‘From the dead? No shit!’
‘My brother, my older brother.’
‘I know what you mean. It was a joke. Your dad really took the piss with those godawful names he gave you.’
It could have been worse: having those names and Officer Mophead’s hair and his sense of humour. But you know what they say: God tightens the noose but doesn’t strangle you.
‘It was him.’
‘What?’
‘I said it was him.’
‘What was?’
‘He was the intellectual author of the burglary.’
‘Oh, damn, did you learn that from the telly? “Intellectual author” — how refined!’
‘He made me do it.’
‘Do you want to report your brother?’
‘No, that’s not it.’
‘What do you want, then?’
‘It’s for the investigation.’
‘What investigation?’
‘Into the burglary. I’m giving you information so you can solve the case.’
‘What the hell are you talking about? There is no case; Jaroslaw withdrew his accusation. Do you want them to screw your brother? It’s Jaroslaw you’ve got to convince.’
I looked at his hair, where at that moment the most tangled of the curls were taking control of the rest of the hairs, which had meekly retreated before the relentless advance of the frizz. I kept staring at his hair because I didn’t want to look at his face, at that expression I knew he was making to reproach me for betraying my family.
‘Hey, how old is Aristotle?’
‘Sixteen.’
‘Whoa! So if you manage to get Jaroslaw to report him and he doesn’t withdraw the accusation quickly, then him they will send to a juvenile detention centre.’
Officer Mophead worried about Aristotle? It was as if I’d moved to another country. And on the news too: suddenly they were no longer interested in reporting the string of percentages that illustrated our eternal march towards economic collapse. There would be elections the following year and all that mattered now was speculating as to who was going to orchestrate our cataclysms for us when the new administration came in. It was as if the president — and the whole country with him — was desperate to palm off the hole he’d been digging so diligently for the last few years on to someone else. My father expended just two words on the best-positioned man in the presidential race: dwarf and baldy. Over the next six years, and forever more, he tried out all possible variations of the two. Lousy dwarf. Bald piece of shit. Bastard dwarf. Chicken-shit dwarf. Bald arsehole. Thieving dwarf. Cocky little dwarf. Lousy bald crook. Bald son-of-a-bitch. Dwarf son-of-a-bitch. Lousy bald bastard arsehole son-of-a-bitch. Without pausing for breath.
My father wasn’t in the mood for worrying about the catastrophic state of the nation just now. His emergencies were local ones: the interim mayor — who had been put in place after the electoral fraud, followed by the capture and evacuation of the town hall — was taking advantage of the impunity typical of his position, exacerbated by the fleeting nature of his mandate, to authorise dividing the Cerro de la Chingada up into lots.
It was a project to create an upmarket housing development on the western side of the hill — where we lived — since apparently the rich were growing tired of their hectic lives in the centre and wanted to spend the night among acacia trees, contemplating the town from on high. Given that the hill’s name was not exactly a great promotional device, the project had the pretentious — and sarcastic, if we took it personally — name of Olympus Heights. To tell the truth, not only had Jaroslaw been right in his real-estate predictions, but he was actually involved in the deal too. It begged the question of what came first: whether Jaroslaw was the chicken in the process of laying that particular egg, or whether the project was going to hatch from the egg Jaroslaw had foreseen. Whatever it was, various partners took it in turn to incubate the egg, among them the two most prominent families of Lagos, the ones that had controlled political and economic life since colonial times, and whose ranches by a causal coincidence happened to be clients of Jaroslaw.
Jaroslaw and my father had regular discussions, although really Jaroslaw was the insistent one: he would come by our house in the evenings and ask my father to come out and talk in the street. By street, I mean the dirt track that led to our house and the Poles’ mansion, deep in the hills. My father didn’t tell us anything about these conversations but Jaroslaw made sure I knew, because he had a little part set aside for me in his plan: I was going to have to incubate that egg for a little while too.
‘I’m offering your father a really good deal. But your father is very stubborn and refuses to have anything to do with it. He doesn’t realise that with this deal you’d all be much better off. He’s got some very strange ideas. Do you know what I’m talking about?’
‘No.’
‘Your dad hasn’t told you anything?’
‘No.’
‘Haven’t you heard him talk to your mother about this?’
‘No.’
‘I’m not surprised she doesn’t know anything. I need to speak with her. What time does your father leave for school?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know? Do you like living in that dump? Wouldn’t you like to live in a nicer house?’
The deal was that our dump was in the way. Jaroslaw was offering to buy our house, that is, the land, at the current market price. My father refused to sell it, because of an incomprehensible attachment, although Jaroslaw thought it was because he had ambitions to sell it when the price rocketed once the hill had been developed. Nonetheless, Jaroslaw said it was now or never, that he knew how my father had ‘bought’ the land and that if he didn’t accept his, Jaroslaw’s, offer, as the rest of the hill’s wretched occupants had already done, then we would end up with nothing.
‘I haven’t told your father this yet, because I know him and I know how he’s going to react.’ (I knew how too: by summoning the Achaean army.) ‘I want to do things the right way, but if this matter isn’t sorted out fast the bulldozers will appear any day now and they’ll tear down your house. Go and tell your mother I need to speak to her.’
Now I could see why Jaroslaw hadn’t reported Aristotle. First, because while negotiations were ongoing he couldn’t afford to fall out with my father. And second because, if he did end up tearing down our house, he probably thought that was enough of a lesson. The rich were like God, who tightens the noose but doesn’t strangle you. However, I needed Jaroslaw to forget about the Christian God and move on to the fantasy of one of those Greek gods who know no mercy and enjoy crushing mortals.
‘I’ll help you if you do me a favour.’
‘I’m doing you the favour, can’t you see?’
‘But we can help each other.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want you to report Aristotle and not withdraw your accusation.’
‘I’m not going to do that. Are you mad? I’m not going to fall out with your parents right now.’
‘So don’t do it now, do it later. There’s no hurry.’
It was true, there wasn’t any hurry: I’d been waiting my whole life for this moment, so why not wait a little longer?
‘Hey, don’t be a bad person.’
A bad person? The chicken talking about eggs?
At last I was really living up to my name: receiving secret assignments, plotting conspiracies, carrying out despicable tasks. I tackled my mother during one of the brief periods when she wasn’t crying.
‘Jaroslaw wants to talk to you.’
‘What have you done?’ Mothers are genetically programmed to give answers like this.
‘Nothing. It’s not about me.’