Glaxo Read online

  Once, I don’t know why, the topic came up and I summoned the courage to explain these ideas to Ramón Folcada. Ever since he arrived, in ’58, I’ve gone with Folcada every Saturday to Fogón, to polish the saddles and tack up the horses. Folcada had two horses. A dappled, peach-coloured horse that was like a dream. And a dun-coloured horse, old and gone to seed. He rode the dappled one. I rode the dun. We set off in the afternoon, through the countryside. He seemed like a foreman on a ranch, Folcada. He had a real presence on top of that dappled horse. Jugurtha, the animal was called. As soon as he recognised Folcada, Jugurtha began to nicker with delight. You say these things and no one believes you, just like the ideas I get. And that’s how it came up. I told him about the idea I get, the recurring one, about the deaths of others. And Folcada listened to me, respectfully, and then he told me that sometimes people are really shallow, that people are quick to judge anybody for anything. And that you have to be careful about what you go around saying. This animal, Folcada told me, this animal would die if I stopped coming to see it. This animal, said Folcada, just like any one of us, needs a little affection.

  My father was killed by a dappled, peach-coloured horse just like Jugurtha, at a horse breaking in Huergo, in 1956. My old man was a good horse breaker. That’s what they said about him. That he was a good horse breaker. He looked after Fresedo’s property, in La Rica. I saw him once every two weeks, when he had a day off and appeared at the house at night. I used to wait for him, as a kid, on the pavement, I waited for his flatbed truck to round the corner at Souza’s, then, when it came round Souza’s corner, a deep happiness burst through me; the whole neighbourhood, in my eyes, was overjoyed at the old man’s arrival. But later, when I was older, when I saw him turn in the flatbed truck, I could put things in their right places: at the end, Vardemann’s barbershop, the Glaxo factory humming with machines, the neighbourhood quiet and foreign and my old man parking the flatbed truck amongst the chinaberry trees, tired, dressed in his work clothes, bearded, with rough hands. Then I recognised the nostalgia of my happiness, and I couldn’t understand how it was possible that these routine actions, almost mechanical, which happened every two weeks, could have aroused in me, a long time ago, upon seeing the flatbed truck, all beat-up, and inside, driving it, a surly, dried-out man whom I called my father, a feeling similar to happiness.

  After my old man died, I started to work for the railways. In the parcels office. Alfonso Galli, a cousin of Bicho Souza, got me the job. I had to leave school, leave the white overcoat of the ninth grade and replace it with blue overalls with the insignia of Argentina Railways on the breast pocket. It’s an easy job. I like it. I start at seven in the morning, half an hour before the first passenger train leaves. Then the only train before midday is the ten o’clock train. And we take care of sorting the parcels that arrive from Buenos Aires and the surrounding towns. We get everything ready, and then, in the afternoon, I head off on the delivery bike and distribute the parcels. I like delivering and dispatching packages that no one is expecting, or those that, for a while now, someone has been longing for like crazy. And there I go, knocking on the door of some house, delivering a final message. Or unexpected news.

  When I’ve finished delivering the parcels, I head to the Bermejo. To have a drink with the boys. Before, on Fridays and Saturdays, we used to go to the movies. And then afterwards to the dance at Pileta or those other dances in the country.

  But a long time ago things changed.

  Things began to change one morning in ’58, October of ’58. The ten o’clock train came in slowly, as usual, the engine spat out thick black smoke that blocked out the view of the silos at the mills. A few minutes later, from this very train, Ramón Folcada stepped off onto the platform, a group of policemen waiting warmly for him and his wife, La Negra Miranda, who was barely twenty-eight years old and had unforgettable legs.

  That’s when they opened the Ace of Spades next to my house. Folcada had been transferred as a noncommissioned officer to the town’s police station. And she, La Negra Miranda, who was from Buenos Aires, took care of the bar. She cooked for the workers from the Glaxo factory and for those who, gradually, heard of the place and preferred to leave the little restaurants by the North Station and pedal at midday, all the way to Glaxo, to stare at La Negra Miranda’s legs and fantasise about this girl who looked like none of the other girls in town.

  At more or less the same time, two builders began to put up, on the other side of the tracks, a simple house that, by the end of 1958, was occupied by four Mormons. They always set out early in the morning on their black bicycles with dynamos. They greeted everyone they passed. And they came back at night, while Ramón Folcada, for example, who watered the unsealed road before the eight o’clock train came past, shouted some obscenity or other at them.

  A few days after moving into the house, one of the Mormons left on the morning train. I saw him at the station, sitting on a bench, with two black suitcases. He was reading a small book, which, according to Galli, was the Bible the Yankees read. And from time to time, the Mormon cried. Galli, while he made calculations and filled out charts, told me that the Yankees have their own bible, which lets them go all around the world to spread the message of their own God, Galli told me, confusedly. But there was something concrete, something that was there for everyone to see, the guy, the Mormon, was alone, crying, while he read a Yankee bible, waiting for a train to take him away from a remote town in the pampa in Argentina.

  Then, I don’t know why, maybe because of the frailty of the Mormon, so blond, so different from Galli, from me, from this town, crying on the bench underneath the bell, I imagined, and this was one of the first times it happened to me, I imagined this man’s death. But I imagined it in a hotel, in Mercedes, at dawn, an asthma attack, the Mormon crumpling the covers on a hotel bed, in Mercedes, in the silence of dawn in Mercedes, wanting to know, for example, and unable to find out, where he was, in what town he lay dying.

  The other three, however, kept on living in the little house put up on the other side of the tracks for another year; they kept on going out on their bikes early in the morning, coming back at sunset. They insisted on greeting everyone they passed, even if they didn’t receive a response, and Ramón Folcada, when he saw them, kept on swearing at them under his breath, until one morning one of them was found, the shortest one, a certain Clifton Morris, that was his name, in the cane field, with a bullet in his head.

  In summer, at the Ace of Spades, they used to put the little wrought-iron tables out on the pavement. At night, the tables under the chinaberry trees mixed in with the chairs belonging to my mother, and the chairs belonging to her new boyfriend, who went out to sit on the pavement, to take the air. And we were there, at the little wrought-iron tables, in the Ace of Spades, underneath the chinaberry trees. Bicho Souza and his wife, Angela, skinny Vardemann and Nelly Sosa, fat Montes and me: drinking Danubio beer and eating peanuts from their shells.

  At the end of January 1959, I had to travel to Buenos Aires for some parcels. It was the first time I travelled to Buenos Aires. And to make things worse, it was for work. I was nervous. Galli prepared a map for me with the addresses and telephone numbers that I needed. He said I should relax, that Buenos Aires, until now, hadn’t swallowed anyone up. On that point, our opinions differed.

  When the train passed slowly by the Glaxo factory, the first thing I saw, in the distance, was the corner with Vardemann’s barbershop, then, off to the side, the chinaberry trees, a little wrought-iron table, outside, next to the wall of the Ace of Spades, and, half open, the door to my house. I had the feeling that I was fleeing. But the most surprising thing was leaving behind the fixed and frozen image of that place, to see, through movement, that the world expanded once you passed the bridge on the state road, and that little portion of earth, surrounding the Glaxo factory, was nothing more than a minimal instant, almost insignificant—if it hadn’t been for all the years I had lived there—on the long crossing of the journe
y.

  It was before we arrived at Suipacha that I felt La Negra Miranda’s legs brushing against mine in the wooden seat that had been free next to me.

  She was travelling to her mother’s house, La Negra. She was travelling alone.

  Buenos Aires was for me, until then, a starving animal. A voracious, dangerous animal, like the ones in the movies on Saturday at the Savoy, those movies with huge monsters that stalk the streets and, if you’re not careful, tear something off you. That’s how I imagined the city, that’s what I told La Negra Miranda, when the train began to reach the first clusters of buildings, and the open ground grew smaller, eaten up by the wild animal.

  You’re afraid, she said to me, laughing, with that voice so typical of La Negra. Then she made a proposal. She would accompany me to deliver the packages, so that I wouldn’t waste time. That’s what she said.

  When I stepped off the train, I breathed in a strange air. They say it’s the typical smell of Buenos Aires, loaded with frying, gases and damp. I got used to it little by little. We crossed the city by bus. We travelled on the subway. The thing is that by three in the afternoon I had the job done. We surfaced at the parks in Palermo. And then La Negra wanted to ride the little boats in the lake, sail around it. I recognised the place from a film. I felt like a movie actor, pedalling on the lakes in Palermo, with La Negra Miranda by my side. She was the one who went for the kiss. We ended up in bed in a hotel, opposite Estación Once.

  That evening I went back alone, on the last train. A bit worried. I couldn’t stop reliving that moment in the hotel. La Negra stayed in Buenos Aires for a week, at her mother’s house.

  When I arrived at Estación Norte, I sensed that something had changed.

  Things didn’t look the same. Despite everything, I kept riding horses with Folcada on Saturdays. That year, in October, my number came up for military service, and Folcada, who had contacts, got me out of it.

  When La Negra came back, we began to see each other every Tuesday at siesta time, making the most of the fact that she had begun cleaning—so that no one would suspect—the little rooms at the back of the Munich Club at Estación Norte (an unnecessary job, according to Folcada). The meetings became a familiar routine, like a kind of religious act.

  There’s one night I can recall with particular clarity. It was during the carnival parades of ’59, along the Prado Español. She went dressed as a Turkish concubine, I had a pirate costume. That night Folcada almost caught us. I was able to escape, climb the fence at the Prado Español, then run away, and while I was running away it began to rain. The rain beat down on my face. I always remember and long for that feeling, running through the streets of the town, at night, with the rain stroking my face.

  Everything happened quickly: one day, in the middle of 1960, La Negra disappeared. She stopped coming to our meetings every Tuesday at the Munich. One afternoon, my mother’s boyfriend handed me a letter he had found that morning underneath the door. He told me, my mother’s boyfriend, that my mother wasn’t aware of what was going on. It was a terrible letter. Heartbreaking. La Negra Miranda told me why she had left. Why she was abandoning everything. She told me what Ramón Folcada had done. And she couldn’t believe, La Negra Miranda, how I could be capable of taking part in such a thing. She told me that she preferred to run away rather than live with vultures. She called me a vulture, La Negra Miranda. Then I began to listen to what Folcada said, every time someone asked after her; Folcada said that she had gone to her mother’s house, in Buenos Aires, because her mother was liable to die at any moment. I awaited her return more and more anxiously as each day passed. I even planned, after a few weeks, a trip to Buenos Aires to find her, a trip I never took. And then after a few months we awoke in the neighbourhood to find the Ace of Spades closed. A few days passed and nothing changed. To this day we haven’t heard a thing about Ramón Folcada or La Negra Miranda. We just know, from what we can see, that the Ace of Spades is, as each day passes, an abandoned building, with a wrought-iron bench on the sidewalk that rusts over a bit more each time it rains, that is sinking, slowly, into the ground, and next to the wrought-iron bench—that’s what we can see, because how could we not notice—clumps of weeds and creeping vines slip between the cracks, in the joints in the walls. That’s what the Ace of Spades, inevitably, for years now, has been transforming into.

  But the most important thing happened yesterday. And I have to tell it. He stepped off the train with a shaved head and rancid skin. He didn’t look like Kirk Douglas at all. At first I didn’t recognise him, I saw a skinny guy, tall, who was watching me from the end of the main platform, with his fists clenched by his sides. Smoke from the train swirled around us. It looked like a scene from some Western: I remembered Last Train from Gun Hill, but skinny Vardemann didn’t look like Kirk Douglas. And when the platform emptied out, I recognised him. They let him out early, I thought. He still had more than five years left. Vardemann drew an imaginary revolver, like we used to do in the Bermejo—I was John Wayne, and he’d be a poor imitation of Kirk Douglas—and he shot me. Then he gave a hint of a grimace. He blew on the tip of his finger. And he walked off by the railway track, with that serene stride, almost hypnotic. This time he didn’t throw himself to the ground, he didn’t want to play dead. This time, skinny Vardemann was playing another part, the part of the executioner or the avenger. And that’s how it is: I have to tell it. And so, ever since yesterday, and I’m not lying, I can see clearly the possible form that my death might take.

  Part IV

  FOLCADA

  December 1959

  Someone’s fucking La Negra. I’d bet my last dollar on it. That’s how it is. I saw something at the carnival parade. I felt the sting. Doubt, they put the doubt in my mind. Ever since, La Negra has been playing dumb. I never said anything to her. I don’t want to show my hand. I want her to trap herself. I have her in my sights. Oh, yes. I have her in my sights. As soon as she puts her foot in it, I’ll break her neck. I saw something at the carnival parade. And that’s how I know it’s some brat. A kid. I saw them from afar. And they were even disguised, in costumes. In Jugurtha’s war there were men who wore disguises. That’s what it says in the book that Lieutenant Segovia gave me one night at the police academy. I was on the late watch. The Lieutenant showed up in his pyjamas. This is for you. And he left. He gave me this book about Jugurtha’s war. He left it with me because he knows that I like history. The great adventures. Stories about warriors. And so I set myself to devouring the book, which has about a thousand pages. Now I know it almost by heart. And in one scene, in the war, some of Jugurtha’s soldiers in disguise betray one of the generals from the enemy army. A trap. Something like that. Betrayal is the foundation of power. That’s how history advances. I see them and I think of the South Seas, says Jugurtha, astride his horse, as he watches how the enemy army—the Romans are the enemy—how they wait, and Jugurtha doesn’t know that this enemy army will end up killing him. You watch me, Jugurtha says to his enemies, and I think of the South Seas. That’s why you might betray me. Behind a disguise, always, brewing slowly, is a gentle betrayal. That’s why you can’t deny that for a while now La Negra Miranda has been different. Distant. She looks at me, and she doesn’t smile like before. In fact, when she sees me she bites her lip. And La Negra bites her lip when she’s nervous. She’s hiding something. In the Prado Español, I saw her with a guy. I couldn’t see what costume he had, the guy. But they planted the seed. They left me the doubt. And that’s what grows inside me every day. It eats me up. The doubt. Because she’s hiding something from me. What’s more, now people are talking about the whole Suárez business. I can’t remember how I heard about it. What I do know is that they haven’t named me. They tell how things are. It pisses me off how they make everyone out to be little angels. They’re not all little angels. There was a revolution. We stopped a revolution. And we did it how we had to do it. Sure, something went wrong, because afterwards they sent us all over the place. I chose this town. As a kid
I came here to my grandparents’ place in the country. My grandparents died and they sold the property. I always had a fond memory of this town. I learned how to ride in this town. That’s why the first thing I did, when I arrived, was buy a horse. I named him Jugurtha. He’s a dappled, peach-coloured horse. I always liked that type of horse. Jugurtha had a dappled, peach-coloured horse. He fought astride that animal. When I saw La Negra Miranda’s legs, I thought of Jugurtha’s horse. I don’t know why. Could there be a logical answer? I saw her legs at a dance put on by the fire brigade in La Boca: I saw her legs, and I thought of Jugurtha’s horse. And I bolted too, just like a horse, when I saw her legs. An infernal dark-haired beauty. La Negra reminds me of the actress from La morocha de Abasto. Not because they look alike, but because of her attitude. Sometimes I whisper that to her during siesta. There’s nothing better than being naked with La Negra. During the siesta. In summer. But during any siesta. In summer, it’s better, with the fan turning and the curtains half closed. And us barely covered by a clean, fresh sheet. It’s the best thing there is. Rubbing against La Negra’s body. Touching her legs. While you hear the birds outside. You can hear kids talking in low voices. And they run along with their slingshots and pockets full of chinaberries. And you can hear too, while we’re rubbing against each other in bed, La Negra and I, you can hear Jugurtha snorting. His tail shooing away a fly, tied to a chinaberry tree. All that comes from outside. While the fan cools us down. And La Negra and I grind against each other, naked. It’s the best thing there is. The best. Tita Merello, I tell her. You’re like Tita Merello in La morocha de Abasto. And she doesn’t like it. She pretends to be offended. She says Tita Merello is ugly. But that’s what La Negra is like. A woman like her with a body like that in this town. Of course she attracts attention. That’s why it’s so easy for someone to fuck her. And it’s not crazy to think that La Negra would fuck around with some kid. Some kid who picks up La Negra and fucks her like you’d fuck Marilyn Monroe. A real woman like La Negra. And La Negra must like being fucked by a kid. And that the kid would fuck her with a fantasy like that in his head. As if she were Marilyn Monroe. That must get La Negra hot. And that must get the kid really hot. The kid must be in love. That’s how it is. I’d bet my last dollar on it. And so a kid who is in love with her is fucking La Negra and fucks her like she’s Marilyn Monroe. That doesn’t mean the kid fucks her well. Because I fuck La Negra well. La Negra howls with pleasure during siesta. We rub on each other real sweet. And the fan cools us down. And barely a freshly washed sheet touching our bodies. And La Negra howls. La Negra likes how I fuck her. What I’m talking about is something else. That La Negra must like fucking the kid. Not because the kid fucks her well. But surely because the kid fucks her like she’s Marilyn Monroe. And that’s how the kid falls in love. Who could fall in love like that? Who could fuck La Negra Miranda like that? Anybody. But it’s a kid from the neighbourhood, for sure. I don’t reckon it’s Miguelito. Miguelito has a head full of ghosts. He tells me he thinks a lot about death. He tells me about his father. He describes, every time we go riding, the way a dappled, peach-coloured horse that looked like Jugurtha threw off his father while he was breaking it in. It seems like he was a real son of a bitch, the father. That’s what they say about him. That Miguelito’s father was a real son of a bitch. But that means that Miguelito could never fuck La Negra like that. And so who? Bicho Souza? I don’t think so. He’s about to be a father. And I know that has nothing to do with it. But he’s more of an expressive type. An artist. The guy who fucks La Negra Miranda like she was Marilyn Monroe, and falls in love with her, would have to be more of a reserved type. A closed-off kind of guy. A guy who jerks off looking at a porno mag. Something like that. And so when the kid comes across La Negra Miranda’s legs, he can’t help but see her as if she were one of those photos that he looks at while he jerks off. That’s how it is. I’d bet my last dollar on it. That’s why Bicho Souza isn’t the guy. I’m not ruling anyone out. But he doesn’t fit the profile. That leaves two. Both of those two fit the profile. Lucio Montes is one of them. A butcher. Fat. No known girlfriends. An ogler. He turns around to check out the arse of any girl who passes. He’s a hot tip. He has all the characteristics. And the other one is the barber’s son. Vicente Vardemann. That guy has a girlfriend. But he also has a dark aspect. He’s tall and skinny. He has sweaty hands. He’s reserved, sad. He’s also a candidate. If they asked me to choose, I’d have to say Montes. But sometimes the most obvious choice is the wrong choice. And so it could be either of them. And then if you consider La Negra Miranda. If you think about how it could be possible that La Negra Miranda gives either of these guys the time of day. I answer that with what I said earlier. What La Negra likes is for the kid to fuck her thinking that he’s fucking a real woman, an unattainable woman. Impossible. And she’d like that, because the kid must tell her that. While he fucks her, he must whisper those sorts of things in her ear. He must tell her that he’s in love. Because this kid fucks her the same way he jerks off to a photo of Marilyn Monroe. The same way. The kid is a closed-off guy. Dark. Dangerous, I’d say. That’s why I need someone. An informant. Maybe Miguelito. Because he’s the only one I’m sure it isn’t. And besides, I trust him. One day I make him an offer, in Fogón. We’re riding through the countryside. He tells me about his father’s death. He tells me he sees dead people. I could tell him, but I don’t, that in reality he sees his dead father, falling from a dappled, peach-coloured horse while breaking it in. That’s what Miguelito sees, when he sees dead people. But one Saturday we’re riding and it’s cloudy and Miguelito is all upset, talking to me about death, and I tell him I can save him from the draft, because Miguelito got a really high number, number 931, and with that number, I tell him, you’ll be going to the south. For sure. And then I make him an offer. And Miguelito accepts even before I tell him what it is. And he accepts because the kid’s scared, he’s afraid. And I also make him the offer because I’ve gotten to like the kid. And I do it, you could say, for the country. A kid like him shouldn’t be a part of Argentina’s army. A kid who’s afraid and sees dead people everywhere can’t be a soldier. And so I also do it for that. I promise to save him from the draft if he finds something out for me. Of course. Because Miguelito hasn’t got a fucking clue that La Negra is cheating on me, well, that some kid is fucking La Negra. He says yes. He says no problem. That whatever I want to know he’ll find out if it means dodging the draft. He says he’s thankful, that he’ll always be thankful to me. And that I can count on him for whatever I need, whenever I need it. Miguelito Barrios is a grateful kid. I don’t like grateful kids. They’re blind. How is it possible that a grateful kid like Miguelito came from a father like Miguelito’s father, who is said to have been a real son of a bitch, an arsehole, and from an old slut like Miguelito’s mother, who as soon as her husband was dead, shacked up with that loser Moyano, that Juan Moyano. I don’t have the answer. These things happen. One of these days, La Negra will give me a son. A real son. I won’t have to save the son La Negra gives me from national service. It won’t be necessary. Because the son La Negra gives me will be a true general. He’ll have balls and he’ll be proud of Argentina’s army. Argentina’s army will be proud of the son La Negra Miranda gives me. And so I tell Miguelito that I’ll save him from the draft, that I’ll have my contacts make some moves, that’s what I tell him, and the kid’s eyes open wide. What would Miguelito imagine when I tell him that it will be no big thing to have my contacts make some moves? Would he think of a chessboard? Is that what Miguelito would think? Me, for example, moving some pieces around on a chessboard. These contacts I have. And that’s how I’ll save him. But what does he have to find out, for me to save him, having my contacts make a move. And Miguelito doesn’t ask me this, because he’s a grateful kid, that is, a blind kid. Just a quick phone call, I tell him. What will he think then? Whatever you need, the kid tells me. Then I pull on the reins. Jugurtha halts. I look the kid in the eye. I tell him, I’ll save you if you
tell me who’s fucking La Negra. The kid goes white. Then he looks away. He gazes into the distance, to the end of the track. He looks into the scrub. His hands are shaking. The kid must be afraid, because he must know who’s sleeping with La Negra. He’s as white as cheese. I tell him: Someone from your gang, one of your friends, is fucking La Negra. I have proof, I say, to put the screws on him. The kid stays quiet. He doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t react. Or rather, he reacts with fear, with silence. And so I pile it on: You tell me who it is and I save you. Easy. Simple. I tell him: It’s either Montes or Vardemann. You find out for me. And when I give him the names, he looks at me viciously, like when you solve the mystery of a riddle. Like when one guy hits the nail on the head, and the other, who knows where the nail is, can’t say anything yet. And then figuring out the secret moves him, strikes him. Because, of course, I hit the nail on the head. I named Montes and Vardemann. It’s one of those two. If you ask me, because of the profile, it’s Montes. But you never know. Before finishing, I clear things up. Miguelito, I tell him, I’m looking for a bond of confidence, I’m looking for this to stay a secret. I trust you, I say. The kid replies, with fear. A bit less pale. A bit less stupid. That’s the way things are. And so the days go by. Three or four days pass. Miguelito goes around unsettled. He comes and goes, nervous. The kid has to betray someone. If he wants to get himself out of national service, he has to sell out one of his friends. In the evening they sit at the tables on the pavement. And I keep watch over them. They talk. They laugh. But Miguelito searches for silence. He’s looking for an answer to give me. And that weekend, astride the fat old dun-coloured horse, he tells me he knows who it is. He looks the other way when he tells me who’s fucking La Negra Miranda. And when he finishes telling me who’s fucking La Negra Miranda, he bolts off, on the horse, on the old dun. In a rage, the kid took off. And I understand him a little, but that’s the way things are. And so, now that I know who’s fucking La Negra, I begin to think. I look for a plan. I watch him, the kid who’s fucking La Negra, in the Ace of Spades, sitting with his friends. The brat doesn’t know that I know. Miguelito isn’t at that table. Miguelito, I hear, is bedridden, with a cough. I lie awake all night planning how to attack. Before the sun comes up, I head out into the countryside. I need to ride Jugurtha. Take in the fresh air. Clear my head. But when dawn starts to break, I decide to go back. I go back with Jugurtha, confused. I tie the animal up amongst the chinaberry trees. Everyone’s still asleep. I drink maté in the shade. Jugurtha is unsettled, surely because of how hot it will be later. And then at around seven, I see him go out. He leaves the house on his bicycle. He passes by me and greets me. When the Mormon greets me, things fall into place. I call him over. I offer him some maté. I start to chat with him. The Mormon doesn’t understand a word. I don’t understand what the Mormon says. I tell him to wait. And I go inside. Inside, I look for the matagatos, the single-shot pistol. And when I come out, with the pistol hidden in my pants beneath my shirt, I see the Mormon sitting down beneath the chinaberry trees, happy, with the maté in his hand. He grins at me, that Mormon son of a bitch. And then I tell him to come with me. And the Mormon comes with me. Because he has no idea what he, when he greeted me, stirred in my mind. The idea he just gave me. And so the Mormon, who trusts me, and who hasn’t got a fucking clue what just popped into my head, follows me. We walk over to the cane field. The Mormon comes along with his bicycle. I go a few steps ahead. Then we’re deep into the cane field, from where you can no longer see the street, or the Glaxo factory (you can just see the tip of the smokestack). Where you could even say that silence reigns. Where the thrumming of the town dies away. And so when we’re there, I look at the Mormon, who is short and a little fat, and who looks back at me, happy. And there’s a name written on the pocket of his white shirt that says CLIFTON MORRIS. That’s his name, that fucking Mormon. Then I make him put down his bicycle. And when the Mormon puts down his bicycle, I hit him in the face. My little finger hurts a little when it smacks into his face. The Mormon, who wasn’t expecting a fist to the face, because he didn’t have a fucking clue that just by greeting me he’d given me a plan—when he, the Mormon, receives the whack I give him on his mug, he falls on his arse. Now his face is disarranged. Surprised. What, what, says Clifton Morris. And when he’s there, fallen on his arse in the middle of the cane field, then I point the pistol at him and I begin to speak. Because it’s still early. Because there are still twenty or thirty minutes before the first train comes past. You don’t have anything to do with La Negra, I begin to tell him. You have nothing to do with La Negra Miranda, you Mormon son of a bitch. I talk to him, I keep him occupied. You’re a dirty Yankee spy, I tell him. From the CIA, you’re from the CIA, you are. I didn’t have a plan, until I saw you. So now we’re going to wait for the train. And you know what, you fucking Mormon. When the train goes by, I won’t make a mistake like the mistake I made that night in the dump at Suárez. And because I made a mistake that night in the dump at Suárez, that dirty Peronist is still alive. And now there’s a book. In that book I’m not named. It tells how he got away. He escaped the massacre. Because they’re calling it a massacre. But what that son of a bitch doesn’t know is that he escaped because I made a mistake. And for that mistake I’m here now, in this shitty town. Once upon a time I loved this shitty town. But now it’s just a shitty town. You know what, you Mormon son of a bitch? I’d like to know what the fuck you’re doing here. You’re here for sure because you’re a spy, from the CIA, that’s what you are, you fucking Mormon. Because I didn’t have a plan. And then at half past seven, the train goes by. The first train of the morning. The sound of the train covers the noise of the bullet I put in that Mormon’s head. This time I make no mistake. The little man goes still, with his head buried in a pool of blood. I’ve always wanted to kill a Yankee. A fucking Mormon. They’re Yankee spies. The Mormons are Yankee spies, from the CIA, that’s what they are. And then, at eight, I go into the barbershop. I am, of course, the first customer. Old man Vardemann looks after me, listening to the radio. I ask him to shave me. The old man gets me ready. And before he shaves me, he goes into a little room looking for something, something that he mumbles about, old man Vardemann. I take advantage of this and hide the pistol in a drawer of the dresser that’s underneath the mirrors. The barrel’s still hot. The tango spluttering out of the radio is called “Pichona mía,” and it’s sung by Livio Brangeri. Afterwards I head out, clean-shaven, smelling of cologne, and the morning is already alive: on Souza’s corner there’s a group of people. Bicho Souza gets out of a car. He embraces his father. When he sees me crossing the street, he greets me. He’s happy. Bicho Souza’s wife has a baby in her arms. That means Bicho Souza’s kid was born. And the Souza family is happy. They welcome the baby home. Behind the Souza family, who are happy, La Negra Miranda, barefoot, strokes Jugurtha’s flank. All that’s left to do now is make a call, I think, while I walk towards the chinaberry trees, where Jugurtha is tied up, where La Negra Miranda stands, barefoot, stroking Jugurtha’s flank. All that remains now is simple: wait for the squad cars to come by and arrest skinny Vardemann, for murder.