Elena—Benito Avellaneda

Elena and Benito Avellaneda are brought together by the police decision to close the investigation into Rita’s death as suicide. Their relationship develops within the gap between Elena’s demand for a real inquiry and Avellaneda’s limited authority: he is assigned to manage her expectations, yet their recurring meetings become a valued ritual that exceeds the task he was given. He cannot reopen the case, but his presence gives Elena someone to press, question, and eventually regard with affection.

Assignment and unequal positions

Avellaneda is not an inspector, despite the title he uses with Elena. He is an officer relegated to office work after a compromising incident while guarding cash transfers at Provincia Bank. His superior assigns him to meet Rita’s mother, directs him to present himself as an inspector, and tells him to make clear that the police and courts consider the case closed. If necessary, he is to offer psychological assistance. The assignment is framed as a humanitarian accommodation, not as a renewed investigation.

Avellaneda accepts the task with resignation, but cannot simply dismiss Elena. His discomfort at brushing her off is tied to his regard for mothers, whom he considers sacred. This makes his position more complicated than the official script allows: he is meant to deliver a conclusion that Elena rejects, yet he is reluctant to treat her as merely a nuisance. The difference between his institutional role and his personal response becomes the central tension of their relationship.

A recurring meeting becomes a ritual

At first, Elena meets Avellaneda at the police station on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, arriving at ten o’clock sharp. She teases him for being too relaxed to arrive on time, while he blushes at the reminder of the incident that ended his prospects for promotion. His blue Buenos Aires Provincial Police blazer will not button, and his shirt collars are frayed. Elena once turned her husband’s collars over, but from her place across the desk her limited vision does not extend above Avellaneda’s second unbuttoned button. When he understands that she is not staring at him personally, he adjusts himself in his chair—holding in his stomach or sinking down until their faces are level. Sitting that way for long stretches leaves his back aching.

The meetings initially consist of Elena demanding explanations and Avellaneda repeating the official position. She insists that Rita did not go to the church belfry intending to kill herself: the rope and the chair were already there, and someone had arranged things for her. Avellaneda first listens with the distant patience of someone visiting an elderly relative, following the conversation without truly attending to it. When Elena points out that it was raining, he has no investigative answer; the weather means nothing to the police account. He eventually acknowledges that it was raining without denying her observation, but still does nothing to advance the inquiry she wants.

Elena turns the meetings into an inquiry

Avellaneda passes time by reading Elena pages from the report, sometimes returning to pages they have already argued over. Elena recognizes that the repeated paperwork conceals the absence of a genuine investigation: there are no leads because no one has pursued them. She begins bringing her own material, including Rita’s diary, her address book, a handwritten list of people who knew her daughter, and a list of places Rita visited in the days before her death. The letters on the list are twisted by Elena’s illness, but she offers to explain anything Avellaneda cannot read. He wonders how long it took her to write them; the documents make her effort visible even as they expose the limits of his own.

When Elena lists Rita’s visits, Avellaneda adds Dr Benegas’s office. Rita had gone there two days before her death, not for herself but to speak about Elena. Elena did not know about the visit and challenges the implication that Avellaneda suspects the doctor. He insists that he is trying to make the list complete, not accusing anyone. Elena takes the page, finds a pen, and adds the office herself, then returns the list to him with an insistence that he investigate properly. The exchange captures their different kinds of responsibility: Avellaneda supplies a fact but hesitates to act on it; Elena, though dependent on him to carry out an investigation, makes sure the fact is recorded.

From the station to the square

The police station meetings end after Avellaneda’s chief says that people in the neighborhood are beginning to suspect the police of taking money from Elena. The chief maintains that the department has done more than it was obliged to do and presents the meetings as an act of humanitarianism. Avellaneda does not have the nerve to tell Elena to stop coming. He invents an explanation that his office is being painted and arranges to meet her in the square instead. Elena does not believe the excuse, but goes along with it, and they continue talking beneath an ombú tree.

By then Avellaneda has discovered that he looks forward to the meetings. They have become important to him despite his belief that he has done little for Elena. Their connection therefore survives the withdrawal of the formal setting: the conversations move outdoors, but Elena continues to bring him suspicions and he continues to hear them. The shift also reveals the limits of the police response. An informal meeting can preserve contact, but it does not turn the closed case into an active investigation.

Affection without resolution

In the square, Elena asks Avellaneda to add the two women at the health insurance office to the list of suspects because Rita treated them badly. Avellaneda questions whether mistreatment is enough of a motive and answers by recalling the people he himself might have reason to resent: a former brother, former bosses from his years as a builder, and members of his family. His examples make the point that grievance alone cannot establish murder. Elena counters not with evidence but with an assessment of his character, telling him that he seems like a good person. He warns her that appearances can deceive and that a uniform can mislead, but she maintains her judgment, joking that his uniform is not helping him.

Her confidence is not simple trust in the police. She admits that Avellaneda never saw her fight with Rita, so he cannot know the whole of her as a mother. When he jokes that he should add Elena herself to the list, she welcomes the idea and says he should investigate everyone, even starting with her. The moment joins warmth to accusation: Elena likes Avellaneda, but she does not release him from his duty. Their relationship ends without a solved case or a promise of justice. What changes is the quality of their contact—from an officer mechanically delivering an official conclusion to a fallible companion whom Elena can tease and trust enough to challenge, and whose meetings have become meaningful to him as well.