The Fragility of Bodies

by Sergio Olguin

  “How did Julián know they were beating you up?”

  “He’s got security cameras. They point in every direction from the supermarket. He put them up after he was threatened by the Chinese mafia.”

  “If there’s a recording, then the faces of the people who attacked you will be on it.”

  Verónica made Rafael call Julián, who confirmed that there was indeed a recording of the attack. She called Federico and asked him if there was anyone in the office available to remove a recording from a security camera.

  “And since when are you a client of this firm?”

  “I am the heiress apparent of sixty-five per cent of the firm.”

  “Divided among three sisters.”

  “My twenty per cent is still more than the ten per cent my father gave you, which was given with our consent – and in the secret hope that you’d end up married to me.”

  “OK, you’ve convinced me. Give me the details and I’ll get someone to go and pick it up. What’s the danger that someone will want to steal that recording?”

  “Medium, perhaps high.”

  “I won’t send the office boy on his own, then. He’ll go in the company of a gentleman we find can be very persuasive in these situations. I’ll send you the bill afterwards.”

  After the call, she went on with the questions. There was one crucial detail of which Rafael knew nothing: when the next contest would be. He couldn’t go and talk to the boys; he couldn’t risk returning to the neighbourhood without endangering his life. But she could.

  “If I understood correctly, your family lives in that house. Could someone put me in touch with the boy who took part in the competition and with the one they’re lining up to do it next?”

  “My daughter is friends with them. She’s in school at the moment, but I’ll call my mother later and talk to Martina.”

  Verónica put a frozen pizza into the oven and they ate it together for lunch. Neither of them seemed to be hungry and more than half was left over. At three o’clock on the dot Daniela arrived. Verónica withdrew to her room, so that her sister could examine Rafael in peace.

  II

  Martina was going to wait for her at the door to the boarding house. Rafael had talked to his daughter from Verónica’s mobile; he had told her that he was fine but that he wouldn’t be able to visit her for a few days, that his friend would be arriving shortly because she wanted to have a chat with Dientes and El Peque. That she should introduce them. Afterwards, Rafael spoke to his mother; he told her that he had a special job on and that it would be a few days before he could get over to see her.

  A few hours earlier, Daniela had told her sister that to the naked eye, there didn’t seem to be anything seriously wrong with Rafael. Bruises, the odd cut, but no compromised organs or anything like that. All the same, she recommended that he have a scan to rule out internal injuries, that he have a tetanus injection and take some ibuprofen for the pain.

  Downstairs, as she was leaving, Daniela warned her:

  “I don’t know what you’re involved in, Vero, but you’re on thin ice. It takes several people to hurt a man that badly. If they hit you even half as hard they’d leave you dead or brain-damaged.”

  Verónica tried to allay her fears with some excuses invented for the occasion, but her sister saw right through them. They had been brought up together, after all.

  When Rafael and Verónica were alone again they started planning their next steps. For her, the most important thing was to find out the date of the children’s next assignation on the tracks. For him, the priority was to let Dientes’ mother know this date, so that she would keep him at home. He insisted, too, that they find out who the other contestant would be. Verónica didn’t agree: she argued that if Dientes didn’t take part they would simply replace him with someone else and the problem would be the same, the difference being that they wouldn’t be able to do anything to intervene. However, if Rivero still thought that Dientes was going to jump, there was a chance of trapping them. Him and his accomplices. Accomplices whom Rafael did not know and who would go unpunished if the contest were interrupted at this point.

  It was after six o’clock in the evening when Verónica arrived at the tenement house. A young girl was waiting in the doorway. It was Martina.

  “I told them that a friend of my dad wanted to talk to them. They’re up on the terrace.”

  Martina led her to the foot of the stairway. Luckily they didn’t come across anyone else. Verónica was uneasy. She didn’t like dealing with children. It was a different story with her nieces and nephews. She had known them since they were born and had watched them growing up. Even then, there were lots of times when she found her patience tested. Children seemed to her like aliens who spoke their own language and had feelings she didn’t understand. That was her conviction as she climbed the stairs up to the terrace. There she found Dientes and El Peque sitting on the rooftop, looking serious, as if they had been sent to see the teacher or, worse, the principal. She wasn’t sure whether to give them a kiss on the cheek, as she had done with Martina, or let a scarcely audible “hello” suffice as a greeting. She decided on the latter option. The children remained sitting where they were.

  “You’re Dientes, you’re Peque, right?” Her intuition was spot on. “Rafael has told me a lot about you and I want you to know something straight off. I’ve come to help and protect you. You mustn’t be scared. And whatever you say won’t go any further than me. And Rafael, of course. But if necessary, not even your mothers will hear about it.”

  Verónica felt like smoking but repressed the urge, not wanting to set a bad example. Remembering that she had some Cherry-Lyptus lozenges somewhere in her bag, she located the packet and offered them one each. They accepted and Verónica said that they could keep the packet. Dientes put it into his trouser pocket.

  Better get straight to the point.

  “Do you two love Rivero?”

  The boys’ eyes widened. They didn’t know what to say.

  “Seriously. Do you love him? Do you wish he was a member of your family?”

  “Rivero is very demanding,” said El Peque.

  “Boys, will you let me get away with swearing? I think Rivero is a bastard.”

  El Peque laughed and Dientes shook his head, as though disapproving of his friend’s reaction. But they both seemed to soften in response to what Verónica had said.

  “I know what Rivero did to you. I also know what he did to lots of children before you. He’s been doing this for years. You boys weren’t the first. And Vicen isn’t the only boy who’s died.”

  El Peque hugged his knees tighter.

  “I know you did it because you wanted to make money. But Rivero is a bad person who hates children like you, who doesn’t care if they get killed or lose their legs because a train ran over them.”

  “But it’s fine if you jump quickly,” said El Peque.

  “When I was your age, my dad wanted to teach me to fish. You know those rods that have a hook on the end? I don’t know if you’ve ever seen how sharp they are. Anyway, my dad told me that, however careful you are, everyone who goes fishing gets jabbed by the hook at least once. And because I’m a scaredy-cat and I hate injections or any kind of jab, that was enough to stop me. I never, ever went fishing. Not even that one time.”

  “What a cissy,” Dientes observed.

  “Yes, too right. But I never got jabbed by a fishing hook. Now, imagine that a train, that enormous train coming towards you, is going to hit you at least once. But this time there’s no second chance. You’re not going to get a few stitches because a fishing hook sliced open your finger. Sooner or later, you’re going to be killed by a train.”

  “Did your dad get cross when you didn’t want to go fishing?”

  “A bit. He got over it, though. It’s true that if you don’t compete, Rivero will be cross, but I’ve already told you he’s a bad person and that he only wants to make money out of you. And what I want is to make Rivero pay
for all those children who died and for the suffering of people like you, Peque, who had to see some horrible things.”

  “And if he gets hold of us afterwards?”

  “I’m not going to let him get hold of anyone.”

  “Are we going to kill him?” El Peque asked.

  “We could tie him to the rails and let a train run him over,” Dientes suggested.

  “I’d love to do that, but we can’t. We have to settle for seeing him go to prison. And for that I need your help. I need us to be like a superteam. Are you on board?”

  They both nodded.

  “The first thing I need to know is when you have to go to the railway track with Rivero.”

  There was a silence. Verónica didn’t say anything more. It was just a matter of waiting.

  “Tuesday night.”

  “And on Monday you have training at the club.”

  “Yes, tomorrow – Friday – as well.”

  “And how’s he going to transport you to the tracks? Do you know yet where it’ll be?”

  “He didn’t tell me the place. They’re coming to pick me up on the corner of Zelarrayán and Gordillo.”

  “They picked me up on that corner too, and they brought me back again afterwards. But the second time I got scared and I ran off.”

  “So how did you get home?”

  “I ran like a thousand blocks, I ran past the whole train with everyone looking out at me and, when I got to a corner, I stopped for a breather. And Rivero turned up there with another guy.”

  “Do you know what the other guy was called?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. You’re going to go to training tomorrow and on Monday as if nothing’s happened. And on Tuesday you’re going to go with Rivero to the tracks. You’re not going to see us, but I promise you that that day we’re going to be there the whole time watching to make sure nothing happens to you. And before you get onto the tracks, when all the bad guys are there together, Rivero and his friends, that’s when we’ll appear.”

  “Are you in the police?”

  “No, I’m a journalist.”

  “And are you going to come with other journalists?”

  “No, people who work in the justice system will go with me. Don’t you worry. Do everything he tells you to do. We’re going to be taking care of you. Do you know who the other boy will be?”

  “No, he didn’t tell me.”

  “And how much does Rivero pay you?”

  “Twenty if you lose and a hundred if you win.”

  Verónica looked for her wallet and took out two fifty-peso notes. She gave them one each.

  “This is for helping me put the superteam together. Don’t tell anyone you’ve spoken to me.”

  Verónica left the boys on the terrace. Martina was at the door, as though acting as lookout should any adult arrive.

  “Your dad told me that you’re very pretty, and he’s right.”

  “I look like my mum.”

  Verónica leaned forward to give her a kiss on the cheek and went towards the taxi, which was waiting for her a few yards from the boarding house.

  III

  As she was on the way home, her mobile rang. It was Lucio.

  “Why don’t we meet?” Verónica suggested spontaneously, adding that it couldn’t be at her apartment because somebody was staying with her.

  “The priest?”

  “No, no priests.”

  “Your sister, a boyfriend?”

  “It’s hard to explain. It’s to do with work.”

  “A colleague from work?”

  “Stop trying to guess. It’s someone connected with the investigation.”

  “I thought you’d given that up.”

  “I’m deeper in than ever, Lucio. You wouldn’t believe how far I’ve come since that time you came with me to Lugano. I think I’m about to nail some really nasty sons of bitches.”

  “And you’ve got someone living with you.”

  “Come on, let’s meet somewhere close to a hotel.”

  IV

  During the time they were lovers, there were times when she didn’t exist. Lucio completely forgot about her existence. As if he were experiencing selective memory lapses, he could go for days without thinking of her, without anything bringing her to mind. Then she would suddenly pop up in some absurd context: while he was playing soccer, in the queue to pay a bill, while ordering a pizza. For no particular reason, she would start to be on his mind all the time. He wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything but the prospect of seeing her again. And that state could last for hours or days, until an exchange of text messages confirmed a new date. But on the days when he didn’t think about her, Verónica simply formed no part of his life. If anyone had been able to read his mind at those times, they would never have found out that he had a lover.

  Since walking out of the bar, however, Verónica had taken up a more permanent place in his brain. It wasn’t that he thought about her all the time, but she was always present, like a malaise, a muscular ache, a low fever, present enough to stop him acting naturally in any situation. He kept repeating her name to himself, or whispering it. At night when he went to sleep he tried to think consciously of her, he wanted to take her out of that dark place in his head. The next day he would wake up with the same sense of disquiet.

  He couldn’t go on like this. He decided to call her. She seemed not surprised, but perhaps a little distracted. He would have preferred open rejection, or anger, to the feeling that she was thinking of something else while they talked. He was beginning to think that it had been a mistake to call, when she said:

  “Why don’t we meet?”

  They met the next day in La Perla. Lucio still wanted to know who was staying in Verónica’s apartment, but she wasn’t prepared to tell him. They didn’t stay long in the bar. Instead they went to the hotel on the corner of Cromañón, where they had gone that first time. As though entering a time warp, they were allocated that same bedroom designed to look like a wood cabin. Lucio watched Verónica’s body in the mirrors. Verónica’s body penetrated, moved by the force of his hips. Verónica’s body marked with bites and bruises. Verónica’s mouth around his cock. Little by little he felt himself drifting away, as though these scenes belonged to a pornographic movie he was watching without desire. Or perhaps it was just a dream and he wasn’t really there. Suddenly the cramps came back, those stabbing pains in his legs that forced him to tense his body and keep still. Exhausted more from effort than pleasure, they lay staring at the ceiling, watching each other in the mirror. Lucio was in a movie and had to get out of it. When they left the hotel he walked with her, like the first time, as far as Avenida Rivadavia. That biting cold was in the past, but now they had the exasperating spring wind to contend with. Verónica got in a taxi and he decided to continue walking along the avenue. He was happy to walk as far as Río de Janeiro and take a number 112 bus from there. He needed to walk and think. He must not see Verónica again. He had been certain of that since the moment in the hotel room when they had looked at themselves in the mirror. That wasn’t the reason he felt the need to clear his head while listening to the rhythm of his feet on the sidewalk, though. Seeing Verónica again, repeating their first encounter, had brought starkly to mind the other element in that parallel life: the death trains, the children baiting his futile attempts to brake. Those children whom – as he had discovered when he visited Malvino – he hated, just as he hated all the people who had thrown themselves under his train. And he could not escape his destiny. His instinct or fear knew it: one day next week the boys were going to be there waiting, standing unflinching in the path of the train. He could pretend not to know, ask for the shift that ended mid-afternoon. Or he could follow the current schedule and work the night shift all week. And if nothing happened next week, then he would work nights the week after, until he saw them appear in front of his train. He would keep his senses, his intuition, his reflexes, his hatred alert. It mi
ght not be his turn. Or it might. At the end of the day, he too was playing Russian roulette.

  16  Supergirl

  I

  Verónica looked at herself and Lucio in the ceiling mirror and saw two jaded bodies, mercilessly exposed. She was even moved to pull the sheet over herself. She had had worse nights with other men, and at this stage in her life she knew that they happened sometimes, that it was better to move on. If it had been some other guy – even Lucio himself a few weeks earlier – they would have got dressed, had a beer, listened to some music and hoped that next time desire would prove a better catalyst to physical pleasure. But that was the problem. She didn’t want another night. Perhaps he didn’t, either. They had been like two dead bodies, from the first kiss exchanged in the motel room (the first kiss used to take place in the elevator). And those bodies that had once been so quick to warm up were broken; nothing got them going. The caresses were perfunctory, kisses gelatinous, arms and legs as heavy as lead.

  Lucio had been considerate enough to walk her to Rivadavia so that she could get a taxi. They said goodbye awkwardly, with a cursory kiss. She was quite sure, as she settled into the back seat of the taxi, that this was the last time they would meet. It had been a mistake to suggest meeting up to go to a motel. She had let herself be fooled by his call, which was so unusual. And that tone of confusion, or remorse – it amounted to the same thing – had in turn confused her and made her feel guilty about what she had been thinking over the last few days. There would be no more confusion or remorse.

  She arrived at her apartment and was about to put on all the lights while kicking off her shoes and starting to take her clothes off (she was used to getting to the bedroom or bathroom in only her underwear) when she remembered that Rafael was sleeping on the living-room floor. Her usual routine would have been quite a shock for him. So instead she came in silently, went to the kitchen, opened the fridge without putting on the light and got out a bottle of water. From the living room came the sound of Rafael’s steady breathing. Given all the other problems having him in the house entailed, it was lucky that he didn’t snore.