The Buenos Aires Quintet (11 page)

He hangs up. Wearily picks up the letter he can never finish. ‘Charo. What would a normal solution be for me and you? Are there any normal solutions after fifty, or is there only the fear of growing old alone and losing one’s dignity?’

He makes as if to tear the letter up. Changes his mind and drops it again. Goes back to the kitchen. It takes him a while to realize that Alma is standing by the stove, carefully supervising the cooking.

‘Is everything all right?’

‘D’you call this cooking?’

‘What else would you call it?’

‘It’s cooking itself.’

Carvalho uncorks a bottle of wine.

‘Are you opening it already?’

‘It’s a fine Cabernet Sauvignon from Mendoza. Four years old. You have to let it breathe. But you’re from a good family, you ought to know that.’

Later, with the remains of their meal still on the plates, Alma holds the wine glass up to the light.

‘I’ve learnt something tonight. That you have to look at wine, to sniff it, taste it. My parents were rich, but they never taught me things like that. They probably didn’t know. There are rich people who don’t know how to enjoy it. My parents didn’t. They didn’t know how to be the parents of two revolutionary daughters either. But what are we doing, talking about wines? What can have happened to Eva María? Or to Raúl?’

‘If I’m not thrown out of the country, I’ll find him. Do you think he killed Roberto?’

Alma dismisses the possibility with a wave of her hand.

‘That’s impossible. Raúl was born to be killed, not to kill.’

Carvalho is looking at her with surprising tenderness.

‘What are you staring at?’

Carvalho doesn’t answer. Alma looks across at the bedroom next door. When she speaks it’s calmly and gently.

‘Are you used to women thanking you for dinner by going to bed with you?’

Carvalho takes another sip of wine and answers unconcernedly: ‘If you suggest it, I won’t say no. But if I’d known you wanted to go to bed with me, I’d have chosen a different menu. You don’t go with
carbonada argentina
.’

‘So what do I go with?’

‘Stuffed veal à la Wanda, perhaps.’

‘And is that edible?’

‘Very’

‘What about Charo? Is Charo edible?’

‘What do you know about Charo?’

Alma gestures in the opposite direction to the bedroom, towards Carvalho’s unfinished letter.

‘I couldn’t resist the temptation. I read it. I adore letters. I love epistolary literature.’

‘Let’s just say she was my sentimental companion.’

‘Is she a private detective too?’

‘No; she’s a whore.’

Alma stares at him, not knowing whether to be shocked or angry. She’s surprised at her own reaction, and offended on Charo’s behalf.

‘It’s nothing but the truth. I’ve got a wayward soul. My girlfriend is a call girl. My technical assistant, waiter, cook and secretary is a car thief called Biscuter. My spiritual and gastronomic adviser is a neighbour called Fuster. He’s also my manager. He manages what little I have to manage. I adore impossible families. I detest possible ones.’

‘So did you detest your father and mother?’

‘I detest possible families who are alive. I love dead ones.’

Alma drinks thoughtfully. Carvalho picks up the letter and crumples it. He hesitates over what to do with it. Eventually he goes over to the hearth, but quickly stuffs the letter in his pocket. Then he sets about lighting the fire. Alma watches him in a detached way until she sees him pick up a book and begin to tear it up.

‘But... what? Are you off your head?’

She struggles to try to stop him, but it’s too late. The book has already caught fire, and the flames spread to the rest of the kindling and logs.

‘Are you crazy? Or just a Fascist? They’re the only ones who burn books.’

Carvalho sinks into the sofa and lights a cigar.

‘It’s an old habit of mine. For forty years I read book after book, now I burn them because they taught me nothing about how to live.’

‘Now you sound like Julio Iglesias.’

She contemplates Carvalho and the fire, still upset.

‘I hope it wasn’t an important book, anyway’

‘I think it was by Ernesto Sóbato. I’ve no idea what it was about. I think it was called something like:
Tango, the Song of Buenos Aires
.’

Alma reacts violently: ‘But that’s a wonderful book!’

‘Too bad. The other day I burned
Adán Buenosayres
.’

‘You’re telling me you had the nerve to burn Marechal’s novel?’

‘I don’t care who it was by.’

‘But that book’s our
Ulysses
!’

Alma is seriously indignant.

‘You’re a Fascist queer. A cook!’

‘Culture doesn’t teach you how to live. It’s nothing more than a mask for fear and ignorance. For death. Take a cow on the pampas...’

‘Does it have to be from the pampas?’

‘From wherever you like. Say you kill it, and eat it raw. Everyone would point at you: look at that barbarian, that savage. If on the other hand you catch the cow, kill it, slice it up skilfully, roast it, and then put sauce on it: that’s culture. A disguise for cannibalism. Cannibalism’s subterfuges.’

‘You mean if we ate each other raw we would be being sincere?’

‘No. We have to delude ourselves. But the fact is, yes, we do eat each other raw. So from time to time I burn a book, even one I like.’ He recites: ‘Which of us does not fear losing what he does not love?’

‘Quevedo?’

‘Quevedo modified by me.’

He holds a piece of paper out to Alma.

‘A message from Raúl. I found it under the door.’

Alma snatches the paper from him, and reads what it says out loud: ‘Cousin, I’ve turned to Güelmes. I’m tired of running, and I’ve almost reached Eva María, just like Peter Pan reached the stars.’

She comes to a halt, and looks up at Carvalho with fear in her eyes. Carvalho puts a hand behind her head and turns her face towards him. Their lips draw close, but at that very moment Pascuali and four cops start battering on the door, and the two of them draw apart again.

‘Pascuali, who else?’

Three of the men throw themselves on Carvalho and pin him down. Pascuali stands over Alma.

‘The game’s up. I don’t want any more corpses. I have to find your brother-in-law before I don’t know who; but I do know that if I don’t get to him first, he’s not going to like it. I recognized the chairman of The Spirit of New Argentina, and I don’t like playing games with ghosts.’

Carvalho has managed to struggle free from the other men: he elbows one in the liver, and aims a kick at another one which misses by a mile. Pascuali points his revolver at him, but calms his men down with a gesture.

‘That’s enough. You’ve shown off for the lady, so now be quiet, because you haven’t the first idea what’s going on.’

‘I know how to find Raúl.’

Alma and Pascuali stare at him incredulously.

‘He’s being hidden either by Güelmes or by Font y Rius. A ministry, a psychiatric clinic – they’re both safe hiding places.’

Pascuali has his doubts, but not about Carvalho: ‘In Argentina, ministries aren’t safe.’

Carvalho adds: ‘Nor are ministers.’

He hands Pascuali the piece of paper with Raúl’s message.

The two men are strolling along by the river. The moon paints Raúl’s face like a clown as he looks up at the night sky and recites:

To have looked up
at the ancient stars
from this bank of shadows
to have looked up
at those scattered lights
my ignorance never learnt to name
nor to arrange in constellations...

He turns to his companion. Güelmes speaks in a slow voice, as if he was conjuring up a dream, and the dream was providing him with words.

‘The ancient stars. You used to be a star, Raúl, remember how brilliant you were, how we all admired you. I was an economics student in those days, more of a militant than a student in fact; it was only afterwards during my exile in the United States I made my name as an economist. A pragmatist. Do you remember the analyses I did following Mandel or Gunder Frank, about the inevitability of the fall of capitalism? I’m sure it will fall one day, but neither you nor I are going to live to see it. So now I’m a pragmatic economist. A social liberal. Social on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, liberal on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. On Sundays, I have a day off. I’ve grown up: you never did. What are you looking for? The memory of a feeling? Or are you after your share of the profits from your animal feed discoveries? Roberto and I agreed we’d market them when I returned from exile and found a good position, and you had disappeared. Roberto claimed the scientific rights to the formula; I was the partner who had the capital and state backing.’

He comes to a halt. Raúl doesn’t seem to have understood a thing.

‘Roberto is dead. He got too nervous when you came back, he wanted to explain everything. Your brother-in-law Font y Rius is mixed up in it as well.’

‘What about Alma?’

Güelmes smiles and mutters: ‘Alma!’ as if it were the strangest of names. He pulls out a pistol, and points it at Raúl, whose surprise quickly gives way to laughter. Then he starts to squeal like a rat – even his features take on the aspect of a threatened rat, a rat twitching its long, white-haired nose. Güelmes thinks he has turned into a gigantic rat.

‘Are you crazy?’

He aims at Raúl. But his eyes reveal the solution he has found. ‘You really are crazy. And do you know where we put crazy people?’

Raúl tries to grunt like a less desperate rat, and carries on mimicking as he climbs into the car Güelmes has waved him towards with the gun. Once he’s inside the car and has accepted the new situation, the sounds suddenly cease, as if they had a life of their own. Güelmes is on his right; on his left, there’s a man he doesn’t know, and another sitting beside the driver. The car pulls up outside Font y Rius’ clinic. The psychiatrist is waiting for them behind the barred windows, momentarily blinded by the car’s headlights. He throws down the cigarette in his hand and comes out to meet them. Headed by Güelmes, the new arrivals push past him into the clinic, and he has to turn and follow their unresponsive backs. Güelmes is frogmarching Raúl along. Font y Rius wants them to put his chaotic thoughts in order.

‘D’you think this is a good idea?’

Güelmes does not even bother to turn round.

‘Good ideas are always provisional.’

Several of the newcomers post themselves in the psychiatrist’s office. Font y Rius rushes after Güelmes and Raúl, who is now guarded by two nurses. They stride down the clinic’s most secret passages. One of the nurses flings open a metal door; the banging echoes all along the corridors. Raúl is thrown into a bare, brightly lit room. The nurses pull off his clothes while Güelmes looks on impassively, and Font y Rius winces. They put Raúl in a straitjacket. He starts to squeal like a rat again. Güelmes strides in front of Font y Rius back to the office. His wipes his sweating palms with a handkerchief. But when they reach the clinic office they find their space has been taken over. Two motorcyclists are standing guard on either side of the table. In front of them is the fat man, while behind in the shadows sits the chairman of The Spirit of New Argentina. His face is hidden, but when they hear his voice, Font y Rius’ eyes narrow, and Güelmes swallows nervously.

‘Do you think this was a good idea?’

Güelmes tries to sound natural.

‘We couldn’t kill him, could we? Too many people are looking for him.’

The voice from the shadows is unconvinced. It seems to be speaking for itself, or the fat man and the motorcyclists, rather than for Güelmes or Font y Rius.

‘They couldn’t kill him.’

He drives his fist into the open palm of his other hand. Güelmes and Font y Rius start with fright. The fat man laughs.

‘Is that why you brought me here? To tell me you couldn’t kill him?’

Font y Rius plucks up his courage:

‘Captain. Too many people have already died.’

The fat man turns to the figure in the shadows and receives a whispered message only he hears. He gets up, and the two motorcyclists follow him out of the room. When they have gone, the Captain swivels his chair round and faces Güelmes and Font y Rius.

‘My dear partners. We haven’t had a company meeting in some time. You’re still playing with death. You’re still amateurs. In war, pity does more harm than good. Pity is dangerous. At stake in all this are your lives and my money – or rather, the money of our wealthy backers. New Argentina could be my chance of a lifetime, of your lifetimes; or it could all be wrecked thanks to a crazy guy who has no past and no future.’

It gradually dawns on Font y Rius and Güelmes what is going to happen.

‘Where did the fat man and those two thugs go? What are they going to do to Raúl?’

The Captain doesn’t even take the trouble to reply. He goes on: ‘Who wrote that little novel
Beware of Pity
?’

Font y Rius makes a desperate lunge for the alarm bell. It goes off so loudly that it stops the fat man and the motorcyclists in their tracks in the underground passageways. The shrill alarm sound fills every corner. The fat man draws his gun. The two motorcyclists feel for the daggers hidden in sheaths on their legs. They search around, trying to discover where the noise is coming from. They are frightened, nervous, and their fear only increases when they hear the sound of a shot ring out from the clinic office. They run back there, and find Font y Rius still clinging on to the alarm bell with one hand, while with the other he tries to stanch the flow of blood from a wound to his hip. Güelmes is cowering on the floor, rolled up, protecting himself with his arms. The Captain steps towards him. Güelmes covers his head with his hands. The other man goes over to the window. The garden is swarming with policemen, led by Pascuali. By now the alarm has fallen silent, but there is even louder shouting. Every patient has become an alarm, screaming out their certainties, their scorn, their fears. Raúl is still in one corner of his cell, prevented by the straitjacket from shielding his ears from the uproar. The door bursts open. It’s Pascuali, gun in hand. Carvalho is right behind him. The corridor is full of policemen. Carvalho leaps on Raúl to make sure he is unharmed, helped or hindered by two nurses. The Captain’s voice rings out behind them.