The Adventure of the Busts of Eva Perón

by Carlos Gamerro

  ‘I have no doubts that, when the Family find out all you’ve done, they’ll be keen to second my proposal. I know I’m asking a great deal. You, a young man with a wife and small children, your whole life ahead of you… So I’d ask you not to answer me immediately, to think it over, see what your nearest and dearest have to say… But before that, I suggest you try it for size, see how you feel…’

  Govianus rose from his throne of black leather and chrome and offered it to Marroné with a studiously courteous bow. So it was true. The presidency of the company was his for the taking. Not even in his wildest dreams…

  As if in a trance, he got up from his chair, took two steps, stumbled, realised one of his feet had gone to sleep and was bare on the thick carpet, found the missing flip-flop and, playing pat-a-cake with the reflection of his palms, edged around the desk until he stood on the other side. Then he took a firm grip of both the arms lined with soft leather, softer than he’d ever touched before, and eased himself slowly back in the armchair, while Govianus chivalrously held the back for him. With faint squeaks and sighs, the joints of the chair adjusted themselves to his body as if they had been expecting him. The leather seemed to stretch and swell at his caress like a cat.

  ‘Well, Marroné, I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

  Alone, Marroné ran his eyes over the helm of the company that he had just been placed in command of. Everything looked different now he was the captain of the ship. So this was how you reached the top? By following these long and winding roads where calamity lurked round every corner? Were they right then, Dale Carnegie, Lester Luchessi and R Theobald Johnson, whose teachings he hadn’t been following so assiduously of late, but who, even now, had gone on watching over him and guiding his steps? Was it true that the executive-errant who kept the flame of his faith burning was always rewarded in the end with a crown and a throne like the one he now sat in? Ah, if only his St Andrew’s classmates could see him now. Marooné, Marron Crappé, President of Tamerlán & Sons (he’d keep the name for now) before the age of thirty. And his father… and his in-laws… When they were face to face, he would let his wife talk and rant and rave and shout herself hoarse till she was blue in the face, and then, in a single sentence – ‘I’m the new CEO of Tamerlán & Sons’ – he would shut her mouth for ever. And put his house in order; he’d start by sending Doña Ema packing. And at work… Cáceres Grey was the Señora’s nephew, so he couldn’t very well fire him. But perhaps it was better that way… inventing inconceivable fates for the arrogant snob, like sending him to supervise the works on the dam in Catamarca, followed by the mines in Salta… ‘You like it dirty, don’t you?’ he’d snipe… Yes, a new day was dawning. All the dangers and obstacles, all the trials and tribulations had meant something: a test of his mettle, a baptism of fire before the great task ahead. So this was the anvil on which the CEO’s character was forged: the sword of the samurai executive (a shogun executive in his case) was made of tempered steel. Well, here he was. The condor had reached its nest in the heights. His 17th October, his ‘marvellous day’ had come at last.

  Just then the accountant popped the feathery ostrich egg of his head back round the open door.

  ‘Ah, Marroné, one little thing I was forgetting. Happy Innocents’ Day! You were born yesterday. See you tomorrow.’

  For one puzzled second Marroné sat there with his mouth open, his eyes fixed on the point of the door frame where the laughing gnome’s bald pate had been. Then, with feverish fingers, he grabbed the newspaper to check the date, which could only be… 28th December: the Feast of the Holy Innocents. Sonofabitch.

  * * *

  Back on the sun-drenched pavement, Marroné realised he had no money on him, not even for bus fare, never mind a taxi: the bent copper had taken his last peso. He could always take a taxi and pay when he reached home, but his house keys were in his briefcase, which was still in the pulverised plasterworks, and, faced with the eventuality of finding no one there and having to deal with a furious taxi-driver – or the far worse one of his wife being in, refusing him entry and money, and having to deal with her and the taxi-driver – he decided to have a look round the now-bustling square in search of someone who would be moved by his appearance and could spare some change. He eventually settled on a young blonde girl in jeans, Flecha trainers and open Chairman Mao shirt over her gym-vest, who was out walking her collie under the old palo borracho that stood at the centre of the square and stretched the umbrella of its foliage over all. She not only agreed to give him the money he needed without pulling the usual face of disgust or annoyance, but gave him a smile and a ‘Good luck, comrade’ before following the shaggy dog tugging at its lead. He watched her walk away, mottled with green and gold sunlight and shade: give her a neatly tied bun and she’d make a nice Evita, he caught himself thinking.

  The journey on the 152 bus didn’t feel too long, as he fell asleep after a few blocks; and had it not been for an opportune police roadblock at the Presidential Residence in Olivos, where the bus was stopped to check the passengers’ papers, he would have ended up going all the way to the terminus. It was around noon and, as he wandered the leafy pavements, the plumes of smoke from countless Sunday asados, climbing over walls and fences and into his nostrils, reminded him that he hadn’t had a bite to eat in over twelve hours. If he was lucky – if they weren’t at his in-laws’ – he’d find lunch ready and waiting when he arrived. It hadn’t occurred to him to ring and tell them to expect him. What a surprise they had in store!

  Little Tommy was first out to greet him, slipping through the thick legs of Doña Ema, who had opened the door, and hugging his legs tight, repeating ‘Papi! Papi! Papi! Papi! Papi!’ as Doña Ema piped over her shoulder ‘Here he is at last, Señora!’, and when Marroné looked up from his son’s little head with tear-filled eyes, it was to see his wife roaring down the steep staircase like a Valkyrie on her heavenly steed. As ideas go, dropping in on Mabel unannounced after a fortnight’s absence, in the state he was in, had been about as good as poking a wasp’s nest with a stick.

  ‘Have you gone stark raving mad, Ernesto Marroné, or are you trying to drive me mad, or what? It’s been five days since we heard from you, then suddenly you turn up like this, out of the blue? We thought you’d died in that factory, do you understand? We thought you were dead! Five days we’ve been wandering the morgues and hospitals with Mummy and Daddy! Morgues, Ernesto! Do you understand what I’m telling you? I had to look at corpses! Corpses, Ernesto! And you didn’t even have the decency, the thought, the heart to pick up a phone? To let us know you were alive at least? You even ruined Christmas for us, made it the worst Christmas of my life! And Daddy calling all his judge friends and military friends and police friends, making a fool of himself, wasting his valuable time because I thought they’d killed you or taken you in! We’re cancelling your parents’ for New Year’s Eve and spending it with mine; it’s the least they deserve after all they’ve done! Where were you? What are you doing in those clothes, Ernesto? What have you got yourself into? Everyone saw you on the news, talking like a darkie, and I had to pretend it wasn’t you, that you were with me that day! The phone never stopped ringing! Ernesto, if they got you mixed up in anything funny, if they threatened you, we have to go to the police right away and straighten it all out. You’re different, Ernesto. What have they done to you? Did they kidnap you? Did they drug you? Did they brainwash you? Why won’t you say anything? What are you showing me your teeth for? How did you do that to yourself? Did you get into a fight too? Over a woman, over some dark tart? You got into a punch-up over a darkie? Don’t you lie to me, eh, don’t you go taking me for a fool, I know it was all a front so you could run off and go whoring. You’ve got some dirty black slumdog bit of fluff on the side, haven’t you? Have you had children with her too? Have you been leading a double life? Explain it to me, Ernesto, because if you don’t explain it to me I can’t understand. I can’t understand how a married man with a tiny, months
-old baby is capable of abandoning his family and not even bothering to let them know he’s still alive. You know that what you’ve done is grounds for divorce? Daddy’s already spoken to the lawyer: she told me I could shut the door in your face if I wanted to. What has happened to you? Have you had an identity crisis? You went looking for your original family? Go and live with them then, go and live in some tin-pot neighbourhood and leave us all in peace! You’d be capable of that, just to get me off your back, wouldn’t you? You think I don’t see how your face twists with disgust when you introduce me as your wife? How you’re always comparing me to other people’s wives? When have you ever said an affectionate word to me in public? When? And when you do say something at home, it sounds as if you’ve memorised it from one of those books you lock yourself in the bathroom to read! Sir is ashamed of his wife, Sir could have done better. Do me a favour! Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? In those clothes with no teeth you can tell a mile off just what you are! Or do you think you’re the only one here who was forced to get hitched at gunpoint? You think I set you a trap, you think I was dying for it? Mummy and Daddy took me on that trip to forget you, and guess what? It was easy! Until I did the pregnancy test! The night of the wedding, after you fell asleep, you know what I did? Of course you don’t, because you don’t give a monkey’s about anyone but yourself. I spent the whole night up, crying. Crying because I’d married a man I didn’t love and who didn’t love me. A man who brings me the withered flowers they sell at traffic lights, so he won’t have to stop at a proper florist’s! A man who’s never given me a single orgasm in my life!’ At this Marroné covered the ears of little Tommy, who went on chanting his litany of ‘Papi! Papi! Papi!’, then pointed with his eyes at the doorway, which was filled by the chuckling bulk of Doña Ema, who seemed to find the scene as enormously entertaining as her afternoon soap. ‘What? You’re worried about Doña Ema hearing? You think we haven’t discussed any of this before? If I’m still on my feet and not in a mental asylum, it’s thanks to her, not you, I can assure you!’

  Marroné would have liked to say about himself all the derogatory things he knew the other person was thinking or wanted to say or intended to say, but Mabel had beaten him to it, and as he was still a little dazed and couldn’t quite remember if the rule was about pleasing others, or getting others to think like you, he said instead, solemnly, to sober her up, ‘Sr Tamerlán is dead.’

  ‘Of course he’s dead! He was killed in cold blood because you weren’t capable of getting together a few shitty little busts! What good are you? And what’ll happen to the company now? Are they going to close? Will you get the sack for being a waste of space? All we need now is for you to lose your job. So I’m telling you, Ernesto Marroné, if you’re thinking of playing the race card to worm out of your family obligations you’ve got another thing coming. You’ll pay alimony and maintenance on the dot or I’ll have you thrown in jail.’

  All of this Marroné listened to in such silence and with such patience that he appeared not to be a man of flesh and bone but a statue of stone. With stones such as these was the path of the executive-errant strewn. On wicked ears fall deaf words, as the saying goes; those blinded by their bourgeois consciousness would never understand, just like sparrows when the condor squawks. In short, honey is not made for the ass’s mouth.

  ‘Are you listening to anything I’m saying, Ernesto Marroné? Haven’t you anything to say for yourself?’

  ‘I need a minute to… er… you know.’

  ‘Now? Do you take me for a complete idiot? Are you having me on?’

  ‘Señora, the baby’s crying,’ the voice of Doña Ema intervened angelically from the floor above them, whither she’d departed minutes earlier.

  ‘You haven’t heard the last of this, Ernesto Marroné; this is just the beginning,’ threatened Mabel as he climbed the stairs, holding the boy by the hand.

  This was his window of opportunity. Making a whistle-stop raid on his shelves, he grabbed his copy of Don Quixote: The Executive-Errant, whose spine jutted out a little further than the rest, dived into the downstairs guest toilette and bolted the door. They’d have to send in the tanks if they wanted to get him out now; his empire may not have been vast, but it was at least his, and in it he was the lord and master of himself; with that and a stimulating book in his hands, he thought, as he adjusted his buttocks in the familiar hollows, he wanted for nothing more, and with a deep sigh his whole body relaxed into the seat. He looked forward to a short transaction, followed by some reading to crown the satisfaction of the successful mission, but, after a couple of tries, he realised it wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought. Perhaps his body needed some time to absorb the news that the finger that had tormented him for so long (in the company of its nine fellows) was gone for ever. He was in no hurry, in any case; not now that he was finally home. He opened the book at a random page and it turned out to be exactly the one he was looking for. ‘Things are getting better already, see?’ he said to his imaginary audience before starting to read:

  End of Part One

  It is not all roses in the life of the executive-errant, explains Sancho to his wife in the tender speeches they exchange once he is at home again; it is very true that most adventures do not turn out to a man’s satisfaction so much as he would desire, for, of every hundred encountered, ninety-nine are likely to be troublesome and untoward. So our Don Quixote has been returned to his village against his will, locked away like a lion or a bear in the cramped confines of a cage, not able even to relieve himself. It would all seem to suggest that the evil enchanters, who delight in thwarting his triumphs and in stirring up bad blood between him and his jealous Dulcinea, Lady of the Market, have been victorious yet again, delivering him defenceless into the hands of mediocre men who are envious of his fame and genius; and it is true that both he and his faithful squire have yet to see their hopes fulfilled: the long-awaited vice presidency continues to elude Sancho (though his sack runs over with jingling gold coins), while Don Quixote is still far from his CEO’s throne, and the tangible and abiding love of Dulcinea, Lady of the Market. But it is not for nothing that our hero has travelled the ways of business, breaking down obstacles to free enterprise, tilting at challenges from the competition and confronting market giants, removing bureaucratic hurdles and, above all, applying creative solutions to our ever-changing reality. No, the ingenious Don Quixote shall not sit quietly by; yes, the executive-errant shall wander on. Just like the modern manager returning from a business trip in his plane, Don Quixote in his cage looks into his accounts: the results may not have been what he expected, but no matter. For he has tested his strength and discovered he can be the man he has dreamt of being; he has realised another life is possible; and, above all, he has tasted the forbidden fruit of adventure. And as he returns to hearth and home to recoup his strength in the warmth of his family’s bosom, he looks forward to the time when he will make a second sally and depart in search of adventures new.*

  * To be continued in: A Yuppie in Che Guevara’s Column.

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  Current & Upcoming Books

  01

  Juan Pablo Villalobos, Down the Rabbit Hole

  translated from the Spanish by Rosalind Harvey

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  02

  Clemens Meyer, All the Lights

  translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire

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  03

  Deborah Levy, Swimming Home

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  04

  Iosi Havilio, Open Door

  translated from the Spanish by Beth Fowler

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  05

  Oleg Zaionchkovsky, Happiness is Possible

  translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield

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  06

  Carlos Gamerro, The Islands

  translated from the Spanish by Ian Barnett

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  07

  Christoph Simon, Zbinden’s Progress