Thursday Night Widows (8 page)

Romina and Juani first meet in the little playground at The Cascade. Even though they go to the same school, they have never crossed paths before. They meet one afternoon. Juani arrives on a bicycle, alone. He is one of the few children who go to the playground alone. Everyone else comes accompanied by the “girl who looks after us”: their families' domestic servants. Juani doesn't have one of those any more; he used to, but not now. There's just a woman who comes to clean the house in the morning, when he's at school.

The children swing themselves far too high. Some of them twist the swings up, then spin madly around. Romina doesn't look at them, so as not to feel dizzy. She uses a stick to draw in the sand. She draws a house and a river. She scratches them out. A very tall boy throws the swing over the top crossbar, to lift it further off the ground. Antonia pushes Pedro in one of the baby swings, while she chats to another maid. They are speaking the same language, but they sound different. The very tall boy grows bored and leaves. Juani gets onto the swing he has left. He untwists it. He swings on his own. Two little girls fight over another swing. One of them, in embroidered jeans, pulls the hair of the other one, who's wearing a pink dress. The other one cries. Nobody looks at them, apart from Romina. The girl in the dress cries harder. She starts shouting. Then the maids who look after these two come over. “What a little devil you are,” one of them says to the child who isn't crying. “Let your little friend have the swing – don't make her cry.” The girl doesn't want to; she clings on to the swing. The girl in the pink dress cries even harder.
Juani gets down from his swing and holds out the chains to the girl who is crying. “Here you are,” he says. Romina watches, while drawing in the sand. “I want the other one!” the girl retorts. Juani offers his swing to the girl who isn't crying. He suggests swapping it for the one favoured by the girl who is crying. The one who isn't crying refuses. Annoyed, Juani goes back to swinging, higher and higher. “I'm going to tell your mummy,” says the Peruvian girl in charge of the child who isn't crying and won't give up her swing. “Bitch,” retorts the child and runs off. The one who's crying stops crying then and runs after her. They tread on Romina's drawing. They climb up the yellow slide and hurl themselves down it, laughing. The maids who look after them return to their bench and resume chatting. One complains that her
patrona
won't let her have a siesta, and her legs are swelling up as a result. Juani swings higher and higher. Romina watches him. She covers her ruined picture with sand and looks at him again. From where she is sitting, it looks as though Juani is touching the sky with his brown shoes. One of his laces is missing. Romina stands up and goes over to the other swing. She swings herself. She tries to reach him. Just when she thinks she may reach him, Juani throws himself from the highest point and falls onto the sand. The swing continues to move haphazardly, now that it carries no weight. Romina would like to jump, but doesn't dare. “Go on – jump. You'll be fine,” says Juani from below. She goes back and forth, undecided. “Go on, I'm waiting for you.” Romina throws herself off. She lets herself fall through the air and, for the first time since she left Corrientes, she feels light. She falls onto the sand, twisting one foot. Juani gets up to help her.

“Did you hurt yourself?” he asks.

“No,” she says, and laughs.

“What's your name?” he asks her. She writes it on the sand: “Ramona”.

To stand at the tee on the first hole and let your eyes wander over a vista of never-ending green is a privilege that those of us who live in Cascade Heights sometimes take for granted. Until we lose it. People get accustomed to what they have – especially when what they have is wonderful. Many of us can go for months without playing a single hole, as if we didn't care that the course was a few yards from our house and entirely at our disposal.

You don't have to be a golfer to enjoy such natural beauty – “natural” because it comprises grass, trees and lakes, not “natural” in the sense of belonging to a landscape that was here before we arrived. This used to be a swamp. The course was designed by engineer Pérez Echeverría, who famously sketched the plan for a club in the south while aboard a helicopter, as it flew over the forest that would need to be felled. Today it's impossible to imagine that our fairways were once marshes. There are species of tree that had to be brought specially from nurseries in different parts of the country. The shrubs, planted by landscape gardeners, are tended every week and changed with the seasons. An automatic sprinkler comes on every night. And then there are fertilizers, insecticides, supplements. The river that crosses hole fifteen was here before we arrived. But we purified it. Now it's a more turquoise green, thanks to water treatment,
and the introduction of certain algae which keep the ecosystem aerated. The fish that were there before the purification have died. They were undistinguished fish, a sort of bream, brownish-coloured. We put in orange perch, which reproduced and became the new masters of the stream. There are ducks and otters, too. Although recently the ducks and otters are down in numbers. Some say it's because people are killing them. For food. But that's very unlikely. Even if someone tried it – the maintenance staff, caddies, gardeners, anyone who dared – it would be impossible for them to smuggle their catch past our security guards. Once they caught a caddie throwing a dead duck over the perimeter fence to a woman on the other side. He claimed to have hit it accidentally, with a killer shot from the fourth tee. But nobody believed him. I mean, the woman on the other side had all but brought her casserole dish. The committees for Golf and for the Environment served him a joint indictment.

The lakes are, in fact, the sole true remnant of the marsh that was once here. But nobody would know that; there can't be a golf course anywhere in the world that doesn't have a lake. We use a system of pumps to drain rainwater collected in the irrigation channels around our community into the lake and thus avoid flooding; the water is pumped in and then the river itself carries it out of the club. The Municipal Government complained once that we were exporting the problem of surplus water to the neighbourhood of Santa María de los Tigrecitos, but there were a couple of meetings between their council and ours and somehow the matter was resolved. It would be like blaming the city of Córdoba for the flooding in Santa Fe. Some sort of inexpensive
alteration had to be made. The last major investment was in chemical toilets, which became a requirement once the ladies took over the course. If a man's caught short, he can urinate anywhere: behind a tree, in some bushes. Even on a golf course. Not so a woman.

Our course is re-sown every year. You won't find that in every club. Most of them only re-seed the tee of each hole. Pencross on the greens and Bermuda on the fairways. The re-seeding, together with the cost of the machines, the staff involved, the irrigation and draining systems, etc., mean that maintaining the golf course accounts for one of the most congested columns in our budget. The tennis players grumble about it. There's some mutual goading between aficionados of the two sports. People complain that the club spends much more money on golf than tennis and that it all comes out of the same fees and the same pockets. But investment in the course does not benefit the golfers alone. Members of our community can stroll on the links, have a drink on the terrace at the ninth hole (with its enviable views), listen to music while watching the sun set over the fifteenth hole or even go on a photographic safari to take pictures of wild birds. The Environment Committee has provided a great outreach service by placing at each hole a wooden sign with photographs of the birds you can expect to see, showing their markings and characteristics. But, quite apart from the enjoyment that each one of us may take in it, there is an important economic benefit in having a course – as we all know. The value of our houses is directly related (whatever the percentage is, it must be significant) to their proximity to good links. The same house, in a neighbourhood without a course, would be worth much less.

Years ago, playing golf was an exclusive activity. In other countries it still is. Not so in Argentina. It's expensive, but the Convertibility Law has narrowed all manner of gaps and “expensive” no longer has to mean “exclusive”. In the golf bar there are wooden shields bearing the names of the winners of the club's annual tournaments. And over the years, the engraved surnames have become progressively less grand. In 1975, one Menéndez Behety was the champion. In 1985, a McAllister. And in 1995 it was a García. Not García Moreno. Not García Lynch. Not García Nieto. Just plain old García. On Wednesdays the course fills up with Japanese players. On Thursdays it's hired out to companies. When Koreans enquire, the Starter has instructions to say that the course is full or to lie about the cost of the “greens fee”, which is levied on all nonmembers who wish to play a round. Apparently ours is not the only course to make Koreans unwelcome. Other golfers complain that they tend to shout, fight, throw their clubs around and bet monstrous sums of money, provoking violent outbursts. But, Koreans aside, at the start of the 1990s it was already clear that golf would not much longer remain the preserve of gentlemen. Fewer and fewer men bother to don the requisite polo shirt and pleated trousers. Even some of our members shout. Some of the women think it acceptable to play in a sleeveless top. There are members who throw their clubs in disgust when they drop one too many shots on a tournament-winning hole. There are players who are slow and won't let anyone past, and players who complain vociferously about the slow ones and aren't above sending an intimidating ball in their direction. There are players who withhold score cards with more shots
than expected in order to keep up a socially desirable handicap. Such golfers do not care whether they play well or not; the only thing that matters to them is keeping their handicap at ten or below. On the other hand there are players who conceal score cards with fewer strokes than expected in order to keep a high handicap that will give them an advantage in tournaments. In short, players are increasingly likely to lie on their score cards. You get all kinds. The last straw was Mariano Lepera. In the Club Cup he got a hole-in-one, then tried to deny it in order to avoid buying a round of champagne. He had teed-off at the sixth hole, and the ball, after describing a perfect arc, fell onto the green, bounced three times, rolled around, then dropped into the hole marked by a flag. It was one shot, without a doubt. No more swings were necessary. Only one. On any course, anywhere in the world, it is a courtesy and unwritten law (to which no one has ever objected) that a golfer who scores a hole-in-one must buy a drink for everyone on the course at that moment. Usually champagne. Sometimes whisky. For every player from the first to the eighteenth. Mariano Lepera asked the Starter how many people he had brought out that morning and made a quick calculation: 120 players at roughly five pesos each: 600 pesos. “Over my dead body.” And off he went, before anyone could get their order in. That's just not done. Or it
wasn't
done. Nothing happens to you – it's not like there's a sanction – but it's not gentlemanly. That's why they have hole-in-one insurance policies. Any insurer will provide one. Most of us get offered it when we take out housing insurance. Fire, theft and – for a few more centavos a month – hole-in-one. You're insuring a particular kind of misfortune, which is neither fire,
theft nor third-party damage. Really, you're insuring a moment of joy, because anyone who can get a ball in the hole from 150 yards should consider himself very fortunate. The fact that there's a national register in which these lucky few can have their names recorded goes to show how special it is. Although most people prefer to put their names in the United States register to get international recognition. The procedure's simple: a letter, a few forms. It's plain silly not to get the insurance and take full pleasure in your triumph. In life there may be few chances to get a hole-in-one, but there are many to prove oneself a gentleman.

It was a shock the first time I was called to Juani's school. To Lakelands. I opened the red folder and between two letters – one inviting me to a ceremony for National Flag Day, and another reminding me to submit fees – there was an official summons on paper with a letterhead. Lakelands' letterhead is a shield with four words in English around it. I never remember exactly what the words are. “In God We Trust” says Ronie drily. Dear parents, please come to the School Office at 9 a.m. on Monday, 15 June to talk about, a series of dots, then, written in hand:
Juan Ignacio Guevara
. Juani. I had never before been formally summoned to talk about my son. I started to worry. Juani was in fifth grade. The letter was signed by the headmistress and the school's psychologist.

I received the letter on a Friday. All weekend I worried. I couldn't imagine why they wanted to talk to me. I asked
Juani: he didn't know either. He'd never been kept in at break; he hadn't been sent to see the head, or made to sign the discipline book. I followed him around the house. “Have you hit anyone? Did you swear?” I followed him into the bathroom and kept asking questions while he was showering. “Stop it, Mum.” He ended up in tears. I rang a friend to see if she had also been summoned. No, she hadn't been called in. I rang another. Nor had she. I didn't ring anyone else after that; I didn't want the whole world to know about – whatever it was. But they found out anyway, at the tennis tournament that weekend. As we were changing ends, Mariana Andrade said, “So you have to go into school on Monday?” And she added: “I bet any day they'll call me in, about the girl,” referring to Romina, with whom Juani spent a lot of time.