Carlos Gamerro - The Islands

Nor did I get much out of him about the ‘accident’ — his word for it — except that the ‘unfortunate acrobat’ would have managed to grab hold of the cornice had he been in ‘better physical shape’ and that, for the same reason, he Daniel ‘Call-Me-Dany’ Tabardo had been the first to reach the window to witness what came before the fall. ‘At no time did he show his face,’ he assured me. ‘He fell out of the window under his own momentum, the young man could do nothing to catch him.’ Throughout our conversation (punctured by the monotonous clock-clock of tennis balls from the courts above and beside us, and shouts from the rooftop five-a-side) Dany constantly switched his gold Cross ballpoint from one hand to the other, back and forth, in a short flight with all the regularity and tediousness of a metronome. What is this arsehole trying to do? Hypnotise me? I wondered.

‘Grey, yes. I remember it clearly. A Burberry. How can there still be people who insist on wearing such uncomfortable clothes in this day and age?’

He windmilled the biro in his left hand from thumb to little finger and back, then did the same with his right. My eyes followed it against my will and he struck.

‘You look surprised,’ he said.

‘No, well … um …’

‘Let me guess what you’re thinking,’ he smiled. ‘You’re asking yourself “Is this guy left-handed or right-handed? Eh?” Correct me if I’m wrong.’

I put on an idiotic smile and, as I expected, he took it for assent.

‘Well. In fact I’m neither: I’m ambidextrous. Though it would be just as accurate to say I’m ambisinister. And don’t think it’s a simple privilege I’ve been blessed with by nature; far from it. From being small I set out not to be half a man the way others are. Human potential is infinite, but the education we receive seems to be systematically directed at frustrating it, reducing it to the poor and mediocre general pattern. Even as a schoolboy I never used to let my briefcase spend more than a minute in each hand, and I used to swap my knife and fork round several times a meal. When playing sports nothing disconcerts my opponents more than seeing me switch racquet hands and smash just when they’re expecting a backhand. These trophies bear witness to my persistence and early farsightedness. Once I’d decided to become a complete man, I found nothing difficult. It’s like your body being bilingual, see? Few people are as entitled to call themselves “self-made men” as I am. I’m currently devoting my energies to founding the Argentine Ambidextrous Association.’

‘Hmm. Like the Argentine Handless Artists Association, only the other way round.’

‘Quite,’ he nodded. I increasingly find people don’t listen to a bloody thing you tell them. I let him prattle on for a little while longer, putting up with coin tricks, paddle tournament anecdotes, et cetera, then shook his hand — God knows which — and got ready to leave.

‘Ciao. Take care,’ he said, without moving from his seat.

By the door was a stand laden with trophies, and a little experiment occurred to me.

‘Catch!’ I said, tossing him a green onyx obelisk with a little golden paddle-player perched on top, in an arc wide enough for either hand to catch. He tried to field it with both, and they collided beneath the trophy and began to jiggle it about without either being able to do any more than keep it in the air for a few more seconds before it inevitably slipped through his ten pleading fingers and smashed to dust on the floor.

As I expected, I thought, closing the door behind me on Dany’s deflated mouth and moustache. Ham-fisted with both.

It was well past noon by the time the bus dropped me at Puente Saavedra, and I strolled along the broken pavements pretty much at random, making my way through the winding queues waiting to storm the buses: maids, nannies, cleaning staff, gardeners, drivers, nightwatchmen, teachers, all arriving from and departing for Boulogne, Munro, Carapachay, Bancalari, Haedo, Morón, Castelar, William Morris, José L Suárez, Liniers, Lugano, Laferrere, San Justo … puffy anoraks, acrylic scarves, plastic bags for handbags, on the way to their first or second jobs of the day, piled on top of each other on the crowded, narrow pavements, squirming like worms in a jar. I walked a couple of blocks, searching left and right till I spotted it. A huge red-and-orange poster announced ‘Pumper Nic gives you more. Bogof!’

‘Gimme a double Pumper — the bogof; a Coke, a Frenys, a mobur, I mean a molops …’

‘Pumper … Frenys … molops … Coke …’ mumbled the girl into her microphone and held out a ticket. I prefer Pumper Nic’s to McDonald’s on the whole: there’s a more relaxed, almost Zen-like atmosphere in here, maybe because the food’s so bad, and the customers so few and so hard up. The poor are less rowdy when it comes to spending their readies.

After my first Pumper I belched and decided to have a nicotine break before attacking the second. ‘The Fun Way To Eat’, read the paper place mat; I looked round to see if I could spot anyone having any. I pushed aside the tray and, through a hole in the formica table, I could see the toe of my shoe. It was a start. There was a bin nearby, with a green hippopotamus emblazoned on it and a sign saying ‘The hippo is happy to eat what you don’t!’ I wondered at the beast’s powers of self-abnegation. It can’t have felt as smiley as the drawing depicted when it was being force-fed the tray-loads of cardboard, polystyrene, limp lettuce, rubbery chips, stale mayonnaise and half-chewed Pumper Nics the cleaning assistant was dumping into its mouth. I couldn’t read his name on the tag over his pocket: he looked like a Walter, but I needed him to be closer to be sure. I looked at the hole again and stuck my finger through it from below: it looked like a worm poking its head out. I had a brainwave: resting my finger on the formica, I trimmed the edges of the hole with ketchup and called over the would-be Walter with my free hand.

‘I know it’s the customer’s responsibility here to clear the table once they’ve finished, but you could at least give it a wipe afterwards! Look what I’ve found. What do I do with this? Feed it to the hippopotamus too?’ I protested while checking his name-tag.

Walter Díaz (bingo! another one down) looked at the table in annoyance, his face blurred with indifference, but when he spotted the finger, it came into sharp focus. I was about to explain the trick (always my favourite part of magic shows) when he began to shriek, pointing at me — or rather at my finger — and making the whole place stand up as one and run towards us. I pulled my finger out and left before they could reach us, leaving my free Pumper untouched. I didn’t miss it, though: anyone who’s been to Pumper Nic’s knows that one’s enough.

Luckily, the bus soon turned off Avenida Maipú and took to the side streets, thick with dark, winter vegetation, striped with sun and shade, still covered by the autumn leaves that no one had bothered to rake up. I tried calling Sr Oroño (a.k.a. Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri) all the way, but no one answered, so I decided to drop in personally. I got off near Borges Station and walked two blocks to the address I had. From a distance I could see lots of cars at the door — black cars — and when I got nearer I could see the people standing outside and wreaths. I approached a little old man in a cardigan, who was looking on at the scene in bemused amusement from the opposite pavement.

‘Excuse me … Has there been some … mishap?’

‘Eh? Mishap? Miracle more like. That bastard Oroño had been diddling half the neighbourhood.’

‘They killed him?’

‘Unfortunately not. Heart attack. Are you acquainted?’