blows in this part of Buenos Aires, and she’s no longer persuaded that the proximity of the sea is the only cause of this climatic phenomenon. She rememb
ers a friend of Paula Sibona – an actress who’s been living in Spain for some time now – who, whenever she felt depressed, would put on a full-skirted dress, stand on the corner of Leandro Alem and Córdoba and wait for the wind to produce a Marilyn Monroe-like effect on her skirt that lifted her spirits and seemed also to lift those of passers-by. Since Betty Boo is wearing black trousers and a white shirt, the worst the wind can do is ruffle her curls, which she keeps trying to pat down: a reflex action, and hopeless in these conditions.