With annoyance I noticed my head was starting to ache and immediately felt the first rush of panic. No one who has never suffered headaches like mine can understand the sheer terror I have of them, and the hatred. Normal headaches only sink their teeth and claws into the soft dough of the brain, but mine have an iron-tipped tool with which they dig, rake and plough, working the furrows up and down, sowing pain. It won’t let me finish, I hissed through clenched teeth, it won’t let me finish. I can take a bit more and it’ll go away, but it always comes back with a vengeance after that, again and again … Knowing it was futile, I grabbed two aspirins from the bathroom cabinet and let them dissolve under my tongue, savouring them slowly like mints, pulling a face every time the bitter juice ran down my throat. The most sensible thing, I thought as I massaged my forehead, was to call it a day, have something to eat, grab a few hours’ kip and carry on tomorrow; with any luck it wouldn’t be too late and I could keep it at bay. But we’re at war, and in wartime you can’t choose when to call it a day. It must have been about four in the morning, the ideal time for the English parachutists to advance in their little red berets along the isthmus towards Darwin, where they were soon trading shots with the Argentinian forces, treading on mines and strafing each other with cannon and rockets and grenades. Bleep! Bleep! Bleep! Almost two hours they spent annihilating each other in the seeling darkness, in the angry, gloomy flashes worn by the night on my computer screen. I’d always been amazed how easily people are killed in films: bang and you’re dead, bang and you’re dead … The video game has perfected this: people don’t even die; they just go out, no screaming, no lingering agony or spilled guts, no blame or grief or disgust.
This was what I wanted to avoid, I thought, as the pain howled and whistled furiously round the walls of my skull. The game had started out as a brilliant solution to the problem of how to get into the SIDE and get my hands on the files Tamerlán wanted, a ruse so simple, so clever, so safe, that I should have been toasted and slapped on the back with shouts of ‘Eureka!’ and references to the Gordian Knot and Columbus’s Egg. Surely there was some other way into the SIDE that wasn’t through the Islands. I should have known when to stop before it was too late, to backtrack if need be. Not this suicidal forced march, this blind headlong rush, this charge through the minefield in the dark.
But it was too late now and I had to go on regardless. Humming ‘Popeye the Sailorman’ to myself, one eye closed from the irremovable pain, I combed a long line of all the charlie I had left on the mirror and launched it into my brain. That did the trick. Two Pucarás appear buzzing over the line of hills and release their napalm bombs on the terrified English; the anti-aircraft batteries lower their guns and begin to fire level with the ground, putting the fear of God into the enemy with the straightness of their aim; the Argentinian defenders cornered in the school building pluck up their courage and, transfigured by the white spinach, manage to drive back their attackers and push forward. The order to counter-attack sent that noon from Puerto Argentino turns out to be superfluous: the English beat a hasty retreat. The fighting lasts the rest of the day, and, while they retrace their steps to the beachhead, our Skyhawks and Daggers and Mirages annihilate the waiting ships, cutting off their retreat: when their men realise, some leap off the rocks and drown in the freezing water, others crowd together in the landing craft shuttling back and forth across the empty sea in search of the ships that are no more, like dogs that have lost their owners, until some compassionate missile puts them out of their misery; most surrender without a fight. We battle all day, without a break, without sleep, without anything to eat, but it’s worth it. I don’t remember getting up to go to the toilet or taking my hands off the keyboard or the mouse other than to scrape together — so long ago — the last crumbs of charlie stuck to the silver foil. My headache, increasing geometrically with every postponement, was now roaring like falling bombs. It must have been the hunger, too, but I couldn’t face a thing. Leaving the battlefield, unnoticed by the cheering victors, I groped my way to the toilet to splash some cold water on my head, but when I tried to turn on the tap I discovered it was out of reach, hidden behind a wall of ceramic and pipes. Without knowing how long I’d been on the floor — I could hardly feel my cheek, ice-cold against the wet tiles — I dragged myself to the toilet bowl and tried to throw up. Nothing, just a deep retching that tore through my guts and pumped blood more painfully to the throbbing, swollen mass of my brain. Chewing a little toothpaste with chattering teeth, I wandered about the room, my wet hands on my forehead, praying for an Englishman to appear soon and put me out of my misery. They said the Gurkhas would remove your head with a single chop. I found the blister of Migraleve, almost empty. I couldn’t remember having taken the rest, but I finished it just in case, swallowing the two pills with water and Reliveran. The liquid made me shake with cold and my nose was running; blowing it barely eased the shooting pain, the pain of a steel arrow cracking the bone between your eyes that only cocaine can bring on. I caught sight of my reflection in the coke-streaked mirror, blurred and scored by fingers of saliva, chopped into planes of pain: one eye higher than the other, nose in profile, mouth crooked. I ordered myself back to the keyboard and obeyed, whimpering softly, trying to silence the insistent voice that kept repeating, ‘Why do you do this to yourself? Why do you subject yourself to it?’ A pain in my chest — one of astonishment at what I was capable of forcing on myself — tried to garrotte me but I fought it off. Pain is a luxury I can’t afford with all that’s at stake. I have to finish. I could smell victory, so close …
I sat down with a sigh and moved my fingers towards the keyboard, but, numb from the coke and endless hours of use, they landed on the keys like iron gloves, hitting several at once and messing everything up. Then I was in the kitchen, pouring a bottle of ice-cold water over one hand then the other, feeling some relief after the pin-pricks of pain, thinking about the leftovers of the forgotten Balcarce pudding I’d caught a glimpse of when I’d opened the fridge. Something sweet like that might do it, although, to keep the waves of nausea at bay, I tried not to think too much about it. Closing my eyes, holding my breath, I lifted it out of its box using my whole hand as a spoon, and stuffed it in my mouth. I couldn’t swallow it: when I chewed it the pastry, rather than decreasing, grew and grew, churning about inside my mouth like cement in a mixer. The meringue and caramel turned to glue at the back of my throat, and the first retchings began; but I was determined not to let it out. Everything in the kitchen conspired to make me think of food and, gritting my teeth against the spasms in my throat, I went back to the living room and fell to my knees on Ignacio’s magazines. I eventually managed to swallow and no sooner did I feel the pudding hit my stomach like a trowelful of fresh cement than I made the mistake of opening my mouth to take in some air and it all flew out in two long spurts all over the open magazines. I looked at them, first in surprise, then indignation. Furious, I stuffed my hand with the bits of pudding still on it into my mouth and sucked it down to the wrist, then used it to scoop up the semi-liquid paste off the floor and magazines, and after every scoop I stuck my hand back in my mouth and sucked it clean. It wasn’t that bad and was actually easier to swallow, but my body betrayed me once more: without so much as a retch, a reflex of my stomach expelled it again. I began to moan, loudly, because it was now too watery to scoop up with my hand, so, on all fours, I sucked it up directly off the floor, the pain kicking and screaming every time I lowered my head, like a madman in a padded cell, and, clamping my hand over my mouth, I grabbed a roll of 4cm silver duct tape from the drawer. Gripped once again by despair as I couldn’t use my other hand or my teeth to cut it, I tugged at it until I managed to pull off a twisted piece and sellotape my mouth shut. Now, I said to the contents of my mouth (mentally, of course), you’re going to stay put, and, when a fresh retch filled my mouth, I swallowed again, and again, until I doubled up on the floor, exhausted, my cheek resting on the vomit-spattered magazines, and fell asleep on the map of the Islands.