Iosi Havilio - Paradises

When one of the doors is finally opened, the inevitable occurs, an avalanche of which no one seems to be the cause. Some raise their arms in a gesture of innocence. Two men with helmets and grey overalls try to contain the passengers’ anxiety, they ask for order, they don’t say women and children first, as they do during shipwrecks in films: Calm down, everyone will get off. They erect some steps and the carriage slowly drains of people. One at a time, they say, but people still push and shove. Because I’m in a corner opposite the exit, I’m one of the last to leave. As I get out, I look both ways. Our rescue scene is multiplied along the rest of the train, forming the typical image of an exodus of refugees.

The underground peregrination is a mini adventure. The guy who pulled the lever returns to his role from the shadows, he won’t let up carping. Around me, others weave hypotheses about what happened. A blonde woman who is leading two girls, also blonde, by the hand, daughters or granddaughters, the darkness won’t allow me to see, is talking on the phone, relating the events, and she mentions a power failure, I don’t know where she got that from. A third person ventures the theory of a suicide. He says it loudly, with a touch of vindictiveness. I think: a suicide halfway between two stations doesn’t make much sense. One of the percussionists starts humming. His friends encourage him with applause, the boy lets himself go and raises his voice:

I am the miner

The miner am I

I am the miner

And I sing as I pass by

At Tribunales we are informed over the loudspeaker that it wasn’t a suicide or a strike, the blonde woman was right: there was a failure on the medium-tension lines. The man who protested on everyone’s behalf, the guy with grey curls, now I can see him in his entirety, stomach too bulky for the length of his shirt, doesn’t believe the explanations at all and continues with his lecture, now directing it at the loudspeaker as if it were a subway employee.

On the surface at last, the air could be described as fresh, even though it isn’t really. An illusion that doesn’t last long. I buy mint gum at a kiosk. I hardly ever do, but I don’t think twice, I need it like water. As I chew, I feel as though the gum helps me dissolve all those smells that seeped into me during the journey, including the taste of garlic, which I can sense in my own mouth as if it had invaded me by osmosis.

Five blocks separate me from the bank where I have to collect my pay. I walk along the pavement under an extremely large sun in the opposite direction from the few cars that are cruising down the avenue. Before entering, I glimpse a swarm of bodies through the window. I go through the automatic door, which takes a second too long to open, as if it’s too lazy to keep detecting people, and a dry, icy blast of air gives me a nasty shiver. There are queues criss-crossing in all directions. I have to ask three times before I’m told where I should stand. A security guard points out the longest line, which is snaking from the entrance to the cashiers. I join it.

It’s the first working day of the year, which explains the hordes of people. I think about turning round and coming back tomorrow, but I reject the idea quickly; I’m already here. To entertain myself, I observe my surroundings methodically, from one side to the other. A green mural depicts a profile of South America on its side, sick or resting: the prominent forehead, the sunken eyes, the pinched mouth, the long, delicate chin. In front of me is a row of cubicles separated by partitions not even a metre and a half high, each containing a desk, a computer and an anglepoise lamp. In each one, a customer and a bank employee are facing each other. Apart from two cheerful women, probably friends, the faces on both sides tend towards discomfort. A bit further along, it opens out into empty space, with a round flower bed and a palm tree illuminated by a yellow spotlight. Artificial, real, I can’t tell. I’m tempted to go and touch it to find out, but I’d have to abandon the queue and ask them to keep my place, a lot of fuss.

For the three quarters of an hour I’m going to spend in line behind a boy with headphones who doesn’t stop nodding his head, my gaze wanders between the supine Latin America, the sleepy faces of the sales executives, Nelson, Víctor, Shirley, and the highest leaves of the palm tree that bend where they meet the ceiling. With about ten people between me and the finishing line, I start studying the cashiers. In the centre is the moustachioed bursar I’m to avoid. If I get him, I can let the person behind me pass in front, pretending not to notice, searching for something in my bag, pretending that I’m caught up in the cordons, having a coughing fit. To his right, there’s a redhead with a small mouth and her hair in a bun; on the other side, a boy who if it weren’t for the suit and tie you’d say was a teenager who’s skipped school. I think about Canetti and his story of feigned madness, his ill-fated plan, his treacherous psychologist, his deserting wife, also about his limp, the trees he was employed to catalogue, the sweeping job he managed to get at the zoo. I try to imagine myself in the place of one of these people, but it doesn’t fit.

Finally it’s my turn. I sigh in relief: I’ve got the young lad. He’s not at all friendly, you can tell he’s been trained that way by his boss. I hand him the cheque, my ID. Do you have another form of identification? he asks. I smile at first, convinced he’s joking, but from the stiff look in his eyes it would appear he’s being serious. You can’t read it at all, the photo’s blurred, he says, picking up the document between his thumb and index finger. I look him in the eye, arch my brows, I apologise with a purse of my lips. While he does what he has to do on the computer in order to give me my money, he complains repeatedly in a low voice, muttering, as if he doesn’t dare say what he wants to. He counts the money and opens his mouth but without raising his eyes, he’s talking to the banknotes: I’ll pay you this time, take it as an exception, next time you can forget it. That’s what he says: Forget it.

The return trip is fast. No incidents, protests or bothersome noises. As if I had travelled into one city and returned by another.

On Friday morning, we go to look for Herbert in his flat because I have to be at the zoo to receive some new animals at one o’clock. In the corridor, before I knock on the door, our footsteps are marked by fast harp music. Herbert sticks his head out. He’s flushed, his fringe stuck to his forehead, a black and yellow striped football shirt with a ring of sweat in the centre of his chest. I ask him whether he can come down a bit early. Yes, yes, but I have to change. He runs off and leaves the door ajar. The sunlight exaggerates the contrast between the half-finished flat and the resplendent domestic appliances. Mercedes appears in shorts and vest, his arms covered in tattoos and scars. It takes him half a minute to notice us. He ignores us, or doesn’t see us. Until he suddenly says: Argh, what a fright. I justify myself: We’re waiting for Herbert. Come in, he says with a smile of rotten teeth, and stretches out his arm offering me a maté . It’s Paraguayan tereré , he says. Delicious, delicious.

Mercedes is a mysterious type, there are all kinds of versions of his past in circulation. Tosca calls him murderer, dirty and treacherous. According to her, he used to work in the port in Asunción, until he had to leave in a hurry. He was a docker, she reckons. She says he came here from Paraguay after killing two guys. The husband and brother of one of his lovers. Stabbed them to death. She says he has something like seven children back there but he doesn’t even know most of their names. When he arrived in Buenos Aires, about fifteen years ago, he was poor, he showed up one day looking for work and she did him one favour after another. She offered him a roof over his head and introduced him to his wife. What else? Mercedes became something like a bodyguard to el Buti, the boy who was beaten to death, then he lost his way. He began dealing drugs, he went mad. Now he runs everything from here and occasionally goes out in a fake taxi, taking his son as a front. He makes him lie down on the back seat so that his legs don’t go to sleep. Because of the football. It was much worse before, he had a troop of little sods coming and going at all hours with their packages. Their packages, Tosca repeats, shaking her head. They’ve all been arrested, I can’t say anything. Just imagine. They want to see me dead.