by Maxine Swann
She was letting the images bloom in her brain. “Okay, but does it ever happen that a system can’t absorb a disruption?”
“Yeah, sure. When a system is functioning well, it absorbs a disruption. But when it’s close to a threshold of instability, a disruption can turn the whole thing around, like the example of the drop that overflows the glass or the revolution of a society.”
“And then what happens?”
“Two options. Either the system reconfigures itself entirely, or it ceases to exist.”
But Isolde couldn’t just go on sitting there, listening. Her impetuousness got in the way. She turned and rolled on top of him.
“Hey, wait a second,” Diego said, laughing, “shouldn’t I be on top?”
She fell to the ground again.
“Was it that exciting what I said?” he asked.
He leaned over and kissed her. It was a kiss like the one at the party with a lot of tongue. She closed her eyes—deliciousness, the whole world recedes—then opened them again, aware of the tumbling grass, the towering trees of the Plaza San Martín. He had moved downward, was lifting up her shirt. He surprised her now by putting his tongue in her belly button. The whirling world. She reached to touch him, his stomach, chest. He flinched slightly.
“I haven’t exercised in two years,” he said. “I’m out of shape. I’m going to start.”
But his body felt nice to her. They were kissing again. He pulled back for a second and looked at her. Due to the effect of the kiss, that gaze of his, dark and sheltered, had changed. She must have looked different too.
“It’s like we’re on drugs,” he said.
The cars swishing by, the stars coming out. That’s what I want, Isolde thought, for him to always look at me like that.
“Why did you kiss me at that party?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I just felt like doing it.”
He leaned in and kissed her again.
“This is the first sex I’ve had in years,” he said.
“What?”
“Yeah, really.”
“You mean this kissing?”
“Yeah. I was involved with this girl. She was there at the party. She really fucked me up.”
“Who? Leonarda?”
“Uh-huh. What you don’t want to ever do is fall in love. That’s what fucks you up. No, no, you want to stay away from that.”
thirteen
“Just imagine,” Leonarda said, “that we’re hunting him down.” We were walking again through the Plaza Las Heras. “See, he’s there, running. You remember that movie The Conformist, when they’re hunting Dominique Sanda between the trees? Oh, just picture it, there he is running, scared shitless. I take a shot, not even trying to hit him, just to scare him. But I mean really scare him. The primal fear at the heart of all human beings, reverberating back into the very deep past when they were hunted by predators, giant animals, the fear of being overtaken, killed and eaten. This was before they discovered how to build fires.”
She stopped walking to explain this last point to me.
“You see, the fires allowed them to change the dynamic. Predators were afraid of fires, so if the humans stayed near the fire, they could no longer be surprised in the night. The other idea, of course, was to form bands. They began hunting the big predators, bears, lions, in groups. A man was helpless before a large predator, but a group of ten could kill it.You see? Look at books for kids. They’re all about tapping into that fear of predators. We still have it. I want to reawaken that fear in him, awaken it to its most acute point.”
“But wait,” I said,“wasn’t he actually already involved in violent combat? Doesn’t he know something about this?”
She looked at me full of annoyance. It was as if she’d dropped her rifle right then and there. “He wasn’t involved in shit,” she said.
I had ruined the moment. I wanted to see her again like a boy, sighting him with her rifle between the trees.
In Crowds and Power, Canetti describes the four possible reactions to attack by a predator: fight, flight, paralysis—the pursued hopes to be given up as dead—and metamorphosis. In this last, the being neither flees nor fights, but transforms into something else entirely—Daphne, pursued by Zeus, turns into a tree. Leonarda’s tactic was metamorphosis. Sometimes I’d see her in the course of one of our walks transform her entire physiognomy five times. That was also what was riveting. She kept escaping out of your hands, a girl, then a furry creature, a monster, a brightly winged insect, a boy, while I would slink along beside her, the reptile she always said I was. In appearance somewhat frail, compared to me, she could walk for hours.
Those days, I felt lonely when I suspected that she was going back not to her mother’s, that witch, but to see the guy Miguel, winner of the prize. Once I even dropped her off at the corner of The Palace of Pigeons and walked on alone, up Las Heras Avenue. It changed at this point, on one side of the street a high wall, the Zoological Gardens, the beasts behind the wall—sometimes you could hear them, a bellow or breathing—no more people coming in and out of stores, just the street beside the wall, the cars swishing by, the wall casting a shadow. It was the end of happiness, the end of fun. The fun was somewhere else, with her and that guy, behind other walls. I felt as if the sense of my life had stepped away from me.
I didn’t know if they were sleeping together. I knew that they were appearing in public together, yet I also knew that appearing to be sleeping with someone was, for some, supremely more significant than actually doing it.
I’d read in a short book Brian had given me, Buenos Aires, Daily Life and Alienation, that from early on, to the recorded surprise of visitors, the Argentine aristocracy took on a highly mannered and sumptuous role only comparable to czarist or Central European aristocracy in its heyday. For many of these families, the money itself was already gone. Their lives were dedicated to obscuring this fact, well-known though it was among people who mattered. Yet the point was not, in fact, what was known, but what was revealed. Without revelation, there was no shame. Certain houses, including The Palace of Pigeons, were designated as suitable for the upper classes, even though the rents were cheap. Another bulwark against reputational ruin, even if material ruin had already occurred, was to be listed in the voluminous tomes of the Nobiliario del antiguo Virreynato del Río de la Plata.
The game, while acknowledged by everyone, functioned precisely because the truth was of very little interest to all parties, and only existed on a much lower rank of prestige than appearance. Thus, today within certain Argentine social circles, you can discover prominent couples who, after appearing in public at an art opening or theater event, then apparently go home together only to part on the sidewalk in front of one or the other’s house, complicitly acknowledging with the standard one-cheek kiss what seems but will never be, before turning and going their separate ways home.
One day, Leonarda asked me to pick her up outside the guy’s house. She came out breathless. “You know what the problem is? Without beauty, there’s nowhere to hide.”
Another day, she told me she was growing a dick. “I always wanted to be a sailor. I have an ontological dick. But now it’s really growing.”
“It is?” I asked. It was amazing how with her I always half believed.
I couldn’t help looking down at her crotch, which she covered quickly with her hands.
“No, no, it’s not ready. You have to wait,” she said. “He’s so excited about it. He wants me to stick it in him.”
She would sometimes insinuate that I should come along with her, that we should play with him together, drive him crazy that way. She would talk about his bald head, gleaming, how the orb of his bald head would confront the two “lovely orbs” of my butt. I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to go. But then at the last minute, she would flit away anyway.
Finally, one evening, the encounter occurred.
He was in the doorway, bowing, baring his teeth, rabbit-like. His brown eyes actually, surprisingly,
a bit simple. He was tall and hairy, except for on his head. You could see the hair bristling up around the neck of his shirt.
He led us inside. Everything about the apartment was wellchosen, masculine, an almost effete choice of masculine items, as if a very good female set designer had been involved. There were bookshelves along all the walls extending nearly to the ceiling. The couch and armchairs were of soft brown cow leather. The desk, in dark wood, was large and sturdy. On it were papers stacked neatly, a row of pipes. The apartment was on the first floor. Before the desk was a window that looked out onto a garden. The view was low, of the grass and the bottom part of bushes. You had to crane a bit to see the sky. The bedroom, a smaller room, was off the living room, its walls also lined with bookshelves. There was a not unpleasant smell of pipe tobacco.
Leonarda was smiling, holding my hand.
Between the leather furniture, armchairs and couches, was a very big, very bright lamp, as you would use on an operating table. I glanced at it. I pictured being placed under that lamp, me and Leonarda, unclothed.
He led us into the kitchen. He had long lower limbs, calves and forearms. He was cooking dinner for us. He was, she had told me, a great chef, among his multiple other accomplishments. On the counter was a large piece of cured ham, stretched on a spit.
“See, look at what Miguel has.” Leonarda pointed at the stuck ham. “He’s the height of sophistication.” She giggled. He looked pleased despite himself, despite even the evident mockery of the comment. “Oh, could we please each have a piece?” she asked, child-like, begging, entirely unnecessarily.
He looked at her with tolerance mixed with delight.
He took a large knife with a wooden handle, too large a knife really for the task at hand, and sawed some pieces off. He handed them to us on little napkins.
“Come,” Leonarda said to me, turning, chewing on the meat, “look at the wines.”
He had a shelf of wines. Above the cooking stove, high on the wall, was a painted portrait someone had done of him, the great man, gazing out.
They began talking now, just the two of them, sparring, while I looked on.
He turned to me. He had an apron on. “I apologize for speaking in Spanish,” he said. “My English is imprecise.”
But it wasn’t that. They spoke the same language in another sense. That was what he held forth, that they spoke the same language, made the same allusions, literary, historical. In each was perfected the Argentine will toward superiority.
Here, when they were talking, he still had a footing. I could tell, even now, he was gaining on her. He knew more, if only because he’d spent more time alive. Despite Leonarda’s bravado, he could still make her nervous. She still admired, respected him, much as she hated herself for it. Yet it was also for that that she was here. She would ask him questions without looking at him, as if he wasn’t even worthy of her glance. The more important the question, the more she’d look away or at least feign to look away. You could see that, in fact, it really was a charade; she was looking near enough to catch the movements of his form if not the focused picture.
It seemed that once again the tables had turned. Again, she was mocking him. She had read his books, though she pretended not to have. She knew all the information in them. It was important that, to the degree possible, she knew everything he knew. That he couldn’t make an allusion that she wouldn’t pick up on. Of course, this wasn’t my territory, what they were discussing, Argentine history. So what was my territory here? In short, what the hell was I doing here? The way he looked at me sometimes, it seemed he had the same question.
I suddenly felt confused, as if I’d woken up out of a dream. Why did she want me here at all? For protection? Maybe there was an element of that, but after all, she saw him often enough on her own. I suddenly felt that there was no purpose to my presence at all. I looked around, saw the open window, venue for escape. I could step right out into the garden.
Leonarda saw me looking out at the garden.
“Hey, Daddy,” she asked, “can I show Daisy the garden?”
“You aren’t allowed to at night,” he said, then seeing her exasperated teenage face, “but yes, yes, go.”
Leonarda passed by him, brushing her breasts against him, then turned. “Oops,” she laughed. One of the buttons of her shirt was open, exposing half a luminous breast.
He smiled but he was too stricken to find it actually funny.
Leonarda and I stepped out through the window, climbing up and over the sill right into the garden. There was a jasmine bush nearby that gave off a dizzying smell—we picked sprigs of it—then a round stretch of grass. We walked across the stretch of grass.
“You were perfect,” Leonarda said. “Your behavior was perfect.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, gratified to have done well on the one hand.
She shrugged. “I told him all about you. And you were just the way I described.”
“What way?” Now I was annoyed. “And why should I be acting any way for him?”
“Not for him. For me, silly.” She suddenly looked solemn. “I told him I was in love with you and that would never change.” Then, changing the subject, pulling me along by the hand,“I like to call him Daddy,” Leonarda said.
Still disgruntled, I didn’t answer.
We had come to a dark patch in the garden, along the edge, the tree above thickened with masses of coiling vines, blocking out all the light. Leonarda clutched my arm in the dark. “He could be your daddy too. We could both be his daughters. I asked him and he said that he’d adopt us.”
As my eyes adjusted, I saw on a nearby ledge a statue of a little boy, white stone. He was sitting, legs crossed, one foot broken off at the ankle.
I suddenly didn’t feel like playing anymore. “Maybe I don’t need a daddy. Maybe I even want to have a kid myself one day,” I said.
It felt absurd to say it, incongruous, and also as if I was breaking some pact.
But Leonarda, typically, rearranged everything.
“Oh, you could. He could father it. I’m sure he’d do it if I asked him.”
Suddenly, I hated the guy, pathetic as he might appear in this recent incarnation. It seemed there was no getting away from him, in which case I thought, yes, he should be punished, let’s punish him even further, as much as we can.
“Do you have sex with him?” I asked, wanting and not wanting to know. She’d told me they didn’t but I was no longer sure of anything.
Leonarda giggled. “No,” she said. “I told you. He’s dying to see me naked. It’s the only thing he wants.”
“But, I mean, are you naked? Do you take off your clothes?”
“I had an image, I had an image,” she interrupted. “We would isolate one room in a public place that would be like a cage. We’d put him in there, tied up, chained. It would be like a performance piece. You could throw things at him. He’d be howling. But he would like it too. He would agree to do it, if I asked him. The public could come by and throw things.”
She stopped and turned to me. “Can you believe what we’ve done? The Master Plan is working. It’s really working. And it’s beautiful, so beautiful.”
Two guards appeared, walking swiftly across the grass.
“Have you lost something?” the first one asked.
“Who are you?” the second one said abruptly.
“We’re friends of Miguel’s,” Leonarda said. “And yes, I have lost something.” She burst into tears. “My diamond engagement ring.” Grabbing my hand, she ran with me across the grass to the window of his apartment where, like children, we tumbled inside.
“What happened?” Miguel asked, as we clambered in. He was still at the stove.
“Oh, nothing,” Leonarda said,“those stupid guards. Okay, Daddy, we have to go. Come, come,” she said to me, again brushing her breasts against him as she passed, taking my hand and leading me out the door.
“What about dinner?” we heard him call.
But we were
already gone.
fourteen
Despite my better judgment, it seemed this hunting metaphor was going to my head. It was a September evening, spring, all the flowering trees in bloom. As there was no food in the house, I went to the grocery store. Lugging the bags home, I pictured that I was dragging an animal carcass. I suddenly felt ravenous. Had I been ravenous before? Just a block or two past the supermarket, I stopped on the sidewalk, juggling one bag in my arm, the other between my legs, and tore open the cheese package. I sunk my teeth in, then threw it, half bitten, back in the bag. Still ravenous a few blocks later, I stopped again and tore open the ham, stuffing a whole wad in my mouth.
I met Gabriel in the foyer of my building.
“Come upstairs with me,” I said.
He looked good, in his gigolo mode, tight striped T-shirt and jeans.
“I just came from the doctor,” Gabriel said, following me in down the tiled hall of my apartment.
“Really? Are you all right?”
“Yeah, just a checkup.” He smiled. “A new guy. When I arrived, he went into the bathroom and changed into a white coat. Crazy. He just wanted me to take my clothes off and get down on all fours while he examined me. That was it. A hundred pesos.”
“He did nothing?”
“No, well, I mean, he felt my balls and put his finger in my butt, but he didn’t even touch himself.”
Gabriel did a little dance step. “Hey, let’s have some wine.”
We were in the kitchen. A winged cockroach flew through. “Aah, shit!” He ducked. “You live with that shit?”
He danced around again, as I poured out the wine.
“This is what I’m learning,” Gabriel said. “The problem is that people think sex is one thing. Like you have to figure it out or something. When it’s not. It can be anything. Whatever you want it to be.
“I mean, just look at the johns. They really know what they want. There was this guy—Oh, wow, that’s right”—his face opened up—“there was this guy in my elementary school. You know what he did? He would get us to come into the bathroom. He was older, like thirteen or fourteen, we were nine or so. He’d be lying there on the ground with his arms out, palms up, and he’d get us to step on the palms of his hands with our bare feet. He had his eyes closed. Then he would pay us, three pesos.”