(Summary of the previous episode: Pacheco, the screenwriter of Los 5 Di Maggio, with the help of Borgovo, the detective by vocation, discovers that a double is taking his place and makes him antagonistic with the usual friendly visitors in the corridor of the tent 47 in Bristol They summon Professor Plones, the weather expert, to solve this incomprehensible together with the three).
Pacheco and Borgovo met Professor Plones at the Mar del Plata bus station. Those three old sea dogs adapt naturally to the city. However, the denomination La feliz did not represent them. Neither in that meeting nor in any other circumstance of their lives.
Plones had spent the five hours of the journey deciphering the passage of time through the window. He belonged to a school of thought that considered a substance at the time, event in itself, determining but independent of the erosion of things. One of his efforts was to isolate it and demonstrate its exogenous existence to matter. On bus trips, I’ve seen this.
Each walked to his room, in the same hotel. Few rituals had been maintained during their interminable adventures with such rigor as that of never share a bedroom.
The idea to activate the 60-year-old from the annoyed 53 carp with the lookalike as bait came from Plones. Soon They decided to call the impostor “Pachaco”. Pacheco II was very confused. Between Plones and Borgovo they convinced the widow to respond affirmatively to Pachaco’s proposal: go to the casino.
Pachaco had invented the acceptance code: not to disturb her in front of her tent mates; if Estela, as the widow was called, confirmed her, she would have to leave a “little flank” of wet sand at the back of tent 47, guarding the separation tent, just before sunset. With this sand signal, Pachaco intruded on Pacheco’s tent.
The ruse, both by Pachaco and by the three conspirators, took effect. That evening Estela and Pachaco met at the casino. The resemblance between Pachaco and Pacheco was terrifying. They were the same person, just separated by space.
The phenomenon was articulated verbally by Plones: “They share time but not space. Otherwise they would be the same person.
However, in action the difference between Pachaco and Pacheco, beyond physical perceptibility, was as evident as that of the invaders versus humans in the David Vincent series. Physically, I could barely distinguish them from the movement of my little finger. But the expert spectator, with the passing of the chapters, has established an ontological distinction.
Pachaco was beautifully tanned, moved easily, smiled casually. Pacheco, even if not as bitter as Borgovo or Plones, contained their effusions.
Pachaco behaved like Isidoro Cañones in everything, in fact he called Estela: Cachorra. Estela had begun her role as companion, as appointment, with a certain modesty, retaining her role as spy, at the service of the three veterans. But you let yourself be won over by Pachaco’s grace. In the fourth column of chips played colorado, I no longer distinguished the suitor from the suspect.
The three stooges, as they had decided to call themselves (the three musketeers had too much, they decided, together and immediately), were amazed by the audacity with which Pachaco appeared in public, pretending to be Pacheco’s identity. Wasn’t he afraid of being discovered, of consequences, of punishment? Surely not.
He introduced himself as the author of May 5thHe shared Pacheco’s memories, enjoyed his moderate popularity (which, strictly speaking, he had subtracted from the real one).
They had given orders to Estela to leave the double when leaving the casino. Indifferent to her instructions, with several drinks on her body, accepting the cuddles around her neck, the widow who would never be Mata Hari let herself be led by her wrist, perfumed with imported essences, not used since the late forties years, verse an unknown and obscene fate.
The three stooges followed the lovebirds, leaving the central hall of the casino, also a frugal sum of money: unlucky in play and in love. While Pachaco and Estela were carrying huge sums of money taken from the bank by the legitimate grace of chance.
Borgovo played the sad role of ranger, saving Estela from that crook, whose ultimate goals were a mystery.
“Aunt Margherita,” Borgovo improvised, not knowing why he called her Margherita, or with which aunt. We are looking for you. The girl has a fever. Ask for yourself
Estela, who didn’t accept calling herself Margherita, much less an aunt, completely forgot her role in that hubbub, and begged Borgovo, as if she had never seen him in her life, to get out of the way. Borgovo calmly insisted: – Aunt, you promised to come home before 12. It’s already past one.
Pachaco looked at Borgovo like an entomologist at an insect. Also, as if he himself, Pachaco, weren’t just then in that bizarre cartoon on the sidewalk of Avenida Colón in Mar del Plata, next to the marquees of the Provincial Theater, announcing the same 1970s revue comedian and playwrights contemporaries about Freud, or the latest play by a Hollywood screenwriter.
Pachaco smiled, like a lookout from a privileged vantage point.
“Get out of here or I’ll call the police, stupid,” Estela shouted at Borgovo.
Would Pachaco allow the widow to claim the police? Wouldn’t the very forgery of him be at risk if the guardians of the law intervened?
But Pachaco didn’t care if Estela called the police or not. Neither she intervened when she threatened Borgovo to hit him with a bag, the pointed female garment raised, with its crocodile skin and its metallic peaks. It was none of his business.
Borgovo surrendered. His two accomplices (now they were the criminals), approved his withdrawal, hiding behind a tree in a green area diagonally from the facts.
Resigned, frustrated, ashamed, they witnessed the disappearance of the couple through the revolving door of the Provincial Hotel.
(This story will continue next week.)
WD extension
Source: Clarin
