The Scent of Buenos Aires

by Hebe Uhart

“I know. I know you have important responsibilities, but you’ll just have to take care of them later.”

  Agustín hesitated as he walked up to her room, saying:

  “I should go get some things done.”

  But he was exhausted. She walked him upstairs and he laid down. Once she was back with her students she shut the studio doors tightly; then she played the drum louder than ever.

  * * *

  —

  Her current husband was going to mount the practice barre for her students to use. He didn’t live with her because the daily grind deteriorates marital relations. He came and went as he pleased. Now, as she anxiously waited for him to mount the barre, she strived to ensure the circumstances would be conducive to him working with tenacity and perseverance. What would be better—to kick Agustín out when he finished sleeping off his bender, or invite him to join the…What to call it? The “work team.” Even if he could barely hold on to a nail. Her husband and ex-husband were good friends, having similar aesthetics. In Sweden, for example, everyone works together. No one is self-serving. In fact, anyone who doesn’t pitch in is reported to the police. It wasn’t that her husband had an uncooperative spirit, he just had aesthetic reservations. He thought modern dance was incomprehensible, on a par with coin collecting.

  When he arrived, he realized now wasn’t the time to get into any of his theories. Almost without greeting, Doris asked him:

  “Did you bring the hammer?”

  “Unbelievable! Of course I brought the hammer. Who would try to nail something into the wall without a hammer?”

  From one coat pocket he removed a hammer, and from the other, a bottle of wine.

  “So,” he said, “How do you want me to mount it? With nails, bolts…?”

  “What are bolts?” asked Doris with profound contempt and suspicion.

  “You surprise me, teacher,” said Miguel. And from his upper pocket he took out a bolt and showed it to her.

  “No, not with that,” she replied. “It’s thick and ugly. They’ll show, and I want the barre to be smooth.”

  “Now, c’mon. Who would be crazy enough to think they’re going to show?” he said, pouring himself a glass of wine.

  Just then, Agustín came down and brightened when he saw the wine and the company.

  “Let’s see here, Maestro. What do you think? What should I use: nails or bolts?”

  “In my opinion, they both involve a dishonorable task,” replied Agustín, who still hadn’t gotten enough sleep.

  “There’s no doubt about that. No debate whatsoever. Right now we’re debating something else entirely.”

  “Does anyone ever really debate anything?” asked Agustín.

  Doris set to doing the dishes left from lunch and didn’t say a word. The two men went into the dance studio. Agustín was tempted to play the drum, but he knew it might cost him dearly. With an irritated, skeptical expression on his face, Miguel began to scatter nails all over the place, as if he’d been a carpenter his whole life and the trade had given him nothing but minimal satisfaction. He strewed them about as if they were miserable and sordid, as if they were the very nails that had been used to kill Christ himself. While Miguel nailed a piece of the barre, Agustín sat on a little wicker chair and kept him company. Miguel hammered with all his might as an image of Doris’ overweight student popped into his head. He thoroughly calculated the bulk of the overweight student’s leg. Doris said:

  “She’s remarkably flexible. And more than a few envy her ability.”

  “Could be, teacher,” said Miguel. “But flesh is flesh.”

  From flesh, they moved onto the concept of mass and the relationship between mass and energy. While they talked, Doris walked back and forth from the kitchen to the studio. She would have preferred for the work group to be more preoccupied with finishing the barre. Less talk, more action. If by some chance the Pope had showed up at her house that day, she would have invited him to nail down the barre as well.

  But, as it turns out, there was a technical problem: they ran out of nails. Miguel invited Agustín to accompany him back to his house, where he had some crooked nails. It was just a matter of going there, bringing them back, and straightening them out. Agustín replied:

  “I am a Spanish gentleman.”

  Miguel burst into a peal of laughter. He knew the theory about Spanish gentlemen. Spanish gentlemen rescue princesses trapped in terribly high towers, they fight in duels and go to war, but they do not fetch crooked nails at two o’clock in the morning. After hearing that, Doris, who also knew Agustín’s theory about Spanish gentlemen, said:

  “Get out of here!” and she kicked both of them out.

  * * *

  —

  The following day her husband came to work alone. The distant and serious look on his face assured her that he had actually come with the intention of working. He greeted her and they exchanged a few words, acting as if he had been hired for the job. Then he went into the dance studio. His cold entrance and bad mood made Doris think that perhaps he had been offended by something, but now was not the time to ask. Everyone knows that’s the type of thing one brings up on the weekend, when there’s time to sleep and recover from all the hard work.

  He got right down to business; at first he was still in a bad mood. Meanwhile, Doris walked back and forth from the kitchen to the studio, back and forth to see if he needed anything, to spy on him, and to check how the barre looked. As he hammered, however, he became more invested in the project and he even started to whistle.

  What a delight it is to have a man doing wood work in the house! It’s like having one’s own personal male saint, it’s a beautiful sight. Only, to complete the picture she would have to be spinning thread. But Doris didn’t want to spin thread; she walked back and forth from the kitchen to the studio, but Miguel didn’t acknowledge her. Her excitement from watching his carpentry skills started to dwindle. It wasn’t long before she started to eye the barre critically and said:

  “Don’t you think that part is higher?”

  He stepped back to get a better look and said: “Which part looks higher, woman?”

  “Is it going to stay like that?” she asked pointing to another section.

  “Well, just how do you think it should look?”

  “I don’t know. I just thought the nails wouldn’t show.”

  “They’re not going to show.”

  Then, wagering a guess, she said, “What if, instead of mounting it like that, you turned it around to the other side…Like this, I mean.”

  And she showed him how she thought it would look better.

  He said icily:

  “What are you suggesting, that I take the whole thing down and start over?”

  “I didn’t say the whole thing,” she replied sensibly. “Just that part where the nails are showing.”

  “You don’t like how it turned out?”

  “I didn’t say that,” she replied somewhat unconvincingly.

  He concentrated on the barre and continued hammering intently as if it were the love of his life. She went to the kitchen and didn’t go back to watch him or make any more suggestions. In the kitchen she decided to meditate.

  In Sweden it’s different, she thought as she fed one of the seven cats in the house. Everything follows a logical sequence according to the weather: in summer they have sex on the islands, the beaches, under the sun. During the long winters they meditate in their houses sitting by the stove. Winter in Sweden is as long as their meditations are deep. The people there choose to work together out of their own free will, because they’re not a country of idiots. Sure, they’ve all got their own problems, like anywhere else, but their problems are…different. Not to mention that European aloofness, that refinement. She looked at the cat with profound compassion and affection, because she had no choice but to live out her life right whe
re she was. Then Doris described to her cat what their life would be like in Sweden, but the cat didn’t say anything. Suddenly, from the studio, there came a terrible yowl and Doris rushed out in alarm. Miguel had finished and was on his way to the kitchen.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “Nothing, I stepped on him by accident,” he said.

  “Of course,” she replied in a strange voice with unprecedented European aloofness.

  “I didn’t mean to, I swear,” he said.

  “Of course not,” Doris answered. “What would ever lead me to think that you would do such a thing on purpose?”

  The dignity and European aloofness in Doris were growing. She didn’t go to see how the barre had turned out, and she didn’t invite him into the kitchen, so he left.

  * * *

  —

  All that fuss over mounting the barre meant she had been neglecting the cats. Ana Poteraika, the most beautiful cat, was anorexic. She didn’t want to eat liver so Doris bought tenderloin steak, chopped it up, and fed it to her. But since she didn’t really want the tenderloin either, she ate only two or three small pieces apathetically. Then Dagoberto came along to gobble up the rest. Doris said to Dagoberto:

  “Do you think I’m going to continue to deprive myself of eating meat, as I’ve been doing so far for poor Ana Poteraika’s sake, just so that you can come along and steal it out from under her nose?”

  That cat was a good-for-nothing, she’d had it with him. Plus, she had to buy antibiotics for Jorgelina, who had conjunctivitis. And another cat, who was also a lazybones and went out on the rooftops at night, was pregnant again. She needed to get that cat fixed to stop her from having any more litters of kittens. The operation cost forty million pesos and Doris needed a new pair of shoes; but it wasn’t the expense that concerned her. The real reason she hadn’t taken the cat in for the operation was because she wasn’t convinced it was a humane practice—or rather, a “feline” practice. By the time she’d bought all the medicines and given them to the cats, she felt so tired and sad that she wanted someone to come over and comfort her. Who would be home tonight, Saturday night, when everyone else was out? Maybe her ex-husband—he went out during the week. She had kicked him out for good a few days before. He was a fool and an idiot…But…She was deeply unsettled by the fact that the cat didn’t want to eat. So she gave him a call and said:

  “Ana Poteraika is anorexic. Come over.”

  “Um, okay,” he said. He was sober and contemplative. “What could I do to…”

  “I’m telling you to get over here.”

  “Okay,” he replied.

  While she waited for him to arrive, Doris got more and more anxious and desperate. She felt a strange uneasiness like she’d never felt before. When he got there she told him, her eyes wide and scared:

  “She hasn’t had anything to eat for three days. I called the veterinarian and he told me it was just temporary, that animals go through stages like this. What kind of idiot says such a thing? What does he mean by ‘just temporary’? Three days for her tiny little body is like twenty days for us.”

  “And around two months for King Kong,” said Agustín. “Well Doris, don’t get so worked up,” he said, thinking about a tooth that was bothering him. It was a molar that had come in on top of another tooth; it needed more space and he felt like his whole mouth was going to burst. But now was not the time. He poured himself a glass of wine and so did she.

  After she drank her wine—maybe because she hadn’t eaten—she started to cry and went to the bedroom. Agustín wavered. Perhaps he should follow her and comfort her? Then again, it was also possible that she wanted to cry alone. Besides, if he went in to comfort her she might kick him out.

  So he drank a little more wine in the kitchen, and she didn’t come back. What was this? Had he been invited over just to be left there all alone? So he started singing really loudly—loud enough for her hear him.

  “If dancing doesn’t cheer you up, screw it all, just let her die!”

  But Doris didn’t come out to bad-mouth him or to kick him out like she usually did. That worried him, so he decided to go in to the bedroom. There she was, quietly crying in bed. He asked her:

  “Do you want me to call Miguel?”

  “No, don’t call him. I don’t want that.”

  He grabbed the telephone. She tried to wrestle it away from him, but he pushed her away saying:

  “Miguel? There’s an emergency. Come over. Ana Poteraika is anorexic. No, seriously, it’s an emergency.”

  Doris reproached him.

  “You idiot! I’m going to call him right back and tell him not to come.” Doris couldn’t contain her anger, but once her husband arrived she threw herself back on the bed and started to sob again.

  “Teacher!” Miguel cried. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” she said, looking at him accusingly. So he chatted with Agustín about Ana Poteraika’s health, on purely lighthearted terms. Doris kept her eyes on Miguel as he spoke. Then he turned to her and said: “C’mon, teacher. Get up. We’re going to dance a ranchera.”

  “No, no,” she replied weakly.

  But he succeeded in getting her up, and without so much as a record playing they danced a ranchera, humming the tune. Miguel was persevering and joyful; Doris, despondent, practically clung to him like a convalescent.

  * * *

  —

  The following day was a splendid spring day, albeit a little cold. The blue sky beckoned one to go outside.

  As she watered her pretty sweet potato plant, Doris decided to meditate. She couldn’t possibly stay cooped up in that house, listening to nonsense all day. The world was filled with people who went waterskiing or bought new coats; some of her colleagues had staged their dance performances, exhibiting their work and demonstrating the progress of their students. Doris was not about to put on a performance like she had the year before, at one of those pitiful neighborhood auditoriums offered out of courtesy, where everyone in the neighborhood comes with their kids in their arms. Then the kids start to run around; they run back and forth from the stage to the exit.

  To top it off, right at the end of the show, which was the culmination of the entire dance and the moment the kids would begin to run around, Agustín showed up and walked down the aisle. Everyone stared at him as he found an empty seat. He didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, but Doris trembled until the end. What if he had blurted something out? No, this time she was going to put on a show at a real theater. So, she called some friends who knew a businessman with a theater—good friends. It was all about knowing the right people, going to visit them. Their house was a haven of peace and quiet where everyone drank fruit juice, which is a healthy habit. They talked about air pollution and neither of them littered on the street because they believed in protecting the environment.

  Yes, yes, it was so great to see her. Of course they would put her in touch with the businessman who owned the Argentina Theater of La Plata—they were just about to see him in a few days. When she got home, as she fed birdseed to the canary, she thought cheerfully, it’s all about networking: who you know, getting out and about. She would invite the businessman over for a delicious meal.

  The day before the meal, they started getting ready. Doris bought a massive fish, a beautiful fish. She prepared a tomato cream sauce that was reminiscent of sunrise near a beach in northern Brazil, and she decorated the dish with arabesques of mayonnaise. She made deviled eggs and placed them around the fish in a circle. Little green sprigs to garnish here and there. That afternoon, Agustín came over while Doris prepared everything. He kept her company, politely watching all the unusual ingredients she used. Meanwhile, she lectured him on the rules he had to follow if he wanted to be invited to the meal the next day.

  He would be invited, as long as he followed these rules:

  1) He was not
to mention that he was a Spanish gentleman.

  2) He was not even to think about saying that any type of business was dishonorable.

  3) Any reference to race, religion, clothing, people’s stature, or the eating habits of different countries was prohibited.

  4) Ideally, he should brush his teeth, which were extremely nicotine-stained. To this end she promised to provide him with a piece of steel wool which would leave them immaculate—bearing in mind that steel wool should be used with caution because it strips away enamel.

  Miguel was going to pitch in by bringing some bottles of wine from the 1908 vintage, which he’d been stockpiling at his house for quite some time. Doris hoped to give Miguel some advice about his behavior. She wanted to tell him that after a certain time of night he tended to soliloquize, or sometimes he shut down into a sort of silence followed by long solitary musings, but she didn’t mention it.

  * * *

  —

  The businessman arrived. He wore a jacket so beautiful they had never seen anything like it out on the street. People with jackets like that probably hide away in their houses. The businessman was tall and he bumped into an adornment Doris had hung in the doorway, an oriental trinket that jingled when the door opened. If he hadn’t been warned he would have tripped over a wooden plank being used to block off the dance studio from the hallway, meant to keep the cats from getting in.

  Seeing that plank of wood propped up, out of place, it made him realize that the house must not receive many visitors. They went to the sitting room with Doris leading the way; she was grandiose, cordial, and decked out in a long skirt. There was a table set up in the sitting room to display the magnificent fish. The little table was too small for all those glasses and all that food, plus it wobbled. The businessman glanced around, and quickly found a piece of cardboard that he wedged under the table leg. When Doris noticed the cardboard, she asked him in a disproportionately incredulous voice:

  “Did you do that?”