Southwesterly Wind Read online

  She would turn sixty when her son turned thirty, in the same month. Their birthdays were only a week apart. She’d dreamed of having a party together, with all their friends and relatives. There was the problem of finding a place: the little apartment in Flamengo wouldn’t even fit all their relatives (and there weren’t that many of them), not to mention her son’s colleagues and friends. In any case, there was nothing to celebrate. She wasn’t even sure that she and her son would make it to their birthdays safe and sound.

  All he wanted to do was make sure that the man was real, that he walked and talked like any other inhabitant of the city, that he wasn’t some kind of supernatural spirit hovering above common mortals. What he found out about him—to his surprise—was that on Saturday and Sunday afternoons he could be found in some of the chain restaurants that had spaces for children’s parties. The man who gave him the information wasn’t sure what he did at those parties; Gabriel found out later that he put on marionette plays with his girlfriend’s help—or maybe it was the other way around, and he helped her. He couldn’t imagine that sinister figure having anything to do with a children’s party, least of all performing with a puppet theater. Gabriel had spent three weekends casing out the hamburger joints of the Zona Sul looking for the Argentine. He didn’t know his name or where he came from; all he knew from his accent was that he was from some Spanish-speaking country. Argentina was Gabriel’s own invention. He thought of Argentines the same way he thought about gypsies: always suspicious. There were parties in several restaurants, but he didn’t find any trace of the psychic in any of them. He didn’t know what he would do if he found him. He didn’t even know if he really wanted to find him. He himself felt suspect walking into the children’s party rooms; nobody knew him, and all eyes—especially those of the birthday child’s parents—were on him. The look was questioning and yet friendly, as if they were thanking him for coming and trying to figure out who he was. Occasionally they would even give him a sandwich and a soft drink. He didn’t know what crime he was committing, but he was sure he was committing one: breaking and entering, perjury, unlawful seizure, theft. He almost always left with his head down, ashamed, excusing himself.

  Since he didn’t have a car and didn’t have the money to hire a taxi to take him around on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, he had to focus his investigation on the restaurants along the bus routes, disembarking every time he saw one. His search was irregular and disorganized. On the first weekend he covered Flamengo, Catete, and Largo do Machado, all on foot. On the second weekend, with a little more difficulty, he took in the neighborhoods of Botafogo and Urca, which, since the route wasn’t linear, involved changing buses several times. When he went through Copacabana and Ipanema, the search became qualitatively simpler but quantitatively much more arduous, since there were so many more restaurants. Toward the end, he had the sense that he was going to the same party over and over again, with the same children, the same parents, the same decorations, the same clowns. It was almost enough to make him forget what he was looking for.

  He was haunted day and night—not by the face of the seer, but by the curse, pronounced with a slight Spanish accent. In fact, the actual way the psychic had said it had long since changed into a cold and impersonal statement, like a death sentence. Gabriel didn’t have visions. He didn’t have fantasies about killing someone. He didn’t dream about deaths and murders. He was terrorized by a simple phrase: the sentence the Argentine had spoken, and that alone. No visual images accompanied it. Only the sounds: the Argentine’s voice, with its slight Spanish accent. On the way from his ears to his brain, the sound had come alive in the interior of his head. The mere recollection of the tone of voice was enough to make him dizzy. His scalp felt sweaty.

  During his trip back home he realized that the Argentine might live in the Zona Norte, or even in some distant suburb. That would turn his search into a lottery, and he didn’t think he was the lucky type. Carless and clueless, he could spend the rest of his days trolling through the children’s birthday parties of Rio de Janeiro.

  He felt like a complete idiot, not only because of the fruitless search that had swallowed up his last three weekends but because he didn’t know what he was looking for or why he was looking for it. What would he do if he found the Argentine? Try to attack him? But he had never been the aggressive type. The aggression had been in the man’s prophecy, and that, he had to admit, had been spoken in a firm tone but with a soft voice. What would he try to get the psychic to do? Change his prophecy? That would not only be idiotic, it would be ridiculous.

  He got off the bus at Flamengo Beach, breaking habit by entering his street from that end, not, as usual, from the Rua do Catete. He had to walk a good ways before making out the facade of his building and his mother’s silhouette against the light of the window. She certainly would have felt him coming long before she actually saw him.

  He responded with a grunt to his mother’s message about the phone call from the unknown woman and locked himself in his room. He only turned on the lamp, and even that felt excessive, but he didn’t feel right in complete darkness. He slowly removed his clothes, weighing every movement, precisely extending his arms and legs within the tiny space available to him.

  He heard the movements of his mother preparing dinner. He wasn’t hungry. The smell of food reminded him of the countless sweets and hot dogs he’d encountered in the fast-food places; it made him sick. He tried to resist the impulse to bite his nails, an irritating habit he’d acquired a few weeks ago. But that wasn’t what annoyed him the most. If he could place everything that annoyed him in a well-defined hierarchy, his mother’s controlling attitude would be at the very top. His impatience with her had begun around two or three years ago, provoked by a few unimportant episodes. As his irritation grew, they grew further apart. Their physical contact had stopped when he was still a child. Besides functional everyday talk, they rarely had a conversation. He refrained from biting his nails, but he noticed that his hands were sweaty, despite the cool air coming through the half-opened window. He turned off the lamp and let the streetlight illuminate his room. He stretched out in bed, without moving, waiting for his mother to knock on the door to tell him that dinner was ready.

  Monday began slowly, after a listless weekend. The alarm clock didn’t ring, a fact Espinosa attributed to a mechanical failure rather than his own failure to set it. He got to the station late, having missed his chance to talk to Alice. Welber was waiting for him.

  “Your friend Gabriel called, insisting on bringing a coworker here to talk to you at the station.”

  “Welber—”

  “It won’t work. He said it has to be with you. And he asked if it could be at the end of the day, after they get off work.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “Him and his coworker.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “I don’t know. He says she was there at the birthday party.”

  “All right. Did you find out anything about the Argentine?”

  “Not even the guy, Gabriel, knows if he’s Argentine. He could be from any country in South America. He could be a Brazilian trying to sound like a foreigner. In any case, we haven’t found a record of anyone who matches the boy’s description.”

  “Welber, he’s not a boy, he’s just a guy who’s scared.”

  “Fuck, Espinosa. Our job isn’t comforting frightened children.”

  Episodes like this one broke up the monotony of his job, which was increasingly dominated by paper-pushing. The cop who investigated crimes and tracked down thieves was a less familiar figure. Robberies and murders were on the rise, but they weren’t the main focus of police work. In a country marked by huge income disparities, the only real job of the police was to keep the Third World from invading the First. Espinosa knew this; a few other colleagues knew it; the rest of the force was composed of people as shady as the ones they arrested, attacked, and shook down. Against such a backdrop, a man threatened by a fortune-tell
er with committing murder was certainly a change of pace.

  The rest of the morning passed in a blizzard of paper. Espinosa left for lunch without having decided where to go; there were several options within easy walking distance. A fine haze filtered and spread the sunlight; the light was brilliant. Buildings, trees, people, and objects were perfectly lit: strongly illuminated and free of shadow. Espinosa also noticed a man with one shoe that was shiny and clean and another that was dirty and beat up. In fact, this was more interesting to him than the light; unlike natural events, this one involved a story. Why would someone wear one dirty shoe and one clean one? It wasn’t, he thought as he walked beyond the couple of blocks where he ordinarily ate lunch, it wasn’t and it couldn’t be that he’d walked through a puddle or accidentally stuck his foot in something. The shoe wasn’t accidentally dirty; it had been systematically mistreated. What kind of person would dedicate special attention to one shoe while letting the other fall to pieces? The enigma had no importance for anyone besides the shoes’ owner himself, but it was food for many hours of thought; it might even keep Espinosa up at night. It had already made him walk too far; where would he have lunch? He was almost to the Avenida Atlântica when he retraced his steps. A few moments later, he found himself in front of a girl who was looking at him sympathetically and asking, “To go?” In response to his nod, she slid the sandwich and milkshake into a paper bag.

  Back at the station, he got yet another call from Gabriel, asking if their meeting could take place at the end of the next day, around five in the afternoon, a time that would be convenient for them.

  “Chief, has it occurred to you that the kid might be running some kind of scam?”

  “What scam, Welber? There’s no scam. We don’t even have a case.”

  When Welber left his office, Espinosa couldn’t help thinking about what he’d said. Indeed, since the very first phone call, and more specifically since their first meeting in the restaurant, Gabriel had been in charge of the itinerary. He had assigned everyone involved a role, as if he were writing a story. On the other hand, he didn’t feel as if the guy was manipulating him. He didn’t even think that was what the guy was trying to do, at least not consciously. In any case, he would be more careful. His own fantasies were enough trouble. He didn’t need any extra confusion.

  He went back home at his regular time and, as usual, stopped off for a few minutes at the store, where he bought black bread, cold cuts, and drinks. In the winter he usually preferred red wine to beer: it was more elegant, and better for the heart. Lately, he’d been trying to substitute a snack for a full meal, occasionally allowing himself some canned soup as an appetizer. It was all part of his effort to reduce his domestic duties to a bare minimum. He’d long considered the oven a prehistoric relic. But he hadn’t yet managed to eliminate plates, cups, and silverware. He couldn’t stand eating with plastic utensils.

  Alice was sitting on the bench in front of the building, while Petita, who had nothing petite about her, was watching the movements of a ball being tossed around by a group of children. Girl and dog moved toward Espinosa as soon as they saw him approaching.

  “I’m so glad you’ve arrived. I’ve got news. A litter has been born. Two males and three females.”

  “What are you talking about, honey?”

  “About your dog, of course.”

  “What dog?”

  “A Labrador.”

  “A what?”

  “A Labrador. You don’t know what a Labrador is?”

  “A dog breed.”

  “Right. Didn’t we agree that you were lonely and that you needed a dog?”

  “We didn’t agree any such thing. You’re the one who decided that.”

  “But you didn’t disagree.”

  “Which doesn’t mean I agreed.”

  “Espinosa, they’re wonderful. The color of sand. The owner of the litter says I can have first pick.”

  Petita, a pointer whose main way of relating to the world was sniffing, was trying to discover, with the tip of her nose, what was in the shopping bags.

  “They were born the day before yesterday. They’re so, so cute.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “And the owner said that pointers and Labradors get along perfectly.”

  “And what is this human here going to do with a Labrador?”

  “You don’t have to do anything. He’s the one who will take care of you. He’ll be your friend, he’ll sleep next to you, he’ll be wagging his tail whenever you come home, he’ll protect your apartment …”

  “And who is going to take care of him?”

  “I already said I’ll take care of him. I’ll take him on walks, bathe him, take him to the vet, everything. On Saturday I’ll take you there to see them. It’s right here in the Peixoto District. They have to stay with their mother until they can be weaned. So you’ve got time to choose. Don’t say anything until you’ve seen them.”

  Espinosa leaned over to give her two little kisses, which she took as a sign that her plan was moving forward.

  Olga’s first thought upon awaking was of her meeting with the police sergeant that afternoon. She’d never been to a police station before, and the images she’d seen on the TV news weren’t encouraging. Luckily, Irene had agreed to come along. Gabriel would be there, but she suspected that he would be needing a lot of support. And she was a little worried because she didn’t know exactly what they wanted from her. Gabriel had said it wasn’t to give a deposition; it wasn’t anything official, just an informal conversation to convince the sergeant that he wasn’t making up the whole story. But wasn’t he? Could she swear that ninety percent of what was happening was anything more than his own invention? Besides, nothing was happening, except for his neurotic anxieties and fantasies. As for the rest, there was the fortune-teller’s prediction, but that in itself was a bunch of nonsense. She drank her coffee thinking that if she was lucky she’d run into Gabriel in the subway station. That way they’d have a couple of minutes to chat about the meeting. Gabriel had asked her not to mention it at work; it could have negative consequences.

  She didn’t see Gabriel on the platform at Catete, where he usually got on the train; but in the Copacabana station, as she was walking toward the escalators, she felt a hand on her shoulder. It was him.

  “I looked for you at your station,” said Olga.

  “I got in the last car, right when the train was about to leave.”

  “Is the meeting this afternoon still on?”

  “Yes … You’re coming, right?”

  “I am. I asked a girlfriend to come with me. I think I’ll feel better with her. I imagine there are a lot of smarmy men in a police station.”

  “It’s not like that at all. It’s a public place—you don’t have to be scared. Who’s your friend?”

  “Her name is Irene. We’ve been friends since college. Don’t worry about her; she can take care of herself.”

  It was only a little more than three blocks from the train station to the building where they worked. They walked the last two in silence. Gabriel walked with his eyes on the sidewalk. Occasionally, he looked at Olga and smiled awkwardly. They looked like two strangers in an elevator.

  The few times they ran into each other throughout the rest of the day were marked by Gabriel’s complete unease. At five o’clock, as arranged, they left for the station. They talked about the weather, making the cold seem worse than it really was, and arrived at the station without any uncomfortable silences. As soon as they walked in the station’s entrance, Gabriel started babbling nervously. Olga took his arm, and by the time they reached the second floor he seemed to have calmed down. A detective asked them to wait; the sergeant was tied up on an urgent matter. They sat on the sofa next to the stairs and waited for fifteen minutes; just as Sergeant Espinosa opened the door of his office, Irene arrived at the top of the stairs, and he saw Olga introduce Irene to Gabriel. Then it was Gabriel’s turn to introduce the girls to the officer, which he did r
ather uncomfortably. Espinosa invited them into his office. The peaceful gaze he directed at each of them before they sat down lingered a few seconds on Irene.

  “Sergeant, thank you for seeing me once again. I thought it was important that you listen to my colleague, Olga, who was there at my birthday party. Irene here is a friend of Olga’s.”

  Olga looked at Gabriel with surprise. During the entire day, he’d hardly managed to get out a single coherent phrase, and here he was, speaking articulately, using precise words, almost eloquent. Gabriel noticed the effect of his words and tried to play it down.

  “I’m sorry about how formal I sound. It’s because you haven’t met the girls yet, sir…. I don’t even know one of them—”

  “But you don’t seem shy in the least,” Irene interrupted.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Just a conversation Olga and I had.”

  Gabriel looked at Olga questioningly. She quickly clarified her friend’s words.

  “When I asked Irene to come with me, I tried to bring her up to speed on what was going on and I mentioned you…. I think I might have said that you’re a little shy.”

  “Ah.”

  “But she also said you’re interesting,” Irene added.

  After Irene’s observation, there was a little bit of doubt in the air about what exactly she meant. Olga was clearly beginning to question the wisdom of bringing her along. Espinosa still hadn’t said a word.

  “Sergeant, the reason I asked my colleague to come here with me was so that she could convince you that I’m telling the truth.”

  “But I never doubted your word.”

  “Yes, I know … but I thought I should reinforce it…. If she could tell you …”

  “Of course she can. I’d be happy to hear what you have to say.”

  Before Olga could start the story, Irene addressed Espinosa.