First she went to the bathroom, pissed, brushed her teeth and took off the rest of her make-up, then cleaned her face with cream and went to her room. She closed the door and turned on the television. She found a subtitled movie that she could watch without turning up the volume.
II
Verónica had decided that it would be most practical for Rafael to stay in the apartment until Rivero and company were safely locked up. She asked the doorman to lend her a mattress. Marcelo brought one down from his apartment and insisted on manoeuvring it into place himself. Knowing Marcelo, Verónica realized that his real intention was to scrutinize Rafael, who evidently didn’t make a good impression because, when Verónica showed the doorman out, he asked:
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
She resolved the clothes problem, too, by going to Avenida Córdoba, where the outlets were, and buying him jeans, two T-shirts, three pairs of boxers and three pairs of socks. Next she went to the supermarket and, overcoming her phobia of bulk-buying, bought a consignment of non-alcoholic drinks, some beers, bread, potato chips, various kinds of ham, hamburgers, water crackers, yoghurts, apples, mandarins, rice and some TV dinners. She also picked up shaving cream, disposable razors and a toothbrush.
Verónica was worried that Rafael would feel uncomfortable about everything she had bought, especially the clothes. So when she got to the apartment she discreetly put the food away in the kitchen and left the clothes in a bag on one side of the living room. In passing, she told Rafael that there were some clothes for him there, but she didn’t mention that they were new. Then, quickly moving on, she gave him a set of spare keys. She told him not to go anywhere near the south of the city, even by accident. He should try not to see anyone. If he needed anything else, she would get it for him.
Rafael had managed to recharge his mobile with the cable she had. Verónica, making coffee, heard him call someone who must be his wife. She tried not to listen in, but couldn’t help overhearing Rafael tell his wife that he loved her. The coffee maker started bubbling at that moment, and Verónica tried to focus on what she was meant to be doing.
Federico called to say that he had got hold of the recording from the security cameras at the Chinese supermarket.
“You can see four guys, first of all in the car and then hitting someone. The Chinese man really knows how to fight. He was like something out of Kill Bill.”
“Is it possible to identify the thugs?”
“You can see them quite well. I’ve got screenshots of their faces, but all the same, I wouldn’t get your hopes up. It’s going to be difficult to find them. I don’t want to go stirring up a hornet’s nest. It wouldn’t be helpful for them to know we’re looking for four hoodlums when we still don’t know who’s pulling the strings.”
“Fede, I need your help with the most complicated bit of all this.”
“Go on.”
“On Tuesday they’re taking some boys to the tracks again. We know that it’ll be on some part of the Sarmiento route and that it’ll be at night.”
“So our window is four hours and twenty-five miles. You really know how to make things easy.”
“Let’s say three hours and fifteen miles, bearing in mind that it’s not going to be in the vicinity of Once station. There’s something else. These guys need to be caught in the act. That’s the only way we can be sure they’ll go to prison. I’ve got witnesses like Rafael and, if necessary, the two boys he made take part. In fact, one of them’s supposed to be jumping on Tuesday.”
“So is he not going to?”
“That’s the point. We need to give him protection.”
“We should give him a fucking medal. He’s infiltrated a criminal organization. I’ll call you when I have everything.”
Late that Friday night, Verónica went to the magazine newsroom. She talked to Patricia, explaining that the investigation into the trains was now very advanced. That she couldn’t tell her the details, but that she had some very good info. That she should fight the editor for the cover of the next edition.
Federico called her when she had left the newsroom and was on her way back home.
“Done, Vero, it’s all settled.”
“I expected nothing less.”
“Bearing in mind what happened to your lodger, going to the federal police doesn’t seem like a great idea.”
“And so of course you didn’t.”
“There are police chief friends of your father who could give us a hand. But I’m young and creative, so I decided to give your father’s contacts a miss and go with my own. Since this García character operates in the city, I went to national organizations where it’s harder for him to exert any kind of influence. There’s a Council of Childhood that does great work and can count on some police assistance. I spoke to one of the people who run it. He’s a lawyer who taught me at university. We came up with a strategy that would consist in discreetly placing police at some of the points along the route that’s being used for this activity. It shouldn’t take one of their patrol cars more than six minutes to reach any part of the railway.”
“And the boy?”
“I need to know where he lives, and on Tuesday we’ll assign a bodyguard to follow him. It would be very helpful to have a photo, but if there isn’t one we’ll get one by the weekend. Are there other boys his age living there?”
“One other.”
“We’ll get photographs of them both tomorrow and I’ll send you the picture so you can tell me which one he is.”
“Is there anything else you need?”
“It would make life easier if we knew where the competition’s going to be.”
III
Lucio no longer suffered from cramping in his legs, at least not when he was having sex with his wife. Now, though, he felt as though his arms were going to sleep and a stitch were being pulled from below his neck up to his head. This happened every time he had to drive a train. At the end of a shift, he felt exhausted, as though his work had entailed an enormous physical effort, and he arrived home bone-tired. Sometimes Mariana was waiting up for him and they chatted while he had dinner.
On Saturday night he had a nightmare. One of those dreams that sometimes tormented him. He was driving a train. Not a current model, but one of those Fiats that looked like a camel. In the dream, it was daytime when he started driving, but night fell quickly. He could see very little – and then nothing at all. Suddenly a flowery dress flew into the windshield. It wasn’t a woman – just a piece of clothing. It flapped against the glass and blocked his view. All he could see were the blue and red flowers on the material. He realized, in the dream, that the dress was Verónica’s. In that case, he concluded, Verónica must be dead. She had been hit by the train. Why had nobody said anything? Verónica had died. He started crying, then felt a hand on his face. It was Mariana beside him, as she was every time he awoke from a nightmare. Gradually he calmed down. He got up and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water, Mariana following behind him. She stood beside him, keeping him company until Lucio decided to go back to bed and try to sleep for a few hours. Then it would be his turn to get up, give the children breakfast, buy the Sunday croissants, prepare the maté. Everything as usual.
IV
Dientes and El Peque had made a pact. They weren’t going to spend the money given them by Supergirl (their name for Verónica) until Tuesday was over. Only afterwards, on Wednesday, would they live it up in the barrio, frittering away their money. By then Rivero would be in prison and perhaps they would have been awarded more money. Or a medal that they could sell to the guy who bought metal.
El Peque didn’t want to be left out of the superteam they had formed and which, as far as they knew, comprised Supergirl, Rafael and the two of them. El Peque knew that he wouldn’t be able to contribute much from home, so he decided to go back to soccer training at Breezes. Rivero was surprised to see him arrive with Dientes that Friday. But he didn’t mind him joining in with the other boys, wh
o were delighted to have him back. When the others were out of earshot, Rivero asked him:
“Are you up for jumping against Dientes? Because if Dientes wins, he goes on to the next round and then he could compete against you.”
“I’m up for anything,” El Peque replied, and Rivero gave him a cheerful slap on the back.
The truth was that there was no way El Peque was going to put himself in front of a train again. He didn’t plan to get that far. He was there to see what was happening at the club, like a spy in enemy territory. He needed to watch, listen and retain everything in his memory so that he could relay it to Supergirl. She would be happy if he brought her good information and would congratulate him on how well he did his job. He didn’t care about the money she had given him. It was enough that Supergirl let him be in the group.
V
Verónica spent the whole weekend in her apartment. She started writing some of the article, partly as a way to organize the information she had so far. Rafael went out a few times to walk around the barrio. Doubtless he wanted to leave her alone to write without distractions. All the same, they had lunch and dinner together on Saturday and Sunday and two of those meals he prepared himself: spaghetti with a tomato and tuna sauce and risotto with saffron, little bits of salami and peas.
She wasn’t used to sharing her home with anyone, especially not a stranger. But Rafael had a manner that made her feel comfortable. She didn’t mind his presence and she liked having an excuse to interrupt her writing for a coffee and chat with him. In those two days Rafael told her the story of his life. His relationship with Andrea, his descent into cocaine and alcohol, his battle to recover, his mother’s resilience, his work at Spring Breezes, his love for Martina. Verónica remembered overhearing him on the phone to his wife.
“Do you still love Andrea, then?”
“I never stopped loving her. The further I fell, the more I felt that I still loved her. And now I’m well, all I want is to get back together with her.”
Verónica felt envious of Andrea.
She didn’t want to think about Lucio. She had to get used to the idea that what had happened the other night had marked the end of their relationship. That there was no longer any bond, whether physical, romantic or emotional. She shouldn’t waste even half a neuron on the General. Her friends would be very happy when they found out that she was once again single – although arguably a woman with a married lover is always single. It was ironic that the first weekend she was spending with a man in a long time should be in the company of someone with whom she had no sexual bond. But she felt so vulnerable that, if Rafael was to encourage her even a little, she wouldn’t be able to trust herself to keep strictly to her role of protector. And there had already been that disaster with Father Pedro. She’d better have a cold shower. And not leave the bathroom door ajar.
They ate like a chaste married couple, at the table in the living room with the TV on. There was never much to watch on Sundays, so they had settled on Dirty Dancing, dubbed into Spanish. She had seen the movie so many times that it surprised her when Rafael claimed not to have heard of it. They were interrupted by the ringtone on Verónica’s mobile. She couldn’t imagine who would be calling her at that time on a Sunday night. Even more puzzling, the telephone number didn’t come up, just the message CALLER UNKNOWN.
“Verónica Rosenthal?”
It was a man’s voice that was not in any way familiar.
“Speaking.”
“It’s García, Verónica. Juan García. I think you and I need to get together and talk.”
His tone was that of a loving friend who’s been neglected, calling to reproach someone.
VI
There are certain things you never ask your father: if he’s ever had sex, if he’s ever loved anyone else apart from your mother, if he’s been a coward or a swindler. To all these questions that Lucio had never asked he could add another: if his father had ever hit someone while driving a train. He did not know, either, if his grandfather, in his old steam locomotive, had ever heard the sound of bones being crushed beneath the weight of metal. Nor would he ever talk about this to his own children. He wasn’t going to let Fabián and Patricio work on the railways, anyway. There had been a moment in his life when he too could have said “no” and refused to follow in the family tradition. That moment was lost in the fog of youth. Life may not have been generous to him, but it had been fair. He knew that he was never going to be an engineer, but neither would he be short of work. He would never be rolling in money, but he would have enough to make sure that there was always food on the table and good-quality sneakers for his children. But that strange contract with life had hidden the train accidents in the small print. And Verónica too. So, had it been worth the pain? Every image, every sound, every physical sensation associated with those six lifeless bodies? Had Verónica been worth it? His only certainty was the one that had struck him after the last time they met. If it weren’t for Verónica, he wouldn’t be here now, driving the night train on the Sarmiento line.
VII
The odds of one driver or another having to operate the train that would become an involuntary protagonist of that macabre game on the tracks were hard to calculate. Countless times, his gaze fixed on the rails, Lucio had tried to work out a mathematical formula that would reveal the pattern of these hellish events. He factored in the frequency of trains, the quantity of night services and the number of operators driving at that time. But the experienced drivers knew that it didn’t work that way. Anyone who had driven these trains for at least five or six years knew simply that the probabilities increased the later it got and the further the train was from its buffers. It was the second time that Lucio had gone against the regulations and requested to drive one of the trains that nobody wanted to operate. The first time had been on that cold winter night when he invited Verónica to come with him in the cabin to see for herself what was happening on the line. None of his friends had made any reference to the competition with the children, preferring to focus on the fact that he was inviting a girl to travel with him in the cabin. It was easier to deny reality.
Now Lucio was, of his own volition, going back to drive one of those trains. But this time there was no woman and no obvious reason for him to swap shifts. The subject was so taboo that his co-workers would rather not broach it than satisfy their curiosity about why Lucio was volunteering for the shift they all dreaded. They let him do as he pleased. They could rest easy, knowing that they would not have to work any nights this week or next.
VIII
They arranged to meet on Monday at half past twelve in the Trattoria della Zia Rosina, a fairly new restaurant on Honduras and Bonpland suggested by him. Verónica asked how she would recognize him, and Juan García’s only response was to laugh. He said, “See you tomorrow,” and hung up. Obviously García wouldn’t invite her to his office, much less to his house. She needed to know his movements, though, to get him to incriminate himself. It was the only way of trapping him. She called Federico again, who made a weak attempt at remonstration.
“Your father’s going to ask if I should be invoicing you or the magazine for my hours.”
“Say that this work is pro bono, as the Yanks call it.”
Verónica brought him up to speed on developments and asked if he could get her a device to record the conversation with Juan García.
“Brilliant idea,” said Federico. “It’ll never occur to him that you might be taping him.”
“Can you think of something better, then?”
“Somebody comes into the restaurant a few minutes after you. He or she sees who’s sitting at your table and marks that person for our men. We follow him discreetly, very discreetly. We track him down to his bunker and pass the info on to you.”
“Do I have to do anything?”
“Not particularly. You can act offended when they check you to see if you’re wearing a recording device.”
She arrived punctually. She wasn’t nervous.
On the contrary, she felt that she had scored a victory in coaxing García out of his lair. If she hadn’t put pressure on Rivero and Palma, she would never have seen his face. And he had called her himself. To intimidate her? To make her believe that he was innocent?
Entering the restaurant, she noticed that various tables were occupied, which struck her as surprising, because it was still early for lunch. She looked around the room and saw that she was being hailed from a table where a couple was sitting. Verónica addressed herself to the male:
“Juan García?”
“Apologies for any confusion,” said the woman, who was about fifty. “Would you come with me to the ladies’ room?”
Verónica didn’t raise an objection. Nor did she protest when the woman patted her down and passed a strange apparatus over her body.
“Don’t be alarmed. It’s a scanner. It’s for your security.”
“Mine?”
“Of course. If you recorded Señor García, there would be terrible consequences for you.”
They came out of the bathroom and the woman accompanied her to another table, where a man was sitting on his own, reading the menu. He looked up at her arrival.
“Verónica Rosenthal, what a pleasure to meet you,” said García and, motioning her to sit down, he continued: “How is your father? The Rosenthal practice has handled various cases in which we were involved.”
“Do you know my father?”
“Let’s say that my lawyers know him. And they admire him. Dr Rosenthal is a great jurist.”
The waiter brought her a menu. García asked if she would like wine, but she opted for still water. García acted like a wonderful host.
“From the menu I would recommend one of the house pasta specialities, malfatti all’uso nostro – absolutely delicious.”
“I’d rather have a Caesar salad.”
García made an observation that was supposed to be funny about watching one’s figure and how hard he found it to resist the temptation of good food. The man was sturdy, but nobody would have called him fat. When he had stood up to greet her, Verónica noticed that he was a little taller than her and wore an expensive suit, possibly Armani or Hugo Boss. He must be nearly sixty years old, but his dark skin and hair made him seem younger. García asked for asparagus with Parmesan, and a little prosciutto and provolone cheese to share. He also decided against alcohol. He poured her a glass of water from the bottle that was on the table.
The Fragility of Bodies Page 27