What We Become (20 page)

“Does the Russian have assistants as well?”

“Of all shapes and sizes. He is even accompanied by an em
ployee of the Soviet embassy in Rome. Chess is an affair of state in the USSR.”

“I hear they have occupied an entire apartment house overlooking the hotel gardens. And that even the KGB is there.”

“It doesn't surprise me. Sokolov has up to a dozen people in his entourage, even though the Campanella Cup is only a prelude to the world championship. . . . In a few months' time, in Dublin, Jorge will have four or five different analysts and assistants working for him. Imagine how many the Russians will have.”

Max takes a small sip from his glass.

“How many do you have?”

“There are three of us here, including me. Besides Karapetian, we have Irina.”

“The young woman? I thought she was your son's girlfriend.”

“She is. As well as being an extraordinarily gifted chess player. She is twenty-four.”

Max listened as if this were all new to him.

“Russian?”

“Yugoslav parents, but born in Canada. She played for Canada at the Olympiad in Tel Aviv, and is among the top ten or fifteen women chess players in the world. She has a grand master title. She and Emil are the core of our team of analysts.”

“Do you like her as a daughter-in-law?”

“She could be worse,” replies Mecha Inzunza impassively. “Like all chess players, she is complicated. There are things going on in her head that you and I will never understand. . . . But she and Jorge get along well.”

“Is she a good analyst or assistant or whatever you call them?”

“Yes, excellent.”

“And how does Karapetian feel about her?”

“Fine. At first he was jealous, yapping like a dog defending a bone. A girl, he muttered. That sort of thing. But she is clever. She soon had him eating out of her hand.”

“And you?”

“Oh, with me it's different.” Mecha Inzunza finished off her coffee. “I'm his mother, you see.”

“Of course.”

“My job is to watch from a distance . . . attentive yet remote.”

They hear the voices of the Americans on their way toward the ramparts leading to the top of Sorrento. Afterward everything is silent. The woman gazes thoughtfully at the red-and-white-­checkered tablecloth, in a way that reminds Max of a player before a chessboard.

“There are things I can't give my son,” she says suddenly, looking up. “And I am not just referring to chess.”

“How long will you go on for?”

“Until he no longer wants me,” she replies instantly. Until Jorge no longer needs to have her near. When that time comes, she hopes she will realize and take her leave discreetly, without any fuss. She has a comfortable house in Lausanne full of books and music. A library, and a life somehow suspended, yet which she has been preparing all these years. A place to pass away peacefully when the time comes.

“That is a long way off, I assure you.”

“You always were a flatterer, Max . . . an elegant scoundrel and a handsome impostor.”

He bobs his head humbly, as though overcome by the backhanded compliment. How can he argue with that, his gallant gesture seems to imply. At their advanced age.

“Something I read a long time ago,” she added, “made me think of you. I can't recall the exact words, but it went something like this: ‘Men who have enjoyed the caresses of many women will suffer less pain and trepidation as they walk through the valley of the shadow of death' . . . What do you think?”

“Rhetoric.”

Silence. She studies his face, as though attempting to recognize
him despite his own appearance. Her eyes shine softly in the light of the paper lanterns.

“Why did you never marry, Max?”

“I suppose because it would have spoiled my passage through the valley of the shadow of death.”

Her chuckle, spontaneous and vigorous like a young girl's, causes Lambertucci, the waiter, and the cook, who are still chatting at the restaurant next door, to turn their heads.

“You old rascal. You always were good at that type of riposte . . . swiftly making your own what belonged to others.”

Max adjusts his shirt cuffs, making sure just the right amount is protruding from the jacket sleeves. He detests the recent fashion of showing almost the entire cuff, as he does tailored shirts, flashy ties, pointed collars, and tight bell-bottoms.

“During all those years, did you ever think of me?”

He asks the question gazing into Mecha Inzunza's luminous eyes. She tilts her head to one side, still observing him.

“I admit that I did. Every so often.”

Max makes use of his finest attribute, flashing a dazzling smile, apparently spontaneous, which in the past had lit up his face to devastating effect depending upon the disposition of the woman to whom it was destined.

“Old School Tango aside?”

“Of course.”

Mecha Inzunza has nodded her head, a tenuous smile on her lips, accepting to play along. Max is somewhat emboldened by this, and decides to push his luck, like a bullfighter cheered on by the spectators who continues to goad the bull. The blood is pumping at a steady pace through his old arteries, resolute and firm as in the distant days of adventure, with a touch of euphoric optimism similar to that provided by a couple of aspirin washed down with coffee after a sleepless night.

“And yet,” he remarks with absolute calm, “this is only the third
occasion we have met: on the
Cap Polonio
and in Buenos Aires in twenty-eight, and nine years later in Nice.”

“I always had a soft spot for scoundrels.”

“I was just young, Mecha.”

His gesture is another of his favorite tricks: head bowed, oozing humility, accompanied by a wave of his left hand as though dismissing all that is superfluous. Which is everything except the woman in front of him.

“Exactly. A young, elegant scoundrel, just as I said. That's how you made your living.”

“No,” he protests, politely. “That's what helped me survive, which isn't the same thing. . . . Those were hard times. Aren't they always?”

As he says this he is looking at the necklace, and Mecha Inzunza notices.

“Do you remember it?”

Max adopts the expression of a gentleman who has been, or is about to be, insulted.

“Naturally I remember it.”

“You certainly should.” She touches the pearls momentarily. “It's the same one I had in Buenos Aires . . . and that ended up in Montevideo.”

“How could I forget it.” Max pauses nostalgically. “It's as magnificent as ever.”

She seems no longer to be listening, caught up in her own thoughts.

“That business in Nice . . . The way you used me, Max! And what a fool I was. That second dirty trick of yours destroyed my friendship with Suzi Ferriol, among other things. And that was the last I saw of you. Ever.”

“They were looking for me, remember. I had to leave. Those dead bodies . . . It would have been crazy of me to stay there.”

“I remember it all. Very clearly. To the point where I realized it gave you the perfect excuse.”

“That's not true. I . . .”

Now it is she who raises her hand. “Don't go down that road. You'll spoil what has otherwise been a pleasant evening.”

Augmenting her gesture, she extends her arm across the table and touches Max's face, brushing it only for a moment. He instinctively kisses her fingers gently as she withdraws her hand.

“My God . . . It's true. You were the most beautiful woman I ever met.”

Mecha Inzunza opens her bag, takes out a packet of Murattis, and puts one in her mouth. Leaning across the table, Max lights it with the gold Dupont that a few days ago was in Dr. Hugentobler's study. She exhales the smoke and leans back in her chair.

“Don't be a fool.”

“You're still beautiful,” he insists.

“Don't be an even bigger fool. Look at yourself. Even you aren't the same.”

Now Max is sincere. Or possibly so.

“If things had been different, I . . .”

“It was all fortuitous. If things had been different, you wouldn't have stood a chance.”

“For what?”

“You know what. To get near me.”

A prolonged pause. She avoids Max's eyes and continues smoking as her gaze drifts to the lanterns, the fishermen's huts dotting the beach, the piled-up nets and beached boats on the darkening shore.

“Your first husband was certainly a scoundrel,” he says.

Mecha Inzunza takes her time replying: two puffs on her cigarette and another drawn-out silence.

“Leave him out of this,” she says at last. “Armando has been dead almost thirty years. And he was an extraordinary composer. Besides, he simply gave me what I wanted. Rather like I do with my son.”

“I always suspected that he . . .”

“That he corrupted me? . . . Don't talk nonsense. He had his preferences, of course. Peculiar, at times. But no one forced me to play along. I had mine, too. In Buenos Aires as everywhere else, I was always in complete control over what I did. And remember, he was no longer with me in Nice. He had been killed in Spain, or was about to be.”

“Mecha . . .”

He has placed his hand on hers. She pulls it away, gently.

“Don't even think about it, Max. If you tell me I was the great love of your life, I shall get up and leave.”

5

A
n Adjourned Game

T
HIS ISN'T THE
Buenos Aires I imagined,” said Mecha.

It was hot, all the more so because of their proximity to the Riachuelo. Max had removed his hat to cool the damp sweatband, and was holding it as he walked, his free hand casually placed in his jacket pocket. They would occasionally fall in step, brushing against each other before separating again.

“Buenos Aires is many cities,” he remarked. “Although basically it is two: the city of success and the city of failure.”

Mecha Inzunza and Max had been lunching near La Ferroviaria, at a restaurant called El Puentecito, a fifteen-minute drive from the Caboto boardinghouse. Before that, stepping out of the Pierce-Arrow (the silent Petrossi was still driving, and not once did he look at Max in his rearview mirror), they had a drink at a bar near the railway station, leaning on the marble counter beneath a large photograph of the Barracas Football Club and a sign that
said,
Please refrain from drunk and disorderly behavior and don't spit on the floor.
She had a grenadine with sparkling water and he a Cora vermouth with a dash of Amer Picon, and as they sipped their drinks amid the inquisitive glances, they heard voices speaking in Spanish and Italian belonging to men with copper chains dangling from their waistcoats, who played cards, smoking and hawking as they deposited thick gobbets of phlegm in the spittoons. It was she who insisted that Max invite her to the modest restaurant where his father used to take the family on Sundays, the one he had told her about the night before. Once there, she seemed to enjoy the dish of ravioli and the barbecued meat washed down with a bottle of rough, heady wine from the Mendoza region that a lively Spanish waiter recommended.

“I get ravenous when I make love,” she had said calmly.

Exhausted accomplices, they gazed at each other lengthily during lunch, neither making any explicit reference to what had happened at the boardinghouse on Almirante Brown. Mecha was the epitome of calm (absolutely self-assured, Max noticed with astonishment) while he reflected about what it might mean for his own present and future. Those thoughts occupied him for the remainder of the meal, concealed behind the façade of his perfect manners. However, he was frequently distracted from his scheming, seized by an inner spasm at the fresh intense memory of her warm vibrant body, as she in turn peered at him over her raised glass. Pensive, as though observing with renewed curiosity the man in front of her.

“I'd like to go for a stroll,” she said later in the car. “Along the Riachuelo.”

She wanted to walk part of the way through the neighborhood around La Boca. She asked Petrossi to stop, and the two of them began walking on the north side of the Vuelta de Rocha, followed by the car which, with its silent chauffeur at the wheel, inched along on the left-hand side of the street. In the distance, beyond the
black wooden hull and exposed timber frame of a half-submerged sailboat beside the shore (Max remembered playing there as a boy), they could see the imposing structure of the giant transporter bridge.

“I brought you a present,” she said, placing a small package in Max's hands. He undid the wrapping paper to find a long leather case with a wristwatch inside: a splendid Longines, with a square, gold face, Roman numerals, and a second hand.

“Why?” he inquired.

“A whim. I saw it in a shopwindow on Calle Florida and wondered how it would look on your wrist.”

She helped him set the correct time, wind it up, and fasten it. Mecha said it looked attractive. It did indeed look extremely attractive on Max's bronzed wrist, with its leather strap and gold buckle. An elegant watch that suited him. “Your hands were made to wear watches like that,” she added.

“I don't suppose this is the first time a woman has given you something.”

He looked at her blankly, feigning indifference.

“Possibly . . . I don't remember.”

“Of course you don't. And I wouldn't forgive you if you did.”

There were cafés and bars near the shore, some of which had a seedy ambience by night. Beneath the brim of her cloche hat Mecha studied the men lounging in their shirtsleeves, vests, and caps, sitting at tables in doorways, or on benches in squares, where horse-driven carts and trucks were parked. It was in such places, Max had heard it said in his house years before, that you learned the philosophy of the different races: the melancholy Italians; suspicious Jews; brutish, brutal Germans; and stubborn Spaniards, intoxicated with envy and murderous pride.

“They still step off the boats the way my father did,” he said. “Eager to fulfill their dreams. . . . Many fall by the wayside, rotting like those timber boats stranded in the swamp. They begin by send
ing money to the wives and children they have left behind in Asturias, Calabria, Poland. . . . In the end, life wears them down, and they fade away in the squalor of a tavern or a cheap brothel. Sitting at a table, alone, in front of a bottle that never asks questions.”

Mecha was looking at four washerwomen walking toward them carrying enormous baskets of damp laundry, their faces prematurely aged, their hands raw from the soap and scrubbing brushes. Max could have given each of them a name and a story, for those hands and faces, or others identical to them, were part of his childhood.

“The women have a better chance at life, the pretty ones, anyway,” he added. “For a while, at least. Before motherhood wears them out, if they are lucky. Or if they are unlucky, depending on how you look at it, and they become the theme of tango songs.”

His last comment had made her turn to look at him with renewed interest.

“Are there many prostitutes?”

“Just imagine.” Max embraced the surroundings with a sweep of his hand. “A country of immigrants, most of them men. There are organizations that ship women over from Europe. . . . Some specialize in Russians, Romanians, and Poles. They buy them for two or three thousand pesos, and in less than a year make their money back.”

He heard Mecha give a dry, humorless laugh.

“How much would they pay for me?”

He didn't reply, and they walked on in silence for a while.

“What do you want from the future, Max?”

“To stay alive as long as possible, I suppose.” He shrugged, in earnest. “To have what I need.”

“You won't be young and handsome forever. What about your old age?”

“I don't think about it. I have plenty to keep me busy until then.”

He gave her a sidelong glance. She was observing everything as she walked, mouth slightly open, almost marveling at the newness
of what she saw. Like a hunter at the ready, Max concluded, as if she wanted to imprint each scene indelibly on her memory: the brick and timber houses, with their tin roofs painted red and green bordering a rusty railway track; the honeysuckle peeping out over the patio fences and walls with broken bottles along the top; the plane trees and ceiba trees whose crimson flowers daubed the street with color. She moved languidly, studying each detail with interest, yet as easy in her manner as she had been three hours earlier while strolling naked around Max's room with the nonchalance of a queen in her bedchamber. The patch of sunlight from the window had silhouetted the flowing contours of her astonishingly supple body, casting a golden light on the soft, curly down between her thighs.

“What about you?” Max asked. “You won't be young and beautiful forever either.”

“I have money. I had it before I married. . . . It's old money now, at ease with itself.”

There had been no hesitation in her reply, which was calm, objective. She underlined her words with a look of disdain. “You'd be surprised how much simpler things become when you have money.”

He laughed out loud.

“I think I might have some idea.”

“No. I doubt you do.”

They stood aside to let an ice vendor pass. He was bent double beneath the weight of the huge, dripping block on his back, cushioned by a scrap of rubber.

“You're right,” said Max. “It isn't easy to put oneself in a rich man's shoes.”

“Armando and I aren't rich. Simply well-off.”

Max pondered the difference. They had paused next to a rail that ran alongside the path, following the Rocha bend in the river. Glancing behind him, he could see that the efficient Petrossi had stationed the car a little farther back.

“Why did you marry?”

She was looking at the boats, the barges, and the gigantic structure of the transporter bridge.

“Armando is a fascinating man . . . When I met him, he was already a successful composer. Life with him promised to be a whirlwind of excitement. Friends, concerts, travels . . . I would undoubtedly have experienced those things sooner or later. But he enabled me to do so much earlier than I expected. To leave home and to embrace life.”

“Did you love him?”

“Why do you speak in the past tense?” Mecha went on looking at the bridge. “Anyway, it's a strange question, coming from a man who dances in hotels and on transatlantic liners.”

Max touched the sweatband of his hat, which now was dry. He put it back on his head, tipping the brim over his right eye.

“Why me?”

She had been watching his movements, as though studying every detail with interest. Approvingly. Hearing Max's question, her eyes twinkled with amusement.

“I knew you had a scar even before I saw it.”

His bewilderment seemed to amuse her, and she suppressed a smile. An hour before, without questions or comments, Mecha had caressed that mark on his skin, pressing her lips to it, licking the drops of perspiration that made his chest glisten just above the scar the bullet had left when seven years ago he had climbed the hillside with his comrades, weaving between the rocks and shrubs as the dawn mist dissolved on that Day of the Dead.

“There are men whose eyes and smiles contain something,” Mecha added after a moment, as if he deserved an explanation. “Men who carry 'round an invisible suitcase, filled with heavy things.”

Now she was looking at his hat, the knot in his tie, the middle button of his jacket, done up. Appraisingly.

“And also, you're good-looking and easygoing. Devilishly handsome . . .”

He didn't know why she seemed to appreciate that he said nothing.

“I like your coolheadedness, Max,” she went on. “So similar to mine, in some ways.”

She stood gazing at him for a moment. Spellbound. Completely still. Then she lifted her hand to stroke his chin, apparently indifferent to whether Petrossi could see her from the car.

“Yes,” she said finally. “I like the fact that there's no way I can trust you.”

She started walking again and Max followed, keeping level with her as he tried to assimilate all she had said. Trying hard to contain his bewilderment. They passed an old man turning the handle of an old Rinaldi barrel organ, which churned out “The Corn Cob” while the horse yoked to the cart released a copious stream of frothy urine onto the cobblestones.

“Shall we go to La Ferroviaria again tomorrow?”

“Certainly. If that's what your husband wants.”

Her tone sounded different. Almost frivolous.

“I have seldom seen Armando so excited. . . . Last night, back at the hotel, he could talk of nothing else, and he stayed up very late, in his pajamas, unable to sleep, jotting things down, filling ashtrays, and humming. ‘That buffoon Ravel will be eating his bolero, on toast,' he kept saying and chuckling. . . . He is terribly upset about the engagement tonight at the Teatro Colón. The League of Spanish Patriots, or some such, are holding a concert in his honor. And the evening will apparently finish with a tango show at a high-class cabaret called Les Folies Bergère. In full evening dress. Can you imagine anything more dreadful?”

“Will you go with him?”

“Naturally. You don't imagine I would let him go there on his own, with all those perfumed she-wolves on the prowl.”

They would meet tomorrow, she added a moment later. If Max had no other plans, they could send the car around to Almirante Brown, at about seven. Then go for a drink, at the Richmond, for example, and dine at a nice place downtown. She had heard about a smart new restaurant called Las Violetas, if she remembered correctly. And another at the top of a tower on Calle Florida, near Pasaje Güemes.

“It isn't necessary.” Max had no wish to meet Armando de Troeye on difficult territory or to engage in lengthy conversation with him. “I'll meet you at the Palace and we'll go straight to Barracas. . . . I have things to do downtown.”

“It's your turn to tango this time. With me.”

“Of course.”

They were about to cross the street when they heard a tram bell ring behind them, and they pulled up. It went by at full throttle, the trolley pole sliding below the electric cables slung between posts and buildings, long and green, empty, save for the driver and the uniformed ticket collector, who stared at them from the platform.

“Your life is shrouded in mystery, Max. . . . That scar as well as everything else. Why you went to Paris and why you left.”

An awkward topic, he thought. But perhaps she at least had a right to ask. Which she hadn't up until then.

“It's no big secret. You've seen the scar. . . . Someone shot me in Africa.”

She didn't bat an eyelid. As though being shot were perfectly normal for a ballroom dancer.

“What were you doing there?”

“I was a soldier for a while, remember?”

“I am sure there are soldiers in lots of places. But why there?”

“I think I already mentioned it to you on the
Cap Polonio.
 . . . It was after the slaughter at Annual, in Rif. They wanted revenge for the thousands who were slaughtered.”

For a brief moment, Max wondered if it was possible to sum
up in a few sentences complex ideas likes doubt, horror, death, and fear. Clearly not.