“And I what?”
“You dedicate your first novel to me.”
This game of cat and mouse went on for a while. Verónica found the writer amusing, but she hadn’t yet put him to the test. For some time now, whenever she was in two minds whether or not to go to bed with a guy, she tried an experiment (if she was sure, she didn’t make him undergo any kind of intellectual assessment, needless to say). The test consisted in seeing if they had anything in common: the same taste, the same knowledge about something, the same passion for something trivial. On such flimsy evidence was she willing to persuade herself of a man’s virtues. For example, if she said, “Navigating is necessary,” the man should know that this was a line from the poem by Fernando Pessoa and reply, “Living is not necessary.” It was like a password, a more interesting way to admit someone into her life. Once, in Spain, driving through Murcia with a Spanish colleague, she saw a road sign that said JAEN 70 KILOMETRES and murmured to herself: “Andaluces of Jaén” and the journalist immediately recognized the line from Miguel Hernández, and in the same tone, continued “haughty olive growers”. She fell in love with him on the spot. And now the writer who lived off his workshops was working hard to get her out of that bar and take her somewhere else. At that moment “Friday Night, Saturday Morning”, the Nouvelle Vague version, was playing in the bar. She would make it easy for him. When the chorus started, she made him stop talking and said, translating the words of the song into Spanish:
“I go out on Friday night and I come home on Saturday morning.”
“Are you inviting me to spend the night with you?”
No, no, no. There had been so many possibilities for him: he could have followed the lyrics in English and realized that she was translating them. He could have recognized the band and said, “so you like Nouvelle Vague.” She would even have accepted him expressing a preference for the original version by The Specials. The writer took none of these options. And nothing he said from that moment on earned him a single point. Verónica ended up going home in a taxi with Marian and Spanish Pili.
VIII
On Sunday night Carina called her. It was a short conversation. She suggested they meet on Monday morning at her home, in Crucecita, which Verónica understood to be a district of Avellaneda.
She arrived at the house on Calle General Lemos a little before eleven o’clock and asked the taxi driver to wait for her. The house was typical of those in Greater Buenos Aires: it had a ground floor that could be used as a workshop or some other business, with living space above it. Carina invited her to come upstairs and led her into a sitting room that must not have changed for twenty years, although doubtless it had become increasingly cluttered over time, with photos, souvenirs, the odd cuddly toy and some trophies which Verónica found herself studying.
“Tae kwon do,” said Carina, seeing her interest. “My son is an associated member.”
“How old is your son?”
“Fifteen.”
They sat down in armchairs separated by a glass coffee table. Carina was not just visibly tense, she seemed subdued, too. It was hard to tell whether that was because of her brother’s death or if a lack of vitality was part of her personality. Verónica explained why she wanted to talk about her brother. She told Carina that she had read his letter and that she believed his suicide was a consequence of the situations and pressures suffered by drivers in his profession. That her brother should have been protected by the company, that they should not have let him be exposed to so many accidents.
“Alfredo was in a really bad way after the first one,” said Carina. “He used to be a cheerful guy, he liked to have a laugh. But after he ran over that man who had thrown himself in front of the train, he changed completely.”
“Was that not long after he had started working on the Sarmiento line?”
“He’d been a driver for just over a year. Before that he was in the Roca division, but in the workshops.”
“And after that first accident he didn’t think of going back to the workshops, or something similar?”
“He said that drivers earned more money than non-specialist mechanics like him. He had a family to support.”
“I imagine that with each successive accident his morale got worse.”
“The company assigned him a psychologist. They treated him as though he were mad when what he felt was an unending sadness.”
“Has anyone from the company been in touch with the family?”
“I think somebody contacted my sister-in-law. But what could they say when they were the ones who had forced him to keep driving those trains?”
“According to the letter, it was after the fourth accident, when he hit the child, that he hit rock bottom.”
“Well, what would you expect? He never spoke about it, but my husband and I saw him that night. We went to the hospital with my sister-in-law, because he had been taken there in a state of shock. He was completely out of it, poor guy.”
“He had anticipated the possibility of the accident with the boy – do you know why?”
“No, but my sister-in-law told me that he had been very anxious towards the end of his life.”
“As if he knew what was going to happen.”
“Alfredo had really lost his way by then. Not even his friends from the railway could reassure him. Much less that doctor they sent him to.”
“Did he have good friends at the Sarmiento railway?”
“He had a lot of friends from work, but only one he was close to, I think. Hang on a minute.”
She went over to a small table in a corner of the room and returned with a framed photograph. It showed a group of men, before or after a soccer match. They were all wearing shorts, posing with the goalposts visible in the background. Some smiled. Carranza looked seriously at the camera.
“Here he is with the other drivers. This one” – she pointed at one of the men – “is his friend, Lucio.”
“He was at the funeral, wasn’t he?” Verónica said, taking the photo from her.
“I think they all were.”
Studying the picture, Verónica felt something strange. Months later she would identify this as a premonition of all the things that were going to happen to her. But at that moment this slight shiver came merely as confirmation that her instincts in the cemetery had been correct: she had identified the right person.
“Do you have a telephone number for his friend?”
Carina got up to fetch a notebook that was lying on the stereo. Verónica traced with a finger the face of the friend in the photograph.
“What did you say his name was?”
“Lucio. Lucio Valrossa.”
“Lucio,” she whispered, not knowing that it was a name she was to repeat so many times, and in so many different ways.
Carina passed her the telephone number. They spoke for a little while longer, then Verónica left the grieving woman alone with her brother’s shadow.
2 Two Brave Boys
I
His name was Cristian, but people called him Peque, or El Peque, and two months ago he had turned ten. They called him that because he had been very little – pequeño in Spanish – when he joined the gang of friends, so little, in fact, that he could not now remember who had given him the nickname. It was his street name, coined by the boys who used to gather on the corner of Zelarrayán and Cañada de Gómez, but now he was El Peque to everyone, apart from his mother, who still called him by the name with which he had been baptized. Even his two younger brothers called him El Peque, and he didn’t turn around if someone other than his mother said “Cristian”. So when he went to join the Spring Breezes neighbourhood club and they asked for his name, he said “El Peque”.
“Your full name,” said the woman in charge of filling out forms.
“Cristian Arrúa, El Peque,” he said, and that was how he was registered at the club.
El Peque had learned to play soccer with the boys from his block and honed his art in the school of h
ard kicks. He had learned to duck and dive, dodging the assaults on his knees and ankles. He knew that he was good at not flinching, and he learned how to hit back, too. In time, he became the one using his strength to dominate in the streets and squares. He had been on the receiving end of a lot of rough treatment and was ready to return all of it. To kids of any size. El Peque could kick, and hard.
At ten years old he already knew that he would never be a skilful midfielder or a dazzling goalkeeper; but he also knew that he could be an unbeatable defender, a leader who could protect his teammates when the game turned dirty and violent. He had learned to dodge kicks and to dole out punches when the occasion called for it. All the boys in the neighbourhood wanted him on their team.
Every so often they played in a park in Ramos Mejía against boys from other neighbourhoods. Getting to the park meant walking twenty blocks and sometimes they had to wait an hour to play a game, but it was worth it. There were actual goalposts and the field was much bigger than what could be recreated on the streets of his barrio, or the Plaza de Santa Cruz. Once, on the biggest field, they had played eleven-aside, just like professional soccer players.
It was in the park in Ramos Mejía that El Peque first met Rivero. The guy was watching them play and came up to him at the end of a game. He congratulated him and told him that he reminded him of another player, who must have been from a different time, because El Peque didn’t recognize the name. Rivero told him that he managed the junior teams at Spring Breezes, a youth soccer club that was nearby, in Lugano itself. He said that he would love El Peque to come and play for the club. That he should go along with his parents the following Thursday at six o’clock.
“What did that guy want?” Dientes asked him. His nickname was actually Dientes de Rata – “Rat’s Teeth” – but for more than a year he had been beating up anyone who called him that, so now the boys from the barrio had shortened it to “Teeth”.
“He wants to take me to play for a club, Spring Breezes.”
“And who’s ever heard of them? They’re not even in the D league.”
“I still want to go.”
“Go then, dickhead.”
“But he said I have to go with my folks. My dad’s God knows where. And my mum will throw a fit if I ask her to take me to the club.”
“Where is it?”
El Peque showed him the card that Rivero had given him.
“Ah, I know that street. It’s really close. I’ll take you. I’ll tell them you’re an orphan and I’m your older brother.”
Dientes was two years older than El Peque and exactly the same height. El Peque thought that sounded like a great idea, too.
II
Dientes and Peque lived in the same building. It was a tenement house, in fact, shared by four families: there was Dientes’ family – his mother was the landlady – and El Peque’s, as well as an older lady with her daughter and eleven-year-old granddaughter, and a single man. El Peque’s mother had two rooms and shared the bathroom with the other two families, whereas Dientes’ family had a bathroom to themselves. And a real kitchen, unlike El Peque’s, which was incorporated into the main room. The house, which was on two floors, also had two internal courtyards and two roof terraces. The smaller of these terraces was Dientes and El Peque’s favourite place.
The boys had one thing in common: neither of them knew much about their fathers. El Peque’s lived in Corrientes and they hadn’t seen him since moving to Buenos Aires. Dientes’ father had died a few years ago. El Peque had heard from some gossipy neighbour or another that Dientes’ father had been riddled with bullets by a gang of men who hated him. Why they hated him and had killed him he didn’t know, and he had never felt able to ask his friend.
Dientes remembered perfectly the day, seven years previously, when El Peque had arrived at the house with his mother, who was pregnant with one baby and holding another. He also had two siblings, but they were older. One had already left home, while his fifteen-year-old sister never acknowledged his presence unless it was to shove him, shout at him or pull his hair. His grandmother also lived with them, but she was always ill. Sometimes they had visits from his older brother, his godfathers and some uncles who lived far away. Nobody ever visited El Peque’s family, though.
At home they didn’t call him Dientes, but Kevin, which was his real name. His mother rented out rooms, while El Peque’s was a cleaner. They both went to the same school in the afternoons. In the mornings Dientes’ sister was supposed to look after them, but in fact the one making sure that nothing disastrous happened to them was Dientes’ mother.
After lunch, the five of them set off for school, which was ten blocks away: El Peque and his siblings, Dientes, and Dientes’ sister, who went to the high school on the same block. The teenager went with them because her mother insisted on it, but as soon as they had rounded the first corner she crossed the road so that she didn’t have to walk with them. After school they came home without Dientes’ sister, who walked back with her friends. The four children took their time on the return journey. Sometimes they played soccer or stopped to watch some older children play a game, or they swapped cards or simply took a circuitous route to make the walk home longer. The one thing El Peque couldn’t do was let his brothers out of his sight. If they got too far away, he and Dientes yelled at them to stay close, delivering a sharp rap to the head when they came back within reach. They often preferred to take the little ones home, leave them there and go out to the plaza on Avenida Castañares.
III
There was something that Dientes and El Peque wanted: money. A bit of cash. Enough to buy a Coke whenever they wanted one, or cookies, or chewing gum or a hot dog. Not designer sneakers, or mobile phones or a bike. They would have been happy with very little. But neither mother gave them any money. El Peque’s, because she didn’t have enough to live on; Dientes’, because she was scared that he would use the money to buy drugs and get addicted. Every so often Dientes got a few coins off her or a two-peso note, but not much more.
“We need to do a hit,” Dientes said to El Peque in a low voice.
“A hit? Who do we need to hit?” asked El Peque, so loudly that he irritated his friend.
“A hit,” said Dientes, suddenly adopting the voice of his teacher, “is a big job where we make lots of dough.”
“Like that’s going to happen.”
“I’ve got a biiiiiig plan.”
Dientes and El Peque had a job washing the car of a neighbour, a childless widower who lived two blocks away. This man had a hardware store on Avenida Zelarrayán and got them to wash his car every Saturday morning. He paid them two pesos each. To make it easier for the boys to get around the car, the store owner would bring it out onto the sidewalk and connect a hose to a tap that was inside the garage.
“Inside the garage there is a box, this big” – Dientes opened his arms as wide as they would go – “full of cables. The side gate, the one into the garden, is never locked.”
“And what do we want with a box full of cables?”
“The cables, dickhead, have got copper in them. We strip them and sell them to El Pardo, who buys metal. Reckon on fifty pesos each.”
The reason the store owner didn’t bother locking the garden gate was because on the other side was an untethered German Shepherd which barked at everyone who walked past the house. Whenever Dientes and El Peque washed the car, the dog was around and would come up to them and sniff them; otherwise it left them alone.
“All we have to do is go there, grab the cables and come out as if nothing had happened.”
They decided to go the following morning, a Tuesday. At that time the owner of the car, dog and cables would be at his shop.
They met, as they almost always did, in the larger of their building’s two internal courtyards. Dientes said simply, “Let’s go” and off they went, under the weak June sun. El Peque hung back a little, as though Dientes alone knew the route to the store owner’s house.
When they ar
rived, they stopped outside the gate that led to the garden. Beyond it lay the dog, on a mat in front of the door to the house. On the left and also very close to the mat was the other door, the one to the garage, which the store owner never locked. The dog barely looked up when the two boys came to the gate. Dientes opened it without taking his eyes off the dog. The animal stood up and watched them. Somebody had told Dientes that if a dog wagged its tail it was because it was happy. The dog was wagging its tail, so he repeated the only words that had crossed his lips in the last few minutes.
“Let’s go.”
They walked slowly towards the garage. The dog merely watched them. It had stopped wagging its tail. That seemed like a bad sign to Dientes, but he decided not to say anything about it. He went straight to the garage door and opened it as casually as if he had spent his life opening it, as if his entire purpose in life was to open garage doors. He felt the dog’s gaze on his shoulders. Without moving, he looked around for the box. It was in the same place that he had seen it the previous Saturday.
“Help me lift it,” he said to El Peque.
The box wasn’t heavy, but it was too square and too big for one person to carry alone. It was only when they had lifted the box, one on each side, that they became aware of the dog. First they heard it and then they saw it. It was at the gate, blocking their exit from the garden. It was barking while cocking its head towards them, as though pointing at them. Its black snout seemed to grow until it was all they could see.
They stopped moving. Dientes let go of the box and El Peque, who had been clinging to it, lost his footing and almost fell onto the cables. Then Dientes took something from his trouser pocket, showed it to the dog and threw it to the other end of the garage, as far away from them as from the animal. The dog raced towards it, picked up whatever Dientes had thrown and started chewing it. The boys seized their chance to make for the door, but El Peque was not yet out of it when the dog was back again and bit his leg. This time he was the one who dropped the box. He started to scream. Dientes grabbed a hose that was lying on the floor and used it to strike the dog’s back, forcing the animal to let go of El Peque and retreat into the garage. They got out and closed the door, leaving the dog – which had started barking again and was hurling itself against the door, trying to break it down – shut inside.
The Fragility of Bodies Page 4
