The Truce (14 page)

I haven't seen Avellaneda since yesterday, when Blanca and I parted company with her. In the office early today, she approached my desk with two account books for a consultation. We're always careful at the office (until now, no one has
noticed). But today I watched her closely. I wanted to know how she had fared in that test I conducted yesterday. She looked serious, very serious, and was wearing almost no rouge. I gave her the instructions. We were surrounded by people, so we couldn't say anything to each other. But as she walked away, she took the opportunity to leave me two receipt books and a little slip of paper containing a single scribbled word: ‘Thanks'.

Eight o'clock in the morning. I'm eating breakfast at the Tupí Nambá Café. It's one of my greatest pleasures. Sitting next to one of the windows that face Plaza Libertad is even better. It's raining. I've learned to love that hideous symbol of folklore that is the Palacio Salvo Tower. No wonder it's on all the postcards the tourists buy. It's almost a representation of the national character: impudent, dull, overburdened and charming. It's so, so ugly that it puts one in a good mood. I like the Tupí at this hour, very early, when it hasn't yet been invaded by the queers (I had forgotten about Jaime, what a nightmare) and there's only a few other lonely old men around, reading
El Día
or
El Debate
with incredible delight. The majority of the customers are pensioners who haven't been able to stop waking up very early. Will I continue to patronize the Tupí when I retire? Will I never get accustomed to enjoying staying in bed until eleven, like some executive's son? The true difference between the social classes should be drawn by taking into account the time each person gets out of bed. Biancamano, the amnesic, efficiently candid and cheerful waiter, approaches my table. For the fifth time, I ask him for a
cortado
*
*
and croissants. Instead, he
brings me a large cup of coffee and crackers with ham and cheese. He's trying so hard, so I just give up. While I drop the sugar cubes into the cup, he talks to me about work and the weather, saying: ‘This rain is a nuisance to people, but I say to them: “After all, it is winter, isn't it?” ' I say that he's right, because it's obvious that it's winter. Then, a man sitting at a table in the back calls over to him; he's very upset because Biancamano brought him something he hadn't ordered. Now he's the kind of person who doesn't give up. Or perhaps he's just an Argentine who came to pay his weekly visit to exchange currency and still doesn't know the house routine. The newspapers are the second part of my breakfast. There are days when I buy all of them because I like to read all of their regular articles. The inconsistent style of syntax and the editorials of
El Debate
; the civilized hypocrisy of
El País
; the crude reporting of
El Día
, barely cut short by a few anticlerical faces; and the sturdy organization of
La Mañana
, ambitious like none other. How different and yet how similar they all are. They all play a kind of card game; tricking one another, exchanging face signals, and switching partners. But they all play with the same deck of cards and feed on the same lie. And we read, and because we read, we believe, vote, discuss, and we generously and foolishly forget that what they're saying today is contrary to what they said yesterday; that today they passionately defend the same person they cursed yesterday, and that, worst of all, today that same person proudly and happily accepts that defence. That's why I prefer the frightening openness of the Palacio Salvo Tower, because it was always dreadful and it never misled us, because it was built here, in the most frequented spot in the city, and for the last thirty years has forced all of us, citizens and foreigners alike, to raise our eyes in homage to its ugliness. But in order to read the newspapers, one has to lower one's eyes.

She's delighted with Blanca. ‘I never imagined you could have such a charming daughter,' she said. She repeats this every half hour or so. This remark and Blanca's (‘I never thought you had such good taste') don't speak kindly of me, of the retroactive trust they were investing in my respective capability to generate and to choose. But I'm happy. And so is Avellaneda. Her scribbled ‘Thanks' of last Tuesday was fully developed afterwards. She confesses to having had a bad moment when she first met my daughter. She thought Blanca had come to cause a scene, uttering every form of reproach she imagined as justifiable, that she felt she was about to receive. She thought the shock was going to be so violent, so serious, so crushing, that our relationship wasn't going to survive. And only then did she fully realize that our relationship really mattered in her life, that perhaps now it would be unbearable to end this relationship which barely has a temporary patent. ‘You won't believe it, but all of that crossed my mind while your daughter was approaching us between the other tables,' she said. That's why Blanca's friendly attitude was an unexpected pleasure. ‘Tell me, could I be her friend?' is now her hopeful question, and she has a delightful look on her face, perhaps the same look she had twenty years ago when she asked her parents about the Three Wise Men.

There is no news from Jaime. Blanca inquired at his office. He hasn't been to work for the last ten days. As for Esteban, we've silently agreed not to talk about the problem. It's been a blow to him as well. I ask myself how he'll react when he finds out
about Avellaneda. I've asked Blanca not to tell him anything, at least for now. Perhaps I overstated the issue by putting my children (or permitting them to reach that level) in a position to judge. I've fulfilled my obligations to them. I've given them guidance, care and love. Well, perhaps I've been a bit stingy when it comes to expressing love. But I can't be one of those people who goes around always carrying their heart on their sleeve. It's hard for me to be affectionate, even in my love life. I always give less than what I have. That's my style of loving: a bit reluctant, reserving my maximum effort for only the biggest occasions. Perhaps there's a reason for this and it's that I'm obsessed with details, with gradations. So that if I were always displaying a maximum effort, what would I have in reserve for those moments (there are four or five per lifetime) when one should appeal to the heart in full? I also feel a slight resentment towards pretentiousness, and, to me, walking around with one's heart on one's sleeve is just that: pretentious. As for the person who cries every day, what will happen when they are touched by a great sorrow, a sorrow for which they will need their maximum defences? The person could always commit suicide, but that, after all, is always a poor solution. I mean to say that it's rather impossible to live in a permanent crisis, creating a susceptibility that immerses one (a kind of daily bath) in minor agonies. Refined ladies, with their habitual sense of psychological economy, state they don't see depressing movies because ‘life itself is very bitter'. And there's some truth to what they say: life itself is bitter enough; it is pointless for us to become weepy, clingy or hysterical just because something got in our way and doesn't allow us to continue our excursion towards happiness, which sometimes lies next to folly. Once, when the kids were going to school, I remember that Jaime was given a homework assignment, one of those recurring compositions on the classic subject of the mother. Jaime was nine years old
and came home feeling profoundly miserable. I tried to make him understand that this was going to happen to him many times. That he had lost his mother and should resign himself to this, it wasn't something to be crying about every day, and that the greatest proof of love he could offer the memory of his mother was, precisely, to demonstrate that her absence didn't make him inferior to others. Perhaps it was inappropriate language to use with him at his age. But the truth is he stopped crying, looked at me with alarming hostility, and with the certitude of the preordained, said: ‘You're going to be my mother; if not, I'll kill you.' What did he mean by that? He wasn't so young that he didn't know he was making an absurd demand, but perhaps he wasn't so grown up that he could better conceal his first agony, the first of these daily agonies on which he later focused his spitefulness, his rebelliousness and his frustrations. The fact that his teachers, his classmates, society, had brought up his mother made him feel the total impact of her absence for the first time in his life. I don't know by what wonder of the imagination he blamed me for her absence. Perhaps he thought that if I had taken better care of her, she wouldn't have disappeared. I was to blame, therefore I should be her substitute. ‘If not, I'll kill you.' He didn't kill me, of course, but he began to kill himself, to void himself. Since the man of the family had failed him, he dedicated himself to denying the man he had within himself. Phew! What a complicated explanation for unravelling such a simple, ordinary and inalterable fact. My son is a queer. A queer. Like the repulsive Santini, whose sister is a stripper. I would have preferred that he turn out to be a thief, a morphine addict or an imbecile. I would like to feel pity for him, but I can't. I know there are rational and even reasonable explanations. I know that many of those explanations would charge me with part of the blame. But why did Esteban and Blanca grow up to be normal? Why did Jaime deviate while they didn't? And it just
so happens that it's Jaime, the one I loved the most. No pity. Not now, not ever.

The manager called me into his office. I could never stand that man; he's so marvellously common and cowardly. On a few occasions I've tried to imagine his soul, his abstract self, and I've encountered a repulsive image. There, in that place where dignity normally is, he has only a stump; his dignity was amputated. Nevertheless, the orthopaedic dignity he now uses is good enough for smiling. And he was doing just that when I entered his office. ‘I have good news,' he said, and when he rubbed his hands together, he looked like he was going to strangle me. ‘You've been offered nothing less than the Assistant Manager position.' You knew by looking at him that he didn't agree with the director's offer. ‘Allow me to congratulate you,' he said. His hand was sticky, as if he had just opened a jar of marmalade. ‘Of course, there is one condition,' he continued. For once, The Crab exposes itself from underneath the stone. He really does look like a crab. Especially when he walks sideways to get around his desk. ‘The condition is that you can't retire for at least two years,' he said. And what about my retirement plans? The Assistant Manager's position is a fine one, especially for ending one's career in the firm. There is little to do; you meet with some important clients, supervise personnel, stand in for the manager when he's absent, tolerate the directors and their horrible jokes, and the directors' wives and their displays of encyclopaedic ignorance. But, what about my retirement plans? ‘How much time do I have to think it over?' I asked. My question was a preamble to my refusal. The Crab's eyes brightened, and he replied: ‘One week. I have to give the Board of Directors
your answer next Thursday.' When I returned to the department, everyone already knew. That always happens with strictly confidential news. There were hugs, congratulations and commentary. Even civil servant Avellaneda approached and shook my hand. Of all those hands, hers was the only one which conveyed life.

I spoke to her about it for a long time. She tells me to think about it very carefully, that the Assistant Manager position is comfortable, pleasant, respectable and pays well. Really, what I already know. But I also know I have the right to rest and I won't sell that right for a hundred-peso rise in salary. Perhaps I wouldn't sell it even if the offer were much higher. The essential thing for me has always been that the salary I earn be enough to live on. And it is enough. I have a good salary. I don't need a rise. Not even now, with the added expense of the apartment. Besides, when I retire, I think I can count on a slightly higher income (almost a hundred pesos more), since the bonuses I've received have raised my average income considerably over the last five years; also, there won't be any deductions. Needless to say, I should be mindful of the drop in the value of currency, which is the surest guarantee of inflation. The threat is real, but I always have the opportunity to do some bookkeeping, secretly, more or less. But, of course, Avellaneda also puts forward other reasons which are more moving, and less concrete, than all this sordid foresight: ‘If you're not there, the office is going to be unbearable.' Even better. She doesn't convince me with this remark either, because I have a plan: that when I retire, Avellaneda will stop working. The amount I'll receive will be enough for both of us. Besides, we're both moderate people. Our
pastimes are, for obvious reasons, strictly domestic. On occasion, the cinema, a restaurant, a pastry shop. On a Sunday, when it's cold but sunny, we might stroll along the shore, to breathe fresh air. We buy a book, a record, but, more than anything, we amuse ourselves by talking, about us, referring to every area of our lives that happened before Our Thing. There is no pastime, no spectacle that can replace what we enjoy during that exercise of sincerity and openness. And we're already getting better at it. Because one also has to get accustomed to sincerity. In light of all these years during which Aníbal was abroad, with all the communication problems I had with my children, with the defensive modesty which always protected my private life from the maliciousness of the office, because of my solely hygienic closeness to women, always new, never repeated, it's obvious I had become unaccustomed to sincerity. It's even probable that I only sporadically practised it with myself. I say this because on occasion, during these frank dialogues with Avellaneda, I've found myself pronouncing words that seemed more sincere to me than even my own thoughts. Is that possible?