One of the men had retreated a few steps back towards the darkness. The other two were armed, stationed on either side of the chair of Natalia, as centurions.
Natalia looked at me, but his eyes were stuck in another time. Under the wan light of the huge chandelier in the dining room, which had almost all their lights off, his face was not the same even coincide factions as a perfect portrait. There was fear or excitement in it, simply did not appear to be life, I leaned on the opposite side of the table header to search in vain to find somewhere with his gaze. The men still at his side, the figure in the shadows and premium Rosalia behind me holding my breath terms of giving that place looks like a bad wax figures museum.
Such are the pitfalls, Rogelia: where absolute emptiness, silence, without limitation, muddy pools, shady corners of life where all threats are there by your side, waiting for a single movement your part violate the physical law of stillness and terror.
Rogelia listens in silence, almost as empty as it should be Natalia noon when we came back to find on the site earlier this year she chose as a refuge.
The voice of the guy in the shadows then came as a relief, although I recognized it immediately. I was not surprised that he, in any case I wondered why the staging, the theatrical resource to talk without showing his face.
-Formalities "he said as if reading my thoughts," otherwise you should hooding, creating a violence free. A camel?
Before I could answer threw a bundle that fell and slipped on the long table to be within my reach. I picked it up and lit a cigarette. When you try to return it, the tie was halted before the face off of Natalia.
- What was done?
"Nothing. Maybe it was some disappointment, after the surprise of the reunion. Lost Macarena? was all he said to me. Then, this absence in this body you are seeing, journalist.
"I'm not a journalist.
"No remorse, you see. Neither her or me. Spinoza condemns repentance as well as guilt. " is add a sadness," said the Jew.
All the while, Dad, all that long and arduous years away from Natalia, he had been arming the trap, waiting for the moment, enjoying only imagine the scene that was now playing as a pointer that has in its hands the threads of the drama and its aftermath, cumbersome dialogues, short phrases and silences.
Earlier, my father says the Atocha station, and since you left the ice dungeon in Ushuaia. Research must be recognized to a vocation that distinguishes it from the rest of the pack, the one to go up beyond the bone, to keep track without being fooled by the smells, to sink one day his nose in the center of putrefaction .
But Natalia was silent, blind, and dead. I asked if she had been drugged, if she had been tortured into last night made the phone call that had brought me there.
"It was not necessary. We are old acquaintances.
armed men moved Natalia flanked on each side of the table. I just came to me but it was not grazed my and took the premium out of the room Rosalia.
When Cardoso left alone the captain moved into the light.
-Jaque- said, without emphasis.
dressed in civilian clothes, casual clothes, not have recognized him if I passed him on the street. He seemed bored with the game already won that stretched too much.
"I do not participate," I said, I tried my pathetic defense of Natalia. "He chose this place to be quiet, if we had stopped to see us.
-I know, "said Cardoso. "The army guys are neat. And again, the intelligence. We've all written down. Must submit reports to justify the travel expenses.
-will know then I thought I left the country.
-have ticket for Tuesday, five hundred and two flight of Aerolineas Argentinas, to Paris. Say goodbye to here, do not think she can go to Ezeiza.
Facing the firing squad have the chance to yell viva la nation, long live the English Republic, you can die with all your invincible faith as a knife between his teeth, Mario. The solitary murderer, the spy who has been promised an extra bonus hunt you down, you shot in the back or you'll gag and blind before you execute you do not want to look at himself when he turns to his work, says my father.
But Cardoso did not want to kill me, wanted to know. He had traveled to the premiums stay Natalia nothing more than to force an answer to your damn question.
"I punished. Ten days in jail, lost Awards December, plus the state of exception that all my comrades charged weapon. A disciplinary court was about to sign off. I promised to find her. Waited a year, if I now return empty handed disgraced civilian life. And worse, lose the pension and social benefits of the work.
not looking for Natalia. Not even me, Roger. Searched for that answer I had not known him in the icy prison of Ushuaia. Believed that a year was long enough for him to find. Natalia was standing as an aide. I begged for his life, thinking he could deceive, to gain time. What I underestimated, of course.
"Let live" I said. "It's outside the organization, the entire military and political structure Montoneros is falling apart, you know, war has been won long ago. Let her live and maybe together we can find that answer.
glowed in the dark, the captain's eyes Cardoso.
"A year waiting," he said. "It's too much.
He drew the gun he had taken so far in his holster. An automatic, similar to that of Natalia, perhaps the same. Put on the table before her.
- What it does - I asked, exasperated.
had advanced a step to leave the gun. Returned to its previous position.
"I see.
understood then the reason for that appointment, Roger. Too Later, as you understand the things we throw a dead end, rough games of consciousness.
Cardoso was right, captain of the Argentine army intelligence. No thinker finds the bottom of the abyss and talk happily from there. It would have been useless to sit down and discuss like two idle aristocrats in this room of the rich pampas of Argentina.
had not bound to anything. He arrived just the day before. First, only. After, but not until he spoke with her and, with gentle manners, not at all threatening, had told her that was not the father any Macarena, come to stay his two henchmen.
-recall-said, she told me. "I wonder if he mistook the reunion because my arguments were clearly unreasonable. But for a while wanted to believe in them. Then we did not need me to explain who I really am. It was good to remember together, however.
afternoon they spent in that room at the back of the house in Caramel, recalled it. In a more promiscuous penumbra it, inundated by the smell of chicken stuck to the piece and bustle of the half dozen children of the police who had given them accommodation. If even talked about continue on to Barcelona and meet Macarena.
looked at Natalia, I asked if that was true had sophisticated torturer.
"I do not need, may not have come," Cardoso said, gesturing with a nod toward the next room where his two assistants to the premium Rosalia. "But the reinforcement was agreed and the army is a bureaucratic machine. Strategists against their sand tables do not understand that the real battles are fought in other areas.
front of me in 1982 in Buenos Aires, Rogelia looks without seeing a column of protesters, employees upon leaving their offices have met on the street to shout their support for the military adventure in the Falklands. There are over a hundred, maybe two hundred, take the main road and carry signs that say with difficulty because the wind blows southeast, cry or sing but even inside the bar only goes speakers the sound of traffic jams.
- What did you do? - Asked apprehensively Rogelia removing his hand which had hitherto remained on mine, as also on the table in the bar had a gun.
looked at Natalia, I looked in his eyes the beam of light in the dark under the door closed.
-can approach, touch her, hold her if you want, "said Cardoso, certain this time of the movement, perhaps because it pleased her award last charge, his plus.
Had embraced if, instead of suggesting that I did, I would Cardoso threatened to blow my head. Perhaps that hug and a couple of shots that would end the two have allowed me to be at his side, Roger, feel satisfied, that for once my life playing and not serving as a pet that repeats skills taught by his master.
His permission, however, stopped me.
-The feature is loaded, "said Cardoso. "Of course I do not take risks, I have mine.
turned to show another gun to his back at the waist.
"He's crazy," I said.
"It's my job.
For the first time since my arrival I felt that Natalie saw me, I could recognize among the shreds of fog. As a crew of ships passing recklessly amid the storm, which tied their ropes to avoid being fired from cover and swallowed by the sea, are recognized and boost his arms to dream that reach each other.
I looked as he stretched his hand to touch the machine was actually yours, I'm no weapons expert, Roger, but the delight with which he stroked her was his way of saying that his decision was made, that I brought forward this time. Behind him, Cardoso noted the slow movement without even carry his hand to his waist where he had his own gun.
I wondered then and I'll ask for the rest of my life if I should have done then what was expected of me, what you expect it to tell you I did, Rogelia Natalia throw on, take the weapon and hug. But she would have taken his cyanide pill if he went to get a stay of the premium Rosalia had been different, had there not been that trip to Caramel in a stranger told the apocryphal story of a lost happiness, if they had not uncertain after those hours, darkly passionate, stuffy room in a rented police to feed his large family, or the promise of the journey together to Barcelona, \u200b\u200bthe encounter with Macarena, the love story woven in a few hours by boat and rolling in a bed with their creaking of tune as an instrument of the orchestra that played pathetic music fund Natalia flight, a flight that touched my life more than the intelligence officer disguised as a penitent father. And if I had delayed my hug the edge of the abyss, he wanted to know. And that's what I always feared, Rogelia, namely, to learn, follow all the way to love whom I have believed.
I stood still, then I should be the mirror of his eyes ice while clutching the butt of the automatic and firmly, without a tremor in the pulse, stuffed the pipe in his mouth with his eyes wide open fixed on me.
was I who closed his eyes before firing.
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