The Scent of Buenos Aires

by Hebe Uhart

  “Soon we will go to the mountains and fight against the tribes who wear feathered headdresses. I am an Alpine legionnaire.”

  “Ah, you’re an Alpine legionnaire,” said the man with the newspaper, which he continued to read.

  “Back home, anyone who kneads their bread without yeast is sent to Siberia,” said Mister Ludo proudly.

  And the man with the newspaper said, “To Siberia, eh,” and he kept reading.

  “People on their deathbed are all taken to one place, to find solace in the other dying souls,” he said, looking off into the distance.

  “Of course,” said the man with the newspaper, and he left.

  Mister Ludo stayed on the park bench in the plaza for a long time, then he slowly walked home. He didn’t tell anyone to follow him, or to turn at the corners.

  When he got home he heard a noise inside and thought perhaps it was thieves.

  He stood there for a while contemplating whether to go in or not, but finally he did. There he found his smallest child, sleeping next to the rabbit. He wanted to gently remove the rabbit, which was also asleep. When he tried to move the rabbit, the boy woke up and pressed the rabbit against his body. Then he fell back asleep.

  That night Mister Ludo took out his book with the red letters again, the one from that afternoon. Then he stoked the fire.

  The Light of a New Day

  for my mother

  IT still didn’t make sense how she’d fallen down. She’d gone out on the terrace to hang a bedspread to dry and on her way back down the stairs she’d missed the last step. It was dark and although she’d had the feeling that she was stepping into thin air, it was as if something, the spirit of that darkness, had forced her to do it. Then she fell and couldn’t get up. For some years now there had been something about the last step of that staircase—especially when the hallway was dark. When she placed her foot on the second to last step some sort of vertigo led her to miss the last one. Who was going to help her up? Doña Herminia was just as old she was. Genoveva called out for help and some young folks—thank the Lord, a young couple, may they have ten children and live a thousand years—came to her assistance and took her to bed, where Doña Herminia was waiting. Young folks are good; middle-aged folks are not. Young folks like that couple are good, like her granddaughter. But her granddaughter was always studying all that stuff people study nowadays, and personally, she never much liked studying. Doña Herminia had taken her in and always explained everything to her patiently, because she had studied.

  Doña Herminia took in everyone who needed help. Ever since Genoveva’s children had been young, they’d always had a parallel family at Doña Herminia’s. When her children were young, before the others ate they would have a bowl of soup in the kitchen. Four silent children who spoke only when they were asked a question, and even then in faltering voices, muffled tones, as if speaking directly into someone’s ear.

  One of them, with a cloudy eye, had been given the affectionate nickname “Rosita” by Doña Herminia—she never used a diminutive for her own children. Later on, Walter Lioy Lupis became her godson, known as “Badass” to his classmates. Badass cut the rope of the school flag, kicked over the classroom chalkboard, and turned up one day in the Palermo Woods, even though he lived a long way away.

  * * *

  —

  The four children also had to practice reading, which they did in those barely audible voices, the cleaning lady in a fit of rage because she wanted to finish washing the dishes already. Now, since it was impossible to get Walter Lioy Lupis to practice reading, because it wasn’t in his plans, and since that boy infuriated the cleaning lady, he got an apple, a chunk of bread, and some useful advice on life. Doña Herminia’s motto was “Good folks can take care of themselves,” applicable to children and stepchildren. But don’t go thinking that made her some sort of Saint Francis of Assisi—she had her Saint Francis of Assisi side, but she had some Borgia in her, too. Because if a canary sang early in the morning she’d say, “I could just wring that canary’s neck.”

  If she heard that someone had been scammed she’d say, “You’ve got to be a dimwit to let yourself get taken for a ride.”

  And if she heard that a woman happened to be in love with a man who was a bit of a slob she’d say, “I’d rather clean up after a pen of piglets than give that bum the time of day. Women these days haven’t got a shred of dignity; it’s no surprise they let themselves get walked all over.”

  Doña Herminia prayed for two hours a day and went to mass every day, too. She prayed for travelers, for seafarers, for those who lose their way—but above all she prayed for the dead, and among the living she preferred those with a heavy burden in their family, for example an old blind mother with a retarded son.

  * * *

  —

  She lent money to Doña Josefa, who took a taxi to the clairvoyant’s house so he could tell her fortune. She also lent money to Doña Josefa for custom-made orthopedic shoes, which instead of correcting her bunions made them bigger. Josefa complained about her bunions and about how she had been scammed, but since she rambled on about her miseries it was hard to tell when she was complaining about the bunions and when she was complaining about the scam. Personally, Genoveva didn’t much like Josefa and when she saw her on the street she would stop to look at some shop window, but Doña Herminia would walk side by side with Josefa and every so often say to her, “Of course.”

  * * *

  —

  Another person who came to Doña Herminia’s was that fat girl Silvia, the paralytic in a wheelchair. She got everyone to help her cross the street, mainly she would ask men to help her cross. Once there was a man who wanted to charge her for crossing.

  Silvia talked. She talked with Doña Herminia because she had studied, and at night she never left. When Genoveva got bored and tired she would say, “Well, Genoveva’s off to bed.”

  And she’d leave them to it. Old folks and young folks are good. Middle-aged folks are not. Now her daughter-in-law was going to ask her why she’d fallen and just the thought of it made her feel to blame. Lying down on her bed, Genoveva thought about what she would say to her daughter-in-law, because she was going to ask. It was because the staircase had been waxed and the wood was so slippery, that’s why. She’d been paying attention and was sure she had placed her foot on the last step. She hadn’t been distracted—if only it were so simple. It’s as if her leg hadn’t reacted. Shame on that leg!

  As for Doña Herminia’s daughter, it’s not that she was all bad, but if she came over for a meal she would read the newspaper at the table, and once she watched boxing on television—boxing was something Genoveva did not tolerate or understand. Furthermore, middle-aged folks clear the table as soon as they’ve finished eating, they speak in loud voices, and they ride roughshod over everyone. Had she known, she’d have let the bedspread stay dirty forever. Damn the moment it occurred to her to hang it out to dry. Deep down she had never liked it anyway, and it brought her bad luck. That’s what she was going to tell her daughter-in-law: that the bedspread brought her bad luck.

  “Doña Herminia,” she said.

  “What is it Genoveva?”

  “I can’t move. Where are they going to take me?”

  “You’ll have to be admitted, Genoveva. It might be a fracture.”

  “Oh my, heaven forbid! I have to go to the hospital—pardon my language. When I get back I’d like to come here. Oh! I can’t move!”

  “Calm down, calm down. My daughter’s on her way.”

  * * *

  —

  It wasn’t her daughter. It was a doctor who sprouted up from Lord knows where. He came in and scanned everything quickly while Genoveva said to him, “I went to hang out the bedspread and just as I reached the foot of the stairs…”

  He said to her, “Pull back the covers.”

  He looked and
said, “It’s a hip fracture. You’ll have to be admitted. That’ll be twenty million pesos.”

  * * *

  —

  Genoveva, who had not understood properly, said to Doña Herminia, “What luck that he left so quickly! Surely it’s nothing because if it were serious he would have stayed longer.”

  “No, Genoveva, it’s…it’s…”

  “What is it Doña Herminia?”

  “It’s a fractured hip.”

  “Oh!” Genoveva said, disappointed.

  And she started to feel tired, sluggish, uninterested. Then her daughter-in-law came in and asked, “Why did you fall?”

  But Genoveva had succumbed to some sort of fever and she was talking about meatballs. Suddenly, there was a slight improvement and she reconnected, she asked for water. The daughter-in-law asked her again, “Can you tell me why you fell?”

  “Oh, I don’t remember,” Genoveva said.

  Then Doña Herminia’s daughter came in and asked in an alarmed, somewhat dramatic voice:

  “However did you fall?”

  And then she turned to Doña Herminia and said, “She fell again?”

  “Anyone can fall,” said Doña Herminia.

  * * *

  —

  While Doña Herminia stayed with Genoveva, the daughter and daughter-in-law—both middle-aged—discussed who would take care of what.

  The daughter-in-law said, “I can take her to the hospital tomorrow—not today, because today I have ikebana flower arranging and my physical theater class.”

  Doña Herminia’s daughter didn’t have any classes, but she didn’t want to be outdone so she said she had her Precambrian Welsh class that evening. Finally, they both took out their calendars and compared schedules. Doña Herminia spied on them to see what they were plotting. She was of the opinion that middle-aged folks only think about money, and that any middle-aged folks who don’t think about money are fools. But, she thought to herself, they are useful for requesting things from the authorities, for all those tedious little procedures involving ID cards and such. They always devise a way to get things done so quickly.

  The daughter-in-law couldn’t miss her physical theater class because that day she was going to learn a certain movement that was the culmination—the compendium—of everything they had learned throughout the entire year. Which is to say, missing that specific class was equivalent to missing more than one class; but it would take much too long to explain all this and only a person who had actually done physical theater would understand it. She looked at the clock and said: “For goodness’ sake! Just look at the time!”

  And she offered to help the following day.

  Of course, thought Doña Herminia’s daughter. It would be up her to admit Genoveva to the hospital. She looked for all the right documents and ID cards. Doña Genoveva had a stylish wallet with four pockets to store ID cards, but unfortunately it didn’t have any of them inside. The first had a beautifully colored landscape; the second, a photograph of a shaggy white dog in the doorframe of a house; the third, some children on a beach; and the fourth—neatly folded so that it fit perfectly into the flap—contained a cooking recipe. Genoveva’s documents were spread out in random old handbags, which were all in good shape but it was obvious she didn’t use them much. They were successive handbags, all similar and interchangeable, filled with ID cards, dried olive sprigs, and little lost mirrors.

  * * *

  —

  Rummaging around in Genoveva’s handbags and clothes gave Doña Herminia’s daughter a sense of ambivalence. On the one hand, she felt some affection and protection for such a defenseless woman; but she was also annoyed for the same reason. Genoveva lay meekly in bed while others took care of her in the other room.

  * * *

  —

  Some days later, Doña Herminia’s daughter went to the hospital to visit Doña Genoveva. “Please,” said Genoveva, “could you remove that sweater wedged between my legs?”

  Doña Herminia’s daughter looked but there wasn’t any sweater. There were some wounds that looked like they came from stitches.

  “It’s not a sweater,” she told her. “They’re wounds. Did they operate on you?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. Heavens above!”

  “Yes, Granny had an operation,” said a seemingly healthy young woman who was wearing a nightdress in bed.

  “An operation?” said Genoveva, astonished. “But how come I didn’t notice?”

  “Because they gave you anesthesia, Granny,” said the lady, who was very understanding.

  “Oh,” said Genoveva, but as if there was something else, something more perplexing than the operation. She seemed to be in a state of constant shock.

  “How’s your mother?” she asked then.

  “She’s good.”

  “Take care of her and don’t let her break a leg, for goodness sake.”

  “She’s going to come visit you.”

  “She shouldn’t come. Lord have mercy, what if she falls! No, it’s unsafe…There are dangers: the street is slippery, the spiral staircase…”

  * * *

  —

  Doña Herminia’s daughter had the tendency to ask metaphysical questions at inopportune moments. And so she said, “What’s so dangerous?”

  “Exactly, dangerous,” said Genoveva, as if she were thinking about something else through her smile.

  When the seemingly healthy young woman saw Genoveva smile she said to Doña Herminia’s daughter, almost as a reprimand, “Put the bedpan in place. It’s been a while since she’s done her business.”

  Once she’d relieved herself, her head worked better. Besides, there was no doubt that Genoveva was a sensible person. She rightly complained that the nurses didn’t come when she called them, and even though she sometimes talked nonsense, she had the tact not to criticize out loud if there was a nurse nearby, and when they cleaned her up she said, “Thank you, thank you,” and smiled like a little bird.

  One day she received a visit that made her feel better. A sweet young doctor sat on her bed and said to her, “How are you, Granny?”

  “Very well, thank you. When am I going to walk, doctor?”

  He said to her, laughing, “Are you ready now? Shall we get up and walk?”

  “Bless my soul! May the Lord hear you and grant you another hundred years of life!”

  Then Genoveva tried to get up and he said to her, half chuckling to himself, “No, dear. You’ll have to wait another two weeks or so.”

  “Two weeks?” Genoveva said, surprised. “That seems like a long time if you ask me.”

  She was working on a difficult calculation. She couldn’t remember which month or day it was; she didn’t want to ask. But the doctor realized and told her, “Today is September 20th.”

  “Come again?”

  “Today is September 20th.”

  “Oh, thank you, thank you,” she said, as if September 20th were something valuable in of itself, some sort of gift.

  * * *

  —

  It was around six o’clock in the morning and it was getting light out. Genoveva stood up trying not to make any noise, and she got as far as the nearest chair. The chair would help her walk. It took all her concentration, determination, and strength to get to that chair; she thought of nothing else. No sooner had she moved it, the chair made a noise and the seemingly healthy young woman in bed next to her said, “What are you doing, Granny?”

  “Good heavens! You startled me!” said Genoveva.

  The bed-ridden young woman meditated on whether to call the nurse or not. Making an uproar in the hospital was a crime of its own, and she was trying to decide whether she could fix it, or whether calling the nurse would make the commotion even worse. She decided it would be out of line to call the nurse and continued watching Genoveva, trying to fig
ure out her intentions. Genoveva took a few steps using the chair for support, her legs were stiff. Finally she reached the door. In her effort to move silently, she managed a few steps in silence until suddenly, when she most wanted to avoid it, the chair made an awful screeching sound. When she got to the doorway, which led to the corridor, she saw a bulky shape: it was the head nurse, the fat nurse. Seen from afar in that early morning light that makes everything hazy, the nurse was so round and so thick that after peering down the hall—and without even knowing it was the head nurse—Genoveva went back to bed. But she was content because she’d walked and, furthermore, that big woman wearing white hadn’t seen her. Still, her legs were stiff. She would have to whip them into shape. At night, once everyone had eaten their dinner and gone to bed, she decided to go out again, but this time she propelled her legs energetically. She insulted them—one in particular, she told it, “C’mon! Walk, stupid. Don’t you gimme that dumb act. Who do you think you are, huh?” And it seemed like her legs understood, because they took her a little further. “Well, fancy that! You don’t want to walk,” she scolded, “Keep moving, keep moving now.”

  When she got a bit further—always with the help of the chair—she started to think, Yes, she would be able to walk and go back to Doña Herminia’s house, where only the choicest cuts of meat were bought; and where the mattress had to be turned over because Doña Herminia couldn’t do it alone; and what about the mashed potatoes? Doña Herminia liked Genoveva’s mashed potatoes. Since Doña Herminia had studied, her mashed potatoes came out lumpy, while Genoveva’s were fluffy; she always let Genoveva make them. Who was going to make Doña Herminia the mashed potatoes now that Genoveva wasn’t around? And in the afternoon Genoveva would read her lectionary by the window, near the banana tree. The banana tree didn’t bear any fruit, but it had wide green leaves that looked edible. She was going to go sit by the banana tree, God willing, if that fat nurse—God forbid—didn’t stop her from walking with the help of the chair. That fat nurse mustn’t see her. If she saw Genoveva she’d give her an earful, and then her legs would give out from fear.