17 Stone Angels (30 page)

“Don Carlo nods to Santamarina and the bodyguard places Waterbury's pages beside him and moves wordlessly out the door. ‘And,' Carlo says glancing at the words. ‘How is your project with my wife?'

“Waterbury feels the vague sting of an accusation, tries to steady his voice as he answers. ‘It's going well.'

“‘And does she have great potential as an author?'

“‘
Bien
,' Waterbury says, trying out some old
verso
, ‘in literature there is nothing absolute. An excellent book in the literary sense may sell poorly, and be considered a failure, while a mediocre book may sell a million
copies.' Don Carlo is still pinning him there with his eyes. ‘So, as to her potential, that's a disposition that I can't really make, especially not before the book is finished.'

“Don Carlo stares at him silently for a time, then turns his attention to the manuscript and begins to look through it, saying at the same time, ‘So long since I studied English, and then it was technical English, of the kind needed to read service manuals and write invoices. Not fine English, like this.' He examines the page. ‘Ah, look at that!
Extortion
. It's the same in Spanish.
Extorción
. And here:
bribe
. That's a
coima
, no?' He continues reading for fifteen minutes, without excusing himself or apologizing, knowing that Waterbury will sit quietly and wait for him. ‘What's this?' he says. ‘
Blackmail
?'

“‘
Chantaje
,' the writer answers him softly.

“‘Ah,
chantaje
, of course. And here is liar, that means
mentiroso
, and
arrangement
. That means
arreglo
, no?' Carlo looks up and Waterbury can see the veneer of his smile wearing away. ‘This Mario is a real
hijo de puta
!'

“The writer swallows, feeling the heat rise to his face. ‘Yes. That particular character isn't very straight, but he's operating in an environment where that's demanded of him for success. At the end of the book he changes.'

“‘But how? From what I see here he is beyond change! He has a standard of living based on extortion and bribery. Such people can't change. Especially when they are part of a corrupt system. You have to kill them!'

“Waterbury begins to speak and his voice rises and breaks. ‘You know, Carlo, it's not up to me to judge my characters. I just try to present them. A novel needs a full array of characters, and . . . ' he tries an intimate little shrug, ‘somebody has to be the bad guy, no.'

“The magnate drops his smile and cuts him off. ‘Don't play the
boludo
with me. Do you think me so stupid?' He puts his anger away and takes a softer line. ‘To the point. At the start, I was happy that Teresa had a project, because the truth is that since the children are gone she is a bit lost. She has paranoid fantasies of this and that. Do you understand? I indulged her fantasies because I thought that this might be a sort of therapy for her. But this,' he holds up the manuscript, ‘this is an insult!'

“‘It's just a character—'

“‘Yes, just a character with businesses like mine, that worked at a computer company, like I did. It's an insult and a violation of my confidence in
you! I welcome you into my house and in return you encourage my wife to defame me with this confection of lies she has invented from the newspaper! This doesn't go! It doesn't go! Not for a novelist or anyone else!'

“Poor Waterbury cringes into the squeaking leather cushions without an answer. Pelegrini goes on lashing at him. ‘She told me she already gave you ten thousand. Ingrate! Take that and don't ever come back!' Pelegrini rips out a little laugh. ‘Did you think a writer of the last ranks, like yourself, could legitimately make two hundred thousand dollars writing a book? You're dreaming! Only in a dirty deal like the one you made with Teresa, where you take advantage of an unstable woman, only thus could you make that much money with your
supposed
talent. And if it was only I who thought so, you wouldn't be here in Buenos Aires working a cheap confidence trick and trying to pass yourself off as a grand literary success!'

“The author doesn't feel his body, only the lurid pink distress of his mutilated sense of self. He can only sit and wait for Pelegrini to finish annihilating him.

“‘This doesn't go any further. You understand? If any part of this ever appears anywhere, in fiction or in any other form, no amount of money in the world will be enough to justify the consequences to you and your family. And don't make any mistake: I can find you here, at the Hostal San Antonio—or there.' Pelegrini recites Waterbury's address in New York and the name of his daughter's school, then lapses to a silent glare.

“Waterbury has no answer. He fumbles to his feet and stumbles out of the smoking room. Santamarina is waiting for him, puts his hand on his arm as he directs him across the spacious chesswork of tiles and the glittering chandelier. There is no Teresa Castex and her lucrative vanities, no inspired literary thriller, only the warm spring air of Buenos Aires, the straining Doberman of the custodian, the high black gate and then the unsteady sidewalk. Two blocks away a flock of black taxis gleam like cheap hearses in the sunlight.'

“Waterbury falls through the afternoon in a state of shock. His fabulous landscape has withered in front of him. Buenos Aires streams past his window with its glorious stone angels and verdigris domes, but all has gone gray and lusterless. His easy salvation has evaporated and left him groaning with debt and shot to pieces by Don Carlo's devastating assessment of his
talent and his character. Maybe it is his own corruption that has brought him to such a pass. If he had refused La Señora's offer at the beginning he could have kept a steady course and written a book, rising and falling on his own merits. As it is, the sudden elevation and crash has left him feeling like he can give no more. He passes the hotel clerk with a wave and hurries to his room, throwing himself on the bed. On the tiny desk his books on writing a bestseller laugh at him, and he writhes in an agony of self-hatred and futility, a man who has failed himself and his family, a fraud, a liar, a pretender to literary achievement on the level of Teresa Castex herself. He is out of place on all sides. To stay in this empty and mocking city feels like torture, but to return home now, as a failure, impossible. He lies there as at the bottom of a smothering black pool, but into the dim room comes the buzz of the desk clerk. ‘You have a visitor,' he says. ‘That French woman.'

“A tiny crack of light seems to open. ‘Send her up,” Waterbury croaks, and he gathers the resolve to rouse himself from the pit. She is, he tells himself, the Patron Saint of Desperation. He hears the elevator hum and clank, and then the knocking at his door. She stands there in her black dress and a little handbag. It's tango night. ‘What a depressing room!' she says, looking past him. ‘If I lived here I would have put a bullet in my head two weeks ago!'

“Waterbury's smile dies out before it can complete itself and the dancer eyes him more closely. ‘What's happening with you?' she asks. ‘You look like your wife just sent you divorce papers!' She strides into the room and puts her handbag on the desk. ‘It's not for so much,
amor
! With all that money from La Señora de Pelegrini you can find a woman half her age!' This does not cheer him, and she realizes that something is wrong. She speaks more softly, her gray eyes crystalline and wise beneath their slashes of liner. ‘Robert! Tell me what's happened to you!'

“He lifts his hand as if to answer but before any words can escape he finds himself crying without control, finally buried by the years of frustration and failure, humiliated in his last attempt to be clever in his business and his art.
La Francesa
puts her arms around him and holds him but he goes on crying, clutching her as if she was the incarnation of every hope he once had for Buenos Aires, or himself. She pats him on the back and murmurs small incomprehensible consolations without knowing even what he is crying about. That it is all right, that she is here, that it will all pass, that the moon and the stars will still be shining when it is over. At last he takes a deep
breath and sits on the bed, relating in a choking voice the events that have stolen away his hopes for easy salvation. She listens without interruptions, a grimace of discomfort crossing her face when the writer finishes with Pelegrini's brutal summary.

“The silence sits there for a half-minute as she holds her chin and watches him. She shakes her head sadly. ‘It looked so easy. It floated your way and when you tried to capture it you found it was nothing more than a little ball of smoke.'

“She gives a long sigh. ‘Listen to me . . . ' She kneels in front of him and puts her hand on his knee, her gray eyes wide and sympathetic. Her voice is soft and low, almost a hum in the quiet afternoon sun. ‘You came to Buenos Aires to make your last play. But Teresa Castex is not your last play.' Her face is only inches away from his. She is nearly whispering. ‘Life is your last play, and it is happening right now. All around you. All at one time.'

“The moment overpowers them. He is kissing her, feeling her thick glossy lips and her unfamiliar tongue, smelling as always the odor of smoke in her hair, and her perfume. Without remembering how it happened he is on the bed with her, horizontal, holding her black-dressed body close to him as her arms writhe slowly across his back. He has forgotten his wife, or rather, he has abolished her and his daughter to a remote planet which he knows he must visit again in the near future but which for the moment is only a shadow. The dream is like a fever now, even more intense for the knowledge that it has reached its full bloom and as such has already marked some unknowable endpoint. Nothing exists but this dark room, this woman, and around it the idea of a city called Buenos Aires built not of bricks but of the infinite illusions of its citizens and the aspirations that are forever receding before them.'

/ / /

Fabian leaned back in his
chair and shook his head ruefully. He seemed almost serious. “It's a disappointment, I know, that Waterbury would be unfaithful to the wife who waits for him. Bad news to carry back to the widow. But thus it happened. Waterbury fell, as we all fall, to our own desires for things real or things imaginary. We can't help it: that's what pulls us on. You, me,
the Comisario. For Waterbury, it was the flesh, or perhaps, looking more profoundly, the vision and the flesh made whole.” Fabian shrugged. “There are others who do much worse for much meaner reasons. Was it worse that he slept with
La Francesa
or that a decade before he devoted himself to extracting money from the country for AmiBank? I suppose it depends who you ask, no?” He slapped his forehead. “See that? Here I am going around in these
boludeses
again! I can't resist!” He puffed. “
Qué tonto!
” He looked at his watch. “Fine, we are reaching the end now. Both I and Waterbury have little time left.”

“The next morning
La Francesa
returns to her room and Waterbury decides to look over the manuscript that he has already written. The first twenty pages of the Señora's history can be easily condensed. That of the French Socialist is disposable, but the part about the young engineer and revolutionary who disappears, yes, there is something of value. And that of the magnate, the disagreeable Mario, in his progress to corruption, yes, a most interesting story in that. He is considering all this when he hears a knock at the door.

“Teresa Castex presents herself dressed in the manner of a schoolgirl in a gray skirt and white blouse. The feeling of recaptured youth is strengthened by her hair, which she has released from its tight bun to flow down over her shoulders and her back. There is a too-brilliant smile on her face, almost childish above the expensive leather portfolio that she presses to her chest. “I told the boy at the desk that I wanted to surprise you!” she explains, glancing around the room at the chaotic bed sheets and the general disarray.

“Waterbury feels immediately uncomfortable, both for the unusual state of animation of Teresa Castex and for the memory of his last encounter with her husband. He invites her in and throws the bedspread unevenly over the humped-up sheets. ‘This is half-Bohemian, Robert! You should have used some of your advance to get a better room.'

“She goes on with her comments about this part of town and other hotels that he would find more congenial to the project, and he answers her without much grace. Finally she puts the leather case on the desk and sits down. Her eyes are bright and nervous, her voice too gay for the occasion. ‘So, I decided we would have our normally scheduled session at your room today, to perhaps bring a different ambiance to the story.'

“An air of delusion has come over the dim lodging. Waterbury half-sits on the windowsill. ‘Teresa. Do you know what happened with your husband yesterday?'

“She plays the
gil
, but badly. ‘Yes, I was indisposed yesterday. Forgive me; I should have called you in advance. He told me that you chatted.'

“‘It was a bit more than a chat. He looked at the copy of the manuscript and he told me that if I continued in any form he would make me regret it.'

“She begins to get angry. ‘Why did you give him the manuscript? He has nothing to do with it!'

“‘I didn't give it to him! The security guard took it away at the gate when I got there. What did you tell him about the book?'