Carlos Gamerro - The Islands

That must have been why he’d decided to pour his heart out to me: his hundred thousand, along with an incomplete list of names, had bought him this docile rubber doll to soothe the ardours of his mind.

‘I have to admit, I didn’t learn it from my father, but from him,’ he said, nodding in the direction of some ghostly presence and laughing indulgently. ‘Better than he himself could ever have imagined.’

‘Who?’ I asked.

‘ Him ,’ he repeated, letting go of my arm to approach and point — there was no mistaking where this time — at the turd that rested in its acrylic sarcophagus like a mummy and its trove. ‘The late Mr Fuchs. We need our utopia, more, far more than the poor do. They’re happy to endure from day to day, whereas we always have to move forward. Our critics should realise, at least momentarily, the energy it takes to keep yourself at the top, never mind to keep going onwards and upwards … It’s easy to criticise from down there on the plain. From up here things look different. Can’t you feel it?’

‘Definitely.’

‘When we stop, when our sole aim in life is to preserve what we have instead of moving forwards, we begin at that very instant, imperceptibly, to move backwards. We need a higher goal, we need new frontiers, for the coming new millennium. We all need an ideal, we all need a reason to live. Have you read Eva Perón?’

‘I didn’t think that was your kind of bedside reading.’

‘Who do you think I read? Donald Trump? Give me some credit, Sr Félix. I’d like to think that all you’ve found out about me has been of some use to you.’

I pulled the face of a cat that’s eaten the canary and just burped two yellow feathers. Tamerlán rejected my feigned surprise with a flick of his hand.

‘It was obvious. You could never have resisted the temptation. You’re as addicted to information as I am to money: each is an end in itself for us. But if you think you know everything about me, you’re wrong. Neither you nor anyone else could know I met the woman personally. I was all of fifteen, but I held out my hand like a proper little gentleman, and she patted my head and gave me a kiss on the cheek. A little later on I asked to be excused and went to the bathroom for a wank. One of the few women who’s ever had that effect on me. My father and Perón, meanwhile, were walking in the garden swapping stories of the military life. When the Montoneros included the demand to place a bust of Evita in every office of the company as a condition for my release, they never imagined such a gesture would be more meaningful for me than it ever was for them. Remember, Canal? What a comedown for you people, eh?’

‘I remember clearly,’ answered the transistorised voice, immersed in its examination of the screen. They spoke to each other matily like old friends, like partners in crime.

‘As you may be aware, Canal was one of my guards: university student impatient to see some action, you know the story. Students in the United States are set minor business deals from the first years of their degree so they can find release; here in Argentina they became guerrillas. We came to understand each other very well over those nine months and have been inseparable ever since. He was the one who told the police of my whereabouts, which is why he’s here now, chatting to us instead of to the catfish at the bottom of the river. Remember how we laughed about the busts. Here, I still keep the one they put in my old office — a souvenir.

He walked over to a cupboard and came back bearing a plaster bust of Evita in his arms, like a birthday cake, yellowing and stained by the passing of time, with a Mona Lisa smile and blank, blind eyes fixed on eternity. He put it down on the floor by the desk, next to the congressman, who’d nodded off and now awoke from his nap and cautiously sniffed the new object like a curious cat. Tamerlán looked at him severely.

‘So?’

Understanding, the congressman raised his head, obediently pulled down his fly and, cocking his leg, urinated at length on the plaster head, instantly darkening the taut hair and tight bun, while Tamerlán gazed at her admiringly with arms folded.

‘What a woman! Shame she wasn’t a man. We’d have a different country by now. Ah well,’ he said, speaking directly to her, ‘don’t give me that look. Pigeons would be worse.’ Then to the congressman: ‘That’s right: mark your territory properly; you don’t want other dogs taking your place.’

‘Is he a Peronist?’ I asked, referring to the congressman, who was now sniffing at what he’d just done.

‘Of course. What fun would it be if he wasn’t?’

‘And he does everything you tell him?’

‘He’s mine; I bought him. Cost me a pretty penny, I can tell you. A friend of mine once got landed with a fake congressman he bought on the cheap. This one’s the genuine article, elected by the people. But that’s no guarantee nowadays. Ecce signum . And who can I complain to now? That’s one of the many disadvantages of democracy. What I’m about to tell you may sound reactionary, but I believe we should bring back the restricted ballot.’

We watched him in silence as he turned round and round on the floor, and curled up again.

‘Doesn’t say much, does he.’

‘You should hear him in Congress.’

‘And does he cost a lot to keep?’

‘Not really. He doesn’t consume much. He does pretty well on his congressman’s allowance: car, pocket money every month and that’s it. I buy him a treat though from time to time, when he behaves.’

As if by magic, a piece of folded foil had appeared between his fore- and middle finger and, opening it, he emptied the contents onto the glass of the desk. There was almost two grams. The congressman leaped up on all fours, his shiny nose scenting the cocaine as soon as it made contact with the air and, with a multiple reflex that would have delighted a convention of Pavlovians, his nostrils dilated monstrously, his eyes popped out of his head and two frothy cascades of saliva began to pour from the corners of his mouth. While Tamerlán combed out four lines as wide as those of a zebra-crossing, the congressman attacked from below, squashing his hands and face grotesquely against the glass and licking with his long, red tongue the stardust that stretched above him as vast and distant as the Milky Way, less than a centimetre from his ravening membranes.

‘So we’re awake now, are we? We’d be ready to do anything now, would we? Too late! You should have remembered before!’ Tamerlán tortured him by taking an exaggerated length of time to measure out the four avenues and shunt a few grains around to balance them up, while the congressman huffed and puffed under the glass like a seal trying to come up for air under a thick layer of ice.

‘One, two, three …’ I counted to myself, trying to conceal my own excitement. And it was real: standing beside his masterpiece, Tamerlán held out his arm and palm, inviting me to come over, while his other hand held out a tightly rolled banknote. Gingerly, I took it from his fingers and snorted the lot; the kick from the coke under my left eye made me recoil. Never in my life had I done so much in one line. As the psychoanalyst, his brooding brow contracted in almost human ill humour, approached to receive another rolled banknote, I unrolled mine. It was a hundred dollars, and I offered it to Tamerlán.

‘Never use someone else’s straw, Sr Félix. This is the age of AIDS. And never use the same straw twice. It’s bad luck. Keep it and spend it.’

Meanwhile the psychoanalyst inhaled his line: precisely half up his left nostril covering his right with his forefinger, the other half up his right nostril covering his left with his other forefinger. Like a clockwork toy just wound up he went buzzing back to his post, pocketing the note, unrolled and folded into four in the inside pocket of his jacket.