The Buenos Aires Quintet (30 page)

Son!
Make sure you make the most of it
And remember you did good
To turn me into a stud.

Above the applause, Carvalho’s voice. He has been staring the whole time at Borges’ posthumous son, and now he roars into Alma’s ear.

‘I’ve got it! I saw that guy in Pascuali’s cells!’

Two fists flashing in the middle of a ring. Skilful fists, driven on by the audience’s enthusiasm. Peretti is fighting Negro Salta. Peretti is a middle-weight, about thirty years old, and looks as though he has never been caught square on the nose by any blow. He floats round the ring like a fencing champion, or a prince turned boxer. His opponent is a stolid punching bag from Salta province. He pits his strength and courage against the constant dancing of the prince of the ring.

‘Go on, Negro! Smash his pretty boy’s face in!’ someone shouts from the crowd.

‘There’s no one good enough to even touch Peretti!’ another voice replies.

‘Boxing is for men!’

‘Get up there and see if you’re man enough to land one on his face!’ shouts a blowsy blonde.

Her companion tries to calm her down. ‘Don’t go making a fool of yourself, because it’s always me who gets into trouble.’

But the woman carries on shouting at the man who had criticized Peretti.

‘You’re all mouth and no balls!’

‘Get into bed with me and I’ll show you I’ve got more balls than that asshole who’s with you!’

The blonde’s companion sighs wearily. He takes off his elegant overcoat and his white scarf, folds them carefully on his seat, turns to the man insulting him, and without a word lands a powerful punch on his chin. Soon all the public is joining in. The blonde woman is trying to gouge out the eyes of the man who insulted her companion. In the ring, Peretti’s fists have done their work: one final blow spins Negro Salta round and sends him crashing to the canvas. The crowd roars. Peretti walks back ever so slowly to his corner, back to his opponent. He leans on the ropes and gives a self-satisfied smile to the audience, most of whom are still involved in a fight of their own.

The three Japanese businessmen seem to have agreed not to react to Güelmes’ explanations. All three are perched uncomfortably on the edge of their seats, ready to get up and leave at any moment.

‘It’s the letter of an unbalanced mind. A poor wretch who it’s true did collaborate at the start with research that fifteen years later – more than fifteen years later – finally gave the results we wish to share with you. Where was Raúl Tourón all that time? In Spain – and now he’s back looking for revenge. Trying to cause problems.’

‘We won’t invest in projects with problems.’

Another of the Japanese supports this.

‘It’s you who have the problem, and it’s for you to solve it.’

The two who have spoken look across at the third, silent one. He says something in his own language and immediately stands up. His two companions follow suit, while a worried Güelmes half-raises himself from his seat behind the desk. He does not really understand what is going on, and it is no use him trying to gain a little time: ‘Why don’t...’

As they make their bows and leave, Güelmes does manage to regain his composure and see them out like a minister should. Left on his own, he mutters: ‘What can that fool have said?’

A half-open door in the office swings wide, and the Captain and Font y Rius enter the room, followed by another Japanese man.

‘We know what he said: “These racists think all of us Japanese are stupid.”’

Güelmes starts to pace up and down. The Captain sits calmly, and Font y Rius follows his example, staring down at the tips of his shoes. The Japanese interpreter waits politely for further instructions.

‘We’re the stupid ones. You two above all.’

The Captain points to Güelmes and Font y Rius.

‘If you hadn’t been so squeamish, Raúl Tourón wouldn’t be a problem any more.’

Güelmes explodes.

‘Who would have thought that bastard, that crazy son of a bitch would stick his nose into this of all things?’

Font y Rius protests weakly that after all, it was Raúl who made the discovery, but Güelmes bursts out again.

‘He made the discovery, and that’s all. Who developed it and turned it into a commercial prospect?’

‘But we agreed we should respect Raúl’s life.’

‘Tell him to keep out of our business then!’

Deep inside, the Captain is pleased at the way Güelmes and Font y Rius are arguing.

‘All that Raúl Tourón wants is to get in the way. That letter he wrote to our possible partners is a declaration of war.’

Font y Rius becomes sarcastic.

‘A dirty war, Captain? The kind you like?’

‘There are no clean wars.’

He gets up, goes over to the desk, picks up the letter and waves it as though it were incontrovertible proof: ‘This is a declaration of war.’

He reads coolly, as though detailing the evidence:

‘“...I should like to inform you that the offer that The New Argentina has made you through its associates Señores Güelmes and Font y Rius is based on usurpation. The writer of this letter is the biologist who fifteen years ago discovered a possible link between animal behaviour and the quality of animal feed. A sinister plot is now underway to rob me of the fruit of my labours. To demonstrate the validity of my claim, I would refer you to the information I sent to the Congress on Nutrition and Development held by ECLA in Ottawa in 1975, and to the article published in
Ciencia Latina
in January 1976, entitled
An animal is what it eats
”’

The room is silent. Güelmes has stopped his pacing, and is staring with contained fury at Font y Rius.

‘I wonder how that jerk managed to get our Japanese friends’ address. How he discovered they were in Buenos Aires. It seems to me he’s not on his own – someone is helping him, and I don’t mean that dumb Spaniard, or Alma, or Silverstein.’

‘Less words, more deeds.’

The Captain seems to be speaking above all to Font y Rius, and he marches out of the room with a final sally, followed by the interpreter.

‘I ask myself the same questions as the under-secretary – I’m sorry, as the minister. And I can only find one answer. A jerk holds our future in his hands. And don’t imagine for a minute that I’m the only one threatened. All three of us are, and everything we’ve been trying to achieve.’

As soon as the Captain and the interpreter have left the room, Güelmes rounds on his companion.

‘The Captain is furious – he knows how to conceal it, but underneath, he’s furious.’

‘So what? It’s as if nothing had changed, as if we were still his prisoners. I don’t want to be anybody’s prisoner! What about you? What good is all the paraphernalia of power to you? You still think like a prisoner, like one of the Captain’s prisoners.’

‘And you? Aren’t you a prisoner of your guilty conscience? The prisoner of a ghost, of an imaginary Raúl? The Raúl we all loved doesn’t exist any more. Now there’s only an animal in a corner that will die lashing out. We have to choose.’

‘Choose to kill him, as your Captain wants?’

Güelmes dismisses the idea with a wave.

‘This stress isn’t good for me. Let’s leave it for today’

He takes an apparatus to measure blood pressure out of a desk drawer. He thrusts a finger in it, and checks the result. Wide-eyed, he stares at Font y Rius as if he is the one to blame.

‘See that? My pressure’s gone sky-high! Fourteen over eleven! Fourteen over eleven – d’you know what that means?’

He detains Font y Rius with a hand as he is about to stride out in disgust.

By now he is perfectly calm again.

‘One of those two has to go. Either Raúl or the Captain.’

The buzz of young people chatting, consuming breakfasts, books, jokes reaches his ears like a distantly familiar sound landscape. Something he would rather not call his youth. Not because that would be nostalgia – good or bad – but because it seems to him inappropriate. It does not feel right. He wants to leave as quickly as possible. Font y Rius is unable to contain himself when Alma expresses her surprise at him agreeing to meet her in the university bar. He is too nervous to go along with her attempts to make their meeting more relaxed.

‘I can’t see any other solution. I can’t hold them back much longer. If Raúl doesn’t sort it out...they’ll get him.’

‘How did you manage to pass the message about the deal with the Japanese on to him?’

‘Raúl came to see me. It was like an apparition, I can tell you. I was caught up in some boring administration, and to take my mind off it I looked out into the garden. The usual patients were there, with all their usual tics, and all the usual nurses and guards. But something told me there was a visual intrusion, and I soon saw what it was. Raúl. He was walking very calmly in among the lunatics, as if trying to work out where he was. A short while later, he was sitting opposite me. I tried to talk to him affectionately but responsibly. “Do you know what you want?” I asked him. “Everything. Or nothing,” he replied. I tried to reason with him: “This is a bad moment for all or nothing. We have to make do with a little something. We can’t win any wars, so we have to be satisfied with winning the odd battle. What is it you want?” “I want to be who I am.” “Who you are, or who you were? It’s impossible to be the person you were. Twenty years have gone by. For you, for me, for our memory.” We can’t even trust our memory. My career. My daughter. I think I know who has her.” “Are you sure?” “No, I’m not sure. I was closer to her before they killed Robinson.” Are you listening? “What Robinson are you talking about?” I lost my patience. “So you want to win back a daughter who doesn’t know you, who wouldn’t even recognize you? And who we don’t know the whereabouts of? Wouldn’t the cure be worse than the illness? Your career is easier to save.” And it was then I made my mistake. Are you listening, Alma?’

‘I’m listening.’

‘I said to him: “Not all or nothing, but something, something you can hold on to, Raúl. Would you like to be a partner with us?” He replied: “A partner in exploiting a discovery I made and you stole from me?” I insisted: “It can’t be all or nothing. The Captain is a bad enemy but a good partner.” “You’re all kidnapped people,” he said. “You’re living the Stockholm syndrome. You’re partners with your own jailers.” “Not all or nothing. Something, something, Raúl.” D’you understand what I was trying to tell him, Alma? D’you understand my position?’

‘I understand. You’re the good cop, the Captain is the bad cop and Güelmes is the professional. When we were being interrogated we had time to learn all the roles.’

‘You’re so harsh with everyone else, but I think you’re a little soft with yourself. It was me who gave Raúl the idea of getting mixed up in this, of interfering in our project. Once it was done, I thought I could suggest to them that they brought him in properly, and do a deal with him.’

‘That’s the Yankee method. Take things to the edge of the abyss, then do a deal. That’s what we always denounced as the Kissinger school – his satanic way of calculating probabilities. So Vietnam was bombarded with napalm to ensure peace, and in Latin America the left was wiped out, so a deal could be done with the survivors.’

‘But at least I have a position – you don’t have one at all! You’re all running away, like Raúl, but there’s no way you can get back to the lost homeland of your memories!’

Alma stands up, angry with herself.

‘Do a deal, do a deal!’

She turns her back on Font y Rius and leaves, but not before she hears him calling to her.

‘Berta, Bertita.’

‘Don’t call me Berta, and especially not Bertita.’

‘Alma, just remember, please. Either we did a deal, or we wouldn’t get out of there alive. You did a deal too.’

The private club El Aleph, or the English Royal Academy of Borges Studies. A villa in a residential neighbourhood, wooden beams, and waiters who are wooden copies of English butlers but in flesh and blood, as if they were all called James. And James is what they are all called by the assembled guests, who are also dressed up, mimicking illustrations of Victorian life at the turn of the twentieth century. They are grouped in a circle around the man who is obviously their leader – a man who looks even more like an English aristocrat than the rest of them.

‘This villainy has plumbed the depths: consider just how preposterously Borges’ style has been satirized, when the master’s work is the supreme example of how to avoid commonplaces. And what a commonplace! The grandson of a dancer from Samarkand and an English lord, and the son, no less, of Borges himself!’

One of the academics draws his own conclusion.

‘Ostiz. The cur has no right to live!’

The chairman calls for silence and gestures for another academic to speak. This one is dressed up as a lord. Fair-haired and pale, he speaks slowly and carefully.

‘In agreement with our chairman, Doctor Ostiz, this morning I disguised myself as Jude the Obscure from the novel by Thomas Hardy, and took up my position opposite this charlatan’s house. I didn’t leave a single window intact – I’m a good shot with a stone. Through the windows I could see the impostor’s ashen face – even more disturbed, I imagine, now he is coming to realize the consequences of his actions.’

‘James, bring me a scotch would you – an eighteen-year-old Langavulin in a brandy glass, with no ice or water,’ the chairman orders, provoking an admiring reaction among the other club members.

‘James, I’d like a sarsaparilla with water and a slice of lemon.’

Third academic to the same waiter.

‘And I’d like a mulled wine with a little honey’

But something is worrying the chairman. He is staring quizzically at the young lord’s disguise, and asks him: ‘Why are you dressed up as a nineteenth-century English peasant?’

‘The master was a great admirer of English realist writers of the nineteenth century, especially Thomas Hardy. He told me one day,’ he says, putting on Borges’ most cavernous voice: “Martínez, nearly all realism is ghastly, and the worst of all is Spanish realism. In Latin America it is not so bad, because the realist writers from this side of the Atlantic wrote out of the fear they felt at having been abandoned over here. But English realism is something else, whether it is Hardy and his rearguard action, or Kipling – in it one can sense the energy of Empire. In every Empire there is a moon shining somewhere.”’