The Secret in Their Eyes by Eduardo Sacheri Page A

his house in Castelar, and if some passerby were to walk down his street, he could hear the frenetic din of a typewriter and see Chaparro’s silhouette through the window, bent over his desk, over his keyboard, banging out the paragraphs of what appears to be the second part of his story. But as it happens, no one hears or sees him. The street is deserted.

12
    I didn’t dare tell him no, even though there was every reason to suspect that a terrible time was in store for me.
    It was at our last meeting. Just as we were taking leave of each other, Morales surprised me by saying, “I’m going to get rid of the photographs.”
    I asked him why, but I had a feeling he was going to explain whether I asked him to or not. He said, “Because I can’t stand to look at her face when she can’t look back at me. But before I burn them, I’d like to share them with you. Maybe showing you the photos will be a good way to say good-bye to them.”
    I could have turned him down. I’ve always hated looking at photographs. But either I didn’t have the necessary reflexes, or I was developing a tendency to let the boy have his way, or I was hindered by the same sudden awkwardness I’ve felt all my life at the prospect of rejecting a request. The one certain thing is that I accepted.
    We agreed to meet again in three weeks. It was the beginning of December. The case had been in a box on a shelf since August, and sooner rather than later, I was going to find myself obliged to revive it, review it, anddeclare it officially dead; no one would be prosecuted. Although the prospect made me sick, the case, Morales, and I (so deep was my commitment in this mess) were all about to hit a concrete wall. Maybe that was why I agreed to look at the photos.
    I left the court with no time to spare and quickly walked the block and a half to the bar where we always met. Morales had already taken possession of a large table, and with the calm concentration of a collector, he was taking photographs out of a shoe box and placing them in different piles. I approached him slowly. Looking over his shoulder, I could see his display of grievous memories.
    The wooden floor creaked, and Morales turned around to look at me. He was wearing a pair of librarian’s eyeglasses and holding a pencil in his mouth. He made a face by way of greeting me and pointed to the seat across from him. When he did so, I noticed that the piles of pictures were turned toward my side of the table, as if we were at a trade fair and Morales wanted to guide me through his exhibit.
    “I’m just about ready,” he said, pulling a last handful of photos out of the box and starting to distribute them among the piles in front of me.
    Every time he placed a photograph on a pile, he took the pencil from his mouth and marked one of the lines on a long, numbered list. There was no doubt that he was a guy who paid scrupulous attention to details. Whilehe was checking off the last pictures, I noticed that his list went up to number 174, and I feared I was going to be very late for dinner. I reproached myself a little for not having called Marcela before I left the clerk’s office. Finding a public telephone anywhere near the bar was going to be a royal pain, but I couldn’t neglect to tell her I’d been delayed. Why throw another log on the frigid bonfire of our disagreements? It wasn’t that we quarreled. No. I don’t think we ever went so far as to quarrel. I was apparently the only one of us troubled by the increasing iciness of our relationship.
    “I’ve put them in order for you. These here,” he said, handing me the first pile of photos, “are pictures of Liliana when she was a little girl.”
    I noticed she was already lovely. Or did I see her like that because I clearly remembered the last images of her, the ones in which her beauty persisted, even in the midst of horror? The pictures of the little girl were classics, typical of children’s photos in those days. A selection of