Baba Lidia was so thin it seemed like a conviction. However, as time went by, the skin began to hang down flabbily from her arms. Discreet as she was, and despite protesting Tsk! Tsk! my great-grandmother Lidia always seemed to accept my father’s pleas: she rolled up her sleeves so that he could tug on her drooping skin, like a final, refined act of cannibalism. This skin-pulling ceremony went on well past those days. Even after he was a married man, my father continued to beg her to roll her sleeves up, and she continued to resist, knowing full well that sooner or later she would let him pinch her soft flesh. There was only one thing forbidden (apart from refusing a plate of food) in baba Lidia’s house: to say anything against Argentina. Gratitude had turned my Lithuanian great-grandmother into a diehard patriot. If my father ever insinuated that any situation in the country was unacceptable, Lidia frowned, the old emerald flame rekindled behind her glasses, and she retorted: Tsk! Tsk! Hey you, don’t go attacking Argentina, do you hear me? This is a rich, generous country, so be careful eh, don’t go attacking Argentina.
7
The corporal looked askance at them, slowly puffing out the smoke from his cigarette. He kept his eye on them as if one of them could possibly escape from there, half-naked as they were, sitting, with their feet pressed together, on those uncomfortable wooden benches. The stocky corporal was smoking at his desk, glancing in a bored fashion at the candidates’ passports like someone waiting their turn at a hairdresser’s. He drew the number 1 under the collarbone of those yet to be examined by the barracks’ doctor, and sent them out. Those who had been examined, like my father, were rewarded with a number 2, and kept in the room with him in their vests and underpants. They had been ordered not to get dressed again, in case an examination had to be repeated. This was in 1969, and for the first time in his life my father began to suspect that his clumsy flat feet would not be sufficient to get him out of doing his military service. At least not now, in the midst of a dictatorship, with patriotic fervour maiming all the roads.
Almost all the young men there had heard stories about the humiliations suffered by those who, for whatever reason, were declared unfit for military service. Some were made to wait the whole day sitting, without permission either to get dressed or to have anything to eat. Others, especially the obese or effeminate, were made to see the doctor several times, and were subjected to medical examinations that went far beyond the strictly necessary. Even so, that morning my father had gone to the barracks with the hope that, at least this once, his problem feet would be an advantage. But the cold was growing more intense, the wooden slats were pressing into his legs and buttocks, and my father could see how a lot of his companions came out of the medical room with a terrified grimace on their faces. Every so often, the corporal reluctantly uttered a name, and somebody got up from the bench, walked head down to the counter and received his documents allowing him to go home. Someone asked if they could smoke. The corporal looked up, blew out a mouthful of black smoke and replied, pointing to the walclass="underline"
“Obviously not, recruit. Can’t you see the sign? Or can’t you read?”
A couple of hours later, and the future conscripts were feeling the pangs of hunger. Any movement was sporadic, and appeared to depend more on the whim of the doctor or the corporal than on any established order. Almost all the lads who had left had been the ones whose passports had been stamped with the feared slogan: “Fit for Service”. Then all of a sudden, the corporal stared intently at one of the passports. His eyes opened wide and he called out:
“Let’s see! Neuman, Víctor! Stand up and come over here.”
My father obeyed, more in fear than in hope. As he came closer to the desk, the corporal’s gaze seemed to him too intense for it to be good news. In his underpants, skinny, younger than I am now, my father started to tremble. He had no inkling what the corporal was going to ask him:
“You wouldn’t by any chance be related to Monkey Neuman, the midfielder who plays for Chacarita, would you?”
Confused, my father smiled silently trying to win a few seconds to think.
“Are you going to answer or not, dammit? Do you know him at all, Monkey Neuman?”
My father felt an icy Siberian wind run down his back, as if the air was rushing in from the past, and then felt the sudden push of a luminous idea which made the time stranded in that room break free of its moorings and begin to race along. With all the aplomb he could muster, my father said to the corporaclass="underline"
“Well, as far as knowing him goes, I should think I do know my brother, yes.”
The corporal raised his eyebrows and half-opened his lips in a complicated smile that made the cigarette roll round.
“Come closer, for fuck’s sake, or aren’t you and I going to be able to hold a proper conversation man to man? That’s better. So he’s your brother, you say? Really and truly?”
“Oh, if you only knew, Corporal sir, how often people ask me that very same question!”
“Yes, of course, I can just imagine it. But che, that’s incredible! And do you know how often I’ve been to the ground to see him play? Because you must be a Chacarita fan too, aren’t you?”
“Of course, Corporal sir,” replied my father, who had never in his life been interested in football, and whose father had been a supporter of Racing Club de Avellaneda.
“That’s my boy! What a coincidence! I can’t believe it! Shit, what a goal your brother scored last Sunday, eh? So please let your brother know,” the corporal went on, in a more serious tone of voice, trying to regain his earlier composure, “that here in the barracks we all think highly of him, and consider him to be an example for the youth of Argentina. Be sure you pass on that message, Neuman.”
“You can be certain I will, Corporal sir.”
“As I was saying, here in the barracks three of us are Chacarita fans.”
“Forgive me for correcting you, Corporal sir. But right now, there are exactly four of us.”
“That’s my boy! That’s how we all should be! Upright men of Chacarita! So what’s your brother doing now, is he training?”
“Yes, Corporal sir, like every day.”
“But hang on, wasn’t he injured last Sunday?”
“No, yes, you’re right,” my father floundered, “the poor guy has a sprained ankle, he’s got an ice pack on it all day at home.”
“What shitty luck! So in the end he isn’t going to play against Boca? They didn’t mention anything on the radio.”
“Well, in fact, I, look, erm… Can you keep a secret for me, Corporal sir? Bah, not for me, for my brother.”
“Tell me, tell me,” replied the corporal, straightening up and then bringing his shaven head close to the edge of the desk.
“It’s like this, Corporal sir. They don’t say anything on the radio, nobody says anything, because in the club they don’t want the people at Boca to know, got it? So that if at the last minute my brother can play, then our enemies will have to change their plans at the last minute, right?”
“That’s my boy!” said the corporal admiringly, dropping back into his chair. “Don’t you worry, Neuman, a Chacarita fan knows how to keep a secret. Not a word to a soul, I swear!”
“My brother and the club are very grateful to you, Corporal sir.”
“Ah, and here’s your passport, Víctor. You can go without a worry.”