The Scent of Buenos Aires

by Hebe Uhart

  Another friend yawned, looking at his watch. “It’s midnight. We should get some sleep.”

  They all got their overcoats and left; the last to leave was the man who had never taken off his coat. He smiled at Cecilia and said goodnight.

  Once everyone was outside someone said: “Cecilia never talks, she just listens to everyone else.”

  “I’ve never even heard her speak,” said one bald man.

  “It’s as if she weren’t even there—but she does make delicious coffee,” said the lady with her hair in a bun.

  Then they all went their different ways, each to his or her own home.

  The lady next door was always knitting and Cecilia wound hanks of yarn into balls for her. That’s how she kept herself busy while the next-door neighbor carried on, but Cecilia herself didn’t knit. She bought catalogs about dogs of all shapes and sizes, at every price imaginable—but she never actually bought any dogs.

  Cecilia invited these friends over regularly. She always made them coffee, and when there was a new arrival she went to the kitchen in silence, added some water to the kettle, and then brought them a cup of coffee. On their way out she held up their overcoats and brushed them off, and everyone said thank you very much.

  Cecilia often went to the cinema. She was frightened when one tall man wanted to kill another, and she laughed when there were children playing or when people fell in love.

  She worked too: it was her job to take papers from one place to another. She checked these papers meticulously, erasing any spots of ink and organizing them in piles according to color, all day long.

  Once, on her way home from work, the wind disheveled her hair and when she got home she carefully combed it back into place. On one side, under her right ear, she had a red round spot. She stared at it. She scrubbed it with soap, but the spot did not come out. Cecilia changed into her nightgown and got into bed. Sitting there in bed she said her prayers, like she did every night, and then she took out a little mirror. She glanced at herself once more, smiling ever so slightly, and said to herself:

  Why not me?

  And then she went to sleep.

  The Scent of Buenos Aires

  I HAD just learned about how people break up from reading romance novels by Rafael Pérez y Pérez. I was fed up with stories about love because it was always the same old formula: the girlfriend was good, pure, and even went to Mass. The “other girl”—the one who temporarily stole the boyfriend away—was a bitch. She was entirely disagreeable and unable to love anyone: she stole him away just for the hell of it, but when all that he had lost dawned on him, he always went back to the good girl.

  But the books about couples who were separated had an interesting twist: even though they only split up for a time and then always got back together, when they first broke it off the woman slept in one room and the man in another—sometimes on the sofa. The book never specified whether the door between them was open or closed. In real life, however, I didn’t know anyone who had separated, but now we were going to Buenos Aires to visit a friend of my youngest aunt. This friend had recently given birth to a baby boy and she had separated, too. Now, this couple had separated because they were from Buenos Aires—not from Moreno. Although they were only a mere twenty miles apart, people in Buenos Aires were different from people in Moreno. For example, when my Uncle José’s niece Chiche came to visit us in Moreno for the day, she chased the chickens until they went nuts. It was as if she’d never seen a chicken before. Some of my other cousins from Buenos Aires had a giant teddy bear and a piano in their house. Even the scent of Buenos Aires was different—it smelled almost as if the walls were impregnated with sulfur.

  * * *

  —

  Already, on the train, I couldn’t wait to get to that house where my aunt’s separated friend lived. How exciting! I was going to meet a separated person. My aunt scored extra points in my book because of this trip—you could almost say that I loved her more dearly as a result: first, for giving me such an opportunity; secondly, because she knew such exotic people from Buenos Aires. She told me: “Her father is a great pianist. He composed famous tangoes. Now he’s practically blind and ailing.” So when they say on the radio “tango composed by so-and-so”—those are real people? And I’m going to meet one of them? Then she told me: “Don’t even think of mentioning any of this to them.” I hoped with all my heart that I would be up to the challenge. We didn’t speak for a while.

  It was a two-story house, nicely painted with ogive windows. We were greeted by a maid—she wasn’t anything like the people who worked at my house. There had been Ramona, who had a big butt and was almost always furious; Aida, who was as sweet as an angel but whose lipstick was crooked—she cried at the drop of a hat and then her make-up smudged; and Petrona, who came from a family of gypsies. The maid at this house was straight out of a book; she was sweet and kind without being pretty. Her clothes were immaculate—not one strand of hair out of place. With a neutral politeness, she showed us in to see my aunt’s friend, who was with her baby. I was certain the baby wouldn’t cry—and, if he did, it would be a faint, civilized mew. His cries would match the furniture and the light, which was muted—not too bright—while much of the furniture was covered with dust sheets.

  Carmen, the woman, was a little chubby, but the palette of the room matched so well. She made it look like being plump were something desirable. She didn’t act like a separated woman, at least not according to my book. In Rafael Pérez y Pérez’s novels they cried buckets of tears. I wanted to ask her if I could hold the baby—something I wholeheartedly enjoyed at the time—but I didn’t dare. Besides, even though I was dying to hold the baby, I was scared I might drop him. How commendable of my aunt to have a friend with such a lovely house!

  The baby was going to get a bath and I didn’t want to miss it. The maid was going to bathe him in the bathroom (that way I got to see the bathroom, too)—but I didn’t want to miss out on any of the conversation between my aunt and Carmencita, either. I never got the chance to listen in on entire adult conversations, but I had a strategy to pick up little bits and pieces. I would interrupt them with some surprising news—and the baby was a perfect excuse. I went back to where they were and said: “He clapped his hands!” They smiled at me, annoyed, and I returned to the bathroom, but I overheard: “He’s an airhead.” It wasn’t the first time I’d heard someone use this term, although in Rafael Pérez y Pérez’s novels it was always used in reference to women, to the “other women.” They weren’t just capricious—they were hussies, which is basically the same thing as being an airhead. The men in those novels—the boyfriends—were really good fellows at heart who had just experienced a moment of weakness, tempted by the airhead. So just how was it that Carmen could call her husband an airhead, as if it were nothing, as if she were calling him a lawyer, or saying he was from Rosario? I went right back to the bathroom to look at the baby. Not only was he not crying, he already looked like a premature citizen. I wanted to pick him up and the maid let me, cupping her hands around mine. I was going to tell them how I’d held the baby, but something stopped me. Anyway, since I was going back and forth, Carmencita gestured to the maid on her way out of the bathroom: Bring the baby to the living room. With no more than a gesture, he was in his carriage asleep. No orders, no disagreements. Could that house have something special to make things happen differently? Just when my aunt was making all those silly faces at the baby, the ones that look like crazy miniature gnomes, the doorbell rang. It was the ex. He was a little fat, just like Carmen, but his features were drabber. It reminded me of when my Uncle José described someone as “lacking in character.” And then he would add: “And common sense.” Since I didn’t understand what he meant by common sense, I didn’t apply that part, but I did feel like the ex was lacking in character. We all greeted each other on friendly terms and I paid close attention to see how the two of them treated each other. They were really
nice to one another, as if they were still together. At one point, Carmen said to him:

  “Pick him up.”

  And he hesitated, but finally he picked up the baby. I understood his hesitation entirely.

  I was watching for one of them to shoot a look of profound hatred, and although I kept my post for a long time, the three of them were just chatting away so I ended up going down to the kitchen to see what the maid was up to. Their conversations filled me with the same perplexity as my Aunt María’s plants. My aunt was absolutely crazy, “insane,” people said. She bathed the chickens, signaled from her house that the train was leaving by blowing a carnival whistle, and she chased people off the sidewalk, saying it belonged to her. But she had a big garden filled with plants—some of them were dried up but others bloomed in abundance. She had rosehips, a privet hedge, and a jasmine plant. And I wondered how she could grow normal plants, just like everyone else. Her plants should have looked like they belonged to someone insane—that is, when the plants sprouted they should have looked deranged. Furthermore, I never saw her go anywhere near them—she never touched the plants or even looked at them. And here it felt the same: these two people were separated and yet they spoke as if they were still together. There was nothing in their faces or their tone of voice to imply they were separated. Besides, neither of them even acted like they were separated. And, as if that weren’t enough, Carmen—who had just finished calling him an airhead—was talking to him in a tone of voice that suggested his head was filled with useful thoughts.

  I don’t remember at what point he left, but not long thereafter the composer father appeared. He came downstairs with one of those dogs that has long hair like a blanket. That blanket of a dog smelled like velvet. The composer, aside from being blind and ailing, seemed quite content. Carmencita told him in a weary tone:

  “The dog, Enrique…”

  What problem could she possibly have with the dog? He was the most beautiful part of the afternoon. And she called that famous composer—who was none other than her own father—“Enrique”? And he let himself be criticized? And if he was almost blind or ailing, just how did he compose songs? And why was he in such a good mood? I’d seen sick people around before, in Moreno. They stayed in bed, or sat down. They didn’t want to do anything. Sometimes they were taken out to the patio and every once in a while, they were offered something. Carmencita told him, in a weary voice:

  “You’ve been smoking, Enrique.”

  “No,” he said. “I’ve been fumigating. This house needs to be fumigated, it smells too much like health.”

  I was not familiar with the scent of health. In my opinion, that house had some sort of very faint perfume that came from the walls. And my aunt spoke to that famous man so naturally, as if she’d known him forever.

  In real life I didn’t know any geniuses, but I did have a book with drawings that told the story of Beethoven’s life when he was young. There was a picture of him drawing water from a well, because he was so poor. The pictures in my book were black and white and Beethoven had a big head full of curls. Just to think—his deafness was already looming. How did he compose if he was deaf, anyway? Now, Enrique, Carmen’s father, was different because he was almost blind. Which would be better? Being blind from birth or losing one’s sight later in life? But there was something else: those snappy quips Carmen’s father had—who did they remind me of? Of Yayo. Yayo was Olga’s son. Olga was my father’s cousin who actually lived in Buenos Aires. Six months earlier they’d come to visit one of my other aunts, and I just happened to be there. They’d sent the two of us off to play. Olga said dreamily:

  “What a coincidence, Yayo and Yayi!” (People called me Yayi.)

  That aunt invited everyone over, but there was something about Olga that made her different from my aunt and her sisters: while they wore little blue jackets and gray skirts, Olga had dyed her hair blond and wore sunglasses. I’d heard them calling her a little scatterbrained (they always toned everything down using the qualifier “a little”). And with my aunts it was impossible to ask about scatterbrainedness.

  Yayo had blond hair—it was a beautiful copper color, and his face was a soft copper. I figured that Olga must take him out in the sun, but my mother told me the color of his hair was a result of the water in Buenos Aires. And that copper color gave him a slightly sickly appearance, which was very interesting in my opinion. But he didn’t play with me, instead he tried to pester me. I had a dress with a bow in the back; he came running and untied it, I retied it. I wasn’t annoyed: I felt flustered, out of place. I was almost a head taller than him, ten pounds heavier, and there I was, like a pole smack in the middle of the garden. And he said to me:

  “I could run rings around you.”

  It’s not that Enrique looked like Yayo physically—he was an old man, somewhat fat and certainly much nicer than Yayo. But there was something similar about their brisk gestures, the way they both left things unsaid.

  We left. In the train on the way home we didn’t speak much. I asked my aunt:

  “So do you think the two of them will get back together?”

  “I don’t think so,” said my aunt with that certainty adults had. I never knew just where they got it from.

  “And is her father going to get better?”

  “Nobody knows.”

  “But just how sick is he?”

  “Oh…” said my aunt. The way she said that “oh” meant that I should stop asking questions.

  When I got home, I told my mother everything, like I always did—with sound effects, stressing certain parts, etcetera. But I kept a few details to myself.

  Tourists and Travelers

  YOU’RE right, we did go to Miami. But that was different. Miami is all about “shop till you drop,” that’s what a tourist does. But on that program “Around the World” I heard Pepe Ibáñez explain the difference between tourists and travelers. A tourist is when you let yourself be led around like a sheep, and you don’t notice anything around you. Like a horse in blinders. But seriously, did I even bother to tell you about my trip to Miami? All I saw was a couple of shopping malls and some palm trees. But I’ve got ever so much to say now! Besides, when I saw the pictures of Naples and Capri in the Sunday supplement I said to Aldo: “That’s where we’re going.” Because you can never tell with him, you can never get a clear answer. You have to get him to sign a piece of paper just to find out what he wants. Why is that, anyway? I read it in an article called “Personality.” Oh well, I forget. We scraped together all we could because I wasn’t about to leave Leo behind. Besides, Leo studies Italian. I always wanted him to study English, which is so much more useful, and I thought: Now is the time to cash in on that Italian. But it was as if they didn’t understand what it meant to have a project—I don’t know which planet men live on. When I started pinching pennies—serving rice, eggs, and sausages—Leo kept saying, “But Mama, but Mama!” with that scratchy voice of his (poor angel, his voice is changing). And Aldo just stirred his rice around in circles, as if he could magically whip it into cream, something that drives me up the wall. You can bet they got on my nerves once we were in Naples, too. You should have seen the hotel room, filled with antique furniture. (All three of us slept in the same room because that’s how they do it there.) Aldo peeled back the bedspread as if it were a ghost’s cape to see what was underneath—he’s always poking around as if he were in search of some sort of dark secret. And Leo looked at the round chest of drawers with warped legs and said: “What a piece of shit!” The words that come out of that kid’s mouth! And to make matters worse, he does it in front of other people. Aldo took out a guidebook but I said:

  “We aren’t going to go where everyone else goes. We are going to explore those little streets that wind around in circles. And if we get lost, even better.”

  They didn’t like the idea of getting lost because they have no imagination. I’ve spent my whole lif
e dreaming that I could just walk along until I end up somewhere new. It was as if I’d been given the chance to become someone else. So to convince them, I said:

  “We’ll walk straight down one street then turn around and walk back on the next street over.”

  We went out and realized that you can’t walk straight: the streets just dead-end all the time: at an angle, in a circle. And the first thing we saw were three men arguing. They were gesturing vigorously, and I would have given my life to know what they were saying. I asked Leo and he told me:

  “Just what do you think, Mama? They didn’t teach me insults. What could they possibly be saying? ‘I’ll break your face, you bastard.’ ”

  And I can’t set him straight. He’s got some reputation to live up to. Aldo stopped in front of a shop window to look at some food, all garnished. His mouth hung open like he’d never eaten in his life. I got all worked up and I said to him in a rage:

  “Nobody looks at food! You look at clothes, magazines—but people don’t get all worked up about food displays!”

  He seems to understand me when I tell him stuff like that, but then he’s back to his old tricks. He can’t help looking at that kind of stuff. Another time he grabbed me by the arm and said:

  “Look, a Neapolitan fag just walked by.”

  “A gay man, you mean.”

  “Same thing,” he said. “You missed it.”

  And well, like I was telling you, we were walking down those little streets and we didn’t even know where we were anymore, when some kids who must have been around eleven years old started throwing eggs at us. And they had pretty good aim from far away: eggs in my freshly washed hair, eggs on my ICARO jacket. There were two groups, one from the front and one from behind, because I turned around to see where the eggs were coming from and—wham! Right in the back of my head. And that boy of mine must have a screw loose. He was laughing! And just a hair away from teaming up with the others to go throw eggs at all of Naples. I’d had it with him. I asked him: