by Selva Almada
5
Of the three towns where the girls were born, grew up and were murdered, I only know one from back then: San José. I remember it from my childhood and teenage years, as an obligatory stop between my town and the city of Colón, where my aunt lived. I only ever saw San José through the bus window. We never got out or walked around, there was no reason to because we didn’t know anyone who lived there. But it struck me as an ugly, uninspiring place.
As soon as you entered the town you had to go past the Vizental meat plant. Its high chimneys were always smoking, day and night, filling the whole town with the greasy, pestilent stench of cooking meat, skin and bones. If we went by very, very early in the morning, I liked to look at the plant workers we passed on the way: they were going in the opposite direction to us, men and women on bicycles, dressed all in white from head to toe. There was something strange and unreal about those cyclists pedalling slowly along the side of the road, wreathed in the dirty morning light. Now and then it looked like they were floating: a legion of ghosts.
There were rumours in the area about people from San José: that they practised black magic, that they were always getting into fights, that the guys went everywhere with a knife in their belt and all the women were easy. Comments from towns where most people were farmers with European heritage. San José was a factory town, almost everyone lived off the meat plant in some way. In its neighbours’ imaginations, it was as if the stinking black smoke from the Vizental also contaminated the lives and customs of the residents. They were workers and they were poor, they spent their days butchering cows, hacking them up, cooking them, and then putting them in tins that were sold in supermarkets all over the country. Whereas we sowed, harvested, worked the land. Our air was clean and pure, barely tainted, now and then, by the smell of petrol from the threshing machines. If people from San José showed up at the dances in Villa Elisa or Colón, sooner or later there’d be a skirmish. Not because they directly provoked it, but because, for us, the presence of these undesirable neighbours at any of our gatherings was provocation enough.
When people heard the news of Andrea’s murder, it was as if all those prejudices found their vindication. No one seemed surprised that such a brutal murder had happened there. Soon people were talking about cults, satanic rituals, witchcraft.
Still, there is something ritualistic about the way she was murdered: stabbed once in the heart, while she slept. As if her own bed were the sacrificial stone.
Tacho Zucco is a sculptor and lives in Chajarí, the most north-easterly part of Entre Ríos province, in a house he built with his own hands. A simple, cosy house, with big windows that overlook the courtyard, and that let in all the light on a sunny Sunday. Now that his four children are studying in Buenos Aires, the only people left in the house are him and Silvia, his wife. The same person who was his girlfriend and expecting a baby when Andrea was killed. Tacho and the dead girl were good friends.
A couple of years before the murder, he moved to San José, where he opened a record shop and got to know Andrea and her sister and their group of friends. In no time the shop had attracted all the young people in San José and alarmed many of the adults. Tacho Zucco was the guy from out of town who brought in those rock cassettes, and teenagers would hang out in his shop and smoke weed. He’s surprised when I tell him his name comes up a lot in the case file. It’s because they found some letters from him among Andrea’s things.
He thought she was gorgeous, but nothing ever happened between them. He wouldn’t have wanted to be her boyfriend because her boyfriends had such a hard time of it; she was somehow both there and not there, she never fully committed, never let herself go. She was like that with everything, he remembers. As if she were always floating somewhere between the earth and the sky.
In the year and a bit that he lived in San José, he never felt comfortable. The town was very different to Chajarí. Everything was darker, murkier.
The kids had this thing they did, this game, I don’t know what the word is, he tells me. They called it calving. They’d pick out a girl, always someone lower-class. One of the group would make like he was her boyfriend. He’d follow her down the street, say stuff to her, try to seduce her. This would be during the week, and it couldn’t take too long: the calving happened at the weekend, so the conquest had to be quick. Once the girl yielded, an invitation would follow to the Saturday dance. But first a drink in the café, and then a spin in the car. They never made it to the dance. The car would veer off towards the riverbank or some other deserted spot. There the rest of the gang would be waiting, and the girl had to do it with everyone. They passed her round everyone, more like. Then they gave her some cash so she didn’t squeal. I’d never heard of anything like that here in Chajarí. Although there was a case a while back that reminded me of the calf thing.
Zucco is talking about the murder of Alejandra Martínez, a girl of seventeen who disappeared in the early hours of one morning in May 1998, outside a nightclub, and who reappeared one month later, dead. Her body was left in Colonia Belgrano, six miles from Chajarí, on some land bordered by eucalyptus trees, partly hidden under a pile of timber. She was found by a farm labourer who’d gone in there looking for a lost animal. She was semi-naked and in an advanced state of decomposition, her nipples had been cut off and her vagina and uterus removed, along with most of her fingertips. Some witnesses said they’d seen her in the neighbourhood at six that morning, others that a group of guys had bundled her into a taxi, and one neighbour said she heard someone shouting for help and shortly after saw the girl’s father-in-law loading something heavy into his car outside the house and driving away. The father-in-law was held for two years on suspicion of the crime, though there was never any concrete proof against him and in the end the case was dismissed and they let him go. In the eyes of the Chajarí residents, who organised various silent marches demanding justice for Alejandra, the father-in-law was a scapegoat: rumours had long connected the case to a private party involving the sons of politicians and police officers.
Zucco’s wife brews some more mate. She says word got around that the son of a famous surgeon was mixed up in Alejandra Martínez’ murder, and that it was the father who’d cut her open and removed the organs, though to what end she doesn’t know, whether to disguise a rape, destroy the evidence or what. And that they’d stored her in a freezer for several days before discarding her body in the wasteland; they’d kept her on ice while they decided what to do.
She doesn’t have fond memories of San José either. When she visited Tacho and went out with the girls or chatted to them, there were some things she couldn’t get used to.
It might sound silly now. But I remember that was when thongs had just come into fashion. And for example, a girl in the group had bought one and she used to share it with everyone else. If one of them had a date that night, she’d ask her friend for the thong. See what I mean? I wasn’t into that stuff. The whole time, it all felt kind of sleazy. Although really I was a bit jealous, too, because Tacho was their friend and I felt like a prude, she says with a laugh.
Since Tacho had closed the record shop and moved back to Chajarí, it was a few days before they heard about Andrea’s death. Someone mentioned it, but without saying how she’d died, and he imagined a heart attack, something sudden, tragic, but a death by natural causes. He travelled back to see Fabiana and the group of friends he’d made in those months. As soon as he got off the bus, he ran into a girl he knew at the terminal and she told him the details. From that day on, he never again set foot in the town. He never spoke to Fabiana again, or any of the rest of the gang.
In the case file, these details are described as follows:
On a wooden bed 190cm long, 90cm wide and 50cm high, which is set against the wall on the west side of the room, with the head of the bed towards the south wall and touching both walls, the body of Miss María Andrea Danne lies face-up, head turned slightly to
the right, resting on the pillow, with a considerable amount of blood on the chest, sheet, mattress and part of the bed, specifically the spring on the right side, and a pool of blood on the floor to the right of the bed. The above-mentioned girl is lifeless, covered to the waist by a sheet and a quilt, both hands resting on her stomach, and wearing a red vest, stained with her own blood, and bikini briefs. One brown leather sandal is visible under the bed, and, next to the bed, the second of the pair, these presumably being the shoes the victim was wearing. There is no sign of the bedclothes being disordered, that is, there are no signs of struggle, the hair of the deceased is neat and tidy.
Tacho Zucco doesn’t know who could have killed her, or why. When I tell him that in the city’s collective unconscious, the murderers are Andrea’s parents, he looks at me, surprised. More than surprised, visibly shaken.
Later – we’ve already said goodbye and I’m in a taxi on the way to the bus terminal – he sends me a text: The story of Abraham and Isaac, I can’t believe it.
Again, this idea of sacrifice.
The first time I spoke to Yogui Quevedo, the brother who was living with María Luisa when she was murdered, I did so from Buenos Aires. A journalist from Sáenz Peña gave me his mobile number. The connection was poor and kept cutting out. I went onto the patio to see if it improved. A little, but not enough. I asked him to go outside as well, and then we did manage to speak more easily. Yogui was standing on the pavement. The signal was more even, but now the interruptions came when every so often someone greeted him and he responded.
The thing is, everyone knows me round here, he said.
It was a few months before I could travel to Chaco to interview him. I have family in Villa Ángela, a city sixty miles from Sáenz Peña. A couple of years earlier, in the very house where I’m going to stay, I read the newspaper article that led me to María Luisa.
As soon as I’m settled in, I call and we arrange to meet the next afternoon. His instructions take me by surprise, but I agree to them. When I’m approaching Sáenz Peña in the bus that afternoon, I’m to send him a text message and he’ll tell me where to meet.
I send the first message as we drive under the metal arch that says Welcome to Thermal City. The second when I reach the bus station. I step down onto a platform where one lot of people are waiting for their bus and another lot are waiting for the people who’ve just arrived. Like most provincial bus terminals, it’s grubby and neglected.
I look at the men waiting for passengers to see if I can spot Yogui, though I’ve never seen a photo of him. Nothing. The people waiting with anxious faces begin to smile as they hug the new arrivals and offer help with bags and cases. The platform is emptying and I stay near the bus, just in case, until the luggage man closes the hold and the vehicle reverses, leaving the bay free for the next one.
I need to pee, but I’m scared he’ll turn up when I’m in the bathroom. So I send another message: I’m here, I’m going to the bathroom, wait for me.
In the bathroom, a woman sitting at a little table is handing out pieces of folded toilet roll and paper towels. There’s a strong smell of disinfectant and it’s very hot. Women go in and out of the cubicles, there’s a queue. When it’s finally my turn, I step into the cubicle but there’s no water in the toilet bowl.
Just a trickle comes out of the tap in the sink. I wet my fingertips, like in a baptismal font, and walk out without taking a paper towel.
Of course, Yogui Quevedo isn’t waiting for me. I call him. The voicemail picks up. I leave a message. I wait. I call again. I call five more times in the next half-hour. Suddenly I remember that, in our extremely brief exchange a while back, he said his brothers had a travel agency. I go into a call shop and ask for a directory, then write down an address and get in a taxi.
When I walk into the tour agency, the young man at the desk greets me with a smile. He must think I’m a potential customer. When I explain that I don’t want to buy a package holiday and tell him the real reason I’m sitting opposite him, he looks deflated and I feel bad. Even though I’ve disappointed him, he carries on being friendly. A few blocks from there, some kids have an agency that runs shopping tours, that must be what I’m after, though he’s not sure if their surname is Quevedo.
I thank him and head back into the street, where the air is thick and heavy.
The place I end up looks nothing like the glass-fronted office decorated with pictures of sublime landscapes I’ve just left. This one is on the ground floor of a crumbling two-storey building, with broken windows covered by pieces of cardboard. Later I learn that the building belongs to Carlos Janik, one of the forensic scientists who worked on the Quevedo case. I’d written to Janik a few months back, hoping to interview him, and he’d answered that not only did he have no recollection of the case but he also had no idea what had become of the girl’s family, and so couldn’t put me in touch with them.
The office is closed, and although I ring the bell and knock on the door, the only response is the barking of a neighbour’s dog. Outside there’s a board that reads Trips to Bolivia and La Salada. With a mobile number. I dial. It rings a couple of times and a man picks up.
I tell him why I’m phoning and he says his brother should be in the office, that if he’s not there he doesn’t know where he could be, that he doesn’t know where he lives these days. That as for him, he’s in Bolivia with a tour group, and has to hang up because he’s driving.
Phone in hand, I sit on a brick wall that runs along the edge of the pavement. I take a deep breath and try Quevedo’s number one more time. Again, the voicemail says: He’s not available, please leave a message after the tone. I leave a final terse message, not bothering to hide my annoyance.
I go back to the station and buy a ticket for the next bus to Villa Ángela. Luckily it’s just about to leave. I resign myself to another two and a half hours on a dilapidated bus (yes, it took me two and a half hours to get there, two and a half hours for a journey of sixty miles), which has no toilet, no air conditioning, and stops every five minutes, the kind that in the interior of the country we call milk floats.
As soon as they let us on, I look for a window seat so I can at least watch the scenery go by and breathe the hot air from the road. Foam oozes from the rips in the fake leather seat, which won’t recline because the mechanism’s jammed. The bus soon fills up, but the seat next to me stays empty. I think perhaps the good luck I didn’t have all afternoon is finally kicking in and I’ll travel with no one beside me.
The bus jolts backwards and we’re out of the bay, it turns and we exit the terminal. Until we finally leave the city behind, it will stop every block or two, even twice on the same block, to pick up the passengers who wait, without rhyme or reason, at the point on the block where they’ve put down their bag, without taking another step even if there are more passengers just fifty yards away, most likely waiting for this same bus.
A stocky blonde girl gets on at one of the stops, clutching various bags. She edges sideways down the aisle and then drops into the seat next to mine. She’s seriously huge, of Eastern European descent like so many people in the region. I squeeze over as far as I can against the window and open it as wide as it’ll go. The girl’s sickly-sweet perfume is making me dizzy. And the journey has only just begun.
I take short deep breaths and try to think of something else.
Jesús Gómez, who María Luisa’s family identify as her murderer, was the owner of a bus company like this one. Thirty years ago his fleet of coaches drove all over the province, connecting cities and small towns.
A former driver with the company, who was also friends with Gómez, tells me he was something of a womaniser, even then, when he was past seventy.
He was a bit too partial to the really young girls, everyone knew it. His own staff used to fix him up with them for cash.
In some versions of the story, María Lui
sa was one of the girls who used to visit Gómez.
I take a manila envelope out of my rucksack and look through the photocopied cuttings for a picture of the guy. I find just one, and it’s blurry. He’s on the way into court, the caption says, for a face-to-face confrontation with two witnesses before the judge. He’s an old man in glasses and he’s wearing a guayabera shirt.
I remember a conversation I had with a friend in Resistencia, the day I visited the Norte newspaper archives to look up articles about the crime, which is where I found that cutting with the photo of Gómez. We went to have fish milanesas for lunch, and as we ate we discussed the case. My friend told me that a few years ago he’d been with some fellow activists in a diner not far from the bus terminal. At a nearby table, a guy of around forty was drinking a beer and a girl of twelve was eating a sandwich. They weren’t father and daughter. Although my friend didn’t catch their conversation, the man’s facial expressions, eyes and body language, as he leant in closer and closer over the table, implied that as soon as the little girl finished her ham and cheese roll, their encounter would continue elsewhere. In one of the seedy hotels near the terminal, or right there, in the toilet. The guy was paying in advance, with a lunchtime snack, and afterwards he’d take what he was owed.
I look out of the window. We’ve left the city now and it’s getting dark. We’re driving past the zoo. I crane my neck, trying to glimpse the animals, but the trees and bushes around the edge get in the way. All that reaches me is the creaturely smell, carried in the heavy air as the bus crawls along. Fur, feathers, females in heat, baby animals, excrement. And the stagnant water in the troughs and artificial lakes.