‘You’re all familiar with this gent aren’t you, comrades? You’ve been seeing him day in day out – some of you for years on end – every morning when you come in to work and every evening when you leave. Some of you may know that this is an exact replica of Michelangelo’s Moses, the original of which is in Rome. Moses, gentlemen, was a prophet who led his people out of slavery and guided them to the Promised Land, though he himself never set foot in it. Some of you – I can see it in your eyes – think you’ve already guessed why I’ve had it brought here. You think I’m going use it to draw an analogy between Sr Sansimón and Pharaoh, between the liberation of the people of Israel and the liberation of the workers of this plasterworks. Well, you’re right. And wrong. Just as this Moses is and isn’t the real thing. You know what the difference is between this Moses and the one in Rome, comrades?’
Seizing the opportunity of Marroné’s pause for effect, the young sculptor raised his hand.
‘The other one’s made of marble.’
‘Exactly!’ exclaimed Marroné, pointing at him. ‘Our comrade here knows what he’s talking about. Our comrade here couldn’t be more right. The other one is made of Carrara marble, and Michelangelo – the great Michelangelo – climbed the mountain himself to select a flawless block. But this thing…’ He spat on his palms, rubbed them together and, picking up the sledgehammer by the end of its long handle, swung it in a wide arc that ended with a sickening thud full in the great patriarch’s stomach. When the cloud of dust had cleared, through the dented mesh and fragments of plaster that hung precariously from their twisted wire threads, all could see the gaping hole Marroné had opened: the left forearm, and much of the chest and abdomen had spilt into the hollow innards of the imposing monument.
‘See? See? It’s hollow! Hollow like everything we’ve been landed with from outside. Over there they may be great works of art, comrades; here they’re nothing but empty shells. I ask you, comrades, is this the Promised Land that foreign capital is trying to sell us? A beautiful façade, yes… But what’s inside? Nothing! That’s why the General said “Neither Yankees nor Marxists – Peronists”, comrades. We don’t want anything to do with foreign ideas that later turn out to be as hollow as this dummy. You can stuff your Moseses, your Davids, your Venuses de Milo, your Eiffel Towers! They want to sell us a French pig in an Argentinian poke, comrades! Let’s stick with what’s ours for once! But what is ours, comrades? You don’t need me to tell you; even little children know that, comrades! The Martín Fierro, the Obelisk, Gardel, Perón and the Difunta Correa! And most of all Evita, the First Worker of our Argentina and the Eternal Guardian of the Revolution, comrades!’ The last few phrases he had to yell till he was hoarse to make himself heard above the noise of two hundred roaring mouths. He’d done it. He’d won. The day was his.
‘Smash ’em to bits! Destroy the foreign casts!’ shouted several enthusiasts, as if they were carrying lighted torches.
Time to channel all that energy.
‘Comrades! Comrades! Where are you going? Can’t you see the green hat? I haven’t told you about my new idea yet.’
Several people laughed. It’s true! The idea! The green-hat idea!
‘I propose that this new plasterworks – this liberated plasterworks – should be renamed the “Eva Perón Plasterworks” in honour of our Queen of Labour. And to celebrate, the first thing that should come out of its workshop today, yes, today is a consignment of ninety-two busts of Eva Perón. So, just like the days of the Foundation, when our Good Fairy was with us, the first profits will go straight into the pockets of the workers as a gift from Eva Perón. The days when the bloodsuckers kept the biggest slice of the pie are over. On behalf of Tamerlán & Sons I guarantee immediate payment here and now.’
After the lap of honour, with the workers carrying Marroné on their shoulders round the whole perimeter of the factory, they set him back on the stage, beside the battered Moses, and marched in orderly fashion towards the workshop to finish their task. Hands on hips, Marroné looked on with satisfaction. And Paddy, who had climbed up onto the platform after the celebrations, looking from him to the gaping Moses, and back, was almost lost for words:
‘Forgive me, Ernesto. I thought… Never in my life have I seen an assembly turned around like that. You’re a born cadre,’ he said with an embarrassed grin. ‘And there’s me explaining the difference to you between subjective and objective conditions, and you looking like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth…’ No one was close enough to overhear, yet Paddy lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘You’re a mole, aren’t you? Who are you with? The ERP or us?’
‘Look…’ began Marroné reluctantly.
‘I know, I know, don’t say a word,’ he said, zipping his lips. ‘There’s just one thing I’d like you to tell me, as long as it doesn’t get you into trouble. Where did you get your training? Have you been to Cuba?’
‘Eh? No, no,’ answered Marroné, whose attention had suddenly detached itself from what was going on around him, as if obeying some inner call.
‘Something the matter?’ asked Paddy, seeing him so rapt in thought.
‘No. Yes,’ he answered as a faint smile crept across his face in response to the rare miracle about to repeat itself for the second time in a week. Something in his life was changing, no doubt about it. And, as if to himself, though not so softly that his friend couldn’t hear, he said, ‘How odd. I have this sudden urge to visit the toilet.’
6
The Sansimonazo
News of the expropriation of the Eva Perón Plasterworks (formerly the Sansimón Plasterworks) by its workers spread through the neighbourhood and local factories like wildfire, and very soon went nationwide on radio and television, which pitched the story under the sensationalist banner ‘ARGENTINE SOVIET ERA DAWNS’. So no one was surprised when the number of men and vehicles in the police guard surrounding the premises doubled, and any workers not on Eva production were consigned by their white-helmeted comrades – which now, of course, included ‘El Negro’ Ernesto – to beef up the military supplies and defence divisions. When he wasn’t lingering in dewy-eyed contemplation over the moist Evas accumulating on the drying racks, he would don the brown helmet and assist in the gathering or production of items for the defences: filling bottles with ball bearings and marbles, learning to manufacture caltrops and Molotov cocktails, rolling barrels of fuel or paint stripper to the factory’s entrances, confiscating all the pepper supplies from the kitchen or scrounging reserves from neighbouring grocers, inspecting the fire-extinguishers and fire-hoses, which one very hot day he and his comrades ended up turning on themselves, knocking each other over in rowdy cowboy duels, tripping each other up with jets of water as hard as iron bars, in an impromptu carnival romp from which they emerged grinning and drenched.
The episode perfectly encapsulated the general atmosphere that reigned in the liberated factory: they all knew an attempt to take back the Eva Perón Plasterworks was on the cards, but no one believed it was imminent. There were too many of them for one thing, and to a man they were ready to fight to the bitter end in order to defend it. The barrels of fuel and paint stripper stockpiled at the four entrances had been put on display as a gesture for the benefit of the presiding judge, just to let him know that, were the police to attack, they would at best recapture a pile of smoking ruins. And then there were the hostages. It wasn’t that the workers meant them any harm, but in the event of an attack they might be tempted to use them as human shields – and who would thank the government for recovering the factory if the owner and its chief executives had to attend the reopening in body bags? The strikers also had the people behind them, as demonstrated by the support of the locals, who cheered them every time they set foot in the neighbourhood, often lavishing provisions on them and waving the strikers away when they offered to pay with what little money they had, and generally egging them on (it was a humble neighbourhood, practically a shanty town in parts). Statements of support kept pouring in from
neighbouring factories; student associations and political parties; improvising orators, of whom there was never a shortage at the gate, spoke of the Eva Perón Plasterworks as the vanguard of the proletariat and the spearhead of the Revolution. And as if that weren’t enough, Marroné had been going with unprecedented regularity since the day of the assembly. Something of the reigning euphoria must have infected him when he spoke with Govianus the accountant on the phone.
‘Is something the matter with you, Marroné? You sound different…’
‘It’s the joy of knowing I’ll soon have those ninety-two busts for you, Sr Govianus,’ he answered exultantly.
And to some extent it was true. At this rate they’d be packed and loaded by the 24th, a day late, true, and cutting it pretty fine, because, being Christmas Eve, they only worked a half-day; but the assembly had voted to celebrate the recovery of the factory by throwing a big asado, open to all – except, of course, police and bureaucrats – and Marroné felt it wasn’t the right time to spoil their fun and blow his credit with them by being a stick-in-the-mud and insisting they finish the job first.
The day of the asado dawned bright and sunny, albeit on the warm side, and the workers were up early to get everything ready for the big bash. They set up tables from the canteen and workshop in the front gardens, watched over by the now companionless David and, realising there weren’t enough, supplemented them with trestles and planks, desks from the offices and even with doors they’d taken off their hinges, draping them with tablecloths of various patterns and colours, contributed by local women, many of them strikers’ wives. Makeshift parrillas cobbled together from gratings, railings and chicken-wire had to be added to the existing ones, and the vast horseshoe of grills was lined below with beds of glowing coals and above with a lorry load of meat – a gift from the workers at a nearby meat-packing plant – which in no time at all was hissing and crackling over the coals, enveloped in the clouds that rose from the sizzling fat, and emitting the most mouth-watering smells in the world: whole sides of beef trimmed with garlands of black puddings, pork sausages and chitterlings; armies of chickens whose skins crisped and goldened; whole sucking pigs, butterflied and gleaming like polished leather, smiling at the thought of how delicious they’d taste; and there, wielding the long knife and fork of the asador, stood El Tuerto, presiding like a grinning Cyclops over this general holocaust of roasting animal flesh. Under a stand of willows, to keep the morning sun off them, stood two tall pyramids of demijohns – one of white, one of red – which had either been donated or sold by local shopkeepers at cost price. There, too, sat heavy wicker baskets lugged by two men apiece and heaped with bread rolls, which, bisected by a brigade of slicers, gaped in anticipation of the sausages and black puddings that would soon fill their jaws. The salad committee were hosing down tubs of lettuces, and slicing tomatoes and onions, then chucking everything into enormous troughs into which others poured bottle after bottle of corn oil and wine vinegar, and tossed it with trowels and wooden spatulas. The blue hats had spent the day before handing out leaflets and sticking up posters, and the news had been spread through a double megaphone atop a Fiat 500, which drove round and round the station square; and all this, coupled with word of mouth and especially the smell that wafted over the brick-and-mortar shacks and corrugated-iron-roofed hovels, and drifted maddeningly in through windows and chinks – passengers were even said to have jumped the train at the station to try their luck – meant that a throng of neighbours and gatecrashers joined the contingents of worker delegates, students and sympathisers, all of whom began milling about among the smoking grills, sitting at the tables or on the lawn, and cadging the first swigs of wine in wax-paper cups. Dozens of children played among the trees, most of them the sons and daughters of workers from the factory, hugging the legs of parents who in some cases hadn’t seen them for days, and Marroné looked on at them with a touch of healthy envy. He had called Mabel the night before, suggesting she should drop in with the children to enjoy a day in the country with his new-found friends, an invitation she had not only most emphatically declined but had followed through with a flurry of recriminations and tears for all the time he’d been away, which segued seamlessly into the subject of the seasonal festivities: ‘Mum and Dad are expecting us on Christmas Eve like every year, and I’ve already made arrangements with yours for…’ Marroné had been non-committal, and Mabel took a breath before launching into a second tirade, ‘I knew it! I knew it! I knew this was all an excuse for you to snub them! I know you, Ernesto Marroné!’ ‘No, you don’t,’ he said to her, after he’d hung up, ‘and if you think things are going to be the same when I come back – if I do come back – you’ve got another thing coming.’ Still, all in good time; for the moment he could just wander and gaze at the kites overhead, listening to the crackle of their paper and the snap of their tails every time the hovering police helicopter flew off, watching any of three football games taking place in the unwooded parts of the grounds, listening to the music from the bands playing on the podium that had been Marroné’s stairway to glory, now reassembled under the shade of the pines. A four-piece was onstage; siku, quena, charango and bombo, played by swarthy young men in ponchos with vicuña and cactus motifs: it was The Atahualpas.
‘Through the jungles of Bolivia
Always watchful, never trivial,
On a mule called Rocinante
Rides this new knight-comandante.
He’s the Revolution’s tiara
And his name is Che… ?’
… they asked, pausing and pointing at the audience of wised-up youths, most with long hair and haversacks, who chorused back ‘Guevara!’, and yelled ‘Presente!’ and ‘Viva!’ Another coincidence, or rather sign, mused Marroné, who hadn’t missed the unmistakeable reference to his colleague from La Mancha.
But most of the time he simply strolled about, enjoying the transformation of the factory’s green lawn into a public park, now and then issuing directives or dealing with workers’ queries: the comrades standing guard in the factory were asking to be relieved (‘Time up,’ he answered); should we take the hostages something to eat (‘What hostages?’), or invite them to join in? (‘Screw them, the exploiting scum!’); the people wanted to cool down with the fire-hoses, could they? (‘Water to the people!’), and every query concluded with the invariable ‘What should we do, Ernesto?’, which became the badge and catchphrase associated with the new Marroné. At one point in this constant toing and froing he ran into Paddy, who had also been rushing back and forth, fielding people’s questions. They stood together for a moment, looking on at the spectacle unfolding before their eyes.
‘Now you see why I became a proletarian?’ his friend exclaimed exultantly. ‘Just look at this. Where else do you find fervour like this?’
Marroné recalled the stands back in St Andrew’s celebrating Paddy’s try against St George’s, but for some reason he felt it would be unwise to bring it up.
Out of sheer contentment Paddy put his arm around Marroné’s shoulder, shaking him, then squeezing him tight. Marroné felt a lump rise to his throat and for a moment he was on the verge of confessing to his part in the coloured-chalk episode, but then he thought it might ruin the moment and let it pass.
‘We’ll beat those sonsofbitches with sheer people power! This is what our Revolution’s all about, Ernesto! Look at their faces! Who’s going to stop us now, for Christ’s sake!’
‘Comrade…’
They both turned round at the same time. The man in mirrored sunglasses who had spoken was dressed in a light leather jacket, zipped up to the collar in spite of the heat, his hair slicked behind his ears into an astrakhan of tight curls at the nape.
‘Miguel!’ Paddy said with pleasant surprise. ‘How’s it going?’
He made to embrace him, but Miguel held out his hand coldly, ignoring the one Marroné had politely extended in his direction.
‘What’s all this, Colorado?’ he said to Paddy.
‘This? I
t’s the people in power!’
‘But Colorado… I waltzed in through the front gate like I owned the place. No one to stop me. Your security… it’s a mess! Haven’t you seen the pigs outside?’
Paddy gestured at the factory gardens, which looked like a public promenade on a bank holiday. The thunderous thudding of the helicopter overhead again drowned out part of his reply, ‘… enough people power!’
Marroné still stood beside them, biding his time. Only then did the newcomer seem to notice his presence.
‘And who’s this?’
‘I thought you people had sent him,’ answered Paddy, looking at Marroné with dawning perplexity.
The time had come to seize the initiative.
‘Ernesto,’ was all he said, having been aware for some time now that guerrilla leaders never gave their surnames, and, with his best How-to-Win-Friends smile, held out his right hand again, this time right in the face of the ill-mannered Miguel, who had no option but to shake it. He even responded by cracking a tense smile.
‘Ah, yes. A pleasure, comrade. Heard a lot about you. You saved the occupation in injury time. You’re from the North Column, aren’t you?’
Marroné’s own house being in Olivos and his parents’ in Vicente López, he felt authorised to answer in the affirmative. Ah well, in for a penny… Miguel turned back to Paddy, his tone and facial expression hardening perceptibly.
The Adventure of the Busts of Eva Perón Page 17