What We Become (14 page)

Hotel Vittoria, in Sorrento. The afternoon sun casts a golden glow on the curtains that have been drawn across the open windows in the spacious room, with its ornate ceiling and mirrors. At the far end, in front of eight rows of chairs occupied by members of the public, a set of lights illuminates the table situated on a dais, as well as a large wooden chessboard on the wall beside the referee's table, where an assistant reproduces the moves. A solemn silence reigns inside the spacious room, broken at lengthy intervals by the whisper of a piece moving on the board followed by the immediate click of the chess clock, as each player presses his button, before noting down the move he has just made on the record sheet beside him.

Seated in the fifth row, Max Costa studies the two opponents. The Russian, dressed in a brown suit, white shirt, and green tie, leans back against his chair as he plays, head bowed. Mikhail Sokolov's broad head sinks into an excessively thick neck, seemingly constricted by his tie. Yet the coarseness of his features is softened by his watery blue eyes, which have a soft, sad expression. His thickset body and cropped fair hair give him the appearance of a gentle bear. Frequently, after making a move (he is Black at the moment), he takes his eyes off the board and stares lengthily at his hands. Every ten or fifteen minutes, he lights a fresh cigarette and in the intervals, the world champion picks his nose or gnaws on his cuticles, before becoming rapt once more, or else takes another cigarette out of the packet he keeps nearby, together with a
lighter and an ashtray. In fact, Max observes, the Russian spends more time gazing at his hands, as though absorbed by them, than at the pieces.

Another click of the chess clock. On the other side of the table, Jorge Keller has just moved a white knight, and after unscrewing the cap of his fountain pen he jots down his move, which the assistant referee immediately reproduces on the wall panel. Each time one of the players moves a piece, an almost tangible thrill spreads through the audience, accompanied by expectant sighs and murmurs. They are halfway through the game.

Jorge Keller looks even more youthful when he is playing. His tousled black hair on his forehead, his blazer over his wrinkled khaki slacks, his loosely knotted narrow tie and incongruous sneakers give the Chilean a scruffy yet comforting appearance. Charming is the word. His whole demeanor suggests an eccentric student rather than the formidable chess player who in five months is to challenge Sokolov for the title of world champion. Max saw him arrive carrying a bottle of orange juice at the start of the game, when Sokolov was already waiting in his chair, then shake the Russian's hand without looking at him, set the bottle down on the table, take his place, and make his first move instantaneously, almost without glancing at the board, as if he had planned his opening gambit hours or days in advance. Unlike Sokolov, the young man does not smoke and scarcely makes any other gestures while he meditates or waits, except to reach for the orange juice, which he drinks straight from the bottle. Occasionally, while waiting for Sokolov (both men take their time to calculate each move, but the Russian usually takes longer), Keller folds his arms on the edge of the table, and lays his head on them, as if he can see with his imagination better than with his eyes. He only raises his head once his opponent has moved, as though roused by the gentle thud of the enemy piece on the board.

Everything takes place too slowly for Max. Chess seems like a boring game to him, especially at this level and with all this rig
marole. He doubts his interest would grow even if Lambertucci and Captain Tedesco were to explain to him the intricacies of each move. But the situation gives him a unique vantage point to spy from. And not just on the players. Sitting in a wheelchair in the front row, accompanied by his helper and an assistant, is the benefactor of the contest, the millionaire industrialist Campanella, disabled ten years ago after crashing his Aurelia Spider on a bend between Rapallo and Portofino. In the same row, to the left, between Irina Jasenovic and the stocky man with the grizzled beard, sits Mecha Inzunza. From where Max is sitting, if he leans slightly to one side to avoid the head of the spectator in front of him, Max can see her almost in close-up, shoulders draped in the habitual fine wool cardigan, short gray hair revealing her slender neck, her features still well defined when she turns to whisper something to the stocky man on her right. And that gentle yet determined way of tilting her head, intent upon what is going on in the game, just as in the past she was absorbed by other things, Max reflects with a look of mournful longing, by other moves, no less complex than those now unfurling before them on the chessboard on the table and the other one on the wall, where the assistant referee continues to track each move.

“Here it is,” said Max Costa.

The limousine (a dark purple Pierce-Arrow with the badge of the Automobile Club on the radiator grille) stopped at the corner of a long brick wall, thirty yards from Barracas railway station. It was a moonless night, and when the chauffeur switched off the headlights the only light came from a solitary street lamp and four yellowish bulbs beneath the building's tall awning. Toward the east, over streets lined with low houses extending to the docks of the Riachuelo River, night was extinguishing the last glimmer of reddish light in the dark sky over Buenos Aires.

“What a place,” commented Armando de Troeye.

“You wanted tango,” Max retorted.

He had climbed out of the automobile, and, after donning his hat, was holding the door open for de Troeye and his wife. By the light of the nearby street lamp, Max saw Mecha Inzunza gather her silk shawl and glance around impassively. Although not wearing a hat or jewelry, she had on a light-colored evening dress, midheeled shoes, and long white gloves. Still overdressed for that neighborhood. She seemed unfazed by the locale, with its lurking shadows and gloomy brick footpath stretching into the darkness between the wall and the elevated iron-and-concrete railway station. Her husband, on the other hand (in a double-breasted serge suit, with a hat and cane), glanced about anxiously. The atmosphere was clearly more than he had bargained for.

“Are you sure you know this place well, Max?”

“Of course. I was born three blocks away. In Calle Vieytes.”

“Three blocks? . . . Good Lord.”

Max leaned toward the chauffeur's open window, to give him instructions. The man was a silent burly Italian, clean-shaven, with jet-black hair showing beneath his peaked uniform cap. The hotel had recommended him as a trustworthy, experienced driver when de Troeye had ordered a limousine. Max hadn't wanted to attract too much attention by parking outside the venue. He and the couple would walk the rest of the way, and he told the chauffeur where to wait for them, within view of the place but at a safe distance. Lowering his voice slightly, he asked the man whether he was armed. The man motioned discreetly toward the glove compartment.

“Pistol or revolver?”

“Pistol,” came the brisk reply.

Max smiled.

“Your name?”

“Petrossi.”

“Sorry to make you wait, Petrossi. We will only be a couple of hours, at most.”

It didn't cost anything to be friendly, and was an investment for the future. At night, in a place like that, a burly Italian with a pistol was invaluable. Extra security. Max saw the chauffeur nod again, curt and professional, although in the light of the street lamp he also glimpsed a flash of appreciation. He placed his hand on the man's shoulder an instant, giving him a friendly pat before joining the de Troeyes.

“We had no idea this was your neighborhood,” the composer said. “You never mentioned it.”

“There was no reason to.”

“And did you always live here, before you went to Spain?”

De Troeye was keen to talk, doubtless to conceal his unease, which was evident anyway from his voice. Mecha Inzunza walked between the two men, her arm looped through her husband's. She remained silent, observing everything around her; the only sound she made came from her heels clacking on the path. The three of them walked among the silent shadows of the neighborhood Max recognized at every step (the warm, moist air, the lush odor of weeds sprouting from the potholes, the muddy stench from the nearby Riachuelo), from the railway station to the squat dwellings that still preserved the old traditions of the working-class suburbs of Buenos Aires.

“Yes. I spent the first fourteen years of my life in Barracas.”

“You certainly are full of surprises.”

The echo of their footfalls multiplied as Max guided them through the railway tunnel toward the pool of light from another street lamp beyond the station. He turned to de Troeye.

“Did you bring the pistol you mentioned?”

Armando bellowed with laughter.

“Of course not. I was joking. I never carry a weapon.”

Max nodded in relief. The idea of de Troeye walking into a dive
in the slums with a gun in his pocket, despite Max's advice, had been preying on his mind.

“Just as well.”

The district seemed almost unchanged since Max last went there twelve years before, despite having made several trips to Buenos Aires in between. At every moment he was retracing his own footsteps, remembering the tenement nearby where he spent his early childhood and youth, a slum like so many others in the neighborhood and the wider city. A chaotic, promiscuous place where any kind of privacy was unimaginable, crammed between the walls of a dilapidated two-story building, where people of all ages were crammed together: voices speaking Spanish, Italian, Turkish, German, or Polish. Rooms with doors that had never known a key, rented to large families or groups of single men, immigrants of both sexes who (if they were lucky) worked for the railway company Ferrocarril Sud, down at the Riachuelo docks, or in the nearby factories whose sirens sounded four times a day, punctuating the domestic routines of households where clocks were a rare possession. Women pounding wet clothes in bathtubs, swarms of children playing on the patio where the laundry hanging out at all hours was steeped in the smell of fried food or stews, which mingled with the stench from the communal latrines with their tarred walls. Homes where rats were like pets. A place where only the very young and a few youths smiled openly, the innocence of their tender years making them oblivious to the inevitable defeat life had in store for nearly all of them.

“There it is . . . La Ferroviaria.”

They had paused near the street lamp. Now on the far side of the railway station, they were out of the tunnel; nearly all the houses on the dark, straight street were low-roofed, except for the few two-story buildings. One of these bore a neon sign saying
Hotel
, the last letter missing. The place they were looking for was barely visible at the end of the gloomy street: a low edifice that looked like
a store, with tin walls and roof, and a small yellow lantern above the entrance. Max waited until he saw the twin headlights of the Pierce-Arrow appear to his right, as it rolled slowly to a halt fifty yards away on the corner of the next block, where he had asked the chauffeur to park. When the headlights went off, Max observed the de Troeyes and noticed that the composer was gasping with excitement, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, and that Mecha Inzunza was smiling, a strange glint in her eyes. Then, pulling his hat down slightly over his eyes, he said, “Let's go,” and the three of them crossed the street.

The Ferroviaria stank of cigar smoke, cheap gin, hair oil, and human bodies. Like other tango dives near the Riachuelo, during the day it was a large corner store selling foodstuffs and beverages, and by night a venue for music and dancing. It had a wooden floor that creaked underfoot, cast-iron columns, and tables and chairs where men and women sat. Opposite them, bare lightbulbs lit a zinc counter, on which several sinister-looking individuals were hunched or sprawled.

On the wall behind the bartender, who was assisted by a lanky waitress moving lazily between the tables, hung a large, dusty mirror advertising Cafés Torrados Águila and a poster from the Franco-Argentina Insurance Company with a picture of a gaucho drinking maté. To the right of the bar, next to a doorway, through which barrels of sardines in brine and boxes of noodles were visible, was a tiny podium nestled between an unlit kerosene stove and a battered-looking Olimpo pianola. On it three musicians (bandoneon, violin, and piano with left-hand keys dotted with cigarette burns) were playing a tune that sounded like a nostalgic lament, and among whose notes Max thought he recognized the tango song. “Old Rooster.”

“Marvelous,” breathed Armando de Troeye, in awe. “Better than I expected, perfect . . . another world.”

He would have to keep an eye on him, thought Max resignedly.
De Troeye had left his hat and cane on a chair, a pair of yellow gloves was sticking out of his left-hand jacket pocket, and he had crossed his legs to reveal buttoned gaiters beneath perfectly pressed trousers. Needless to say, the Ferroviaria was a different type of world from the one he and his wife were accustomed to, and was frequented by a decidedly different clientele. There were about a dozen women, nearly all of them young, either sitting with a man or dancing with one in an area cleared of tables. They were not exactly prostitutes, Max explained in a whisper, but more like hostesses, hired to encourage men to dance with them (they received a token for each dance, which the landlord cashed in for a few cents) and to consume as much as alcohol as possible. Some of them had boyfriends, some did not. A few of the men there were in charge of the latter.