Urgent matters, p.1
Urgent Matters, page 1
To the journalist I dreamt of becoming.
…you and me, we got the obligation to stand up for hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of people who can’t follow the fine points.
tom wolfe, Back to Blood
The dead don’t take the bus.
– A journalism school saying
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
EPIGRAPH
PART ONE
Dust raised …
Evelyn nearly dies …
Detective Domínguez …
Myjesus …
“Have you heard …
Myjesus …
“Goal for Tigre, …
There’s no …
Hugo hears noises …
Everything moves …
The yellow coach …
Forty-three dead …
The roulette players …
It’s the same wall …
Domínguez’s office …
PART TWO
Marina is talking …
“We’re going …
Evelyn is unable …
Olga trips …
Hugo leaves …
Curiosity is stronger …
Beto jumps …
In the studio …
Evelyn leaves …
Beto hasn’t opened …
When the phone …
Mónica is offended …
One option …
Seated in front …
Marta and Mónica …
The trousers …
Olga also …
It’s the only thing …
Beto arrives …
“This is the very latest …
Two taxis …
Olga has stopped …
Evelyn’s communion photo
El Rifle sends
Olga’s voice …
Hugo is walking down …
Marta doesn’t …
Domínguez halts …
Evelyn is trying …
The dead …
PART THREE
The grille fits …
Mancuso’s fingers …
The Beatles …
Beto tries out …
El Rifle wants …
Something dark …
Olga is asleep …
The prayer chain …
Marina sends …
“So then there’s hope?” …
Hugo lingers …
Domínguez is eating …
Mónica’s world …
Mancuso and Olga …
“By the holy wounds!” …
When they enter …
Beto is also …
Marta is talking …
Another day …
Olga has tough …
The selfie Evelyn takes …
Hugo is waiting …
Talking to Mancuso …
The sun’s rays …
Olga doesn’t like …
At Don Guido’s …
“If Hugo’s body …
“Until Hugo shows up …
Marta stubs …
In Luján …
Seated on the shore …
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
AVAILABLE AND COMING SOON FROM PUSHKIN VERTIGO
COPYRIGHT
PART ONE
Dust raised by the impact falls slowly onto the bodies. The thickest particles are struck by a shaft of light, and amid the sparkling dust, a St Expeditus holy card hangs suspended in the air and in a silence that could mean life or death. Expeditus flutters over the heads, doesn’t decide on any of them. Because who isn’t a shit in the end? He seems to be enjoying the suspense. Then, suddenly, he floats upwards, collides with the roof, flips face down and takes a nosedive towards Hugo, the highest point on a mountain of bodies. Hugo’s hand reaches for the holy card, his neck twisted in the direction of Buenos Aires, facing the barrio of Liniers like the other bodies, which are piled up, jumbled together, crushed against the walls of the carriage, spilling out the window, dislocated, broken, busted.
Hugo grabs hold of the patron saint of urgent matters. His arms are outstretched, the holy card in one hand, his mobile in the other. The soft bodies are clambering onto him, and he digs his elbows into one of them, pushing it down to free himself, so he can breathe. “Sorry,” he says, but no one answers. He can’t feel his legs and he’s afraid. It’s no longer silent. People are coughing, moaning, creaking, crying. A draft of air and some sounds make their way in from outside. Hugo hopes the firefighters have arrived. He pleads with Expeditus, asking to be taken out first. The people praying make him even more anxious. He wishes they would shut up and die already.
Hugo also deals with urgent situations. As a locksmith. He’d been on his way to the barrio of Once to help some bloke locked in an office. The man had stayed late to finish his work. Now Hugo won’t be able to get him out. This is what he gets for not taking the 163 bus like Marta told him. Just as things were going better between them, this had to happen. If he dies, Marta will be saying “I told you so” for the rest of her life. But she’s wrong. It’s just chance. Same goes with salvation—it’s random. No one’s saved because they pray to God or cry to a saint. Someone needs to call the firefighters.
There’s a message on Hugo’s phone and the screen lights up a shattered face. It’s the old lady who got on with him in the suburbs at Ituzaingó. Her eyes were already bulging a bit then. She was pushing a girl out of the way to get a seat. That girl must now be under her. Hugo feels about with his feet. The carriage is still dark but he’s beginning to make out the shapes of the shadows. He tries to read the WhatsApp message without looking around him. There are several dead, he knows this without seeing the bodies. He knows it because of the smell, which has been following him. It’s a smell he now recognizes easily based on what it’s not: it’s not like flesh or fear or rot. Instead, it’s like the smell of recently cut grass, a euphoric smell.
The message is from Marta:
Come home it’s urgent
Marta never says why. That’s what she’s like, alarmist. Everything is urgent. She’s probably watching the Turkish soap. And wanting to irritate him. Why won’t she put the news on to see what happened with the train? Hugo types out: “you come here, Marta.” It’s not that seeing her or saying goodbye feels urgent; it’s his anger at getting messages like this. She wants to have him by the balls, to make him feel he owes her something, while he’s the one suffocating. How long will he have to wait? How long can a person bear this? Before Hugo is able to send the message, he gets another one from Marta. The startled face of the dead old lady lights up again.
The police are looking for you
As though they were in cahoots with Marta, a couple of blokes with flashlights turn up. They direct the beams inside the carriage. Hugo is blinded and closes his eyes. There are sirens, voices, the sounds of people running. So much for St Expeditus. It’s all a bunch of lies.
“I’m no saint, but neither are you.”
Hugo is talking to the holy card. Though he’s not sure whether he thinks these words or says them out loud. There’s a lot of noise now. And people screaming. No one is listening from the beyond. And if someone is, who are they going to listen to first? A billion people are praying louder than Hugo, people more likely to make it into heaven than him and everyone else in the carriage. You go when your time’s up and not because there’s some capo pointing at you from above. There’s no need for a God who punishes or a figure on a flimsy card who demands you repent in order to be saved. Hugo has already repented. He’s not innocent but he’s “not guilty”. He thinks this in English, just like in the movies, which is what Beto says with an odd look and a smirk when the two of them go over what happened. Hugo says “what we did”, but Beto corrects him and says “what happened”. Beto’s no saint either. The Yankees are more astute when it comes to matters like these. They say “not guilty”. They don’t say “innocent”. Because as far as innocence goes, no one can make that claim.
Where are you
Marta doesn’t use question marks. Or full stops, or commas, or any other punctuation. She’s a highly anxious person. So Hugo erases what he wrote and quickly, he replies:
Sorry, I fucked up.
Evelyn nearly dies of fright when the police enter her home. She jumps off the couch and freezes. It’s a good thing a shot has just been fired—the police think that’s the reason. There are two of them, her mum let them in. The sound of the second bullet has all three of them looking at the television. Kerem is lying in the street, his white shirt stained with blood. Bennu is talking to him on his mobile, saying she loves him. He hears her but can’t respond and stretches out an arm, tries to reach the phone that has fallen onto the pavement. It’s night, there’s no one around to help Kerem, and Bennu keeps talking, unaware that her husband is dying. Evelyn watches the soap without moving, without breathing. She feigns not having heard the doorbell, not having seen them come in. If you don’t look at them, they won’t look at you, she thinks; if you keep still, they won’t see you. Her heart about to explode, Evelyn stands there repeating, ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod. She thinks quickly about what she’ll do if they take her to the station, if she’s arrested, if she misses her graduation trip, if it would be best to confess and apologize. Like the principal said, ohmygod, she was yelling so much. It’s better to confess and apologize because either way the police will find the fingerprints and in less than a day they’ll know who stole Miss Laura’s mobile.
Evelyn is guilty. Even if her mum were to tell the police that wasn’t possible, that there must be a mistake. She already has a tablet, but she wanted a mobile so she could join the WhatsApp group Martín’s in and chat with him. And then everything went wrong because Miss Laura found out right away and she had them queue up in the courtyard and she threatened to go through their backpacks. Evelyn almost confessed. She didn’t because the principal was screaming loads and it would have been so embarrassing, way more embarrassing than if the police handcuffed her now and took her to the station in front of the whole neighbourhood, way more than if her mum yanked her by the hair and forced her to turn around and asked, whatdidyoudonow?
But none of this happens because the police leave without a search. Evelyn and her mum hear the sound of their pickup. Now is the time to save themselves. Before the police come back with reinforcements. Her mum is calm in the kitchen. They could flee, go to Brazil, change their names. Evelyn could call herself Carmina.
Detective domínguez reads on his phone what he already suspects: the bloke they’re looking for isn’t at the 163 bus stop. Of course he’s not. Domínguez gets up without saying anything, and prepares to leave without giving an explanation. He hasn’t been seated in the dining room for more than ten minutes. Marta hasn’t even offered him a glass of water.
“Have a good evening, ma’am,” he says on his way out and hands her a card. “This is my mobile number. Anything comes up, you let me know.”
Not that she will. That much is clear to Domínguez as he heads for the pickup, the neighbours’ eyes on the back of his neck. “We’ll decide how to proceed tomorrow,” he says to no one, looking at the empty street in the rearview mirror before he starts the engine. The Toyota is the latest model and he has ten blocks to enjoy it alone before picking up Ramírez and stopping by Haedo Station. His body is taking him there, though there’s no need for a homicide detective at the scene of an accident. He turns on the air conditioning and drives at twenty to draw out the moment and allow his intuitions to form an intelligible shape.
In the kitchen, Marta hears the engine start and calculates how long it will take Domínguez to reach the corner. It’s only then that she gets moving. She places the police officer’s card in the pocket of her jeans and turns off the television. Evelyn gets scared more easily than she used to, but she holds her mother’s gaze.
“Empty your backpack, bring me your folders. Hurry up.”
On her bed, Marta places two large towels, two sets of single sheets, one pair of jean shorts, one sweater, one fleece jacket, three long-sleeve shirts, three with short sleeves, a couple of leggings, one pair of sneakers. She puts fifteen grand inside the backpack. Ten in her bra. Five on top of the clothes. She empties the nightstand and separates out her eyeglasses, their ID cards, Evelyn’s birth certificate. Marta thinks quickly. Two minutes and you’ve got someone who’s not right in the head figured out, Hugo told her when they were students. He thinks more slowly than she does but he acts faster. That’s why they’re always going nowhere. Hugo because he’s impulsive and Marta out of habit.
She’s not hesitating now, she’s carrying out the evacuation plan as though she’d rehearsed it. Tonight, the clarity with which she sees things has moved down into her body. She loses control just once, when she can’t find their travel bag. She even roots around in the back of the closet. But the huge bag isn’t there, the one Hugo always makes an idiotic joke about, saying he’ll force Evelyn into it so they won’t have to pay her fare. Eventually Evelyn starts crying and everything ends badly. It’s a Nike bag with the Barça crest printed on it, not like the embroidered original. That’s how the first police officer to leave described it, to see if it rang a bell for Marta. That bag. It’s not there. They’ll have to make do with a small suitcase.
Evelyn comes over with her school folders. Marta opens them on the bed, takes out the sheets Evelyn has written on, and puts them in a pile. Maths on the bottom, on top of that Spanish, then social sciences and natural sciences.
“Go get your books and pencil case. Pick out your favourite clothes. I’ll explain later. Hurry up now and don’t worry.”
The double bed is a jumble of clothes, money and empty folders. Romeo Santos, the King of Bachata, is smiling sideways on the Spanish and social sciences folders.
“Can I take this with me?” Evelyn asks, and it’s clear she’s understood her mother’s instructions. She promises herself it’s the last time she’ll open her mouth that night.
“No, please hurry. Give me the tablet.”
Evelyn’s eyes fill with tears.
“I’ll give it to you tomorrow,” Marta promises.
They leave without making any noise, the lights left on, the door unlocked. They practically break into a run on their way to Ituzaingó Station. Marta is silent and looks at WhatsApp from time to time. Evelyn is panting behind her mother, her hands in the pockets of her new jacket, the bachata star’s photo rescued sneakily during the exodus and Miss Laura’s mobile at the very bottom of her backpack.
Evelyn tries to breathe deeply so she can get enough air. That’s what she does in gym class when she’s forced to run. Inhale exhale, ohmygod ohmygod, inhale exhale, ohmygod ohmygod, inhale exhale. There was this girl who’d been forced to run so much she died. Evelyn can’t stop thinking about her: she saw the video on YouTube. The girl had been punished by her grandma for eating some pastries. She kept saying she didn’t feel well, but her grandma was so angry she didn’t listen. Evelyn’s mum doesn’t look angry, all she said was to be quiet. “Be quiet, Evelyn, and please hurry up. Run, Evelyn. Don’t worry.” But Evelyn is worried.
She wants to die, to cry, but crying makes things worse. With her mum it’s better not to. She feels the sausages they had for dinner in her throat. Her mum is holding her hand tightly and not looking at her. They walk very quickly and when they reach the station, they’re out of breath. It’s that her mum wants to save her and has forgotten about her dad. What will he do if he’s left by himself? Evelyn really wants to ask, but it’s better not to bring up the subject. Come on, you can do it, she says to herself, tell Mum you don’t want to leave and then deal with the punishment. Start secondary school at a juvenile detention centre, get a tattoo. That’s better than running to death and leaving without Dad. It’s better than waiting with a suitcase and money at a dark station where you might get robbed and anything could happen, where you could get killed for a mobile.
In her head, Evelyn recites the list of students in 7B at her school, Los Santos Ángeles Custodios. Marta looks through her WhatsApp contacts. Hugo hasn’t sent her any more messages. The train isn’t coming. Marta writes to Mónica:
I’m on my way to yours
With evelyn
Should be there at five
I’ll explain later
She takes 500 out of her bra and crosses over to the Belgrano taxi stand. They don’t know her and Evelyn there.
Evelyn follows behind, relieved. There are a lot of people in the street. The air is cooler after the hot day. Cars drive by with the windows down and the music turned up. They’re playing the songs people will be dancing to in the summer. Some of the shops are still open. Marta speaks to her daughter for the first time since they left their house.
“Don’t ask me for anything, we’ve already started spending our cash.”
Evelyn buries her chin in the neck of her jacket. She doesn’t plan on asking for anything. Ever again.
Myjesus, pardon and mercy, through the merits of your holy wounds. Mónica repeats this ten times, and with two fingers in her waistcoat pocket, she touches her rosary beads, her steps following the prayer’s rhythm as she walks along a red carpet with a design that’s yellow but looks like gold. Mónica is very religious. When it comes to God, Christ and the Virgin—the important figures. Marta’s the one who’s into the saints. Mónica is the believer and worshipper. She walks along the border on the floor, with its Egyptian designs, and when she reaches the corner, she recites in her head, I offer you the wounds ofourlordjesuschrist to heal the wounds of our souls. She turns left and begins again with myjesus, pardon and mercy, then walks along the corridor between the hypnotic sounds and the fantastical creatures, unicorns, exotic dancers, Ramses’s treasures, muscular gladiators. They’re all in attendance tonight. Mónica can’t see their faces but by now she recognizes them from behind. Each at their favourite slot machine. Some of them cross themselves, kiss little medallions, crucifixes. This isn’t faith. It’s the desire to save yourself.
