“Shut up, Lali, or I’ll smack you.”
So this is what it’s come to, thought Florencia. Her mother didn’t like Sanagasta. Like many people from La Rioja she went to the town in summer, when the heat in the province’s capital rose to fifty degrees and there was no sleeping during siesta and you just wanted to die. She always talked about going to Uspallata instead, or to the beach. She said she was sick of Sanagasta; there were no restaurants, the people were sullen and hostile, and in the craft market the wares never changed—they didn’t even move things around! She was sick of the procession of the Virgin Child, of the little shrines everywhere, of the fact that there were three churches and not a single place to drink a cup of coffee. If someone told her there was coffee at the Inn, she got riled up as well. She was sick of the Inn. Sick of its owner, Elena, whose excessive friendliness struck her as false and conceited. Sick of how the only entertainment was to go and eat baked chicken at the Inn, play roulette and the slot machines at the Inn’s casino, talk to some European tourist at the Inn. It was lucky, she’d often say, that they had a swimming pool at their house; otherwise they’d have had to use the one at the Inn, and then she’d really go crazy. Not even a steak house in the whole town, she complained. Not a single steak house.
They reached Sanagasta at the same time as the first evening bus, around six thirty. The low-hanging sun had changed the color of the hills, and the green of the valley’s trees was a velvety moss. Lali was crying. She hated Sanagasta and she was so angry, so convinced that when high school finished she would run away to Córdoba, where one of her boyfriends lived…Florencia had learned of the escape plan when Lali told a girlfriend about it over the phone.
The house was fairly cool and her mother, who always felt cold, lit the heater. Florencia went out to the yard. Her family’s vacation house was small because her father had opted for a large plot of land so they could have a pool, trees, a lot of space for the dogs to run, a gazebo, and even flowers. Her father loved flowers, much more than her mother, who preferred cacti. Florencia flopped into the hammock-chair and started to observe the colors: the rust-orange and fuchsia flowers, the turquoise of the pool, prickly pear green, the coral-pink of the house. She sent a message to her best friend, Rocío, who lived in Sanagasta: I’m here, come meet me. They had a lot to talk about: Rocío had told her in an email that she was having family problems, too. That is, she had problems with her father, because Rocío’s family was minimal: her mother was dead and she didn’t have any siblings. Rocío messaged that they should meet at the kiosk, which was open by then, and without telling anyone Florencia went running out, a little money in her pocket so she could drink a Coca-Cola. Of all the things she liked about Sanagasta, one of her favorites was being able to come, without her parents getting angry or scared.
There was a smell of burning in the air, probably a bonfire of fallen leaves. It was the nicest moment of the day. Rocío was waiting for her, sitting in one of the plastic chairs at the kiosk where they served sandwiches and empanadas at night. She was wearing frayed jean shorts and a white shirt, and her backpack was under the table. Florencia kissed her on the cheek and sat down, and as she did she couldn’t help glancing at her friend’s legs, their golden down that in the afternoon light looked like spilled wax. They ordered a two-liter Coke, and Florencia told Rocío to spill everything.
For years, Rocío’s father had worked at the Inn as a tour guide: he brought the guests to the archaeological park, to the dam, and to the Salamanca cave, where he told them ghost stories about meetings between witches and devils, or about stinking, red-eyed goats; furred snakes; and a basilisk with blazing eyes. He was the star employee and was treated accordingly: he used Elena’s 4×4 when his truck broke down, he ate free at the restaurant whenever he wanted, he used the pool and the foosball table without paying, and around town people said he was Elena’s lover. Rocío denied it, saying her father wouldn’t get mixed up with his boss, not that snooty woman. Florencia had gone on all the tours with Rocío and her father. He was an incredible guide, caring and kind: he was so fun that you didn’t get tired even though you were climbing hills under a terrible sun.
“I can’t believe Elena fired your dad. What happened?”
Rocío wiped the Coca-Cola from her upper lip, a maroon mustache.
Things were going pretty badly, she said, because Elena was having money problems and she was hysterical, but everything went to hell when her father had told some tourists from Buenos Aires about the Inn’s past, about how it had been a police academy thirty years ago, before it was turned into a hotel.
“But your dad always says that on the tours when he talks about the town’s history,” said Florencia.
“Well, yes, but Elena didn’t know that. Then these tourists got really interested. They wanted to know more about it, and they asked Elena directly—about disappearances, torture, whatever. That’s how she found out that my dad told the guests about the police academy. They fought, and she fired him.”
“But why did she get so mad?”
“She doesn’t want the tourists to get a bad impression, my dad says, because it was a police academy during the dictatorship. You remember that stuff we studied in school?”
“What, did they kill people there?”
“My dad says no, Elena is being paranoid. It was just a police academy and nothing more.”
Rocío said the thing about the police academy during the dictatorship was an excuse of Elena’s, that she didn’t really care at all about the story, since she’d only bought the Inn ten years ago. She was just pissed at Rocío’s father and wanted to fire him, and she latched onto that as an excuse. Elena had taken away Rocío’s father’s key to the Inn’s front door; she’d asked him for money to fix things on the 4×4 that he hadn’t broken, that were just from regular wear and tear; and she’d forbidden him to give tours on his own under threat of suing him. And all without paying him for the last month of work.
“But he can still give tours, she can’t stop him.”
“He’s not going to, he doesn’t want to make trouble. Plus, he told me he’s fed up with the people in Sanagasta, he wants to leave.”
Rocío finished her glass of Coke and whistled to the kiosk’s dog, who came right over and seemed disappointed when she petted him instead of giving him food.