The Buenos Aires Quintet (29 page)

‘D’you remember me?’

‘Whether you’re Beatriz or Marta, you are unforgettable. But do you remember me? From Spain? The Frigola case? Do you remember Señor Frigola?’

But all she does is give a little laugh, as if he had paid her a compliment. Then she says, hurriedly:

‘Leonardo is in jail. But not for long.’

‘I know.’

At that point he notices that Marta is accompanied by an elegant-looking young man, who is waiting for her at a discreet distance.

‘It’s over between us – I mean, the relation there was between Leonardo and me. But we’re still good friends. I go and visit him every week. Don’t worry. I don’t want any more suicides on my conscience.’

‘You really are dangerous. Men just love to kill and commit suicide for you.’

Marta laughs crazily, and brushes Carvalho’s lips with hers before slinking off to her table. Carvalho sits down again, and refuses to satisfy Gálvez’s silent curiosity. Marta has eased herself into a chair opposite her companion, and takes advantage of the first glass of champagne to turn towards Carvalho and toast him in the distance. The detective returns her gesture. Gálvez finally admits his curiosity.

‘Who is that? Might I be allowed to know?’

‘She’s a no-good woman, and no-good women can cost you your life or your fortune, or both. D’you like no-good women?’

‘I know the man she’s with. He’s the son of Leonardo, who runs a lingerie business.’

‘Didn’t he join a sect?’

‘I don’t know the latest details. But to answer your question – yes, I like no-good women. They fascinate me.’

Carvalho spreads his hand, palm up, as if offering Gálvez the opportunity to take his chance with Marta.

‘Go on then, but try not to kill anyone while you’re at it.’

The no-good woman has been following their conversation, openly ignoring the stern words her companion seems to be addressing to her. She gives Gálvez Jr. a knowing look, which he returns, raising his glass too in a silent toast.

Chapter 4

Borges
’
Love Child

The oldest port area of Buenos Aires, far beyond the La Boca that tourists know. A man of around forty, badly dressed and unkempt, although something in his demeanour speaks of what used to be called ‘good breeding’ – but this might just be the cautious way he moves. He glances suspiciously up and down the street. Eventually decides to enter one of the abandoned shops. He seems to hesitate in his choice of a corner, but gradually relaxes and pulls out a syringe, then starts to prepare his heroin ritual. Shoots up. A broad smile spreads across his anxious features. A second man appears. A light behind him means the first one cannot see who it is. The addict’s face shows only pleasure and trust. Then suddenly the newcomer’s fist is raised, and starts to pound the other’s face. He receives the blows without a murmur. His empty eyes watch as the fist smashes them shut in an explosion of star-filled darkness. He takes a dozen blows to the head, delivered by an ever more incensed attacker. Finally his body slumps to the floor, alongside the uninvolved, almost dainty shoes of his assailant.

A coffered ceiling, alabaster busts, marble, tear-drop chandeliers. A very theatrical setting for a press conference. Television cameras, journalists crowding round, radio reporters with phallic microphones stuck to their lips, the electric shock energy of important events. Then comes the dramatic pause before a great announcement and a serious, deep voice declaims, as if from the heavens:

The span of heaven measures my glory.
Libraries in the East vie for my works.
Emirs seek me, to fill my mouth with gold.
The angels know my latest lyrics by heart.
The tools I work with are pain and humiliation.
Would that I had been born dead.

All the journalists – and not just the sports reporters sent to cover what they were told was a patriotic literary event – look startled, up at the ceiling to try to discover where the voice of this exotic god may be coming from. As the recital of the poem draws to a close, a strange figure steps out from behind the curtains: it looks as if it is Jorge Luis Borges himself.

‘Borges!’ everyone exclaims, even the sceptics and those who aren’t even aware the poet is dead.

The imposing figure is in full control of the situation, and he takes advantage of the general amazement to stride to the centre of the platform, to stare gravely at the assembled journalists, and to declare in the most Borgesian of voices: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Ariel Borges, and I am Jorge Luis Borges’ love child.’

This announcement is greeted by murmurs, whispers, some whistled dissent, until the alleged son of Borges raises his arms to silence his audience.

‘I am the biggest story of the century, and I’ll even give you the headline for your pieces: The Best-Kept Secret in Universal Literature.’

Cameras flash, the TV lights snap on. The supposed Ariel Borges is besieged by the journalists’ recorders, microphones, urgent questions:

‘How did such a phenomenon occur?’

‘My mother was the daughter of an eccentric English lord and a princess from Samarkand. She was a dancer, and she met my father during a tour of Argentina.’

‘What kind of a dancer? A belly dancer?’

‘My mother was an artiste, a contortionist. She could dance the dance of the cygnets like a spider – like Carlota von Usslser used to do, bent backward on all fours, spinning on her hands and feet.’

‘How did your mother succeed in being fecundated by the undoubtedly eminent writer Jorge Luis Borges?’

‘In order not to offend Aunty Nora or Aunty Victoria, my father – Borges, that is – never publicly acknowledged his paternity. My mother always explained this by saying that instead of semen, Jorge Luis had writing ink inside him, and to admit he could have had a child horrified him, because it was tantamount to saying all his inkwells had dried up.’

‘How are you when it comes to inkwells?’

Borges Jr. does not even blink. Instead he bows, and from behind the curtains a scrawny rag of a woman steps out. Apart from a slight disdain, her face betrays no emotion. She looks like a tiny schoolteacher made up to look like an old woman refusing to admit her age. She is smoking a pipe, and pushing a supermarket trolley overflowing with books. As she hands them out to the journalists, she calls out their titles, like a soulless robot:
Secret Letter to My Father,
and
Universal History of Infamy.
As she does this, Borges Jr.’s voice booms out through the room:

‘I am the son of a king and a princess, and through my veins flows the blood or ink that helped Wordsworth write his
Ode to Immortality
.’

Some hours later, he displays exactly the same attitude in front of the TV cameras in an air-conditioned studio, with a décor appropriate to the literary event of the century. In close-up, Ariel Borges repeats the phrase he pronounced for the assembled journalists: ‘I always say I am the son of a king and a princess, and that through my veins flows the ink or blood that helped Wordsworth write his
Ode to Immortality
.’

The camera pulls back to reveal Borges Jr. next to a presenter who seems to have escaped from one of Jorge Luis Borges’ literary fantasies. They are in bed. She is in her slip, while Borges is wearing a tweed jacket, his tie poking out from above the sheets, and his fingers interlaced around a cup of tea.

‘So you are the happy fruit of a poetic encounter, an encounter between Borges and the descendant of a princess from Samarkand.’

‘My granny’

‘That’s right, your granny. There is something magical about that encounter. How did it happen?’

The son’s eyes widen as he starts the story of how his life might have begun.

‘My mother was performing in a small theatre in Palermo Chico that no longer exists, and my papa went to see her one night with all his usual group: Victoria Ocampo, Aunty Nora, Uncle Guillermo, who was Spanish, and Bioy. If only Bioy would say what he knew – but he doesn’t want to share Borges with anyone. That night...’

His face fades from the screen, and a group of actors dramatize the flashback. The probable lack of truth of the scene is reinforced by the unreal way it is represented. The contortionist is still smoking her pipe as she wheels around flung backwards on hands and feet, to a simple piano accompaniment. Amidst the smoke and dim lights of the auditorium the figure of Borges can be seen, played by his alleged son. At a certain point in the dance, he stands up and begins to recite:

Four-footed at dawn, in the daytime tall,
and wandering three-legged down the hollow
reaches of evening: thus did the sphinx,
the eternal one, regard his restless fellow,
mankind; and at evening came a man
who, terror-struck, discovered as in a mirror
his own decline set forth in the monstrous image,
his destiny, and felt a chill of terror.
We are Oedipus and everlastingly
we are the long tripartite beast; we are
all that we were and will be, nothing less.
It would destroy us to look steadily
at our full being. Mercifully, God grants us
the ticking of the clock, forgetfulness.

The contortionist pauses in her dangerous dance. She has become a polyhedron of flesh, her legs crossed above her head as she peers out into the audience, as if trying to make out the poet. When she does not succeed, still in her extraordinary position, she takes a pair of glasses out of some unlikely fold in her ballerina’s dress, puts them on, and renews the puffing on her pipe. A few moments later, she returns to her feet, and walks off down the theatre aisle, leading Borges by the hand. He is big and shambling, as slow and clumsy as if he were already blind. Both the aisle and the corridor they disappear along look unreal; and at the same time the voice of Borges Jr. can be heard commentating:

“And they transcended the corridors of memory itself until they found themselves in the shared future of a bed of tears and lust.”’

The corridor ends in a dressing-room; as the door opens, we see it is entirely filled with a huge four-poster bed with baroque columns. The contortionist drops Borges’ hand and rushes to the bed, where once again she twists herself in knots, but with her sex pointing out in the right direction, ready to receive her lover, who leaps on her in a sudden uncontrollable rush of desire and passion. Even though her body is contorted on itself, she goes on calmly smoking her pipe.

Then we are back with the reality of the set, where the presenter is poking fun at Borges Jr.

‘Well! What you’ve told us is quite fantastic, in the Borgesian and in the absolute sense of the term.’

‘In the Borgesian and in the absolute sense, maybe. But not in the relative sense of the word.’

‘No of course, not in the relative sense. But tell me, what would you like to be called? Borges? Borges Junior? Junior?’

‘Anything but Junior.’

Carvalho is in his apartment, watching the interview with the alleged son of Borges and the dramatization of his conception, beating a bowlful of eggs as he does so. The presenter is asking: ‘What would you like to be called? Borges? Borges Junior? Junior?’

‘Anything but Junior.’

Carvalho likes the answer. He goes on beating the eggs.

What is left of the world seen through a whisky glass? Shelves full of all the bottles of drink available to the clients of Tango Amigo. Carvalho has already found his answer, and can see that Alma is doing the same, but without a filter. She is also puzzled at the vast array of bottles, but has no whisky glass. The club is filling up, as people sit at the tables with their marble lamps. Alma is softly drinking a soft drink, a milk shake made with a fruit she has not bothered to investigate. Carvalho’s words reach her from afar.

‘I swear the guy takes himself seriously. He was talking about his father as though he really believed it was Borges. But I know his face.’

‘That’s because he looks like Jorge Luis. If he didn’t, there wouldn’t be so much fuss.’

‘But I’ve seen him somewhere before.’

‘In an earlier incarnation, perhaps. Were you a contortionist in your previous incarnation?’

Carvalho gnaws at his memory, but just then the lights go down for the show to begin. Silence falls on the darkened room, like a veil as soft as the drink Alma is drinking, or the gauze covering her well-rounded breasts. Silverstein appears, dressed as an imagined English writer at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with more than a hint of Oscar Wilde, hair parted in the middle.

‘Allow me to introduce myself. I’m the son of Oscar Wilde and the young Lord Douglas. My birth has been kept a secret because ever since I was a child I’ve shown disturbing tendencies, and my psychiatrist, an Argentine who’s more of a Lacanian than a Freudian, suspects I might be Jack the Ripper. I went to a school for the natural sons and orphans of famous writers. That’s where I got to know Arielito Borges, Macedonita Fernández, Osvaldita Soriano, Manolito Puig, and others whose paternity I could guess at, even though it was not officially recognized: ten little girls who were the spitting image of Jorge Asís, for example. In the school, they taught us everything except how to write, and when after a rigorous examination of our chromosomes it was found we had writers’ genes, above and beyond those necessary to write for the magazine
Car as,
they were deleted. Our fathers couldn’t bear the thought of competition. A lot has been written about the death of the father, but what about the death of the son? Don’t fathers dream of the death of their sons as a way of warding off their own end? That’s why I’m so surprised Arielito Borges writes.’

He puts on a child’s voice. ‘When he was little, Arielito was very stubborn. Just to annoy his father, he used to read the English writers in Portuguese. Which was all the more remarkable, as he could not read Portuguese. Arielito Borges, Borges Junior...but I think Adriana Varela is here, and wants to sing something for you about this genetic prodigy.’

The spotlight moves off him in search of the singer. Carvalho cannot tear his eyes from Alma’s cleavage, until she covers his face with her hand.

‘You won’t get round me again.’

Applause as Adriana Varela appears. Silverstein goes to greet her. He kisses her hand, and welcomes her to centre stage.

‘It’s wonderful news, isn’t it, Adriana? Whoever would have thought the old devil had something more than ink in his veins.’

‘Veins have so much in them.’

‘What’s this tango called?’

‘“Borges Junior.”’

‘By?’

‘Borges Junior.’

The spotlights veer off into the audience. General amazement when they come to rest on the bulky outline of Borges Junior himself. Silence and applause – mostly silence. Silverstein has nothing more to say, and leaves the stage to Adriana. She sings:

Son!
Borges Junior
You are called
By varicosed
Whores
By worm-ridden
Professors
So watch out
Don’t shout.

Son!
Borges Junior
They cry
Miracle-working
Chromosomes
Would-be
Genomes
Don
’
t let
Them get
You.
Son!
Make sure you make the most of it
And remember you did good
To turn me into a stud.

Don
’
t leave me outside
Stark-naked in the rain
The fervour of Buenos Aires
Won
’
t let me out again.

Take care with what you say,
Remember you are flesh of my flesh
Nostril of my nostrils
My lust of a single day.

Son!
Borges Junior
You are called
By varicosed
Whores
By worm-ridden
Professors
So watch out
Don
’
t shout.

Son!
Borges Junior
They cry
Miracle-working
Chromosomes
Would-be
Genomes
Don
’
t let
Them get
You.