The Buenos Aires Quintet

by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

  ‘Take a look at that! It’s Fangio!’

  But his expression changes when he gets out of the car and offers her the driving seat, after first kissing her hand in a gesture from a brilliantined gentleman to a somewhat ambiguous racing driver.

  ‘You always rise to the occasion.’

  ‘Who are we following? A dangerous criminal?’

  ‘The most dangerous of all. The state.’

  Despite the goggles, Madame Lissieux’s professional concentration is obvious as she pulls out, ready to confront her fate.

  ‘She drove as if life depended on it – my life more than hers; and overtook cars all the time so that Pascuali wouldn’t get away from us. My only fear was Pascuali would notice and arrest us.’

  Carvalho enjoys Buenos Aires cafés, where alongside the wooden panels and polished metal you can enjoy a space where time is on your side. Don Vito is playing the part of a man exhausted after an impossible day. He loosens his tie, and undoes the top button of his shirt.

  ‘Have you any idea what it’s like to follow a cop in a car driven by someone who is a cross between Juan Manuel Fangio and the Man in the Mask? And someone who, to top it all, is a woman: Madame Lissieux? Have you ever sat alongside a woman who crosses Libertador Avenue and Callao at a hundred and twenty kilometres an hour? Can you imagine what it was like when a cop came alongside at a traffic light to tell us we were speeding, and Madame Lissieux said: “Don’t hold us up, my good man, we’re following that police car”?’

  ‘And he arrested you?’

  ‘On the contrary. He cleared the traffic for us to get on with the chase.’

  ‘Enough of words. Were you successful?’

  With a theatrical gesture Don Vito throws a sheet of paper on to the table.

  ‘It reads like the Argentine rich men’s football team, without Maradona. These people have more money than Fort Knox.’

  Carvalho puts the piece of paper in his pocket. Don Vito has recovered sufficient breath to start up a conversation with a young lady who is offering him the price for a night, without bed and board.

  ‘That was not the reason for my approaching you. I simply wished to have the heady pleasure of sniffing your bosom and your armpits.’

  ‘Dirty old man!’

  Carvalho leaves Don Vito to his fate, and asks the taxi-driver to take him to the Polo Club.

  ‘The one at Palermo, you mean?’

  ‘It’s called the Hurlingham Club.’

  ‘Oh, right, the Hurlingham. That’s where the seriously loaded people go.’

  In the darkness under floodlights, their lordships are engaged in the inexplicable pursuit of a white ball. A sport of gentlemen, Carvalho reflects, watching as they finish their last chukkas. He picks out Gálvez Jr. from the other players when he dismounts and with a tired but reluctant gesture hands over the pony reins to a groom. He has spotted Carvalho at the rail, and waves in acknowledgement. As he comes over, he takes off his gloves.

  ‘I’m going to have a shower. Have what you like to drink. Tell them you’re with me – they don’t like strangers.’

  The barman stares icily at Carvalho – he has obviously decided he is not worthy to be in such an exclusive club. But before he can offend him with a far too educated sneer, Carvalho defends himself: ‘Señor Gálvez asked me to wait for him here.’

  Although Carvalho’s attire does not permit him to judge just what level of intercourse he may have with the powerful Gálvez Jr., the barman decides it is sufficiently decent for him to be accepted into the sanctum.

  ‘Would you care for something to drink, sir?’

  ‘I’d like four fingers of your best whisky, with no ice.’

  ‘Of the most expensive?’

  ‘Of the best.’

  ‘That’s very subjective.’

  ‘That’s your problem.’

  The barman bows and goes off. Carvalho feels a touch of Stockholm syndrome coming on as he examines with affection the stock types filling the room. Well-kept bodies in sporty clothes, but all of them slightly unreal, as if they were extras in a lifestyle shoot strangely out of date in the final years of the century. Then the head waiter comes over to his table with a bottle of whisky and a glass on a tray.

  ‘The waiter told me your request, and I took it upon myself to interpret it. At this time of day, my choice would be a Glenmorangie, a single malt that is equally good before a meal or after. I’ve chosen this twenty-year-old malt, and allow me to remind you that if you add ice it will gain in bouquet but lose its smoothness on the throat. As you well know, whisky is not like wine, all of whose taste is on the palate and the tongue. Whisky is best judged in the throat.’

  Carvalho accepts his choice. The head waiter pours five fingers of whisky, and the glass, bottle and tray are left at his disposition. He picks up the glass, sniffs at the contents the regulation three times, each time swirling the liquid around a little more in the glass, then takes a sip. His throat is well pleased. He nods at the head waiter.

  ‘Excellent, Señor...’

  ‘Loroño, at your service.’

  ‘In my next reincarnation I’ll employ you as my sommelier for whiskies.’

  ‘Forgive my curiosity, but as what would you like to be reincarnated?’

  ‘As a member of this club.’

  The arrival of an impeccably dressed Gálvez Jr. cuts short the head waiter’s reply.

  ‘Would Señor Gálvez like his usual?’

  Gálvez nods. Looks at his watch.

  ‘Is your plane waiting?’

  ‘No. I understand I must look like a stereotype. A plane of my own, and polo. Well, my father brought me up to have a plane and to play polo, to be the perfect English yuppie. In spite of everything, my father was an Anglophile, one of those who thought Argentina’s problems began when we refused to become an English colony. I’m in charge of thirty businesses throughout the length and breadth of this country.’

  ‘Real yuppies don’t know that’s what they are.’

  ‘I’ve read a little, not much. Enough to know that it’s not good to be a yuppie – to look like one, anyway.’

  Carvalho gives him Don Vito’s piece of paper.

  ‘Whether he was senile or lucid, these are the people your father was blackmailing. He wanted money to retake the Malvinas peacefully and to fill the world with phalansteries.’

  As he reads each name, Gálvez Jr. gives a low whistle. ‘My God, my God, my God...’ When he has finished, he looks up, perplexed: ‘Had he gone completely mad? He wasn’t even blackmailing any middle-of-the-road people. They’re all the hardest cases you can find.’

  ‘They must have been the ones he had the most damaging information on.’

  ‘Well, the effect was devastating. Any one of them could have paid for his murder.’

  ‘Does it happen often?’

  ‘It happens. They’re dangerous people. You can’t take on the mafias – especially the public one. The public mafia – the people the subversives called the oligarchy – is by far the deadliest. Are there any copies of this list?’

  ‘Pascuali has been to see them all.’

  Carvalho can almost hear the yuppie’s brain whirring as he thinks about this, and quickly comes to a conclusion.

  ‘I’m going to have to do something similar. I’ll go straight to the top. I’ll call on Ostiz and Maetzu. I think they should know I’m aware of everything.’

  The head waiter brings him his usual drink.

  ‘Your mixed fruit juice, sir.’

  Gálvez sees how Carvalho reacts to this, and laughs. ‘A very Robinson drink. When I’m old, when I’m an adult, I want to be Robinson Crusoe.’

  But business is business and, after a long, healthy and pleasurable drink, which Carvalho compensates with another unhealthy but no less pleasurable one, Gálvez tells rather than a
sks him: ‘I want you to come with me to see Ostiz and Maetzu.’

  A ray of sunlight picks out bronze glints in Alma’s curls. Muriel stares intrigued at the gleams, as if tongues of the flame of knowledge were really sprouting from the teacher’s head as she concludes her lecture.

  ‘So Robinson is not an innocent myth, but rather an attempt to explain man’s position in the world as that of an individual who can dominate it thanks to his experience, his intelligence and the support of Providence. Defoe sets out the philosophy of the ascendant, all-conquering bourgeoisie, and as such his proposal in Robinson is more realist than that of Rousseau’s Emile. Rousseau’s world contains the seeds of revolt and anarchist rebellion. Contemporary liberalism has reacted against the father of liberalism and denies the possibility of man as a noble savage influenced by his social environment. What’s happened to didactic literature like this? What writer of today would dare propose a Robinson, an Emile, a Werther or an Ivan Karamazov to his readers? To offer role models like them, you need to have hope, even if it is an angst-ridden hope. Sometimes, hope may be a theological virtue. At others it can be just a historical one, or even a biological necessity. Or in the case of someone like Bloch, his non-religious hope is a bio-historical necessity, which conceives the future like a religion.’

  She draws to an end, and the students start to leave. Alma picks up her things as well. She looks up, and sees Muriel standing by her desk.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I read Robinson like you told us – or recommended us – to do, but my reading of it was different, an ecological one.’

  ‘You could also read Robinson as an apology for your average Argentine, free to cook a barbecue in his weekend place. No, I’m only joking. But any great work of literature is open to many different interpretations. The reader is always freer than the author, and has centuries to impose his way of seeing it.’

  Muriel whispers ‘Thanks’ and makes to leave. Alma watches her go. Her eyes show her professional enthusiasm, but there is something else in her voice when she calls out: ‘Muriel.’

  She is surprised her professor even remembers her name.

  ‘I really like the way you participate in the class, and the work you do. You write very well, in the papers you hand in, at least.’

  The young girl’s voice fails her: she’s so happy she feels like crying. Eventually she manages to stammer out: ‘That’s because I like your classes so much.’

  ‘Where do you get your interest from? Does your family have anything to do with it?’

  ‘No. Nothing. My father is a businessman, and my mother isn’t interested in the least.’

  ‘In the vacation I’d like to get together a literary workshop, nothing too serious, just for fun. Just a few of the students to write, discuss, look at texts. Would you like to join in?’

  ‘Of course!’ Muriel almost shouts.

  Alma is pleased at this, and suggests they leave together. As they are going down the staircase, she has a sudden flashback and sees Robinson haranguing the students a few days earlier.

  ‘D’you remember the prophet who was here the other day? Robinson?’

  Muriel remembers the argument between her and the teacher, and says cautiously: ‘Perhaps I didn’t understand what he was saying.’

  ‘That wasn’t why I mentioned him. There’s nothing left of any of them: Robinson is dead, Friday is dead, and I wonder...’

  Muriel is astonished.

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘Yes, and I can’t help wondering: what happened to the parrot? And the llama? What’s become of the llama? Especially her, the poor thing.’

  Don Vito has been telling Carvalho how his previous night’s love-making went: ‘She wasn’t a whore, Carvalho. She was simply a merry widow.’

  He senses that Carvalho is not in the mood, and has it proved when the Spaniard thrusts a Clarín newspaper in front of his face. The headline reads:

  ‘Pacho Escámez murdered.

  Police on the trail of the WHITE LADY.’

  ‘Well, poor old Pacho. But he had a good life, there’s no denying that. What have you or I got to do with his tragic end?’

  ‘Try to put the widow’s breasts out of your mind for a moment, and read the first few lines of the article at least. I’ve underlined them.’

  ‘A blow to the back of the head has ended the life of one of Argentine television’s best-known presenters. The police are searching for this outstanding professional’s last regular companion, known only by the initials M.F.M., said to be a blonde woman with a marble-white skin. The case has already been given a name: The Producer and the White Lady.’

  ‘The no-good woman!’

  ‘This edition of Clarín is five days old, which means either we never read the papers, or we only read what we want to.’

  ‘They’re always full of corruption and sport. Look at this: Maradona calls all Argentine politicians shits and says he only trusts Fidel Castro.’

  ‘I was sent the newspaper by an old client of ours: Don Leonardo. He wants us to go and see him.’

  The news has hit Don Leonardo hard. He’s sporting several days’ worth of stubble, there’s a glass in front of him that’s obviously been filled with grappa and emptied more than once, the ashtrays are overflowing with cigarette butts. His luxurious apartment looks uncared for. Don Vito and Carvalho wait for him to say something. He goes over to the TV set, and turns towards them: ‘Haven’t you seen the news bulletin?’

  Carvalho and Don Vito shake their heads.

  ‘I’ve recorded it on video.’

  The screen fills with images of a swarm of journalists and onlookers outside a courthouse. Pascuali is there with his men. A blonde, white-skinned woman, wearing a headscarf and dark glasses, is trying to force her way through the crowd. The TV presenter tries to get a declaration, then gives up and gives his own report.

  ‘There’s a dramatic new twist in the case of the White Lady. Marta Fanchelli Maluendas, the famous M.F.M., has come forward of her own accord, and from her statement it is clear she was in no way responsible for the death of the TV presenter Pacho Escámez.’

  Then they see Marta speaking as close to the microphone as if she were kissing it.

  ‘How could I kill anyone with a karate chop? I spend my whole life on a diet, I haven’t got the strength to karate chop a fly.’

  ‘But you know who did it.’

  ‘Everything I know is in the hands of the magistrate and the police.’

  She points to the policemen around her, and in particular to Pascuali.

  ‘Inspector Pascuali here has been very polite and very intelligent.’

  The presenter grabs back the microphone.

  ‘That’s very true, Pm sure. So now from the initials M.F.M. – or Marta Fanchelli Maluendas, we have gone to those of L.C.L., another palindrome, and the new target of the police investigation.’

  Don Leonardo stops the video. Stands staring at the screen for a few seconds. Then turns back to them again.

  ‘L.C.L. Leonardo Costa Livorno. Me.’

  Don Vito is indignant.

  ‘Who does that whore think she is?’

  Carvalho tries to shut him up, but there is no stopping Don Vito.

  ‘That no-good woman!’

  Leonardo glares at him.

  ‘Appearances can be deceptive. Marta. Marta is an extraordinary woman. I need to pour my heart out, Don Vito, Pepe – I can call you Pepe, can’t I? Marta is an extraordinary woman. She gave all the love she had to my son; she tried to persuade him not to do the embezzling. She followed him to the Bahamas because she feared the worst, and she was proved right. He suffered a complete psychological collapse. She was – is – a woman full of love and life. She is in no way suicidal: it’s my son who is the potential suicide, as she herself explained to me very clear
ly. Now I love her, and she loves me. That swine Escámez was blackmailing her. He told her that if she left him, he would come and tell me everything; and on top of it all, he was always trying to find her lovers who would help her with her career.’

  ‘So you killed him?’

  ‘Why not? I told her that’s what I would tell the magistrate. It was me who killed him – in an outburst of rage at the ghastly proposals the old pimp was making to me.’

  ‘Are you a karate expert then?’

  ‘I know how to defend myself. I could have struck him with an iron fist.’

  Don Vito shakes his head.

  ‘That would be premeditation.’

  Carvalho is also against the idea.

  ‘Forget the iron fist.’

  ‘Tomorrow morning I’m going to hand myself over to the police, and I want you two to tell them the truth – that is, how at first I hated her for what she had done to my son. I want the magistrate to know the whole story – how love was born of hate, not death out of revenge. I’ll pay you whatever you ask.’

  Carvalho and Don Vito exchange glances, and it is Altofini who gives their verdict:

  ‘We don’t charge for giving statements.’

  The next day, Carvalho, Alma and Altofini switch their TV on to watch the news. The usual crowd of curious onlookers, journalists, Pascuali and two policemen who are leading Don Leonardo out in a pair of handcuffs. They pause while the presenter announces: ‘Leonardo Costa Livorno, the self-confessed killer of Pacho Escámez, who this morning told the police the story of his love for the White Lady. Pacho Escámez tried to stand in their way, leading the woman in question into corruption and the white slave trade, as her lawyer put it.’

  Then there is a clip of the lawyer: ‘It was a passionate response to the evil procuring of a lascivious old man. An act of love. In the past, Don Leonardo had hated Marta Fanchelli for her relationship with his son, until the moment that is when he began to appreciate her great qualities.’

  Carvalho switches off. Don Vito starts to mutter the words to the tango ‘Cambalache’: