He makes as if to unzip his flies, but his zipper gets stuck and, as he wrestles with it, one of the doors onto main street, the nearest one, bursts open and bounces back off the wall, and Sayago barely has time to look up before Guido’s on top of him heaving him by his hair to the floor in an arc and kicking him out into the street through the door Licho has been holding open as a precaution. Relieved at the prospect of a breath of fresh air, I go outside after them and am followed by Iturraspe and Nene Larrieu. His running shoes still undone, Guido kicks Sayago in the head, who, outlined against the battery of headlights on the Fiat Uno parked at right angles to the sidewalk with both its doors wide open, writhes on the ground like a slug with salt on its back. “May I?” I say to Guido, who hasn’t opened his vapour-clouded mouth except to breathe, and start laying into Sayago with my steel-capped shoes, connecting cleanly with his ribs as the cold clears my head a little, feeling the resistance of the bone yield after a few swings. Then suddenly I realise that, instead of helping me, Guido’s pulling on one arm and Nene Larrieu on the other, so I stop struggling. I’d’ve carried on till he was dead, I say to myself and for some reason the words calm me down.
Back inside, I buy us another round — minus the caña—to soothe our souls, and when I breathe in, deeper and deeper, my lungs fill completely. It’s a pleasant sensation. Our company — even Nene Larrieu, who, after calling Chacón to escort his ex-colleague to the little ward, breaks the habit of a lifetime and pours himself a neat gin, no ice — drink their drinks in silence.
“Good thing he never wanted to be a cop,” I remark after a while.
“That’s often the trouble with unbelieving converts,” Iturraspe points out. Out of deference to Guido I finish my drink as fast as I can and ride back with him in the car. Next morning, after a night of nightmares more vivid than the haze I wake up to, with the winter sun already high in the sky behind the raised blinds, I remember my return ticket to Buenos Aires, which this time I’ve quite forgotten to change.
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’M DOING HERE,” Clara Benoit had confessed to me with a vague sweep of the hand that might have included the freezing, empty dining room, the young eucalyptus wood outside the large windows — where one green and three blue tents have holed up till the end of the winter holidays — and the wrinkled surface of the lagoon, and beyond that who knows what vastnesses. “I mean look at this place, it’s depressing, I tell Papá to close up till summer but you know what he’s like, you must’ve got to know him well by now. Sorry,” she’d added. “You asked me about the church and there I go off at a tangent. Yes, I was there that afternoon. I went to see if Father Abeledo said anything about Darío. I don’t know why the others went but they did. There were a lot of people who never usually attended, I’ve seldom seen the church so full for an ordinary mass. What I remember most though was the silence. Pews creaking, shoes shuffling on the tiles, the occasional cough — but no one said a word. And to make matters worse the Father took longer than usual, which was quite a while. At the time I thought it was because he was preparing something special to say but apparently he was having one of his fits of depression … About Darío, of course. I don’t know what I was thinking of, the father’s words firiing us up and afterwards all of us leaving the church arm in arm, singing, behind Father Abeledo holding the cross on high, and marching on police headquarters. When I understood what he was saying I burst out crying. I couldn’t believe it of him and I couldn’t stop. Papá and Mamá, who was still alive back then, looked daggers at me and kept nudging me but there was nothing I could do and in the end I had to leave in the middle of the sermon, choking back the tears and everyone turning round and staring at me and already starting to whisper, nothing new, same as usual no doubt, it was no secret that for Darío I … You’d think by that stage they’d’ve got bored of talking about it. I mean twenty years is rather a lot. But they’re still singing the same tune aren’t they.”
“TRUTH BE TOLD I don’t know if it was the depression or a crisis of faith as people said or just the hots he had for that girl from Fuguet let’s call a spade a spade, he ended up leaving the priesthood and they must’ve got married I wouldn’t know and they lived in Córdoba for a while which was when we all lost track of them. And there were days when there was no getting him out of bed to say mass, we’d drilled the cleaning girl but there were times not even she could work the miracle and had to go knocking at your grandparents’ just next door or else at one of ours to give her a helping hand, I mean if he didn’t have the vocation what did he go and become a priest for in the first place so young and handsome he was when he arrived the girls wandered around in a daze over their new little priest and he started up that what do you call it the social work and the soup kitchens and the health schemes and girls who wouldn’t even speak to the darkies well maybe the maid or the gardener, and that was all, all of a sudden off visiting shacks and cooking for the darkie contingent all for a smile from Father Abeledo. But later I don’t know what can have happened whether it was that little tart from Fuguet or something else but he stopped bothering and gave up and we could count ourselves lucky if he made it for mass or weddings or christenings. I remember your christening, seems like yesterday, I was carrying Leandro see he’s only a wee bit younger than you are and it was dreadfully hot I had to sit down your grandmother kept everything in a little box ah the number of times we must’ve got it out even a cutting from the Toro Mocho paper with the news of yours she must have it with her in Rosario I suppose but what I don’t remember is whether your Mamá and Papá … but of course not, your Papá never visited the town did he. Your grandmother wasn’t one to say much and I didn’t want to bring the subject up you know what it’s like in-laws don’t exactly get along, me and my daughter-in-law for example every time I go and visit her she makes me feel so uncomfortable me I swear if it wasn’t for the children I wouldn’t give her the time of day but I’ll put up with anything for their sakes I’ve always been the tolerant sort now let me see it can’t have been Father Abeledo he was too young it must’ve been Father Campbell I think. Isn’t that right Chesi? It’ll be in that cutting of your grandmother’s, don’t forget to ask when you see her. You are stopping off in Rosario on your way back aren’t you? Weeell to tell you the truth I don’t know when it could’ve been do you remember Chesi? Whether that sermon of Father Abeledo’s was right at the time or later on? People still argue about what the Father meant, he was usually so clear, such a lovely speaker he was, and I don’t know if it was because of his depression that time or what it was but nobody understood a word of what he was saying, actually, on our way out we all looked at each other and I said to Chesi I said did you understand what he was on about no did you nor did I we even asked Yori’s lad who was the altar boy … che, what was the father talking about and he said I don’t know so there you are. Well I don’t know something about arms and eyes and he started on about bacteria and viruses and my brother-in-law said he should stick to theology ’cause he hasn’t a clue about medicine. Let’s see, must’ve been that Sunday as you say ’cause if I am sure of one thing it’s that Delia wasn’t there, she was in Rosario, she liked going there at weekends for the cinema and the theatre and sometimes her son’d go with her and sometimes he wouldn’t, I sometimes think that if he’d gone with her that weekend how much upset the town would’ve been spared, but anyway as I was saying as far as I know he didn’t mention Delia’s son some’ll say he did everybody takes what they want out of it ’specially that time, kept going on about viruses and bacteria he did I can’t see what it could’ve had to do with him unless the boy had the flu,” Aunt Porota will say, sitting in her living room during the long afternoon I’ll spend with her, and her sister Chesi will nod, smile and start a new row of the little waistcoat she’s decided to knit for my son Guille.