Carlos Gamerro - The Adventure of the Busts of Eva Perón

Besides worrying about not telling the company his whereabouts, the mild displeasure caused by his colleagues’ rebuff and the nuisance of not being able to brush his teeth, the situation wasn’t as grave as it had first appeared. They’d probably let them all go tomorrow, except perhaps the senior management; and if they didn’t, they’d at least let them make a phone call. Such events had become commonplace in recent years, and Tamerlán & Sons had had to deal with occupied construction sites on several occasions — and not just the sites of mere apartment blocks either, but mega-ventures like dams, freeways and airports. What worried him most was the possibility that the delay would put Sr Tamerlán in danger. What if the deadline expired while Marroné was locked away in here? If his boss died, he’d get the blame. Marroné’s heart skipped a beat as it dawned on him that Sr Tamerlán’s imprisonment was infinitely harsher than his own, and had lasted not just twenty-four hours, but more than six months. Only now that he was experiencing something similar first-hand did he feel close, not so much to this abstract person, the company’s CEO, but to the fragile, frightened man nestling within, and he swore to himself that he would remain at his post for as long as necessary if it helped shorten such an inhuman captivity.

* * *

It was nine in the morning but the heat made it feel like noon, and Marroné lay sprawled in a chair surrounded by dejected office workers, waiting for the breakfast they’d been promised by the worker guard. He’d been awake for about an hour and, after a cursory glance at his fellow captives, had begun to toy with the idea of returning to his executive peers, to enjoy the air-conditioning and other creature comforts. But they wouldn’t be released until it was all over, not to mention the possibility of all hell breaking loose and the worker commandos taking it into their heads to shoot the management: in that event the fact that he was from another company might be thought a subtlety worthy of little consideration. This lot, on the other hand, would be offloaded any time now and, concealed in their midst, he might be able to make his escape.

Breakfast arrived, borne by two workers in red helmets. It consisted of some stale bread rolls from the day before and a pan of weak, boiled coffee that every office worker worth his or her salt took as a slap in the face.

‘This tar’s a bit weak, lads and lasses.’

‘Was it just the one bat they got to piss in the pot?’

‘Hey, what have they been boiling? Shoes?’

‘No, one of their own!’

Soon, after taking an incoming call, one of the commissars made an announcement that helped calm the general mood a little:

‘You can use the phones!’

They had a minute each, but there was no need for the commissars to keep an eye on them: as soon as the second-hand had gone round once, the next in the queue would start chanting ‘Time’s up! Time’s up!’ and the receiver would change hands. So, despite being at the very back of the queue (a second’s distraction and they’d beaten him to it), it took Marroné just fifteen minutes to reach the receiver and dial the number of the red telephone.

Govianus picked up at the fourth try.

‘Marroné! Where the bloody hell are you? We thought you’d been kidnapped too! Have you got the busts?’

He gave Govianus a brief update.

‘You’ll have to look elsewhere,’ he concluded. ‘Ochoa has a list of suppliers…’

‘What suppliers, Marroné? All the plasterworks in the country have come out in solidarity. I’d place the order abroad if I could, but imagine what they might send us. An Eva with Doris Day’s face, or Faye Dunaway’s,’ said Govianus glumly.

‘Production’s at a standstill here. But I’ll try and persuade them to make an exception for Evita,’ he ventured without much conviction.

‘Try, Marroné, try. It’s our only hope.’

Marroné assured him he would do everything in his power and, before hanging up, asked Govianus to please ring his wife. The morning promised to be a tedious one, so he thought he’d make the most of it and have a quiet sit on the toilet, but when the cleaning staff had joined the strike, matters of hygiene had been left to individual users, who, unwilling to lower themselves to such a lowly task, had opted to let nature take its course. To make matters worse, Marroné had no reading matter with him, so to pass the time there was little else for it but to sit up in his chair and, notebook in hand, lend an ear to the chatterings of the office workers, who, with the artfulness of prestidigitators, had set about organising an alternative breakfast, whisking out of their drawers heaters, kettles, Thermos flasks, coffee pots, sugar bowls, mugs and spoons.

‘Want me to whip yours?’

‘Oh, go on then, I’ve got a bad wrist.’

‘They aren’t half dragging it out. Why won’t they just let us go?’

‘God, it ain’t half funky in here!’

‘If they don’t put the air-conditioning on again for us, there’ll be a right to-do here, matey.’

‘Come on, Fernández, don’t hog the biscuits. Food’s for sharing, as the comrades downstairs say.’

Marroné jotted down his first name, ‘Fernández’, adding beside it the aide-mémoire, ‘little old man, 70, 1950s fine-check suit, hogs biscuits’.

‘Tsk, too much water. Pass the sugar, will you, Nidia.’

‘Go easy on it boys and girls, we’re running a bit short.’

Nidia was a secretary with lipstick stains on her teeth and one of those seen-it-all-before expressions only earned after thirty years working for the same company — observations that Marroné conscientiously jotted down beside her name in his notebook.

‘Waiters in white gloves, caviar, lobster, champagne, god knows what else — the works. And here are we with pop, and ham and cheese rolls! And for dessert? Whores, five of ’em! Hostages? What hostages? They’ve got them up there living the life of Riley. And then they bang on to us about equality!’

‘You’re just miffed ’cause you weren’t invited, Gómez.’

Marroné hastily wrote down the name of the man with long sideburns in the wash-and-wear shirt, grey and burgundy paisley tie, and blue bell-bottoms, who carried on railing at the joint iniquity of management and workers.

‘And the lads got a slice of the pie too, don’t you know? Get my drift, Ramírez?’ he said to a young man, who went straight into Marroné’s notebook, along with his moustache and long mane of hair, pink shirt and green-check tie. ‘It’s always the same old story in this country. It’s either the sharks or the darkies that get the goodies, and we always end up looking on. We’re piggy in the middle, the stick in the mud, take it from me,’ clamoured Gómez. ‘Now it’s the lads are calling the shots. Have you heard what they’re saying? They’re going to turn the factory into a cooperative and bring in a standard wage. Managers to operators, everyone earns the same. Anyone doesn’t like it… out on their ear.’

‘What about seniority?’ asked Fernández in concern.

‘With all due respect, Fernández, they’ll tell you to stick it up your jumper. Everyone’s equal, so tough shit. And another thing that’s out: pensions. From now on you work till you drop down dead like they do in Russia.’

Open-mouthed, the old man was shaking like a leaf.

‘Don’t listen to him, Fernández. He’s just messing with you,’ Nidia reassured him.

‘What I reckon is that we should join the strike in support of our comrades in the Terrestrial Sector, who are sticking their necks out for us. Why do we always keep our mouths shut? Let’s make our voices heard too. Or have we got nothing to say?’ said Ramírez, working himself into a lather while unsticking the sweaty pink shirt from his torso.