Eva for Eva,
The bright star María
The little girl shines
Eva María.
These are the last words Pignatari hears as he succumbs to terror and horror. The motorcyclists show no emotion. They’re breathing hard, hitting him with deadly precision. One of them pummels him without asking any-thing at all. The other is also punching away, but he’s more than a cut-out figure and still betrays a certain curiosity. ‘Where is Raúl Tourón?’
Pignatari tries to say something, but is too far gone. His head lolls on his chest. The two motorcyclists call a halt. One of them places the back of a hand full of brass rings against the singer’s neck.
‘We’ve gone too far.’
‘We’ve got our hands full of shit all for nothing.’
He gives Pignatari’s body a soft, scornful kick. It topples to the floor.
Two police cars with their flashing lights whirling. Onlookers pushing to get to the front of the crush around the caravan. Pascuali is framed in the doorway. His face is an expression of disgust. Vladimiro asks: ‘Now what do we do?’
‘Hold a vigil for him, Vladimiro, what else?’
At the back of the watching crowd, Raúl is both fascinated and terrified. His fear increases still further when he hears Carvalho’s voice beside him, speaking out of the corner of his mouth without looking at him.
‘Raúl. Don’t be alarmed. Your father sent me. Alma. Norman. Pignatari told us to come here. I’m your cousin Pepe.’
Raúl’s face has completely altered. He looks calm and collected, in control of the situation. ‘My dear Alan Parker, I only hope we can meet one day in happier circumstances. You’ll be hearing from me. And say hello to Zully Moreno from me.’
Carvalho nods. ‘I will. But I think he retired from the film world years ago.’
He decides to risk looking at his cousin. But by the time he does so, Raúl has vanished, and suddenly Pascuali pushes in front of him, preventing Carvalho from going anywhere.
‘A coincidence?’
‘I had an appointment with Pignatari.’
‘When did you get here?’
‘About the same time as the police.’
‘Can you prove it?’
‘It’s not a theorem.’
Pascuali shouts for Vladimiro.
‘Take this clown’s statement.’
Just trying to annoy me, Carvalho thinks, as he peers for his cousin in among the crowd being dispersed by the police. Vladimiro pushes him into one of the squad cars, and when they’re both inside, he turns to the detective.
‘How come you got yourself mixed up in this mess?’
‘It’s my job.’
‘My father’s from Spain too. He came after that war of yours; now he refuses to leave his house. He’s scared they’ll come back: Franco, Perón, Videla. Who knows? Politics ruins everything.’
‘So that’s why you’re called Vladimiro; your father was a Leninist when you were baptised.’
‘I haven’t been baptised.’
‘Are there many unbaptised cops?’
‘More than there are unbaptised priests.’
So Vladimiro has a sense of humour. But it vanishes when he takes his notebook from his pocket. He can’t find a pen. Carvalho lends him his.
‘Come on, make up some nonsense so we can get this over with.’
So Vladimiro is human as well. Carvalho simply tells him he had arranged to meet Pignatari, that he arrived on time, but everything was already in turmoil.
‘The meeting was to solicit information as to the whereabouts of a cousin of Don José Carvalho, Don Raúl Tourón, who is apparently somewhere in Buenos Aires.’
The formalities over, Carvalho makes to leave the car. As he is getting out, the young policeman gives him a piece of advice.
‘Don’t go looking for trouble, my friend.’
It seems he wants to say something more, but doesn’t dare.
‘Is that all?’
Vladimiro looks all around him, and when he realizes no one can hear, adds in a low whisper: ‘My father’s a distant cousin of yours. Carvalho is my third or fourth family name.’
He winks at the detective and that’s that.
Twenty-four hours later, when Carvalho sees him trailing along behind Pascuali at Pignatari’s wake, Vladimiro has again become the tough, scornful cop who eyes him suspiciously. But things are different now, because the corpse is laid out in its coffin in a back room, while in the parlour two conventional-looking widows and three equally conventional-looking adolescents are busy exchanging the conventional condolences. The only person who looks really affected is Alma, slumped on a sofa. Norman is trying to console her, console himself, or say something, but it’s too much for him. Alma finds the words.
‘D’you remember? D’you remember the music box he made for Eva María with the song he wrote for her on it?’
Carvalho comes in. He looks from Alma and Norman to Font y Rius, who is with Roberto. They appear to be arguing. Font y Rius is saying something through gritted teeth, and Carvalho thinks he can make out: ‘So it’s the hunting season again, is it?’
Then he hears quite clearly what Roberto replies: ‘I told you it would all get complicated if Raúl came back.’
And he hears what Roberto adds, staring straight at him. ‘That detective was all we needed.’
‘Why can’t he just take Raúl back to Spain?’
Forty-year-old rock ’n’ rollers crowd round the parlour door. They want to see the body, sign a petition on behalf of the body, applaud the body. A radio reporter is talking into her recorder as if it were an essential part of her anatomy.
‘So great is the consternation caused by the brutal assault and murder of the man who was the leading figure in Buenos Aires protest rock that the deputy minister for development, Doctor Güelmes, is here in person to say farewell to someone who was both a friend and an outstanding artist.’
Güelmes shows he knows how to control the situation. He strides through the photographers’ flashes, goes straight up to the elder of the two widows, gives her an emotional hug, dries a furtive tear, then turns back to the reporters for his interview.
‘I trust you understand my feelings of grief and will respect them. Pignatari and I, together with other friends of ours, lived through hard years of struggle that also promised hope. We wrote the words, he sang the songs of freedom. I’ve lost a friend, but all of us have lost a great musician. Thank you very much.’
He makes as if to leave, but with one ear still alert for any questions. There’s a hubbub of confused suggestions, then one voice imposes itself on all the others.
‘Was his death a settling of accounts from the time of the Process?’
‘What accounts are you talking about? Thanks to Menem, all our accounts have been settled.’
A sudden silence, followed by Güelmes’ exit. As he passes by, he glares at Carvalho. The detective notes the tension and scorn in his face.
‘A Señor Tourón would like to speak to you. Shall I put him through?’
Font y Rius is taken by surprise by his own intercom. It takes him a second to recover and react.
‘Who did you say? Who’s calling me?’
The voice on the intercom repeats the same name with the same intonation.
‘I said a Señor Tourón would like to speak to you. Shall I put him through?’
Font y Rius thinks over his reply, staring at the four walls of his office as if they might supply him with inspiration from someone less dumbstruck than himself.
‘Keep him on the phone, make up whatever excuse you can think of so he doesn’t hang up.’
He frantically dials a number, as frantically as only a psychiatrist overwhelmed by his own psychosis can do. Before he speaks, he takes a deep breath, like a basketball player before shooting
a free throw.
‘The biologist is trying to contact me. I’ll keep him on the line as long as I can. Trace his call.’
He hangs up the phone and flicks the intercom.
‘Put him through.’
All of a sudden Font y Rius’ face is wreathed in smiles.
‘Hello? Hello? Is that you, Raúl? Where have you got to? Hello, Raúl, Raúl Tourón?’
The silence at the other end of the line disconcerts him. Then all of a sudden a noise comes through the receiver. Someone is whistling the same song for Eva María that Pignatari sang at his concert.
‘What’s that? Raúl? Are you crazy? Who do you think you are? Raúl! If you’re a man, come and see me. Where are you calling from?’
His face flushed, Font y Rius jerks his head away from the receiver. When he listens again some moments later, the whistling is still going on. He stands up angrily, the music filling his brain, as though it were not just a distant whistle, but the overpowering sound of a rock group inside his head. Then there’s silence.
‘Raúl? Are you still there? I’m sorry for shouting at you, but I don’t like it when you play at being mysterious. Raúl? Raúl?’
The psychiatrist stares at the telephone in his hand as if it had turned into something useless yet dangerous. He hangs up, then takes an address book out of the top pocket of his white coat, and firmly dials another number.
‘Captain? The net’s closing in. We’re being surrounded by one man. Raúl’s out to get us. We have to do something. But nothing violent, as we agreed, not your usual methods.’
All intercoms are pretty much the same. So are the voices they transmit, and sometimes even the messages they relay.
‘A Señor Raúl Tourón would like to speak to you.’
Güelmes thinks this over.
‘Is he here?’
‘No, sir. He’s on the telephone.’
‘Put him through.’
He adopts a gentle smile so that his words will be gentle too.
‘Raúl? Raulito?’
All this forced tenderness does not seem to evince a reply.
‘Raulito? It’s me. That shit Güelmes, as you used to call me.’
From the telephone, Pignatari’s song gushes like a wave of nostalgia, whistled with feeling.
‘Raúl. Stay right where you are. Raulito. For old times’ sake, trust me.’
The only reply he gets is the whistled tune.
‘Trust me, and don’t move, will you, Raúl?’
By now all he can hear over the phone is the crackle of a dead line. Güelmes slowly replaces the receiver. A worried look steals over his face as he takes a phone number out of his desk drawer, dials for an outside line, and then the number.
‘Doctor Font y Rius, please. He’s not there? D’you know where he’s gone?’
The voice does know, and Güelmes hurriedly gets rid of it so he can make another call, one he needs to make as desperately as a fire needs water.
‘Captain. Things are getting complicated. Font y Rius is nervous : he’s gone to New Argentina to talk to Roberto. The son of a bitch. Both of them are sons of bitches. We don’t want to bring attention to ourselves.’
But the Captain has already hung up.
Roberto casts an expert glance over his animals. He calls out to several couples by name. ‘Hermann and Dorotea, you’re noisy this morning. Yeltsin and Gorby, I hope that’s the last time you’ll fight. Galtieri, Galtieri... you drunk again? Raúl, Raúl, where do you think you’re going?’
He tries to prod the rat out of its hiding place with a glass rod. A shadow appears over his shoulder. He turns round.
‘You?’
He doesn’t get to say any more because an iron bar crashes against his skull, splitting it and the room into two hemispheres. His head is chopped open like a ripe fruit, and the scientist’s body topples over, though his hand inside the glass tank full of rats prevents him from falling to the floor. The rats scurry about, terrified, and then start to climb up the arm, searching for a way out. Someone opens the laboratory door and calls out: ‘Roberto? Roberto?’
Font y Rius looks in, trying to make out the scientist.
‘Roberto? Roberto?’
Font y Rius enters the laboratory cautiously, as if afraid he will break some of the fragile glass apparatus, or as if trying to calm down the rats’ compulsive movements.
‘What’s the matter with you, damned rats?’
In the darkness he notices Roberto’s body slumped across the bench.
‘I think Raúl knows about the report. Roberto?’
Roberto’s body does not move. As Font y Rius takes a step back in alarm, a motorcyclist fills the scene and punches him hard in the face. Font y Rius gasps with pain and tries to protect himself. The motorcyclist stands over him menacingly. Takes off his helmet and goggles. It’s the Captain.
‘You haven’t seen a thing.’
Alma has her glasses on. She’s sitting at her desk, gathering up scattered notes and books, then adjusting a small computer until it’s exactly right for her. She sighs briefly, satisfied that everything is in order before she begins work, but just then she is interrupted by the doorbell, and goes to open it. She is about to say something, but a towel thrust over her face and suddenly anxious eyes makes it impossible. When she comes to, she finds she is sitting naked, tied to a chair, with a motorcyclist standing each side of her. In front of her there is a sheet with a light shining on it. Behind the sheet there’s a shadow figure of someone sitting comfortably, so comfortably this in itself is a threat. Alma’s eyes try to compensate for being unable to move her body, and rove desperately around the room. She cannot make anything out. The gloved hand of one of the motorcyclists is pressing a screwdriver to her throat. Then she hears a voice from the far side of the sheet.
‘Alma? Do you remember my voice? It’s me, the Captain, Alma! We meet again. The world turns and turns, and here we are again. We’ve arranged everything so that you can forget what’s happening. And we’ve stripped you naked so you’ll remember what happened in the past. You were lucky. Your sister died. Poor Berta: she was so sure she could change history and all she did was lose her life! But you spent a few months in prison and then years of golden exile.’
‘My baby!’
‘Your baby?’
‘My niece.’
‘She’s disappeared, unfortunately, but I’m sure she’s in better hands than yours or her mother’s.’
Alma tries to look down at her body, seeking out the feeling of freezing cold that has invaded her, but the screwdriver point jabs into her neck, and the impotent fury in her eyes gets her nowhere.
‘Where is Raúl Tourón?’
Alma wants to say something, and swallows, finding it hard to get the words out. Finally she says in a broken voice:
‘I don’t know’
‘I believe you, Alma. Do you remember how we became friends? How often my voice consoled you in those difficult times? I believe you, Alma. Perhaps you know what Tourón is looking for? Who is he looking for? His daughter? Me? Who am I?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know!’
Alma has raised her voice, and suddenly the screwdriver breaks her skin and a drop of blood appears. Alma bites her lip, and expresses all her despair through her eyes.
‘I believe you, Alma. I believe you. I’ve always believed you. But listen carefully to what I’m going to say to you. If Raúl Tourón does get in contact with you, hang the blouse we’ve taken off you in the window – just the blouse. What colour is it, Alma?’
Alma tries to remember. The hand of one of the motorists thrusts it in front of her eyes.
‘It’s blue. Light blue. Sky blue on a fine summer day. Sky blue, the same blue as you’re going to see in a few seconds. Remember, put the blouse in the window. That’s all, Alma. Goodbye. See you soon.’<
br />
The shadow figure disappears, and Alma waits for the sheet and all it stands for to fall to the floor. Then a towel covers her face, stealing reality from her instead.
Pascuali stares lengthily at Font y Rius’ horrified face. The psychiatrist appears to have suffered a momentary paralysis which prevents him moving backwards or forwards, from thinking or talking.
‘You stated you came here looking for a report. What report is that?’
Slowly, Font y Rius lifts his eyes to Pascuali, who is standing next to the legs of the dead man, which are dangling from the laboratory bench as if counterbalancing his head and arm, still plunged inside the tank full of rats.
‘It’s an old story’
Pascuali is on the point of saying something but hesitates, waiting for Font y Rius to emerge from the depression that hangs heavily in the air of the room.
‘We’re the only ones here. You can talk.’
Font y Rius starts to speak, at first overcome with emotion, but gradually recovering his calm.
‘It all happened twenty years ago. We were already one year into the military government and what had at first seemed like just another routine coup had clearly turned into a “dirty war”. We heard news of all the atrocities being committed. Torture. Disappearances. I wasn’t really involved, but my wife, my sister-in-law, Raúl and Roberto decided to draw up a detailed report on mental and physical resistance to pain and brutality. They had been working on it for years. They knew everything about pain in rats so they drew up a comprehensive list of situations. They looked at every possible variable that could help resist interrogation. The report was meant to be kept a complete secret. After they read and memorized it, people were supposed to destroy it. Nearly all the group were captured. I was there the night they raided Raúl and Berta’s apartment in La Recoleta. But Roberto and I were only there by chance.’
The Buenos Aires Quintet Page 8