by Hebe Uhart
“She’s a girl and she can’t breathe with her hair in her face.”
Of course she can’t breathe, she’s got more hair than she does body. In Almagro people give their dogs outlandish names, like Madonna and Beethoven; in Caballito they’re more traditional, they’re called Batuque and Colita. In Caballito the graffiti is politically correct. It says:
CHURCH = CENSORSHIP
FIGHT THE POWER
PSYCHEDELIC ROCK
SON OF A GUN
In Almagro, illegible hieroglyphs are used to write graffiti, the names of rock bands are scrawled in red and black paint, and then written very clearly: LUCAS IS A FAGGOT.
I get nowhere in my conversations with dog owners and it’s because I’m too quick with my compliments: “What a cute dog, all bundled up!” Etcetera. Just what are people going to say back to me? “What a nice purse?” They limit themselves to a single response. The other day I told a lady about what the dogs on the eighth floor had done. They took everything out on the balcony, as if they’d had a premeditated objective: one day there were pieces of a Harry Potter book, the telephone bill, toilet paper; that day it was all paper products. The following afternoon they took out footwear: boots, flip-flops and tennis shoes. And the last time they ripped up everything on the balcony, bags of charcoal and flower pots; it was a thematic destruction. All the lady can say back to me is: “It’s true, they tend to break things.” Nothing else. And I started saying: “You shouldn’t have big dogs cooped up like that in an apartment.” And I don’t even really think that way. I’d actually be amused if there was an elephant in our building. I just said it to have something to say. “You shouldn’t” is my specialty, but I’ve noticed that speeches about obligations don’t really go anywhere. And there I stood, half embarrassed, without knowing what else to say because she was walking in the same direction as I was. “Well, see you later,” I said. She was right behind me and there I was, a few feet in front, dying to turn around.
But luckily it’s a different time of day now. There’s horrendous traffic, the time when the only light hailing from the bakeries has come and gone. The light from the bakeries is diffuse and dim, as if radiating from a central oven, the light and the smell of bread drift out together. Now it’s time for the school kids, with their oversized backpacks. It’s time for a coffee. I’m so thankful that the hours go by and the action on the street changes. First you think there’s only going to be bakeries open, then the school kids are out, and by the time I leave the café there’s frenetic movement. Since I’ve been reading, I’ve lost track of time; it’s time for the workers dressed to the nines on their way downtown. At the café I read about Argentine history and also about the lives of animals. Depending on the café, I take along one book on each subject. When I go to the cafés by my house, where the waiters know me, I don’t take books about animals because they have large illustrations. I’ve got one book with a monkey feeding breakfast to a baby with a little spoon. I’m worried the waiters will see it and think I’m nuts. The ones I like best are books about chimpanzees: I remember exactly when I bought Our Cousins the Monkeys. And I haven’t lent out that book, nor will I. If I could live all over again I would go to Africa to research the lives of chimpanzees, recording all their developments every day in a notebook. It seems that after two years you can get a chimpanzee to shake your hand. It’s the same with dolphins; one man trained a dolphin and five years later it called him “Papa.” The man abandoned the dolphin, saying abruptly: “I’m not your papa.” I don’t want to disappoint anyone or for anyone to be disappointed by me; nor do I want to make a bad impression. That’s why sometimes I go to those enormous cafés where the waiters don’t look at anyone, and I constantly change places because otherwise they’ll think: “Who is that lady who spends her life reading and writing things down?” Sometimes I want the waiter or the man at the newspaper stand to see me with someone, so they don’t think my life is reduced to studying, always alone. The rare times that I have someone with me, in the morning, I walk by the newspaper stand and the waiter with an air of triumph.
* * *
—
I wouldn’t dare stay on the street until twelve o’clock because the cars accumulate into one big gridlock, one behind the other, and they make a squeaking sound that indicates morning has ended. By that time I start to mix up the signs: where it says “Resfriol,” I read “refrain.” What is that all about? Capriciously changing names around, as if they should be called whatever I think? I do the same thing with people’s names: if someone’s called Liliana but she looks like a Gabriela to me, I think of her as Gabriela. Luckily, I have to go back to see if I’ve gotten any messages. Surely someone has called me. I play the answering machine and a voice tells me:
“You have no messages.”
And I feel like the voice sounds glad I haven’t received any messages and that someone, somewhere, knows how I mix up names and I read books about monkeys; someone thinks I don’t deserve them. But then I get a call offering me broadband, and someone else calls from the Garden of Peace, and members of the Children of God sect press my buzzer. I tell them all “no” in a rude voice. I don’t want anything—no cemetery allotments, no cards, no messages from God. They can all go to hell. But every once in a while a man or woman calls and asks in a playful voice: “Do you know who this is?” I don’t want to give the impression that I don’t know, so I chat with them a bit—but I have a hard time with voices and I only recognize the ones I hear all the time. I don’t give up, I continue chit-chatting a while longer, but eventually it becomes unsustainable; I want to know without them telling me. On the other end of the line they say readily:
“You don’t know who this is.”
“No,” I answer like a fool caught red-handed. It’s almost always someone I couldn’t care less about: an old classmate who wants to do God knows what and the like.
“No, I can’t go.”
I can’t, I don’t want to, I shouldn’t. Do I really say no to everything?
* * *
—
I’m going to hang the clothes out to dry on hangers in memory of Arturo, the great launderer. He would hole up in the bathroom and wash his clothes in the tub making loud banging noises that sounded like he was smacking something. I never did find out why he made so much noise because he locked himself in when he washed. Then he went quickly out to the balcony and I snuck a glimpse of him from the side. I’m going to cook using as few pots as possible in memory of my mother, who used to say: “The less you take out, the better.” And I’ll make the bed, too, because she also used to say that a house with the beds made and the dishes washed is something worthwhile. I also turn the bread back over, in memory of my father, who used to say that the bread shouldn’t be left upright on the table and that tomato jam goes well with walnuts.
I’m going to cook and I’m amazed at my competence because I only became this way recently. How it came to be, I’m not sure, but one day I realized that I could do three things at the same time, for example put the water on to boil, fill the bathtub, and talk on the telephone. And with this new skill my gestures have become minimal. I toss in some salt while I think about something else, tossing in the salt requires minimal movement—not like before, when it felt like tossing in the salt was an event or I would watch the water from the basin until it had drained completely, as if it were a mystery, or I would wait until the water boiled. I don’t know what I was thinking—that it wasn’t going to boil unless I watched it? I’m filled with a sense of pride, I’ve become so accomplished, but it’s spoiled when I go to my room: I’ve got socks heaped under the pillow, for when it’s warmer or colder. There’s a nest there. I don’t like how the whole house has become a hen’s nest. There’s another nest in the closest, with clothes that aren’t dirty or clean. Where do those clothes go? Into limbo. Those clothes are just in case—who knows what they’re for, in case of…Limbo is where God sent
people when he couldn’t decide whether to send them to heaven or hell. He must have thought: Who knows, later on when there’s more room, but for now…But something I really do enjoy is sending things to hell, that is, throwing them into the garbage. I blissfully fill the trashcan almost as if my things were begging: Throw me out! It’s as if I run smack into them, I’m frightened by what comes next. What will be next? Will objects jump directly into my hands? It’s cloudy. I’m going to water the plants in memory of myself.
* * *
—
Now I draw the curtains to take a nap; I’m going to keep them drawn for a long time so the neighbors think I’m involved in some sort of important activity outside my home, as if I had real obligations. I’m going to take a nap and I start with “E”; I’m content when I discover new names (this happens rarely) and I settle for not forgetting the names I already know. I’m running out of letters, I’m getting bored! What will I do? Bah, I’ve still got countries and rivers, although I don’t know much about rivers; rivers conjure up something melancholy and depressing. I dream and I never remember my dreams from my naps, as if it were an absurd slumber. I don’t make much effort to remember either; there’s still a lot of the day left. To do what? To do what? At four o’clock in the afternoon I can’t think of anything. My mind gets stuck and even if I were to say: “C’mon Catriel, it’s polka,” it’s useless; I think my brain is corroding. There are a few minor things to do: organize the bills, go to a phone booth to talk to a friend from the South to…When I used to organize the bills it felt like I was taking care of a necessary evil. Now I realize nobody’s actually going to steal them if they’re just sitting there. I think I should be doing something else, but what? Going to the phone booth is an excuse to stretch my legs and if I don’t get a hold of my friend it doesn’t matter. I used to think it was absolutely imperative to make the call; now I think I go there just to stretch my legs, nothing else. It’s no good to discover what’s behind one’s actions, because once you know it, it’s as if there’s no way around it. In the past, when Saturday came around, I used to think I should go out or do something fitting with a day like Saturday, honor Saturday’s mere presence. It was as if I wasn’t sure whether Saturday would ever arrive. Now I know that Saturday comes, and Sunday, and the rest of the calendar; I do any old thing on any old day. What am I going to do? I could go out for a walk in the afternoon, but I should put a stop to “anything goes” because it seems like walking in the afternoon is ludicrous. What is the point of the afternoon? To wait for the evening; I want to see how the sun sets. It’s incorrect to say “night falls” because it doesn’t happen suddenly. In the morning it does, the sun rises all of a sudden; it lights everything up. In the evening nighttime comes gradually. Time now seems paradoxically shorter and longer to me at the same time. I don’t suspend time according to some central event where I used to place all my fantasies. Now it’s as if everything were important and irrelevant at the same time. And if time has become my master, it seems as if I have likewise become a greater master of time. I hope it lasts.
Nothing but Shadows
IT’S curious what happens to me with people. When I meet them, I have an overall impression of who they are, but as I get to know them, that idea disintegrates and I no longer know what the other person is like. I let myself get carried away by different perspectives. I give someone points, then take them away. Everything about them I see through one light, and then through another. I’m thrown off course. That’s what happened with Miguel, who I met at a party. We were together at that party, but on our own—we both danced with all the other people there. Every once in a while I’d ask myself absentmindedly, how do I know that we’re together? Then I’d forget and feel reassured. When it started getting late, he asked me:
“Wanna go?”
And we left.
That night he got leg cramps and kept crying out sporadically whenever they flared up. In between, he would talk about interesting things. But then, in the middle of a story, the cramps would come back. I didn’t understand, nor did I search for an explanation. I was very polite, like a guest trying to help while keeping a distance. I gave him some random advice which he rejected as counterproductive. The following day, I returned to his house with some food only to be informed about other counterproductive things: he didn’t eat chard because it made his belly swell up as if he were pregnant. The doctor had prescribed him a diet of pizza, sardines, and wine. That was the best combination for his constitution. I was surprised by the diet, but I chalked it up to the variety of possible diets and individual idiosyncrasies. Once I saw him admiring a teddy bear at a toy store and guessed that he liked small objects, whether they were plants or toys. Then he told me that he’d been to Amsterdam, which was like a toy city where the driver of the tiny streetcar announces every street, which all end with dam Budesdam, Kudasdam, Osterdam. The way he pronounced the dams so perfectly, just like the drivers in Holland, I made believe I was there.
He liked Ireland because of the ponies and the low wagons.
I also had a hunch about which colors he liked and the styles I could wear based on those colors and textures: light pink, blue, wool that didn’t itch or scratch. I’d always owned lots of clothing like that: clothes that made me feel suited to life, to the weather, clothes I found comfortable and made others feel comfortable…but sometimes I wanted to wear defiant black: I felt it lent an intensity to my facial expressions.
My first big confrontation with him happened while I was wearing black. It was over politics. I considered myself to be a Peronist, while he was a Radical. The more radical he proved himself to be, the more I flaunted my Peronism. He associated Peronism with the power of annihilation, like a dark and terrible force to be reckoned with. Although that particular debate seemed irrelevant to me—there was nothing good or new about either of our arguments—we ending up quarreling in the street. A light rain began to fall and yet we both clung to our ideas, they were all we had to defend our poor, damp bodies. For a moment I took pleasure in that frailty, but then it slipped away. When we finally broke up it was on good terms, but as if we were two opposing forces to be reckoned with. There was something about that relationship that clicked and something that didn’t. The part that didn’t almost compelled me to break up that very night. After all, political differences can be smoothed over, so why on earth was I getting myself all worked up? Because when it really came down to it…I…I didn’t believe much in anything. But he did, he did. The day his party won he bought a little flag to celebrate. He didn’t go to a rally or celebrate with a group: he did it alone, at home; it was a solitary demonstration. He put on a great show in front of me, as if I were a crowd. His joy was so great that it was impossible to bring him down. It was also impossible to discourage him when he played the harmonica, even though he didn’t know how to do it. He’d bought one for himself, and resolutely blew out a series of strange sounds. He was so concentrated on what he was doing that I didn’t have the heart to tell him what I really thought: It sounded nothing like music.
I had already begun to see him through more than one light. I was glad he was happy, but I didn’t want him to celebrate at my expense. And I wouldn’t have played the harmonica without knowing how. But after all, a democracy is a democracy.
Still, these were just thoughts I kept to myself. At that point, we went everywhere hand in hand, like children four or five years old.
The second big fight didn’t stem from political or cultural debates. It was about a can of sardines (the ones his doctor had recommended as part of his diet). I’d never learned how to use a can opener the right way: they always slip on the surface of the can, springing upward and making a fool out of me. Instead, I opened cans by piercing them with a knife. When he heard the scraping sound and came to see the gash I’d made in the can, he screamed sardine murderer at me—or something like that. He said they’d end up all broken and stabbed; they’d lose their noble symmetr
y and their metallic sheen; by no means would he eat a sardine that had gone through such an ordeal. I’d never thought about it that way, so I continued to open cans as always when I was by myself, but with a certain degree of perplexity. I asked myself: Could I be doing something wrong without realizing, because I’m so clumsy? Or because of some primal and deep-rooted flaw? And that thought was followed by: Could the sardines be a reason for us to end things for good? But that wasn’t the case: the next day he came over as if nothing had happened, talking about the rivers of the Buenos Aires province, the floods, and the different ethnicities living in Argentina.
Miguel said that the Italians were a disaster when it came to making payments, but they were great company when it came to emotional matters, for example when you lose someone you hold very dear. Jews were obsessed with New York, but they always made their payments on time. Paraguayans were the worst, but when one of them turned out to be alright, he was the best. I thought: Now. Now’s the time to ask him: Why did you get so upset yesterday? But the conversation just followed its course and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise. By then he was analyzing all the unions: the worst one was the plumbers’ union. On the one hand, his sociological considerations gave me a sense of belonging—a place, a country. On the other, it was pathetic how little I could bring to the table: at most, some anecdote about a plumber, which did nothing more than confirm his stereotypes. When Miguel recalled an important historical or political event, he spoke in the slow, deliberate tone a real teacher uses to instill facts in the mind of his student (who was me).
When he told me how he was a victim of circumstances, his words got muddled, but I understood what he was really trying to say: so many cruel and sordid individuals, so many con artists had materialized in his life to exploit him. Since one of my passions was level-headedness, I tried sympathizing with all the people he had mentioned. This I did only once and never again, as it was a sore spot.