“Waterbury falls through the afternoon in a state of shock. His fabulous landscape has withered in front of him. Buenos Aires streams past his window with its glorious stone angels and verdigris domes, but all has gone gray and lusterless. His easy salvation has evaporated and left him groaning with debt and shot to pieces by Don Carlo’s devastating assessment of his talent and his character. Maybe it is his own corruption that has brought him to such a pass. If he had refused La Señora’s offer at the beginning he could have kept a steady course and written a book, rising and falling on his own merits. As it is, the sudden elevation and crash has left him feeling like he can give no more. He passes the hotel clerk with a wave and hurries to his room, throwing himself on the bed. On the tiny desk his books on writing a bestseller laugh at him, and he writhes in an agony of self-hatred and futility, a man who has failed himself and his family, a fraud, a liar, a pretender to literary achievement on the level of Teresa Castex herself. He is out of place on all sides. To stay in this empty and mocking city feels like torture, but to return home now, as a failure, impossible. He lies there as at the bottom of a smothering black pool, but into the dim room comes the buzz of the desk clerk. ‘You have a visitor,’ he says. ‘That French woman.’
“A tiny crack of light seems to open. ‘Send her up,” Waterbury croaks, and he gathers the resolve to rouse himself from the pit. She is, he tells himself, the Patron Saint of Desperation. He hears the elevator hum and clank, and then the knocking at his door. She stands there in her black dress and a little handbag. It’s tango night. ‘What a depressing room!’ she says, looking past him. ‘If I lived here I would have put a bullet in my head two weeks ago!’
“Waterbury’s smile dies out before it can complete itself and the dancer eyes him more closely. ‘What’s happening with you?’ she asks. ‘You look like your wife just sent you divorce papers!’ She strides into the room and puts her handbag on the desk. ‘It’s not for so much, amor! With all that money from La Señora de Pelegrini you can find a woman half her age!’ This does not cheer him, and she realizes that something is wrong. She speaks more softly, her gray eyes crystalline and wise beneath their slashes of liner. ‘Robert! Tell me what’s happened to you!’
“He lifts his hand as if to answer but before any words can escape he finds himself crying without control, finally buried by the years of frustration and failure, humiliated in his last attempt to be clever in his business and his art. La Francesa puts her arms around him and holds him but he goes on crying, clutching her as if she was the incarnation of every hope he once had for Buenos Aires, or himself. She pats him on the back and murmurs small incomprehensible consolations without knowing even what he is crying about. That it is all right, that she is here, that it will all pass, that the moon and the stars will still be shining when it is over. At last he takes a deep breath and sits on the bed, relating in a choking voice the events that have stolen away his hopes for easy salvation. She listens without interruptions, a grimace of discomfort crossing her face when the writer finishes with Pelegrini’s brutal summary.
“The silence sits there for a half-minute as she holds her chin and watches him. She shakes her head sadly. ‘It looked so easy. It floated your way and when you tried to capture it you found it was nothing more than a little ball of smoke.’
“She gives a long sigh. ‘Listen to me … ’ She kneels in front of him and puts her hand on his knee, her gray eyes wide and sympathetic. Her voice is soft and low, almost a hum in the quiet afternoon sun. ‘You came to Buenos Aires to make your last play. But Teresa Castex is not your last play.’ Her face is only inches away from his. She is nearly whispering. ‘Life is your last play, and it is happening right now. All around you. All at one time.’
“The moment overpowers them. He is kissing her, feeling her thick glossy lips and her unfamiliar tongue, smelling as always the odor of smoke in her hair, and her perfume. Without remembering how it happened he is on the bed with her, horizontal, holding her black-dressed body close to him as her arms writhe slowly across his back. He has forgotten his wife, or rather, he has abolished her and his daughter to a remote planet which he knows he must visit again in the near future but which for the moment is only a shadow. The dream is like a fever now, even more intense for the knowledge that it has reached its full bloom and as such has already marked some unknowable endpoint. Nothing exists but this dark room, this woman, and around it the idea of a city called Buenos Aires built not of bricks but of the infinite illusions of its citizens and the aspirations that are forever receding before them.’
/
Fabian leaned back in his chair and shook his head ruefully. He seemed almost serious. “It’s a disappointment, I know, that Waterbury would be unfaithful to the wife who waits for him. Bad news to carry back to the widow. But thus it happened. Waterbury fell, as we all fall, to our own desires for things real or things imaginary. We can’t help it: that’s what pulls us on. You, me, the Comisario. For Waterbury, it was the flesh, or perhaps, looking more profoundly, the vision and the flesh made whole.” Fabian shrugged. “There are others who do much worse for much meaner reasons. Was it worse that he slept with La Francesa or that a decade before he devoted himself to extracting money from the country for AmiBank? I suppose it depends who you ask, no?” He slapped his forehead. “See that? Here I am going around in these boludeses again! I can’t resist!” He puffed. “Qué tonto!” He looked at his watch. “Fine, we are reaching the end now. Both I and Waterbury have little time left.”
“The next morning La Francesa returns to her room and Waterbury decides to look over the manuscript that he has already written. The first twenty pages of the Señora’s history can be easily condensed. That of the French Socialist is disposable, but the part about the young engineer and revolutionary who disappears, yes, there is something of value. And that of the magnate, the disagreeable Mario, in his progress to corruption, yes, a most interesting story in that. He is considering all this when he hears a knock at the door.
“Teresa Castex presents herself dressed in the manner of a schoolgirl in a gray skirt and white blouse. The feeling of recaptured youth is strengthened by her hair, which she has released from its tight bun to flow down over her shoulders and her back. There is a too-brilliant smile on her face, almost childish above the expensive leather portfolio that she presses to her chest. “I told the boy at the desk that I wanted to surprise you!” she explains, glancing around the room at the chaotic bed sheets and the general disarray.
“Waterbury feels immediately uncomfortable, both for the unusual state of animation of Teresa Castex and for the memory of his last encounter with her husband. He invites her in and throws the bedspread unevenly over the humped-up sheets. ‘This is half-Bohemian, Robert! You should have used some of your advance to get a better room.’
“She goes on with her comments about this part of town and other hotels that he would find more congenial to the project, and he answers her without much grace. Finally she puts the leather case on the desk and sits down. Her eyes are bright and nervous, her voice too gay for the occasion. ‘So, I decided we would have our normally scheduled session at your room today, to perhaps bring a different ambiance to the story.’
“An air of delusion has come over the dim lodging. Waterbury half-sits on the windowsill. ‘Teresa. Do you know what happened with your husband yesterday?’
“She plays the gil, but badly. ‘Yes, I was indisposed yesterday. Forgive me; I should have called you in advance. He told me that you chatted.’
“‘It was a bit more than a chat. He looked at the copy of the manuscript and he told me that if I continued in any form he would make me regret it.’
“She begins to get angry. ‘Why did you give him the manuscript? He has nothing to do with it!’
“‘I didn’t give it to him! The security guard took it away at the gate when I got there. What did you tell him about the book?’
“‘He has nothing to do with it!’ La Señora says
again, flaming with indignation. ‘This is my project! It is my life and my novel, and he has no right to say what will happen with it or what its contents will be! I am Teresa Castex! Of the Mansion Castex! I am Castex!’ To Waterbury’s silence she commands: ‘Take out your journal and let us begin! Where were we? That was it! It was mortal sin, the mortal sin of adultery that the filthy Mario has entered into at the back of his innocent wife and children!’
“The writer is not prepared for the situation that is developing before him. He doesn’t move and Teresa Castex says ‘Come on! Take out your journal! Carlo does not control everything I do!’
“He tries to be calm. ‘Teresa. Your husband made his threats very clear.’
“Her face is blushing pink beneath the makeup. ‘To the devil with my husband! Your contract is with me! I paid you ten thousand dollars! Did you forget that? I demand that you begin right now to redact our book!’ Her command has no effect and she sees that she has blundered. Her face collapses. ‘He has nothing to do with this! Nothing! This is my project! Robert!’ She comes to her feet and lurches across the floor to Waterbury, and his vision is filled with her tight-skinned old features made young. ‘Don’t let him do this to us!’ She leans in to kiss him and he hears the clicking of her neck bones. He remains like wood and inhales her perfume. Her lips are thin and timid at first, then they grind away desperately at his mouth without bringing it to life. She leans back and regards him with a face of pure torment. ‘Forgive me,’ she whispers. ‘You don’t find me attractive.’
“Waterbury lies to try to comfort her. ‘It’s not that, Teresa. Of course I find you attractive. But I have a wife and daughter in the United States.’
“The skinny woman moves away. ‘Of course. How silly I am! It’s written on the back of your book!’
“The confusion now fills the air completely. Waterbury does not know why his life has suddenly become so rotten with deception. Just a few weeks before he was a desperate but honorable man.
“The wounded Teresa Castex, failure as both an author and an adulteress, can tell him nothing. She stands motionless, her hands pressed to her temples, then pounds her fists down through the air. ‘He has devoured my life! He has taken over my house and my social standing. He has belittled me in the eyes of my children. And now he is trying to take away our work, our relationship! He is pure corruption!’
“She reaches into her portfolio and subtracts a little packet of papers. ‘Bien,’ La Señora says a bit formally, ‘this is the material for the next section of the book. You must decide whether you will let my husband frighten you away from our book and your two hundred thousand dollars. I will await your call.’ La Señora de Pelegrini leaves the papers on his desk and closes the door behind her.
“I suspect that at that point Robert Waterbury was already under surveillance by Pelegrini’s men. In the movie version, I see a twenty-four hour surveillance, effected by weary men who wait for hours for him to emerge from his hotel and then follow him at a careful distance. A shot of a man sipping at a mate in his car, a man pretending to read a newspaper. They are studying his habits and his social contacts. Does he carry a cell phone or pager? Is he armed? All of those things. Pablo’s warning has come too late: Pelegrini already knows about his visit to the Grupo AmiBank, and he knows that Waterbury was once an employee of the bank. Perhaps before his wife appeared at Waterbury’s hotel room, he still believed his threat alone was sufficient. Who can say with certainty? What is certain is that Waterbury didn’t realize the true danger he was in before he opened up the packet that Teresa Castex had left on his desk. At last, his dreams have become his Destiny.
“He pulls out the papers and there it is. Correspondence, transcriptions of telephone conversations, documents from banks located in the West Indies. And with it, a description in Teresa Castex’s handwriting of transactions between certain officials and her husband that leave no doubt about her husband’s intentions towards the Post Office. In black and white he can see the fifteen million in bribes that Pelegrini was distributing to the Post Office officials and to various members of the government for the purpose of securing the right to take over the public mail system. In the hands of Pelegrini’s rivals at AmiBank, such information would be dynamite.”
Fortunato frowned. “Have you seen these papers, Fabian?”
Fabian held up his hand to stop their questions. “Afterwards we’ll talk about that. But you see now why Pelegrini had to act. It’s the classic. Waterbury knew too much. The documents showed the clear course of the money from Pelegrini to an offshore bank, and from there to accounts in the name of certain postal officials and fictitious companies that then invested their money back in Argentina. But all this was exposed by Ricardo Berenski and the others in their articles about Pelegrini. Surely you’ve seen them, Comisario.”
“I’ve seen them.”
Fabian lifted his palms towards Athena. “The biggest scandal in months! Though, of course, it was surely uncovered independently of Waterbury.”
“Fine. So what happened next?”
“Robert Waterbury becomes nervous, but also confused. That the Señora de Pelegrini would expose her own husband shocks Waterbury, though he understands what a depth of ancient resentment it comes from. He only wishes she had not chosen him to be her confessor. Now, yes, he begins to feel insecure. A part of him would like to go home. Another part is drawn to stay, to live out a few more weeks with Paulé and with his manuscript, to live this fantasy made real. In just a short time of intensive work he can complete the first redaction and then leave it behind forever: his affair, his blunder with the Señora.”
“Did he see any signs that Pelegrini was after him?” Athena asked.
“That we will never know. At this point the journals of Robert Waterbury end, and I can only speculate on the rest. I see Carlo Pelegrini questioning his wife about her visit to Calle Paraguay. It is uncertain how much she tells her husband, but her sobbing complaints move him from resentment to action. The order goes out to his security apparatus, who have been conducting the surveillance. I see three or four men arming the capacha with two automobiles. They would need some experienced men, but they find themselves lacking in the last days and one of the men decides to call on an old friend, Enrique Boguso, who is a bit erratic, but willing to undertake such a mission for not very much money. Here the first mistake. What is the mission? To intimidate Waterbury into compliance. Pelegrini suspects that his wife has revealed too much about his business affairs, and so it has gone beyond a matter of jealous husbands and disobedient wives. Waterbury must be shocked into permanent silence, even after he has returned to the United States. For this, he must experience a level of fear that will wake him up with a jerk for the rest of his life.
“The night of October 30th comes. Waterbury goes to eat at a restaurant around the corner at approximately eleven o’clock and leaves the restaurant shortly after midnight. A building is under construction and they park their car next to a container piled with shattered wood and plaster. Waterbury comes around the corner. He walks beneath the scaffolding, as he has other nights, and two of the men corner him there. It’s the logical place. Boguso has a hose filled with little balls of lead, and he silences the writer with a blow to the head.
“I see Waterbury in the auto, confused by the blow, confused by his situation. How could this be happening to him? He is only a writer. He guesses about Pelegrini and he wants to talk to the magnate, to dismiss his worries and assure him that his relationship with Teresa is only platonic. It all seems rather absurd, but at the same time, frightening. He has already been beaten a bit, and held on the floorboards of the car with handcuffs on. What might happen?
“For some time they drive, gradually making their way to the outer suburbs of Buenos Aires. Waterbury asks questions that are answered with a blow or an insult. Perhaps he is thinking of his wife and daughter, wishing he was home with them. Or perhaps he is thinking of La Francesa, or Pablo, or of what an interesting story thi
s will make someday. I suspect that some part of Waterbury is still apart from his circumstances. They come to rest at a vacant lot on Calle Avellaneda, in San Justo, and Waterbury is pulled erect on the seat. He looks around at the abandoned neighborhood and now an ugly sense of reality begins to swallow him up. The dark windows, the apathetic weeds. A lost place, apart from all mercy. Perhaps it occurs to him, ‘This is the kind of place where one takes a bullet in the head.’ I imagine now that remorse comes over him. For the vanity of Teresa Castex, for his affair with La Francesa. For all the silly dreams that dissolved the life he had with his wife and daughter and made Buenos Aires seem more golden and more real. Because what is it now? The filthy gray light, the cheap swaggering by men who hit him while he is in manacles. Waterbury has tried to be stoic, to reason, to joke, to plead, to say nothing, but no approach will change the men.
“Now his captors are losing control. Empty little papers of merca scatter to the Boor and the atmosphere in the car has an electric feel, like that bitter smell of ozone around a red neon sign. The intimidation of Waterbury becomes an entertainment for the kidnappers. Guns are waving in the air, guns are pressing into his balls and then without reason a gun goes off and the last cord of sanity snaps. Waterbury panics and reaches out. Another explosion, then another. Waterbury is screaming, bleeding from the thighs, the balls, the hand, the chest …”
“Enough, Fabian,” the Comisario snapped.
The Inspector ignored him. “Finally Boguso takes up his nine millimeter Astra and walks around to the back door. The killer—”
“I said it’s already enough.”
“I’m almost finished, Comisario.” He looks at Athena. “The killer leans in, he raises the pistol towards Waterbury’s head—”
“Enough!” the Comisario shouted. “What’s happening with you? Is this entertainment? You’re so content! What good luck that a man is murdered in an empty lot! What diversion!”
17 Stone Angels Page 22