people!”
He was through the doorway and into the garage before she finished her
warning. The thrill of sitting behind the wheel of the little red sports car was
an unexpected rush. It had been over four months since he had driven any
vehicle at all, what with being sequestered with the National Team, and then
suffering his foot injury. He wanted to put the roof down and feel the wind
flying through his hair, but Oli’s parting caution had reminded him of his
newfound celebrity status. Besides, with all this traffic congestion, I would never get
up enough speed to feel even the slightest hint of a breeze, he rationalized.
He would leave the roof and windows up during his travels today. It was
not worth being recognized and having a swarm of autograph-hungry fanatics
climb all over his red beauty. There would be time another day for a ride with
the roof down, perhaps in the country. Possibly a trip to Pergamino to tell his
English grandmother that he was going to be living in London for the next
two years.
‘Maybe Grandmother Lydia would be willing to travel back to the old
country and visit me once I get established. She could introduce me to those
funny English relatives she used to tell stories about. Yes, a trip to Pergamino
will definitely be on the agenda for later in the week!’ His left foot depressed
the clutch, and the red rocket bolted out of the garage and through the front
gates of Casa San Marco.
As was the case with his brother Lonnie’s fate, Renaldo had no way of
knowing that he would never take that drive to Pergamino. At that very
moment, his grandmother was being admitted to Hospital Rivadavia in
extremely grave condition. It had been Nana Taseo, the head housekeeper at the
estancia, who had insisted on the Señora leaving Pergamino to seek immediate
medical attention.
Lydia had initially dismissed her strange malady as nothing more than a
case of the flu and refused to have a doctor attend to her. But by the twenty-
fourth of June, her condition had deteriorated to such a degree that Señora Taseo
had alerted Florencia De Seta in Buenos Aires. The housekeeper had asked for
emergency assistance to be standing by if her employer’s health continued to
slide downhill. The matriarch was barely conscious by the afternoon of the
twenty-fifth, but she insisted on having the television set moved into her
bedroom. There was no way that she was going to miss her grandson playing
in the most important soccer game of his life.
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RENALDO
Within an hour of the final whistle confirming Renaldo as a world
champion, Lydia De Seta had lapsed into a coma. Nana Taseo had hoped that
a good showing by Renaldo would lift the lady’s spirits, as well as her waning
constitution. For that reason, she had waited until after the match to make
her report to Florencia. The instant that Argentina was crowned champion of
the football universe, every telephone circuit in or out of the capital city was
jammed indefinitely. Hundreds of the working press had to get their stories to
the wire services. Thousands of ordinary citizens wanted to share their euphoria
with far distant friends and relatives. Nana Taseo found it futile trying to get
through to Florencia, and she would not sit idly by waiting for a miracle to
happen. She conscripted Oliviero Brown to make Lydia’s old, but impeccably
maintained Bentley ready for a speedy trip to Buenos Aires. She then bundled
up the elderly lady in warm blankets and had her carried to the waiting vehicle.
With Oliviero at the wheel, and Nana fretting over her unconscious patient
in the rear compartment, the makeshift ambulance sped off into the Pampas
night.
The drive was unusually slow and arduous, however, due to the celebratory
tidal wave that had engulfed the entire populous. Roads were jammed with
overcrowded vehicles. These were more often than not piloted by extremely
intoxicated drivers. No one was in a hurry, everyone wanted to party, and the
whole country seemed headed toward Buenos Aires. The trip from Pergamino
took over twenty frustrating, critical hours to complete, and the telephone lines
remained overloaded that entire time.
Florencia De Seta would have no idea that her mother-in-law was in
Buenos Aires until Oliviero Brown arrived at Casa San Marco bearing the news
late in the evening of the twenty-sixth. Brown’s message was blunt and to the
point.
“Nana Taseo requests that Señora Florencia and a priest come to Señora
Lydia’s hospital bedside immediately. She doesn’t have much time left!”
Luckily, Lydia De Seta was made of stern stuff. Even at her advanced age,
she was fighter and would not easily succumb to the assassin’s foul hand. She
lay near death in Hospital Rivadavia for two days while the top pathologists
in the land tried to analyze the source of her strange affliction. It was a visit
from her grandson, Renaldo, in the evening of the twenty-seventh, that was
unofficially credited with saving the lady’s life. The sparkle seemed to return
to Lydia’s eyes when she suddenly awoke and recognized the handsome figure
standing at her bedside. She then managed to raise herself ever so slightly from
her prone position and whisper the word “champion” in his ear.
The young man stayed the entire night in her private room, and with the
dawn of the twenty-eighth of June, the medical staff was amazed by Lydia’s
improved condition. She would remain in the hospital for a further two weeks
523
JAMES McCREATH
to recover her strength and allow for further tests to be taken, and by mid-July,
she was back at Buenos Recuerdos in much improved health and spirits.
The sudden disappearance of kitchen maid, Esquela Perez, while Lydia
was in the capital never became connected to the elderly lady’s illness. It would
turn out that the grateful servant had been overzealous in her desire to please
Pablo and the German doctor. She had increased the recommended dosage of
‘medicine’ threefold to speed up the desired results. That small gesture had
sent the English lady spiralling downward much faster than anticipated. It also
tipped Nana Taseo off to the seriousness of her employer’s situation, thus saving
her life. When word reached the Pampas that Lydia De Seta would survive her
ordeal, Pablo was quick to rid the world of his sweet little accomplice. A simple
note was left at Buenos Requerdos, informing the staff that Esquela Perez had
eloped with a gaucho from a neighboring estancia. She would never be heard
from again.
The young Porteño had never been this terrified in his life. The monster
surged from behind, almost engulfing them at times. The red, white, and blue
torrent was gaining on them, hurling insults along with rocks and bottles.
He knew all too well what would happen should they be overtaken, for this
monster was both human and inhuman.
“Father?”
Renaldo sat bolt upright in bed. His body was covered in perspiration.
Simone, awakened from a deep sleep by her lover’s terror-stricken cry, reached
for the lamp on her
night table.
“Renaldo, what is it? Were you having a bad dream? Are you alright? Tell
me what I can do?”
She had never seen him so white with fear, his complexion as pale as the
sheet that they slept on. Simone pulled the blanket around his shoulders and
stroked his brow. He was shaking, but not because he was cold.
“I saw my father! Saw how he died! Simone, I never realized until the doctor
told me. We both were chased by angry mobs leaving a football stadium. It
happened to me in Córdoba last December. I was lucky and managed to escape.
The same thing happened to my father in England back in 1966. Except he
didn’t get away.”
He sat on the bed wrapped in the covers, swaying slightly back and forth
from the waist. Letting out a deep sigh, he continued.
“He was leaving Wembley Stadium with his friends from Argentina after
England beat us out of the World Cup competition. The game had been very
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RENALDO
rough. Our captain was sent off after an argument with the referee, but he
refused to go. He had to be led away. The English hated our team, and our fans.
They taunted my father and his friends the whole game, calling them ‘greasy
spics’ and ‘grease balls.’ Some of the group from Buenos Aires took offense and
tried to stand up to the hooligans. That only made things worse.”
Renaldo’s voice was hoarse, his speech little more than a strained croaking
sound.
“When the game was over, even though England had won, a large gang
of thugs waited for the men from Argentina outside the stadium. Then they
attacked them!” He was sobbing now, coming to grips with all the bottled
up emotions and fears that he had stifled since that terrible day. Simone was
speechless, unable to comprehend who or what had turned her brave, insatiable
lion into a frightened lamb. Renaldo tried to regain his composure, but managed
only half sentences through the teary spasms that raked his body.
“The English . . . set upon him and his friends . . . and beat them severely!
My father . . . broke free . . . but they ran after him yelling, ‘spics out, spics out!
Kill the bloody spics!’ They had almost caught up to him again, when, he ran
. . . between two parked cars. Right into the path of a large truck! Oh, God!
My poor father!”
Simone held him in her arms, reassuring him that there was nothing to
fear now, that his father was at peace, and that he would have been so very
proud of his son’s accomplishments.
“Who told you this terrible story, my love? Who would want to say such
things on the eve of your great triumph? Who is this doctor you speak of? He
must be some kind of sadistic madman to tell you these things!”
“No! No, I went to him. Dr. Quinquela, this afternoon. I made him tell
me everything. He did not want to reveal how terrible things were in London
that day. He was an associate of my father’s from the Children’s Hospital. He
was at the stadium with him, he saw him die on that street!”
Renaldo had regained a large part of his composure now. Talking things
out had calmed him considerably. He looked at Simone directly for the first
time since awakening.
“I had to know! I had to find out the truth before I could ever set foot on
English soil. My mother and everyone else had always sheltered me from the
truth. I know now that she equated my father’s death to everything connected
with the sport of football. It is the reason she was so fearful every time I laced
on a pair of football boots. It all makes sense finally.”
“But how can you possibly go to England knowing what those insane
animals did to your father? The same thing could happen to you as a player.
The English hooligans have a terrible reputation, and you and Ramon will be
the first foreign players to play in their league. You will be marked men!”
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JAMES McCREATH
Now it was Simone who was trembling, tears welling in her eyes. She had
done her duty as Astor Gordero had commanded, but she was truly in love with
this gorgeous man and didn’t want to see him in any danger.
Renaldo kissed her tenderly and told her not to fret. He was feeling better
now, now that he had come to grips with the unanswered questions from his
youth. Simone pulled him down to her and snuggled up under the bedding.
Renaldo turned the light off as he felt the warmth of her skin once more beneath
him. Together they lay in the silent darkness, reorchestrating their passion in
thoughts, too spent now for actions. Concern for her young paramour’s future
evaporated as Simone drifted off to sleep, content in the knowledge that she
had created a master lover.
They had explored unimaginable heights that second night together,
and he had pushed her over the brink more times than she had ever thought
possible. It was no longer necessary to instruct her pupil in the ways of love, for
he had taken the initiative and embarked upon his post graduate thesis.
Simone had slept like a baby after her flame blew out the last candle and
cradled her in his strong arms. That is, until his agonizing cry had shattered
her tranquil euphoria.
Renaldo’s sleep had been fitful at best. It wasn’t the newfound knowledge
that Dr. Quinquela had revealed. Not initially at least. It was the blonde vision
and voice that kept appearing in his mind’s eye. Even while making love to
Simone, Mallory Russell’s countenance kept flashing like a neon sign in the far
reaches of his brain.
What was happening to him? Two days ago he could hardly talk to a
woman without feeling self-conscious about his inexperience with the fairer
sex. Now his long dormant hormones had manifested themselves in a plethora
of salacious cravings. How could he make love to the most beautiful woman in
the whole country while thinking of another? Did this mean that he was truly
a man now?
Renaldo De Seta knew that the answers to his many questions about life
and his future lay thousands of miles away, across the Atlantic Ocean. He had
to travel to England to confront the real person living inside his body.
He had been convinced that Argentina held no further goals to accomplish
at this point in his life. He was a world champion athlete, courting a world-
renowned starlet. What more could he do here? His life had turned into a thing
of which fairy tales and novels are made.
He had forged a peace with his mother, and while he worried about his
wayward brother, there was nothing that he could do for Lonnie if Lonnie did
not reach out for help.
Of course, unknown to his little brother, Lonnie De Seta was far beyond
reaching out for anything, ever again!
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RENALDO
Renaldo could deal with his father’s death at the hands of the English, for
he himself could have died at the hands of his own countrymen in Córdoba.
He felt the need to visit Wembley Stadium in person, to see where his father’s
tragedy took place. After that, he was confident that those demons would be
exorcised forever, and he could accept the English without fear or par
anoia.
The future for Renaldo De Seta, world champion, had been rolled out in
front of him as if it were a giant red carpet. It would soon be time to take the
initial steps down that glorious road.
As the star of Argentina’s World Cup championship stood on the threshold
of the unknown, drifting back into a much calmer sleep, the words that had
brought him success, fame, and fortune played over and over again in his
mind.
It was like counting sheep. There was the jovial, jowled face of his mentor
repeating his catchphrase. It was the phrase that had taken him to the highest
echelon of the sporting world, and he hoped it would continue to keep him
there, in his new endeavor.
Head and feet as one! Head and feet as one! Head and feet as one!
The End
52
an intimate explOratiOn OF the meaning
OF hOpe:
Without hope, Renaldo would never have been written. At a time
in my life when despair could have easily overwhelmed me, I was
driven to produce this story of a special young man living in a
country that seemed to be without hope. As fate would have it, the events that
actually happened in Argentina in 198 gave an entire nation more hope than
they had ever experienced.
There have been two events in my life that have shaped my destiny. The
first was the sudden death of my mother, Myrtle, when I was nineteen and she
was only forty–six. The second was the suicide of my wife, Carol, a week after
her fortieth birthday.
In the first instance, I was the eldest of four children, my sister being only
seven at the time. I felt that I must set an example and give my two brothers
and sister hope that our mother had found eternal peace, and her spirit would
always be with us.
In the second instance, I had two young daughters, aged ten and twelve,
that needed constant reassurance and understanding that the life their mother
had chosen to surrender was just too much to bear, and that she, like my mother
before her, was now at peace, and in heaven watching over them every day.
It was the hope that I could make a difference in the lives of the people left
behind that inspired me to carry on and shun despair. I left university shortly
after my mother’s death, and guided our family business for the next forty
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