Lobo studied Bruno’s expressions carefully, accustomed as he was to weighing the effects of an offer and the material his interlocutor was made of. Cora’s coffee had gotten cold and she hadn’t touched the ‘lemon pie’, even though she didn’t usually resist such delicacies. She felt in a false squad: ugly, poor and outdated, and dissected with a magnifying glass by a former lover of hers who knew her naked, and by a shark who wanted to gobble up her little business with one bite. Something of all this sensed the general effective withdrawal of her, because she extracted from the inner pocket of her heart an envelope of hers, she left it next to the cutlery and patted it still as if it were a trained pet, or a precious gift. In terms of money, the envelope did not lie: Cora just opened it in Palermo and gave it to Marisa Grillo, to whom a quick reading seemed like a substantial agreement. “It balances all our accounts, and allows us to set up a countercyclical fund,” ruled the accountant. Fina reacted in the same way: «We can adapt to your schedules and not lose much». Claudia was the most blunt: “If you don’t grab it, they’re going to look for someone else, they’re going to eat up your clientele and you’re going to want to kill yourself.” Cora remembered Turk Zarif’s words in the transparent elevator, when she thoughtfully went down and he laughed softly at her existential dilemmas. “You wonder how much freedom is worth,” deduced the commissioner. You’ll see that it’s not worth that much.” She gave him a hateful look, but she internally acknowledged that her guess was correct. How much freedom would she have within a company with its own culture and rules that she did not know? Wasn’t that a setback, after all that independence had cost him? When saying goodbye to her, Guillermo Lobo had suggested that she take a few days to think about it, and to further bait her hook he had promised her a free hand and no interference: “We don’t have expertise, we’re not going to bother.”
Cora Bruno spent two sleepless nights, finally deciding to accept the first check. She settled in an aseptic office with a window to the train station, and she worked full time Tuesday and Thursday for two weeks until she received her first consultation. By then, she was already a heavy passive smoker regarded with derision by that world of antediluvian males; They had already baptized her ‘Corín Tellado’ and they already called her office ‘The sentimental consulting room’. Guillermo Lobo himself accompanied the first client to the fifth floor, and praised her in her presence. She was someone very important for Sursegur: she decided whether the protection and transfer of funds of the bank that she represented were done with that firm or with others in the environment. It was a million-dollar contract, and the good gentleman was received like a prince, although he did not show off. Quite the contrary: he was a thin, highly educated dark-haired man, who dressed in a sober manner, but who had a hesitant look. Lobo left them alone and closed the door. Cora opened her pad and wrote her name and her age: Gastón Cárdenas, 53 years old. And she waited for White to move. The women, in these preliminaries, were much more expeditious and direct. The gentlemen, on the other hand, felt a little self-conscious, touched in their masculinity, and therefore they turned around, opened and closed their hands, and licked their lips because their mouths were dry. Cardenas was no exception.
She felt ugly, poor and outdated, and dissected with a magnifying glass by a former lover who knew her naked, and by a shark who wanted to gobble up her little business in one bite
“As I was saying to Willy, I have a personal problem and I would like some advice,” he began. Of course, with the greatest reserve.
Cora smiled to herself: that manager didn’t want to decide something as serious as following up on his wife; he was just looking for someone to suggest it to him. And that she did it from the purest professionalism, so that she would free him from having made such a difficult decision.
“Is it your wife?” She pushed him away, and pretended that she was taking notes. Tell me what brought you here.
“Nothing specific,” he hurried on, as if to lighten the grievance. Luisa is an extraordinary person. And I don’t like to doubt her. It seems unfair to me.
‘But he noticed certain changes.
“It’s different,” he agreed, swallowing castor oil.
This time Bruno made a serious note of the data he was transmitting.
“When did you start noticing it?”
“I don’t know, four or five months ago, but it could come from before,” he hesitated. This year I had to make many trips to the bank and I realize that we were very disconnected.
“Do you have children?”
—A daughter of twenty-seven, studying for a postgraduate degree at the Sorbonne.
“What does Luisa do?”
—We met in college, but when we got married and she got pregnant, she dropped out of college. She is dedicated to the house, which is huge. I know what she is thinking.
“What am I thinking, Mr. Cardenas?”
—Empty nest syndrome.
Bruno kept silent, so that the client would have the need to fill in the ellipses. He shifted in his seat.
—Our daughter went to live in Paris six years ago, and these changes in my wife began now.
“Tell me about those behaviors, in as much detail as possible.”
“Actually, there isn’t much to tell. “Think for a few seconds.” She is distant, like angry.
—Is anger a permanent state, or does it have punctual outbursts?
“No, start. Without reason. Seems…
-Looks?
“As if he hated me right now.” But then it goes away, and we’re back to normal, if we can call it that. I don’t know.
-What else?
—During the day he is not at home and sometimes he does not answer his cell phone.
“What about his clothes?”
“Do you mean if she comes out well dressed?” She asks. I am a disaster for that. But yes, it may be that she is better dressed.
—Mr. Cárdenas, you don’t come to this confessional for so little. What turned on the warning light?
Cárdenas snorted and patted his legs, as if he needed courage.
“Three topics,” he said then, and swallowed hard. She began to neglect the house and to be late for commitments. At least twice she told me that she had met her friends from her school, and I found out that it was a lie. And when I reviewed her accounts I was surprised, because she had been making strong withdrawals for the last year and a half.
“Do you have separate accounts?”
-Since ever. Upon the death of my mother-in-law, Luisa inherited a good sum and she has her own bonds and investments. We thought it was logical and healthy for her to handle it and stay away from her.
“Do the extractions follow a pattern?”
-None. They are irregular, and of very dissimilar amounts.
“Did you hack your wife, Mr. Cárdenas?” Cora asked her, watching her expressions very carefully.
Cárdenas closed his eyes and shook his head affirmatively, defeated and perhaps repentant. But he didn’t say a word, as if he believed he was being recorded and that he shouldn’t admit to this crime.
—I imagine that your hacker was not limited to the financial areas, and that he advanced on his personal mailbox, his whatsapp and his social networks.
The manager coughed as if he had choked, and again nodded quietly. But this time he was resigned to exposing himself, he had no choice:
—Luisa hates networks, and there was nothing strange in her e-mail.
“And on your cell phone?”
-Either.
“Did your hacker activate a pager on you?”
“Yes,” he lamented.
-What did you find?
“There are no fixed places either. I went afterwards to two or three that he pointed out to me, all in the center, and they did not seem to me to have any relationship with each other.
He looked for hotels.
“Yes, how awful.” But there are everywhere, right?
Cora was interested in that mystery. She scribbled it down along with a tiny question mark.
“Did you talk to her, Mr. Cárdenas?” He asked without looking up.
“Several times,” he answered, but he did it as if he were at fault. After some of his tantrums and scandals. One night I took her out for a romantic dinner, asked her what was going on, and told her that I missed her. She started crying, got up from the table and walked home. He didn’t want anything to do with him taking her in the car. Then she apologized to me and went to sleep.
“Did he tell you about the lies and the expenses?”
“I had no courage.