Carlos Gamerro - An Open Secret

“DARÍO’S MOTHER HAD STARTED going from house to house asking people if they knew anything about her son,” Clara Benoit had told me the afternoon I went to see her at the new beach resort her father’s trying to build on the ever-shifting shores of the muddy lagoon, “and when I found out I couldn’t stand it any longer and went to look for her, I found her at Majul’s store talking to his wife who I think wanted to tell her but Babil who’s still alive never took his eyes off her to make sure she kept her mouth shut and after Delia’d said Well thanks if you hear anything I beg you please let me know straight away I went out with her. And I remember a couple of people were walking past on the sidewalk and when they realised what was going on — because anyone could tell from Delia’s face — they crossed the street and disappeared. And when I’d finished Delia stood there staring at me I was crying she wasn’t and she said to me You’re lying. You’ve wanted Darío dead ever since he left you but God will punish you for this injury you’re doing me she said with this faraway look in her eyes and then she turned on her heels and headed in the direction of the headquarters walking like a disjointed doll and a couple of times she almost fell over, then picked herself up and carried on again, and I ran after her and caught up with her halfway down the block and offered to go with her and she turned round and pointed to the church and said again God will punish you and I couldn’t go on following her after that see?”

“ALL RIGHT if just supposing if there’d been some misfortune the best thing is to let people know as soon as possible even if it hurts, but would you believe it by now there were people in town who were saying the boy was dead imagine if the news had reached his mother’s ears, people repeat the first thing they hear without caring whether it’s true or not, what I reckon is that Delia she must’ve heard something and panicked, and maybe the person who told her even thought they were doing her a favour and actually did her a terrible injury, imagine a mother being told that about her only son, I sometimes wonder if it’s thoughtlessness or just plain wickedness. Imagine the pair of us waiting for them to come out me as soon as I could I dropped all the lunch things like that and rushed off to Clota’s when I see her heading over in floods of tears couldn’t speak for crying and I called to Chesi and between the pair of us we made her a nice cup of tea and patted her hand There there till she was in a fit state to speak, said Delia had raised her voice to her beloved Armando and he says How dare you drag my wife into this and Delia I’ll drag your wife and oh Fefe I can’t repeat what she said how upset the woman must have been, I’d never have thought it possible if it hadn’t been Clota that was telling me, I know Delia regretted it later and went and apologised and asked her again to help, but you know Clota she might be a very nice person but she had her dignity and never opened the door to her again, not if she comes on bended knee she told us I don’t want to hear that woman’s name again as long as I live.”

“That isn’t what happened,” says Chesi.

“I’LL DRAG YOUR WIFE and that little whore you fuck at the motel and who the hell else I like into it.” Don León would restore the censored sentence at the table in Los Tocayos that same afternoon for the benefit of my ears dulled by an imminent bout of flu, and Sacamata senior would add with a smile: “Now there was a woman with balls I mean the whole town knew about Neri’s chinita except his wife, and she came out with it just like that, no anaesthetic.”

“Except she said it to her at the Yacht Club,” Don León would correct him, “how could I forget, I was there and so were let’s see us two the pharmacist and possibly Dr Lugozzi too I don’t know if you’ve met him. But not his wife, definitely not, that thing about the chinita she didn’t say it in front of his wife, you’re wrong there. But apart from that she didn’t pull any punches. Murderer son of a bitch was the least she said to him and the Superintendent didn’t know what to do to stop her see he really wasn’t expecting that, had it all worked out but that’s where his calculations let him down, he hadn’t counted on Delia’s fury. Anyway I think Delia was wrong to confront the chief of police like that, he had her son’s life in his hands. She was putting him between the Devil and the deep blue sea. If she hadn’t challenged him like that the lad might still be alive today.”

“CHESI’S RIGHT,” laughs her sister, “I think your Auntie Porota got all fuddled up. What a scream! It’s just it’s been so many years. What I was just telling you happened later didn’t it Chesi. It was later they told Delia her son’d been killed and that it’d been Clota’s husband that did it, and that was where the last fight broke out, the parting of the ways. That’s what happened wasn’t it? I’ve gone and got things in such a twist I swear and now I don’t know where to start untangling them. Because Clota if you remember went to see her one more time, and that must have been before she came out with that thing about the chinita poor Clota such a nice person I swear she was because all right what her husband did was wrong but what did she have to do with it and she was so very fond of Delia worshipped the ground she walked on inconsolable she was and said to us she says to us I’ll go and see her. I’ll go and see her she says to us, the three of us were there and we offer to go with her but she says No, thank you from the bottom of my heart she says to us but we’ve got to sit down and talk this out just Delia and me, alone, she can’t go listening to the tongues wagging against my husband because instead of asking for bribes he enforces the law I’m sure if we can have a heart-to-heart it’ll clear up any misunderstandings, poor Clota, she knew the Delia that went shopping or out for tea but she didn’t know her the way we did all her little ways so it came as no surprise to us just imagine Clota broken-hearted but, Delia, I don’t understand, I beg you, in the name of our old friendship I beg you, she told us later well you can just imagine Delia. Old friendship? Your husband has taken my son away from me. What the … pardon my French Fefe, I’m repeating it word for word, What the fucking hell are you talking about, she said to her, would you believe it, all foul-mouthed she’d gone, you hear all sorts on the television nowadays but I don’t know from a man all right but not from a woman, but you know what it’s like, there are people who give themselves airs and graces acting grand and if you scratch the surface a little bit with your nail like this their loutish side comes out. So I don’t know if it was that night or one of the following nights see that Delia went to the Yacht Club to confront Armando who used to go there too for a hand of cards with his pals, Chesi’s husband amongst them, he was the one who told us, so you see we’re not just spouting gossip. I don’t know I don’t even want to remember the things she said to him and I’m sure because I knew him well that he didn’t stoop so low as to answer back except at one point anyway with dignity he tells her I’ve already told you the Neris lost a little one so Armando says to Delia Señora I’ve lost a son too but I knew how to keep my grief to myself with dignity. And he was right in a way wasn’t he.”

“YES, THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED,” Don León would confirm. “Neri shot himself in the foot. And Señora Delia went sort of round the bend, but what do you expect? He’d just told her her son was dead.”

“AND RIGHT THERE to give you an idea she tells Neri he was lying right to his face, that she knew her son was locked up in the jailhouse and the Superintendent gives her his word he wasn’t at headquarters well you can’t say that wasn’t true and that must’ve been when Delia said that thing about his wife because the Superintendent got up on the spot and told her Señora you can say whatever you like to me but I repeat don’t go dragging my family into it and listen carefully would you believe Delia looks him up and down and spits out And what right have you got to have a family? just like that she came out with it what right have you got to have a family I mean I understand you can be blinded by hatred or pain but anyway it’s not the sort of thing you say that’s something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Must’ve been later I don’t know Chesi if you remember what your husband told us wasn’t it that Delia sort of clicked and says to him And if he’s dead where is he if my son’s dead I want you to give him to me she started screaming and if someone tried to calm her down she’d turn on them, and of course nobody was going to get her out of there by force, she was still Doña Delia de Ezcurra and they weren’t going to lay a finger on her so it was Armando who had to back down, and to cap it all he didn’t have the car and Delia followed him down the sidewalk screaming murderer at him in front of everybody luckily Dr Lugozzi had taken his and caught up with him and gave him a lift home right Chesi? There was no stopping Delia by then she was in the grips of a kind of frenzy wanting to find out what had happened, knocking on doors and sometimes not even knocking and walking straight inside as if they were hiding her son in there or stopping someone and asking them out of the blue as if everybody knew what did people know they didn’t know if he was dead or alive besides given the boy’s reputation a lot of people’d think he’d seen the creditors coming and turned tail there are still people today who claim he’s alive I don’t know who told me they saw him somewhere in Peyrano just imagine if it’s true the pointless suffering he caused his mother there are some things that just aren’t done there you go you’re right it was Casilda you’re becoming quite an expert on the life of the … it’s a book you’re going to write is it? And are people over there going to be interested in something that happened so many years ago in a little town in the provinces? You know better anyway as I was telling you she covered the town from house to house asking questions or for help first from how can I put it the VIPs who ran from her like the plague by then, ’specially when the patrol car started tailing her all day so you’d open the door to her and she’d start rabbiting on at you twenty to the dozen and raising her voice besides and while the patrol car crept slowly past behind her she couldn’t see it but of course you could and you were the one the policemen inside were looking at. It happened to your Uncle Rodolfo it did and he came in white as a sheet poor man and told me That woman isn’t to set foot in this house again don’t let me find out you’ve let her in when I’m not here if she wants to join her son at the bottom of the lagoon that’s her business and that’s what must have happened everywhere because she how can I put it started lowering her standards eventually she ended up ringing on the doorbells of the waiter at the bar, the school janitor, the butcher out in the Colonia, what do you make of it Fefe, a woman once so refined? So one day I couldn’t stand it any longer and I say to her, I said to Chesi Look Chesi, if they have to kill us let them kill us but things can’t go on like this. I’m going to see Delia come hell or high water and if you don’t want to come I’ll go on my own but I can’t sit idly by with my arms folded and she I remember it clear as day put down her knitting and went to fetch a headscarf and stood there handbag in hand all ready to go, just like that without a word, like a little soldier by the door remember Chesi?” asks Auntie Porota with sisterly affection, and Chesi nods before casting on to the next row.