“Don’t waste any more time, Jara.” He would address him for the first time with the informal “you”.
He felt as if he could speak like this to Jara, frankly, as you might speak to a friend, a schoolmate or someone you played football with on the weekends. An equal, that’s what he thought, with that word: equal. It was at that precise moment that Jara was waiting for him at the door to the studio, while he spied on him from the other side of the road, that Pablo Simó felt himself and Nelson Jara both to be members of a particular species to which not everyone belonged; two men who had come from the same place and were heading for the same destination. That if every man had a label fixed to some part of his body defining what he will or will never be, he and Jara had the same tag. And this thought, far from troubling him, far from showing him something he didn’t want to see, relieved him; it made him feel that he wasn’t alone. He had never thought of himself as the equal of Borla or Marta, even though they were colleagues and had all shared an office for twenty years. He wasn’t Laura’s equal, either: he always had the impression that his wife brought more energy, willingness and effort to the conjugal partnership than he did, and that difference in contribution – it was only fair to recognize it – tipped the scales in her favour. And yet he did, oddly, feel the equal of that man who, rising from the ugliest pair of shoes Pablo had ever seen, rocked back and forth, as though cradling himself, that man who held a bulging plastic bag between his legs, waiting for something that would never arrive, while he spied, like a coward, from the opposite corner. In that place and at that moment, Pablo knew that Jara and he were, in some sense that he couldn’t define, the same thing.
And yet, despite that epiphany – or because of it – having seen clearly where each of them belonged, Pablo Simó looked at Nelson Jara once more, as if by way of a farewell; then he turned and went, quickly, almost at a run, with no destination in mind. For a long time he wandered in circles around the city, and once he was sure nobody was following him, he found an excuse to stop off at an estate agency run by people known to him and decided to spend the rest of the afternoon there. It was there, in fact, that Pablo wrote his second note:
Dear Señor Jara, the matter of which you informed us is close to resolution and in a day or two you will have news from us. Please be assured that we will be in touch soon,
Pablo Simó
Borla and Associates Architects
After that he spoke to Marta for confirmation that in less than forty-eight hours cement would be filling the foundations of the building, and only then did he call a courier and hand over the note for delivery to Jara. At that point he knew with the certainty of someone waiting for thunder after a lightning bolt that he, Pablo Simó, was no better than vermin.
He repeats that word “vermin”, like a mantra, like someone counting sheep to help themselves get to sleep. And he goes to sleep. And yet, aided by a strange oblivion that is sometimes the mysterious gift of night, not long afterwards he wakes up thinking of Leonor. Or rather, thinking of the buildings he has promised to choose for her. Even in the middle of the night, on the left-hand side of the bed, still listening to the rain on the other side of the window, he’s confident that he won’t need to look in architectural magazines, or search through those old notes and books from his student days – which, in spite of Laura’s complaints, he still keeps stored in the box room – nor does he need to look on the Internet, or to go out blindly searching for buildings around the city. He doesn’t know if he dreamt of Leonor, because he can’t remember – he doesn’t think so – but what’s certain is that when he wakes up, having slept a little more than three hours, Pablo opens his eyes before the alarm goes off and passing in front of him like the closing credits of a film is an endless list of buildings in Buenos Aires that are worth looking at. Trying to commit them quickly to memory before they go out of his head, he repeats the names, reciting them under his breath and then quickly jumping out of bed to find his notebook so that he can write them all down. There are far too many, he realizes as he writes – he can’t give the girl so many options. Leonor asked only for five. So he crosses out the Kavanagh, the old offices of the Diario Crítica, the Obras Sanitarias building on Avenida Córdoba, the Banco Nación and the Olivetti, facing Plaza San Martín; it’s not that they don’t deserve to be on his list but that, to different degrees, they are emblematic of this city’s architecture, buildings that anyone might choose, and he doesn’t want to be anyone. He wants to surprise Leonor with options that she may never have heard of. “The buildings in Buenos Aires that the architect Pablo Simó likes best,” as she put it.
He underlines, on the other hand, the building designed by the Italian architect Mario Palanti at number 1,900 on Avenida Rivadavia, the art-nouveau façade that so obsessed Tano Barletta on Rivadavia at about 2,000 – or was it 2,100? Virginio Colombo’s building on Rivadavia at 3,200 and two by the same architect on Hipólito Yrigoyen at 2,500, one opposite the other. Are they exactly opposite each other? He had better check that this morning on his way to the office; they are only a few blocks from his house and he hasn’t looked at them for a long time; he can’t even remember how long. He adds to the list the housing complex on Calle La Rioja, designed by architects at the Solsona studio; the rationalist building on Alsina and Entre Ríos – on which side of Entre Ríos, though? – and the Liberty building on Paraguay at 1,300, which he marks with a big asterisk because he suspects it’s the one Leonor will like most. The best balcony railings in Buenos Aires are on Avenida Riobamba, close to Arenales; the neat building with the small windows is on Beruti at 3,800. He counts them: one, two, three, plus two more is five, six, seven, eight, plus railings makes nine, ten. He’ll have to cross a few more out: he can’t give Leonor a list of ten buildings unless he wants to spend all Saturday afternoon with her. Will he go with her on Saturday? He doesn’t know yet. Saturday afternoon. He crosses some out anyway. He leaves Palanti, the art nouveau, the three by Colombo which, cheating, he counts as one, plus Liberty and the railings: that’s five. A sneaky five, but he reckons that’s OK. He draws a line under his list, pulls the page out of his notebook and puts it under his pillow, and then he does manage to sleep a little more. Half an hour later the alarm goes off; Laura’s out of bed and having a wash. He gets out his list and looks over it again.
“What are you doing?” Laura asks, coming out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel.
“Looking something over,” he tells her.
“What is it?”
“Nothing important, Laura. Last night I wrote down a few ideas to do with work and now I’m crossing out something that doesn’t apply.”
The explanation seems to satisfy Laura, whose attention shifts to selecting the day’s clothes from her wardrobe and laying them out on the bed. Pablo says, without looking at her.
“You may need to go to the supermarket on your own this Saturday. Borla’s asked me to go and look at some things.”
“Oh, what a shame. I thought we could go to the cinema after we did the shopping. We haven’t been for ages.”
Pablo wonders why, if they haven’t been to the cinema for ages, his wife has to choose precisely this moment to propose it for Saturday.
“Will you get back in time to go to the cinema?” Laura asks, drying her hair with a hand towel.
“I’m not sure,” he lies. “Can I let you know this evening?”
“Sure, tell me later. There’s no hurry.”
She combs her hair, and once all the tangles are out she lets the towel around her body drop and finishes drying herself in front of him: first she lifts one leg onto the bed and dries her calf, her thigh and crotch. Then she does the same with the other leg. Pablo watches her and says:
“You were snoring last night.”
Unflinching, towel in hand, she says:
“That’s a nice thing to say, isn’t it? And well timed! I’m standing naked in front of you and that’s the best you can think of?”
“I didn’t reali
ze you were naked, Laura,” he says, by way of an excuse.
“Well that’s even worse! What were you looking at, then? The towel? You don’t notice when I’m naked, but you do notice when I’m snoring.”
Without waiting for an answer, Laura begins to dress.
“I don’t know, Laura,” he replies. “I was looking the other way, or I was thinking of something else. I don’t know why I remembered just now that you were snoring last night. I just did. Don’t analyse it too much. Snoring isn’t a capital offence, is it? I snore too, after all.”
His wife doesn’t answer or even look at him, and Pablo, worried that he’s making things worse, says, “I’m tired, Laura. I slept badly.”
His fatigue seems not to bother her. She steps into her shoes, checks that she has everything in her bag, puts on a blazer and gets ready to go out, but not before saying to him:
“It’s very ungentlemanly, Pablo. I mean, don’t worry. I know you and I don’t require you to seduce me, but it’s just as well you’re not at a stage in your life when you need to go out impressing girls, because I don’t think you’d know where to start.”
She walks out, leaving him alone in the room. The wet towel Laura just used to dry her body lies on the floor at his feet. Pablo picks it up, feels the dampness, smells it. Then he turns and looks at himself in the mirror: he’s still in boxers and the T-shirt he uses to sleep in, holding in one hand the list where he scribbled down the addresses of some buildings he hopes to go and see on Saturday with a girl he hardly knows and, in the other hand, his wife’s discarded towel; he’s unwashed, his hair still ruffled from the previous night, his chin stubbly and his penis – which seemed so moribund a few hours ago – stirring and threatening to emerge from his boxers.
Without moving, he considers his reflection in the mirror. He doesn’t put a name on what he sees, he doesn’t think of a precise adjective, but he knows exactly what his wife would call him if she could see him.
10
That afternoon Pablo gets his hair cut. Instead of going to his usual barber, he looks for another close to the studio and finds a unisex salon where they assure him that the woman with dry dyed-white hair who’s going to see him specializes in men’s styles. He is seated beside a customer whose hair is separated into different sections, around which are wrapped foil squares in green, orange or yellow, alternating in an order Pablo supposes may have some aesthetic significance, but which he cannot begin to decode. The woman smells terrible and he guesses that the stink is coming from her head; she’s reading a magazine and seems neither surprised nor concerned about her smell or about a man seeing her in this strange and unflattering guise. The stylist suggests Pablo might like a change, asking his permission to find a way of teasing his hair onto his forehead and the back of his neck. Pablo agrees, but the woman has made only one snip before he changes his mind and says:
“Actually, just cut it the way I have it now, but a little more modern.”
“Exactly, more modern,” the stylist says and continues to wield her scissors as she sees fit.
Ten minutes later the cut is finished, but before drying his hair, the woman sticks claw-like fingers into Pablo’s head and gives him a capillary massage. He sees in the mirror how she half-closes her eyes in different ways, depending on the intensity of effort applied to his scalp. She presses and relaxes, presses and relaxes, then makes quick, circular movements with her hands in a symmetrical motion on both sides of his head. The woman leaves Pablo’s head for a moment and looks questioningly at him in the mirror; he feels as though something up there – presumably his scalp – is throbbing. Then the stylist repeats the whole process and Pablo feels powerless to prevent her.
“Good, huh?” she asks.
“Yes,” Pablo says, with difficulty, his voice shaking to the rhythm of the woman’s exertion on his head.
The haircut ends with circular massages on his temples.
“Thank you,” the woman says, as though Pablo had given her the massage, not the other way around. Then she gives him a blast of the hairdryer, pouring onto his head some oil which, she assures him, will impart a youthful shine to the ends of his hair, and finally she offers to give him a manicure.
“No thanks,” Pablo says, without further explanation. But after he has paid the bill he asks, “Do you sell that oil that makes the ends more youthful?” And he buys a pot of that.
After the hairdresser, he goes to buy clothes. He wants jeans and a new sweater. When was the last time he bought his own clothes? Everything he’s had in the last few years was bought by Laura: socks, shirts, trousers, pants, T-shirts, sweaters, swimming trunks, even the suit that has rarely been used and hangs in the wardrobe in his room. Laura insisted on Pablo buying a suit for the fifteenth birthday of the daughter of a cousin they hadn’t seen for years and won’t see again until the girl gets married. Pablo buys only his shoes for himself because Laura never gets the size exactly right. It’s as though Pablo’s feet, after so many years of marriage, are the only part of his body he has managed to keep to himself.
The sales assistant pulls out some sweaters to show him. Pablo says:
“Nothing on the grey spectrum, or beige or blue.”
He could swear that in his own wardrobe there have never been sweaters in any other colour. Beige for Pablo Simó is a “residents’ association” colour – the colour of consensus; when there are as many opinions on what colour to paint a landing as there are apartments, inevitably the default choice is a shade of beige: dark, light, milky tea, café au lait, maté. Once a client assured him that there was a tone called “Mediterranean beige”, which Pablo never managed to find in the catalogue of any paint shop in Buenos Aires. He remembers that Borla told him:
“Make her up a sample of shitty beige – I’m sure it will do the trick.”
And Pablo doesn’t remember if it did, but whenever he gets a new colour chart he looks among the beiges to see if anyone has yet dared call “shitty” by its name. So not beige, because it’s a consensus colour, and not those blues and greys that Pablo associates with large groups of people: the mass of commuters coming out of the underground at rush hour, or marchers on a demonstration; even the fans who fill the stands at a football match – if the eye were capable of separating out the flags and football strips, blue and grey would predominate. For that reason Pablo repeats to the assistant, while she looks on the shelf for his size in each of the available styles:
“Not beige, grey or blue.”
“Yes, yes,” she says, turning to him with a pile of garments.
Pablo rules out a pink sweater, another in lilac and one in red, without commentary (after all, he was the one that requested different colours) and takes to the changing room a yellow one that is neither “canary” nor too strident, with a zipper at the front instead of buttons, as well as one in mint green in a soft, fine wool he has only to touch to know it must be worth a fortune. Since when has he known so much about colours not destined to paint a wall? When he was a boy they had even thought he might be colour-blind because he made everything brown so as to avoid sharpening the other pencils.
“Cardigans are very popular at the moment,” the sales assistant says, approving his selection.
She suggests he start trying on the sweaters he has already chosen, while she looks out two or three styles of jeans “that would be right for you”. The words stir in him a fear that this girl may be seeing him a certain way – old, dated, pathetic? – but the fear turns out to be unfounded because she comes back a few minutes later with three models, one classic and the other two full of slashes and pockets. These Pablo rejects without even trying them on. The first pair he does try, and knows instantly that Laura will disapprove of them. They can be as classic as they like, but the jeans he sees in the mirror are of an indigo that is almost black and his wife believes – and at an end-of-year office party she even argued this point with Marta Horvat, who disagreed – that on building sites the dust that is raised before the cement g
oes down shows much more on a dark background than on a light one. When she sees these, Laura will say something along those lines, even though he no longer visits sites pre-cement. There’s no need, that’s not his job: he is a designer, draughtsman, administrator, responsible for any of the studio jobs not specifically assigned to someone else in the team. For that reason he avoids the cement without feeling the need for explanations; just as he avoids, whenever he has notice of it, any other situation that might cause him to revisit – as a pair of simple dark jeans has caused him to now – the open footing waiting to be cemented, where Jara’s body is trapped forever.
Even though in those days it wasn’t his job to do it, and nobody had asked it of him, the afternoon before Jara’s death Pablo Simó had dropped in on the site in Calle Giribone. It was probably because he wanted to see Marta, who hadn’t been at the office for days. Or because he wanted to confirm, with his own eyes, that the pit would be cemented over the next day and that he, vermin or otherwise, would no longer have to worry about Jara. Perhaps it was fate that led him there and placed him on that stage to be a witness. He can’t remember any more the real reason, only that he was there that afternoon. Everyone was working on schedule, making the final necessary arrangements before the cement was poured in the following day: the open footings at base level; the reinforcement bars in position in each column and bent to the degree specified in the plans; the area clear so that, when the cement mixer arrived the next morning, the truck would have a clear path to the point at which the mixture had to be tipped; the on-site team instructed in the procedure for the following day. Marta was surprised to see him:
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