The Fragility of Bodies

by Sergio Olguin

  She opened a blank document and typed: Growing number of vehicles in the city and rest of the country. What can be done about streets and roads collapsing under the sheer weight of cars? And she stared at the computer screen as if this document itself might suggest an article. That was when Giménez spoke up:

  “Ha, this guy had the right idea. Listen up,” he said to the others, but none of them looked away from their screens or phones.

  Verónica did look up, in fact, but her colleague didn’t notice, because he was reading from the screen.

  “A railway employee killed himself by jumping from the roof of a building at 1000 Talcahuano. He fell onto the road and the traffic on Talcahuano was disrupted for more than an hour. Isn’t that brilliant? Instead of throwing himself under a train to screw over his co-workers, the guy decides to piss off the bus and taxi drivers.”

  “I bet he killed himself for love,” ventured Verónica, looking back at her barely begun document. “The girlfriend or the lover probably lived in that building or the one opposite and he was trying to get her attention. They’re all like that.”

  “All men?” asked Bárbara McDonnell, the journalist who sat opposite her, while typing frenetically.

  “Let’s just say all suicidal psychopaths,” Verónica clarified, not wanting to embark on one of those men-versus-women polemics that Bárbara seemed to relish.

  “You’re wrong,” said Giménez. “This report says the guy left a letter that said he was sorry for the crimes he had committed. Apparently he was a serial killer or something.”

  A murderer-suicide. A criminal with a guilty conscience. It didn’t sound bad. There might not be much for a journalist to get her teeth into, but all the same, the story had potential. Crime wasn’t Verónica’s speciality, but she had always been drawn to lurid stories. She dreamed of writing a feature on a murderous cannibal or an Umbanda priestess who took the blood of virgin girls.

  “Where did you read the thing about the railwayman?”

  “It’s on the Télam wire.”

  Verónica read the news agency story and saw a possible article. Tiempo Nuevo’s crime correspondent had left a month ago for a national newspaper, so crime stories were now distributed haphazardly among the other journalists. She had a hunch that Giménez would want to write about the suicide himself, and thought she’d sound him out.

  “How come there are never articles on suicides?”

  “To avoid the copycat effect. Apparently when details are published about how someone committed suicide, it sparks a trend and a load of morons go off to do the same thing. Until recently La Nación wouldn’t even print the words ‘he committed suicide’. You had to put ‘he took his own life’.”

  “What a bunch of idiots. So, are you thinking of pitching a piece on this guy? The wire story is quite skimpy.”

  “No. Deaths are tiring.”

  “I might do something, then. Even if only to write ‘he committed suicide’.”

  That was Giménez out of the way. She read the story again. What was it in these twenty lines that particularly caught her eye? Perhaps it was the fragment of the letter they had reproduced. It was addressed neither to his family nor to a judge and yet it asked forgiveness for his crimes, specifically for the death of a child. So was the letter a confession, or an explanation?

  Patricia Beltrán came out of Management with the newsroom secretary. She went over to where the journalists sat and asked them to go to the meeting room. Verónica quickly typed up a summary of the wire story and printed the page along with her other article suggestion. With any luck, she wouldn’t have to do that piece on the exponential growth of car ownership in Argentina.

  III

  Verónica came out of the editorial meeting with a headache and took an aspirin from the packet she kept in her desk drawer. Patricia had listened to the pitches and handed out articles. She wanted Verónica to write a piece on the rising popularity of home births.

  “My grandmother gave birth to my mother in the middle of a field,” said Patricia. “I thought that humanity had advanced since then, but it seems that some rich girls want to go back to the dark ages.”

  Verónica didn’t dislike the idea, although the subject of motherhood was uninteresting to her. It was something that might happen to her one day, in a few centuries. But the thought of giving birth in her bedroom with the help of a midwife horrified her as much as it did her editor.

  She had already agreed to hunt down some prospective New Age mothers when Patricia looked at her page of notes and said:

  “Hmm, not a single crime story. Anyone got anything?”

  Since nobody else replied, Verónica spoke up.

  “A railway worker committed suicide last night.”

  “We don’t cover suicides unless it’s someone famous.”

  “The man left a note saying that he was killing himself because he couldn’t live with the guilt of having committed murders.”

  “So he was an unconvicted murderer? Who had he killed?”

  “That seems to be the case. Télam hasn’t got much yet, but apparently there was a child among his victims.”

  “Right, now you’re talking. If you can find out more this could be a double-page spread.”

  “Shall I go with the guilt-ridden suicide, or the stupid expectant mothers?”

  “Start with the suicide.”

  First she needed to get hold of the letter so that she could examine it. It shouldn’t be difficult to get a copy. Lawyers and judges were generous with journalists, so long as it wasn’t a sensitive case, and even then they were often willing to share evidence, witness statements or whatever. Any time a judge or lawyer put up objections, Verónica brandished her surname: Rosenthal. When she introduced herself this way it was rare for a member of the judiciary not to ask:

  “Any connection with Aarón Rosenthal?”

  And she, with a carefully calibrated tone of resignation, would admit:

  “His youngest daughter.”

  Often they had been students of her father, or they had had dealings with the Rosenthal firm in connection with some lawsuit, or there would be some other link of which she was unaware and which she did not wish to know about.

  The agency story named Pablo Romanín as the judge in the case. She already knew him from some other trial. He was in his late fifties, sported a fake tan and looked more like a yuppie than a judge. Nevertheless, he seemed to take his work seriously. She looked up Dr Romanín’s mobile number and called him. The irascible tone with which he answered changed entirely when she told him who she was.

  “My wife always buys Nuestro Tiempo. How’s the magazine going? You see it everywhere.”

  “It’s going pretty well. Doctor, I’m calling you about a case that was heard in your court. The one concerning the railway worker who killed himself by jumping from a building on Calle Talcahuano.”

  “Ah yes, a colleague of yours from Télam came to see me this morning.”

  “Right, they put out a wire story. I’d love to get a look at the letter.”

  “No problem. I’ll ask someone to email it to you. You’ll get it last thing today or first thing tomorrow.”

  “Is anything known about the crimes referred to in the letter?”

  “We’re just looking into that at the moment. Why don’t you call me tomorrow? I’m sure I’ll have more news then.”

  “If you don’t mind, I’d rather come by your office, just to make sure I’m getting the full picture.”

  The judge sent his regards to her father before ending the conversation. Until she got hold of the letter and a little more information from the judge, Verónica didn’t have much to do. She stayed on in the newsroom for a couple of hours, sending emails, and later on had a meeting with a journalist from the Politics section, who was considering investigating further links between the Ministry of Health and the medication scam in public hospitals. Verónica didn’t tell him that she had already checked out all the possible ramifications of th
e case and not found anything. She gave him the telephone numbers and email addresses of the sources which he thought could be useful to him and which she had already dismissed as unhelpful. An experienced journalist would have realized that, if Verónica had found anything worth pursuing, she would be writing a piece about it herself. But the Politics editor – who was also a deputy editor – was too young for his position and very wet behind the ears. What he lacked in pretension, he made up for with arrogance. Verónica couldn’t stand him, for professional reasons as well as personal ones.

  It was six o’clock in the evening by the time she had finished with everything. Outside it was dark and the rain was relentless. She called a radio taxi. She wanted to see the building from which the suicidal man had jumped.

  IV

  Twenty-four hours after Alfredo Carranza had fallen into the void, there was no evidence of the event at 1000 Calle Talcahuano. It was as though the rain had washed away all traces of his death, for the neighbours’ peace of mind. Verónica studied the building’s facade from the opposite sidewalk and thought it particularly grim. A good building to jump from, she thought. The front door was open, which was quite unusual in Buenos Aires.

  Verónica crossed the road and entered the old luxury hotel, now converted into offices and apartments for professionals. There were two people in the lobby: an older man who seemed to be monitoring those who came in without intercepting any of them, and a young receptionist who was talking on the phone. Verónica approached the girl and waited until she had stopped speaking.

  “Sorry to bother you – have you got a minute?”

  She explained that she was a journalist and that she was trying to find out more about the person who had jumped from the roof the previous evening. Like most people in such circumstances, the girl was happy to talk to the press. But unfortunately she didn’t know very much. She said that nobody in the building seemed particularly upset. The girl wanted to talk, to provide some helpful detail. She told Verónica that she hadn’t seen the body – she wasn’t brave enough – but the doorman had. He was the other person working in reception but, apart from a horror-movie description of the body dashed onto the sidewalk, he had nothing useful to contribute. Verónica asked if she could go onto the roof and was told that she couldn’t, that the police had cordoned off the area.

  By the time Verónica left the building the rain had stopped. She had learned nothing useful about Carranza. She felt as though she were at the start of something but was moving more by instinct than in response to any particular lead. She didn’t even have a copy of the letter. At this stage, it was better to be patient and wait until the next day, when she would meet Judge Romanín.

  Her mouth was dry. She wanted a drink. She was close to Milion, but didn’t relish the thought of running into some of the regulars (including an ex, suitors of various ages and marital statuses and acquaintances whose status varied, depending on what they were drinking and who they hoped to seduce that night). And if she went to one of the nightclubs in El Bajo, like La Cigale or Dadá, she’d be pestered by those creeps who jump on any girl who happens to be alone. She decided to walk down Avenida Córdoba as far as Calle Florida and go to Claridge. At least nobody would bother her there. She liked the bar in Claridge because you always saw little old ladies having tea alongside provincial businessmen pouring alcohol down their throats as a coping mechanism for life in the capital. Anyone at Claridge under the age of forty could be taken for a child. And she was still a long way off forty. She was barely into her thirties and still had the best part of a decade to enjoy feeling like a child at Claridge.

  She sat on one of the stools at the empty bar.

  “A double Jim Beam with ice.”

  An argument in favour of drinking alone was not having to defend her preference for bourbon over Scotch, and especially not having to endure the look of disgust on her friends’ faces when she gave her order. They, meanwhile, would be asking for a Sex on the Beach or a second-rate mojito made with mint, or any other cocktail which they could preface with the word ‘frozen’. The disadvantage was the lack of a friend to chat to while she sipped her drink and gazed at the many different kinds of bottle that lined the shelves against the back of the bar. She called Paula. Her friend answered, then immediately started shouting at someone else.

  “Juanfra didn’t want to have a bath,” she explained. “But it’s fine. He’s in the bath now. Think hard before you decide to have children.”

  “It’s not in my immediate plans.”

  “One can never be sure with you. What news of the Bengali Sailor?”

  Verónica stirred the ice cubes in her bourbon with one finger. Her friends had a habit of not naming men in conversation unless the relationship had become formal. So long as they were lovers, occasional boyfriends or guys who they liked but who didn’t give them the time of day, they were given a nickname based on some absurdly exaggerated characteristic. A redhead might be called Fire Lord, a doctor Dr House, a premature ejaculator Mr Speedy and a rock musician Charly García, even if he looked nothing like that Argentine icon. The Bengali Sailor (whose name came from a song by Los Abuelos de la Nada) was in fact quite a successful architect who had a really impressive yacht that he had taken her out on as far as the Uruguayan coast. Every time they had had sex it had been on board the boat, which had led her friends to draw all kinds of conclusions about his needs, limitations, fetishes and fantasies. It was true that her relationship with the Bengali Sailor (who for a short time had been known as Sandokan after Salgari’s fictional pirate but who was better suited to the epithet Paula had given him) had turned into something habitual for Verónica. At one point they had seen each other most weeks. But for a month now he hadn’t called, emailed or texted. She had left a message on his phone and sent him an email. But nothing.

  “He’s shipwrecked. He drowned before reaching Carmelo.”

  “So, are you upset?”

  She stirred the ice cubes in her glass again, then dried her finger on a paper napkin. She would have liked to smoke a cigarette, but it was forbidden in the bar. Verónica hated not being able to smoke in bars.

  “I liked the boat, for sure. But if the best he can do is send the odd email or make an occasional phone call, it’s his loss. The guy can’t commit.”

  She liked talking to her friends, especially to Paula. It wasn’t the first time she had gone to a bar and called one of them up. Their conversation might be interrupted if the friend in question had to stop to pay a taxi driver or help a child with some task or attend to an inconvenient boss.

  They chatted for half an hour. By then the glass was empty. Verónica thought of asking for another Jim Beam but decided to go home instead, to see if the suicide note had come through. She really needed to buy a phone that would allow her to check emails wherever she was.

  V

  By the time she set off for the Palace of Justice at Tribunales the next morning, Verónica had already read the railwayman’s letter – sent to her in the early hours by an assistant of Judge Romanín – several times. The letter had been typed up and saved as a Word file. She would need to get a look at the original, Verónica thought, to see the man’s handwriting and to study the marks on the paper, see if there were any emphasized words, if his hand had shaken on writing a particular phrase or if his writing had any other particular characteristics.

  Basically the letter was a confession. Carranza said that he had killed four people, one of them a child. He asked for forgiveness from his family and from the victims. He seemed to linger most on the death of the child, as though the other deaths were less important, or this death had broken something. A pact with accomplices? Were the other deaths in some sense natural, and the child’s a murder that defied logic? What kind of logic, then?

  She reached the Tribunales law courts early. It was an area of Buenos Aires she knew well: she had gone to high school at Instituto Libre de Segunda Enseñanza, almost opposite the Palace of Justice, and her father’s law
practice had been on Tucumán since before she was born; it was a solemn-looking office which she had sometimes visited with her mother and sisters before or after going to the cinema. She knew every bar in the area, every bus stop, every bookshop, every stall in the book market in the Plaza Lavalle, every tree in that square. She would never have claimed she was brought up in Tribunales, but she had certainly spent many of the days of her childhood and adolescence in and around its buildings.

  By contrast, the Palace of Justice was still a mystery to her, even though she had often needed to go there in search of information. In the past it had been the place where her father waged epic battles, like a prince in his enemy’s castle. At least that was how she had imagined it, especially when her father disappeared for weeks, physically or mentally. At those times, even when he was at home, he was like a kind of ghost who spoke on the phone or received guests in the library. Every now and then he would return to normal life, smiling and triumphant. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him defeated. All the city’s lawyers converged in that building full of stairs and doors leading nowhere, an example of a kind of demented architecture rarely seen in Buenos Aires. Now she too was climbing the marble stairs towards the office of Judge Romanín, and every corridor filled with lawyers and clients revived that sense of mystery she had felt as a child about the castle in which she sometimes lost her father.