The Fragility of Bodies

by Sergio Olguin

  No place featured more than once in the reports: Floresta, Villa Luro, Morón, Ituzaingó, San Antonio de Padua. The chronological order did not coincide with the order in which the stations came, although Verónica didn’t ascribe particular importance to that detail.

  On the other hand, it frustrated her that there was no logic regarding the days and weeks. Two incidents had occurred on Tuesdays, three on Wednesdays, one on a Monday and the other on a Thursday. They hadn’t been during specific weeks, either. Lucio had been so sure that they happened on Thursdays that she had assumed that the boys would always be on the tracks that day. It was impossible to establish a pattern of behaviour, except that the incidents didn’t happen at weekends. But when she tried looking at the same information another way, she began to detect a logic that increasingly pointed to the existence of a criminal organization behind these incidents: the organizers might deliberately be changing the routine after every accident to escape detection.

  She had seven cases. Now she needed to do something with them. But what if there was nothing there? What if these were, after all, unconnected incidents, or she couldn’t even manage to work out enough about each one to move forward in the investigation? She felt as though she were throwing stones into the sea in the hope of hitting a dolphin. She had spent too much of the day trawling through cases. Better to leave it there. Not to think any more, at least for a few hours. She lit a joint and ran a bath. She thought of opening a bottle of wine, then decided she needed something stronger. For want of a Jim Beam, she poured herself a good measure of Jack Daniel’s. The first swig of bourbon or Tennessee whisky always seemed horrible to her, much more horrible than any other whisky, but the more you had, the better it got, and it had a relaxing effect, like a massage inside your body. Tomorrow will be another day, she told herself.

  III

  At the age of twenty he had been offered two options: to enter a criminal court as an unpaid intern or to start working in a law practice, in both cases on the recommendation of his uncle, who was at that time a judge in a federal court. Federico opted for the law firm, and that decided his fate. Working with Dr Aarón Rosenthal meant much more than getting a good job. It could set him up for life. Very soon Dr Rosenthal discovered that his young employee was brilliant and responsible. More the latter than the former, according to at least one other member of the firm, who observed how Dr Rosenthal (none of his own three daughters having opted for a career in law) adopted Federico. In any case, Federico graduated as a lawyer at twenty-three, nearly three years after joining the firm, and grew within the practice until, nearly a decade after his arrival, he was made a junior partner.

  Soon after he started work, he met Verónica. From time to time Dr Rosenthal’s youngest daughter went to visit her father, and she was only a few months younger than him. Federico fell in love with her immediately, but two years went by before he plucked up the courage to ask her out, after learning that she had broken up with her boyfriend. That date was not a success and it was a long time – months – before Verónica agreed to go out with him again, one humid summer night. Without much hope of anything happening between them, Federico hoped to come across as agreeable, if not necessarily seductive. It was a surprise to him when the night ended with them renting a room in a love hotel. Even more surprising, she didn’t take his calls the next day, or any of the days that followed. Federico replayed those hours of passion in his head and could find no sign that their romance had been destined to last only one night.

  Three months later she turned up at the office. By then Federico had progressed from bewilderment to annoyance but, when he saw her, he fell in love again. He persuaded her to meet that weekend. This time she did not disappear after a night of sex, but neither did Federico get what, deep down, he really wanted: a stable and lasting relationship which he – and everyone else – could call official. When he tried to pressure her into a more formal liaison, her response was clear: there were other men and always would be.

  Verónica was present at Federico’s degree ceremony and he never left her side when Señora Rosenthal died. He met one of her boyfriends (an insufferable pedant who wrote books, or edited them, or copied them – he was never sure what exactly he did) and she had been happy when Federico showed up with a new girlfriend. They hadn’t had sex again, but they maintained a bond which could be described as fraternal, if to fraternity we add a dash of incestuous desire. At the end of the day, for Dr Rosenthal, Federico was the son he had never had.

  For that reason it didn’t strike him as odd that Verónica should ask to meet him in a bar close to the practice, which was on Uruguay and Viamonte.

  As usual, he arrived first. He didn’t mind that, because it was a pleasure to see her arrive, weaving a path towards him between the tables. Verónica always seemed to him like the personification of wind; a small hurricane enveloped her, propelling her forward with the grace of a model. Now that hurricane was sweeping over him, covering him with her perfume as she sat down opposite him.

  “I need your help,” she said, getting straight to the point, as was her style. In that respect she was identical to her father.

  “I was born to help you.”

  “I’m still on the case of the ex-Sarmiento Railway Company.”

  “Was the guy I passed on to you useful?”

  “Quite useful.”

  Verónica passed him a folder and he leafed through it. Inside was a printed page and a few newspaper cuttings.

  “All the information is on the first sheet. I’ve also made a note of where it all came from, in case you need anything else.”

  Federico studied the first page: there were dates, references to the Sarmiento train and to children who were not named but simply given a number. Verónica explained:

  “I’m writing an article about children who have died or been injured on the Sarmiento line. I think that there could be a criminal organization behind these supposed accidents. But all I have are these pieces, which were published in newspapers.”

  “And you want me to find out more.”

  “See if you can get anything. Addresses, lawsuits, whatever there is.”

  “I don’t know if I’ll be able to turn up any very trustworthy information. I mean, nobody investigates an accident unless there are insurance companies behind them trying not to pay up. If you’re lucky and there is something like that, you can even get the blood group of the man who puts the barrier up and down. But if not, be grateful if it says ‘Boy, approximately ten years old, identity unknown’.”

  “Anything you can get me is going to be useful. I feel as if I’ve got absolutely nothing on this.”

  “I wouldn’t mind if you had absolutely nothing on, to be honest.”

  “Come on, Fede, don’t start flirting when I know that you’re going out with the goody two shoes from reception.”

  “True. But she isn’t a goody two shoes.”

  “She is. I know one when I see one.”

  IV

  One day she was going to write an article on masculine susceptibility. You didn’t need to be a psychologist to see that Lucio was annoyed about his low profile in the piece about trains. She explained that when the subject was controversial it was important to protect the source.

  “Am I a source?”

  “Sometimes yes, sometimes no. In this particular case you were a source, and a very useful one.”

  She explained, too, that she had decided, with great regret, not to include the story of his family, because it didn’t chime with the tone of the piece. That that story would be wonderful for a family saga. She also told him that there was no mention of the children who played on the tracks because she planned to save that for another article. He didn’t seem to believe her. But Verónica decided not to press the point: Lucio would realize that she wasn’t lying when she went back to ask him for help again. And that happened just a few days later.

  I need to see you for the trains/children article. Can I call you? Verónica t
exted him. They arranged to meet that evening in La Perla, where they had first had coffee together.

  Verónica took a copy of her papers with the seven cases she had selected. She showed them to him.

  “I’m working on something to do with what we saw that night. I compiled information on these other incidents that took place on the Sarmiento railway in the last five years. Were you there for any of them?”

  Lucio looked through the folder carefully. He shook his head.

  “Not for any of them, but I remember them all.”

  “I’d like to speak to the train drivers who were there.”

  Lucio thought for a long time, then finally said:

  “No. I don’t want to put you in touch with people from work. I want to keep what we have separate from the rest of my life.”

  “Lucio, I’m not asking you to introduce me to the guys you play soccer with on Saturdays. I just need information for my article, and it’s very likely your co-workers have it.”

  “I know everything about these cases. Nobody knows more. They ran over a boy; that boy was always with someone else. Some were smashed to bits, others were mutilated. What do you want? A description of what it feels like to kill a kid?”

  Did she know exactly what she was looking for? Perhaps he was right that the drivers would have nothing more to contribute to her investigation. She took the folder out of his hands.

  “Whatever you think, Lucio, but don’t act as though I’m meddling in your life.”

  Lucio said nothing. She lit another cigarette. She seemed annoyed as she blew out the smoke, looking at him. Finally Lucio said:

  “The boy who wasn’t injured.”

  Verónica opened the folder and showed him the case.

  “Carlos, the one driving the train, said something. He works in maintenance now and he told me this once when we were in the workshop together. He said that the train made contact with the child. It hit him but by some amazing luck the impact threw him off the track. Carlos only managed to stop the train a few seconds later. Inside the compartments people were screaming because they were hurt, and some of them started panicking. Carlos got down out of the train without knowing what to do. He walked towards the back of the train, where he thought the child would be lying, but when he got there the boy had gone. One of the passengers who had also got out shouted: ‘To top it all off, the fucking bastards drive off in a car.’ It seemed that the boy had run off and got into a car that was waiting for him.”

  “Did they manage to read the licence plate?”

  “No. And Carlos didn’t even see the car. It was just what he heard the passenger say.”

  V

  Damned coincidence. While she had been sitting sprawled in the armchair, thinking of the conversation she had had that night with Lucio in La Perla, the music system was playing Nina Simone’s version of “The Other Woman”. It made her feel stupid.

  She wasn’t going to cry herself to sleep like the song’s protagonist. It had been a mistake to arrange that meeting in the bar. What had she hoped to achieve? Why did she insist on deluding herself like this? Lucio had stopped being a useful source of information some time ago. Wanting to put him back in his place was an adolescent way to deny what was happening: she was feeling increasingly close to him. She needed to see him, to spend time with him. She loathed with a passion the moment when he went away and left her behind. She knew the rules of the game. She wasn’t going to be so childish as to try to change them, but she couldn’t help feeling annoyed, anguished, beseeching. Even if her way of beseeching was stupidly asking him to meet for a talk about work. “You’re losing the plot, Vero,” she said aloud to herself, and it sounded more like self-pity than self-criticism.

  Worst of all, that night when she had asked him for facts, contacts, memories, none of which he had been prepared to give her (so what would he give her, then? His body? His married-man-father-of-two act?), they had abruptly finished the conversation, gone outside and said goodbye with a quick kiss on the cheek, as they always did in the street, then gone their own ways. He to eat home-made pasta with his little wife (because wives always cook from scratch) and she to the loneliness of her apartment. And she would have liked him to go home with her, they might have fucked or not, drunk beer or wine, they would have talked and looked silently at each other’s bodies. True, afterwards he would have gone back to his wife, but at least…at least what?

  VI

  That morning there was an email from Paula reminding her that the following night they were getting together at her house, with the girls, “for an asado”. She didn’t give any more details – there was no need. It was to be a gathering of women, and for that reason they had chosen to eat asado – that ultimate symbol of masculinity, and one they were ready to sacrifice on the barbecue in Paula’s patio. They didn’t need men. At least not for grilling meat.

  Patricia popped up in the chat and asked her how the investigation was going. She said that she had some good leads.

  – I told Rodolfo Corso about your piece.

  – Why did you do that?

  – Because we’ve worked together on various newspapers, he’s a good friend and he might have some ideas.

  – I don’t need ideas. I need facts.

  – There’s an art to fact-finding.

  – Thanks. I’ll bear that in mind.

  – Rodolfo isn’t going to steal your piece. Relax. I told him about your investigation and he said that he had some information that could be useful.

  – That might be the fruit of his imagination.

  – By their fruits shall ye know them. It says so in the Bible. Write to him. Have you got his email?

  – I’ve got it somewhere.

  She wrote to Corso immediately:

  Dear Rodolfo,

  How are you? The last time we saw each other was at that Edgar Morin press conference, wasn’t it? Pato mentioned that she told you what I’m doing at the moment and that you might have some ideas. I’ve already got it pretty well tied up, but any extra help is always welcome. A thousand thanks, in advance. Warmly, Vero.

  An hour later there was an email in the inbox which said:

  Dear Vero,

  Long time no see. Your memory must be worse than mine, though. We actually last saw each other at Patricia’s birthday party. It’s true that you were a bit tipsy, and perhaps you don’t remember seeing me there. I was also drunk and performing erotic dances on the coffee table. I read the piece you wrote about suicides on the railways. I liked it, even if it was a bit overdramatic. I said as much to your boss when we had lunch yesterday and I told her this story, which might be useful to you.

  Years ago, when you must have been in secondary school, I carried out an investigation for Coloquial on human trafficking in Misiones. Specifically in a little town called Capitán Pavone. I discovered that the mayor at the time, Juan García – a staunch supporter of President Menem, by the way – was involved in the trafficking organization. In the criminal underworld, this fine man was something like a wholesaler. Whatever you wanted, he could provide it: traffic in women, traffic in babies, slave labour for large estates. He also controlled the betting market and must have been involved in drugs, although I never managed to pin that one on him.

  Around that time there had also been a very serious accident involving the only train that passed through the town each day. You’re young, so you’ll be surprised to hear that there was a time in Argentina when trains ran all over the country. It was precisely around that time that they stopped working. Do you remember our distinguished President Menem’s promise, “if a branch line strikes, that branch line closes?” The thing is, that train ran over a little boy of eight or nine years old – I don’t remember his exact age. Then somebody told me that it hadn’t been a straightforward accident, but in fact a kind of competition in which people bet on boys as though they were horses. They told me that the person behind this scheme, once again, was Mayor García. I didn’t look into it because I
already had so much material against him that it was enough to put him inside for life three times over.

  The trafficking story reached the national press (thanks to yours truly) and the mayor had to relinquish his post and leave the town. Obviously, the local courts absolved him of all charges, but his political career in Misiones was finished.

  That’s not the end of the story. A couple of years ago somebody told me that García was living in Buenos Aires and that he was still dabbling in politics. The person who told me that he had seen him said that he was “working” with drug dealers from the Comuna 8 district, right down in the south of the capital. He keeps a low profile, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s doing business with narcos and pimps. I’ll leave you to discover which political party he’s involved with.

  I hope one day you’ll take me drinking in one of those trendy clubs you and your friends go to (see – I know everything).

  As soon as she had finished reading his email, Verónica wrote back:

  Dear Rodo,

  Thanks a million for this story, which provides a very useful background to my investigation. You’re right about Pato’s birthday. We shouldn’t drink so much, so instead let’s meet up for a lovely afternoon tea some time – more fitting for people like us. Warmly, Vero.

  Verónica opened a blank document and called it “Juan García”. Into it she copied the text of Corso’s email. Her journalistic instinct told her that she was going to fill it with a lot more information than her colleague had provided.

  VII

  This time Federico and Verónica met in the Petit Colón, the bar where lawyers often went with their clients.