Carlos Gamerro - The Adventure of the Busts of Eva Perón

As Govianus spoke, Marroné looked up every now and then to glance at the headline in case the bad news had turned to good, or the newspaper to an albatross taking flight on paper wings.

‘And we did everything we could not to let either the army or the police find out, believe you me. They must have followed Ochoa.’

Marroné looked up again from the hollow of his forearm.

‘Ochoa? Was he there?’

Govianus tapped with one index finger on the part of the article where it said ‘person of male sex, whose identity’.

‘He was carrying the cash for the first payment. Procurement is your field, after all, so we felt it was only right for your department to handle things, Marroné. And as you weren’t around…’

He refrained from completing the phrase out of courtesy, but he couldn’t have made it clearer to Marroné: Ochoa had died in his place. Govianus took out a packet of Benson & Hedges, muttered ‘I had given up’, offered him one and lit it after his refusal.

‘What about the money?’ asked Marroné, trying desperately to cling on to something.

Govianus blew a series of smoke rings in reply.

‘All of it?’

‘Well, if we’re keeping track, we’ve come out on top: had he made it, there’d still be two more payments to go. Anyway, for better or worse, it all seems to be over now.’

‘What do we do then?’

‘We all go home, Marroné. Better get some rest, we’ve a busy week ahead of us. Want me to call you a car?’

‘No, I meant with the busts… the ones I brought.’

‘Oh, yes, right. I’d forgotten. We’ll put them up anyway, so now if they kidnap me, we’ll have saved a bit of time. Is there anything else?’

‘Errr…’ The accountant’s previous remark had reminded him he had no way of getting home. ‘My car… I left it at Sansimón’s, and I… I’d prefer not to have to go back and get it. Can we have it sent over? Maybe not today, but tomorrow?’

‘No can do, Marroné. It was burnt.’

‘What do you mean it was burnt?’

‘Sansimón set fire to it personally.’

‘But he can’t do that. It’s a company car!’

‘And I needn’t tell you what he wanted to do to you. It’s understandable: the man was upset. He told me you incited the workers to mutiny personally. Luckily, he remembered you by another name, and I didn’t take the trouble to correct him. But I advise you to let someone else deal with any plasterwork orders for a time. Oh, and some well-dressed men came snooping around asking for a certain Macramé. I told them no one by that name worked at the company, of course. By the way, Marroné, the overalls suited you, eh? You looked very comfortable in them.’

Marroné’s eyes opened wide in two panic-stricken Os.

‘We saw you on the news. People in the company talked of nothing else all week.’ Govianus leant over the table slightly and lowered his voice to ask him, ‘Tell me something, Marroné. Just between you and me… You wouldn’t be an infiltrator by any chance?’

Marroné got up from his chair and, sensing that his legs might not be strong enough to bear his weight, rested his palms on the desk. He had to make a supreme effort of will to master the quavering of outraged honour in his voice.

‘Sr Govianus, in the past I think I have demonstrated my unswerving loyalty to the company and to the person of Sr Tamerlán.’ Hysteria fought for control of his throat. ‘There are people who gave their lives for those busts to be here today,’ he said, on the brink of tears. ‘I nearly lost my own on several occasions.’

‘Everyone’s giving their life for something these days,’ remarked Govianus, with measured scepticism. ‘I don’t know what’s going on. It must be something in the water. I mean, if they do it willingly, to my mind… But you know how it is. Afterwards they always want something in return.’

‘You do not know… you do not know…’ Marroné hiccuped, ‘what I have been through these last few days. Look. I gave my teeth for the company!’ he said, lifting his upper lip with two fingers to display his broken incisors. Only after freezing with gums bared and upper lip curled like a dog’s, did he realise the gesture might have come over as rather melodramatic, for, though Govianus had recoiled and clapped his hands over his mouth in shock, he could also have been trying to disguise his laughter.

‘All right, Marroné, I’ll take your word for it. This time we’ll put it down in the debit column as an excess of zeal. But do try to act with caution from now on. Just in case your efforts to save the company end up bringing down the capitalist system.’

Marroné sat back down in his chair in a series of stop-motion poses like some articulated dummy. He left his hands resting on the metal surface so that Govianus wouldn’t notice how badly they were shaking.

‘What now?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What happens to the company? Will you go on as president?’

‘Ah. Until the Family decides otherwise… But just between you and me… I’m a little tired. These are not good times for the company man. We seem to be to blame for all the world’s ills. Besides… being an accountant, I don’t want to be reduced to counting up to nine one day, then eight the next, then seven…’ He wiggled his fingers in the air and bent them one by one to illustrate. ‘And that’s the best-case scenario. I’m not cut out to be a hero, Marroné, never mind a martyr. But you… You’ve demonstrated truly incomparable loyalty and efficiency… So I was thinking… of offering you the…’

Marroné opened his mouth as if to speak but could manage no more sound than a gaping fish. A spasm had seized his throat like a hand and squeezed it tight. Him?

‘I have no doubts that, when the Family find out all you’ve done, they’ll be keen to second my proposal. I know I’m asking a great deal. You, a young man with a wife and small children, your whole life ahead of you… So I’d ask you not to answer me immediately, to think it over, see what your nearest and dearest have to say… But before that, I suggest you try it for size, see how you feel…’

Govianus rose from his throne of black leather and chrome and offered it to Marroné with a studiously courteous bow. So it was true. The presidency of the company was his for the taking. Not even in his wildest dreams…

As if in a trance, he got up from his chair, took two steps, stumbled, realised one of his feet had gone to sleep and was bare on the thick carpet, found the missing flip-flop and, playing pat-a-cake with the reflection of his palms, edged around the desk until he stood on the other side. Then he took a firm grip of both the arms lined with soft leather, softer than he’d ever touched before, and eased himself slowly back in the armchair, while Govianus chivalrously held the back for him. With faint squeaks and sighs, the joints of the chair adjusted themselves to his body as if they had been expecting him. The leather seemed to stretch and swell at his caress like a cat.

‘Well, Marroné, I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. We’ll talk tomorrow.’

Alone, Marroné ran his eyes over the helm of the company that he had just been placed in command of. Everything looked different now he was the captain of the ship. So this was how you reached the top? By following these long and winding roads where calamity lurked round every corner? Were they right then, Dale Carnegie, Lester Luchessi and R Theobald Johnson, whose teachings he hadn’t been following so assiduously of late, but who, even now, had gone on watching over him and guiding his steps? Was it true that the executive-errant who kept the flame of his faith burning was always rewarded in the end with a crown and a throne like the one he now sat in? Ah, if only his St Andrew’s classmates could see him now. Marooné, Marron Crappé, President of Tamerlán & Sons (he’d keep the name for now) before the age of thirty. And his father… and his in-laws… When they were face to face, he would let his wife talk and rant and rave and shout herself hoarse till she was blue in the face, and then, in a single sentence — ‘I’m the new CEO of Tamerlán & Sons’ — he would shut her mouth for ever. And put his house in order; he’d start by sending Doña Ema packing. And at work… Cáceres Grey was the Señora’s nephew, so he couldn’t very well fire him. But perhaps it was better that way… inventing inconceivable fates for the arrogant snob, like sending him to supervise the works on the dam in Catamarca, followed by the mines in Salta… ‘You like it dirty, don’t you?’ he’d snipe… Yes, a new day was dawning. All the dangers and obstacles, all the trials and tribulations had meant something: a test of his mettle, a baptism of fire before the great task ahead. So this was the anvil on which the CEO’s character was forged: the sword of the samurai executive (a shogun executive in his case) was made of tempered steel. Well, here he was. The condor had reached its nest in the heights. His 17th October, his ‘marvellous day’ had come at last.