The Buenos Aires Quintet

by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

  ‘There’s always an incredible amount of tension on fight days. Everyone gets so aggressive.’

  ‘Who won? “Daddy”?’

  He bursts out laughing.

  ‘Don’t laugh at Boom Boom. He’s a decent guy, very straight.’

  ‘Very rich, you mean. Did they spoil his pretty face?’

  He takes one hand off the steering-wheel and strokes Robert’s face. ‘Have they disfigured my little Robert’s father’s face?’

  Robert slaps him. Hysterical, the blond boy loses control of the car momentarily, and brakes as he clutches the wheel with both hands.

  ‘Are you crazy? You almost sent us off the road!’

  ‘Show Boom Boom some respect! He’s the one who feeds us, isn’t he?’

  By now the blond has recovered his composure. He looks down scornfully at the car.

  ‘Well, he’s not very generous with the cars he buys you. You deserve a Porsche, not this tin bucket. You’re the Porsche generation.’

  A car behind them is flashing its lights. The blond looks in the rear-view mirror. He does not like what he sees, and is even more upset when a siren starts to wail.

  ‘The cops! We must have stepped in a dog’s turd or something tonight.’

  He brakes and pulls over to the pavement. The police car does the same. Glancing again in the mirror, he sees two plainclothes policemen coming towards them, one on either side of the car.

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘What’s wrong? What’s wrong?’ Robert asks nervously.

  But Pascuali has already stuck his head in the driver’s side window.

  ‘That’s what I’d like to know: what’s wrong? Drunken driving? Coke?’

  ‘We’re not drunk, and there’s no coke,’ Robert replies.

  ‘You’re driving in a zigzag though, is that the latest style? Anyway, it’s a fortunate coincidence, because I wanted to talk to you.’

  He points across at Robert. The ash-blond heaves a sigh of relief.

  The human fauna in Fiorentino’s is much the same as before. Still with traces of the bout on his face, Peretti is having a drink with his manager. Whenever someone comes over to congratulate him, he returns the compliment with a superwelterweight champion’s smile.

  ‘Trust me. You shouldn’t have got anyone else involved in this.’

  Merletti gets up and goes to the toilet. As he is washing his hands, he looks in the mirror and sees the Captain standing behind him.

  ‘Did you speak to him?’ asks the Captain.

  ‘Bit by bit. Let me do it my way’

  ‘There’s no reason I should.’

  This leaves Merletti preoccupied. He dries his hands and leaves the toilet. By the time he arrives, Peretti is already at the night-club door, and they leave together. Merletti walks staring at the pavement, but lifts his head when he sees the Captain coming towards them. The Captain pays no heed to his warning look, and goes straight up to Peretti.

  ‘Peretti...I’m a great fan.’

  Peretti shakes his hand and tries to move on, but the Captain stops him.

  ‘Not just a fan, but someone who can do you a big favour.’

  Still smiling, Peretti tries to push past him. The Captain says only one word: ‘Loaiza.’

  Peretti is pulled up short. Merletti closes his eyes, knowing there is nothing to be done.

  Carvalho jabs on the apartment light. Alma follows him wearily or reluctantly. Carvalho closes the front door, then steps ahead of her to open the communicating door between office and living quarters.

  ‘You can come out.’

  It is Raúl who appears from the bedroom. Alma whispers his name, as if talking to herself. Then she embraces him.

  ‘What are you today? Cat? Mouse?’

  ‘Mouse, as usual.’

  Carvalho busies himself in the kitchen, while the other two sit in the office – chairs apart, hands joined.

  ‘Aren’t you tired of always having to escape?’

  ‘It’s almost become a bad habit. Sometimes I try to imagine myself in a normal life, living like a normal person, and it feels as though I am vicariously living someone else’s existence. It’s not me.’

  ‘We’re all tired of this. I can’t get passionate about anything any more. Norman’s the same. And the masked Spaniard here can’t even stand himself. To top it all, I’m going to boxing matches.’

  Raúl is about to say something, but thinks better of it. Carvalho balances the earpiece of the telephone between neck and shoulder while he tidies up the plates and cutlery on the kitchen table.

  ‘Biscuter? Spain? Barcelona?’

  He hangs up in disgust, then dials again, shouting hysterically.

  ‘The day the Spanish telephone system bought the Argentine one, they should have declared the Third World War!’

  His hysterical shouts bring Alma and Raúl running.

  ‘Come on, tell me what’s wrong,’ Alma suggests.

  Carvalho flings the phone at her.

  ‘I can’t get Spain. This phone is only connected to Patagonia.’

  ‘Here, tell me the number.’

  Carvalho tells her, but gets the code for Spain wrong.

  ‘Overseas. Thirty-three for Spain. Three for Barcelona.’

  ‘I think if you dial 33, you get France, not Spain.’

  ‘So you’re a telephone operator now, are you? How on earth do you know what the code for Spain is?’

  Alma ignores him, and dials again, adding 34 for Spain. She waits.

  ‘Biscuter? I’m calling from Buenos Aires. This is Señor José Carvalho Tourón’s secretary. Don’t hang up. While he comes to the receiver, I’ll sing you a tango, like they do on all the best business lines.

  I was so good to you, but you treated me bad

  You bled me white, to the very last drop

  In six months you gobbled up all that I had

  My stall in the market, and everything in the shop.

  Carvalho grabs the phone from her, and Alma spins away, dancing the tango all by herself. Raúl smiles bleakly.

  ‘Biscuter? No, a madwoman. A madwoman who’s going to have dinner with me. Fegatini con funghi trifolati, Carvalho says, while Alma mimics disgust. ‘It’s a dish I tried in a restaurant in Arezzo, the Bucco de San Francesco. First course, risotto con carciofi. I’m sick and tired of being here in this city full of Argentine men and women like the one you heard on the line. Have you found my uncle? No sign of him? What’s the weather like in Barcelona? It’s snowing? They don’t know what that means here. And Charo has called! It’s snowing and Charo has called. Fine. OK. I’ll call you.’

  ‘If we’re in the way...’ Alma says.

  ‘Of course you’re in the way, but what can I do about it? And besides, I’ve made enough food for an army.’

  ‘Fegatini! After the punch to the liver that Boom Boom gave the Basque,’ Alma protests.

  But she and Raúl wolf down the fegatini. It is Carvalho who hardly touches them.

  ‘I thought liver disgusted you.’

  ‘Cheer up, go and burn a book. I brought you one especially’

  She picks up her bag and takes out a copy of Artificial Respiration by Ricardo Piglia. Before passing it to Carvalho, she reads out: ‘But it was not, he said, the laws of chance that I wanted to discuss with you here today. It fascinates all of us to think of the lives we might have lived, and all of us have our moments of Oedipal choice (in the Greek rather than the Viennese sense of the word), our crucial moments of decision. All of us are fascinated, he said, by thinking of this, and some people pay dearly for this fascination...’

  With a resigned sigh, she hands the book to Carvalho. Carvalho performs his ritual, and when the flames have enveloped it completely, Alma switches off the light. The firelight flickers on the three of them, wrapped in their personal mel
ancholies. Carvalho sits facing the fire, the other two have their backs to him. Alma comes over, and nestles her chin on his head, arms round his shoulders.

  ‘So that Charo of yours called?’

  ‘She hardly even asked after me.’

  ‘She’s a vixen, like all women. She can only think of you, and that’s why she doesn’t even mention you.’

  She moves away from Carvalho. She looks at the forlorn Raúl, then back at Carvalho. Sighs a deep sigh.

  ‘Children, children. Boys, boys! What can I do to help?’

  Alma, Raúl and Carvalho are stretched out on the bed fully clothed. All three stare up at the ceiling. Carvalho is smoking a cigar, and Alma tries from time to time to waft away the smoke with her hand.

  ‘It’s dangerous for Raúl to stay here...’ Carvalho says, breaking the silence.

  ‘I couldn’t care less any more.’

  ‘Why don’t you come back to Spain with me?’

  But Raúl has already fallen asleep. Alma stares down at him anxiously.

  ‘What’s going to become of me without all this excitement? Are you sure you want to go back to Spain, Pepe?’

  Carvalho avoids a direct reply.

  ‘At this time of year there was still lots of daylight after school, and my mother let me play out in the street for a while. Only for a little while, because this was just after the civil war in Barcelona, and there were lots of rumours going around about vampires with tuberculosis who sucked children’s blood. And one morning, my mother gave me a piece of freshly baked bread – or perhaps I’m just imagining it was freshly baked – and a handful of black olives, those really tasty wrinkled ones from Aragon. I can still taste them, still remember how happy I was to be free like that in the street. If only I could get back to that morning. That would be my real homecoming. My Rosebud. Do you remember Citizen Kane?’

  ‘The land of our childhood.’

  Alma gets up and goes over to the window. She is upset but calm as she looks down into the street. What she sees changes her anxiety to scorn. Two police cars have just pulled up stealthily in front of the building. Pascuali and as many as six others are getting out. They take up their positions on each corner and by the entrance. Pascuali motions to them to keep quiet, and opens the front door, followed by Vladimiro and two men in plain clothes. They climb quickly and silently to Carvalho’s apartment.

  He does not give them time to batter on the door, but opens it for them. He is in his pyjamas, and seems sleepy.

  ‘What kind of time d’you call this... ?’

  Pascuali pushes the door wide and enters the room.

  ‘Search warrant,’ Carvalho says, without much conviction.

  ‘I’ve got it here,’ Pascuali says, touching his trouser zip.

  No need to be rude, Carvalho thinks to himself. By now, all the police are in the apartment. Carvalho follows them wearily. Alma is in bed, apparently naked, with the sheets drawn up to cover her breasts. The police search the room without paying her any attention. Pascuali watches them with a wry smile on his face. It’s still there when in the kitchen he notes the three places set for dinner. One of the policemen thinks he has made an earth-shattering discovery when he kneels in the fireplace and shouts: ‘They’ve burnt something here!’

  Pascuali turns to Carvalho.

  ‘Borges? Sábato? Asís? Soriano? Macedonio Fernández? Bioy Casares?’

  Alma emerges from the bedroom draped in a sheet like a vestal virgin.

  ‘Piglia, Ricardo. Born in Adrogué fifty something years ago.’

  Vladimiro brushes past Carvalho, avoiding his gaze.

  ‘So who was here? Raúl Tourón?’ Pascuali weighs his next words to see the effect they have: ‘Or Bruno Loaiza perhaps?’

  ‘You and I have to talk in private,’ Carvalho suggests.

  ‘You don’t know how delighted I am to hear that. I was just about to say the same thing.’

  He does not even have time to cross Tres Sargentos, heading for San Martín. He is bundled rapidly into a van. They do not need to use violence, the pressure of round barrels on his back is enough for someone like him, well-schooled in threats. Inside the van, his brain starts to work almost normally again: neither the smell nor the way he is treated bear the hallmarks of the Captain or Pascuali. There is no point asking anything, so he keeps quiet. Even when the van turns off on to dirt tracks – to judge by the jolting suspension and the efforts of his four guards to cling to the van walls. The men have not even bothered to put on hoods. At first this relieves him, but on second thoughts it suggests they feel menacingly untouchable. He can smell water and rotting vegetation outside: the river or the Tigre delta must be close by. The van pulls up, and they are not worried either that he sees the face of the pilot of the launch or the route they take through the Tigre. The launch leaves the main waterways behind, while Raúl, in sympathy with the weeping willows, casts his eyes back at the elegant buildings disappearing in the distance: the Cannotieri, the Club de la Marina, the Tigre Club – uncertain images in his uncertain memory. There is nothing uncertain though about the giant trees rising pearled with damp from the labyrinth of rivers: gum trees, jacarandas, palms, monkey-puzzles, flamboyants, and huge clumps of bamboo and ferns, the sudden gift of hanging orchids, the smell of water spume and ancient, deep-down rottenness.

  Nor do they prevent him seeing the abandoned garden or the house on stilts ringed with flood marks like different archaeological epochs. It is one of the hidden mansions of the Tigre, built from once noble woods, gloomy inside and with almost all its windows broken, and everywhere the penetrating smell of dampness rising from the floor to the peeling stucco of the ceiling. A table that looks too new for its surroundings stands in the centre of the main room, which has a fireplace with crumbling, over-ornate columns; behind the table sits a man with a smile on his face. He offers Raúl a chair.

  ‘Are you all right? Did they treat you well? Given the situation, I mean. Let’s not waste time, Señor Tourón. You may not know it, but the game is up: for the good of everyone, it has to stop. You’re reaching the end of your journey, aren’t you?’

  ‘Who sent you? Gálvez?’

  ‘There is more than one Gálvez.’

  ‘You know who I mean. Richard Gálvez Aristarain.’

  ‘Let’s say it was.’

  ‘There was no need to kidnap me.’

  ‘Kidnap? Why use such an obsolete term? Let’s live in the present. You are trying to find your identity and your daughter. You have been offered your identity back by your associates, but there’s the problem of the Captain. Then there’s your daughter. What about her?’

  ‘Have you found out anything about the links between Ostiz and the mysterious Señora Pardieu?’

  ‘We’re looking into it.’

  The interrogator signals to the four men to guard Raúl, and climbs a wooden staircase that creaks under his feet. In a much more rustic room than the ones on the ground floor, Güelmes and the director-general Morales are waiting for him.

  ‘What next? Did you hear what he said?’

  ‘You want to know what comes next? He’s just given you the whole script! He told us everything in two minutes. Richard Gálvez is helping him find his daughter through Ostiz and someone called Señora Pardieu. Morales, I want a report at once on all the people he mentioned – Gálvez, Doctor Ostiz – that Borges fan you admire so much, and the Pardieu woman. The one he called the ‘mysterious’ Señora Pardieu. Go back and question him some more. Promise him news, and get him to talk about why he came back. Let him talk – he must feel like talking by now.’

  He does feel like talking, especially because he thinks he can see light at the end of the tunnel, without knowing exactly what that might mean. Eva María. The vague outline of a baby who is now a woman. He himself. What would he be like at the end of the tunnel?

  ‘It all started in S
pain. I had an argument with my father. He’s a strong character. I’m not. I told him I felt rootless. He couldn’t understand. But you have all the power my money and your scientific knowledge can give you, he kept shouting. And in the heat of our argument, he said something that horrified me. He said he had done a deal with the Argentine military to win my freedom. He had given them all my research and had promised they would hear nothing more from me. As far as me and my group were concerned, that was it. He gave up all idea of finding his granddaughter. He even gave up all claim to having a granddaughter. I was his only son. He did not even have a granddaughter.’

  ‘Who did he do this deal with?’

  ‘With Captain Gorostizaga. In those days, his name was Gorostizaga.’

  The Captain orders the fat man to leave, but the motorcyclists stay lined up beside him. Merletti sits in a chair, crushed by his own abjection and by Peretti’s inquisitive stare.

  ‘Is this another of your secret attempts at protection?’

  ‘Don’t jump to conclusions – let him speak.’

  ‘That’s right, don’t jump to any conclusions,’ the Captain agrees. ‘I’ll lay my cards on the table. I found out about Loaiza by chance. All you asked us to do was to beat up an addict who was getting in the way. I was looking for a mouse, and instead I found a cat. Loaiza and I know each other of old. He was a collaborator in the days when we were cleaning the country of Bolsheviks masquerading as nationalists and Perónists. We were the only true nationalists. But Loaiza is not what he once was. He’s a piece of human waste who is blackmailing you. No, don’t deny it. I know everything. Everything. I’m not bothered about your relations, or even your tastes. I’ve known some very macho queers. You’re a national symbol, and we don’t want any more symbols destroyed like Monzón and Maradona were. Their problems should have been declared state secrets. Who else can the Argentines turn into myths? Come and see.’ He takes Peretti over to a door, slides open the spyhole and steps to one side. ‘Take a look.’