The young men are wild and there may be some aggression in the air at the home of the Garibottis in the working-class neighborhood of Boulogne. The father, Francisco, is the archetype of a man: tall, muscular, with a square and firm face, mildly hostile eyes, and a thin mustache that flows well over the corners of his mouth.
The mother is a beautiful woman, even with her tough, common features. Tall, strong, with something contemptuous about her mouth and eyes that do not smile.
There are six children here as well, just like at Carranza’s, but that’s where the similarities end. The five oldest ones are boys who range from Juan Carlos, who is about to turn eighteen, to eleven-year-old Norberto.
Delia Beatriz, at nine years old, somewhat softens this otherwise intensely male environment. Dark-haired, with bangs and smiling eyes, her father melts when he sees her. There is a photo in a glass cabinet of her in a school uniform of white overalls standing next to a chalkboard.
The whole family appears on the walls. Yellowing, far-off snapshots of Francisco and Florinda—they are young and laughing in the park—ID photos of the father and the kids, even some fleeting faces of relatives and friends, have all been glued to a big piece of board and stuck inside a frame. Just as at the Carranzas’, the inescapable “portrait artists” have been here as well and, beneath a double “bombé” frame, have left a wealth of blues and golds that attempt to portray two of the young boys, though we can’t figure out which ones.
This passion for decor or mementos reaches its peak in the predictable print of Gardel all in black, his hat nearly covering his face, his foot resting on a chair as he strums a guitar.
But it is a clean, solid, modestly furnished house, a house where a working man can live decently. And the “company” charges them less than one hundred pesos in rent.
This may be why Francisco Garibotti doesn’t want to get into any trouble. He knows the union is not doing well—the military has gotten involved, friends have been arrested—but all of that will pass some day. One needs to be patient and wait it out.
Garibotti is thirty-eight years old, with sixteen years of service to the Belgrano Railway under his belt. Now he works the local line.
That afternoon he left work around five and came straight home.
Of his two sons, he might favor the second eldest. He has his father’s name: Francisco, only with the extra middle name, Osmar. This sixteen-year-old young man with a serious look in his eye is all set to start working for the railroad as well.
There is a true camaraderie between the two of them. The father likes playing the guitar while his son sings. This is what they’re doing that afternoon.
It gets dark early on these midwinter June days. It’s already nighttime before they even bother to notice. Mother sets the table for dinner. A frying pan crackles in the kitchen.
Francisco Garibotti has nearly finished his dinner already—he ate steak and eggs that night—when the doorbell rings.
It’s Mr. Carranza.
What’s Nicolás Carranza come for?
—He came to take him away. And they brought him back to me a corpse —Florinda Allende would later recall with resentment in her voice.
The two men talk for a while. Florinda has stepped back into the kitchen. She senses that her husband is feeling an itch to go out on this particular Saturday night, and she plans to fight for her rights, but on her own turf, without the neighbor in the room.
Francisco comes in after a moment.
—I have to head out —he says, not looking at her.
—We were going to go to the movies —she reminds him.
—You’re right, we were. Maybe we can go later.
—You said you’d go out with me.
—I’ll be right back. I just have to run an errand and then I’ll be back.
—I can’t imagine what errand you need to run.
—I’ll explain later. The truth —he tries to make himself clear, anticipating her reproach— is that I’m also a little tired of this guy . . . and all his ideas . . .
—Doesn’t seem like it.
—Look, this is the last time I’ll give him the time of day. Wait for me a little while.
And as though to prove that he is only going out for a minute, that he has every intention of coming back as soon as he can, he gets to the door and, just as he finishes putting on his overcoat, yells out:
—If Vivas comes by, tell him to wait. Tell him I’m going to run an errand and I’ll be back.
The two friends set out. They walk a few blocks along Guayaquil, a long street, and turn right, heading toward the station. They take the first local bound for the barrio of Florida. It’s only a few minutes away by train.
No one can testify as to what they talked about. We can only speculate. Maybe Garibotti repeated Berta Figueroa’s advice to his friend: that he turn himself in. Maybe Carranza wanted to put him in charge of something in case he didn’t make it back home. Maybe he knew about the uprising in the making and mentioned it to him. Or maybe he simply said:
—Let’s go to a friend’s place to listen to the radio. There’s going to be some news . . .
There could also be more innocent explanations. A card game or the Lausse match that would be on the radio later.8 Something like that may have happened. What we do know is that Garibotti has left without really feeling like it, and intended to come back soon. If he ends up not going back later, it’s because they have managed to conquer his curiosity, his interest, or his inertia. He was unarmed when he left, and would at no point have a weapon in his hands.
Carranza is also unarmed. He will let himself be arrested without any sign of resistance. He will let himself be killed like a child, without one rebellious movement. Begging uselessly for mercy until the final gunshot.
They get off in Florida. They turn right and cross the railroad tracks. They walk six blocks along Hipólito Yrigoyen Street. They cross Franklin. They stop—Carranza stops—in front of a country house with two small light blue wooden gates that lead directly into a garden.
They go in through the right gate. They walk through a long corridor. They ring the bell.
From this point on we won’t have any verifiable accounts of Garibotti. As for some account of Carranza before the final, definitive silence—we still have to wait for many hours to pass.
And many incomprehensible things, too.
Footnotes:
8 DG: Argentine middleweight boxer Eduardo Lausse fought and beat Chilean middleweight boxer Humberto Loayza in round three of twelve on the night of June 9, 1956, at the Luna Park Stadium in the City of Buenos Aires.