Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras Read Free Book Online Page A

every time I went into the kitchen, they changed the subject. But I did hear them saying something about Roberto and the office.’
    Roberto was papá’s partner at the law office on the Calle Talcahuano. He had a son called Ramiro who was the same age as me, but in a class below me at school. Now and then we’d go to their
quinta
– their country house – in Don Torcuato for a barbecue. It wasn’t like Ramiro was my best friend or anything, but we got along OK.
    â€˜Some guys showed up at the office this morning.’
    â€˜Soldiers? Policemen?’
    â€˜I don’t know. They were obnoxious arseholes. They arrested Roberto and turned the place upside down.’

    â€˜Roberto’s in jail? But why? What did he do?’
    â€˜He didn’t do anything.’
    â€˜Well, why then?’
    Papá shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
    â€˜If he didn’t do anything, they’ll have to let him go!’
    â€˜I hope so. His family is trying to track him down.’
    â€˜What about Ramiro?’
    â€˜What about him?’
    â€˜How is he? Where is he?’
    â€˜He’s fine, he’s with Laura. I talked to them earlier, they’re fine.’
    â€˜What’s going to happen to him now?’
    â€˜Nothing’s going to happen to him.’
    â€˜What about us?’
    â€˜We’re going to go away for a few days until things calm down. We’ll be staying in a house down in the country, a
quinta
.’
    â€˜The one near Dorrego?’
    â€˜No, it’s near here.’
    â€˜What’s it like?’
    â€˜It’s a
quinta
with a swimming pool. A
quinta
with lots of land. A
quinta
with a mysterious house.’
    â€˜Did you go by our house?’
    Papá shook his head. This was how bad things were.
    â€˜But we can’t go with just the clothes we’ve got on!’ I protested.
    â€˜Whatever we need, we can buy.’
    â€˜Well, then, we’ll have to buy a new game of Risk.’
    â€˜You fancy losing again?’
    â€˜No way, José!’
    â€˜I think you’ve got a death wish.’
    I tried to think of a brilliant comeback, a zinger that would hit him like a smack in the mouth, but I was the one who got smacked when the Midget rolled over in his sleep and gave me a right hook.

18
SIRENS
    That night I woke up on the thin duvet, which was the only thing separating me from the hard floor, to find that papá, who had been lying next to me when I fell asleep, was not there. The room was still dark. It smelled of sweaty socks.
    Papá and mamá were sitting on the cold floor in a corner of the room. Mamá had raised the blinds a few inches and was peering through the narrow slit, out at the road, barely lit by the glow of the streetlights. She was wearing a nightdress I’d never seen before and she had no shoes on. One of her feet was tap-tap-tapping on the floor. Papá was sitting beside her in T-shirt and boxer shorts, staring at nothing. Dressed like this, or rather undressed, he looked even more like the Midget. The lock of hair plastered to his forehead, the self-absorption. All he needed now was his own Goofy.
    Papá and mamá were huddled together as close as their bodies would allow and yet they looked incredibly distant.
    Then the noise of a siren, far away but clear, broke the silence of the early morning. I don’t know if it was an ambulance or a police car. Papá and mamá reacted as one, suddenly connected again, peering through the blinds as though they could actually see anything in the street but the shadows.
    â€˜What’s going on out there?’

    Mamá hushed him.
    A few seconds later, the siren faded as abruptly as it had begun, a calamity that was not part of our world, one that had brushed past, sparing us.
    The silence was transparent and now I could hear again, the tap-tap-tap of mamá’s foot and the sound of breathing, of a heart beating, that I suppose must