Needle in a Haystack Read Free

“parvenus” and the fallen, mocking the nouveaux riches, scorning the poor, scoffing at the latest scandals and enjoying oneself in the eccentric company of
aristocrats, the Beccar Varelas and the Pereyra Iraolas of this world.
    But inheritances were divided among all heirs and a lack of occupation eventually proved costly, especially to someone accustomed to an expensive lifestyle and the finest imported luxuries, unable to renounce old ways, to make a living for himself. Hardly anything was left of all that grandeur today. Of what had once been a vast estate, there’s now only La Rencorosa ranch: a few gardens and flowers, two-hundred-year-old trees, the Sudan grass, the barn where a pair of old nags sleep, half a dozen chickens that survive the neglect of their master and a disused tractor. The big ochre house, spacious and airy, with its veranda and its armchairs, the perfect flower beds are all imprisoned in ten acres. That’s what remains from the squandering, the successive re-mortgaging, the divisions and sales of tracts of land. Expenditure was steadily reduced, naturally, but never stopped altogether, just as interest payments never ended, nor fines, nor penalties. With a prestigious family name to bargain with, loans flowed freely from the nouveaux riches, in turn seduced by the opportunity to acquire properties graced with an aura of high society. But as collateral diminished, the lending tap tightened.
    Amancio is a classic case, but with his quick temper and aggressive nature, he can only see his situation through a veil of resentment, he regards it all as some dirty trick played by life, putting money in the hands of nobodies while taking it away from those who deserve it by birthright. From his privileged past he retains only the self-confident, back-slapping manner of the affluent Barrio Norte, as well as the haughtiness and effrontery.
When one is born rich, living poor is perceived as an injustice. Everyone should get what they deserve, and Amancio feels he deserves a better life than this. He thinks about tomorrow and tomorrow means Biterman, the moneylender. Amancio has to go to Biterman’s office in Once, where the loan shark manages his millions. He has been reduced to borrowing from this Jew, accepting his terms and conditions and the accompanying sense of dependency and inferiority. Only yesterday the bank refused to extend Amancio’s overdraft, despite the fact that the president of the bank is none other than Mariano Alzaga, Amancio’s cousin and one-time classmate at Saint Andrew’s School. Amancio can’t even afford a taxi to the moishe’s office. One more whisky and the bottle is finished. He’s completely drunk. Down on the street, the soldiers have stopped a Fiat 1500 and forced two young men to get out.
    He looks at Lara’s stunning body as she sleeps calmly. She’s young, an outstanding beauty even in a family famous for its beautiful women, the jewels at gatherings held in their mansion on Alvear Street. The Cernadas-Bauers had also descended into bankruptcy, but its women were as resourceful as they were lovely to look at, because somewhere on the family tree their proud Galician blood had mixed with pragmatic German genes. Hence the implacable green eyes and blond hair and a dynamic entrepreneurial streak. Lara’s sister Florencia used her family connections to set up an estate agency. The sway of her hips, allied with the niceties and histrionics of a well-bred girl, seduced buyers and sellers alike, boosting her client list and her commissions. Without becoming rich, she had made herself into a woman of means for the price of a demanding job on
the property market. Lara, on the other hand, with her more fiery, less organized spirit, opted for the shortest route. Following various affairs with men and women of the jet set, in exchange for gifts and favours, she had become a prime topic of conversation among the chattering classes with talk of her prostituting her heritage.