* * *
Even with my coat on, I’m shivering. I swear I can see my breath. I’m wearing the olive-green Fiorucci dress I bought on sale. It’s the only nice dress I own. The last time I wore it, a passing motorist stopped and said something to me. His French all one blue ribbon, I didn’t know where one word ended and the next began.
* * *
—Désolée, je ne comprends pas, désolée, désolée.
* * *
At first I thought he wanted directions, but when I realized he wanted me to get in the car, I ran away. I never wore the dress again, until now.
* * *
—Tell them you sleep with your mamma—Paola says—. They always leave me alone when I say that.
* * *
Bloodied paper plates, steak bones as big as knuckles. The hole in my heart stinging when I take a breath and let it out again.
* * *
—Keep me company, —Martita says—. Please don’t leave me alone tonight.
* * *
Martita unbuttons her everyday woolen coat with the hood to show me the pretty black crêpe underneath.
* * *
—I bought new shoes, new underclothes, and stockings, too. I spent too much, I know, but I was invited to a very elegant party tonight, Puffina. A French boy I used to see invited me to his house. But at the last minute we had a fight.
* * *
Yesterday I called to ask what time I should expect him. He said he didn’t have time for that, I should come on my own, and then I heard myself saying, Unless you pick me up I’m not coming, and he said, Fine. Just like that. That’s what he said.
* * *
There was going to be champagne and live music and everything. I was supposed to meet his family. I’d never been invited to his house before. Have you ever been invited to a French person’s house, Puffi? Stupid of me to have insisted he pick me up, no? But don’t you think…because he invited me?
* * *
All the while not looking at me as she talks. That little snip of a profile.
* * *
—Puffina. There’s this, too…Ay, promise me you won’t say anything to anyone, please, Puffina, promise, say you promise. Promise please…
* * *
You turn finally to face me, your pale eyes flooded.
* * *
—Martita, you’re not…My voice rising high and thin—. Are you?
* * *
You sweep your silver eyes beyond me and sigh.
* * *
—It’s nothing to do with the French boy. It’s not his.
* * *
You throw your head back, let go a laugh made of glass.
* * *
—It’s his, you say finally, flicking your chin toward the dance floor.
* * *
—José Antonio?
* * *
—Worse. Carlitos.
* * *
Carlitos and Paola clumsily shuffling past, and Paola shouting for us to join them.
* * *
—Ridiculous, right? —Marta says and starts laughing again without looking at me.
* * *
A terrible laugh I’ve never heard before comes out of you, Martita, hiccupy, hilarious. Until I realize you aren’t laughing.
* * *
Then it’s my turn to not look. And it’s as if the music has stopped playing, as if everything in the room has stopped at that moment, because I don’t remember the music, only the sound of the dancers’ feet sweeping against the floor and everything moving round and round in a drowsy counterclockwise circle.
Puffi, mia cara amica,
Paris is without sun, and I am pale as oyster. Some days I think I will go home, but Milano in February is famous for fog. I am in language school again. Remember your café? I met a cool guy from Rimini there. Maybe I will visit Rimini. You have plenty of ocean and sun in Nice. Better I visit you.
Ciao ciao,
Paola
Querida Puffina:
Don’t you have any other friends at the foundation besides your Yugoslav? Women, perhaps? Why do you say you are scared in a room full of poets? Now would be a good time to have someone looking out for you. I am trying to guess how old your poet must be. Is he paying you to translate his poems into English? Make sure he pays you! Take care please. You believe the whole world is good like you.
* * *
I haven’t found a job yet. To make matters worse, my mother’s wages have been frozen since before I left for Paris. She complains about everything costing more and more, but anytime I want to go out and look for work, she worries I might be abducted. I think it’s her change of life that makes her so crazy. What do I do in this crazy house? I eat. My mother cooks real meals in a real kitchen.
* * *
And what do you think? I’m learning to dance the tango with a neighbor as old as my grandfather. When he was young, the men practiced dancing with each other, so he knows how to lead and follow and is teaching me to lead. I should take lessons in being the lead in everything in my life. I want more than anything now to become self-reliant.
* * *
Wish me luck, amiga, and I will wish the same for you.
Te abrazo,
Martita
Puffinissima,
It is a long time I don’t have news from you. How do you like Sarajevo? And your boyfriend? Do they adore poets in his country or are they just like musicians—bums? Does he have a real job?
* * *
As for me, my life is one big same. Boring. I hope Marta didn’t tell her mamma about her Paris problem. My uncle does not know he paid for the clinic. He probably thinks my emergency was for me, but I don’t care.
* * *
Do you remember the guy from Rimini? He is inviting me to visit, and I am thinking yes, why not, sure.
* * *
I found work at a nursery school, and I was excellent except they fired me because I was smoking when holding a baby, which is forbidden. I said it was not so, but the baby’s hair smelled like cigarettes, and now look at me—no job. So I am thinking of studying to became a teacher for little ones. After I quit smoking. Ha, ha. I am not joking. What do you think? Me, a teacher for bambini. Laugh!
Baci,
Paola
Querida Puffina:
I thought about you and Paola today as I walked down la Avenida Santa Fe. It reminded me of walking with you both on the Champs-Élysées and left me missing you.
* * *
From what you say in your letter, you sound like Davor’s housewife, not houseguest. Did you travel all the way to Sarajevo just to wash Turkish rugs and break walnuts with a hammer for a cake? But the prayer calls “unfurling like a flag of black silk” and the minarets you describe, well, I imagine a tale from One Thousand and One Nights.
* * *
I’m working at a glove shop. It’s only part-time, but it’s something. I have to stretch the fingers with a metal tool that looks like a capital A, then I sprinkle talc on the palms of the customers, and then help tug them over their hands. They’re Italian gloves. I think of Paola every time I see the label.
* * *
I don’t know what Paola is up to. I haven’t heard except that her uncle found out about Domenico. She wrote and seems to be doing all right, but I don’t mind telling you, I don’t like that Domenico. He’s married, did she mention that? I think she sends postcards to avoid saying more.
* * *
You don’t need to worry about me, Puffi. I’m fine most days. You think it’s the end of the world one day, and then every sad and terrible feeling inside just passes. Like clouds.
Sending you love,
Martita
Brava, Puffinissima,
You did the right thing to end with that brute. You should never stay with anyone who strikes you. I am glad y
ou are back safe at home in Chicago. My life is pure movement, too. I am going to get a Milan apartment that belongs to Domenico’s business. He has promised me a job at an associate’s hotel. It is only a matter of relocation, and the job is for certain mine. So what am I to do? Something is better than nothing, right? Don’t write to me till I know my new address, which I will send promptly promptly for sure.
Baci,
Paola
Querida Puffi:
Remember singing “Gracias a la vida” together to help us forget the cold? I am feeling gratitude now for my life. Why? I am working—in Paris! Yes, Paris. That is, the Pâtisserie Paris near the Teatro Colón here in Buenos Aires. (I hope I made you laugh.)
* * *
I got the job because I can pronounce all the pastries perfectly. I greet the customers in French, though they don’t speak French, but my boss is convinced this will draw customers. I also work the cash register, clean counters and glass displays, assemble boxes, and tie the purchases with ribbon I curl with scissors.
* * *
I wear a uniform the color of a pink macaron and a white eyelet apron and a little meringue of a hat. My wages aren’t much, but if I do well, my boss says I might get promoted. For now I’m hired to say, bonjour, merci, au revoir, and everyone’s happy. Especially me.
Mille et une embrasse,
Martita
P.S. I enclose a photo of our pâtisserie and a scalloped napkin. Très jolie, no?
Puffina bonita,
Who is this fidanzato of yours? You say your papá approves, but how about you? As for me, my life is the fable of the boat and the river. Once you cross the river, you do not need to carry the boat on your back, right? So ciao ciao, Domenico. I only needed someone to set me to my destiny, and I am doing better now than most fools who have listened to fools. I can defend myself in three languages and am working on a fourth. I found employment immediately at a travel agency across the street, and from there it led to the tourist hotel owned by Domenico’s rival, where I now work. Even my uncle says I am cork. When others drown, I float.
Bye bye,
Paola
Mi Puffina:
Felicidades. I loved the photos. You look like a girl making her First Communion. I still think of you as our little Puffina, not a wife who writes to me about her confusion buying groceries. I laughed when you said you bought a huge bag of sugar, just as your mother does, but don’t know what to do with so much sugar. Let it sit in the cupboard till your mother confesses what she does with her sugar.
* * *
Now it’s your turn to congratulate me. I finally moved out of my mother’s apartment. I am living with two friends I’ve known since we were little girls. María Belén and Susana are students at the university. Their roommate went back home to Mendoza, and they needed someone to help them with the rent quick.
* * *
We live over a coffeehouse in a building as narrow as a book. I sleep behind an armoire in the dining room. I’ve never been fussy about where I live, so what do I care if my bed is a cot? At least I’m on my own again, right?
* * *
It’s rich to wake up to the smell of coffee from the café downstairs, though I don’t eat bread anymore thanks to Pâtisserie Paris.
* * *
My life is more social with Belén and Susana. They’re a lot smarter than I am, and I don’t understand half the things they say, but I’m improving. I am even reading poetry, how do you like that?
* * *
Write more often. Your letters, even when complaining, amuse me so much. I keep you in my thoughts.
Always,
Marta
Puffi, poverina,
You must feel all this magnificently. Maybe you are going through too much to write, and I get it. It is normal. You are not a terrible person. So what, you are a divorced woman. Get over it. I will light a candle to la Madonna for you. And one for Marta, too, why not?
Baci,
Paola
Querida Puffina:
I don’t know if I was the one who didn’t answer your letter or if you were the one who didn’t answer mine. It no longer matters.
* * *
I was rearranging my dresser, and in a drawer I found your letters. (I hope the address is still the same.) Then everything came back, that New Year’s Eve in Paris, more than that, a feeling, a sentiment—I don’t have a good memory, but I do remember emotions.
* * *
How many days did we know each other? I don’t even know. But I know I grew to love you very much, Puffina. That’s what I felt, all at once, when I found your letters.
* * *
I wanted you to know it. That’s all. I have a photo of us—you and me and Paola—taken in the metro in one of those automated booths. Remember? I’m happy to have it.
* * *
To try to tell you what’s happened to me since then is difficult—
* * *
I was at the point of marrying, but it couldn’t be. It’s just been a little while since I broke it off, and I’m a little sad. It will pass.
* * *
In May I’m going back to Europe to avoid our Argentine winter. I’ll be in Madrid. Here’s the address in case you’re still traveling:
Marta Quiroga Pascoe
A/A Irene Delgado Godoy
Villanueva y Gascón no. 2–3a
28030 Madrid
España
* * *
I don’t know how long I’ll stay there. Maybe I’ll return soon to Buenos Aires. Maybe not. I have to restructure my life a bit. I’ve made a bit of a mess of it. God willing, I’ll hear some bit of news from you. Don’t forget me.
I hug you,
Marta
* * *
I’m stirring my coffee with a spoon, rereading the last letter you sent me years ago. Today, Saturday, at 11:14 in the morning, I’m at my kitchen table thinking of you, Martita, wherever you are.
* * *
I should’ve answered your letter. Some things that happened to me were wonderful, and some parts were only good because they passed. When things were bad, I kept thinking better was just around the corner, and by the time I had the energy to raise my head and take a look at my life, years and years had passed. Forgive me. I didn’t want to admit to myself this was all I had to tell you, this life of mine. At the time, it didn’t seem enough, not what I expected, not what I had ordered, not what I wanted to share. Do you understand?
* * *
I’m alone this morning in my kitchen, enjoying my coffee and talking to you in my head. I imagine you are getting ready to have lunch in Buenos Aires. I imagine Paola is in Rome, coming home from work. I imagine you each reading a book, bringing a glass to your lips, walking down the street, lingering at the arabesque of a gate, or pausing at a bakery, or dipping bread in coffee.
* * *
I’m in Chicago, the place I said I’d rather die than live. But look at me, I didn’t die, did I? I live with my two girls and their father. They’re good kids, my girls. Paloma looks just like her dad but is more like me at her age; a baby bird plotting to fly far away. Lupita was born the same day my father died. We named her Guadalupe in his honor, and sometimes when she looks at me, I swear my father has never left me. Paloma and Pita. Sometimes just watching them doing something silly, dancing in front of the television and singing off-key or breaking fistfuls of saltines into their soup, I’m completely sideswiped. How did you get so wonderful?
* * *
You would like my Richard, I think. I love him—I do. I’m not in love. But that part of my life is put away. He works hard. He’s a good man. Someone you can depend on. Which is more than I can say for the one I was in love with. How can one survive that kind of destruction more than once? How every time you make love with someone, it’s never the same as with anyo
ne else, is it?
Martita, I Remember You/Martita, te recuerdo Page 4