The Knight´s Legacy

Buenos Aires

Since Renzo and Ugo did not wish to move more in an unfamiliar city they accepted the youth invitation. A while later the dark side door opened and several women, all of them looking  prostitutes left the building.

“Berta did not come out yet.” Said Nicola, in whom s****l arousal was struggling with forced patience.

Some minutes later another woman appeared, Nicola gave a jump and approached her while his friends waited in the dark. They could see as he kissed her and introduced his hands inside her clothes with her apparent complacency.

“It is a slut.”Said unnecessarily Ugo. “And much older than Nicola.” However he began to experience an erection before the hot scene due to a prolonged s****l abstinence. The two friends set out to make another tour around the area to allow time for Nicola for his needs and at the same time to cool their own. From one of the neighboring bars emerged the music of a tango, the lyrics of which the Italians only partially understood.

“Malena canta el tango, como ninguna…”

It was the first contact of the newcomers with the sentimental and melancholic nature of the Argentines. Ugo meditated a moment on the contrast between this sad predisposition and what had struck him as a society of abundance.

At that time they saw three men appearing at the  brothel door, one of whom approached in a violent attitude the embraced couple. Ugo and Renzo –accustomed to conflictive situations after so many years of war- sensed danger from the beginning. The man was already together with Nicola and the woman and from far away friends could see his gestures and hear his cries, although in somewhat attenuated. They saw the thug pulling the woman by the arm and then throwing over Nicola giving him a punch in the face; the blow made the young man totter and when he was able to recover the balance the bully approached  and took him by the neck; then Nicola, although diminished hit the man groin with his knee. The body of the man bent by pain, and Nicola, taking distance delivered a ferocious kick with his peasant shoe in the face. Man fell heavily on his back, giving his head on the pavement and falling out of combat. The other two thugs dressed as compadritos, narrow striped trousers, tight jackets and wide-brimmed hats rushed towards the scene.

As they saw them Ugo and Renzo decided to act to balance the numbers and came running. They saw that one of the men was carrying a knife in his hand while the other stood behind Nicola holding him no doubt in a practiced maneuver. While the second man held the boy from behind the one with the knife approached and pierced Nicola´s chest. Ugo desperately increased his speed but came late to avoid the fact. However, the two accomplices were not expecting them. Renzo gave a tremendous punch in the nape of the neck to the cutler who staggered a moment but even somewhat dizzy wielded the dagger towards the young. Renzo, strong and with the initiative in his favor held the man's hand and approached him, watching closely his face surprised by his mulatto features. A relentless struggle followed  stuck with both fighters stuck until finally prevailed Renzo´s sheer force prevailed and the dagger still in the bully´s hands, found its way into the middle of his chest entering profoundly. The man fell in the middle of a puddle of blood, which also soaked Renzo. This turned and looked at his friend, who was bearing the brunt in the fight with the remaining bully much more full-bodied. Renzo ran behind the man and strongly fastened him by the arms preventing him from moving. Ugo, enraged by his own blood and pain, hit the compadrito repeatedly in the face that turned into a disfigured and bloody mass, and then in the chest and belly, until finally the man lost consciousness. Renzo  dropped him and the man fell on the floor and Ugo started to kick him but his friend stopped him. Ugo calmer now, approached each of the fallen men noting that Cutler was dead. Three thugs from the brothel, trained in clubbing drunkards, abusing boys and hitting women had not been rivals for men who had for years faced bayonet charges of the fierce Scots, Hindus and gurkhas, and this time lay scattered down the alley.

The whole episode had gone silently and lasted no more than three minutes, its brevity compensated by its ferocity.

“We must go out of here immediately.” Said Renzo “ The Police will be ruthless with us. We are newcomers, have no occupation and none can give good references of us. Nobody will come out to defend us.”

They approached Nicola who was still lying on the ground stunned and battered, revived him as they could and helped it to stand up. The woman, who until then had remained secluded approached the three young men in the middle of a desperation attack.

“What will I do now?” Cried out in Spanish with a strong foreign accent. “ They will blame me for this. When they wake up these men will seek to find me and kill me. They have a whole organization behind them.”

Nicola, with difficulties to speak translated into Italian what the women had said.

“It is best if at the moment she comes with us, of course if she wants to. Then we will think what to do.”  Replied Ugo. “ Now the important thing is to move away from this place.”

Used due to her haphazard and unhappy life to make quick decisions in difficult situations and aware of the lack of alternatives the woman controlled  her extreme anxiety and finally agreed to accompany them, in what she knew would be a definitive break in her life, a point of no return.

The four walked away in the direction of Sarmiento Street and when they reached the corner saw an empty taxi after carrying a couple to one of the brothels in the area. They boarded it, the woman in the front seat and the three men behind. Ugo realized that Nicola had lost consciousness; he then suddenly recalled the s***h that the man had suffered at the start of the fight. The adrenaline rush of the fight had kept Nicola awake but the forces had now abandoned him. The woman, alerted to the fact, resignedly gave a direction to the taxi driver.

“It is a doctor who will not make many questions in exchange for money.” She added.

As the taxi arrived at the site after twenty minutes of a vexing ride the woman hit the door of the dark and ruined House until a light was lit in the upper floor; a window opened and someone asked in bad temper that was bothering him at those hours of the night.

“I'm Berta, we need your services. Please open the door.

After a while a bald man in a frayed robe opened the door, recognized the woman and auspiciously let the group pass in the bleak House lobby. They followed him  through  several inter-connecting rooms until they reached a room in which there was a stretcher.

“Leave him there.” Said the man. “I will see that I can do.” They did so carefully, and by the time re-appeared the man dressed as a doctor with his white robe.

“Well, now go to the next room, if I need you I will call you.” He said peremptorily

Three hours later, as Berta, Ugo and Renzo dozed in worn sofas at the lobby, the doctor reappeared saying.

“I already stitched your friend, he is out of danger although it still bleeds a little. Now you must take him away from here and never return, because you are putting me at risk. That s***h was undoubtedly made in a brawl, and I should report it to the Police but I want to have nothing to do on that matter.”

Berta -the only one in the group who had some money- paid to the doctor and they called another cab. They decided to pass by the woman´s House to withdraw her clothes and other belongings, hoping that the owners of the peringundín had not yet put their goons following their footsteps.

From there they decided to return to the guesthouse in Balvanera. To the suspicious manager question they answered that Nicola was drunk, and the man let them pass shaking his head after receiving a tip from Berta.

The next day the woman bought the newspaper, and among the police chronicles she found a brief article according to which a Uruguayan named Juan Sandoval, linked to person trafficking  had been found dead in the area of brothels. The police presumed that the fact was related to frequent adjustments of accounts between mafia groups, and it was evident that the case would be closed without any further investigation. However if was sure that the brothel organization that Berta feared so much would not forget the case so easily.

The group of four people remained locked in the room two more days, until Nicola was able to walk although with difficulty. During this time Renzo observed the woman carefully with an attention not free from desire. She was no longer young although she still had a good figure, blonde hair and a general expression between hopeless and despondent. Several times they started  conversations overcoming language barriers. Renzo learned that the woman was Polish of Jewish origin. She had come to Argentina a decade earlier, deceived by a few men of his town, and ended in a brothel from San Fernando, North of Buenos Aires, belonging to the remains of an organization of human traffickers.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Buenos Aires was a city with male numerical predominance, fruit of the strong European immigration started in the 1880's. The relative lack of women resulted in the activity of person traffickers of white and exploiters of women, creating various organizations from diverse backgrounds, standing out among them the French ruffians and Polish Jews. The latter created the Warsaw or Warzawa organization and then the Zwi Migdal, sinister groups that managed dozens of brothels and cabarets, mostly in Buenos Aires and Rosario. The Zwi Migdal was fought by the Jewish community since the infamous reputation spilled on it, in an environment already prepared by the anti-Semitism of the upper classes. These organizations worked without major discomfort from the authorities -through bribes- until the 1930s in which a mixture of moralism and xenophobia, related to the new military Government of conservative tendencies led to their persecution. They continued to exist although decimated in the following decades. In the hands of these networks had fallen Berta in her native Poland.

The unfortunate woman had been transferred to the bad reputation downtown cabaret where the incident had taken place and over time had managed to save some money  with which she was planning to run away from her exploiters. Fate had however reserved her surprise and the events of two days earlier had drastically altered her plans leaving the hapless woman with a completely uncertain future. She had apparently met Nicola at the cabaret and then they had been sneaking several times violating the unwritten laws of the organization that owned her. Now she was terrified because she knew that it her escape could not go unnoticed and the gang would give her a punishment that would serve as an example for the rest of their pupils.

When Berta explained her situation, somehow linked to Nicola’s irruption in her life, the youth meditated for a while about his responsibility in the woman`s hazardous situation and finally he explained that  the only alternative available to him was letting Berta join the group in its trip to the far south where no one would seek her, at least until memories of the incident were cold. The woman agreed after struggling with her emotions, mostly due to lack of options. Her haphazard and unhappy life had transformed her into a survivor and she was used to make vital decisions in a few seconds. In fact fate had suddenly joined her to this ragged group and she had no other choice than to follow the men on their way.

They decided to look for the old truck that Nicola had left in a nearby garage with the spare parts that he  had come to purchase in Buenos Aires, and immediately begin the journey to General Roca, to put as  much distance  as possible with their potential pursuers who possibly had colluded with the police and justice. Since Nicola was still weak to guide, Renzo-who had been driver of his tank of the Ariete Brigade in Africa- took over the driving hoping that no police control asked him a driving license. A long journey and a new stage of their lives were waiting for these creatures compelled by tragic circumstances to leave behind their past lives with their load of pain and frustration. The two ex-combatants, which so many hopes had deposited in theirs coming to America were already practically fugitives three days after landing.

CHAPTER 5