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Latin America is a continent littered with forgotten heroes and heroines, buried in anonymity. This is the case of Alicia Aragón Benítez and Simon Oviedo. She, a leader in the feminist movement of the 50’s which pushed through women’s right to vote and right to citizenship. He, a boxer who could have been his country’s first world champion.
Both lived in the turbulent 50’s, years of bloody political violence, years of transition from a practically feudal society to an industrial and urban society. Years in which life for people like Alicia and Simon were not easy.
She committed the ultimate “sin” of the times by succumbing to youthful passion and losing her virginity to her boyfriend at age 19. Two years later she married Pascual Ordoñez, a wealthy landowner and political leader of her town. When he learned that Alicia was not a “pure” woman, her life became sheer agony. Humiliation and both physical and mental abuse was the price Alicia had to pay for not being a virgin on her wedding night. This painful time, however, served to help her develop a plan to escape from the nightmare her life had become.
One night, when Pascual Ordoñez was out of town at a political rally, Alicia faked her suicide. She left behind irrefutable evidence and traveled to the capital city disguised as a man. Upon arrival in the city she took on a new identity: Alberto Aragón. She registered at the law school of the local university, and rented a small room in the boarding house “El Remanso”. While moving in, she came to the rescue of a drunk who had stumbled down the stairs and seriously hurt his head.
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It was not so long ago that Simon Oviedo, better known in the boxing world as “The Destroyer”, had a chance to fight for the world title in the middle weight boxing tournament, until an unexpected accident intervened. In a previous match played against his best friend Alberto “El Negro” Perea, he not only knocked him out, but ended up killing him. This tragic accident so devastated Simon that the next day he vowed, at El Negro’s tomb, to retire from boxing and to donate all his professional earnings to his widow. All in a vain attempt to assuage the terrible guilt he felt.
From that day on, Simon bounced from one place to another without any real direction or purpose. He worked as a host at an elegant restaurant in the city, and even enlisted to fight in the Korean War. However, he then ended up working as an assistant in the same gym that saw him grow up and develop into a boxer.
Retirement and loneliness drove Oviedo to alcohol. One night as he was returning from the bar where he habitually spent the little money he earned at the gym, he stumbled down the stairs and suffered cuts on his head. Had it not been for the disheveled young “Alberto Aragón” who appeared with a candle in his hand to help him up and to clean his wounds, he would have woken up on the floor at the entrance of the boarding house.
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That incident began a solid friendship between the two “men”, which became only closer over time. Alicia even had to start going out on the town with Simon, experiencing her first drunken moments alongside this crude but sensitive ex-boxer who had become her best friend.
As a dedicated law student, Alicia starts to have contact with the growing feminist movement in the country, and becomes very interested in the subject. She finds out that women who want to attend a meeting of the purported National Organization for Women (NOW) are being fined. Without giving it any thought, and after many months, Alicia dresses like a woman again and goes to this meeting.
In one of those moments dictated by fate or destiny, Simon returns to the boarding house earlier than expected and encounters Alicia at the door to “Alberto’s” room. In those first anxious seconds she does not know if he has uncovered who she is. Luckily he had not. On the contrary, from that first look, Simon is completely captivated by the nervous woman.
After relentless questioning by Simon, Alberto has to come up with a good explanation as to why such a beautiful woman was in his room. The first thing that occurs to him is to say that it was his cousin Magdalena who was visiting the city, and who unfortunately came right when he was not at home. But instead of quieting Simon questions, Alberto’s explanation further piques his interest. And so, partly out of curiosity and partly out of being pressured, “Alberto” accepts to get “Magdalena” to go on a date with Simon.
From that moment on, Simon and Magdalena start to see each other more frequently and Alicia ends up in a paradoxical situation by being the male confidante of the man who has made her fall in love with him.
For Simon, meeting Magdalena is a breath of fresh air in his life. He knows that if he wants to keep her at his side he will have to earn her respect and admiration. To do this, he returns with renewed energy to the one thing he was able to do well: boxing. If he used to fight out
