The Foreigners

by Maxine Swann

  The meeting was held in a spacious upper-floor apartment overlooking Libertador Avenue, one of those living rooms that you could have mistaken for a hotel lobby, with its smooth couches, glass tabletops and ceiling-high curtains that you pulled closed by a string. When I arrived, there were already about thirty women there, mainly American and British, a few other accents thrown into the mix, a Hungarian woman, two Norwegians. Sodas and cookies were laid out. A woman at a separate table was selling native crafts. Women were milling around, eating cookies, chatting and looking at the crafts. The street was far below, the air up here silent. You could see in the distance beyond the edge of the city a slice of quivering brown water, the celebrated river view.

  I had arrived a bit late and looked for Isolde, but couldn’t immediately identify her. Shortly afterward, the meeting began. I took a seat along with everyone else.

  An Indian woman, Jannat, was in charge. She stood in the front, had a monotone voice. “First of all,” she said, pointing to the crafts table, “everyone has to go and look at Sofia’s beautiful scarves. I arrived ten minutes ago and I already bought two. Okay, let’s turn to the business of the day. Louanne has very generously compiled for all of us a list of recommended maids, with addresses and phone numbers and previous employers. I really think we should give her a round of applause. She put a lot of work into it.” Applause. “Another matter was the question of bringing natives to these meetings. Some people have said they’re not comfortable with that. Louise, do you want to say what you think?”

  Louise stood up. She was American, wearing pleated khakis. “I think it really defeats the point,” she said. “What we want is a place where we feel safe to say what we want without hurting anyone else’s feelings. There’s support here and understanding. We want to feel that we’re not alone. Above all, we want to be able to complain. If there are Argentines in the room, we don’t feel comfortable doing that. I think we should make a very firm policy. See your Argentine friends somewhere else.”

  Jannat looked out at the room. “Do people agree?”

  A discussion ensued. Another woman, Mary, broke through. “I wanted to propose a subgroup among us. I’m married to an Argentine, as many of us are. I think this means that a lot of us have certain problems and concerns that it would be very helpful if we could get together and discuss. Like, I don’t know, what it’s like to be married to an Argentine!”

  Laughs.

  “I thought we could meet for dinner once a month,” Mary said. “And pick American places, or at least American food, for a treat. Like T.G.I. Friday’s.”

  Another woman stood up. “I’m Liv.”

  “We know you, Liv!” Liv, it turned out, was the group’s Swedish chiropractor.

  “Mary and I discussed this before and I think it’s a great idea. The problems I have with Carlos aren’t problems I can discuss with Argentine women. No matter what I say he acts like he’s a Paraguayan refugee, and I’m the privileged one. But it’s not true. It’s the other way around. He grew up with maids. But why do I always act like he’s right?”

  “It’s our politically correct guilt!” Mary said.

  “That’s right,” Liv said. “That’s what we decided. It’s the Third World–First World dynamic.”

  “Hey, instead of feeling guilty, why don’t we just say to them, ‘Look who’s on top here, look who’s running the world’?” Mary suggested.

  Laughs.

  A Wednesday-night dinner was agreed upon for those married to or living with Argentines.

  “I’d like to introduce myself,” a very different voice said, deep and rippling, with an Austrian accent. I turned and looked behind me. It had to be Isolde. It was that same voice. I saw now that she was a woman whose look had been thought to perfection, smooth, blond, rich-looking, a kind of Belle du Jour, only she was sturdier. Her plumpness, the one glitch to her perfection, pointing to a fragility, made her somewhat touching. “I’m Isolde. I’m from Austria. I’m very happy to meet you all.”

  “Hi, Isolde!”

  “I’m working on a project that I wanted to share with you. I think we all have a great opportunity here, to make links or—how would you say?—ties, between Argentina and the rest of the world, and I believe that one of the most effective ways to do it is through the arts.” She seemed slightly nervous, which made her arresting voice vibrate even further. “A lot of Argentine artwork never leaves this country. What I would like to propose is a small foundation to make these links, connect these people. I have some connections in the Austrian art world. I’m sure you all have some too in your native countries. The big art fair here in the spring is a great occasion because what’s interesting, of course, is the exchange, artists from abroad showing here and Argentine artists finding an audience abroad. Do any of you know Florencia Lacarra? No? Well, I recently went to a show of hers. Now she’s a very talented Argentine artist. I’m sure she’d find representation in Austria, if only that link were made. The truth is I actually don’t remember ever seeing an exhibition by an Argentine artist when I was in Austria, and I went to plenty of exhibitions. Now this is shameful. Wouldn’t you agree?” There was silence and a few murmurs of surprised assent. Isolde, with her looks and accent, if not the content of her speech, was unmistakably making an impression.

  I found her afterward at the snacks table and introduced myself.

  “There you are,” she said. “Helloooo.”

  We were quickly interrupted by several of the women who had been impressed with Isolde’s speech. Flushed with her performance, Isolde was gracious and kind.

  “But the truth is I can’t imagine any of these women throwing soirées for artists from abroad,” she said under her breath, pulling me aside. Even as she talked, I could tell that she was assessing my clothes, which had seemed fine when I’d left my apartment earlier but now, compared to hers, looked rumpled and mismatched. Her own look was the opposite, everything pressed, fresh, clean, with touches of both milkmaid and matron. “Don’t you see? They could never give a glamorous cocktail party in their lives, never really glamorous. They wouldn’t know what to wear, who to invite.” We were standing by the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out. “How I would die to have an apartment like this.” She turned to me with her generous schoolgirl smile. “I’d give wonderful parties, wouldn’t you?”

  In the elevator downward, she was still in a buoyant mood. “We’re going to get coffee, right? But first come with me for a second. I want to show you my new cards.” Stepping outside, she led me to a copy shop down a side street. Her cards were ready. “See,” she said. The card was cream-colored with italic script: “Concierge international artistique.”

  There’s a pretty place with a garden right this way,” Isolde said, leading me to the Museum of Decorative Arts. We sat down outside at small iron tables under the tipa trees.

  “So how long have you been here?” I asked.

  “Four months in this part of the world. My friend Sabina and I went to Uruguay for the summer season. Then, at the end of February, we came here. She went back after a few weeks. But I stayed on.”

  “And you like it here?”

  “Oh, yes, there’s wonderful culture.” She leaned nearer, and spoke behind one hand. “And everything’s so cheap. I actually have tickets to a concert at the opera house tonight. Do you want to come?”

  “Oh, I ... can’t tonight,” I said. I didn’t have anything else to do, but that seemed like a long day to spend with someone I’d just met. “I’d love to another time.

  “Have you met nice people?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes, wonderful people.” She gazed off distractedly.

  But Isolde’s show of reserve was only momentary. A few more questions and the whole of her story came tumbling out. Although I wasn’t yet aware of it that afternoon, I was soon to find myself in the role of her primary confidante.

  I solde, thirty-five, was from a small Austrian village. The men in her family were veterinarians with modest but dependabl
e veterinarian incomes. She had a sister. I imagined from what she told me that the girls were lovely, strong, on the side of being big-boned. They were sporty and always known to be among the prettiest in their classes at the village school.

  It was the elder sister who from a golden girl turned one day into a dark figure. Her parents had had great plans for her—she was to be the first woman in the family to go to college—but then things didn’t work out as they’d hoped. The sister botched her college entrance interviews. Her male admirers were soon turned away by her aggressive habits. It was said that she had a mental disease. She stayed at home, locked in her room, only coming out at mealtimes to tyrannize the family. She had a child with a man, who then ran off. She brought the child to live with her in the house, another golden girl, but whose life was shadowed from the start by her troubled mother with whom she shared a room.

  Isolde was apparently a simpler character, lovely but not so lovely as her sister, without such a feeling of entitlement, the good-natured one, innocent, hopeful, someone to whom life happened, one thing led to the next, with minimal forethought on her part. She was in a sense the face of the family. Though utterly inexperienced, she would step out and represent them in the world. This was, at least, how her parents seemed to feel, now that their dream daughter had failed them. Obediently, Isolde took on this role, going to college in Salzburg, studying commerce, getting a job in a bank. None of these things did she do particularly well, even by her own estimation, but she did them. In college, she fell in with a different sort of crowd, people with more money. She already had this glamour girl look, which, more instinctively than through calculation, she began to cultivate, copying other girls’ clothes and hairstyles, mannerisms and accents. She spent a lot of time on the clothes question, looking at magazines, browsing through stores. A natural gift plus a great deal of dedicated time soon meant that she surpassed the other girls, more born to that world, with a tasteful, glamorous style that all of them envied. Then too, working in a bank and having her own money kept her steadfast in this path.

  The one surprising thing she’d done was to suddenly one day quit her job at the bank.

  Her parents were dismayed but, for the first time in her life, Isolde didn’t care. She had saved some money and set out to travel. Her first stop, as she’d told me, had been Uruguay, a destination for a certain category of Europeans at that time of year, the southern summer, and then Argentina a month or so later where, seduced by the reception she received, she stayed on. “It’s different, isn’t it?” she said. “The way you’re treated here is different.” She laughed. “Like royalty or something.” In Austria, she’d been nothing particular, an Austrian among Austrians, blonde among blondes. She’d even dyed her hair darker in school in the hopes of distinguishing herself. But here she felt revered. Why? Simply for being European, already she was placed in a higher echelon.

  Her first encounters in Argentina were lucky ones, or so she thought at the time. The initial connection was made through her landlady to a guy, now in his fifties, whom the woman’s daughter used to date. The guy had a right-wing TV talk show, one of the most popular in the country. Isolde didn’t entirely grasp the heavily right-wing connotations of his commentary, nor would she have particularly cared, but the guy was famous. He invited her to barbecues at his country house. She was let in on the secret of that crowd. The famous right-wing talk-show host, always seen publicly in the company of a famous actress, and not least known for his misogynist jokes, was actually gay. He had a young beautiful lover the age of his own son. The two boys lived in his house, shared meals with him, each had a room with a DVD player and powerful speakers. Isolde felt one of the elect to be privy to this secret. She tried to relish in her rapid, unpredictable insider status. But the truth was that, when she was among these people, in this walled-in property outside the city, eating the famous Argentine barbecue, nothing touched her soul. She soon realized that it was a false piste. Where she wanted to be was with the cocktail crowd.

  She backtracked, refused some of the country invitations. Though she’d started a flirt with the talk-show host’s son, she dropped this too. There was a whole cocktail circuit. Isolde spent many lonely nights, knowing there was a cocktail party somewhere and not having anyone to go with or not being sure that she could get in. Sometimes she got dressed up and went anyway. She could almost always get in with her face and clothes alone. All the same, she would feel terribly exposed as she stepped out of the cab and up to the door. When no cocktail event was materializing, she went to modern dance performances or concerts. Everything, as she’d mentioned, was so cheap.

  She soon met a French girl her age who was secretive and would sometimes tell her where an event was and sometimes not. The French girl had her own agenda, to be the most sought-after foreigner in Buenos Aires. Though the French card among Argentines could never really fail—the model for the upper-class Argentine woman is French, for the Argentine man, British—Isolde, with her goldenness, was competition.

  In the cocktail set, circulating is key. On the other hand, given this very fact, the eloquence of absence cannot be overlooked. Isolde was not so good with the eloquence of absence. She had no patience with being alone. She was savvy enough to know it should be tried. She would try it and couldn’t bear it, would dress hastily and go out. The French girl, Isolde’s nemesis, was much more savvy. She could abstain. Evening upon evening would go by and she wouldn’t appear. The thirst for her would grow, more and more eyes trained on the door. Isolde would see the longing eyes. She noticed these things. She’d vow to herself next time to abstain, but the next time would come around and she would be there.

  Moreover, Isolde was healthily lusty. Within the upper-class circuit was a skein of brothers and cousins. While at the college she’d gone to, sleeping with one or another person was considered quite normal, she had no idea how small this world was. One night, after plenty of champagne, she slept with a guy after a party. Immediately, the word got out. It was actually the other brother she’d been interested in, Lucio, but now he backed away. Or rather, he still let her approach him, but now had a little smirk on his face whenever her name was discussed. She soon understood that she had tarnished herself. She’d lived in Austria and London, had traveled throughout Europe. Yet it didn’t matter. She was in this small circle now. It was like an insect trap, sticky. You put your foot somewhere and the move was irremediable. It was stuck there for all to see. Still, no matter what, the Austrian card was strong.

  Isolde imagined herself working as cultural attaché, in the embassies, hosting parties. Or in charge of a charity group for children. The funds would be raised at cocktail parties. Most appealing was this idea of being ambassador to the European art world, all the more so as her conception of it remained so vague. Only later would I learn what her actual situation was that, running low on money and without a job, Isolde had taken to asking discreetly at cocktail parties if anyone knew of any work she could do, to the delight of a certain bevy of snickering Argentines.

  Walking home afterward, I thought about Isolde, cutting her path here, as I was cutting mine. I remembered what I’d learned at the botanist’s about invasive plants. Once in a foreign environment, some species simply shrivel and die. There’s too much moisture or too little. The seed can’t get a grip in the ground. Others, however, due to the lack of the delicate balance of natural controls, suddenly grow rampant or metamorphose, a calyx, for example, hypertrophying. The foreign air, the soil, touches something in them. A part of their character, maybe dormant before, is suddenly pricked to life.

  six

  The e-mail I’d been waiting for from Leonarda arrived. “Hey, I’m on lab duty today. Searching for the virtual equivalent of the Ebola virus. You wanna come by and pick me up @ five?” She left an address. I didn’t have the slightest idea what she was talking about, but I was definitely going.

  It was in a neighborhood I’d never been to, Boedo. The streets looked disheveled. The eucalyptus
were in a state of constant dishevelment, tumbling down, falling over themselves. Imported trees, they weren’t even from here originally. The smell, depending on atmospheric conditions in your head, could be bracing, soothing, intoxicating. I tore off a bunch of leaves, crushed and smelled them as I walked.

  Following the street numbers, I soon located a white door. There were three buzzers. How to know? I pressed the second one down, then the third right after that. But before anyone had time to respond, the door opened and a lithe young man slipped out, letting me enter behind him.

  The yard inside was muddy with sprouts of grass. Wooden boards had been laid out to step on. On the far side was a low structure like a garage but longer, with a wall of windowpanes. I followed the wooden boards to the structure’s door, which was ajar. A short hallway led to the main room. The room gave an impression of glass. Besides the windows, glass shards were piled up against the wall. Something big had broken. Everywhere people crouched over computers, some old, some new, a few with their backs open. A printer had been taken apart. There were cords everywhere.

  At first I didn’t see Leonarda. Then I did. She too was crouched low over a computer, with her baseball hat and glasses on, fully concentrated.

  Only when I got very near did she look up. “Hey, you came!” she said.

  “Yeah,” I said, as if there might have been some question. I looked around. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s that group, Mercury. They do experiments. Everyone’s given a task. Or you can propose things. I proposed taking the Ebola virus and making it virtual. It’s been something I’ve wanted to try for a while. Here, this is Facundo. He’s developing a new form of digital animation.”