Without looking up from the paving stones, El Peque said:
“The thing is, if I tell someone, they’re going to kill me, or I’ll go to prison.”
Rafael kneeled down to be on the same level as El Peque. Gently he lifted the boy’s face so that he could look into his eyes.
“Peque, nobody will do anything bad to you. I promise. It’s better if you tell me.”
“I just wanted to make a hundred pesos.”
VII
He felt dizzy, like in the first days after he had stopped using coke and the world seemed like somewhere alien, not able to contain him. He walked El Peque home, then gave him a hug and promised that nobody was going to hurt him or Dientes or anyone. Rafael knocked at the door of his wife’s apartment and Martina opened it. He told her that he had been passing and had bought her a few things. Martina’s grandmother, his own mother, invited him in, but he decided against it. He left the house and continued in a daze just as he had been a few minutes earlier, when all his suspicions had been converted into certainties.
Rivero was using the boys for a criminal game.
Rivero was a murderer.
Rivero had accomplices.
Dientes was in danger, as was every boy who played soccer at Breezes.
It was time for him to go to work, but Rafael didn’t go to the club. He couldn’t go back and keep serving in the bar as if nothing had happened. He had worked his last day there. He would never go back to Breezes.
Instead he went to his friend Julián’s shop. Even though there were a lot of people there, he told him that he needed to talk. It must have been clear from his face that something terrible was happening, because Julián quickly called his wife over to mind the till and went with him to the bar on the corner.
“Has something happened to Martina, or to your ex-wife?” Julián asked as soon as they had stepped outside.
By the time they got to the bar, Rafael had told him almost everything: his suspicions, what El Peque had said, Vicen’s death, El Peque’s terror, the danger that now faced Dientes and perhaps also the boy that he himself had brought to the club.
“And what are you going to do?” Julián asked him as they sat down at a table some distance from the other patrons.
Rafael answered him immediately, as though he had already taken a definitive and irrevocable decision.
“Report them. That man and whoever he’s working with need to be locked up.”
“I don’t know all the Argentine customs, but isn’t it dangerous to do that?”
“Somebody has to do it.”
And that somebody was him.
He walked as far as the police station. There were a few people in front of him. When it was his turn to be served, he said that he had come to file a complaint. The policeman at the counter asked him if it was regarding theft, a missing person, or threats from a third party. Rafael said that he wanted to report a person who was responsible for the death of at least one child. The policeman looked at him for a few seconds and nodded as though wondering what to say to him. He asked (or ordered) him to wait, saying that they would call him. After half an hour in which several people who had arrived after Raphael were seen, an official called him over to a desk. He had to hand over his identity document and give details of his address, job and marital status to a policeman who noted down the details on a form. Showing the same indifference with which he had asked about his home address, the officer asked the reason for his complaint. Rafael told him that he worked at Spring Breezes and that he had discovered that the coach there was using children in a competition on the tracks of the Sarmiento line, and that this had been the cause of at least one boy’s death, a few days ago. The policeman nodded again as though he were thinking, and then asked him in a friendly way to wait for a few seconds. Some minutes later he returned and asked Rafael to accompany him. They walked across the police station to an office. The officer passed the papers from his file to a man dressed in civilian clothes who was sitting behind a desk and got to his feet to shake hands with Rafael.
“I’m Superintendent Carabel. Please take a seat.”
Rafael repeated, again, what he had said to the police officer, adding everything he knew about Rivero and the next competition. Then he fell silent. There was nothing more to say. Now the superintendent knew everything about Rivero’s criminal activity.
“You do realize that you’re making an allegation against a criminal gang that sounds very dangerous?”
“Yes, I imagine that they are very dangerous.”
“I’d like to thank you for the courage you have shown. Most people prefer to look the other way, feign ignorance. The famous ‘don’t get involved’.”
There was a silence that seemed to underscore the admiration in the superintendent’s words. Then he continued:
“What I really don’t want is to put your life in any danger. Look, you have provided some excellent information for us to take this forward. I would prefer, for safety’s sake, that the report remain anonymous. So what would you say if I tear up this document with your details and we act off the record? The consequences for this criminal gang will be the same.”
Rafael agreed and the superintendent tore up the document. He threw the pieces in the wastepaper basket and shook Rafael’s hand, all the while thanking him again for his sense of social responsibility. Those were his exact words.
Rafael left the police station with a feeling of having done something important. Now he had to go back to the boarding house and speak to Dientes’ mother.
VIII
He arrived back at the house about three hours after talking to El Peque and went straight to the apartment where Dientes lived with his family. He was knocking on the door for some time, but there was no sign of anybody until his mother appeared from another apartment, the one in which he had lived so long ago. Rafael went over to her trying to look natural and not at all agitated, apparently without success, because her expression was full of anxiety. He told her that he was looking for Dientes’ mother because he needed to tell her something about the club where the boy played.
“Well then, it’s going to have to wait for quite a while. Dientes’ grandmother fell sick and they’ve taken her to hospital. I imagine Rosa won’t be back before dinner time.”
His mother watched him carefully as she spoke. It was the second time he had been at the house in one day and that didn’t seem at all normal to her, but she didn’t want to probe into his reasons. Rafael asked after Martina. She had already gone to school.
“Well, tell Andrea that…”
Tell her what, though? That he loved her, that she should take care of Martina, that he wanted to get back together with her? Which of these things could he communicate to her with his mother as intermediary?
“Actually, don’t say anything. It’s better if I call her.”
He walked aimlessly for a couple of hours. He thought of going back to the house to see if Dientes’ mother had returned, but the idea of worrying his own mother, or having to give her any more explanations, put him off. He would go that night. Besides, Andrea would be there then, and he could tell her what was happening.
By now they would have registered his absence at the club. He couldn’t even go and pretend to have got his times mixed up. He felt exhausted. He went to the hostel where he was staying. The route took him past Julián’s shop, but Rafael didn’t have the energy to tell him about the developments of the last few hours. He shut himself in his room and threw himself on the bed. He wondered what the police would be doing with the information he had given them. If there would be arrests. How should he act if there were no developments in the next few days? He was so tired that he couldn’t help falling asleep.
When he woke up it was starting to get dark. He left his room and went to the communal bathroom to have a piss and wash his face. He needed to wake himself right up. He felt anxious, his nerves frayed. He needed something to drink. A beer, even if it was not a beer. He would buy two, o
ne without alcohol and another normal one. He would drink the alcohol-free one first and, if it proved enough to trick his body, he’d leave the normal one at his neighbour’s door. An unexpected present.
It was already dark by the time he headed down to the shop. Rafael walked a few steps towards it. He didn’t see them coming. He was distracted, calculating that it was now too late to go to Dientes’ house. That he would need to be quick about drinking the alcohol-free beer – or both beers – then hurrying off to the house. He didn’t see them coming and so he couldn’t defend himself. He felt the first blow in the pit of his stomach. In an instant he was surrounded by several men. One of them kneed him in the thigh and the other aimed a blow at his face that he just managed to dodge. He was winded though; that and the pain in his leg floored him. He couldn’t see who was hitting him. They were just arms, legs and a mouth that said:
“Try reporting this to the police, son of a bitch.”
Kicks rained down on every part of his body. He felt that he was drowning in his own blood and he could only see out of one eye. It was at that moment that he seemed to hear the sound of a revolver’s firing pin. He didn’t even manage to close the eye that was still all right. But the noise of the shot never came. Feet were still kicking him, but fewer than before. Somebody else had entered the fray and he wasn’t against Rafael but seemed to be defending him, hitting the others. Perhaps he was dreaming this, but before losing consciousness he caught sight of Julián meting out kicks to all the other guys. And he seemed to be winning.
IX
His testicles, lower abdomen and left leg hurt. His face burned, he was nauseous and breathing with difficulty. There was a taste of blood in his mouth. He was thirsty. He spoke and his voice sounded very weak.
“I’m thirsty.”
Somebody lifted his head, and that was when he discovered that his back and neck felt as though they had splintered. They gave him a glass of water. He must be able to open his eyes, but he didn’t want to. The taste of blood was still there. At least his mouth was moist now. He would have liked to wipe his lips with his hand. He tried to move his arm and couldn’t.
He heard Julián’s voice telling him to open his mouth and felt his friend’s fingers on his face. He was putting some tablets onto his tongue. He told him to swallow. He brought the glass of water back to his lips.
He was sweating. He opened his eyes – the right one only barely – and everything around him was dark. There was nobody there. He could just make out a few shelves with merchandise on them. He closed his eyes again.
He felt the presence of someone beside him.
“Do you feel better?”
He said that he did. Julián was sitting beside him.
“Am I in the shop?”
“In the storeroom. I wanted to take you further in, but my wife said I should leave you here. I was annoyed, but she’s right. More quiet here. Nobody to disturb you.”
“What time is it?”
“Eight o’clock in the morning. I’m opening in an hour.”
“They nearly killed me.”
“My fault, I was careless. I was threatened by Chinese gang. Put cameras everywhere. I just look up and I see car. Very suspicious. I watched two hours. I had to take money from customer who paid for bottle of beer with one hundred pesos. He did not want to pay deposit. When I looked again, four men getting out of car. I saw you on camera. I shouted to Víctor to look after till and I ran out.”
“You saved my life.”
“My fault. If I seen before, they don’t hit you so much. I haven’t practised kung fu for long time. The four men very soft. They run off straightaway.”
“They knew about the report I filed at the police station.”
“So they police. Or friends of police.”
Rafael sat up. He was on an improvised bed assembled from a mattress on top of some drinks bottle boxes. He needed to go to the bathroom. He had abdominal cramps and a cold sweat had settled in his head. Julián took him to the bathroom at the back of the premises. That was where he lived with his wife and the three other Chinese men who worked for him and did not yet speak Spanish.
Rafael stayed in the bathroom for a long time. He looked at himself in the mirror. One of his eyes was swollen and half-closed. There was a dramatic scratch across his face, as though he had dragged himself along the asphalt. He put his head under the running water and felt better. The cold water was helping him to recover his composure.
When he returned to the storeroom, Julián had brought him some charcoal tablets and some painkillers.
“Take it all.”
Rafael obeyed. It had been a mistake to report them. If Julián hadn’t turned up they would have beaten him to death, or finished him off with a bullet. He couldn’t go back to the hostel, or go to his family’s house without putting them in danger. He couldn’t stay at Julián’s either.
“Very dangerous people. You have to think carefully or they kill you.”
Julián was right. He was done for. Suddenly he had an idea. He reached into the back pocket of his trousers. There it was. He took out the card and read: VERÓNICA ROSENTHAL, JOURNALIST, NUESTRO TIEMPO MAGAZINE. There was an address, an email, a landline and a mobile.
Miraculously, his own telephone had survived the beating. He decided to call her. She was going to be able to help him. He only hoped she didn’t think he was a madman inventing a fantastical story.
14 Cuyes, Gazelles and Jackals
I
When Verónica arrived at Spring Breezes, she stood on the sidewalk opposite for a few seconds, studying the building. At first glance this seemed no different from any neighbourhood club, not that she had much experience in this area. She crossed the road and went inside.
She didn’t have any particular plan in mind, except to say that she was planning a piece on neighbourhood youth soccer. After that, she would improvise. A good journalist should be like a good free jazz musician.
In the bar there were a few bored-looking regulars who paid her no attention. She went to the bar, behind which there was a young guy whose gaze was fixed on the pitch. He was observing how the boys played. That gave Verónica the opportunity to spend a few seconds observing him. He was skinny and looked weak, dressed modestly but neatly. He reminded her of some kind of animal, perhaps a cuy, a type of guinea pig she used to see in Córdoba as a child. She mustn’t frighten him. So she made an effort to channel the most friendly version of Verónica. She leaned on the bar, which was clean, called him and, smiling, said:
“Can I have a word with you?”
Afterwards, whenever Verónica remembered Rafael, that was the image that would come to mind, of a fragile young man anxious to flee the story in which he was trapped.
She needed only to ask a few questions to realize two things: that Rafael was not a member of the criminal gang, and that he was hiding something. She imagined that he might recently have come out of prison or be an ex-addict still in the process of recovery. Something that made him feel guilty in the midst of a society all too willing to hurt him. Verónica would have liked to say, “Don’t worry, you’re innocent; it’s the others who are bastards.” But she didn’t feel able to go that far.
She pressed on with her questions and he evaded them by pointing her in the direction of Rivero, who was on the pitch coaching the children. He was on the short side, overweight, wearing an Adidas tracksuit. He wore his mobile phone in a holster, like a cowboy’s gun. She thought: if the Atlanta coach trained his boys with a mobile phone in one hand we’d kick his ass hard enough to send him flying over to the Chacarita home ground.
She asked Rafael for a coffee and sat down at one of the tables. Now she was aware of the other men in the bar looking at her. She took out her cigarettes, then, realizing that she couldn’t smoke there, left her bag on the table and went to stand in the doorway. When she saw Rafael taking her coffee over to the table, she threw her cigarette away and came back to continue the conversation but, once again, he
referred her to Rivero. He repeated his name for the second time and his tone betrayed him. Poor Rafael, he must not know how to lie, or even how to feign ignorance. The best thing was to make it possible for him to get in touch with her. To tell her whatever it was that fear was making him hide. She gave him one of her business cards and Rafael quickly put it in his pocket, as though she had passed him a wrap of cocaine or an advert for a brothel.
II
The guy sat down at a table a few yards from Verónica without registering her presence. Rafael went to his table and told him that she was waiting for him. Rivero looked over at her with a certain suspicion and motioned her over to his table. Verónica picked up her bag and jacket and went to join him. You didn’t need to be a particularly shrewd observer to see that the guy was a stereotype, a collection of clichés: untidy appearance, lecherous manner, flabby body, a bald spot crossed by a few greasy strands of hair. To infer criminality from these characteristics would have been pandering to prejudice, but then there was his expression: those eyes didn’t lie. Verónica was experienced in many different kinds of male gaze, and this wasn’t the expression of an old creep leering at a pretty girl. She would have put up with that as being par for the course. There was something aggressive, intimidating, emanating from the pupils. Those eyes inspired fear.
The guy shook her hand and introduced himself. Verónica took a seat and told him that she was preparing an article on neighbourhood clubs. She put the questions to him that you would expect a journalist to ask in these cases. Several times she even consulted a notebook she carried with her, as though reading her own notes on the subject. That was to avoid looking at him, not so much because she found him disagreeable but because she believed that the eyes can be a weapon that one should know how to deploy at the right time. So it was a deliberate ploy to seem lost in her notes until she looked up and said:
“I imagine that, as coach of the team he played in, you must have been devastated by the death of Vicente Garamona.”
The Fragility of Bodies Page 23