Exposure (17 page)

R
IALTO ENDS THE
season as league champions, seven points clear of their closest challengers. Otello, as the league’s top scorer, is awarded the Golden Ball even though he misses three games with a knee injury and struggles to regain his form in the last five games, scoring only twice.

The club’s success is soured when they lose four–three on aggregate to the Brazilian team Grêmio in the semifinal of the Copa Libertadores. The tabloids, who had overexcited themselves at the prospect of a rare double, are less than charitable. Predictably it is Mateo Campos of
El Sol
who leads the chorus. Deploying his repertoire of neo-racist terminology, he accuses Otello (yet again) of being more interested in celebrity than soccer. The refrain is taken up by, among others, the mass-circulation soccer magazine
Gol!,
which juxtaposes a fashion shot of Otello modeling a white suit with one of Roderigo urging his players on, looking sweaty, bruised, and defiant.

La Nación
prints an end-of-season report by Paul Faustino, which takes a different and more sober view. It reminds readers that in his first season with Rialto, Otello has scored more goals in all competitions than any other player in the club’s history, with the exception of the great Esdras Caballo back in 1968. That, notwithstanding the team’s exit in the semifinals, Otello is the first Rialto player ever to score two hat tricks in the tournament. Faustino also dismisses, with Olympian disdain, the attempts by the tabloids to slime the man’s reputation. He mentions Mateo Campos by name, describing him as “ophidian.” (Faustino had smiled, keying the word, knowing that Campos would have to look it up in a dictionary, if he possessed such a thing.) He points out that it is ironic (to put it politely) that papers whose circulation is built upon juicily fostering the cult of celebrity should turn so savagely upon a man who has had celebrity thrust upon him by those very same publications. On the evening that the piece is published, Faustino appears on
Sportsview
and forcefully reiterates these views.

Faustino is invited to the celebration of Rialto’s league championship, when the trophy will be formally presented to the club. The event is held in the vast ballroom of the Hotel Real. The buffet is absurd; Faustino surveys it, wondering idly if there is anything remotely edible on the planet that has been overlooked. He wonders, too, if he might be the only guest who is not a multimillionaire. Or a multimillionaire’s escort. The congregation of all this money in human form is not the only reason for the presence of a large number of big men with lumps under their jackets, wired-up ears, and restless eyes. Vice President Lazar and that vulture Hernán Gallego are here, as are several other members of the government and the Senate. Waiters and waitresses weave through the throng, holding aloft trays of glasses of champagne that seem to float like golden dreams above the heads of thirsty dreamers. Along three of the four walls, screens show silent video loops of Rialto’s goals; Otello’s joyous face appears repeatedly above the heads of the assembled plutocrats. The man himself appears a little later, when Ramón Tresor leads the team onto the stage.

Faustino endures two of the speeches, then carries his glass out into the Real’s roof garden. The nicer parts of the world’s jungles have been brought here to overlook the city. Full-grown trees nudge each other and whisper. An electrically powered stream empties itself into shallow pools where real flamingos pose on one leg among lotus flowers and shadowed golden fish. He wanders toward the edge of the garden, daring himself to cope with his vertigo. His foot slithers on the fiberglass cobblestones, where there is a slick of excrement; looking up, he finds himself meeting the amber gaze of a tethered macaw.

He reaches the chrome railing and smokes a cigarette, resisting the sickening urge to look down. Human voices chirrup behind him, then fade. He stubs out the cigarette and turns to behold Desmerelda Brabanta. She is standing a few paces away, in the dappled shade of a weeping fig tree, smiling at him. She is wearing a gravity-defying dress made of what appears to be the skin of a silver snake.

“Hi, Paul,” she says.

He does a little bow, unable to help himself. “Señora.”

She laughs, walks up to him, and kisses his cheeks. “Don’t you ‘Señora’ me, Faustino. It’s Dezi. We’re on first-name terms.”

“Are we?”

“Of course. We have a very romantic connection. You may not remember this, but I met you at the very same time I met my husband. At my father’s house.”

“I certainly do remember it. A historic occasion. Diego Mendosa introduced you to both of us. Unfortunately, you fell for the other guy. I have been cursing my luck ever since.”

Desmerelda laughs again and leans alongside him. She reaches out sideways and perches her glass on the parapet. Her hand misjudges; the glass tips, then disappears. Appalled, Faustino pictures its lengthy downward plunge, its shattering into the head of some innocent pedestrian. But he cannot bring himself to look down to see if this has happened, if there is some tiny bloodstained disturbance in the world far below him.

Desmerelda seems completely unaware of the event. She gazes at the garden’s orderly undergrowth. She is almost certainly the most attractive woman Faustino has ever stood close to. He wonders if her beauty might not be a burden to her. Whether it might obliterate whatever else she is. Or isn’t. It is extremely surprising that he is alone with her. Where are her people? And she seems a bit . . . what? Tipsy? Surely not. No, something else. He has very limited experience of how pregnant women behave.

“Incredible place, this, doncha think? You see the flamingos?”

“Yes,” he says. “It’s strange that they stay here, isn’t it? You’d think they’d fly off.”

“I guess they’ve had their wings clipped.”

“Ah. Yes, I suppose so. I hadn’t thought of that. Many congratulations, by the way.”

“Thank you. For what?”

“Well, the baby. And for looking, if I may say so, even lovelier than the last time we met.”

Desmerelda’s slow reaction to this gallantry is not what Faustino expects.

“Yes,” she says seriously. “I am radiant. Blooming. Sometimes I am glowing with health. Or even serenely beautiful. It depends which magazine you read.”

Faustino laughs uncertainly.

She turns her head and smiles at him. “Anyway, I’m glad we bumped into each other. I saw you on TV the other day. You were great, honestly. I always read what you write about Otello. I appreciate it. We both do.”

“Thank you.”

“No, really, I mean it. If there’s ever anything we can do, you know?”

“Thanks. That’s very sweet of you.”

They lapse into companionable silence for a while. Something croaks from among the greenery.

“Okay,” she says, moving her head as though to ease a stiff neck. “I’d better get back to the orgy before Michael notices I’ve gone and has a panic attack. Um . . . didn’t I have a drink with me when I came out here?”

“I’m afraid it fell,” Faustino tells her reluctantly. “Into the street.”

“What? Oh, my God!”

She leans over the railing to look down. Too far over the railing, with her right foot high off the ground. Faustino cannot help himself; he bleats, terrified, and grabs her upper arm, dragging her backward. She almost tips over on her high heels.

“Sorry,” Faustino says, releasing his grip. “I’m sorry. I have a thing about heights.”

It’s clear that he does. He looks like someone who has narrowly avoided a highway pileup.

“Hey,” Desmerelda says softly.

“I’m all right. Really. Forgive me.”

“It’s okay.” She grins at him. “High places are one of the few things that don’t scare me. Snakes, leeches, spiders, sharks — I’ve got a long list of things that freak me out. I’m fine with heights. The trick is not to imagine yourself falling.”

“It’s not the falling that worries me,” Faustino says. “It’s the sudden stop.”

She laughs.
It’s a nice laugh she has,
Faustino thinks.

When she has gone, when he has stopped watching her go, he lights another cigarette with a shaky hand.

A
N ARMORED GOVERNMENT
limousine with four motorcycle outriders is driving fast along the Circular toward the headquarters of the New Conservative Party. A yellow-and-black police helicopter hangs in the sky above the convoy like a plump hornet. In the soundproofed passenger compartment of the car sit
HERNÁN GALLEGO
,
minister of internal security; and Senator
NESTOR BRABANTA
.

GALLEGO:
I still say it’s too close to call. If the great unwashed vote in large numbers, we could fail to win the National Assembly.

BRABANTA:
So what? We’ll win the Senate, and that’s what matters. The Assembly will contain, as usual, a ragtag collection of socialists and greens and bloody vegans and ancestor worshippers and God knows what. They’ll spend all their time arguing about who gets into bed with whom to form what they stupidly call “a popular coalition” while we run the country. As we have done for the past five years.

GALLEGO
[
more or less patiently
]: Of course. But that’s not the point, is it? The point is that for the first time we have a real chance of winning the Senate
and
the Assembly, and governing unopposed. Get things
done.
Not have to make damned compromises. I’m sick to death of having to negotiate my department’s budget with a committee of liberal half-wits from the National Assembly. Last year I had to settle for half —
half
— the special squads I needed. I had to go to people I’d promised jobs to and say “Sorry.” Which is a word that sticks in my craw.

[
BRABANTA
does not respond. He continues to stare moodily through the window. It saddens
—
and deeply irritates
—
GALLEGO
that his old friend and ally has become semidetached from political realities. It’s all because of his daughter’s preposterous marriage, of course. And now the fact that before long he’s going to have a half-caste grandchild. Awful, yes, but also awkward, because sooner or later
GALLEGO
will have to raise the subject of the dreaded son-in-law. He is a little startled that
BRABANTA
provides him with his cue.
]

BRABANTA:
What makes you think the common herd are going to vote in droves, anyway? They’ve never done so before.

GALLEGO:
Well, the polls —

BRABANTA:
Oh, come on, Hernán. The polls aren’t worth a damn.

GALLEGO:
I’m not so sure. They consistently predict a big turnout, and if something happens in the next three weeks . . .

BRABANTA:
Such as what?

GALLEGO:
Well . . . [
He clears his throat.
] Well, let’s say, for example, that Otello comes out in support of the Reform Party . . .

BRABANTA:
The man’s an idiot. He’s a soccer player. Politically, he doesn’t know his ass from his elbow. Who’d listen to him?

GALLEGO:
Actually quite a lot of people, according to our research department. Every time he does an interview, the left-wing press spins it into an attack on us. The president would like us to come up with a way to guarantee that he keeps his fat lips zipped.

[
BRABANTA
turns away from the window at last and looks at
GALLEGO
with something like a smile on his face.
]

BRABANTA:
You’re thinking of having him bumped off? Do tell me that it’s so.

GALLEGO
[
chuckling
]: Sorry to disappoint you, Nestor, but no. We had something more modest in mind. Discredit him. Some scandal or other, you know? Caught with his pants around his ankles in a brothel. Or discovered to have a taste for underage girls. Or a newspaper happens to find out that his charitable donations actually end up in an offshore bank account. Such, er,
unfortunate
things have happened to people before. Often, as it happens, to people we have found inconvenient.

[
BRABANTA
considers this solemnly. Then shakes his head.
]

BRABANTA:
No. My daughter’s feelings aside, it’s too risky. Too obvious. I forbid it.

[
GALLEGO
shrugs and sighs.
BRABANTA
turns back to the window. A minute passes.
]

BRABANTA:
Desmerelda will make sure her nigger keeps his trap shut. She owes me that, at least.

GALLEGO:
You’re talking to her?

BRABANTA:
Through gritted teeth.

GALLEGO:
Good. That’s very good, Nestor. Make sure she listens.

Desmerelda does listen. It has taken her several months to restore some sort of relationship with her father, the grandfather of her unborn child. Several months of phone calls that she has kept secret from Otello. These often terse and difficult conversations do not amount to anything like a reconciliation. Not yet. But the last thing she wants is for her husband to make some ham-fisted political gesture that will slam that door shut again.

Then she gets lucky. Eight days before the election, Otello pulls a thigh muscle in a preseason scrimmage. By the following Wednesday, it begins to look as though he won’t be fit for Rialto’s first league fixture. The club physical therapist orders a rest regime.

Desmerelda runs hesitant fingers over the damaged thigh and says, “Honey? Why don’t we go down to the villa for a few days and relax? Get away from everything.”

“What, now?”

“Yeah. Why not?”

His eyes are full of reasons. For one thing, he has just read an e-mail from Angelica Sansón, who does the administration for his charities in Espirito. Desmerelda had read it before Otello got back from his checkup. Like all Angelica’s e-mails, this one was upbeat and supportive. But at the end of it she’d written:

Fire me for saying this if you like, but lots of us up here are waiting for you to climb off the fence and do some little thing that might stop those evil NCP bastards from getting in for another five years. I understand your situation, but I keep looking in the papers and watching the TV hoping you might come out and rally the goddamn troops, if you know what I mean.

A

P.S. Check out the pics in the attached file. The smiley kid with the jug ears is Ronaldo — remember him? His big sister who used to be with us disappeared last week after she helped organize a poverty demo.

Desmerelda says, “What’s the problem?”

“Well, I dunno. You know. It might look kinda weird if we . . .”

“What?”

He shrugs by way of answering. He has also had e-mails, forwarded by Diego, from the wrong kind of journalists. He is thinking about them in a troubled, indecisive way. She knows this, too.

“I know you,” she says. “If we stay here, you’ll start getting antsy and want to do things that aren’t good for you. Resting is not something you’re exactly brilliant at. Unless we’re at the villa. And to tell you the truth, I’ve been feeling a little bit rough these last few days.”

“Have you? You didn’t say anything.”

“I didn’t want to worry you. Anyway, I’m sure it’s nothing serious. But I think a break would do me good. Some sea air, peace and quiet, you know?” She takes his hand and places it on her belly. “I think baby needs it too.”

On Friday, three days before the election, Otello, Desmerelda, and Michael Cass fly on a privately chartered plane down to the coast. Secrecy has been maintained, and the three of them are out of the little airport and into the chauffeur-driven four-by-four in less than ten minutes.

By the following morning, however, word has spread. A small but vocal mob of reporters and photographers, plus a couple of camera crews, have set up camp outside the gates of the estate. They’ve got folding chairs, beach umbrellas, coolers; they’re not planning to leave for a while. From the shade of the gatehouse, two estate security people, a man and a woman, regard the siege with bland hostility. Their Doberman pants in the heat, its long tongue hanging from its mouth like a limp red pennant.

In the master bedroom, where the white curtains tremble and shift in the onshore breeze, Desmerelda puts on a bikini. She looks at herself in the full-length mirror and tries not to be dismayed. Because she is happy. She is going to have a child, their child. She has become someone else because that is what she wanted. And afterward she will be beautiful again. She is beautiful now.

But she does not like the things her body is doing to her. She has for many years been continuously and acutely aware of what she looks like, of course. And her body has never dismayed or betrayed her — never, even in her anxious and motherless teens, disappointed her. It has been a graceful machine that has transported her almost effortlessly along the splendid road of her life, needing nothing more to sustain it than frequent pleasuring. Now her body is something else. At times it seems to her to have become a sinister laboratory packed with fleshy alembics and glandular tubing through which mysterious chemicals surge and bubble. This dark alchemy sometimes hurts her: her breasts burn beneath the skin; vinegary ropes fasten up her guts and bowels. At night she dreams lurid melodramas from which she wakes shocked and perspiring. Taste and smell have become perverse. Recently, rain on the hot streets gave off the aroma of pineapples.

She knows, in a scholastic sort of way, why these things are happening. She has acquired a small library of books about pregnancy and childbirth. Unfortunately the illustrations — calmly bulbous women with the sides of their wombs removed to show the curled purplish dolls tethered inside — frighten her. The helpful information fills her with anxiety about swollen ankles, varicose veins, softening gums, anemia, stretch marks. Her bathroom cabinets have become a treasury of lotions, creams, dietary supplements, vitamins. And the little creature growing inside her, doing all this to her, fills her with a fearful love more intense than anything she has ever experienced.

She changes out of the bikini and into a silvery-white one-piece. Then she wraps herself in a sarong and goes down to the pool.

They have agreed: no incoming calls. The villa number is unlisted and known to very few, but Cass disconnects the phones anyway. Cell phones are turned off; they will devote a maximum of one hour an evening to checking messages and e-mails. They have given the part-time staff a paid vacation; they will microwave or barbecue stuff from the freezers. Otello and Desmerelda swim a little or lie plugged into their iPods. Cass immerses himself in a thick book about the American Civil War or, when he is restless, patrols the estate and the private beach wearing his big straw hat and his gun in a shoulder holster beneath a loose cotton shirt.

On Tuesday morning Otello leaves Desmerelda sleeping and goes downstairs. He is groggy from his previous night’s drinking. In the kitchen he downs a tumbler of water and then discovers that the coffee jug is hot and half full. He pours himself a cup and carries it through to the room off the lounge where the TV is. Cass is hunched in a chair, glowering at the screen. The sound is down low. An excitable woman is conjuring up graphics: pie charts, maps, columns in red and blue and yellow, skittle-shaped things representing politicians slowly filling the banked seats of the National Assembly. Most of the skittles are blue, the color of the NCP.

Without looking up, Cass says, “Looks like the bastards have done it.”

The picture cuts to a studio. Four men and the presenter sit at a curved table. One of the men is Nestor Brabanta, smiling.

Cass presses the mute button on the remote and turns to look at Otello. Otello does not like the expression on Michael’s face.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Cass says.

Lunchtime, and Paul Faustino stopped doing more or less nothing and went down to the patio and sat next to Nola Levy on one of the steel benches. He liked Nola. Not everyone did. Officially she was the senior social affairs correspondent. Unofficially, and behind her back, she was known as La Conciencia. The Conscience of
La Nación.
Or the Pain in the Neck. She wrote the kind of stories that certain important people, and organizations such as the police and the Ministry of Internal Security, did not want published. Indeed, it had often surprised Faustino that Carmen d’Andrade did publish them, given that they almost always caused trouble. But they were good stories, with legs, and well written. Nola Levy was blacklisted by at least two government departments; there were official press conferences that she never got invited to. This didn’t seem to cramp her style one bit. She had other sources of information. Not that official press conferences were about giving information. “Bullshit buffets” was what Nola called them, and Faustino rather liked the phrase. She represented the trade unions on the General Executive and helped maintain a website devoted to tracing missing persons. Children, in particular. (In fact, she financed the website, although Faustino didn’t know that.) She was maybe fifty years old, wore her heavy, wiry hair in a short bob, and was unmarried, so her male colleagues — including Faustino — blithely assumed that she was a lesbian. She smoked, which was one of the reasons Faustino enjoyed her company; she argued fiercely, which was another.