Lustbader, Eric - Angel Eyes

297 Pages·2016·0.8 MB·English

by  Lustbader Eric van

SANCTUARY
BUENOS AIRES/SAN FRANCISCO
Whenever Tori Nunn was bored, she went to Buenos Aires. Partly it was because
Buenos Aires was a place she had never worked, so, essentially, no one knew
her-what she had been. Partly, it was because in Buenos Aires, sitting beneath
the natural awning of the jacarandas, their clattering shade striping her
face, she could at last forget Greg. But perhaps more than anything else, she
came to this incomplete city because here she could begin again to define
herself, as if now even her own shadow had become unrecognizable.
Here, in Buenos Aires, inhabited by the portenos - the port dwellers, as the
city's natives were known-controlled by the alta sociedad, there was a mix of
stupendously beautiful, sensual people who were exhaustingly proud even as
they were consumed by shame at being South Americans. They were, like college
dropouts, inevitably embarrassed by themselves and their place in the world.
When they went to New York, they always said, "I am flying to North America."
This is what made the portenos interesting to Tori: their inner hurt was
protected by their cultural traits in the same way a tortoise is protected by
its shell. The patrons of the Cafe la Biela and the nearby Cafe de la Paix
proved this to her. They might
smell of imported suntan oil, of perfumes by Calvin Klein and Jean Patou, just
as their city might smell of auto fumes and mate, the local herb tea, but
beneath it all, Tori knew, the portenos and their streets were redolent of
cigar smoke and marzipan.
This was their history, as Jorge Luis Borges wrote it, as then-forefathers had
lived it, where illusion, like the rich smoke from rolled tobacco, had come to
create the past even as it obscured the present. In the decade after the
Second World War, the fathers of these exquisite portenos had amassed their
wealth by selling their slaughtered cattle and the fruits of their Pampa to a
starving Europe. But by the middle of the fifties the excesses of the Perons
had bankrupted the country, throwing Buenos Aires and, indeed, all Argentina
into chaos. Escalating terrorism from the far right and left began to tear the
country apart. The result was the coming to power of a succession of
repressive military juntas.
But the country's frightening, two-year bout with hyperinflation-12,000
percent per year-riots, and civil unrest had toppled a succession of elected
governments. Despair had gripped the nation until some months ago, when a
coalition led by Las Dinamicas, the two most powerful women in Argentine
politics, managed to win control of the government. Their party, the Union of
the Democratic Center, had pledged to end Argentina's long history of
authoritarianism by instituting reforhis granting extensive individual liberty
and an end to the crippling control of the government in business. "The
beginning of a free market economy," went their successful campaign slogan,
"is an end to hyperinflation." The first priority had been to convert the
official currency into American dollars, which had the effect of immediately
stabilizing the runaway Argentine inflation.
Through all this Moody history, the portenos survived and, perhaps, even
flourished, for it is said that every Argentine heart beats most strongly for
myth, and myth cannot exist save as a balm against pain and suffering.
But myth was too often illusion. And the truth of illusion- me truth that no
porteno can truly face-is that no matter how dazzling its exterior may be,
there is nothing inside.
Tori knew this, knew the portenos almost as well as they knew themselves. Thus
she was comfortable here in their city, strolling down their wide boulevards,
sunbathing amid cocoa flesh on their beaches, surrounded by their aura of
failure and by then-very real sensuality and sense of style.
These people carried their pain as she did-deep inside them- though often
through the chic facade in which they had wrapped themselves she could discern
the stench of their desperation.
Tori lifted her arm, ordered another hot chocolate, the richest, thickest in
the world. With it, she knew, would come a silver tray of small sweets, an
array as heady, as opulent as the smoldering stares of the chantas who came to
the cafes with their thistresses to while away an hour or two between bouts
under the sheets.
A small breeze, redolent of this city's peculiar perfume, stirred the long
branches of the jacarandas, and Tori felt the caress of their tears patter
across her shoulders, the excess water of these beautiful semi-succulent
trees.
The chantas-Buenos Aires' wheeler-dealers-interested Tori most of all. She had
even allowed one or two to seduce her now and again, but in the end they had
found her too much even for them, disconcerted by her habit of watching them
intently during the most intimate throes of sexual congress.
"What are you doing?" they would ask her at those moments. "This is a time for
release, not concentration."
They did not understand-and she would not tell them-that for her sex with them
was to be observed, that by doing so she could pierce their chic shells, feel
the texture of their shame and hurt, comparing it with her own. This
concentration that so puzzled them was to her as sweet and richly flavored as
was her hot chocolate at the Cafe la Biela.
But this "strangeness," as the chantas called it, was hardly the only reason
they held her in awe. They had heard stories that she had climbed barefoot the
massive Iguazu Falls six hundred miles to the northeast, had, in fact, helped
the male members of her party when their strength flagged or they were in
trouble. They had heard she was courageous, indefatigable- which was, after
all, why they sought to seduce her.
In her strangeness-the enigma of such brute strength and stamina in a
female-the chantas sought answers to the mysteries that obsessed them: who
were they, where did they come from, why were they such failures?
Tori sipped her chocolate, consumed a sweet in one voracious bite. Somewhere,
along the Avenida Quintana, a man played a bandoneon, squeezing out a typical
tango melody, infused with the bittersweet essences of Latin macho, unrequited
love, and blood vengeance.
The Avenida Quintana, filled with swaggering portenos and cliques of rabid
Japanese tourists, was one of the main streets of the swank residential
Recoleta district. The Recoleta had been born near the end of the last century
due to a plague of yellow fever in the city's southern districts that caused
the aristocracy to move north. Years ago, when me Recoleta was home to
slaughterhouses, its streets ran red with the blood of cattle during the heavy
winter rains. Now winter brought only melancholy, and a gathering sense of
dissolution. Then, Buenos Aires was to be avoided.
By the time she had finished her second cup of hot chocolate, Tori decided it
was time to go. The sun was low in the sly, turning the Recoleta's blocky
white high rises the color of blood oranges. Blue shadows lay in the street
like the dead, or unwanted reminders of' 'the disappeared"-those people taken
by the military in its zeal to ferret out a group of young radical terrorists.
In those days-the seventies- to be a teacher, a union member, or merely to be
known as an intellectual, was to risk being drawn into el proceso, a trial
without either lawyer or jury; it was to risk being "disappeared."
Her thoughts turning by moments more and more morbid, Tori gathered up her
purse and small shopping bag. But before she could rise, she saw Estilo. He
was a German-Argentine chanta, one of the few who had sought out her company
but not her bed. He was different in other ways, as well. He was a
square-jawed man in his early fifties with long steel-gray, slicked-back hair,
a patrician mustache, and a sense of style no full-blooded German ever had.
his manner was often brusque, but he told the truth more often than other
chantas, and for this Tori forgave him everything.
Estilo made his way toward her table. He was smiling, surprised and happy to
see her. He had with him a younger man, slim-hipped, wide-shouldered. The man,
handsome, with the rugged outdoorsy face of an estanciero-a rancher-was most
likely in his mid-thirties, roughly the same age as Tori. He was dressed in a
pair of baggy silk trousers and a washed silk shirt, open at the neck, under a
trim linen sport coat. He had the thick black hair, the heavy-lidded eyes of
the Latin porteno.
Estilo caught her appraising look. "My darling Tori!" he exclaimed, clamping
her in a fervent embrace.' 'Why didn't you tell me you were coming? I would
have made preparations!"
' 'I didn't know myself until the last minute,'' Tori said.' 'You know how my
life is."
Estilo gave her a rueful look. "Too chaotic for someone in so early a
retirement." He clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. "I keep
telling you to find a line of work that interests you.'' He smiled, showing
large, nicotine-stained teeth. "And if not, you have a permanent invitation to
join my business."
"Just what is your business?" Tori asked.
Estilo threw his head back and laughed, then he grabbed at the sleeve of the
younger man, pulled him down to a seat next to him at Tori's table. "Tori
Nunn, I'd like you to meet a friend of mine, Ariel Solares. Ariel is a
norteamericano who spends a majority of his time here. his most fervent desire
is to become a porteno, no, Ariel?"
"My friend exaggerates, as usual," Ariel Solares said. "Actually, I wish to
understand the porteno. I come to Buenos Aires to soak up the air of the
mythical yesterday." He took a deep breath, let it out. "Can you not smell it,
perfuming the air like a rose?" He shrugged. "My own past-my whole life up
until now-could not be more prosaic, so I visit Buenos Aires to let this city
touch me, perhaps in some way to change me.''
"Nonsense," Estilo said. "You come here to do business." But Tori could see
that he was impressed with what Ariel had said. Estilo, like all portenos, was
drawn to myth and all its fascinating ramifications. For him, ancient gods
dwelled in the rain forests and in the Pampa, and, because they had been
written about, spirits inhabited his city, sitting like gargoyles upon the
cornices of the modern buildings. This was the power of myth.
"You speak of Buenos Aires as if it were Lourdes," Tori said, suddenly wanting
to draw Ariel out. "As if it had mystical healing powers." It did for her, why
not for him?
Ariel Solares cocked his head. "Well, I never thought of it in just that way,
but perhaps there is some truth in what you say. But 'healing,' I don't know
whether that is quite the correct word. I am not sick, merely bored."
"But, my friend, surely boredom is a form of sickness," Estilo said, his gaze
swinging from Ariel to Tori. "A person-all people-need a purpose. Without one,
life becomes meaningless, and further sickness-of a deeper, more serious
nature-will surely follow."
Now Tori knew that Estilo was speaking directly to her, and she averted her
eyes. The tango music, drifting along the avenue, had turned bitter,
introspective, a harbinger of the last burst of violence and fury that was,
inevitably, to come.
"I'm quite all right," Tori said softly, not looking at either man, but rather
into the heart of the dark tango.
"Of course you are, my darling," Estilo said, patting her hand affectionately.
He had big hands, blunt and strong. "I did not mean to infer
otherwise"-although Tori knew that was precisely what he had meant to do. "I
merely assumed your boredom needed alleviating. In that event, I would be
delighted if you joined me tonight at my home." his mustache arched as he
smiled.' 'A very private party. If you aren't a friend of mine, you aren't
coming." He paused a moment, then said, "Ariel will be there."
Tori turned her head, looked again at the younger man, his skin burnished by
the sun and the wind. She could imagine him riding the infinite pampas or,
bending slightly, his hair swept back by the wind and the speed of his mount,
swinging a polo mallet at Palermo Fields. But there was something different
about him; he was not a typical porteno, or even trying to be, and these
things intrigued her.
"All right," Tori said.
"Wonderful!" Estilo beamed at her as he rose. "Until tonight, then!"
For a moment Ariel sat facing her, his coffee-colored eyes staring into hers.
Then he took her hand, kissed it lightly, and was swept away by Estilo.
After the men were gone, Tori sat and sipped a brandy. It was, to her mind, a
melancholy drink, invoking intimations of broken promises, lost dreams, the
ashes of desire.
When at last she rose, the tango had finished its haunting tale, and only the
unlovely noises of the restless city remained.
Estilo's home was an apartment that took up the entire top floor of an
anonymous-looking high rise in the Recoleta. It was just a few blocks from the
cemetery, the ne plus ultra address in all of Buenos Aires, which perhaps told
you as much about the portenos as you needed to know: the dead possessed a
presence that made them in some subtle, mystical sense less dead than the dead
of other cultures.
The vast apartment which snaked from east to west was furnished in Italian
high fashion, which was to say with equal amounts of chic and money. Each
piece of furniture exhibited low, sleek lines and the distinctively patterned
fabrics of Ungaro and Missoni.
The place had been designed by Estilo's current thistress, Adona, a stunning
black-haired Argentine woman from the alta sociedad- the cream of porteno
society-who, in some ways, reminded Tori of herself. She had wanted more from
her relationship with Estilo, and had insisted that he take her into me
jungles of South America, where many of his dangerous business dealings took
place. Adona was as good at dispelling distrust as she was at disarming
Estilo's enemies.
She was an unusual hostess in this snobbish city, for she genuinely loved
people, and attended to their individual wants. She and Tori embraced warmly,
in the manner of sisters too long kept apart.
She drew Tori aside. In the kitchen uniformed servers were loading
chased-silver platters, enormous chafing dishes, with food. Adona ignored
these people.
"You look tired. Tori."
"Perhaps I am, a little. But if so, it's only the fatigue of inaction."
' 'Yes.'' Adona nodded.' 'I know you well. You need passion. Like with Estilo
and me, there is a passion. But your passion is for what? This violence,
living on the edge of the great abyss?'' Her eyes were sad. "I think this is
not healthy."
' 'Estilo said much the same thing to me this afternoon.''
Adona smiled. "Estilo is very fond of you." She laughed, a beautiful musical
sound. "Did you know that in the beginning I was quite jealous of you?''
"You had no reason to be," Tori said.
"Why not? Estilo is no angel. But then who is? Me? Are you?"
"No," Tori said, abruptly thinking of Greg, soaring like an angel above
Earth's atmospheric envelope. And then, while crawling outside, along the skin
of his vehicle, something had punctured his EVA suit, and all the oxygen had
been sucked from his lungs. A matter of seconds, that's all it had taken. From
heaven to hell, with only the brittle blue starlight for company. ' 'Death by
hypoxia,'' his death certificate had read, but that was so cold, so clinical.
It had not described his iced body, blistered and bruised beyond recognition
by the cruel vacuum of space.
"Tori." Adona was gripping her arm. "Here, take some brandy, you've gone
white."
"I'm all right." But just the same, Tori downed the liquor.
Adona shook her head. "There was a time," she said, "when I longed for the
life you lead: armed to the teeth, in the jungle, me enemy just ahead. It made
me feel so ... I don't know, alive." She took the empty glass from Tori's
hand. "But times change, I've changed. The truth is that the only time I felt
safe was when I had a MAC-10 in my hands and a knife on my hip. Then I knew I
was the equal of any man-not sexually, and certainly not emotionally. But
still I felt equal. A man could kill, and so could I. I was respected, even at
times deferred to. Then, at last, there was no difference between us. You
understand."
Tori looked at her. "What changed?"
Adona shrugged. "The world turns on its axis, the seasons change, day into
night. Who really can say with certainty? But I suspect that I have found that
whatever I was reaching for is nonexistent or, at least, illusory. I feel as
though in trying to measure up to men's standards, I've been sucked whole into
their world. And I've discovered I don't like it."
"What does Estilo say to all this? He met you in the jungle; that's where you
fell in love."
"Estilo doesn't know."
"But you must tell him," Tori said. "Estilo loves you; he wants you to be
happy."
Adona's liquid brown eyes locked with Tori's. "Yes, he loves me. But
happiness, now that's another matter entirely. Estilo is the consummate
businessman-he lives for the deal, it doesn't matter what the deal is. Because
each deal is well-defined, and Estilo's world is well-defined. I have spent so
much time and effort to become a part of that world, and now, as far as he's
concerned, everything meshes perfectly. He couldn't let me go. My role is too
well-defined. If I were to leave, a black hole would appear, an undefined gap
he could not tolerate.''
"But do you want to leave him?"
Adona gave off a little smile, like the glow of a tiny candle as darkness
falls. "I don't know."
"Don't let him go," Tori said. "He's a good man."
' 'Well, at least he's a little good.''
Adona suddenly leaned forward, kissed Tori on both cheeks. "Go enjoy the
party. Too much gloomy talk is bad for the soul.''
Tori squeezed Adona's hand, left her to monitor the coming food. The rooms
were filled with people-Buenos Aires' most famous artists, models, chantas-
and smoke, but somehow Estilo found Tori, pushed a Kir Royale into her hand,
kissed her on the cheek, murmured an endearment in German. He used German
infrequently, only when he was slightly drunk, and never in a place where he
could be overheard. He was Argentine, after all, and had his own myth to
foster.
"It is times like this," he said, linking his aim in hers, "when I miss Munich
most.'' Tori knew he traveled to Germany several times a year. "Have you ever
eaten in Die Aubergine?"
"I've never been to Munich," Tori said with a sense of deja vu. They'd had
this conversation many times.
"Ah, to look out on the Maximilianplatz and dine on such food!" Estilo shook
his head. "Still, Buenos Aires is home. And, after all, Munich is not such a
mysterious place. And the Germans-ach, the Germans never change. That is
supposed to be their great strength. But I have never found much to admire in
stone and concrete."
He guided her outside, onto the terrace that overlooked Buenos Aires. It faced
west, and one could see the boundary, the end of the city's lights, the
darkness along the wind-whipped plain where the Pampa-Argentina's great
prairie, filled with cowboys, ranchers, people used to a hard, dusty existence
-- began.
Estilo pointed to the darkness. "There is where I was born, schatzie. Not in
Germany, like my father. He married the daughter of an estanciero, and I like
to think I was born atop a horse.'' He laughed abruptly. "But that may be just
another myth. My analyst says I rely too heavily on myth. But she doesn't
understand. I am half German; I, more than most portenos, need the sanctuary
of myth in order to live with myself. I don't know what my father did during
the war and, God help me, I don't want to know. Do you think I can tell my
analyst this?" He shrugged. "It doesn't matter, really. The truth is, I'd
rather take her to bed than talk to her." Estilo looked at Tori suddenly. "And
you, schatzie. What is the truth about you?"
' 'I thought we had an agreement,'' Tori said.
"We do. Ask me no questions and I'll tell you no lies, yes? We have helped
each other out in the past without being told precisely what the other did."
He shrugged. "That does not mean we don't know, eh?" Estilo was very grave.
"But I must tell you that sometimes you worry me. I never had children; I
never thought I wanted them; I am far too self-indulgent. But I confess that
often I feel as if you are my daughter. I feel the urge to protect you even
though I know that is the last thing you want from anyone."
All at once. Tori understood that Estilo was afraid of offending her. She felt
a corresponding rush of emotion that threatened
to strangle her: thinking of Greg, who had only wanted to protect her. She
went immediately into prana, deep, controlled breathing that sent oxygen
through her entire body.
"You're very kind," she said at last. The lights of the city shone through the
night, illuminating the undersides of lowering clouds. The air had turned
heavy; soon it would rain. "And you're very dear to me." She gave him a tiny
smile that had about it an ironic edge. "But it is you portenos who are mad
about analysts."
"In my many years on this planet,'' Estilo said,' 'I have come to realize that
everyone can, at one time or another, benefit from introspection. You are an
extraordinary human being. Tori, but in this, I think, you are no exception."
Tori smiled, kissed him on the cheek, embraced him briefly. "Thank you, Papa,"
she said in German.
Estilo looked into her eyes, and she was reminded of Ariel, of how the younger
man also had looked her in the eyes this afternoon at the Cafe la Biela, of
the different emotions the two men stirred in her.
"Ariel has been searching for you since he arrived," Estilo said. "I think he
is smitten."
"He is very handsome," Tori admitted.
"I think he will be good for what ails you, schatzie," Estilo said.
Tori laughed. "You sound like a soothsayer. What does he do?"
"Oh, I think that depends," Estilo said. "his business is beef-very boring, as
he said. It's perfectly legitimate. But I believe that he has another reason
for being here: the disappeared. I think he is conducting a clandestine
investigation into the atrocities committed here in the name of justice."
"Interesting."
"I was certain you'd think so," he said. Then he pushed her back into the
milling throng of the party. "Go find him before he faints from anguish."
Estilo was obliged to shout this last in order to be heard over the din of
music and cacophonous conversation.
Ariel was dressed in black. In that first instant when Tori spotted him
through the crowd, he looked like an angel she had once dreamed about. He had
no halo, however, and when he saw her, he broke out in a smile, his white even
teeth shining, and the image dissolved. Angels-at least as Tori conceived of
them-never smiled.
"I thought you had changed your mind," Ariel said, coming up to her. "I was
certain you weren't coming."
"Didn't you consult an adivina" Tori's tone was deliberately sardonic.
"I will tell you a secret," Ariel said, coming close to her. "I put no stock
in fortune-tellers. But don't tell my porteno friends. They would never
understand." He grinned at her. "Fortune-tellers and analysts are sacred here,
like cows in India."
Tori laughed, surprised at how comfortable she felt with this man. There was a
danger in that, but only to her self-imposed exile from the human race.
Perhaps, she thought, there was something to what Estilo had said. Perhaps she
had come down with an illness for which there was as yet no name. She wondered
if there was a cure.
Ariel said something but, in the din, she could not hear what it was. She
shrugged at him, pointing to her ear, and shook her head.
He put his lips against her ear, said, "Let's go somewhere else."
Ten minutes later they were entering the Recoleta cemetery where the esteemed
ancestors of the alta sociedad lay interred beneath flower-strewn earth and
ornately carved marble. This was a city of the dead, a baroque necropolis from
which many of the myths of the portenos were born. From death to life: there
was a certain poetry to the notion, at least from an Argentine point of view.
The jacarandas dripped moisture, but rain was on the way. A low rumble filled
the air, its echoes reluctant to fade away.
Ariel led the way as if he were a frequent visitor here. The oppressive
darkness of marble and stone ornately carved in the French and Italian
Renaissance styles gave way to a soft glow, increasing as they went forward.
Soon they had come upon a crypt. Around it were laid out wreaths woven of
flowers, bouquets, bunches of wildflowers. Under the trees where the rain
could not penetrate, the flames of perhaps a hundred candles flickered. Into
the crypt's face was carved, simply, Eva duarte.
"Here is myth," Ariel said, pointing to the last resting place of Eva Peron.
"More has been written-quite erroneously- about her than anyone in this
country. Was she saint or demon?''
"Perhaps she was neither," Tori said. "Perhaps she was just a woman."
"Well, don't let the descamisados, the shiftless ones, hear you say that.'' He
was speaking of the workers who had slavishly followed their hope, the Perons.
"It would not be enough for them." Ariel turned to look at her. It had begun
to rain, a fine pattering through the trees that made Tori think of airports
and farewells. "You think it is not understandable? Everything else has been
taken from them."
"Even their children," Tori said. "Their future."
"In a very real sense, yes. Those that disappeared in the night during
Argentina's reign of terror will never be heard from again. The disappeared
are now only mute witnesses to this country's savage history. Oppression
stilled their voices forever." Ariel looked out across the sea of baroque
headstones and crypts. "It's quite sad."
Stone angels surrounded Tori and Ariel, their tiny carved wings encrusted with
the soot of the city. Rain rolled down their cheeks like tears as they
remembered the dead. The polished marble of the necropolis was milky, eerily
luminous in the aqueous light from the massed candles.
"Does this display mean that after all this time Peronism still lives?"
"Only in a sense," Ariel said. "It is like a dream, you see. The descamisados
continue to hope, but now the new leaders of Peronism veer from one political
platform to another instead of facing the truth: that the true essence of
Peronism is today an anachronism."
Tori stared into the candles' flames. "Here the children paid for the sins of
their fathers." She turned to look into his face. ''Where is the justice in
that?''
"We are in Argentina," Ariel said. "A place where justice is, at best,
misunderstood."
The rain drowned the candles' flames, and darkness once again enwrapped the
city of the dead. Tori had the abrupt feeling that she and Ariel both knew
what the worst was: justice used as a weapon to destroy, and as a shield
behind which to obscure culpability.
Ariel shivered as if the night had suddenly turned cold or a spirit had
touched the back of his neck. "Perhaps it was a mistake to come here tonight,"
he said.
* 'Do you mean Estilo's party or the Recoleta cemetery?'' Tori asked.
Ariel smiled, and Tori realized that she liked his face. In repose it was a
formidable visage: stern, strong-willed, with an almost defiant edge-seemingly
far from the bored businessman he claimed to be. But when Ariel laughed, the
forbidding cast disintegrated into a kind of boyish charm she found
irresistible.
She felt this last odd and a bit discomfiting. It had been a long time since
she had found anyone irresistible.
Ariel looked at her. "I believe you have the most extraordinary eyes I've ever
seen," he said. "This afternoon they were turquoise, green, I thought. Now
they are the color of cobalt."
Tori laughed. "My father used to call me Angel Eyes. My brother and I had the
same eyes."
"Had?" Ariel had caught a tone as well as a tense.
Tori put her head down into darkness. "My brother's dead."
"I'm sorry."
Tori took a deep breath. "Well. He was a wonderful man. And he was blessed.
Before he died, he flew like an angel. And like an angel, he saw the whole
planet spread out before him." Ariel looked at her quizzically, and she smiled
sadly. "My brother was an astronaut."
Ariel snapped his fingers.''Nunn. Wait a minute. Greg Nunn? The American who
died in that joint mission to Mars with the Russians? What was that, last
year?"
"Eighteen months."
"Greg Nunn was your brother?"
"Yes."
It was just a whisper, but it told the discerning listener volumes. Ariel
wisely decided to change the subject. "Estilo mentioned that you are retired,"
he said. "From what?"
What to tell him? "Family business," Tori said. Not exactly a lie, but not the
truth, either.
He grunted. "Me, too. Only I'm still in it." They began to walk. ''It used to
be fun when my father ran it. I could do pretty much what I wanted. I never
realized how boring the meat business was until my father died and I was
obliged to take it over. Responsibility seemed to drain all the fun out of the
work.''
They were at the cemetery's gate, and passing through into me street. Tori had
the feeling that an oppressive weight had lifted from her. In there, it had
seemed as if the very air she had been breathing was humid with the spirits of
the dead. She took one last look at the sad-faced stone angels, as though she
could hear their wings rustling in the windswept night.
"So running the business isn't enough," Tori said, giving him an opening to
perhaps talk about why, as Estilo had said, he was really in Buenos Aires.
"I don't believe I'm in the mood to go back to Estilo's," Ariel said, as if he
hadn't heard her question. "It's raining, and the climate is not conducive to
a party.''
Tori wondered whether by the climate he meant the weather or his state of
mind. Either way, it was all right; she had no desire to wedge herself back
into Estilo's ultratrendy crowd.
He took her to Cafe Tortoni, a well-known jazz bar on the Avenida de Mayo.
"Are you often up late at night?"
"Only when I'm traveling," Ariel said. He shrugged. "I don't know what it is,
but all my business associates seem to be aficionados of la vida nocturna-
night life."
Tori had been in love with the night life; twice. As an underage teenager she
had used her beauty to hang out in Los Angeles' most dangerous night spots.
Years later the clandestine late-night clubs of Tokyo, so far away from her
native L.A., had held another form of danger. But by that time she was an
entirely different person, wasn't she?
They drank cane brandy while a black saxophonist made noises in concert with a
West Indian snare drummer and a blond, slick-fingered bassist. It didn't sound
much like music, but everyone seemed content to listen to it.
When the set was through, Ariel looked at his watch. "It's after midnight. Are
you tired?"
Tori shook her head.
"Good." He paid the check, then led her out of the restaurant. They picked up
a taxi on the avenue, and Ariel told the driver, "La Manzana de las Luces."
The driver shrugged, headed south into the downtown district.
The Square of Enlightenment, between Peru and Bolivar at the intersection of
the Avenida Julio Roca, was a treasure trove of historical landmarks. But the
only one Tori could remember offhand was the offices of La Prensa, Argentina's
most famous newspaper.
The taxi let them off on Peru, and Ariel stopped in front of number 222. It
had an Italian-designed facade typical of the mid-1880s, though Ariel informed
her the building itself was more than a hundred years older than that.
"This place has belonged variously to two newspapers and the University of
Buenos Aires," Ariel said. "But by far its most interesting tenant was the
General Attorney of the Jesuits, for whom, apparently, it was built. King
Charles the Third of Spain kicked the order out in 1767. But before then some
fascinating goings-on occurred here."
"Like what?"
"Come on," Ariel said. "I'll show you."
He led her around to the side of the structure. Here the narrow alley was
dimly lit. They went down a flight of ancient stone steps so worn they were
concave in their centers. Tori saw that even in the gloom Ariel had no
difficulty negotiating them.
A moment later she heard what she suspected was the grate of an old key in an
even older lock. A stained wood-plank door creaked inward on iron hinges. A
musty darkness loomed.
"Is this okay?" Tori asked.
"Do you like to take chances?"
She heard his voice as a disembodied whisper, and did not answer.
"Watch your step," Ariel said, reaching back and taking her hand. He pulled
her inside, closed the door behind them.
He led her through absolute blackness. She heard the squeal of another door
opening, Ariel's voice whispering, "Now duck your head."
There were more steps, and the chill mineral dampness that bred mold and
lichen wafted over her. The steps were very steep and quite narrow. The rich
scents of limestone and earth enveloped her, Tori thought. It's like smelling
one's own grave, and for an instant she felt the hairs stirring at the base of
her neck.
"These tunnels date back to the eighteenth century." Tori wondered why he was
still whispering. After all, down in the bowels of the earth who could
overhear their conversation?
"These tunnels are something of a tourist attraction nowadays," Ariel
continued, his lips brushing her ear. "The tourists are told that these
tunnels were built to aid in the defense of the city during wartime. But the
truth is the Jesuits built them in order to smuggle in contraband. The king
had decreed that Buenos Aires, like the other Spanish colonies, could trade
only with Spain. But at the behest of the clever Jesuits, ships of other
nationalities moored in the port, pretending to work on repairs while the
priests off-loaded their cargo into these secret tunnels."
Ariel snapped on a flashlight, and Tori could see the arched ceilings, the
branching corridors. Along the sides of the tunnels were modern lights within
protective metal grills above the equally modern concrete walkway.
He led her around a turning, into a small chamber, down another steep flight
of stone steps. Here the tunnels seemed older, cruder, or perhaps merely in a
state of disrepair. The air was closer, mustier, and there were no modern
lights, no concrete walkway. Loose stones ground beneath their feet.
Ariel stopped them abruptly. He squeezed her hand as he played the beam of the
flash over a heap of pale bones. With a start, Tori saw that she was staring
at a grisly jumble of human skeletons.
"Here is all that's left of the disappeared," Ariel whispered. "At least some
of them, poor bastards. Dumped here to rot beneath the city."
"What-"
Ariel's hand went over her mouth as he snapped off the flashlight's beam.
Sounds-faint, indistinct-wafted toward them from some unknown direction. Ariel
stood very still; he seemed scarcely to be breathing.
The sounds came swiftly closer. Tori strained to hear what they were. As they
neared, the sounds resolved themselves into male voices, then words, and Tori
thought. My God, they're speaking Japanese.
"Perhaps Rega could have been of some further use," one voice said.
"his use was at an end," the other said. "Given half a reason, he would have
betrayed us." A laugh. "Besides, it felt good to put the gun against the back
of his neck, pull the trigger, and boom! Like snuffing out a candle in a
church. In that instant, you know something significant has happened: the law
has been transgressed."
"I am a Shintoist," the first voice said. "God and the devil mean nothing to
me, like the blink of an eye seen in a mirror. All illusion."
"I am Catholic," me second voice said, "so I understand the meaning of
punishment-and of sin."
"I don't understand. How can you be a Catholic and a sinner?"
That laugh again.' 'I cannot be redeemed if I haven't sinned, so these days I
do my best to ignore the law. Also, as you must suspect, there is a measure of
personal pleasure for me in violation."
"Let's get on with it," the first voice said.
It was impossible to say just how close the voices were. Perhaps they were
around an unseen corner, perhaps much nearer than that-tunnel acoustics being
treacherously unpredictable.
Tori suspected that Ariel was thinking the same thing. She thought he wanted
to get out of there but was afraid of being seen or heard.
Suddenly a light snapped on, and Tori and Ariel were caught in its piercing
beam. Tori could make out the blossom of two black figures, faceless, on me
move.
"Hey, look!"
"Who the fuck --"
The glint, dark and evil, of machine pistols.
"Madre de Dios!" Ariel breathed. He grabbed her hand, pulled her out of the
circle of light. They began to stumble their way back down the tunnel.
The light flashed wildly, illuminating the tunnel in rhythmic bursts, casting
their distorted shadows against me rough stone walls. They heard swift
footfalls behind them.
"They're coming after us!" Tori said.
Ariel said nothing, pulling her after him down the twisting tunnel. They
gained a flight of steps, raced down them. But they could hear the heavy
footfalls, the panting breaths that told them their pursuers were gaining on
them. Tori wondered what in God's name he had led her into.
"Faster!" Ariel's voice barked from out of the darkness. "If they catch us,
they'll kill us!"
We'll never outrun them. Tori thought as they rushed past an open archway.
Impulsively, she reached out, grabbed Ariel, brought him up short.
"What-"
''In here!'' she whispered in his ear, and ducking down, they entered the
pitch-blackness beyond the portal.
It smelled musty, and Tori could hear the scrabbling of tiny nails against
loose rock. Ariel used his hands like a blind man, feeling the wall, following
its contours.
Light flared behind them and they both froze, then it faded, and they
continued on their way in the darkness, into another, smaller chamber, then a
third, even smaller one.
For the first time Tori failed to scent a flow of air, and she was suddenly
afraid that they had worked themselves into a dead end. On the other hand,
coming in here had thrown their pursuers off their trail. She began to relax
somewhat.
Light returned again to the outer corridor, and now she could hear voices