my turn. The guards are registering a car that’s leaving, checking the boot and confirming the identity of the people inside, they’re very strict. It’s like crossing a border in wartime.
One of the guards approaches, walkie-talkie in hand, and asks for my details. I fill out a form while the guy casts his eye over the back of the pick-up. His expression suggests that he has everything under control. He almost smiles at me and raises the barrier.
I’m met by a long drive of about eight hundred metres, shimmering in the sun’s rays, tall trees like sentries on each side, leading to a roundabout with a pergola surrounded by palm trees at its centre. Road signs come into view at the end of the drive, to help visitors familiarise themselves. Slow, Patients Crossing , says the first, and further ahead: Block 8 Sub-Acute Care and Surgery . And in the middle distance I catch a glimpse of my first loonies, dressed in orange or blue. One passes close by, an enormous yellow rosary hanging round his neck.
I accidentally circle the roundabout twice, then park the truck next to the other cars, between the main building and a pleasant-looking kiosk with a tiled roof.
With Jaime’s papers under my arm, I climb the wide steps that lead up to this kind of castle. Management to the right, administration to the left. I follow the arrow. I knock on the door and wait for a response. A pale-faced girl answers, her black hair in a bowl-cut, her white blouse buttoned to the neck. Catholic or trendy, I can’t tell which. She is wearing a thin gold chain but whatever is hanging from it is hidden beneath the fabric. I give her the papers and she recognises them straight away. She smiles, touching the tip of her nose.
Outside, a day of brilliant sunshine beckons. I smoke a cigarette underneath the pergola. This place is incredible, it makes no sense.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, three guys appear. They come towards me. They walk close together, shoulder-to-shoulder. Denim jackets, black trousers, white trainers and sunglasses: from a distance they look identical, as if in uniform. They’re loonies, I suppose, and yet they don’t look like it, dressed like that, so streetwise. They approach, surrounding me. They don’t seem surprised to see me. They ask me for a cigarette, I don’t have any. So they try for a peso:
‘Can you spare a peso?’ they ask. Another no. They move on. One of them glances back at me and murmurs something that makes the others laugh.
It’s after one o’clock when I get back to the farm. Jaime is in the kitchen making lunch, he looks much better.
‘Good as new,’ he exaggerates and asks happily: ‘How did you get on at the loony bin?’
I tell him a bit about my impression of the place and ask him what’s at the back, on the other side of the roundabout, where the three loonies emerged in their sunglasses, looking like three ordinary guys.
‘Rehabilitation, drug addicts,’ he says, his voice changed, as if he were talking about extra-terrestrials.
The phone rings. Jaime answers, it’s for me.
‘A Yasky,’ he says, ‘from the court.’
And in the five seconds before I take the receiver from him, a thousand suspicions pass through my mind. Most of them horrible.
‘I need you to come to the Judicial Morgue at eight tomorrow,’ Yasky says, without preamble. I don’t know how to answer him, the idea leaves me frozen. He explains that he hasn’t been able to contact Aída’s aunt, who is the only family member they are aware of, so I’m the only suitable person to identify the body.
‘Are you sure it’s her?’ I ask in a whisper.
‘I’ll expect you tomorrow,’ answers Yasky.
I stand with the receiver still in my hand, shaken. I don’t know how Yasky managed to get this number. Jaime complains because he doesn’t like being disturbed by the phone while he’s eating. I wonder where Beba could have got to.
That night, fear overtook me, and with fear came insomnia. I dream wakefully,
One of the guards approaches, walkie-talkie in hand, and asks for my details. I fill out a form while the guy casts his eye over the back of the pick-up. His expression suggests that he has everything under control. He almost smiles at me and raises the barrier.
I’m met by a long drive of about eight hundred metres, shimmering in the sun’s rays, tall trees like sentries on each side, leading to a roundabout with a pergola surrounded by palm trees at its centre. Road signs come into view at the end of the drive, to help visitors familiarise themselves. Slow, Patients Crossing , says the first, and further ahead: Block 8 Sub-Acute Care and Surgery . And in the middle distance I catch a glimpse of my first loonies, dressed in orange or blue. One passes close by, an enormous yellow rosary hanging round his neck.
I accidentally circle the roundabout twice, then park the truck next to the other cars, between the main building and a pleasant-looking kiosk with a tiled roof.
With Jaime’s papers under my arm, I climb the wide steps that lead up to this kind of castle. Management to the right, administration to the left. I follow the arrow. I knock on the door and wait for a response. A pale-faced girl answers, her black hair in a bowl-cut, her white blouse buttoned to the neck. Catholic or trendy, I can’t tell which. She is wearing a thin gold chain but whatever is hanging from it is hidden beneath the fabric. I give her the papers and she recognises them straight away. She smiles, touching the tip of her nose.
Outside, a day of brilliant sunshine beckons. I smoke a cigarette underneath the pergola. This place is incredible, it makes no sense.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, three guys appear. They come towards me. They walk close together, shoulder-to-shoulder. Denim jackets, black trousers, white trainers and sunglasses: from a distance they look identical, as if in uniform. They’re loonies, I suppose, and yet they don’t look like it, dressed like that, so streetwise. They approach, surrounding me. They don’t seem surprised to see me. They ask me for a cigarette, I don’t have any. So they try for a peso:
‘Can you spare a peso?’ they ask. Another no. They move on. One of them glances back at me and murmurs something that makes the others laugh.
It’s after one o’clock when I get back to the farm. Jaime is in the kitchen making lunch, he looks much better.
‘Good as new,’ he exaggerates and asks happily: ‘How did you get on at the loony bin?’
I tell him a bit about my impression of the place and ask him what’s at the back, on the other side of the roundabout, where the three loonies emerged in their sunglasses, looking like three ordinary guys.
‘Rehabilitation, drug addicts,’ he says, his voice changed, as if he were talking about extra-terrestrials.
The phone rings. Jaime answers, it’s for me.
‘A Yasky,’ he says, ‘from the court.’
And in the five seconds before I take the receiver from him, a thousand suspicions pass through my mind. Most of them horrible.
‘I need you to come to the Judicial Morgue at eight tomorrow,’ Yasky says, without preamble. I don’t know how to answer him, the idea leaves me frozen. He explains that he hasn’t been able to contact Aída’s aunt, who is the only family member they are aware of, so I’m the only suitable person to identify the body.
‘Are you sure it’s her?’ I ask in a whisper.
‘I’ll expect you tomorrow,’ answers Yasky.
I stand with the receiver still in my hand, shaken. I don’t know how Yasky managed to get this number. Jaime complains because he doesn’t like being disturbed by the phone while he’s eating. I wonder where Beba could have got to.
That night, fear overtook me, and with fear came insomnia. I dream wakefully,
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