In closing, Martín Jenner said: “I’m an agnostic, but if I weren’t, I’d ask for a prayer for him.” There was a moment of silence, and then the news program completed their story with a report from an important mental illness specialist.
The hipster had a record of psychological disorders, had been hospitalized twice, and the only family member who had come to identify the body was a distant aunt who had not seen him in years.
Eventually, though, some new scandal emerged and the media coverage waned. A few weeks later, Death and the Canoe went into its twenty-first printing.
* * *
“Well, I don’t want to be morbid, but in the end the hipster did us a favor,” the editor told Martín Jenner when she called to let him know about the new printing.
“I don’t find that funny, but I’m happy about the new edition,” replied Jenner.
Then they went over details about his upcoming participation in the Paraty literary festival in Brazil. His editor tried to get him excited, reminding him it was “an event very few attend,” as if Jenner were not quite clear which festival it was.
For years it had bothered him each time the guest list appeared and he was not on it. “Yes, I suppose we’ll say yes to the Paraty people. Let me think about it for a little while, though,” he said, and then hung up.
Jenner went to the window. The river was grayer than usual. Far off he could see a ship, so small in the distance that it looked like a canoe. He felt like pouring himself a drink, but if he started this early in the morning, he would not be able to write for the rest of the day, so he ruled it out. It was better to start writing now on his laptop, in front of the window that provided such a unique perspective. But before that, he went to his desk to finally do what he had avoided until now. Perhaps out of superstition? Out of respect for the dead? Out of delight? Savoring a risk that at one time he feared could break him? He did not know why he waited until now, but it was time. From the bottom drawer, he removed the three copies of Borda’s manuscript he had received in the mail, in March, August, and October of last year. He set them on fire in the kitchen sink, waiting until they burned. He carefully gathered the ashes in a vase. He put a dish over it, just in case. And he placed the vase in the living room library. They would remain there until he had time to go down to the banks of that river he could see from his window. When he went to the river, he swore to himself, he would scatter them. I hope, he thought, that at that very moment a canoe goes by and the ashes fly in front of it, like the ashes of a cremated body.
Feel the Burn
by María Inés Krimer
Monte Castro
Translated by M. Cristina Lambert
Marcia buys candles at Lascano’s Chinese shop. As she leaves, the neon illuminates her face with a play of light and shadow. Garbage containers. Damp papers. Empty bottles. Tins. Since the power outages started, neighbors have been burning tires on the avenue. There’s a fuel shortage. Lines of cars waiting to fill their tanks.
A policeman standing at the entrance of a bare brick building plays with a cell phone. Marcia stops for a moment at the corner of Segurola, looks at him, dodges a loose tile, goes on. She can’t put her finger on exactly what she’s looking for on the poorly lit sidewalks, on the nocturnal faces she comes across in the streets.
The insomnia that resulted from her separation from Pablo has forced her to walk one, two hours after dinner: her strategy has been to roam until she gets tired. It was on one of those rounds that she noticed a green-lettered sign that says, Cross Fire. The gym is on the second floor, in the middle of the block. A door with bars. An ad for an energy drink. The picture of a muscular athlete behind glass. Marcia didn’t hesitate to spend her last savings on Nike leggings and Air Jordan sneakers. She has been going to the gym three times a week ever since she moved to Monte Castro.
Marcia climbs the stairs. The room with treadmills, stationary bikes, and rowing machines is in front. To one side, a bar with Formica tables and croissants under a bell jar. The girl at the desk takes the gum out of her mouth, stretches it, and reinserts it. She fans herself with a flyer. “Hot,” she says.
“Deadly,” Marcia replies. A black cat jumps out of the dark and lands next to her leg as she goes into the aerobics room. A cracked mirror covers part of the wall. Humidity is seeping in through the baseboards. The class that night has more people than usual because the power outages forced several cancellations last month. Marcia picks up a mat, places it near the window. A woman with fluorescent nails stretches her arms on the barre, swings her head from one side to the other. She stands up and settles near the platform. A tough-looking guy in shorts and a fuchsia top comes in at the last minute and stands in the front row.
The instructor hangs a toy skeleton near the mirror. “Come on, we don’t have all night. Grab some dumbbells and go up to the barre.”
The fan blades whirl. Shakira floods the aerobics room.
“Jog.”
Marcia beats the tough guy and the woman with fluorescent nails by a few yards. Despite the loud music, she can hear car horns on the street, sneakers rubbing, keys jangling inside a fanny pack. The click of Pablo’s lighter rings in her head the whole time. They’re on the second set of reps when Shakira falls silent. The instructor touches the tray, taps it with his finger. He takes out the CD, examines it on both sides. Puts it back in. He waits a few seconds. “It’s had it,” he says. There’s a moment’s hesitation, no one knows whether to continue or not, until they hear: “Dumbbells.”
The instructor grabs a five-pound set and, back turned, explains that biceps must be worked with extra weight to achieve a lasting effect. The students do four sets of twenty reps each. Marcia can’t stop looking at the tough guy; she’s surprised at how well he has coordinated his shorts with his top. The only sound in the room now is measured breathing, arms moving up and down, the buzzing of the fan blades. The relative silence amplifies the noise coming from outside.
“Barre.”
Marcia grasps the barre with her hands, her wrists aligned. Her spine straight. Her elbows glued to her body: if she bends forward or moves sideways, other muscles will be used. Suddenly the lights go out.
“Another power failure,” someone says.
The instructor turns on a flashlight. “We go on,” he says, and tilts the beam downward. “On the floor.” Now the skeleton is no longer white but yellow. Marcia stretches her arm until she touches the mat. She looks at the desert of bodies scattered throughout the room. A smell of burned tires comes through the window. She remembers the bonfires of her childhood, the firewood piled in the middle of the street. At first the fire was slow, then more intense, and later it would rise, driven by the wind.
“Abs.”
Marcia corrects her posture: head relaxed, chin separated from her body. She runs a finger over her belly. The routine’s having an effect, she thinks. There are sighs, complaints, desertions. The woman’s fluorescent nails search for a bottle of mineral water.
The instructor says: “Feel the burn.”
Someone approaches, groping in the dark until she finds an empty mat. Marcia smells something thick, acid. She then hears a long sigh, as if the new arrival has come a long way and it’s hard to find a place in the room.
“I’m paid up through the end of the year,” the woman explains as she settles on the cheap leather.
The instructor presses: “Feel the burn.”
Marcia thinks about the cop standing at the bare brick building. She was awakened two nights ago by the siren of an ambulance. After that she had a hard time getting back to sleep, and when she finally did, at dawn, she dreamed about the crackling of flames, heat, the house opening its mouth, gasping for air. Every once in a while a flash would burst out in another area, and the firefighters’ hoses would turn toward the windows while sparks flew and a thick column of smoke climbed up to the sky.
“It hurts,” a voice said.
“What?”
“My skin, when it burns.”<
br />
Marcia wonders whether that voice was announcing what’s ahead for her—that she’d end up talking with a stranger in some dump of a gym. When she moved to Monte Castro, after the separation, she stopped seeing her friends. No one was going to cross the city to have coffee or share a happy hour at the Álvarez Jonte tea room, among retirees playing cards, cabbies discussing a soccer game, and women just leaving the hairdresser’s.
“You moved to the boonies,” they reproached her.
“Cheap rent,” Marcia responded. She was ashamed to tell them Pablo’s threats forced her to look for someplace far away. She doesn’t want to think about the click of the yellow lighter or the cell phone smashed on the floor or the long sleeves she wore all summer to cover the bruises on her arms.
“Glutes.”
Marcia turns, gets down on all fours, and lifts her right leg until she forms a right angle. She looks to her side.
The woman on the mat is wiping sweat from her forehead with the palm of her hand. “I can’t take it anymore,” she says. When she stands up, the beam from the flashlight illuminates a dark ear, like a charred fig.
Marcia attempts to follow the routine, but realizes she can’t. She’s under the impression that the ear is another warning. She closes her eyes not to see flames. The heat burns just the same. The door is ajar and the silence is broken by the instructor’s voice and the faint street sounds. The moment the figure disappears on the stairs, the power comes back. There’s clapping, shouts of excitement. The woman with fluorescent nails opens the water bottle and takes a sip. The tough guy adjusts his shorts in the mirror. Marcia stares at the empty mat. There’s a strip of yellow and sticky gauze on the mat.
As she’s leaving she trips over the little skeleton. It’s now completely dark outside. In the distance, she sees the flash of tires on the avenue. A woman with supermarket bags. A man walking a poodle. The dog crosses in front of her and growls. She feels her legs soaked under the leggings. When she reaches the corner of Segurola, she stops at the brick building.
“Something happen?”
The cop looks up from the screen of his cell phone. “A man dumped alcohol on his wife,” he says. “Then he set her on fire. The neighbors heard the screams.”
“How is she?”
The cop doesn’t answer.
Marcia quickens her pace. When she turns onto Lascano, she stops. She removes a damp newspaper from the trash, then buries it deeper in the bin. She wipes her fingers on her leggings.
Her hand is shaking as she opens the elevator door. What if Pablo finds out where I live? she thinks. She puts the key in the lock. She’s surprised there’s a light on inside. She forgot to turn it off because of the power outage
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS
Verónica Abdala was born in Buenos Aires in 1973. She currently works as a journalist in the culture section of the Argentinian newspaper Clarín and has published articles on culture and literature in the other newspapers as well, including La Nación and Página/12. She is the author of the illustrated biography Borges for Beginners and the essay “Susan Sontag and the Office of Thinking. “
Leandro Ávalos Blacha was born in Quilmes, Argentina, in 1980. In 2007, he won the Indio Rico prize for his novel Berazachussetts, selected by the writers César Aira, Alan Pauls, and Daniel Link. He is also the author of Serialismo, Medianera, and Malicia.
Gabriela Cabezón Cámara was born in Buenos Aires, and is the author of La Virgen Cabeza, Le viste la cara a Dios, Beya, le viste la cara a Dios, Romance de la Negra Rubia, Sacrificios, and Y su despojo fue una muchedumbre.
Inés Garland was born in Buenos Aires and still lives there. She has published several novels and short story collections. Her second novel, Piedra, papel o tijera, was selected by ALIJA—a children’s and young adult literary association—as the best novel of the year. It has been translated into German, French, Italian, and Dutch. With this novel, Garland was the first Spanish-speaking writer to win the prestigious German children’s book prize, Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis.
M. Cristina Lambert was born in Córdoba, Argentina, and moved to New York City as a teenager. She is the translator of Looking at Photographs, for the New York Museum of Modern Art, and a historical novel, Una sombra donde sueña Camila O’Gorman (A Shadow Where Camila O’Gorman Dreams), by the Argentinian surrealist poet Enrique Molina. Several of her translated short stories have appeared in Beacons, the literary magazine of the American Translators Association.
María Inés Krimer was born in 1951 in Paraná, Argentina, and now resides in Buenos Aires. She is the author of Veterana, La hija de Singer (winner of the Premio del Fondo Nacional de las Artes), El cuerpo de las chicas, Lo que nosotras sabíamos (winner of the Emecé Prize), Sangre kosher, La inauguración (winner of a Letra Sur Prize), and Siliconas express. Most recently, Krimer published Sangre Fashion, the third book in the Ruth Epelbaum detective series.
Ariel Magnus was born in Buenos Aires in 1975 and has published fifteen books, mostly novels. The third one, Un Chino en bicicleta, published in 2007, won the La otra orilla prize—with César Aira as head of the jury—and was translated into six languages. He works as a literary translator of German, English, and Portuguese.
Ernesto Mallo is an Argentinian journalist, screenwriter, playwright, and novelist, and also the organizer of BAN! Buenos Aires Negra, an international noir book festival. In addition to plays and scripts, he has published ten prize-winning novels that have been translated into seventeen different languages. He is a former active member of the resistance to the military rulers of the sixties and seventies. Mallo lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Barcelona, Spain.
Enzo Maqueira was born in Buenos Aires in 1977. He is the author of Historias de Putas, Ruda macho, El Impostor, and the critically acclaimed novel Electrónica.
Inés Fernández Moreno was born in Buenos Aires. She has worked as a creative director at several advertising agencies and has written extensively for newspapers and magazines. Her most recent novel, El cielo no existe, was awarded the 2014 Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize, which recognizes female authors who write in Spanish. Her most recent work is a collection of short stories, Malos Sentimientos.
Elsa Osorio was born in Buenos Aires. A novelist and scriptwriter, her work has been translated into twenty languages. Her novel A veinte años, Luz is considered a classic of Latin American literature. Her other novels include Cielo de Tango, Callejón con salida, and Mika, La capitana. She was awarded a Chevalier de l’Orde des Arts et des Lettres from the French government for her contributions to literature and human rights, among other prizes.
Alejandro Parisi was born in Buenos Aires in 1976. He has published six novels: Delivery, El ghetto de las ocho puertas, Un caballero en el purgatorio, La niña y su doble, Con la sangre en el ojo, and Su rostro en el tiempo. Several of his books have been published in different languages, including French and Italian.
Claudia Piñeiro, a novelist and screenwriter, was born in Buenos Aires in 1960. She has won numerous literary prizes, among them the German LiBeraturpreis for Elena Sabe and the Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Prize for Las grietas de Jara. Her other published works include Un comunista en calzoncillos, Betibú, Tuya, and Las viudas de los jueves.
Pablo De Santis was born in Buenos Aires in 1963, and is the author of the novels The Paris Enigma and Voltaire’s Caligrapher, published in English by HarperCollins. He has also written a number of books for young adults, including El inventor de juegos, adapted into the film The Games Maker. His graphic novel El hipnotizador, illustrated by Juan Sáenz Valiente, became a TV series and premiered on HBO Latinoamérica in 2015.
Alejandro Soifer was born in Buenos Aires in 1983. He earned a bachelor’s degree in comparative literature, with majors in Spanish teaching and Latin American and Argentinian literature at the University of Buenos Aires. He has published two crime-fiction novels, Rituales de sangre and Rituales de lágrimas. He is currently completing an MA in Hispanic Studies at the Univer
sity of Toronto in Canada.
John Washington is a freelance journalist and translator. He is a frequent contributor to the Nation, where he writes about immigration and criminal justice. He has translated numerous books, including The Beast and The Story of Vicente, Who Murdered His Mother, His Father, and His Sister: Life and Death in Juárez, both published by Verso Books.
BONUS MATERIAL
Excerpt from USA Noir: Best of the Akashic Noir Series
Also available in the Akashic Noir Series
Akashic Noir Series Awards & Recognition
INTRODUCTION
WRITERS ON THE RUN
From USA NOIR: Best of the Akashic Noir Series, edited by Johnny Temple
In my early years as a book publisher, I got a call one Saturday from one of our authors asking me to drop by his place for “a smoke.” I politely declined as I had a full day planned. “But Johnny,” the author persisted, “I have some really good smoke.” My curiosity piqued, I swung by, but was a bit perplexed to be greeted with suspicion at the author’s door by an unhinged whore and her near-nude john. The author rumbled over and ushered me in, promptly sitting me down on a smelly couch and assuring the others I wasn’t a problem. Moments later, the john produced a crack pipe to resume the party I had evidently interrupted. This wasn’t quite the smoke I’d envisaged, so I gracefully excused myself after a few (sober) minutes. I scurried home pondering the author’s notion that it was somehow appropriate to invite his publisher to a crack party.
It may not have been appropriate, but it sure was noir.
From the start, the heart and soul of Akashic Books has been dark, provocative, well-crafted tales from the disenfranchised. I learned early on that writings from outside the mainstream almost necessarily coincide with a mood and spirit of noir, and are composed by authors whose life circumstances often place them in environs vulnerable to crime.
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