The Fragility of Bodies

by Sergio Olguin

  “Aren’t you scared you might have an accident? I don’t say it as a threat, mind you, but I’m intrigued that you would choose to stop where you have.”

  “A dead journalist is always the worst outcome for a politician and his associates.”

  “I’ll tell you what I can give you. Palma you already had before, and he’s still on the table. Rivero is like a Muscovy duck – he shits himself at every step. A spell in prison would toughen him up. I can also give you the guy who shot the driver. You’ve already finished off various men who were implicated in all this. That’s six or seven altogether. Not a bad number.”

  “I also want your promise that this competition won’t continue, either on the Sarmiento line or any other railway in Argentina. If I so much as suspect that the competitions are starting again, in any part of the the country, your name will be on all the front pages.”

  “Even if I wanted to, it’s impossible without Rivero.” García looked for something in one of his desk drawers and took out an envelope. “Here’s everything you need for Palma.” He pushed the intercom button. “Marcela, could you come in here for a moment?”

  Five seconds later, the secretary appeared.

  “When the señorita leaves, could you give her a copy of the video titled Muscovy Duck? Oh, and make a note for her of the address where Señor Rivero lives with his partner.”

  When they were alone again, García continued speaking: “A couple of the contests are recorded on that tape. I’ll be sensitive enough to give you the ones where everything ended well. Let’s not have any more blood, even if it’s on tape. And there’s a bonus track for you, if you know how to use it. Along with Rivero and the man who fired the shot, you see other men, gamblers, and there’s the odd licence plate. I imagine that you’ll know how to make use of that material.”

  II

  When she came out of Juan García’s building, Verónica walked towards Avenida Las Heras and called Federico. She told him what she had and who had given it to her. She didn’t mention what she had offered in return. Federico agreed to send over the office boy in an hour. She would give him the material and the address where Rivero and his accomplice were hiding, so that they could be arrested.

  “Just one thing,” Verónica asked him in a voice that, even to her, sounded serious and tired. “Please keep everything under wraps for twenty-four hours. The magazine comes out on Thursday and I don’t want us to be bringing this information out a day later than the newspapers.”

  “But what if they escape?”

  “They won’t escape. García will make sure of it.”

  When she got back to the apartment, Verónica called Patricia, who had left various messages on her answerphone, worrying about her sudden departure from the newsroom. She also had a few missed calls from the night before.

  Patricia answered immediately, as though she had been waiting for the call. She wanted to know how Verónica was. She had heard about the accident at the door of the building but didn’t know what had really happened. Verónica offered up a brief and sketchy version of events. She didn’t feel like describing all that she had been through. She would rather talk about the forthcoming article. She told her boss that she now had all the material to write it and that she would hand it in that very afternoon, at the close of day.

  “Listen, the magazine goes to press on Wednesday. It’s fine if you hand it in tomorrow.”

  “I’d rather get it done today. Tomorrow I won’t be able to.”

  She asked for two photographers for the next day. One to record the arrest of the gang leader and his accomplice and the other to cover the moment when an undersecretary of the City of Buenos Aires was arrested and taken away.

  “The grass doesn’t grow under your feet,” said Patricia, admiringly.

  Verónica made a cafetière of coffee and filled up her thermos. She took two strong aspirin and got to work. She saved a copy of the video García had given her onto her computer and opened it. Rivero and the other man were shown arriving with two boys. The camera recorded a few people milling around, in the same way that the activity in a paddock is filmed before a horse race. There were greetings, laughter; the only people who seemed tense were those two boys. Who might they be? What had become of them? Had one of them died the next time this game was played? The boys took their positions on the tracks and stood waiting, their bodies braced. Verónica couldn’t help feeling nervous. She pressed Pause and asked herself if there was any point in continuing to watch. García had told her that there was no blood and, at least in this matter, there was no reason not to believe him. She decided to skip forward a few seconds. The boys were still in their positions. She pressed Forward again. Now the train had stopped and one of the boys could be seen lying on the ground. The other one, she wanted to believe, had jumped to the other side. The film stopped there and another similar one began, centring once more on Rivero and his inevitable sidekick. The boys were not the same. One of them was El Peque. Verónica felt a jolt of indignation and fear. She didn’t want to see any more, didn’t want to see El Peque jump. What she had seen already was enough. She made various screenshots of images where Rivero’s face could be seen clearly, along with the other man and some of those who had come to place bets. She made a few more of cars with licence plates that were perfectly decipherable. There was nothing casual about those shots: García must have used them to blackmail people. He must have dozens of recordings showing the faces and cars of the people who attended the contests. If the need arose, he would use them against anyone implicated. Verónica felt no pity at all for those idiots who were so easy to trick. She saved all the material on her computer. Later she would make a backup.

  The office boy arrived to pick up the envelope she had promised to Federico. That was the only interruption to her work. By midday she had written more than half her article. The most important thing was to organize what material she had, to avoid using García’s name and to keep herself out of the story. She didn’t like first-person journalism: it seemed to her the recourse of egocentric journalists, mediocre investigative reporters or frustrated writers. And she was none of those things. Even so, she found it hard not to convey her contempt, her hatred, her fear and the desolation she now felt. She couldn’t include anything about her relationship with Lucio, of course, but every time she typed his name, in the course of explaining the driver’s role in her investigation, she choked up and couldn’t continue.

  She made herself an instant tomato soup and heated up a few slices of pizza left over from Rafael’s stay. Perhaps it was because of her current state of mind that she missed him. During the few days they had spent together she had felt at ease in his company, something which had not happened with another person for years.

  She went down to buy cigarettes, feeling Marcelo’s absence at the door. She walked to the news kiosk, mentally composing her article with every step. Along with the cigarettes she bought chewing gum and a packet of Halls Cherry-Lyptus. She owed El Peque and Dientes a present. What could she give them? A soccer ball? Sports shoes, boots? If they didn’t live so far away she would have made them members of Atlanta soccer club.

  Federico called her in the afternoon to say that the public prosecutor had decided that the two operations would be carried out simultaneously at three o’clock in the afternoon. That as a courtesy, since she had provided this information, they would not tip off any other media organization until the men were in custody. She had the photo exclusive. He also asked her how she was feeling.

  “I’ve had better days. And, to be honest, I haven’t had many worse. But I have a hunch that the sun is going to keep rising around six every morning.”

  She finished writing the article at about eight o’clock that night. She called Patricia again, who was stressed because the writers were all running late and she wasn’t going to be able to leave until ten o’clock. Verónica told her that everything was ready. She gave her the details the photographers would need for the following afternoo
n and promised her that, as well as the article, she would send the video screenshots which showed the men who had organized the competitions. Verónica didn’t plan to hand over for publication any images showing the gamblers’ faces or their cars. First she wanted to find out who they were and how they had become involved. She had enough material for another article, and she wasn’t going to waste it for the sake of an image.

  Patricia had given her a 4,500-word space for her investigation. She could arrange the content as she wished. After making calculations, she found that she had already written about 6,000, which meant that she needed to cut down, a task she hated but one she wasn’t prepared to leave in Patricia’s hands, not because her boss would do it badly – generally she improved a piece – but because this time she felt that to relinquish control over so much as a full stop or comma would be to betray all that she had lived through in the last few weeks. Finally, she wrote a lead piece of 3,000 words. She thought of dedicating a long inset box to Lucio, but the idea of him having his own article upset her even more. So she decided to include him in the main body of the article, explaining how he had come to be her main source. She did the same with Rafael, except that in this case she used an invented name: Roberto. None of the children’s names were included, with the exception of those who had been killed or injured. With luck, some reader would recognize one of those children and get in touch with the newsroom or the authorities with more information.

  Five hundred words went on a box dedicated to Julián, detailing how he had become an unintended victim of the investigation. She described him through Rafael’s eyes: his interest in Chacarita, his enthusiasm to know more about local customs, to take his place among people in the neighbourhood. Without meaning to, Rafael had given her enough material to write a profile of Julián which was both a piece of journalism and a tribute.

  The thousand remaining words went on a second article. A double-page spread, complementary to the investigation, which accused Palma exclusively. The folder Juan García had given her showed him to be much more than just the money man using public funds to run this atrocious game. Money from the same funds had also been diverted to companies of which Palma had part-ownership. And there were unjustified expenses, trips abroad, payments to people who didn’t exist. Palma was a true wizard of financial fraud, which had undoubtedly made him rich. It was more than likely that a considerable portion of that money had ended up with García, or someone like him. Palma could take the blame for them all.

  Even though she had never done it before – and it always struck her as silly when she came across it in print – she decided to use poetic licence and dedicate her article to El Peque and Dientes, “founder members of the Superteam”. The only people whose actions stood out and who were not mentioned in any part of the article were Father Pedro and Marcelo. She felt that not including the priest was a protective gesture on her part. He would certainly prefer not to be mentioned. She left Marcelo out because to relate what had happened in the building would involve her in the story.

  Here it is, said the email she sent to Patricia with the articles attached. Great if you can read it and let me have any comments now. Tomorrow, as I said, I’m not going to be available. I’ll send you the video screenshots I promised in another email.

  Forty minutes later, Patricia called.

  “Verónica, this is the most superb piece of writing I have read or edited in all my professional life. I’m calling you just to say thank you for doing this work and for reminding me what it is to be a journalist.”

  “The piece is good. But you need your head examining.”

  “Listen to this. Our editor has asked that we also run an opinion piece by a psychologist explaining the trauma that this kind of experience could cause the children who took part.”

  “And what did you say to him?”

  “I told him to shove it up his ass. That if he touched so much as a fucking comma, tomorrow he’d have my resignation and yours plus a lawsuit for journalistic malpractice, if there is such a thing.”

  “Thanks, Pato, you’re like a mother to me.”

  “And you can fuck off too.”

  It was already nine o’clock at night. She hadn’t slept for thirty-eight hours. Tomorrow she would surely be at Lucio’s funeral or cremation. She should go – or should she? Approach his wife, talk to her. See his children who in her mind were like little ghosts, uncomfortable presences in her story, like a pain in the ovaries. To mourn among his co-workers and his family. At the end of the day, she had been part of his life. But she didn’t have the strength. She no longer had the energy to do what was necessary. She wanted a glass of whisky but decided against it: finding a glass and pouring it out felt like too much of an effort. And despite her tiredness, she feared that thinking about Lucio was going to keep her from sleeping. So she took a Valium, silenced the telephones, took off her clothes and fell down onto the bed, a dead weight.

  III

  She woke up with a thunderous need to piss and staggered to the bathroom. Then she returned to her room and got back into bed. What time must it be? It was hard to tell with the window shuttered. Plus, it was raining. She had no desire to get up. She groped for her mobile and checked the time: five past seven in the evening. She had been asleep for almost an entire day, only getting up to go to the bathroom. She had missed a couple of calls from Federico and one from her father. There was also a text message from Fede: All OK? Can I come and C U? She replied: I’m fine, I want to rest. I’ll call you tomorrow. Big kiss.

  She decided to get up, if only for a bit. She was quite hungry. There was a bit of coffee left in the thermos and she reheated it in the microwave. In the fridge she found liverwurst and in the cupboard some mini toasts. She sat down in the kitchen to eat, and to drink her coffee. Then she went into the living room and poured a glass of Jim Beam. Verónica opened the balcony doors, turned off the light and sat watching the rain. She stayed there for a couple of hours, with the bottle of Jim Beam to hand.

  It seemed as though the rain would never stop. It fell heavily and slowly. She tried to think of nothing, but that wasn’t easy. Every so often images that she had hoped not to remember popped into her mind. She didn’t switch on her computer or check her email. Somewhat drunk, she settled on the sofa and put on the big television. Scarface had just started and she watched it for a while. She had seen it many times before, but it never lost its appeal. She went to the kitchen and found a box of Ferrero Rocher which she had been given some time ago and not eaten, for fear of putting on weight. She poured herself another whisky and settled down to watch the movie.

  That was when her mobile rang. She had intended to switch it off at some point but must have forgotten to do so. With some effort she got up and went to look for the phone. The screen showed a number she didn’t recognize. She answered and a woman’s voice spoke at the other end of the line.

  “It’s Andrea, Rafael’s wife.”

  The voice seemed to be coming from somewhere faraway. In fact, everything seemed strange and remote to Verónica: the rain, the sound and lights of the television, the shadows in the living room. And especially Andrea’s voice, telling her that Rafael had disappeared. They had returned home after he was discharged from the hospital and Rafael had found out only then that Julián was dead. He had retreated into a silence that worried them. He had gone to bed, to rest, but then left the house without anyone realizing. He had now been away from home for more than six hours. Andrea had called his mobile but it kept ringing before going to voicemail. She didn’t know what else to do, how to look for him. She didn’t want to go to the police after what had happened to him. She was scared that somebody would hurt him. Or that he would hurt himself.

  Verónica struggled to take in what Andrea was telling her but, just as a shock can counteract the effects of alcohol and promote lucidity, she began to understand what Andrea was asking of her.

  “Andrea, keep calm. Rafael will be fine. We’re going to look for him and we�
��re going to find him. I’ll call you on this number later.”

  She thought of calling on Federico yet again. But something told her that she was better placed than anyone to find Rafael.

  Verónica put on tracksuit bottoms, sneakers and the light, hooded raincoat that she wore on the few occasions she went out jogging. She put her cigarettes, lighter, wallet and phone in the pockets of her raincoat. The rain was getting heavier all the time. There were no cars in the street, let alone taxis. She had to walk all the way to Avenida Córdoba to find one, and by then she was already soaked. She gave the driver the address of Julián’s supermarket. If she was going to embark on a search, that was the place to start.

  “You’re going to Soldati at this time of night?” the driver asked.

  Verónica confirmed that she was and left no room for further conversation. Instead she took out her phone and looked for Rafael’s number. She called him several times without answer. Seen through the rain-streaked window, Buenos Aires looked like an empty and phantasmagoric city.

  “Do you live there, or are you just visiting?”

  The driver looked at her in the rear-view mirror. Verónica hated chatty taxi drivers, but this one wasn’t talking about the weather or politics. He wanted to know about her, and that felt dangerous as well as irritating.

  “Just visiting,” she said and looked back at her phone to discourage any further conversation. The driver kept quiet for a long time. But after a few minutes he said:

  “Why don’t you come and sit in the front, so we can talk more comfortably?”

  Verónica didn’t answer. She waited for the first red traffic light, then got out without warning him. The driver shouted “Crazy bitch” and she started walking against the flow of traffic, hoping to find another taxi. For a moment she was scared that the guy was going to get out and follow her, but he didn’t. When the light turned green the taxi pulled away and she stopped walking. She had no idea where she was. Just before the taxi driver started talking, she had thought she had seen a hospital on the right-hand side. She walked to the corner. It was Avenida Juan B. Justo. She took refuge from the rain in a bus shelter and hoped another taxi would appear. Five minutes later she saw one slowly approaching and flagged it down. Verónica got in, repeated the address and this time, without saying a word, the taxi driver started the meter and began to drive.