Now he brought the little fellow to mind, he saw he’d been quite captured, taken over by the other and administered at will. He made efforts to ignore it, but it really drove him mad. He was going out on the river one day and called the little fellow on board. The little fellow looked back uncertainly. Then the other turned his head and, looking with that half-smile, said:
‘Leave the man in peace, why don’t you?’
The dog had jumped aboard by now. Boga stood there in the middle, with the seat between his legs. He looked at one and then the other, but he didn’t know what to say. Caught by surprise.
Then the man continued.
‘Now we’re on the subject, why don’t you stop this fucking about, this thing you call a business? It’s a stupid waste of time.’
A silence.
He shrugged and gave a bitter smile.
‘Do what you like.’
‘It’s my affair,’ he said, and that was all.
The days passed and the man stayed on, whatever he might think.
He knew nothing of this man. Not that it was worrying him. He’d have his story, just as all the rest. He hadn’t even asked him how he’d come to get the wound.
He never thought he’d stay. Perhaps he had some claim on the boat. But he wasn’t going to argue. If it came to that, he’d simply disappear himself. There was nothing here to keep him. Nor was he proud. As for the Aleluya, he didn’t want the boat like this, with him here on deck.
When there was something that was bothering him, he generally moved on. He had put up with a lot just lately. Why? What was the point? Things had got all tangled and he hadn’t tried to stop them. Now he was annoyed with things and thought it was enough, time to solve things, so that one of these fine days he wouldn’t come back to the boat.
He was right out on the Bajo. From there he could keep going, towards Punta Morán. He’d stop off for the night out in the shelter he’d built when the summer was just starting. Now, and with more time, he could organise things better. In this way he could see the man’s arrival as a sign. The summer on its way. The time that drives it on… the previous year, for instance, the old man’s death had been the sign, and then the dazzled eyes of the fisherman who’d spoken of the north.
What happened was he went back to the boat and stayed on it, watching how things tangled up. He wasn’t set on leaving. He wasn’t set on anything. Time was going to choose for him. Or, perhaps, the man was.
September chose for all of them.
He was returning from the river, just as other days. He heard voices on the boat. He heard one voice above all, one that didn’t belong to the man, nor to Cabecita. You heard them from a long way off, at this hour of the day and in this solitary place. He had the dog there with him. It ran up to the bow and started barking at the boat.
‘What’s the matter, Capi?’
He looked across his shoulder. That was when he saw a tower of smoke behind the boat, on the shore.
‘What is it they’re up to?’
He said it in a low voice, with some bitterness.
The dog barked still more fiercely.
He couldn’t work it out.
He turned the boat around and led the way in with the stern. The tower of smoke was very tall and black. It would be visible far off. He couldn’t see them yet, because it seemed they’d gone ashore, behind the boat. He heard that voice and then he heard the man’s. And some screams from Cabecita. Then the man was there, up on the deck. He seemed immensely tall and wide. He must have seen him too, because he shouted something to the rest and soon he saw the three of them, stationed on the boat, above him and in silhouette. Between that of the man and the other of Cabecita was a third he didn’t know.
As he neared the boat, the man called out.
‘Ah, here comes the businessman!’
He must have found it funny for he started laughing wildly. The other laughed as well. Cabecita screamed and jumped about. He gave a little smile.
He could see the fellow, now. He was rather on the short side, but very wide and brawny. He had a grey, high-neck sweater, linen trousers stiff with dirt, a pair of basketball shoes and a checked cap, a bit small for his head. He had a hostile look. His face was flat and wide, his lips hard and crushed; he had a squashed nose, the kind you see on fighters, and eyes that were half-closed and slanting. He looked younger than them. He didn’t think he knew him.
‘What’s going on there?’ he said, with a look towards the smoke.
‘Stop screaming, you little wretch!’ the man said, to Cabecita. ‘What’s going on where?’
‘The smoke.’
‘Nothing to worry about,’ he said, and slapped the other on the back.
He’d arrived from the coast. He was from the coast. Boga knew his kind.
He got here in a rowing boat that was half-rotten, which he smashed to bits and burned once he’d spoken to the man. He seemed to know the man, but their meeting now was by chance.
He had been fleeing from the coast and simply came upon the man and boat. So now they were four in their little group. Four good-for-nothings with nothing in common, each with his story, and brought together by the river.
This last arrived from San Fernando, bringing violence and hate ingrained in his clothes, from the look of him. Boga didn’t know who he was, or else he didn’t remember, but he knew his type from many that he’d seen along the coast. The man referred to him as Chino, maybe for those eyes, but to many on the coast his name was Rubia. Never to his face, though; if you called him that he’d have you by the throat. Rubia for his hair, which was extremely blond and long and straight, and which he wore combed back across his head.
He’d fought in the Boxing Club, the middleweight division. Hence the boxer’s flattened nose. He’d not been too bad at it, either. But yes, he was tricky, from the start. He got to fight in two or three preliminary bouts, in Martínez, at the Ebro. Then he had two fights on the support bill at the Boxing, the first with Nino Basciano, the other with Bebe Galindo. In the first he lost on points, and the second was a draw, when he should have won on points. Bebe Galindo was finished by that time. This messed him up a bit. He tried to prove himself by standing up to Fredy Lobianco, when Fredy was at his peak. Fredy, in those days, was trying to make the bill at Luna Park, and fought with real savagery when he went in with a tough guy. He saw that Rubia wanted to look good by showing he could last against him, getting through the fight. Proving he could take it would be enough for him. And so he worked him slowly and with measure, taking him to pieces bit by bit. He went down in the eighth, in the middle of the ring. He stayed there on his knees like a dope. He didn’t go down in one go, but in stages, bit by bit, and holding on to Fredy, who simply watched him go. Then the moment came when he stayed on his knees, still holding Fredy’s legs.
Then came the business with the liga. Where all the dirty stuff wound up. A liga forms to seize upon surplus goods sold at an auction. If someone in the liga wants to buy a certain lot, the others block the bidding. They manipulate the game. No one can stand up to them. Anyone who takes them on does so out of sheer perversion; he’ll end up paying twice the price. And then, if he insists, there can be other repercussions. It’s a bad affair all round. There are many different ligas, and each one, as a general rule, goes after certain lots. Looked at just in principle, they’re not entirely bad. But Pepe Ulloa’s liga was something quite distinct. They named their group a liga just to give themselves a name. In fact, it was a liga to begin with, long ago, when they bought one lot of engines and another of jeep bodywork, and then, in another sale, they bought a lot of lifeboats. This was the foundation of the group. Then they turned to other matters, leaving the majority without the least idea of why they still spoke of a liga. Some presumed a kind of joke. Others, that the name was there to give the thing some punch. As for him, he didn’t ask. It was something bad, that’s all. And he was something bad. There are many like this on the coast. Blind to things, and harmful. It’s not a case of trying to make their way. Not in the least. They’re blind to things, and harmful.