The Buenos Aires Quintet (35 page)

‘That’s a state secret I don’t have access to.’

‘I know the Captain personally. He has had many names: Lage, Bianchini, Gorostizaga. Now he calls himself Doreste. When I was in his clutches, it was Gorostizaga. I must admit I find it hard to say, especially when you have the tongue and your genitals swollen from the electric prod. Don’t worry, I’m not going to talk about the past, it’s the future that concerns me. We can’t take on people like the Captain face-to-face, but they are getting in our way. They represent powers we no longer need, don’t you agree? We can’t stir up all the shit they are concealing, so we have to use the jujitsu technique. Do you know the rules of jujitsu?’

The director-general shakes his head.

‘They consist in using your opponent’s aggressive intentions to overcome him: his aggression becomes a trap. The Captain imagines he is all-powerful, but he has one weak spot – his relation to Raúl Tourón. It’s not normal for him to be so obsessed with one person like that. There’s something between them that we don’t know about.’

‘And so...?’

‘I propose setting up a task force to get hold of Raúl Tourón and find out what he knows. Nothing official. Not even Pascuali is to know about it. Once we’ve discovered what Tourón knows, if it is really important and can destroy the Captain, then we release him and let him use it – we’ll stay alert, even help him like Captain Nemo did Ciro Smith in
Mystery Island.
If he doesn’t know anything, we’ll use the opportunity to hand him over to Pascuali.’

‘What kind of task force?’

‘You’re the one who’s director-general of national security. But don’t worry. The Captain and others like him gave me a few lessons in how to organize that kind of group.’

Alma’s arms are raised. She is gesticulating with her hands as if to underline the point she is making as she sits alone reading through a pile of written exam papers, as if she were talking and arguing with a student hidden somewhere among the sheets.

‘How’s it possible? “Metaphor” spelt with an “f”? And you don’t even know the year
Martín Fierro
was published! What school did you go to? And you? How can you be so careless? How can you write Curcius and not Curtius? Curtius. It’s Curtius!’

She throws her pen down on to the desk.

‘I’m going to fail half of them. We can’t go on giving degrees to generation after generation of ignoramuses.’

Her door bell rings. She looks up, glances at her watch, then gets up and goes cautiously over to the door. She is about to look through the spyhole when a voice from outside stops her in her tracks and makes her turn round, her face a picture of anguish. She tries to calm herself. Turns back to the door. Opens it. Sees a police badge in an enormous hand thrust in front of her face.

Carvalho is bending over to see how strong the flame is under a stew he is cooking. The door bell rings. He straightens up slowly. Goes over to the cutlery drawer and takes out a gun hidden at the back. He has this in one hand and is about to leave the kitchen, but pauses to taste the stew with a wooden spoon. His face shows a mixture of satisfaction and concern as he steps into the living-room. He crosses it and peers into the spyhole just as the bell rings again impatiently. Through the lens he can make out the distorted images of two policemen. He moves away from the door and gives a weary sigh.

‘Coming.’

‘It’s the police.’

‘At your service.’

Carvalho quickly hides the gun behind the books stacked on a shelf waiting to be burnt. Returns to the front door and opens it. Two policemen are standing there. One of them thrusts a badge in his face.

A patient on the point of death is having to put up with Don Vito recounting his exploits. Don Vito is still swathed in bandages, but by now he is sitting up in a wheelchair and is waving his arms about freely, and his half-uncovered face has got its lively expression back, despite the abundance of cuts and bruises.

‘Forgive me if I insist, but my contribution was vital. The chief inspector – Mendoza – said to me: “Altofini, if it wasn’t for you we’d already be surrounded: that is, done for.” They were so desperate they had been on the point of asking the Rosario police to come to their aid.’

This is too much for the dying man. He sits up, and screams incredulously: ‘Who on earth has ever heard of the Buenos Aires cops asking the Rosario force for help?’

‘It’s easy to tell you’ve only seen cops in the cinema. The Rosario police are very competent. They study things very closely. My mother was from Rosario, and she never missed a trick.’

The other patient lolls back, ready to die, and Don Vito is about to go on with his story when a police badge glints before his eyes. When he looks up, Pascuali is standing there. The two men’s attention is momentarily distracted by the other’s death rattle, especially his very last gasp, which is a gloriously indignant farewell to life.

‘You see? I was the one keeping him going.’

Altofini repeats the story in great detail to Alma and Carvalho when he joins them in the police van. He weeps as he recalls the last words the other man ever heard.

‘He was from Rosario, and I was trying to cheer him up by telling him how good their police force was. I’ve been arrested illegally. I’m sure there’s a law against arresting convalescents.’

In the police station, Carvalho, Alma, Don Vito in his wheelchair, together with two or three of the usual suspects: a prostitute arrested for public disorder, a young couple sitting holding hands and hoping never to have to go home, a psychopath pacing up and down like a caged animal, police officers behaving like shepherds of psychopaths and a world full of suspects.

Students standing around in small groups. Muriel at the centre of the most agitated of them, as if an important decision is about to be taken. Finally one of the group, Alberto, is urged to get up on the platform from where Alma usually gives her classes. He calls for silence.

‘Our lecturer Alma Modotti has been arrested on the ridiculous excuse that she took part in the burning of the Aleph Club. This unacceptable event is a warning there could be further human rights violations and means we must show our solidarity. We have to demand she be set free at once.’

‘What about our exams?’

‘This is no moment for jokes.’

‘Or for scratching our balls either.’

Arguments for and against. The student on the platform and Muriel show their disappointment. Muriel moves her lips as though she is trying to say something, but either she cannot get the words out or they cannot be heard above the general uproar. Her face reflects her frustration through the journey home, and once she is in her room, she sits pressed up against the window waiting for her father to return. Eventually headlights sweep across the front of the house to announce his arrival. Muriel leaves her post at the window, goes out on to the first-floor landing, and bounds down the stairs two at a time to meet him. She hardly even notices her mother dozing in front of the television, a bottle of Grand Marnier next to a hand still clutching a glass. Muriel reaches the front door just as her father and the fat man are about to step in.

‘Papa, I have to go out tonight. But before I do, I need to ask you a favour, something I want with all my heart.’

‘What’s that?’

‘They’ve arrested one of our lecturers. You know who. Alma. Alma Modotti. They’ve invented a stupid charge against her: setting fire to a club. You know a lot of powerful people.’

‘How do you know who I know?’

‘Because I’ve got eyes in my head, and I’m not deaf. I know you’re connected to military goons and to important cops.’

‘That’s all I need: to hear my daughter call me a military goon!’

‘I’m sorry, that’s what we call military people, even if they are our parents. But can you do something for Alma?’

Her mother is still dozing in front of the TV set, the fat man is hovering discreetly in the background and Muriel stands waiting for her father’s verdict. The Captain has sat down carefully on the sofa, and is apparently quite calm, but his hands are tense, and so is the stare he directs towards his daughter.

‘So the young lady would like me to use my influence among military goons, to use the prestige I gained fighting wars, fighting the Malvinas war, to go and see my superiors, however superior they might be, and to tell them: set Señora Alma free at once. Alma what? Ah, yes – Alma Modotti; because she is a literature professor and we all know literature has never done anyone any harm. And all professors are harmless teachers.’

‘I don’t know why you’re being so sarcastic’

‘Excuse me, Captain, but perhaps it’s time for the girl to know what kind of scum it is who manipulate things at the university’

The Captain crucifies the fat man with a look.

‘What is it she should know?’

‘That not everything that glitters is gold.’

‘Who told you to poke your nose in?’

By now Muriel is at the front door. She turns to give her father a last look.

‘Are you going to do something or not?’

‘Isn’t this a country governed by the rule of law? Isn’t it a democracy? Let justice take its course. I don’t think it’s ethical for me to use my influence.’

‘So you trust the ethics of power? How often have I heard you say this democracy is a farce?’

‘I say what I like, and I do what I think is right.’

Muriel opens the front door, and to the astonishment of the Captain and the fat man, leaves the house slamming it behind her. The noise rouses her mother from her befuddled slumber. She stares at the Captain and at the fat man with fear and hatred in her eyes.

‘A shot. That was a shot. Who have you killed this time?’

Two policemen push the wheelchair where Don Vito is doing his best to appear even more prostrate than he really is. Alma follows them, watching to see if they know how to manoeuvre the chair properly. When Don Vito sees he has been left in one piece on the pavement, he salutes the two policemen, who return his salute. Alma takes over the chair handles and starts to struggle along the street, one eye open to the possibility of a taxi. Suddenly the look on her face changes from one of hopeful expectation to surprise and emotion. She has seen Muriel and two other students coming out of a side street. By the time they have drawn near, Alma’s eyes are glistening. She caresses the boys’ faces, and hugs Muriel, rejoicing in her warmth and tenderness. She gradually regains her composure, and adopts a certain ironic distance, although she has to wipe away the tears with the back of her hand as she comments: ‘What kind of a country do you think this is? This is a democracy, you know.’

She points at the police station.

‘Don’t you remember what Alfonsín said? Some intellectuals need to be reminded that the difference between democracy and the lack of it is as great as the difference between life and death. What d’you think? I for one know I’m not moving from here until they let Pepe go.’

An assortment of beggars of a variety of sexes are waiting in line for their plate of food provided by a charitable institution. Loaiza is one of them. He still has the marks of a beating on his face. Raúl is in the same queue. He gets his food and looks around for a free seat at a table. He sits down opposite Loaiza, who is eating half-heartedly. Raúl wipes his mouth with a handkerchief before taking a drink from a tin cup. At this point, Loaiza notices him, and Raúl realizes he is being observed.

‘Not hungry?’ Raúl asks.

‘I eat to live. There’s not much of me, so I don’t eat very much. Man is what he eats.’

‘That’s what many people have said. Aristotle. Feuerbach.’

Loaiza bursts out laughing.

‘This country must either be in a very bad or a very good way. Look what the middle classes have come to! Someone who reads Feuerbach in a place like this! Are you an out-of-work philosopher?’

‘I’m Batman, but in disguise.’

Loaiza offers him his hand across the table.

‘And I’m Mirta Legrand, also in disguise.’

Raúl surveys the injuries to the other man’s face, but does not say a word.

‘Yes, a beating: you didn’t ask, but I’m telling you. It had to be me, didn’t it? Someone who suffers from a Dorian Gray syndrome and hates the idea of getting old. It was one of those beatings that really hurt and scare you. Coldly done.
Boom, boom, boom,
and they knew where they were hitting. A professional thug. That’s the reward we get after all we’ve done for them.’

‘If it’s not indiscreet, what exactly have we done for them?’

‘We have become marginalized. By making sure we’re outcasts from society, we’ve enabled them to be part of it, to be the dominant sector. If there weren’t any outcasts, how could there be any integrated people? It’s the same question that used to be answered with the formula: for there to be rich people, there have to be poor people.’

‘So you’re a Marxist, are you?’

‘No, just the opposite. I’m quite a Fascist. Of the masochist faction. A masochistic Fascist. I believe in the happy inequality of the human race. Don’t laugh, I’m being serious. I believe in superior beings, in congenital inequality, in the power of the elite over the majority, in the fact that you can’t compare the vote of any poor fool with that of a university professor or above all of someone like Bernardo Neustadt or Palito Ortega.’

Raúl is trying to work out if the other man is pulling his leg.

‘You’re a cynic’

‘In the ordinary sense of the word, yes. Not in the philosophical sense. As far as philosophy goes,’ he stands up and shakes hands again with Raúl, who accepts the handshake automatically, ‘I am Bruno Loaiza, a right-wing Nietzschean.’

‘Are there any left-wing Nietzscheans?’

‘What an extraordinary conversation for a place like this.’

He struggles to his feet again, and shouts out loud: ‘Hew many Nietzscheans are there in here?’

The only reply is the sound of forks scraping on tin plates.

Inspector Pascuali opens one of the files he has picked at random from the pile on his lap and begins to talk to Vladimiro, who is more concerned with looking in the rear mirror than listening to what his boss has to say.