“Hi Peque, what are you doing here on your own?”
El Peque shrugged. If his mother appeared at that moment, he could take his chance to get away and go inside. But there was no one in the courtyard.
“You haven’t been to the club for ages.”
“My mum won’t let me. She wants me to study more because I’m doing badly at school.”
“That sounds like a good plan. School first, fun later. That’s what I always say to Martina.”
“Martina?”
“Yes, to your friend Martina. She’s my daughter.”
“For real?”
“Do you remember I told you that I’d lived here? I used to live here with Martina and her mum. I’ve known you since you were tiny.”
“No, really?”
So Rafael hadn’t come looking for him? He had come to visit Martina?
“Everyone at the club misses you. Well, not everyone. The ones you used to stick the boot into don’t miss you.”
“Everyone sticks the boot in at Breezes.”
“True enough. Anyway, I’m going to see if I can find Martina, her mum and my mother, who’s Martina’s grandmother.”
“Doña Esther is your mum?”
“Yup.”
Rafael started to walk away towards Martina’s house. Then, as if he had forgotten to say something, he came back to the stairs. He rummaged in one of the bags and took out a packet of Rumba cookies. He offered it to El Peque.
“Here, have this.”
Wasn’t he going to say anything about going back to the club? About competing on the railway track?
“Thanks.”
Now Rafael did go to Martina’s. He knocked on the door and Andrea appeared. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and ushered him in. El Peque seized his chance to run back home to his mum. He was shaking as he came into the kitchen, where his mother was making a tomato sauce for the spaghetti.
“Hey, who’s after you? And the cookies?”
“Martina’s dad gave them to me. He’s come to visit her.”
“Martina’s dad? Rafael?”
El Peque nodded, but his mother made the opposite gesture.
IV
He washed the glasses, the snack bowls, the piece holders from Triolet, the game that had accompanied the beer and the aperitifs. He put the sodas back in the fridge. He made a mental note to buy more olives and potato chips. This was Rafael’s daily work. Every now and then he looked over towards the pitch where the boys were training, among them Jonathan, the new player he had brought to the club, which had earned him a bit extra. Thanks to that money he had been able to do a big supermarket shop for his mother and his daughter; he hadn’t chosen any basic items, only ones which could be considered a luxury. He had managed to surprise Andrea, and he was proud of that. And also of having left after coffee without even suggesting that he might stay. He would have loved to touch her, to spend the night with her, to feel her breath close to him, like when they were young. But it wasn’t the right moment. There were various tests he would have to pass if he wanted to get his wife back.
The thrill of having money didn’t blind him to the realization that something strange was happening at the club and that Rivero must be the one responsible. A boy had died. He had seen the look of terror on El Peque’s face when he had bumped into him in the internal courtyard at the boarding house. He had thought for a moment that he was going to run away. He had always got on really well with El Peque, who normally made a point of coming to say hello. He used to like treating him to some fries or a few slices of cured ham. In normal circumstances, El Peque should have been happy to see him. And that confirmed his suspicion that there was something fishy about El Peque’s absence from the club.
He would have carried on mulling over these worries if someone hadn’t interrupted him. He didn’t see her arrive because his eyes were fixed on the boys playing soccer, so he jumped when she spoke. The woman had leaned her elbows on the bar, just like the shorter boys, who had to lever themselves up against the bar to be seen. But size wasn’t a problem for her. She was a tall woman and quite young, young enough not to be the mother of any of the boys at the training session.
“Can I have a word with you?”
In the days that followed, whenever Rafael thought about Verónica this was the image that would come to mind, of a woman whose manner fell somewhere between childish and seductive, whose voice was low, barely above a whisper, whose expression invited confidences. He had the sensation that the woman speaking to him somehow stood apart from her surroundings, not only from the club bar, but from the rest of life too.
“My name is Verónica Rosenthal, I’m a journalist on the magazine Nuestro Tiempo. Could I bother you for a few seconds?”
She could, and for as long as she wanted.
“I’m writing an article on youth soccer in neighbourhood clubs. Have you been working at Breezes for long?”
“For a few months.”
“Always in the bar?”
As a barman – always. But how could he tell her that he now also looked for boys to bring back to Breezes? How to explain that he had a hunch something strange was going on at the club? What could interest a journalist who was hoping to discover the next ten-year-old Messi?
“This club is surrounded by very poor neighbourhoods. Do children from those barrios come to play here?”
“Yes, quite a few.”
“I imagine that they must be dealing with a lot of problems, right?”
“Problems?”
“Yes, neglected children who perhaps don’t go to school or have parents who can feed them adequately, for example.”
“There’s some of that. Really the person to speak to is Rivero, who manages the youth soccer teams.”
He pointed at the pitch, where the coach was giving directions. Verónica asked him how long it would be until the game ended. Rafael explained that training finished in twenty minutes. Then she said that she would wait. She asked for a coffee and sat down at one of the tables. The few regulars who were there stared at her as though observing an exotic bird at the zoo. Verónica got out her cigarettes, then, realizing that smoking wasn’t allowed inside the bar, she left her things and went towards the door. From there she kept an eye on her bag and waited for her coffee. She hadn’t finished her cigarette when Rafael took the order over to her table, but she threw the butt away and came back in to sit down.
“I imagine you know the stories of all the boys who come through here.”
“Children are very transparent. You know right away if they’ve got problems.”
“And what sort of problems have you seen?”
“A lot of children who need an adult to care about them.”
“And the club steps in.”
“Up to a point, yes.”
“The coach is like a father, right?”
“The coach is very important to them. That’s why it’s better if you speak to Rivero.”
Verónica opened her bag and looked in it for something. She took out her card and gave it to Rafael.
“Here are my contact details. I want to write a piece with lots of personal stories. If you remember any and you want to tell me, give me a call or send me an email.”
Rafael barely glanced at the card before putting it into his trouser pocket. He wasn’t mad enough to start confiding his worries in a journalist who wanted to write a paean to community clubs.
V
If he had learned anything in the twenty years that he had been working for García, it was how to solve problems. Ever since his brother had taken him to work with him in Misiones, Rivero had dedicated himself to doing whatever they asked him to do without thinking twice. And to think that he had had his doubts about going to Misiones. He had been thirty then, and had played for Tiro Federal, which in those days was in the second division, and he wasn’t even a first-team player. He couldn’t get to the end of the month on what he earned. He had already lived his moment of glory a few years bef
ore, when he had played in the Platense first team and had scored a goal against Independiente one hour in. He could have continued to play a few more years for a provincial team in some club vying for the Argentino A, but that wasn’t the soccer-playing life he had dreamed of. So he had hung up his boots and joined his brother in Misiones, where García had won the mayorship of Capitán Pavone and money seemed to come easy. And so it did.
He didn’t become a millionaire, though – far from it. Money that comes easy goes easy, too. And Rivero liked getting stuck into all García’s businesses: gambling, drugs, whores. He gambled hard, took a lot of drugs, paid for expensive women. He needed an outlet for the adrenaline his work produced, that excitement of having power, of getting the things García wanted done. In a world without corruption, Rivero would have been the perfect policeman. He liked the law to be obeyed. Except that the law in this case was García’s. And doing his boss’s bidding entailed no shortage of blood, deception, abduction and death. When García felt that Rivero was going too far, that he obeyed too much, he put him somewhere quieter, though no less important for that. He became responsible for moving women to brothels in the rest of the country. Girls from Misiones, from Chaco, a few Paraguayans, who were destined for faraway places in Patagonia or Mendoza; some would even end up in Chile or Brazil. That was good work. There was less gambling, not so many drugs and you could screw the girls for free.
Then came the break-up. The work fell off significantly; everyone did what they could, and García promised that he would not forget those who had been loyal to him. Rivero could be all kinds of things, but first and foremost he was García’s faithful dog. So, when the boss relocated to Buenos Aires, he called Rivero again. This time there weren’t any women to abuse with impunity, but García had found him a job that connected him with his childhood passion: soccer. Even so, he couldn’t recapture that excitement that had gripped him when he was a soccer player. He barely felt that his life was still connected to soccer. At the end of the day he wasn’t there to create a winning team. He was there for something else, and he did it very well.
That day, for example, he had managed to convince the new boy, Jonathan, to take part with Dientes in the railway competition. Dientes hadn’t been at the club in the last few days, but he knew he wasn’t going to have any problem with him, that his participation in the soccer team was a formality. He just wanted a shot at the tracks. He had to keep looking for boys like Dientes or Jonathan. Tough kids, and not those jerks who dream of being Maradona and never get to be anyone.
He went to the bar room for his Fernet. Rafael brought it to him and told him that there was someone waiting to interview him. Only then did Rivero glance over at the table where the woman was. The person looking back at him was more like a girl. Rivero made a gesture inviting her over and, at the same time, Rafael went away. She stood up, picked up her bag and jacket and came towards his table. A very nice-looking girl. Rivero felt a shiver run over his body. The feeling of a predator spotting its prey.
The woman in question was called Verónica something or other and she was writing an article on children who play soccer in neighbourhood clubs. She was from Nuestro Tiempo magazine. Rivero had a vague familiarity with the publication in question. He didn’t like the sound of it. It was a campaigning magazine or something, one of those ones that defend human rights and love slinging mud at the police. But, as he said to her himself, he couldn’t say no to such a beautiful lady. Let her go ahead and tape an interview with him.
She asked him about the importance of developing the players from a very young age, about how community clubs act as feeders for academies at the big clubs. She asked questions with a confidence that Rivero found irksome. He answered in a way that exaggerated his achievements, his triumphs as the head of the Spring Breezes youth teams. The journalist had to see him as a successful coach. As he listened to her talking so confidently, he was thinking that it would be good to come across a girl like that in a bar, a few whiskies under his belt. He would whisper in her ear the kind of thing that class of woman wants to hear from a man.
“I imagine that, as coach of the team he played in, you must have been devastated by the death of Vicente Garamona.”
It was like suddenly braking, hitting something and feeling the airbag blow up in your face. For a second, or longer, he couldn’t breathe.
“I don’t understand the question.”
“Vicen, the little eleven-year-old who was knocked down and killed by a train about ten days ago.”
“Yes, that was very hard for everyone.”
“How did you find out?”
“How did I find out about what?”
“About his death. Did someone tell you, did you see it on TV?”
“I can’t remember now. It was very hard. I think one of the boys who was friends with him told me.”
“It must have been difficult talking to his mother. Did you speak to her?”
“Yes. It was a tragedy. Listen, Señora —”
“Verónica, please call me Verónica.”
“Listen, Verónica, this is all still too terrible. I don’t see that it’s particularly relevant to your article.”
“It’s true. You’re right. But, as you say, it’s so awful that I couldn’t not mention it. If you’d rather, we’ll leave Vicen to one side and talk about nicer things.”
The journalist asked him a couple of questions and he answered automatically. He was trying to work out who this woman was, what she was looking for, how she knew that Vicen had played at this club if that information had not been published in any article and hadn’t even been mentioned in court. Something was going very wrong. It was a relief when, with a smile, she told him that she had enough material for her article. She stopped recording and took out a packet of cigarettes and a lighter from her pocket. She shook hands with him and, as she was leaving, as though remembering some inconsequential question that had slipped her mind before, she said:
“Ah – I’m so sorry to take up more of your time, but do you know Juan García?”
“I don’t know any Juan García.”
The journalist laughed, as though he had made a very good joke.
“Come on, Rivero, we all know at least one Juan García. The same goes for Juan Pérez.”
“I don’t know any.”
“No worries. He’s the coach of another team. I thought perhaps you might have worked together or played in the same team.”
She turned round and went. Rivero was left staring at her ass, a purely instinctive reaction, because he wasn’t thinking about that ass as it moved towards the door. In fact, he wasn’t thinking of anything. He was simply repeating to himself: that girl is crazy. And finally he added to the mantra: and she’s dangerous.
VI
Four days after the journalist had come to the club, Dientes turned up to train with the team. Rafael was surprised to see him make his way to the pitch and report to Rivero. What was El Peque’s friend doing at the club? Or, come to think of it, why hadn’t he come while El Peque was still playing for Breezes? He would have liked to go up to him, have a chat, but he was afraid that such a move would be frowned on by Rivero. Especially as it was clear that emotions were running high. Rivero had asked him about the journalist and he had answered that he had barely spoken to her. Whether Rivero believed him or not wasn’t important. The atmosphere in the club had changed and Rafael didn’t want to call attention to himself.
That afternoon he saw Dientes running in with the other soccer players. He came up to the bar with his friends to get a Coca-Cola but Rafael didn’t say anything to him. He decided that the next morning he would go to the boys’ house.
It was strange going over there without a plan to see Martina. He reached the door of the house then waited for a few minutes, hoping that Dientes or El Peque might come out or walk past. Finally he gathered the courage to open the door onto the street, which was never locked. He walked into the courtyard and didn’t see anyone there eith
er. He went over to the stairway and up to the terrace. There was El Peque. This time the boy didn’t look terrified to see him, as he had last time. That was in his favour, at least.
“Peque, would you come with me to the shop on the corner? I want to buy some desserts for Martina and I’ve no idea what to get.”
They went out together without seeing anyone and walked as far as the shop, where Julián was at the till and greeted Rafael with great warmth. El Peque picked out desserts, jellies, crème caramel, madeleines and filled cookies. In every case, Rafael separated one item off and put it in a bag for El Peque. Seeing his bag fill up made El Peque jump for joy. Not until they were back outside did Rafael bring up the subject of Breezes.
“Your friends at the club miss you.”
“I’ve already told Rivero I’m not going back. Has he sent you to get me?”
“No, he didn’t send me. Nothing like that.”
“I don’t want to play any more.”
“Dientes has started coming.”
El Peque didn’t answer. He walked along concentrating on the paving stones, as though his life depended on keeping count or not stepping on any cracks. Rafael decided to be more direct.
“Peque, I don’t know why you decided to stop going to the club. I also don’t know why you’re so afraid. You stopped coming right at the time that Vicen died, and the truth is, I don’t know if one thing is connected with the other. But I’m worried that Dientes is going now and that he’ll end up as terrified as you. Or that something bad could happen to another boy in the club.”
“That’s nothing to do with me.”
He was so little, so vulnerable in this adult world, so in need of protection. Rafael felt the urge to give him a hug. To make him feel that he was safe. He shouldn’t have to live with that fear.
“Peque, you’re too young to understand these things, but with every passing day I feel more responsible for Martina’s well-being. And I also don’t want anything bad to happen to you two. You can trust me as though I were your father.”
The Fragility of Bodies Page 22
