Carlos Gamerro - An Open Secret

“What about this?” I ask incredulous in my mirth: “‘Are we in need of a new Christ to visit Malihuel, scourge in hand, cast out the merchants from the temple and lash new stripes into the hides of these ruthless pampas tigers …’”

“Oh now that one bears the hallmarks of Professor Gagliardi,” pronounces Iturraspe. “He used to lend Ezcurra the odd hand with the articles. We all did actually. We’d meet up here say and put words in his pen. That bit about the lakeside Pericles was mine, for example. Used to split our sides laughing I swear. We never thought it would end so badly.”

Unable to stop I read on:

“‘In these days of quick capitulation and shameful moral surrender, one man stands erect, immune to the corrosive gilding of corruption. And that moral fortitude, neither consumed nor undermined, let it be called “quixotic” by the self-righteous revellers in self-seeking lucre, a herd of bimanous pachyderms, quick of tooth and castrated of conscience …’ Are you telling me someone could have taken this seriously enough to have its author wasted?” I finally exclaim.

“If there was one thing old Rosas Paz didn’t have,” Iturraspe replies, less cheerfully this time, “it was a sense of humour.”

THAT NIGHT I’D HAVE TIME to read through the rest of the cuttings. The anachronistic anarchist rhetoric of the early articles lasted a few more months and would occasionally resurface, but it was becoming more and more obvious that Ezcurra had found a new style, albeit not of his own making. It was still broadly in the same spirit; it was the diction and the emphases of certain turns of phrase that had changed spectacularly. Rosas Paz had become an “exploiter”, an “oligarch”, a “sepoy”, a “traitor”, an “imperialist”, and his victims, the “suffering people”, the “working class”, the “shirtless”, the “poor” and the “proletarians”. Ezcurrita was learning a new language and, like children or foreigners, in his enthusiasm he sometimes applied words haphazardly to all kinds of situations and objects. Then suddenly, nothing. In his last year working for the paper: National School № 7 Celebrates Golden Jubilee — Malihuel Girl Named Provincial Honey Queen — Outstanding Performance From Two Messenger Pigeons — A Circus Worth Seeing. Toeing the line. The dates said it all; the only unfathomable thing was that, after putting up with all those weighty allegations, Rosas Paz should’ve wanted to do away with him when he was only writing about basketball tournaments and school shows. I put down the wad of articles at my bedside and lie there staring at the shelf of their cuddly toys in the children’s room, where I’ve been lodged, forcing them out to camp in the living room. Through the wall I can hear Mati and his wife locked in an argument that their confinement and the need to keep it down make all the bitterer and more exasperated. I can’t hear the words but I know I’m the cause.

“WHEN THINGS STARTED GETTING UGLY,” Don Ángel continues between mouthfuls of flan and dulce de leche , “I don’t know if they’d been tightening up on Ezcurrita at the paper or what but he certainly learnt from his mistakes and as far as I can remember he never picked on Rosas Paz again. Tried to stop before all hell broke loose. But it was too late by then wasn’t it. The damage had been done. Know what it reminds me of?”

“A CHIHUAHUA YAPPING at a Great Dane through the railings.” Don León hands me the same version shortly after he and Licho join the table, order a Ferroquina and flick through the sheaf of photocopies. “And now the gate’s open the little pooch stops yapping and reckons it’s not too late. Should’ve stopped sooner. Yes, course I remember, Don Manuel loved to repeat it. He even had a saying, how did it go? Something about dogs and days …”

“Every dog has its day,” I throw in. “It’s an English saying.”

“Must have picked it up from your great-grandfather. And you know what Don Manuel used to say then? He’s had his day to bark, now I want my day to bite. And he was right in a way, can’t say he wasn’t. Ezcurrita was the cock o’ the walk as long as he thought he was safe, but as soon as the boot was on the other foot he clammed up, not another peep. But Don Manuel was left seeing red and wanted blood. Ezcurra got that wrong, dead wrong. He took patience for weakness. I mean Don Manuel could have sent a couple of heavies anytime to a nightclub to knock him about and pass it off as a drunken brawl or smash up the printing press in Toro Mocho but he never did. What Don Manuel wanted was for everyone to know he was right. What he wanted was justice. A public example. It was a matter of honour. His good name had been besmirched and the stains could only be removed with blood. Had these been other times he’d’ve challenged him to a duel but Don Manuel had a very fine almost exquisite sense of ridicule and he wasn’t about to become the town laughing stock. He wore the judges down trying to file a lawsuit, libel and slander I suppose, appearing in person when his lawyers came back empty-handed. He especially targeted Dr Carmona, wouldn’t give her a moment’s peace,” he says and breaks off in annoyance to answer his cellphone, which has been clamouring for his attention from his jacket pocket for several sentences. “Just got here,” he says into the phone, “wait for me, don’t know, another hour or so,” he says fending off what’s apparently a demand from a woman who, seeing as he’s a widower, can only be his daughter, then starts discussing building work on the beach resort as we all patiently sit there, knowing he wouldn’t want us to carry on without him.

“BETWEEN YOU ME and the gatepost I can tell you Don Manuel wasn’t the only one that wanted to pay Ezcurra back,” Guido will confide to me one night after dinner at his house, one of the identical prefabs on the Banco Hipotecario block, located as far away from his parents’ place as the town allows — a mere seven blocks at most. I’ll move in there at his invitation recommending the beneficial effects of childless solitude on my work, a suggestion Mati and his wife would second with nodding enthusiasm. Guido’s wife Leticia will offer me coffee, I’ll accept and Guido will go on with his tale: “There was a society, Don León and Casarico were in it for sure, and the Chief of Police too they say, and … Carving up tourist plots down on the shores of the lagoon, where Don León’s got his resort now, on that little fringe of woodland the floods didn’t get. Ezcurra was flogging that dead horse Expotencia to them and they bought it hook line and sinker. Remember Expotencia?” Nodding, I’ll pull a stapled sheaf of photocopies out of my folder, heftier now than at its last public appearance.

We all have the good fortune to be present at the birth of one of the most promising stages in the history of our nation, a stage in which the former colony is finally beginning to develop into Argentina Potencia, the world power we all long for. At last the dark days of surrender and corruption are coming to an end. Now begins a radiant time of justice and prosperity, of which Malihuel, the demographic, economic and geographical hub of Argentina, must be a part. Separated from Buenos Aires by three hundred and twenty-three kilometres of smoothest tarmac, and from Rosario by one hundred and twenty kilometres of magnificent highway, Malihuel is a beautiful town nestling on one of the banks of the lagoon of the same name — that giant pupil at our country’s heart that was witness in bygone days to the excesses of the unbridled savage and today sports the robes of loftiest civilisation, and the solidest, most shining creations of the restless and eternal human mind. There, by its dreaming shores, a valiant chieftain, lord of our wide open pampas, fought the last battle in defence of his native soil, falling to defeat by the bamboos that spat fire wielded by the white man, uniformed and disciplined in laws that he — a free bird — knew nothing of. But his example lives on, as does that of the heroic gauchos that followed him, figureheads of the struggle for independence. Today, after more than a century and a half, that struggle is about to end in victory. That is why Malihuel, the administrative centre of Coronel González County — the richest of the richest farming region on the face of the earth — has a duty to lead this great march into the future. And so Expotencia was born. Expotencia, the greatest open-air expo in the country — farming machinery in action. Expotencia — a unique showcase for the breakthroughs of today and the promises of tomorrow: cutting-edge irrigation systems, seedbed plots and agrochemicals, cattle shows and competitions, demonstration dairies, intensive cropping, latest-model machinery in action, technical lectures and a full agribusiness, stockbreeding and agroproduct technology portfolio. Over fifty stands, two hundred lovely lady-promoters, twenty telephone lines, a press room, musical numbers, a Provincial Soya Queen Contest … All this and more at Expotencia ’73! Santa Fe’s leading farming and industrial show. Expotencia — yet another attraction to the 45,000 hectares of salt, iodised and curative waters, the golden sands filled with happy laughter and the lapping of waves, the modern ballrooms where social life is free to blossom and flourish, the hard-fought yet harmonious sporting competitions, the internationally renowned shows by artists and musicians … these are the attractions that have made Malihuel Argentina’s foremost inland beach resort, visited year in year out by an endless stream, over half a million strong in the summer months. This is when Expotencia ’73 will open up its doors — an event your grandchildren will one day celebrate as the dawning of a new age. The year 2000 will find us united or downtrodden. And if we are to find union and avoid division, now’s the time to start. If you believe in Malihuel and in Argentina, don’t miss the boat. Sign up for Expotencia ’73!”