17 Stone Angels (23 page)

“‘I always wondered about those terms. They were a little too good to us. They were way too good, as a matter of fact.'

“Pablo opens his mouth and laughs without making a sound. ‘Don't tell me you have forgotten so soon, Robert! Free Trade for all countries! No more
government industries! That was the war cry of the ones who held the notes. And if you don't, well, we send your currency to hell and you have twelve thousand percent inflation! Besides, the airline was inefficient. It was giving only a tiny bit of the profit it should have made.'

“‘But the Spanish have basically shut it down, haven't they? I read that they absorbed all the best international routes and sold off the assets. They plundered it.' The writer goes quiet for a moment. “We fucked them, Pablo. We fucked the entire country.”

“Pablo looks defensive for a moment, then shrugs. ‘We guessed wrong! How were we to know?'

/ / /

Fabian leaned back, smiling. “So
easy, no? To calmly throw one's hands in the air,
Ah! What misfortune! But it wasn't my fault!
How many times have we heard that, eh, Comiso?
It went out of control! The victim acted badly!
Easier still when the men providing the excuses are dressed in such elegant suits and bear the credentials of the finest global institutions. One compiles an
expediente
that always points to one's innocence, because the benefits of finding in one's favor are riches, status, a pretty wife, while to find on the other side, well, one may end up like Robert Waterbury.

“But such thoughts do not trouble Waterbury now; he is lost in his Destiny. The night has become a series of places separated by the interior of Pablo's German automobile. At the Jockey Club they sip their drinks beside a tray of caviar, surrounded by pictures of horses. At the Millionaire's House they play snooker in the billiards room of a classic mansion. Pablo's tastes have changed in the last ten years: the bars are now elegant and tranquil, the acquaintances that greet him have grown older, more petrified with dignity. Before, Pablo had always been deferential and solicitous of such men, addressing them with a winning obsequiousness. Now, in a way Waterbury can't quite quantify, he speaks to them as an equal. Suave and masterly in all currents of life, Pablo has become the fulfilled promise of every promising young man, a personage that Waterbury finds every bit as mythical as his own role of the desperate novelist.

“In this atmosphere any confession is possible. In the back seat of the moving auto, gray shadows slide over them like the fronds of a primitive
jungle: ‘The truth is, Pablo, that it's been very difficult. My financial position is tenuous. The first book did well but the second was a flop, and in this business, one flop is all it takes to go back to the bottom of the pile. After that you're a known quantity, and that quantity is failure. I'm making my last play, Pablo. That's the truth. This is my last play. Maybe I should have just gotten a job or something, but I couldn't. I couldn't surrender.'

“He watches Pablo's face and is seized by the sudden fear that having heard this, his friend will lose faith and extinguish the magical force that animates this night. Pablo is completely in his own thoughts, his eyes gleaming in the street lights and then falling again into darkness as they pass. ‘It's a strange search, Robert. One that I will never make, because it is not my character. But I understand it. I will bank you, amigo. Thus are friends.' And for Robert Waterbury, the globe continues spinning.

“In the last hours they arrive at the tiny Bar Azul, in San Telmo. It is one of those theme bars, where instead of a simple drink one is thought to need entertainment. The theme is that everything in the bar is blue, even the lights, which render everyone ghostly and mysterious. At other times they change the lights to red, or to white. It fits the clientele, a confetti of marginal theater people, filmmakers reeling out experimental films that no one will ever see, supposed writers, painters aspiring or already failed and musicians without work. All know each other and thus buttress each other's fierce pretensions about their world of Art. It's a place of pierced noses and tongues, where those with light hair dye it black, those with black hair dye it purple and those with purple hair shave it off entirely. It won't last long; but for the moment it is very
de moda
, and Pablo finds it amusing.

“On Thursday nights they play tangos in between sets of rock, a half-ironic return to the past which amuses the denizens of the place. It is strange to see them with their tattoos and their metal, listening to the scratchy orchestras of Carlos di Sarli and Oswaldo Pugliese, artists whose
bandoneons
have been silent for fifty years. What tango is playing? It must be “Por Una Cabeza,” because in American movies when they want tango in capital letters they always use that one. In
Schindler's List
, that scene when Schindler meets the Nazis? “Por Una Cabeza.” And that movie with Al Pacino where the blind man dances with the beautiful woman? “Por Una Cabeza.” Always ‘Por Una Cabeza,' or ‘El Choclo,' because gringos know nothing about tango.”

“‘Por Una Cabeza' is a pretty tango,” Fortunato defends. “You can't argue with Carlitos Gardel.”

“Fine.” Fabian threw out his hands. “I concede that point, Comiso. Every day the
boludo
sings better! So, when Pablo and Waterbury arrive, we'll say that the immortal Carlos Gardel is winding through the tragicomic verses of ‘Por Una Cabeza,' lamenting once again the failed romance that lost the horse race of love by only a head. Okay? At that point perhaps Pablo is overcome by that voice of the 1930s, he says, ‘Enough whiskey. Let's drink champagne.'

“Waterbury will wonder later whether the champagne somehow attracted the girl to the table like the bubbles in a magic cauldron. She is passing by and happens to glance at them and come over. She has light hair, which in the Bar Azul is blue hair, cut short and sharp, and pale skin that glows aqua along the slim length of her naked arms and legs. Her one-piece dress sparkles with sequins and ends at the middle of her thigh. She's a pretty woman, with delicate features and a slim, small-boned body that nonetheless has a certain ampleness that attracted his attention. Strangest is that Waterbury feels he recognizes her. She glances at them, then looks a second time more intently, before continuing on her way. Waterbury next sees her standing beside Pablo, bending down to him and speaking above the music. “Aren't you going to invite me to join you, shameless one?”

“Pablo laughs. ‘Forgive me, Señorita. Please . . .' He stands up and pulls a chair out for her, sliding it in beneath her as she seats herself like a bird settling in to a nest. She gives Waterbury an ancient smile, Waterbury quivers slightly inside as he returns it. The feeling of familiarity won't leave him.

“‘Pau1é,'” she says.

“‘Is your accent German or French?' he asks.

“‘French!' she answers. ‘I'm insulted that you even ask me that! The Germans have an overbearing accent in their Spanish, as if every word is a heavy object and they are beating you with it. The French always capture the correct meter.' In truth, she speaks rather badly, a careless salad of genders and tenses, but she doesn't seem to know it and laces it all together with a spoiled coquetry. She signals a passing waiter. ‘
Che mozo!
Another little glass, please.'

“Pablo is making one of our gestures at Waterbury, gathering his fingers together and shaking his hand up and down, as if to say,
Que loca!
She turns
to him in the midst of it, but isn't bothered. ‘And you, Pablo. It's Pablo, no? I remember because I am Paulé, which is the French version. Pablo!'

“‘Yes.'

“‘How's life?'

“‘Life is a river in the Amazon, Paulé. Rich and tranquil and sensual, and always leading to someplace mysterious at the next turn.'

“‘Perhaps for you, my love, life is a river. For others life is a sewer, filthy and mean and always going down a hole.' She touches Waterbury on the arm. ‘And for you? How is life?'

“The champagne must have affected him. He considers his books and his flight to Buenos Aires. ‘Life is a quest.'

“She gives his answer a weary arch of her eyebrows. “A quest for what?”

“Waterbury thinks for a short time. “To unite the world of the imagination with the world of the senses,” he says at last.

“She nods. ‘Fine. I see we have an intellectual at the table. Thank you, Messieur Rimbaud.'

“‘And what is it for you?'

“She looks at the bottom of the champagne that Pablo has just poured for her. ‘It's a quest . . . to get at the place where all these bubbles come from. Salud!' She takes a sip, frowns at the bottle in disappointment. ‘The Cordon Rouge always has too much taste of lanolin!'

“At this Pablo throws his hand to his forehead. ‘She's impossible, this woman!'

“‘Not impossible,' she corrects him. ‘Just improbable.'

“Waterbury watches the improbable woman who has improbably invited herself to their table. She seems to know Pablo and he can't escape the feeling that he knows her.

“‘And what do you do?' he asks her.

“‘I'm a dancer. I dance the tango. I'm also an actress, and I do some modeling.'

“At this last Pablo seems doubly amused.

“‘How did you end up in Buenos Aires?' Waterbury asks.

“‘You've heard of Virulazo, haven't you?'

“‘He was one of the great dancers of tango,' Pablo explains. ‘Very famous.'

“‘Virulazo and his wife were dancing in Paris, and I met them there. I was a student of dramatic arts at the Sorbonne at that time. From them I
learned the tango, and I returned to Buenos Aires to continue my studies. For a time, I danced at the Teatro Colon. I also maintain a studio of psychiatric dance pedagogy.'

“Waterbury asks what that is.

“‘It's my own creation to help people learn about their inner psyche through theater and dance.'

“Pablo pretends to take it very seriously, but Waterbury can see the arch expression lurking behind his ‘How interesting!' Paulé says to him, ‘You're a businessman, I know. What about your friend from the United States? Is he a businessman too?'

“‘No,' Pablo says with real pride. ‘He's a novelist. He's here making investigations for his next novel.'

“‘How pretty. And have you published anything?'

“The writer sums up the languages and the prizes in a slightly bored tone of voice.

“‘Oh!' She turns and looks at Waterbury, her face suddenly losing its disdain and seeming genuinely impressed, like a student of literature at the Sorbonne. At that moment Waterbury recognizes her with a shock that makes him feel faint. She is the woman he'd seen on all fours with a man at each end on the computer monitor at Pablo's internet site. The dissonance between the burning image from the website and the real person in front of him blanks his mind. Beneath those clothes is that body, with the same mouth, the same buttocks. One could say that Waterbury had finally succeeded in unifying the world of the imagination with the world of the senses, only to find himself astounded at the unexpected result.

“Having entered into the dominion of the imagination, though, Waterbury is pulled still further inside. A man comes over and asks Paulé to dance. She accepts, and as Waterbury watches her follow him to the floor he cannot resist seeking the woman in the photo beneath the glittering one-piece dress and the high-heels. The man has curly black hair and a small mustache, a cinematic
tanguero
in a button-down gray shirt and pleated black pants. Waterbury imagines him fucking her in a picture. He clutches her to him, and to the tune of ‘El Choclo' they begin to spin and lean through the complex steps of the dance. Their faces are severe. They look past each other, a thousand kilometers apart. Each of them do completely different steps, out of the hundreds of tango steps, and yet they
match perfectly. They lean together, they pivot, he slides his foot in a crescent while she turns her knee. The man leads and the woman follows, and yet so tightly are they bound together that no one can say that he truly dominates her.

“‘The girl dances!' Pablo says, and Waterbury nods, astonished behind his glass of champagne.

“She returns to the table when the music ends and she begins to ask him about his books. Waterbury is still cowed by the photo of her with the men, but her face becomes that of the young student at the Sorbonne. “And what were your books about?”

“‘
The Black Market
was about an international banker who goes on a business trip with his wife. The wife disappears and he starts to look for her, but then he starts running into all these dead people. What it turns out is that he's in the Underworld, and only when he confronts the lies about his life and his work can he get out again.'

“‘It was excellent!' Pablo adds.

“‘The second,
Indigo Down
. . .' He feels almost embarrassed at the memory. ‘It's about an advertising campaign. It was tied in with the Bible, prophecy, things like that.' He discards the book. ‘Now I want to write one about Buenos Aires, a thriller type. Something they can fit into one of their little niches.'