Carlos Gamerro - An Open Secret

“A MURDER IN A SMALL TOWN.”

“Why here of all places?” asks Mati.

“It’s the only small town I know.”

“Is that why you’ve come back?”

“And to see you all.”

“So what’s it going to be? A film?” enquires Mati again.

“Or a book. Not sure yet,” I reply.

Don Ángel’s third call to table spares me from giving any further details:

“Dinner’s ready che ! I know you’ve got some catching up to do but do it later.”

“Fefe I look at you and I swear I can’t believe you’re really here,” blurts Guido, who’s so far said next to nothing. “How many years has it been?”

I’m slow to answer because I’m hauling myself up from the sofa, whose springs my body has recognised with consummate ease, as I eye the souvenirs of trips to Europe and the Middle East that the current occupants of the house have never made, and rediscover the roughness of the old tiles under my feet — the furniture, the ornaments, the floors of the house that used to belong to my grandparents until their lifelong neighbours, the Tuttolomondos, bought it from them. “I’m back in Malihuel,” I say to myself in mild amazement. “Back in Malihuel.”

“’Bout twenty isn’t it?” I eventually reply.

“SO YOU WANT to write about Malihuel do you? Someone’s already written a hydrographic survey on the lagoon, donkeys’ years ago, ’bout roughly … When was it Nene?”

On the corner of the main street and the one variously known as Post Office, Phone Centre, Courts or Yacht Club Street stands the most traditional bar in Malihuel, Los Tocayos, whose current landlord, Don Porfirio Dupuy, is a direct descendent of one of the two Hipólitos that opened the original establishment. Three blue doors on the main street and two on the other provide access to a vast vertical expanse of sea-green walls, barely alleviated by their lining of varnished wood cladding, the framed photos of Don Porfirio’s pampered pups, the trophies from the Colón dog track and a Chinese imitation antique clock. The premises are L-shaped, with a billiard table and two Foosball tables at the far end of the long arm, and the bar tables in the short one and the elbow, evidently arranged around the one presided over night in night out by Don León Benoit.

“Nineteen seventy-three,” the waiter answers without hesitation.

“Nene’s our walking encyclopaedia, there’s only Professor Gagliardi knows more than he does. And there isn’t much in it mind. Is it something like that you’re going to write?” Don León asks.

“No,” I counter.

“He’s a real writer,” Guido sitting next to me sets him straight. “He writes stories, novels … Literature,” he adds, in a nutshell.

“Oh, we’ve got that here too. If it’s literature you’re interested in I imagine you’ll have read His Honour’s Dream , it’s set right here in Malihuel, tells the whole story of our foundation it does. No there’s a lot been written about this town believe you me, don’t write us off, the other towns hereabouts may be bigger but they don’t have our history. We’ve been here since colonial times you know. The lagoon’s right there on the very oldest maps. The Northern Frontier ran through here. Indian territory back then. We suffered several raids, and the civil wars to boot. There was a fort here razed to the ground by none other than General Lavalle himself, on his way north. We’ve got history to burn here. ‘A town of two centenaries,’ as the song goes. So it’s literature is it? I was told you were interested in geography or ecology, goodness knows why. Who was it told me Nene?”

“Licho.”

“See where idle chatter gets you? And there was I finding out about the chemical composition of the lagoon water, which as you know is highly medicinal. Is that any use?”

“Careful, he’ll try and rope you into the beach-resort business next,” Guido chimes in, and Don León smiles.

“The town’ll go back to living off the lagoon again one day, and then they’ll have to put up a statue of me right next to the Comandante’s. Now there’s a tale to be told, the one about the Comandante’s statue.”

“Right, sure,” I nod. “I had something more recent in mind though from the last I dunno twenty years at the outside,” I say, and then, sensing or imagining a buzz of alarm, I explain: “It’ll be a work of fiction though, right, not a document? I mean the town in my story’ll have lots in common with this one, the setting, the lagoon, that kind of thing, but …”

It wasn’t as easy to explain as I’d first thought.

“I’m even going to change the name so there won’t be any mix-ups, you know, people coming up to me afterwards saying no it isn’t like that, it wasn’t like that at all … I’m going to change the name,” I repeat.

“Uh-huh,” Don León remarks. “And what are you going to call it if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Malihuel,” I reply. “The town in my story’s called Malihuel.”

“CRIMES HERE IN MALIHUEL as I can remember … Can you remember any Vicente?” Don Ángel asks his brother.

“There was that one case ages ago now, you weren’t even born,” Vicente replies. “That business at the Arana Hotel. Remember?”

“Do I. The number of times I must’ve heard it. You know how it goes don’t you Fefe?” Don Ángel asks me.

“Mamá used to make me check under her bed every night to make sure Señora Arana’s killer wasn’t there. In Buenos Aires as well!” I answer.

“Travelling fabric salesman he was, I met him once,” Vicente’s voice starts up but is overtaken by his brother’s.

“Don’t know about under but definitely on top. Most people reckoned the salesman was just the lover and it was the husband who …” He stabs the air with his knife. “Anyway they ended up pinning the dead wife on the guy. Two birds with one stone Arana killed. Closed the hotel not long after that and scarpered. You can still see the walls out in the Colonia opposite the station. You taken him to see it yet Mati?”

Don Ángel is sitting at the head of the table at the welcome dinner the Tuttolomondos have laid on for me. Naturally, I’ve been accorded one of the places of honour at his side; his elder brother Vicente, the other.

“We could drop by tomorrow afternoon if it dries up a bit,” answers my inseparable childhood friend, Mati, sitting next to me. The days I spend in Malihuel I’ll be staying at his house, which had belonged to his parents until they bought my grandparents’ house.

“The roads in the Colonia are impossible when it rains,” Don Ángel confirms. “Is it something like that you’re going to write Fefe?”

“Something like that,” I lie. “A crime novel I thought. I thought it would be a good idea to set it here in Malihuel. You know … crime committed in Malihuel, population three thousand, everyone knows everyone else, no outsiders in town that night. So the murderer’s got to be one of them. Everyone suspects everyone else. Or maybe it’s a conspiracy the whole town’s in on.”

“You’re unlikely to get anyone in this town in on anything,” quips Guido, philosophically buttering a roll and asking his brother with a nudge of the elbow and a flick of the eyebrows to pass the salt. Mati obliges with a growl.

“’Specially when there are people who can’t even get on with their own family don’t you reckon?” Don Ángel spears a last mouthful of pionono with his fork after speaking. Guido chews his buttered roll and shrugs.