Over the following week I came to fall in love with BA. I saw almost nothing of it, of course: a vast sprawling city of 12 million people scattered over a great plain. But its public spaces were grand, its gardens beautiful, its restaurants fine, its pastas splendid, its wines superb. It was a city playing at being a city. When you shopped, you found there was no agreed economy. When it rained, you found there were no underground drains. There was the intellectual life of the town and the violent life of the pampa, the world of writers and painters and the world of the gaucho, square-bodied, hide-booted, high-hatted figures who proudly jostled you into the gutters: a place where learned intellectuals were part of a culture that valued warriors, generals, knife-wielders and anyone who really fancied a fight. There was literacy and poverty, great architecture and sad shanty-towns, fine art galleries and armed soldiers riding trucks down the streets.
To my own rather literary mind – and you know by now I have a rather literary mind – it was the world according to Borges: a fiction with a resemblance to an idea of Argentina that had acquired a certain reality and decided to call itself Argentina, a world of random fragments that could only fit together by some inventive act of the mind. In the café near my hotel, fine elderly gentlemen in Parisian suits danced the tango and sang the old sentimental songs to their grey-haired old wives and the friendly young whores; later on it was explained to me that these were the very generals who had run the repression. In a park in the city Borges’s own National Library stood, halfway through construction, like a story that had been started but never finished, like someone’s uncompleted fiction.
Indeed Borges seemed everywhere, and above all at the Book Fair itself – a great tented city beside the railway, packed with hundreds of stalls and thousands of books from all lands. And if Argentina seemed to me like a book, it was also a world of readers, who passed in great swarms through the fair: businessmen and housewives, politicians and publishers, schoolchildren in long crocodiles, and gauchos. I was not surprised to find, in one of the main aisles, the plain stall of the Borges Foundation. Here were books from his personal library, experimental magazines he’d once edited, photographs of him as a dandyish young man or as a blind, basilisk-eyed old one. A youngish woman dressed in white sat at a desk on the stall. ‘But of course, the widow of Borges,’ said a friendly young Argentine journalist in the press room of the fair, ‘You didn’t interview her?’ I hurried back to the stall, but the woman in white had gone away.
And so had most of the world-famous writers whom, over the following days, I tried to track down and interview. Some were abroad, some stayed at home; some were in exile, others were presidents of their countries. I gathered Marquez was in the USA, Vargas Llosa in London, Fuentes in Paris, and so it went on. At first my visit to the Fair seemed just another replay of the Booker, but my young journalist friend proved very helpful. He took me round the many literary cafés and bars of the city, and introduced me to a number of younger, radical writers. My notebook filled, and only one thing remained to be done: to cover the resumption of Anglo-Argentinian cultural relations, an event that was to be celebrated with a formal ceremony and a bicultural panel of writers in some tented hall at the Fair towards the end of the week.
At first my Argentine journalist friend refused to come with me: ‘I do not go to official occasions,’ he said, ‘Either they are boring or they remind you of the people who like to put you back in prison.’ But I continued to press him, and eventually he agreed. On the important night, a rainy one, we pushed our way through the crowded Fair, dodging between files of formally dressed schoolchildren, and took our place on wooden benches in the wet tented hall. There was a large noisy audience, an empty platform with a long table on it, and to either side a flag on a long wooden pole: the Argentine flag to the left, the British Union Jack to the right. A small group of officials and functionaries seemed to be arguing furiously below the platform. To one side, a little aloof, stood a tall, distinguished and very well-suited figure: undoubtedly the British Ambassador. To the other side stood a smaller, more rounded figure who was doubtless the Argentine Minister of Culture. A few young Argentinian writers, some of them people I had already interviewed, stood bewildered near the doorway, and so did two writers specially flown out from Britain, a distinguished lady crime novelist, and a somewhat younger male novelist and critic whose work was associated with the campus novel.
Yet nothing happened; I turned to my neighbour. ‘Diplomatic incident, always a diplomatic incident,’ he said, ‘Perhaps someone is invited who should not be invited. Perhaps someone is not invited who should be invited. It is always the same at these occasions. You see why I never come to them.’ A few moments later, the Argentine Minister mounted the platform, reflected on the value of international cultural relations, welcomed the return of the admirable British Council to the country, and then stepped abruptly backwards, knocking into the Union Jack, which fell slowly to the floor. There were murmurs round the hall, a small burst of applause, a small explosion of laughter. ‘Did he do that on purpose?’ I asked my neighbour. ‘Hard to know,’ he said, ‘Maybe he is clumsy. You know these official occasions.’
Functionaries hurried onto the platform and tried to revive the flag, but the pole had broken. Eventually a young woman stood there and held it aloft, remaining there for the rest of the proceedings. The British Ambassador climbed to the podium, and responded as the British do in times of international crisis: he made a joke. This was followed by a brief, very elegant speech. Then the platform cleared again, and functionaries mounted the stage, putting out nameplates for the literary discussion. After a few moments, other functionaries appeared, and removed them again; there was another long period when nothing happened. I turned to my friend for explanation. ‘Oh, another diplomatic incident,’ he said, ‘Maybe some of these writers are not so good with the regime. Or they do not properly represent the spirit of our country.’ At last a row of writers mounted the platform, and a chairman took his seat. Again nothing happened, until the door to the tented hall opened suddenly, an elderly lady in a dark dress staggered in and climbed onto the platform. An extra chair was summoned; the lady sat down and looked round with belligerence. ‘Ah, that is it,’ said my friend, ‘Of course Menem or someone must have insisted she should be here.’ ‘Who is she, a writer?’ I asked. ‘Well, of a sort,’ said my friend, ‘but what is important is that honour is satisfied. Once she was the mistress of Borges.’
And so the discussion began. The British crime novelist spoke about crime and Borges, the British campus novelist-critic spoke about European experimental fiction and Borges, the Argentine writers talked about Latin American writing and Borges, and the mistress of Borges talked about herself, occasionally mentioning her relationship with Borges. On the rafters above the podium there appeared a very large rat, evidently a visitant from nature to culture; it strolled along until it was above the speakers and looked down at them with great interest. This delighted the audience, and by the time the evening was done it seemed clear that cultural relations had resumed in great good humour. ‘But why was it so important to have the mistress of Borges?’ I asked my journalist friend, as he led me through the crowds again to the official party that was to follow. ‘Maybe in a moment you will understand,’ he said.
Over the next half-hour, in another part of the tent, where writers and Argentinian officials jostled to get to the lavish supply of wine, I slowly did. I’ve no real idea of what kind of sex-life Borges enjoyed, or not, during his lifetime, probably about the same as most of us. But he was certainly enjoying a very remarkable one after his death. Nearly every woman I spoke to in the wet tent during that evening had at some time or another been the mistress of Borges. Some were beautiful others not; some were old, like the lady on the platform and some young enough to make the final years of the blind old master into utter scandal. Some told me of his tenderness others of his pure detachment. Some called him generous others thought him mean. Some celebrated his
artistic wisdom others bemoaned his political follies. Each one spoke rudely of all the others; every one had a Borgesian tale to tell. Within half an hour I had met at least ten mistresses of Borges.
I went back to my Argentine friend. ‘How did he manage it?’ I asked, ‘How did he enjoy all these women and write as well?’ ‘Remember, he wrote only forty-five stories, some poems, never a novel,’ said my friend. ‘But he was also professor at the university, head of the National Library,’ I said, ‘And he changed all modern writing.’ ‘Also he was a chicken inspector,’ said my friend, ‘Peron made him one. Those bastards have wonderful insults, no?’ I looked across the party at the women. ‘Surely they can’t all have been mistresses of Borges,’ I said, ‘Some of them must have been about twelve when he died.’ ‘Perhaps not actual mistresses,’ said my friend slowly. ‘What other kind are there?’ I asked. ‘I was never in his bedroom, how do I know?’ asked my friend, ‘But don’t forget, this was a great man, a world writer. He belonged to everyone. Here to be a mistress of Borges is a kind of profession, especially if you are a woman and want to be a famous writer.’
‘So the mistresses of Borges weren’t really the mistresses of Borges?’ I asked. ‘In these matters, what is “really”?’ asked my friend. ‘You sound like Otto Codicil,’ I said. ‘Please?’ he asked. ‘Oh, no one you ever heard of,’ I said, ‘Someone I met in Vienna. I forgot where I was.’ A little later the British Ambassador and his lady departed, evidently called to duties elsewhere; after that the party showed signs of rapid deterioration, as the writers began to turn back into gauchos and literary and political rivalries flared. I moved to leave, and was detained by a quiet, dignified, elderly and very well-dressed publisher I had met earlier. ‘It gets worse now,’ he said, ‘I wonder, do you care to do me the excellent honour of dining with me at my apartment? Some authors I publish will be there, I think they would like to meet you, also you them. And it will be more select than this, I do promise. Also good food and no rats.’
I accepted, of course; and not much later I found myself standing outside the tented city, getting into one of a row of limousines that was waiting to drive a group of us to a fine modernist apartment block in an elegant part of town. Soon I was rising up above the dark and dangerous streets in a stainless-steel elevator; at the door of a great penthouse apartment high above the city, a white-coated butler opened the door, a maid in gloves took my coat. The walls were hung with remarkable Impressionist and Modernist paintings; I stopped in amazement in front of a Van Gogh (I think his Carnations). ‘You like it?’ asked my host very quietly, ‘You know I may have paid too much. Fifteen million at Sotheby New York, and now the art boom is over. But I like it very much. Also in a country like this it is well to have something you can carry away, if things go a bit wrong.’
I moved into the room, filled with elegant and designer-dressed people, talked to a professor from the university who was writing a book on Neo-Platonism in South America (‘Of course I must include Borges’), and then we moved to table and sat down. As the butler and maid began to serve, I turned to my neighbours on either side. One was a young married woman in diamonds, clearly passionately in love with her neighbour on the further side, to whom she wasn’t married. My other companion was a fine-featured woman, around sixty, her grey hair wonderfully tinted and coiffured, her shape very slim. She wore bright jewels and a low-cut dress covered in black beads, and she wanted to talk. ‘You went to this official thing?’ she asked, ‘I do not think I like Book Fairs, they are all books. And I have had too many official occasions in my life. But did anything interesting happen?’
So, hoping to be amusing (as I’ve said, from time to rime I can be a little amusing), I told her the story of the flag, the writers, the rat, and the mistresses of Borges. ‘You must be careful when you tell such stories,’ said the woman, ‘Perhaps I also was a mistress of Borges.’ ‘Were you?’ I asked. ‘I was not,’ said the woman, ‘How nice for once to be so unusual. But this is what happens to a famous and distinguished man. He finds one day he does not possess himself. Everyone needs him, so he becomes two people. In fact Borges himself wrote very well about this, do you know? His essay, “Borges and I”, do you remember it?’ At once I did. ‘Yes, he says he suddenly became not the dreamer but the dreamt,’ I said, ‘Not the writer, but the reader of himself.’ ‘“My life is a flight, and I lose everything, and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him,”’ quoted the lady beside me, ‘He no longer knew who he was. Do you know who you are?’
‘I’m Francis Jay,’ I said, ‘Just visiting from Britain.’ ‘And I, well, I am a painter here,’ said the woman, ‘My name is Gertla Riviero.’ ‘Gertla, that’s an unusual name,’ I said boringly. ‘You have never heard it before?’ asked the woman. ‘I have,’ I said, ‘One of the wives of Bazlo Criminale was called Gertla. I don’t suppose you know who I mean.’ ‘The Hungarian philosopher, sometimes called the Lukacs of the Nineties,’ said the woman. ‘You do know him,’ I said. ‘Better than that,’ said the woman, ‘Maybe I was never the mistress of Borges. But I was the wife of Criminale Bazlo. Is that as good?’ ‘But Gertla was Hungarian,’ I said. ‘And so was I,’ said the woman, ‘Who do you think they are, the people in this room? Most came from Europe not so long ago. I did too. For love, of course. Another love. But how do you know all that? You are interested in Criminale Bazlo?’
‘Yes,’ I said, looking up from my soup to examine her, ‘I did some research on him once.’ ‘Another professor?’ she asked, ‘There is a tango about professors.’ ‘No, a journalist,’ I said. ‘And you are from London?’ she asked, ‘What is your paper? A good one, very responsible?’ ‘Oh very,’ I said grandly. ‘And you know Criminale’s story?’ asked Gertla. ‘A version of it,’ I said. ‘Whose version?’ she asked. The Codicil version,’ I said. She looked at me. ‘And you are still interested?’ she asked, ‘I have a weekend place, a hacienda, out on the pampa, quite a way from here. Come out on Saturday, if you like to talk some more. Friends from B A will come, and they can drive you. But it will take a whole day, maybe your life is too busy.’ ‘No,’ I said quickly, ‘I’d like to come.’
*
To be truthful, it wasn’t as convenient as all that. I was flying home the day after, and I’d arranged a farewell lunch with my journalist friend. I cancelled it, of course. In the middle of a world where most things were unexpected, I had suddenly met my philosopher’s second wife – called something else, doing something else, living a new and amazingly different life. Yet for some reason she was happy to talk to me, and I would never have such a chance again. In some odd fashion I was back where I didn’t wish to be, but felt I had to be: on the quest for Bazlo Criminale. And so, on the Saturday (by which time I had, incidentally, met two more mistresses of Borges), I was picked up from my hotel by a middle-aged couple, smartly dressed in Burberry for a day in the country, and was driven out of town.
It was a strange trip, from the middle of a near-European city into something else. As we drove away, a heavy cloudburst exploded, overflowing the city’s non-existent drains and forcing us into unexpected routes. We drove through uncomfortable, threatening areas of the city; the couple in front of me locked the car doors on the inside. We passed the Army Engineering School, which was, they told me, a place of terror during the Repression. Then, out on the autopista, the weather cleared. Parrilla stalls and balloon vendors stood at the roadside. There was a wide flat plain, grey with eucalyptus trees and scattered with cattle and horses. We were stopped at endless tollbooths, which, my companions told me, had not even been there the previous week. ‘They call it free-market, Thatcherism,’ said my driver, ‘They have sold the roads.’ We drove out somewhere past Hurlingham, founded by the British, weekend land of the rich.
Finally, at the end of a vast long drive, we found Gertla Riviero’s hacienda: a long, low, verandah-ed house, around it paddocks for polo ponies, a pool for swimming, courts for tennis, enclosures for calves and goats. In cashmere sweater and desig
ner slacks, Gertla came over to the car; either she or her husband was very seriously rich. She led me to the verandah, where a weekend house-party sat drinking. Children played on great lawns; other guests splashed in the pool. ‘Do you like it, Argentina?’ asked one of the guests. ‘Very exciting,’ I said. ‘Oh, yes,’ said Gertla, handing me a glass of wine, ‘Inflation 130 per cent. When Menem tries to fight corruption, he has to arrest his own officials first. Here rich are rich, poor are poor, and only the army holds them apart. It is exciting.’ ‘And what a beautiful estate,’ I said. ‘Very,’ said Gertla, ‘And if you are wondering where is my husband, he is out riding the estate, by the way. He will not be back for a long rime.’ ‘When did you come here?’ I asked. ‘When Hungary became impossible, seven, eight years ago,’ said Gertla, ‘Now I live very nicely and worry about inflation and cancer from the ozone layer. Enjoy your drink now, and we will take a walk together after lunch, all right?’
Gertla turned to talk to the other guests; I sat and looked at her, the woman I had, I recalled, seen nude in Budapest. Well, she was no Sepulchra; this one had kept all the grace and dignity I had noted up there on Bazlo’s walls. No wonder he had been attracted to her; the wonder was he had then gone off with La Stupenda, the Great Ship. Then I recalled what Ildiko had said, about an affair with the chief of secret police; I wondered if this was the man now out riding the estate. But his name was Riviero, and who knew what to think of anything Ildiko had told me? In any case that all seemed strangely remote, here on the pampa, a southern sky spreading flatly to a distant horizon, grey eucalyptus trees blowing in the wind. When natural functions called me and I went inside for the bathroom, I found expensive furniture, and walls covered in flamboyant and experimental paintings, all signed ‘Gertla Riviero’. She was a woman of character; a woman of wealth as well.
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