Meanwhile, as Jaime Brena is remembering how he christened Nurit Iscar Betty Boo, the Crime boy, with his computer switched off, is wondering what to do. And what to do doesn’t mean what to write about the crimes at La Maravillosa, or even what to write about other crimes of less immediate interest but that he should also be covering. He’s wondering what to do with his life. If what he wants is to make a career at El Tribuno (assuming they continue to want him) until one day he gets made editor of some section that doesn’t interest him or where he has to run everything that departs from the paper’s editorial line past Rinaldi or whoever replaces him. Is that where he’ll be in ten years? Will Rinaldi still be there? And Jaime Brena? Where will they all be, ten years from now? He looks around him. The Crime boy doesn’t want to be like the editors he sees around the newsroom. He particularly doesn’t want to be like Rinaldi, who was also a reporter once. He wants to be like Jaime Brena. But Brena was moved from the section that was his natural home to one that has made his life a misery. That’s not something the Crime boy wants either. So, is there a place today in El Tribuno for him to be the journalist he most wants to be? Is he going to feel freer every day he works there or increasingly hamstrung by interests he knows nothing about but which will be presented to him as immovable objects? Is he prepared to spend his life here, as Brena has, only to find out what he really wants when there are no longer any options left to him but to stay where he is or take voluntary redundancy? He doesn’t know; he has no idea. All he knows for sure now is that he wants to be a journalist. A Crime correspondent. And he wants to be like Jaime Brena. But he doesn’t want to end up in the place where he is now. Not that.
Nurit Iscar puts her things to one side, switches on the computer and starts typing her last piece. The Crime boy goes looking for Karina Vives, but they tell him that she hasn’t come into work today, that she called in sick, and that makes him worried. Jaime Brena enters the office of Comisario Venturini, who greets him with the habitual: How are you, my dear? But this time Jaime Brena doesn’t complete the joke with the usual “Well, but poor, Sir”. Instead he sits down opposite him, on the other side of the desk, and says: Have you got any further with the Collazo case? Venturini looks irritated. The case is closed; Collazo committed suicide. Why are you trying to make unnecessary work for me, Brena? I’m just wondering why, when Collazo was found dead, you were there, too? What do you mean, “too”? Chazarreta’s death took place outside your jurisdiction, Comisario, as did Collazo’s. Was it just coincidence? Helping out a colleague? Or were there vested interests? Hang on a minute, since when do I have to explain to you which cases I choose to get involved with and which not? You don’t have to, Comisario, I’m just trying to understand why you’ve been avoiding me recently. Venturini fixes him with a look, as though he’d like to say something and can’t decide if he should say it. Finally he says this: Look, Brena, sometimes we have to accept our limitations, sometimes we can’t get where we would like to, but that doesn’t invalidate everything else that we do. Does the fact that we have to compromise once in a while make us crooks? No, it makes us human. Sometimes we can do things, sometimes we can’t. Sometimes we can take the right road, sometimes we have to take other roads without knowing whether or not they are going to lead where we want to go. Do you understand me? No, not really. Don’t worry, you can’t understand everything. That’s human too, but trust me, I assure you that I am someone you can trust. Brena says nothing; he doesn’t know if he believes him. He would like to, but he doesn’t. There’s nothing more to be done here.
Jaime Brena gets to his feet, makes his gesture of tipping an imaginary hat, says: Comisario. And he leaves.
27
It’s easier to get out than in.
I bid you farewell. This is my last dispatch from La Maravillosa. I won’t be writing any more columns about the Chazarreta case. But I want you to remember what I tell you here: I want the fact that I have freely decided that this is my last piece put on record. I have decided not to write any more about the death of Pedro Chazarreta or any related deaths. And this is my decision, my choice.
I don’t want this story gradually to lose prominence and currency until nobody talks about it any more, as often happens with a subject, a news story, a piece of information that one day commanded space and interest. Sometimes that’s the intention: for the story to disappear, for us to forget all about it. That isn’t the case here. I’ve decided to stop writing because I’m scared. I’m stopping because I don’t have enough proof to say what I think. All I have are fear and conjecture. This case has not been solved. And I can’t be the person to solve it. Perhaps nobody will ever solve it. Perhaps soon nobody will talk about the Chazarreta case any more. Please don’t let that happen.
What’s happening with this crime story has implications for other news items and for the general state of the media today. A news agenda that leaves out certain stories is tantamount to censorship. Don’t allow other people to create your agenda, no matter what side they’re on. Read a lot of newspapers, watch a lot of bulletins – all of them, even the ones you disagree with – and only then decide on your own viewpoint. Communication today is no longer a matter of passively receiving what we are told: we all help to create it. Choosing a hierarchy for news stories that chimes with our own criteria and not with the imposed agenda is a way to create counter-information. And that shouldn’t be a dirty word here: quite the opposite. It means being informed from a different point of reference, outside the centres of power: an alternative media. We have to understand the motives of groups and people; we shouldn’t settle for obvious causes but instead look deeper to understand behaviour.
What does this have to with the reporting of crimes? With a murder?
A great deal.
It may be reassuring to think that Chazarreta was murdered for this or that reason, but don’t count on me for such a simple analysis. I’m not able to give a deeper analysis, but you should know that it exists and it is being denied to you. I’m denying it to you today, out of fear. Keep looking for it in the crime pages, in politics, international news, entertainment and sports. To name the person who took a knife and slit Chazarreta’s throat from one side to the other is to say who killed him, which doesn’t say anything. Because behind that action lies a truth that is much older, more complex, more brutal. Abuse, revenge, pacts of silence: these are more complicated and turbid matters than who wielded the knife. Does it matter where Chazarreta went to school? Does it matter that the founder of that school has been accused of repeated acts of abuse? Does it matter what ideologies Chazarreta and his friends followed in adolescence, and what in more recent times? Yes, I believe that all those things matter. Do unresolved past grievances, abuses and crimes influence the grievances, abuses and crimes of today, or of the future? When old grievances are not given their due the wounds stay open, and – what’s more dangerous – somebody may feel it’s his right to seek vengeance for something that had no justice at the time. But taking justice into your own hands can only lead to another wrong, fuelling an endless cycle of hatred and revenge. When a person kills someone who deserves to die, does that make him any less of a murderer? The only way to save ourselves as a society is to administer fair punishment for wrongdoing, for crimes that have been committed. Don’t forget the unpunished crimes, because they always conceal something more terrible than the crime itself.
As of today, I shall no longer be writing in this newspaper. Not because the story doesn’t matter to me, but for exactly the opposite reason. Rodolfo Walsh recognized that after 1968 he started valuing literature less “because it was no longer possible to keep writing high-minded works that could only be consumed by the ‘bourgeois intelligentsia’ when the whole country was going into convulsions.” He felt that everything he wrote “should be submerged in the new process, and be useful to it, contribute to its advance. Once again, journalism was the right weapon here”. Is journalism, this journalism, still the right weapon today? I don’t kn
ow; nor do I have a right to answer the question, because I am not a journalist. I’m a writer. I invent stories. And it is to that world of fiction that I shall retreat when I’ve finished this dispatch. Because it is a place where I’m not frightened, a place where I can invent another reality, an even truer one. That is where I can start a new novel, my next novel, with a woman who comes to do the domestic work at the house of a man like Pedro Chazarreta, for example, and has to pass, as she does every day, through the security checks at the entrance to La Maravillosa not knowing, not suspecting, that when she arrives at her employer’s house she will find him the victim of a brutal murder. I can invent an investigation, uncover links to other deaths that nobody saw, say why the murder victim was killed. Invent all kinds of things. I can even say, for example, that the ultimate responsibility lies with a powerful businessman, in a skyscraper, an imposing tower somewhere in Retiro, or Puerto Madero or Manhattan. It can be wherever I like because I don’t have to answer to anyone. An office with a vast window. Or with no window at all. After all, this reality is all my own invention. A novel is fiction. And my only responsibility is to tell it well.
So it’s back to fiction for me. I won’t be writing any more of these dispatches because I’m too scared to write what needs to be said, and too ashamed to write anything else.
I respect my readers highly. And I am confident that you will know what to do in this brave new age of information. You are, after all, an inescapable and active part of it.
*
The Crime boy finishes reading Nurit Iscar’s last piece at the very moment that she’s passing under the barrier at the entrance – or rather exit – to La Maravillosa, in the minicab sent by the newspaper, with her little case stowed in the boot that the security men opened but didn’t inspect, on her way back home. Her real home, that is: the apartment in Buenos Aires. The boy sends the piece on to be run in the next day’s newspaper. He knows that Rinaldi isn’t going to like it. Especially if Nurit Iscar hasn’t yet told him that she plans not to write for El Tribuno any more. Mind you, he won’t like it anyway, even if she has told him. Lorenzo Rinaldi doesn’t like being left. The boy answers a few overdue emails then collects his things together, shuts down the computer and is about to go home when he hears Rinaldi yelling: What the hell are you doing sending this piece through for tomorrow without asking me first? Thank God somebody read it along the way and let me know! The Crime boy feigns innocence: I thought Nurit Iscar’s pieces weren’t supposed to be cut or edited? Don’t push your luck, kid, you know very well this is different. There’s no way this is going out. The woman’s got some nerve. Did you know about this? Here I am ringing her and she’s disappeared off the face of the earth. That’s a bad, bad way to end things. How did you ever think this could go out? There are editorial standards in this newspaper; we don’t just run any old thing. Rinaldi is furious but making an effort at composure, despite his tone and initial vehemence: Put your computer back on and get writing something to fill this space, he orders, and goes back to his office without another word. The Crime boy is sorry to think that Nurit Iscar’s best piece won’t be read by the paper’s readers. He decides to ask a few friends’ permission to put it on their blogs, then put links on Facebook, Twitter and other sites so that a lot of people will see it. He looks at his watch – seven o’clock in the evening – and fires up the computer again; is he really prepared to write something to replace Nurit’s piece? No, he isn’t. He pulls up Google, types “Furies” into the search box. He reads: “In Greek mythology, female deities of vengeance, primitive forces who will not submit to the authority of Zeus. They return to Earth to punish living criminals. Finally, despite their thirst for vengeance, the Furies accept the justice meted out by Athene because they want the people to stop treating them with contempt. Revenge gives way to justice.” The boy looks at his watch again: ten past seven. Why is he still here at the paper? he asks himself, not in reference to the late hour but to his life generally and his career choices. Isn’t Rinaldi’s decision not to publish Nurit Iscar’s piece reason enough to hand in his notice? Back to the Furies and justice. What happens when a murderer and his victims – Chazarreta, his friends, Gandolfini – are all poisonous pieces of shit? Does proving that Chazarreta was a bastard make his death in any way more just? Does it make Gandolfini less of a criminal? Does being murdered make Chazarreta less of a bastard? He looks at his watch: 7.15. He types “counter-information” into Google, bypasses various entries then clicks on one about a book with this title, by Natalia Vinelli and Carlos Rodríguez Esperón. The summary is interesting, and he searches for a copy to download but it isn’t online. He’ll have to buy it, then, but where? Will it be available? He goes to the MercadoLibre website, finds it and orders a copy to be delivered the next day. Simple. He glances over at the door of Rinaldi’s office. He looks at the time again on his BlackBerry: 7.35. He types “alternative media” into Google and gets approximately 2,730,000 results. He clicks on two, three, five of them. He clicks on Indymedia and Radio Sur 102.7, leaving the National Network of Alternative Media, Antena Negra and Barricada TV for further investigation when he gets home. It’s too much: he hasn’t got enough time at the moment. He feels giddy and excited, as though he’d taken drugs. A quarter to eight. It’s now or never. He turns off the computer, grabs his wallet and BlackBerry and walks out of the office. He gets to the post office five minutes before it closes. I want to send a telegram, he says. And he composes his resignation from El Tribuno. They’re already lowering the metal shutters as he leaves. He calls Jaime Brena on his BlackBerry: Brena, do you want to leave the newspaper and come and start up a news site with me?
28
A week later Jaime Brena and Nurit Iscar are having dinner in El Preferido. He promised her that you can eat the best puchero in all of Buenos Aires there. Unless you prefer those restaurants where they employ pretty teenagers instead of waiters and the food is fusion or some such concoction that you could eat in any city of the world, Brena said when he rang her to arrange the meeting. I love puchero, she had said. And here they are, sitting across from each other, choosing a red wine. Does it come with chorizo? Nurit asks the waiter. If it didn’t have chorizo, chickpeas and bone marrow it wouldn’t be puchero, the man replies. With a wink and a thumbs up, she closes her menu and hands it back to him. Jaime Brena selects a Cabernet Sauvignon and also hands back his menu. She tells him that she still hasn’t responded to any of Rinaldi’s persistent calls, that she knows he’s going to haul her over the coals for her last piece – especially after the boy put it up on the Internet – and that she doesn’t feel like hearing it right now. He tells her that he plans to keep working at El Tribuno for the time being, that he’ll help the boy with his news site as a favour, that he’ll write a few pieces for him and so on, but that he can’t imagine not getting up every morning and going to work at the newspaper. Despite Rinaldi, despite the Society section, despite those stupid statistics about the habits of men and women, girls and boys or women with more or less pubic hair, he would still choose to work in a newspaper office. I don’t think I could get used to living without the smell of a newsroom, Brena says. What does it smell like? she asks. Well, it used to smell of cigarette butts, and paper and printing ink; I’m not so sure about these days, but in a way the old smell is still there, in that rank, dusty air that goes in and out of the air-conditioning units God knows how many times a day. And the noise – I’d miss that too, that human engine that sounds like vertigo, like things happening. Today you hear it in the hum of television sets around the newsroom, which are always muted unless something important comes on. The gentle but persistent buzz of computers, like mosquitoes. And telephones which don’t ring the way they used to, all with the same melody, but which now all have their own ridiculous and exclusive ringtone. So you get a competition of ever stranger ringtones that’s supposed to help people pick out which one is theirs. I don’t know if I’d be happy without all that, says Jaime Brena. He asks Nurit if
she’s started to write anything and she says yes and tells him about her new novel, two pages so far with a lot more in her head. Murders, yes, suspense, and then the real story, running beneath the murder, which is what really matters to me; the everyday life which death never succeeds in holding back. They eat bread while waiting for the puchero, both protesting that they shouldn’t fill up on carbs, that they already have weight to lose. Both laughing. Should we have done more? she asks. Should we have tried to expose Gandolfini? I don’t know; I ask myself that too, says Jaime Brena. For the moment we’ll have to live with those doubts: the cost of saying what we know, or what we think we know, is too high. Perhaps later on we’ll find a way to say it, sometimes time goes by and an opportunity comes up – I don’t know. I don’t either, says Betty Boo, but I feel uneasy. The waiter arrives with the wine and serves them; they clink glasses and drink. But they don’t toast. Above their heads, on a wall-mounted television switched to mute, the nine o’clock news is starting. They don’t watch it – they would have to twist their necks like herons to see it. And they’re not interested, anyway; today they don’t want to know what’s happening to anyone else.
As Jaime Brena and Nurit Iscar are waiting for their puchero, Carmen Terrada and Paula Sibona are eating empanadas while checking their phones. Has she sent you a message? Carmen asks. No, you? says Paula. No, me neither. And she promised that she was going to text to let us know how she was getting on, she complains. She promised that to get you off her back, Paula; she can’t be expected to relay every single detail of her date as though it were a football match. That’s exactly what I was hoping she would do, says Paula. Do you want to watch a film or a series? Carmen asks. Which series have you got? In Treatment or Mad Men. In Treatment: I love that shrink. Carmen turns on the television and puts in a DVD. They make themselves comfortable on the large cushions scattered on the floor. Do you think they’ve screwed yet? Paula Sibona asks. No, I don’t, says Carmen; knowing our friend, they probably haven’t even kissed. I have faith in Jaime Brena, Paula declares. So do I, Carmen agrees, the question is whether you can have faith in her. God, you don’t think she’ll abandon us if she falls in love with Jaime Brena, do you? Paula asks worriedly. No, not our Betty Boo, says Carmen Terrada staunchly, as she searches for the remote control in order to put on the Spanish subtitles. We ought to have some sort of friendship prenup for when one of us hooks up with a guy, saying they have to leave space for us, Paula says. Well, don’t worry on my account; there’s nobody on my horizon, says Carmen. And you don’t have to worry about me, either, because I have a lot on my horizon, which is the same as not having anything. Do you think Jaime Brena has any presentable friends?
Betty Boo Page 28