The Foreigners

by Maxine Swann

  “This is where I feel like I can really help her,” Isolde told me. “I can make her whole life smoother in a way she can’t imagine. Soon, I’ll become indispensable to her.”

  After our lunch, Isolde went back to the office. It was Monday, Alicia was in San Pablo, returning that afternoon in time for a board meeting in her office. But, as usual, Alicia was late. Luckily, Isolde was there to greet the board members as they came in. Nearly everyone in the room was much older than Isolde. But they were gracious and seemed interested in Alicia’s new protégé. They asked her questions about herself. She amped up her professional biography somewhat, not of the things she’d done here—they would surely know—but on the Austrian side. She alluded to contacts in the European art world. This was the first important meeting she’d been asked to attend and already it was going so well. At one point, everyone in the room seemed to be listening to her. Jokes were made about her youth and beauty. She felt celebrated. But when Alicia arrived, Isolde could tell right away that something was wrong. After the board meeting, Alicia asked Isolde to come into her office and told her that she was letting her go. Isolde was so shocked, she blurted out the first thing that came into her mind.

  “But you can’t. You need me!”

  “I’m sorry,” Alicia said. “I think the chemistry’s wrong.”

  “What chemistry? You haven’t even given me a chance.”

  Now Alicia just looked at her, an unswerving gaze.

  Isolde turned away and burst into tears.

  She didn’t even remember leaving Alicia’s. Only later that night, alone in her apartment, did it occur to her that she hadn’t been paid for the week she’d worked. Now that was really an injustice. She had to be paid. She determined to show up the next day and insist on getting the money that was her due.

  The morning of the following day, Isolde rang Alicia’s bell. The maid answered over the intercom. There were several maids. This one, Belén, seemed very young, just a girl, Isolde had thought, until she’d learned one day that Belén had five children.

  Ten minutes passed before Belén opened the front door of the building. But instead of letting Isolde come up as usual, she asked, clearly following orders, “How can I help you, Señora?”

  “I’ve come for my salary,” Isolde said.

  Belén looked at her nervously. “Please wait,” she said.

  Isolde stepped inside to wait. It was humiliating, but she insisted on getting the money she deserved. There was not exactly a lobby, just a marble table with white-and-maroon swirls, a large mirror above it and a chair on either side. The chairs were purely decorative. They both faced out toward the door, not toward one another across the table. Clearly, no one was actually meant to sit here. All the furniture seemed to be sneering, whispering things like, You’re not supposed to be here, You’re not welcome, Anyone who enters will know you’ve been rejected.

  A middle-aged man did enter, glancing at Isolde as he walked by. He turned back as he was nearing the elevators. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “No, no, thank you. I’m waiting for my friend.”

  After ten minutes, Belén reappeared.“Señora says she can’t help you. Last week was a trial.”

  Isolde turned red. Here she was humiliated in front of the maid. “I won’t leave unless I’m paid,” she said.

  “I’ll be right back, Miss Isolde,” Belén said.

  Belén went back up and came down again. “You can come up and wait in the kitchen. Señora’s in a meeting.”

  Isolde went upstairs. She sat with Belén in the kitchen. Belén was busily making empanadas. Alicia was obviously trying to humiliate her. Isolde felt many things, but overriding them all was the brute conviction, No matter what, I won’t leave until I’m paid.

  She waited twenty minutes, a half hour. She heard Alicia laughing in the other room, then, finally, someone leaving. Next Alicia took a call. After that, she rang the bell for Belén. Belén went to her. Another ten minutes passed. Belén returned to the kitchen and handed Isolde some bills. It was the weekly salary they had agreed upon. Isolde put the precious bills in her wallet.

  “I’ll go down with you,” Belén said, as if afraid that Isolde would insist on seeing the Señora.Again, Isolde flushed red. She could find nothing to say. Belén of course knew everything, but what did she think? Her expression didn’t betray a thing beyond nervousness. They went down in the elevator together. She must feel something, Isolde thought. She could imagine Belén telling the story to her friends, all of them putting their hands over their mouths, laughing. But she couldn’t think about that. She’d got the money. It wasn’t much, but she had to do what she could to make it last.

  Alicia’s building was walking distance from Isolde’s house. At home, Claudia was making lunch. Isolde was glad to see her, to see someone. She was like this. When she felt badly, she wanted to be with people. She sat down at the table to wait until the lunch was ready.

  “How’s your father?” she asked Claudia.

  “He’s better,” Claudia said. “He doesn’t much like to take care of himself though. I said you have to stop drinking. He’s drinking again. Poor guy. But what else is he going to do? His wife dead and children all gone.”

  She talked in her usual meandering way, her voice fading in and out. This time Isolde didn’t mind. But she couldn’t help interrupting.

  “You’re married, right?”

  “Yes. It’s been two years.”

  “That’s not so long.”

  “No.”

  “How old are you?” Isolde had imagined that, like Belén, all maids married young.

  “Forty. When I was thirty-eight, I decided I wanted to have a baby. I had boyf riends, but boyfriends are no good. I needed to find a victim.”

  She had mumbled this last word. “A what?”

  “A victim. I started looking around. Soon after that, I found him. He was the doorman in the building down the block. I started walking by there every day. I knew someone who knew him, another doorman, so I asked him to introduce us. From then on, whenever I walked by, we’d talk. One day, he asked me out.”

  Isolde laughed. “And he’s your husband now?”

  Claudia nodded, giggled.

  “And is that okay?”

  “He’s a good husband. I knew he would be.” She shrugged, went on working.

  Isolde began eating her lunch. She felt suddenly uncomfortable in the presence of someone so sly whom she’d never imagined was sly at all.

  There was a silence.

  “The problem with you is that you trust too much,” Claudia ventured.

  Now Isolde really felt put out and she made it clear. “How do you know? Who do you know that I’ve ever trusted?”

  Claudia shrugged, mumbled something.

  Isolde went on eating. She felt furious on the one hand at Claudia’s impudence, on the other, curious. What else did she know?

  Claudia finished washing the dishes and started mopping the floor. Isolde eyed her.

  “How did you know your husband was a victim?”

  Claudia looked up. “You could see it in his face. Just look carefully. You can always tell.”

  Again Isolde bristled that Claudia would presume she needed this advice.

  After lunch, Isolde went into the living room to do some calculations. She had to make her money last. How should she spend it? She counted the money she had along with the bills she’d just picked up. Her heart sank. Together it was so little.

  Okay, calm down, she told herself. First things first. Beauty treatments were at the top of the list. The big art fair in Buenos Aires was opening that night. She had imagined going with Alicia. Now that wasn’t possible, but she still had to go. She needed a wax and to do her nails. She stepped into the bathroom to review what she had, everything to do her nails, but she needed a new waxing kit.

  She went down to the pharmacy on the corner. As she perused the aisles, hovering just below her—she tried not to lower her eyes—was a round
dark pool of undulating water. She had been imagining that with this job her money woes were over. But how was she going to make money now? A thought occurred to her. She could even—she felt a sickening leap in her throat—get work in a beauty parlor, if all else failed. At least these were things she knew how to do. The undulating pool caught the light, widened. No, no, look away. She looked up, looked around. Was there no one? No one to help her, save her?

  She returned to the apartment and went straight to work. Activity. Always the best thing in these moments. She had four things to do: her fingernails and toenails, the waxing of her legs and bikini line. Did she really need to wax her bikini line? Her legs, yes, of course. They would be bare. She was wearing the green-and-white-patterned skirt and the gold-and-silver sandals. Her feet were therefore crucial too. But was the bikini line necessary? Was someone really going to see her naked tonight? She sat back to think. What if she met one of those financial types who collected art? They had drinks and he wanted to take her home. She should say no, of course, hold on to her mystery. That’s what the French girl would do. Maybe if Isolde simply didn’t wax, that would force her to do what she knew she should do, not go home with anyone. But she couldn’t trust herself. She knew what would end up happening. She would go home with the guy and, just to make it worse, would be all bristly. No, no matter what, she had to wax.

  She tackled her toenails, removing the old polish, cutting back the cuticles. It was true. The activity did her good. She began to feel more hopeful. If she played it right, she might even find a new job tonight by schmoozing with the right people. She pictured herself entering the cocktail party—it was being held in La Rurale where, in the winter months, the big farm show was. The past year, in this very same space now filled with contemporary art, she’d walked through with Melody gazing at heifers, giant pigs. She pictured herself, smooth, seductive, exotic to her audience—she was aware of her charms. But everything had to look just right.

  She stood up abruptly and looked in the mirror at her hair. Was it still okay? The roots were showing. They’d been showing slightly for a while, but now, in the warp of the mirror, they suddenly seemed to be showing much more. Or else her hair had had a growth spurt overnight. Her heart beat faster. She couldn’t go to the party with her roots grown in like this. This was the moment she’d been dreading. If she couldn’t color her hair anymore professionally, it was the beginning of the end. She’d determined to save all her money for this, even forgoing eating out. She was chubby anyway, she’d reasoned. But she’d also been counting on having a salary by now. She stopped what she was doing and went back to count her money. Doing her hair today would cost half of what she had. She could do it on a gamble, hoping to get a job tonight, but that was really crazy. She’d worked long enough in a bank to know.

  The only other option was a home color treatment, but they made you look cheap, your hair all one color, uniformly. The way she had it done at the beauty parlor was strand by strand, highlights and lowlights. The result looked elegant. She examined her hair again. There was no question, it had to be done.

  She went back down to the pharmacy. Standing outside it was a palo borracho tree covered with floppy pink blossoms. Since she’d been here earlier today, they’d started cutting it down. One man was up in the tree working with a chain saw, while the other directed from below. Already a number of branches, chopped up in large segments, were waiting on the sidewalk to be hauled away. Isolde entered the pharmacy, a condemned woman, she felt. She went to the aisle featuring hair products. She knew exactly where it was. The dyes were on the bottom. She had to squat down. Even the pictures on the outside of the boxes were horrible, the women’s hair looked tinny. Was there really no other way? She thought again of selling off her jewelry.

  But she’d already tried this. She’d taken her jewelry to several jewelry stores in her neighborhood, the idea being to sell a piece or two. But apart from one place on Quintana that bought a pair of earrings, no one else had been interested. She next tried the antiques shops in San Telmo. The prices they offered were ridiculous, of no use. So she’d kept her jewels and come back home. What was she anyway without her jewelry and clothes?

  She brought the hair dye up to the counter, hoping to realize the transaction as quickly as possible, so as not to be seen by anyone she knew. Then she hurried home.

  In the meantime, Claudia had gone out. Isolde was now alone. She closed herself in the bathroom and took out the dye. For a moment, despite herself, her interest was piqued, as with any beauty treatment. She had an interest in the mechanics of beauty, originating, no doubt, in her particular case, with her own beauty, but going beyond it. She read the instructions, looked up again at her hair. The next time she looked she’d be a crass, tinny blonde. From that point onward, she pictured her downward slide. She’d receive fewer and fewer invitations and finally only be invited to second-rung parties. More and more people, rather than turning to her as she entered a room, like flowers to the sunlight, as it seemed they sometimes did, would see her and turn the opposite way. Fewer men would want her on their arms. She pictured herself walking the streets, no one having offered her a ride and no longer having money for a taxi home. Then, again, what seemed to be the culminating shame, the job in the beauty parlor, kneeling down picking over someone’s gnarly toes.

  She shuddered. Surely it wouldn’t come to that. She’d much rather slink home to her parents’ house and wait it out there in her old bedroom. But an image crossed her mind of her crazy sister, doing just that. Then they’d really be a pair. Besides which, how could she ever afford the ticket home? Even that would be a problem. She’d have to work to buy a ticket so she could slink home.

  Closed in the bathroom, the box of hair dye in her hand, she felt very afraid. In a moment, with a gesture, she would lose all her status. There was always the last option. Letting her hair grow out to its natural color. But that was impossible. The whole point was to be a blonde in this place. Everything depended on that. Again, like a torture, the image of herself working in a beauty parlor flashed into her head. She felt she couldn’t breathe. She stepped out of the bathroom, put her hand to her chest, walked across the room. A set of French doors opened onto a balcony that looked down on the street below. Without willing it, another image entered Isolde’s mind. She pictured throwing herself off that balcony, landing, dismembered, like the palo borracho branches, on the street below. She backed away from the French doors, gripping on to a chair.

  At that moment, her cell phone rang. It rang once, twice, three times, unusual for her, since she usually answered right away. She stood reeling in the living room, holding on to the chair. Finally, she gathered herself enough to find her bag, tossed down earlier on the couch, reached inside and picked up her phone.

  “Hello?” she said.

  A man’s voice answered. “Isolde, it’s Enrique.”

  She scanned the men in her mind. Enrique? “Yes?” she said.

  “I’m on the board of the Arts for Children committee. Do you remember, we exchanged a word the other day at the board meeting at Alicia’s?”

  She had a vague sense of who it might be, an older man with smooth white hair. He had asked her a few questions about her town in Austria. She had been vague, as she didn’t like to reveal much about her past. But there had been a number of older men there. Maybe it was a different one.

  “Hello, are you there?”

  “Yes, yes,” she said.

  “Pardon me for calling your cell phone like this. It’s the only number I was able to obtain for you. I’d be delighted if you’d accompany me to the art fair tonight.”

  She couldn’t discern his motive. But she must do it, she told herself—pretending she was reluctant, though of course she wasn’t—if it had anything to do with finding a job.

  “Oh, well, yes, that would be fine.”

  “May I pick you up?”

  She gave him her address, hung up. The apartment rippled before her eyes, as if consumed in ha
ze, then righted itself.

  Okay, good, she had an escort. Now what to do about her hair? She looked in the mirror again. She knew. She’d wear a headband, a wide black cloth one framing her face, covering the roots. It gave her an elegant, wealthy look. Yes, that was the answer, at least for now. She wouldn’t dye her hair today.

  twenty-three

  I really needed a haircut and a wax. I also wanted to hear how Vera was doing. I got on that same bus I’d taken before, meandering through the city, a long woozy ride. We passed through the medical zone, an area full of hospitals and research centers. We passed the National Institute of Microbiology. Gabriel had told me about this place, a monumental building in the neoclassic style, designed by immigrant Italians. Inside were large quantities of snakes in crystal cages. They were brought in on the railroads—a big railroad station was nearby—so as to extract the venom needed to make vaccines. “Venom, like blood, can’t be reproduced artificially,” Gabriel said. He remembered vividly going there as a child. His friend’s uncle, an employee, took the snakes out of the cages so they could touch them. “They were so cold,” Gabriel said. In neighboring cages were the furry animals, rats and rabbits, reserved for the snakes’ meals.

  I got off the bus, pausing on the bridge as I walked over. It was near the end of the day. The light was hazy and warm and seemed to contain spores rising and falling. Or else it was pollution, I couldn’t tell.

  Vera was speaking in Belarusian to another woman when I arrived. I waved and sat down in the waiting area, flipping through the magazine Gente until Vera called me. She explained that the other woman was her friend and always did her waxing here.

  “Her boyfriend’s Muslim. He treats her really nice. She always takes all the hair off down there. She said that’s what most Muslims do.”