No One Loves a Policeman (39 page)

“I heard he was pleased to see you. You shot him in the back of the head while he was pouring you coffee.”

“What was I supposed to do, read him his rights? Who told you all this anyway? He lived alone, he died alone.”

“No, he didn't live or die alone. He was separated from his wife and had a young daughter. Over time she grew up and learned to dance the tango.”

Burgos flashed his lights and signaled for us to stop at a service-station café.

“I'm asleep at the wheel,” he said, staring into his mug of black coffee. “I can tell because what I'm dreaming about has nothing to do with the road in front. All of a sudden I find myself on a Caribbean island, stretched out on the beach, surrounded by dead bodies. I don't have to do the autopsies because in a couple of hours the sun splits them open like the sharpest scalpel. That's the life!”

Ayala and Rodríguez were fast asleep in the back of the V.W. Isabel told Burgos that perhaps he should have a rest too.

“No, I prefer to nod off on the straights,” the doctor replied. “You stay close behind me, and sound your horn if I start doing zigzags.”

So we set off again. It was still three hundred kilometers to Bahía Blanca, and night was falling. We did not try to stop the doctor driving. We trusted to fate. “Nothing will happen that is not already written,” Isabel said, although she confessed she was worried, not about Burgos and his companions, but about me.

“I thought I knew you, Gotán. Daddy had such a romantic view of you.”

“He kept the truth from you. Nobody is proud of having a policeman for a friend. We're the hidden face, the Mr. Hydes for all those Dr. Jekylls with secretaries and the latest mobiles. And worse still, even if the revolution we were fighting for had triumphed, we would have gone on being policemen. At least capitalism gave me the opportunity to sell toilets.”

Isabel had learned all she knew from the person the G.R.O. called La Negra, when she was still convinced she would be killed. La Negra had been made responsible for her; she had to decide what to do with Cárcano's daughter if she did not reveal the number of the account where the New Man Foundation money was deposited.

“I don't think any of the top people wanted to get their hands dirty by killing me. If there was blood to be spilled, they preferred to have someone else do it.”

“That's why they are leaders.”

“Your tango-dancing friend had been with them right from the start, when they first began to plot against the recycled pseudo-left they thought were behind the people who won the 1999 elections. They were children of military fathers, like the one you did away with while he was serving you coffee. Nostalgic for the past. A small organization, but well
financed. They soon realized that harking back to dictatorships was not going to win anybody over, because today even the most Neanderthal fascists claim to be democratic. So they changed their tune to try to recruit people from the other side who were similarly nostalgic.”

“The ‘national revolution,'” I said. “Empty slogans like that sent a whole generation to the slaughterhouse.”

“Daddy believed in something like that.”

“So did Toto Lecuona—and so did I, if it comes to that. Socialism, but with limits, capitalism, but kept under control. We were told there were officers who refused to serve the oligarchy and wanted to place the armed forces at the service of the people. We were shot in the back.”

“Why did you join them, Gotán? To make a better world, to get shot in the back?”

“Religion. I always had metaphysical doubts. I wanted to believe, although it's obvious I failed. I am a policeman, Isabel. Ever since I was a kid I liked the idea of arresting someone who steals an old lady's purse. I was always a policeman when we played at cops and robbers; I never hesitated to thrash cheats, or to kill birds with my catapult. I come from a proud working-class family: my father never stole from anyone. He was a railway worker who got sacked under Perón. For going on strike—one hell of a supporter of popular movements Perón was. That was why I could never believe in those mutants either. Evita the saint who became a devil after Perón was toppled and we were forbidden to even mention their names. My father never recovered: in those days, to be a railway worker was to be part of a privileged caste, like being a military man. When he was kicked out it was like losing his stripes. The day after I graduated from police academy, he used my service revolver to kill himself. ‘A policeman for a son, that's all I need,' he said—and shot himself. If you wanted me to sing you a tango, I have a good one. But I don't want to talk about the past any more.”

“What have you just been doing, then?”

“Talking about love, Isabel. Don't be surprised, even the most ruthless executioners fall in love. Who can escape it?”

When we reached the turn-off to Bahía Blanca, I said goodbye to Don Quixote, Sancho Panza and the doctor. We swore to meet again one day. Democracy owed us, but since she was never likely to pay up, we said we would meet at least to celebrate the fact that we were still alive.

“Take care eating that rustled meat,” I said to Burgos.

“And you, Don Gotán, stop hunting for girlfriends in your box of memorabilia.”

“Carry on selling toilets,” Ayala recommended.

“Now I understand why you didn't make a career of it in the National Shame,” Rodríguez said. “You're a great guy, when you're not killing people.”

“And you two, make sure you stick together,” I said. “You still have a great future as a comic double act.”

There was a sort of shuffle, a warmth soon stifled by embarrassment, arms half-raised for an embrace, mouths twisted in our lined faces, weary from our absurd odyssey. In the end we said and did nothing more, but turned on our heels and refused to look back as the sky-blue V.W. and the 4×4 rented by an already-dead companion set off in opposite directions.

So your childhood dream had always been one of vengeance. While other girls were playing with dolls, you were playing with my dead body.

After that you grew up, fell in love, thought you had forgotten.

The night we met was a card played by the great cardsharp in the sky, the one who never shows his hand, the one who comes back to life just when everyone thinks he is dead. Your disgust when you discovered I was a policeman, your horror when you found out what kind of a policeman: it was all there in the cards, so how could we not go on playing?

You see, lady-who-danced-the-tango, nobody knows exactly what they are up against. The people who compiled the orange file did not find out half the details of my unofficial biography. Patricio Quesada would not have been butchered like the cattle Burgos enjoyed eating so much if, before he set off for Mediomundo, he had been aware of just who he was allying himself with. But free will is a farce: the only freedom we have is to choose our enemies.

From the time we said goodbye to the three musketeers until we reached the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Isabel and I hardly spoke.

Strikers had cut off access to the capital. Tires were burning in the streets, there were men with sticks and placards, some with their faces hidden under balaclavas like decaffeinated Chiapas
guerrilleros
, others with their faces bare, unkempt-looking women, kids who had gone
straight from their mothers' milk to cartons of cheap wine. They all seemed to be beating drums or dustbin lids and handing out leaflets—even the dogs were handing out leaflets. They were celebrating the great victory of overthrowing a constitutional government which they claimed not to have elected. There are no heroes in Argentina, because nobody ever admits to having chosen to play on the losing side.

A tall man, unsteady on his feet and with a face that would have terrified the serial killer kicking his heels in Bahía Blanca jail, called for a round of applause for the supermarket looters. He told all the cornershop Koreans to go back home and eat dogs. He laughed at the candidates queuing up outside the presidential palace, and prophesied a short stay for whoever was ultimately chosen. Applause, shouts,
chamamés
from northern Argentina, red flags, black flags, Argentine flags, huge banners and small posters, “United we will win!,” “Las Golondrinas,” “Popular justice!,” “Kick them all out!” Just when it seemed we were doomed to listen to a wearisome stream of speeches and a whole C.D.'s worth of
chamamés
, the barricades were suddenly lifted and we could proceed into the capital.

The people up in arms in the center were the middle classes. Wearing balaclavas was definitely not the done thing for these hoarders of dollars and fixed-term deposit rebels, all ready to lay down their lives for the right to carry on flying to Miami. Well dressed and with fashionable footwear, they refused to accept the government's excuses as to why they could not have access to their money in the banks. They knew they would never get their hands on it, but in defeat found a dignity they had never shown when they thought they were different and better than all the dark-skinned inhabitants of Latin America.