The man is plump, red-faced. He complains bitterly: ‘Nothing’s permitted these days. Everything that used to be good for you is bad now. Smoking. Eating. This your first trip to Buenos Aires?’
‘Yes.’
‘Business?’
‘More or less; yes, business.’
‘Good for you. Buenos Aires is a paradise for business. Quick and easy. What d’you know about Buenos Aires?’
‘Maradona, the disappeared, tango.’
The bulging red face takes on an air of complete incredulity. ‘Disappeared? Who’s disappeared? Oh, you mean those subversives, the ones who died during the military government. My word, what a strange view you have of Buenos Aires. The disappeared are history, history distorted by anti-Argentine propaganda. Maradona falls, hauls himself up again, falls on his face again. The disappeared aren’t going to come back, and the tango is a museum piece. But you’ll see, you’ll get rid of your clichés. A new Argentina has been born, a new breed of Argentines.’
He puts his hand into a black briefcase and pulls out a plastic bag, which he gives to Carvalho. ‘D’you know what this is?’
Carvalho studies the contents of the bag. ‘I can hardly believe it, but they look to me like lupin seeds.’
‘That’s right. They’re Lupinus albus. The basis of future human nutrition.’
‘We’re all going to eat lupins? In Spain, we soak them and eat them with salt. They’re food to nibble at, for kids or at parties or when you go to the circus.’
‘No, it’s the cows that’ll eat the lupins, then we eat the cows. Up to now we’ve had all the grass we need to feed all the cows in the world, but recent scientific studies suggest that lupins are the perfect cow feed for the future. Everyone used to think that lupins, and especially the leaves, were harmful to cattle. D’you know why?’
‘No idea.’
‘Because bitter lupins contain a poisonous alkaloid, which is why they were used for fertilizers. But now we’ve produced lupins without the alkaloid. Cows eat them like cakes. Yum, yum! And Argentines are at the cutting edge of research into animal behaviour and nutrition. I’m on my way to see deputy minister Güelmes, who’s one of the Argentine politicians most interested in the idea. Have you heard of him?’
‘My knowledge of Argentine politics is strictly limited.’
By now, the man’s bag is back in his briefcase. Carvalho pretends to doze off. The fat man goes on with what is now a monologue, driven by an irrepressible inner enthusiasm. As Carvalho is drifting into a real alcoholic sleep, his uncle’s face appears and asks him: ‘What d’you know about Buenos Aires?’
‘Maradona, disappeared, tangos.’
‘And scroungers, lots of scroungers. If a million Argentines weren’t such thieves, the rest would be millionaires. And scientists, brilliant ones. It used to be one of the most educated countries in the world. My son was brilliant. Is brilliant. Things didn’t go badly for me, nephew, it wasn’t politics that took me there, it was hunger. Before our Civil War. I made a fortune. I made my son a scientist, a brilliant one. But my daughter-in-law got mixed up in politics. I managed to get my boy out of it, but I was too late to help her and their daughter. The earth swallowed them up. Disappeared. They say Buenos Aires is built on the disappeared. Lots of the men who worked on 9 de Julio Avenue, the widest in the world, are buried under its asphalt. A lot more disappeared when they built the metro system, the “underground” as they call it. Disappeared. It’s a kind of destiny there. I managed to get your cousin Raúl out to Spain, hoping he’d forget. Then one fine day he escaped, went back. Don’t worry about not knowing Buenos Aires. You’ll be met at the airport by Alma, my son’s sister-in-law. She’s his wife’s sister: she went through the whole business as well; she was married to a Catalan, or rather a Catalan’s son, a psychiatrist. A shrink who lives in Villa Freud. You’ll find out what that means. She’ll help you, though she doesn’t much like Spaniards.’
The fat man has trouble getting his seatbelt undone, standing up and moving out into the aisle of the plane. Carvalho helps him get his hand luggage down. Several stickers on a bag proclaim ‘The New Spirit of Argentina’. He wheezes off ahead of Carvalho, who loses sight of him in the process of picking up his baggage and going through immigration. He opens his passport at the back page with his photo, but the cop prefers to shut it and open it again for himself. He flicks through the pages, looks carefully at some stamps, then peers up at Carvalho. ‘Pepe?’
‘Yes, that’s me. Do you know me?’
The cop points at the name written in the passport. ‘It’s the first time I’ve seen anyone called Pepe in a passport.’
‘That’s because I’m a private detective.’
The policeman says ‘Ah!’ as if that settled the matter, and stamps the document.
Carrying his luggage, Carvalho stares round Ezeiza airport and recalls what he knows about it. The bloody fight between people from the right and left of Perónism when Perón returned from exile. A foretaste of what López Rega and the military junta were to dish out to left-wingers a little later on. Carvalho stands with his suitcase between his legs, looking for the woman his uncle had mentioned. The fat guy passes him smiling broadly and waving a bag of lupins. Carvalho follows him with his gaze as he goes into a phone booth. The earpiece is soon covered in sweat from the abundant tufts of hair the man has round his ears, as if in compensation for his bald crown. He stares back at Carvalho while he makes a call. ‘Hello, Captain? I got it out of him: he doesn’t know a thing. Not a thing, although he could find out. Wait, guess who’s come to meet him? The Modotti woman, Captain, the Modotti woman. The old man’s made a move. I told you he would.’
A woman’s voice behind his back. ‘Are you the Masked Galician?’
Carvalho turns round, and what he sees interests or attracts him. A blonde woman is gazing at him. Fortyish, beautiful in a disturbing way. A wise-eyed Argentine woman with blonde hair carefully moulded in between visits to her psychologist; not that she needs to see one – she probably knows more about psychoanalysis than he does. Her age showing some attractive wrinkles and an ironic filter for everything she sees. But her smile quickly changes from ironic to open and friendly. She holds out her hand to Carvalho. ‘Alma Modotti. Married name Font y Rius, but I got unmarried a long time ago. I don’t like double-barrelled names.’
‘Was that why you broke up?’
‘We broke up because husbands with double-barrelled names are even more unbearable than those with straightforward ones.’
Carvalho would like to be able to study her at leisure, but she strides off and he can’t get a good view of her face, as if she were deliberately keeping him at a distance with her smile. It’s only when she’s hailing a taxi that he gets a good look at her, as she turns to face him with green, ever-ironic eyes. She’s about to give the taxi-driver an address, but Carvalho butts in. ‘Could you do me a sentimental favour?’
‘This is the capital of sentiment.’
Carvalho talks to the driver. ‘Corrientes 3...4...8.’
The driver looks round with a wry smile and takes up from where Carvalho left off: ‘Second floor, with a lift...!’
Alma bursts out laughing.
‘It’s my favourite tango.’
‘Tangos are like novels. They never tell the truth.’
‘So you’re a tango expert?’
‘No, a literature expert. I teach at the University. How come you’re such a tango fan?’
‘Carlos Gardel was a myth in Barcelona. So were Irusta, Fugazot and Demare.’
‘I’ve never even heard of them. Although I might not look it, I’m from the rock generation. Tango always seemed to me like Argentina for export. It’s only recently I’ve got closer to it. In fact, I often go to a place called Tango Amigo, perhaps because the presenter and the singer are friends of mine. Adriana Varela. Have you heard of her in Spain?�
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‘I don’t keep up with these things. As far as tango goes, I didn’t get much beyond Gardel and Discépolo. The one who did reach Spain is Cecilia Rosetto, who’s a wonderful actress. I hope to see her here.’
Carvalho has managed to produce a cigar straight from its cardboard packet inside his pocket, and Alma praises his skill.
‘My fingertips can locate a Havana cigar wherever it’s hiding.’
He lights it and opens the taxi window. For the first time he can get some impression of Buenos Aires, which seems too big for its own possibilities, as if it had grown too quickly or there hadn’t been enough money to preserve its grandeur. ‘It all looks so promising but somehow rundown.’
‘Could be. Every neighbourhood is different. Borges said that when you cross Rivadavia Avenue you cross the frontier into another world. Rivadavia runs from one end of Buenos Aires to the other and splits it in two.’
The Calle Corrientes. A chaotic, old-fashioned scene, with shops and apartment buildings in clashing styles jostling each other for attention. Alma’s distant voice acting as tour guide: Corrientes, home of the tango you love so much. The taxi pulls up outside Number 348. Carvalho gets out, oblivious to the withering looks the driver and Alma are giving him through the windows. Carvalho is looking for something, surprised he can’t find it. Finally he spots a placard stating that this was the spot for which the world-famous tango was composed, but there’s no sign of the original building now, not even a trace of the perfume of adultery. It’s a parking lot. A desolate open space with battered blue gates, like a last distant memory of the love nest mentioned in the song. Carvalho turns round and accuses the two people smiling at him: ‘It used to be a tango, now it’s a parking lot.’
Alma says a few words to the driver: ‘When our friend comes back from his tango fantasies, take us to Entre Ríos 204, would you? But first, show him the obelisk.’
The driver follows her instructions, but as compensation sings, at the top of his voice:
Corrientes three...four...eight
Second floor, with a lift...
Décor courtesy of Maple’s
Piano, rug and bedside table;
A telephone that rings
A Victrola crying to the sound
Of old tangos from my youth
A cat, hut in porcelain to ensure
It doesn’t disturb the love-making.
Corrientes comes out into 9 de Julio Avenue, and the obelisk is there to prove the fact.
‘Look, the widest avenue in the world, and the world’s least significant obelisk. It’s so wide – a hundred and forty metres – it’s almost unreal, but I like it because of all the trees. Buenos Aires is full of trees that are just too beautiful – too much altogether – ombus, gum trees, araucarias, palos borrachos. In spite of all the traffic, 9 de Julio in November is full of blossom from the purple jacarandas, in September it’s pink from the lapachos, and in February it’s the turn of the white palos borrachos. The obelisk is never in bloom. It was erected in 1936 to commemorate four hundred years of the city’s foundation. But the real reason was different. We had no reference point for our dreams about the city. They had to fill all this empty space somehow. Someone described it as the phallic symbol for Buenos Aires machismo. Someone else called it the city’s shameless prick. Now it’s the obelisk. Nothing more, nothing less. So, here’s the obelisk. And here’s a Spaniard.’
It could have been an apartment in the middle-class Ensanche district of Barcelona or in Madrid, without the wooden stairs the inhabitants of Madrid have, or the art nouveau design details of the Catalan capital.
‘Entre Ríos, round the corner from Callao. The apartment belongs to your uncle. The centre of the world.’
Carvalho goes round opening and shutting doors, always coming back to the tiny living- and dining-room where Alma’s waiting for him disdainfully. Carvalho is satisfied finally, and points to a fireplace that has a gas or electric radiator in it. ‘I’d like to have a wood fire. Can I use the fireplace?’
‘You could, but do you have any idea how much firewood costs? Or are you going to burn the doors?’
‘What I burn is my business. Do you live here?’
‘Here? No. I’m not part of the contract. Your uncle told me to do this – the flat was rented out. He asked me to show you round the city, that’s all.’
Alma has big, sad, green eyes. She looks down at her bag and starts rummaging for something in it. Eventually she pulls out a photograph and a piece of paper, and hands them to Carvalho. ‘Here’s my address – it’s not far away – and a photo of your cousin Raúl.’
It’s the same photo of a family reunion that his uncle has already given him, but here in Buenos Aires it looks different. As if it were more recent. Sitting round a table loaded with plates of food, an older pair, two young couples, a little girl. Carvalho looks intently at the faces. Alma peers over his shoulder, and he can sense her female warmth, the feel of her breasts on his back, then her voice as she points out who’s who. ‘That’s your uncle, that’s Aunt Orfelia; there’s me, my sister Berta, and my brother-in-law, Raúl.’
The image of Raúl stays with Carvalho. A gaunt-looking man with huge eyes and prominent cheekbones. In the photo, Raúl and Alma are sitting together. Alma’s voice breaks with emotion when she says: ‘That’s their girl. Eva María.’
‘Why on earth a double name like that?’
‘You don’t understand a thing, do you? Eva from Eva Perón, María because of María Estela Perón. At the time we didn’t know what a traitor María Estela would be.’
Carvalho has to shut his eyes to forget the child; it’s the only way he can concentrate on the others. ‘You and your sister are very alike.’
‘Physically, yes.’
‘Otherwise, no?’
‘Not spiritually: by which I mean personality, disposition, feelings, emotions, hopes and fears. Berta was intolerant and uncompromising. Alma on the other hand...me...I was always less confident, more dependent on Berta since childhood. Berta was good at making people dependent on her – me, Raúl, the rest of the group. People always praised her for her “character”. She’s got such a strong character! they’d always say. Even my father, who was one of those unbearable rich bullheaded patriarchs, turned into a softie with Berta.’
‘Can you get anything to eat in this city?’
‘You can eat to your heart’s content: this is Argentina.’
‘Marx said you only get to know a country when you’ve eaten its bread and drunk its wine.’
‘Are you a Marxist?’
‘In the gastronomic faction.’
Alma didn’t have a car, and was against the idea of taking another taxi. She believed in public transport. Carvalho didn’t. ‘Some Marxist you are.’
In the end they took a taxi. On their way to the Costanera by the river, Alma got the driver to go through the Palermo neighbourhood – it doesn’t really exist, she said, Borges invented it, and the park in Palermo shows how the pre-Columbian idea of the noble savage has been reincarnated here in Buenos Aires as the ignoble one. ‘As soon as the sun comes up, they all strip off and head for the park to get a tan.’
It’s true. On the grass, under the trees of Argentina that to Carvalho seem as unbelievably large as the rivers of America, men and women are soaking up the sun, busily pretending they’re as free as birds in nature. The taxi leaves them at the Costañera, where they look for a decent ‘Argentine’ restaurant. Alma is no great food expert, but has a dim recollection of a restaurant that’s ‘not so bad’ along here. But first she forces Carvalho to look at the boundless river and follow the flow of its dirty waters. ‘You can’t swim in it. It’s so polluted it must be almost a hundred per cent chemical waste.’
‘But it’s beautiful. I love big rivers, perhaps because in Spain we call any little stream a river. I can spend hours watching how rivers like the Miss
issippi, the Nile, or the Mekong flow.’
‘Have you seen all of them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does the Mekong exist?’
‘Of course it does.’
When the waiter arrives, Carvalho reels off a list of what he’d like to eat, despite Alma’s wide-eyed surprise at his appetite.
‘To start with, some meat pasties, meat roll, black pudding and sausage. After that, a big steak, rare. Oh, and lots of chimichurri sauce.’
The Buenos Aires Quintet Page 2