by Cora Siré
“What was his state of mind?”
“Anxious.”
“Suicidal?”
“Not that I could tell.”
“He left his wife and children a month before he died.”
“I didn’t know that…he didn’t say.” Gabriel couldn’t pretend that he didn’t care. No, it haunted him, Ernesto’s agitation the day before his drowning. If he judged himself harshly, he could argue that if he’d spoken to Ernesto as he lay in the campus grass, the guy might not have flipped out. “I didn’t know him that well. He was a friend of Roberto, my brother.”
“I know that. So what did you talk about?”
“Regrets.” Not exactly a lie. There had been remorse in Ernesto’s desperation. Why else had he stolen the files?
“What regrets?”
“Nothing specific…he just seemed…agitated.”
“How long’s your brother been gone? More than a decade, right?”
The man’s eyes, narrow as a viper’s, bored into him. He was soulless. To display this level of arrogance here where generations of Pindalo ghosts, including Ernesto’s, resided as witnesses. The heavy stapler on Gabriel’s desk would be the perfect weapon. But why stoop to his level? “Maybe he regretted his inaction. He might have saved my brother.”
“Yes and no. Not on his own.”
Gabriel’s stomach churned.
“Did he mention any documents?”
“No.” Now that the bastard had indirectly admitted he could have intervened to save Roberto, it was easy to lie.
“Ernesto was seen at the university the day before his death. Why?”
“No idea.”
“Do you know Professor Molino?”
“Yes.”
“Did you introduce him to my son?”
“No.”
“I ask you again, Seil. What was he doing here?”
“Maybe he came to visit his mother’s tomb.”
“She’s been dead a long time. Why would he come to the mausoleum now? Unless…he was contemplating taking his life and came to face his ultimate destination?”
It struck him that Pindalo was improvising.
“Death, you see enough of it here. Can’t you smell it coming?”
Gabriel stared out the window so as not to see what he understood intuitively, Patrón Pindalo’s need to know, the importance of detail in an unexplained death. He was admitting that Ernesto had killed himself. That’s the distance he’d come. Now he was haunted by guilt.
“Ernesto left two shattered children in my care. All of us, his wife, his sister, would have wanted to prevent his death. It’s too late…but something smells here, Seil. There’s some link between you, Ernesto and this Professor. I know the brother, Eduardo, and I knew their grandmother. Buena gente. Although the father was a gambler of the worst sort. Maximilio Molino…I imagine he’d approve of the deal I’ve been hearing about.”
A crafty move.
Patrón Pindalo regarded him with a smirk.
“What deal?”
“La Cuarenta’s going down. It’s being demolished for a casino.” He sprang from his chair and reached across the desk to shake Gabriel’s hand, then changed his mind. Instead he asked, “How’s Bilmo? Remember me to him, will you? And if he ever fires you, let me know. I’d be happy to help.” Patrón Pindalo left the office. The screen door to the building swung shut behind him.
As Gabriel stood at the window watching the car recede down the gravel road, he realized it had been an interrogation, pure and simple, although he wasn’t sure whether he’d passed or failed. He’d been like an actor in a film noir detective story, one who kept forgetting his lines. Gabriel fluctuated from pride that he hadn’t capitulated to regret that he hadn’t taken a stronger stand. What if he’d tried to barter? Trade the information that Ernesto had indeed given away documents stolen from his father for details on Roberto’s last days? But that would be colluding with the devil himself. And the parting threat, so typically couched in oligarchic charm. Let him have Bilmo fire me, let him try. Then despair at the thought of it. What sickened was the indifference to Roberto’s disappearance. Patrón Pindalo could have helped but chose not to. That persistent negation, symptom of Luscano’s endemic indifference, made his brother disappear again and again.
14
The official gathering at the Hotel Colonial was a formality. All members of the consortium convened to sign the documents with the arsenal of Mont Blanc pens ordered for the occasion. Patrón Pindalo was the last to enter the conference room. He ignored the offer of a seat at the head of the table and sat down next to his lawyer.
Javier Martinez conducted the meeting with a courteous but curt delivery. Patrón Pindalo admired the fellow’s efficiency. Educated at Yale, he brought an American directness to negotiations. The old guard loved to talk, but in the presence of the young lawyer they kept themselves in check, admiring the gold souvenirs in their hands like children. Patrón Pindalo found them pathetic as his eyes went from one to the other, the former ambassador, the mayor’s brother, an ex-colonel, the Galtí widow, a retired cardiologist, the university rector and a so-called philanthropist who’d made his fortune off gangs of moneychangers loitering on street corners.
Since Ernesto’s death, his patience with everyone except his grandchildren had evaporated. At the same time, the casino deal kept him from wallowing in grief, with all the meetings, attended with or without Javier, depending on the situation, to get the government to approve the development and transfer ownership of the land. Selected senators and officials had received their envelopes of cash. The sale had been registered and transacted. The bishop had promised not to invoke questions of morality in return for renovations to his rectory. “We can’t condone gambling, Patrón,” he’d said over one of their dinners, “but we support any initiative to alleviate poverty and create prosperity.”
Leather-bound contracts were passed from signatory to signatory. Patrón Pindalo handed them on. His name was not directly linked to the deal. Instead, he’d acquired a controlling interest in the corporation created to manage the casino and eventually, the hotel and golf course that would be built on the site. It was the cash flow, not the land, that appealed to him. The casino represented a profitable laundromat. The sooner it was up and running, the better.
Patrón Pindalo scanned the press release Javier had had drafted for tomorrow’s news. Nicely upbeat, with the number of jobs to be created and the millions of pesos the development would generate in annual tourism revenues.
When the signing was done, waiters were summoned into the conference room with trays of champagne glasses. It was eleven in the morning, too early for any decent person to be drinking. What hope was there for Luscano with this degree of decadence? Patrón Pindalo smiled and accepted a glass. The men and women toasted the prospect of their increased wealth. Some lit cigars and stood by the French doors that opened onto the Plaza de los Marineros.
Patrón Pindalo left his champagne flute on the table and worked the room as quickly as possible, shaking hands with the men, kissing the women. The pity in their eyes was intolerable. It had been four months since Ernesto’s drowning, but it didn’t get easier. For the first time in his life, Patrón Pindalo sensed the others knew more than he did, that ugly rumours were circulating behind his back. The confrontation with Seil had yielded nothing. He smelled lies but couldn’t prove them.
He approached Javier Martinez, a type commendably more absorbed by his work than the emotional states of others, and directed him to the outside hallway. “Well done. Looks like everything’s in order.”
“The credit goes to you, Patrón. A brilliant plan. ‘Win-win,’ as they say in English.”
“When will the demolition take place?”
“By the end of the month, provided there’s no glitch.” Javier smiled a perfect row of white teeth.
“There’s always a glitch.”
“Right. The question remains: the reaction to the news release? I don’t foresee problems. We make a good case for the country.”
Patrón Pindalo took in the lawyer’s tightly knotted silk tie, the snug, tailored suit. He preferred to find some defect in his employees. In Javier’s case, the young man cared too much for his own appearance. That vanity could get him in trouble.
“It’s not Luscano you need to worry about, but our neighbours. This is going to eat into their gaming business.”
“Brazil and Paraguay are on side.”
“And Uruguay?”
“Lukewarm.”
“You work on that.”
Patrón Pindalo left the Hotel Colonial without any sense of achievement or jubilation. Why couldn’t Ernesto have been more like this Javier? Such questions were a waste of time. He couldn’t let bitterness corrode him; it was a battle, one of the tougher ones in his life.
15
Alma had expected that the silence of the house with Xenia gone would induce her to write long hours. She’d thought her days would revert to the routine of her life in Montréal, less the pressures of teaching and marking, and she could bask in the luxury of coming and going as she pleased without explanation or obligation. But she found herself going out, visiting Roma at the bookstore or spending time at the university library, where she read texts on Delmira Agustini. Encountering the theses written by others since her departure proved there was sustained interest in the poet’s work.
As she browsed the stacks in dusty rows inside the old ivied building, the faces of her fellow students returned to her. At the library’s long tables she’d shared lecture notes and books with them, and their idiosyncrasies emerged from memory. How naive and young they had all been. One night, watching Roma play taiko drums, she asked Flaco what had happened to them, naming the ones she remembered specifically. He told her what he knew, that many were in exile in Barcelona, Paris, Santiago or Buenos Aires, four had disappeared, two others committed suicide. “Worse than a brain drain,” he said, “a generation decimated.” And that, he explained, was what made his students so important. “They have to bridge a huge gap.”
Alma studied them, the students in the library, hunched over books and laptops, texting on their phones. Much like her students in Montréal, their easy interactions and generous doling out of hugs, their openness and absence of angst made her hopeful. They seemed wiser, too, and this she thought would protect them. On the other hand, a person’s courage remained unknown until tested. What would they do if their friends began to disappear?
On her way home from the university, she usually detoured to Calle Libertad and the nondescript block of houses where Carlos Cruz lived. Daytime, a woman swept the front path or wiped windows in circular motions with a white cloth. How easy it had been to attach an identity to the man, his name obtained from the credit card receipt in Roma’s register, his workplace discovered by tailing him to the industrial barrio, south of the old market, where he worked in an auto parts factory. Alma didn’t know what he did all day inside that brick building. Perhaps he was in sales or accounting. He didn’t wear a suit or tie to work nor were his hands stained with grease or dirt when he returned home. Observing the routine of this family man with a penchant for thrillers prompted Alma to wonder whether he even remembered what he’d done, whether he ever woke up haunted or ashamed of the suffering he’d caused. Every time she watched him, his house, his wife and children, or followed him through Luscano, she felt closer to some sort of understanding. He was so absolutely ordinary that her fear of discovery receded with each session of spying. He wouldn’t recognize her and if he did, what could he do?
Roma, when she’d asked for the man’s name, had said, “Do you want to tell me why? If not, don’t say anything. I’d rather you didn’t lie.” Roma might have guessed her motive had to do with recouping something she’d lost, a sense of control. The power of the watcher over the one being watched. As if Carlos Cruz, in all his banality, was at her mercy now. She knew it was an illusion, but the role suited her, the temporary feeling of empowerment she had when she followed him.
One hot afternoon she sat sweating at a piano inside the music faculty. Emilio Rodriguez held the violin to his chin and, working his bow, deciphered the piece her father had written. After hearing it played through several times, Alma worked out the fingering with her right hand, improvising chords with her left, Emilio keeping time with his bow. He gave her some blank sheet music and helped her transpose the score for piano. They tried to sing the words of the poem but their voices could not sustain the long notes. Emilio suggested a singer he knew, and before leaving for a rehearsal, promised to organize a session for the three of them.
Sweat trickled down her forehead as Alma replayed the piece, stopping to write the notes on the sheet. Her father had not always respected the rhythms of her words with a beat per syllable. The piece represented more than a chanting of the poem but a reworking of her poem in a new dimension, all the false starts, notes written and erased, the meticulousness and focus drawing her inward so that time and the present became irrelevant. The sounds transcended her words and she began to feel an affection for the music she’d never felt for the poem itself. The rhythms and syntax that she, the young naive student, had created, on which her father had built these sounds, the long legatos of the couplets and slow building of resonance that turned into itself fugue-like, as if echoing off the walls of the cathedral itself. It was beautiful, the music and act of playing the piece, even as droplets of sweat fell on her knuckles and her fingers slid on the keys.
In this heightened state, all the if onlys that had coiled themselves so tightly began to unravel. If only there hadn’t been a coup in 1990, if only she hadn’t witnessed the tanks in the Plaza Federal, if only she hadn’t smelled the books burning, if only she hadn’t written the poem, if only she hadn’t handed it to Flaco for the university magazine, if only she hadn’t been at home the night of January 6, 1991. Futile conditional clauses that introduced her most self-damaging thoughts. She’d trained herself to cut them off before their completion.
Sweating over the keys bent her thinking elsewhere. She had written the poem and it had been set to music by her father and now she was playing it herself on the piano. The clauses rearranged themselves. If only she hadn’t left Luscano, if only her father hadn’t died before she returned. She repeated the piece, warming to the sense of it, whispering the words, “En la Plaza Federal tenemos una iglesia, La Catedral de Luscano, edificio de gracia….”
16
A few weeks after Xenia’s departure, the phone rang early one morning. Alma recognized the man’s madrileño accent from the one time she’d heard him speak. The Professor invited her for tea and she accepted, curious to hear what he had to say about her mother.
The Professor’s apartment occupied the top floor of a low-rise building on a cul-de-sac in Barrio Norte. When Alma stepped out of the elevator he was waiting to greet her, leaning on his cane and peering at her through his glasses. His frame was frail and his bald head the same hazel colour as the woollen vest over his white shirt. The Professor led her through a large sunny room with bookshelves, a leather settee and desk by a wall of windows between panels of velvet curtains. He was obviously a meticulous man, as not a book or newspaper lay strewn about. They sat at a table that looked over his terrace and onto the sea. He’d set out platters of fruit tarts and pastel puffs of meringue along with the plates and teacups. He prepared the tea while Alma filled her plate. Since Xenia had left, her meals had become sporadic, and she was hungry.
As if to establish his credentials and gain her confidence, the Professor described his origins and career. Born in Madrid, he’d left for Luscano during the civil war. He wrote books that were published in Spain, lectured in various universities in Europe and Latin America and eventually taught philosophy at the University of Luscano. “In 19
91, during that period of turmoil you know all too well,” he said, “I was invited to replace some professors who left the country and wound up teaching until I retired, five years ago, at the age of seventy-three.” He sipped some tea, his hand shaking slightly. He put down the cup. “Ethics were my specialty, especially Nietzsche and his teachings on the will to power as the basis of true morality.”
Alma waited for an opening. A craving had been building in her, the need to speak of her mother with someone objective. The man was quite a raconteur, not at all the self-effacing presence she remembered from Hannelore’s burial, and she consumed several pastries before she was able to interject, “My mother…you sent her flowers every week. And let her enjoy the mystery of having a secret admirer.”
“I hope you understand, given your loyalties to your father, whom I never had the opportunity to meet, although I witnessed many of his concerts. A fine violinist. The orchestra was never the same after he died.”
“When did you meet my mother?”
“My dear, I feel I’ve known her all my life.”
Perhaps the sugar in the pastries was taking effect, making her feel agitated. Alma rephrased the question. “How did you meet her?”
“At the Spanish embassy here in Luscano, just before Franco died. It was an evening on Cervantes. Some of us, the Spanish émigrés, were asked to read. I noticed her sitting in the audience. The green eyes cast their spell on me.” He went on about the evening, how when drinks were offered, he made sure to seek out Hannelore and described her, the yellow dress she wore and her black hair. Alma calculated that the meeting must have occurred when she was a child, about eight, given that Franco died in 1975. It was strange that she’d never encountered the Professor at the house, that Hannelore had never mentioned him. She began to regret this visit. Coming here might have been disloyal to her mother’s privacy and her father’s honour.