Behold Things Beautiful Page 8

  Patrón Pindalo advised him to lie low for a while. “Take your wife to Punta del Este, enjoy the beach.” Galtí nodded, half-listening. Next morning he was found shot in the head in his garage, slumped over the Peugeot’s steering wheel. The widow phoned for help and Patrón Pindalo placed the calls to cover up the suicide and ensure a glowing obituary. Right after the burial, he’d come home to look at the files in Galtí’s little box.

  He sipped at the whisky, trying to visualize the papers. They’d seemed to contain the comings and goings of military staff, some orders and records. Nothing a good lawyer couldn’t discredit or defend with arguments for security and civic order. Ninety percent of the Luscanan population had been relieved when the agitators had been removed. Yes, it had been a clumsy operation, but the job had been accomplished. He’d warned Galtí and his commanders not to overdo it. They’d restored calm and within two years of the coup, Luscano functioned as it always had. Patrón Pindalo remembered concluding that the files were not worth killing yourself over, that Galtí’s resolve had collapsed from drink until he’d castrated himself and wound up dead by his own hand, self-inflicted stupidity. How could a person spiral into such confusion and ultimately delude himself into shaming his wife, his colleagues and Barrio Norte friends? He didn’t have to look very far for the answer. Ernesto wasn’t much of a drinker but he was heading in the same direction. Stealing the files, most probably for extortion. Why else would he take them? Sheer stupidity, for they’d serve no purpose beyond staining the Pindalo name.

  His cell phone rang and he fumbled to extract the thing from his blazer. Without his glasses he couldn’t tell who was calling and he answered, hoping it was Ernesto. The smooth voice of his young lawyer came on the line. Javier Martinez briefed him on the outcome of the land deal, assuring him that the senators were eager to pass the legislation. Most agreed that the eyesore had to be demolished. Officially, the land and the abandoned prison were owned by the Luscanan military and they needed the cash. Patrón Pindalo instructed Javier and turned the phone off. The casino project was consuming too much of his time. If only Ernesto would work with him, he could delegate, wouldn’t have to direct every single step in the process.

  Patrón Pindalo reclined on his black leather sofa, too soft to support his cranky lumbar, a prisoner of pain. Ernesto persisted in punishing him. Abandoning his wife and children was bad enough but stealing from the safe, that was criminal. He lay there reproaching himself for never having changed the combination, for trusting his son. All because of a night by Ernesto’s bed, waiting for him to wake from the deep sleep of a ten-year-old, same age as Magdalena now, in the bedroom upstairs where she now slept. The boy’s blue eyes had opened wide, alarmed at his father’s presence. No way to sugar-coat the news. “Your mother’s dead. It was an accident. The helicopter crashed into the ocean near Recife.” Crushing words to have to say. It was then Ernesto had lost himself, the boy’s body convulsing in his arms. Patrón Pindalo never told him that she’d died in his place, killed by enemies intending to assassinate him. The boy must have overheard the rumours and gossip and he responded with asthma attacks, fevers and then the epilepsy. Patrón Pindalo spent years trying to guide Ernesto onto a solid track, but the boy derailed again and again. For Esmiralda’s sake, he couldn’t abandon his son.

  Patrón Pindalo hoisted himself up from the sofa and buzzed Damian on the intercom. “Get the car ready. We’re going to find my son.”

  8

  Flaco fiddled with the radio dial, jabbing his elbow into Gabriel’s rib cage. If the door malfunctioned, Gabriel would be flung onto the coastal road. Serious head injury, crushed limbs, severed artery. He easily imagined his own burial without his guiding presence. Castillo would handle the job. Gravedigger, gardener, cemetery resident and driver, Castillo was marvellously competent, and rose to unexpected occasions and odd requests, including this one, with a cheerful grace Gabriel deeply envied.

  Castillo manoeuvred the pickup truck, a felt hat pushed back on his forehead, one brown arm resting over the open window. He wasn’t one to harbour thoughts of his own demise, that Gabriel knew of him. But even after five years of what could only be considered a close working relationship, symbiotic from Gabriel’s perspective, he was never really sure what Castillo was thinking. Flaco found a radio signal with flamenco, turned up the volume and bashed out a rhythm on the dashboard to the crashing guitars. From the academic in a tweed jacket behind the desk of his book-lined office, Flaco had transformed into a middle-aged country boy. Wearing a frayed shirt and jeans, he sat squeezed between Castillo and Gabriel on the seat. Early this morning, he’d roped in Gabriel with a phone call, requesting a favour with such finesse there’d been no quick, polite way of saying no to the guy. Luckily, there were no burials this Friday afternoon, or maybe it was unlucky, allowing Flaco to corral the cemetery’s camioneta for this errand involving a sheet of metal fetched from the port and delivered to a sculptor.

  “How far is this studio?” Gabriel asked.

  “A few kilometres more. It’s on a bluff worth seeing just for the view.”

  “We can’t stay long, have to close the cemetery before sunset, right, Castillo?”

  “Si, Señor.” Castillo palmed the steering wheel, his form of driving regardless of traffic or road conditions. It made Gabriel squeamish but he couldn’t criticize, never having learned to drive himself. The truck hugged the winding road, Gabriel on the inland side. He didn’t know how he’d cope on the return trip with the sheer drop to the coves and inlets, felt an impending dizziness at the prospect. At least the pickup truck’s suspension handled the craters and its brakes had to be reliable. The new vehicle had been cajoled by Gabriel from the cemetery owner once the old truck had collapsed beyond resuscitation. Señor Bilmo had insisted on buying the replacement from a dealership run by an Italian cousin, another Bilmo of questionable repute. It irked Gabriel to have purchased a product manufactured by the same company that had supplied the military. All those Ford Falcons without licence plates abducting innocents in broad daylight.

  Flaco pointed to a cow path up a steep incline. Castillo shifted gears and the truck bucked over potholes and ridges. Gabriel cringed at the shrubs scratching the side of the truck, painted the requisite black and prone to visible markings.

  “Who is this sculptor?” he asked.

  Flaco described meeting Luis Corva at the university where he taught several courses. “He moved from Buenos Aires after the 1994 bombing of the Jewish Centre. His work’s all over the world.”

  “He’s Argentine?”

  “Eastern European. Look, there it is.” An elevated structure of pale wood and immense glass windows stood on stilts at the high end of a sloping field.

  Gabriel stepped down from the pickup truck, his legs feeling wobbly from the drive. Castillo opened the tailgate and the three men slid the titanium sheet down to the ground.

  A white-haired man in shorts ran down the field. He held out an old duvet. “Wrap it up in this.” The sculptor’s face was mottled and his glasses magnified intense blue eyes. Tanned and compact, in his sixties, Gabriel guessed, the man moved with the power of an athlete. Luis Corva put his hand on the titanium. “A beautiful piece, no? I see it’s going to work well.” His Spanish was unusually accented, overemphasizing the consonants.

  Work well for what? Gabriel wondered, helping to wrap the duvet around the industrial-sized rectangle of metal. They carried it across the field, up the stairs into the studio and leaned it against a wall. A small kitchen and living area occupied a far corner of the studio, most of which was taken over by tables and work benches. These were strewn with drawings, pen-and-ink sketches of figures who appeared to be in the throes of death, writhing and contorted. Assorted pieces of wood were laid out along a shelf. Castillo pointed to a small chunk that looked like hardened lava, black but smoother than any rock. “What’s this?” he asked the sculptor.

  “Grenadill
a wood from East Africa,” Corva said, “often used for making clarinets.”

  “He carves,” Gabriel explained. “Mostly from wood he finds in the cemetery.” At night, Castillo sat on the steps of his cottage overlooking a corner of the cemetery grounds and whittled small replicas of musicians playing the flute or drums, flower vendors, horses and horneros.

  “It’s left over from a commission,” Corva said. “You can have it, if you like.”

  Castillo shook the sculptor’s hand. “I hope to return the favour.”

  “You drove the truck, so we’re even.”

  Before leaving, Gabriel couldn’t resist stepping onto the balcony for a view of the blue green sea flecked with sailboats. Flaco joined him, lighting a cigarette, his hand cupping the flame of the match. Gabriel glanced inside the studio. Castillo was examining the sculptor’s tools, Corva by his side. “Did you look at the files?” he asked Flaco.

  “I’m bringing them to Lalo Martín’s office tomorrow. The black book, man, — ”

  “I know.”

  Flaco drew on his cigarette. “The dates, the times, the meticulousness of their records, what does that tell you about a place not known for its rigour?”

  “That they were trained by Americans?” In the hillside below, olive trees and a few carobs with red flowers stirred in the breeze. It was one of those moments when Gabriel couldn’t reconcile the landscape with the ugliness that had occurred here.

  Corva walked them back to the truck. “I’d like to visit your cemetery. When I lived in Buenos Aires, I used to go to Chacarita Cemetery for the sculptures and engravings. There’s beautiful work to be found in a cemetery.”

  “There’s a sign in Chacarita,” Gabriel said. “‘Gardel may be dead but he sings better every day.’”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “My father’s buried there.” But Gabriel did not mention the precise location, a simple tomb among a row of suicides, no sculptures to inspire an artist, and far from the famous tenor’s wall of plaques and memorials. Instead he quoted Borges, who called Chacarita a “slum for souls,” a description that applied equally well to sections of the Cementerio Real.

  Gabriel stepped up into the truck and slid in next to Castillo. There was no way he’d sit squeezed against the door going back. They jolted downhill towards the coast. Castillo palmed the steering wheel, his right hand on the piece of black wood on his lap. “Grenadilla,” he said. “Never heard of it. Have you, Señor?”

  “No.”

  Flaco explained that Corva was working on a memorial for the disappeared.

  Castillo glanced at Gabriel. “An important work, eh?”

  “It won’t bring them back,” Gabriel said. His cynicism was a thin disguise. From Castillo he’d learned that a graveyard existed more for the living than for the dead.

  As he walked away from the convertible and made his way towards a stretch of sand hidden behind the dunes Ernesto’s eyes began to adjust to the darkness. Along the curving coastline of the Bay of Luscano, clusters of lights flickered, intensifying in the city centre, then fading out southwards towards the uninhabited cliffs.

  Ernesto sat down on a large piece of driftwood. He took out his pen and the stationery from the hotel room where he’d been drinking gin and ordering room service. His head pounded. He didn’t regret the binge, didn’t regret anything he’d done of late. Just all that preceded it. He balanced his passport on his knee to support the sheet of paper and began writing. Querida Magdalena, querido Patroncito.

  What to say? Don’t screw up your lives like I did. Be honest, think of others, be brave. No, I should tell my children to get out of here. Leave Luscano as soon as you can. But thinking back to the one year he’d lived abroad, a winter in Chicago, where he was supposed to be completing an MBA, he shivered. Icy winds scalloping the snow banks, the chilly indifference of the people and the tough lesson of what it meant to be a nobody. No, he couldn’t inflict that on them. He’d apologize. Whatever you do, don’t follow in my footsteps. Don’t listen to the old man, call him out when he meddles in your destiny, forge your own path.

  A couple walked their dogs along the beach, no leashes on the animals. Ernesto waited out these intruders, watching the southern constellation emerge. First Pegasus, its stars connecting the elegant tail, the ears and mane, then Altair, a beacon to the south that would soon define the density of the Milky Way. These were the mythic shapes his father had taught him. Standing on a stool, peering through the lens of the telescope, he’d always wondered but never asked, where is she? His face tensed by the effort of squeezing one eye shut, the other searching that immense sky. God’s cathedral lit by thousands, there had to be a constellation named Esmiralda. Long and delicate, as he remembered her, always shiny. But even then, he couldn’t recall her face. It frightened the boy, her fading from memory, so he’d sought her in el cielo, where the priest promised she resided, so he’d never lose sight of his mother.

  But he had. Memory foreclosed by living with one eye shut. Easier that way, fulfilling the expected, following and dispensing orders and ignoring every feeling until he’d become hollow as the mate gourds sold in the market. Silver trimming the black exterior, nothing inside, just a vessel. He would float, then, the waves rocking him to sleep.

  Ernesto removed his shoes, socks, shirt and belt. Some itinerant would be happy for these gifts. Then he dug a hole in the sand, using a stick to bore down. He dropped the Rolex, passport and pen into the hole. He removed the gold chain from his neck, his mother’s and therefore cursed, dropped it in, followed by the crumpled sheet of paper.

  The night was unusually balmy for midwinter July. Alma removed her sweater and tied the sleeves around her waist as she waited for Roma to draw down the shutters and lock up the bookstore. They walked down Avenida Primero de Abríl towards the old town. Roma was wearing jeans and a denim shirt, the sleeves rolled up to her biceps, muscular from the drumming. “You have to come hear us play, Alma.” Roma described how she’d stumbled into taking up taiko drums. “I never learned piano or guitar,” she said without bitterness. Alma had always been aware of how privileged she’d been in comparison with her friend. Roma’s parents, dead now, had run a string of businesses into the ground, a flower store, a taxi, then a fruit stand. “Now I know what I missed. Playing the drums, it’s a complete escape from my vicious thoughts, my little life.” Then she asked after Hannelore.

  “She’s mostly in bed now. This afternoon, the prospect of a party got her going. She had me parading around her bedroom in my dress and insisted I take this necklace of hers.” Alma omitted Hannelore’s critique of her black dress. “I’m not saying it’s unbecoming,” she’d said, which of course meant the very opposite. “I see you wearing it to my funeral. But for Flaco’s fortieth, you need some dazzle.” Even so, Alma had been reluctant to leave. But Hannelore had insisted.

  “Your mother’s the one who came up with my name, remember? We were having lunch in your courtyard. I told her I hated it and she agreed, said Rosa Maria was more than uninteresting. ‘Why not Roma?’ she asked. ‘It suits you, especially spelled backwards.’ I’ll never forget being rechristened by your mother at the age of eight. It gave me the guts to consider reinventing my sense of self. I should go visit her.”

  “Soon, Roma. I don’t think she’s…” Alma looked at her friend. She understood.

  They walked past the cathedral. Water streamed into the plaza as the flower vendors emptied their buckets over the cobblestones. A priest switched on the light bulb dangling over a side door, his private entrance or escape, perhaps a signal.

  By the stairs leading down to the port, a series of murals covered a stone wall. Vivid depictions of Luscano’s history, from the original indigenous settlements and Spanish conquests through to independence, ending before the junta. Roma said the murals were created by students commissioned to paint over the graffiti and peeling stucco of the colonial
walls. Entering the city’s oldest streets, narrow and winding, Roma pointed out the landmarks, such as the second-floor room where Luscano’s earliest poet had lived, vines dangling from a wrought iron balcony. Alma recalled the epic verses they’d had to memorize in school. She was puzzled that her friend had researched these details until Roma mentioned that during tourist season she offered walking tours of the capital. “You should see the types that come here. Earnest retirees from New York, rich students from Santiago, French sailors…and they love it, seeing where our famous writers lived. It doesn’t seem to matter they’ve never read their works. Plus they tip well.” She advertised the tours in hotels and the bookstore, where she sold an accompanying illustrated map. “I got Flaco to write a short history of Luscano and he had it published by the university. It earns him some extra cash for all his wives and children.”

  Alma admired this resourcefulness. If Roma had moved to Canada, she’d probably have adapted faster than Alma had. Perhaps Roma sensed these thoughts, asking how Alma felt about her new home. It was the type of question difficult to answer. It required comparison and she didn’t want to criticize Luscano. “The first thing I noticed was the absence of soldiers, tanks and military symbols. I can’t name a single Canadian general, except for one, Roméo Dallaire.” Alma described visiting Ottawa, her astonishment at seeing the Prime Minister’s residence with only two cars guarding the entrance. “But that changed after 9/11. Now there are armed guards at the airport, embassies and some government offices. Politicians travel in armoured vehicles, defence spending is on the rise and the army’s deployed in Afghanistan. It’s too bad,” she added, “the militarization of Canada.” Luscano and Canada, she’d realized, had more in common than she’d ever considered. In exile, Montréal, its brutal winter, landmarks and idiosyncrasies had seemed so utterly different from the climate and landscape of Luscano. But in truth, a shift in mentality had occurred in the twelve years since she’d been gone, driven by technology and globalization. From that moment in the lecture hall, watching the audience arrive for her lecture, Alma had begun to understand that her students in Montréal were not that different from Flaco’s here.