his back. Iris indifferently monitors her husband’s convalescence during her afternoon visits. The rest of the day the patient remains alone. Anatol chats to the nurses – one of them talks about trivial things: how he prepares his morning mate – and he observes how the room changes with the passing hours. At night clonazepam puts him to sleep, but he has a recurring dream he can’t get out of his mind. It is an image: a man dressed in the style of the 1950s, who is at once himself and another, is stroking an enormous cat in a public place. The third time he has this dream he realises they are in a café on Brazil Street. The clarity of the image surprises him. It all ends the morning he is discharged. The insistent dream vanishes, together with the blessing of easy sleep. Anatol makes an effort to get back to normal but when he imagines his daily life he feels moved to tears. He feels like he doesn’t have the strength to go on.
Anatol resumes normal activity bit by bit. For breakfast he has fruit, orange juice, something sweet. For lunch, well-done veal. He avoids staying up late and being out in the cold. He returns to work and his chats with von Hefty, who has become a man of few words, almost abrupt, perhaps because he feels guilty about his friend’s accident.
It’s Wednesday afternoon and Anatol gets a call from his wife. She suggests they do something fun: a weekend trip to the coast. She says it’s just what they need, there’s no better cure than being by the sea. Anatol can’t really face the journey but he hopes it will ease the bitterness he feels. Since the accident, he notices that reality has become distorted. Things seem flimsier. The world is now light, airy. It can disappear, alter its state or form.
Iris has taken the car, a white Kia, to the garage for a service. She has packed two small bags and bought a fruit loaf for the journey. It’s Friday, six in the morning. They drive south down Junín Street. Anatol is at the wheel. He is freshly shaven; he smells of 212 by Carolina Herrera. He takes pleasure in his wife’s deep voice, the tactility of the steering wheel and the intimacy of the car interior. The city is deserted. A cool breeze shakes the tree branches and drags the fallen leaves towards the storm drains. A bus moves along Córdoba Avenue. It seems to be alone, abandoned; a column of black smoke rises from the exhaust. Further ahead a pack of dogs sniff the rubbish bins; a few metres away, on the same block, a caretaker rolls up an endless hose. Sounds are muffled and infrequent.
The Kia is a soundproof capsule. It glides along, barely touching the ground, taking on an existence of its own. On the corner of Corrientes it stops at a traffic light. A nondescript man with a bag over his shoulder crosses the road. He is looking down at the ground. He is on his way to or from work. As he steps onto the pavement, the traffic light turns green. The car starts moving.
Everything flows: the city blocks rush by with a pleasant sense of vertigo. The perfect excuse to get lost in details, a silent stage-set, the ideal context for thinking about something else. Anatol and his wife are overcome by an unaccustomed sense of peace. They enter a limbo of calm. Their habitual decorum loosens. It’s been years since they’ve felt like this, so relaxed. This is why when they cross Rivadavia Avenue and a poorly-executed manoeuvre – a lane change, a distraction, a mistake – puts them in danger, the shock makes their blood run cold. Iris doesn’t understand what is happening; Anatol even less so. He grips the steering wheel, his eyes wide open. He assumes he’s done nothing wrong so is surprised, and immediately enraged, when he hears someone insulting him from a VW estate. It’s a young man, under forty. He’s travelling with a heavily made-up, loud-mouthed woman. Anatol’s fuse is short: he returns the aggression. Now they’re both raring to go. They lower their windows. They make threatening gestures. They wave their fists in the air. They scream at the top of their lungs. The street is a wasteland, which only multiplies the absurdity of the situation. All of a sudden, the other driver reaches boiling point. He swerves violently and blocks the Kia’s path. Anatol could reverse, put the car into first gear and continue on his way – after all he is still in convalescence – but he doesn’t react. He sits and waits for the guy to get out of his car. He watches him walk towards the Kia. He thinks he recognises the other driver. He realises he’s the spitting image of one of the nurses in the hospital. Anatol inhales deeply through his nose. His rival is stocky, square-built, with a face like a spade. He sways from side to side in an exaggerated fashion, as if he were drunk, and this exaggeration is a savage form of mockery. He is inviting Anatol to fight. For a few seconds the world stands still; yet this is not the paralysis of indecision nor the good sense of fear. The moment has come. Anatol glances sideways at his wife. He opens the car door and, as his foot searches for the ground, it dawns on him that the battle he is about to fight is as necessary as it is senseless.
Correspondence
What can be seen in the blink of an eye
if not the fleeting nature of sight?
Alberto Szpunberg
When I first came to Buenos Aires, Zulema, the woman who brought me up, wouldn’t hear anything about me living alone. ‘You’re so absent-minded, they’d eat you alive in two weeks,’ she said in her husky voice. When I think about her, the same image always comes to mind. I see her in the half-light of the kitchen. She’s standing, straight as a rod. Her eyes are two bugs. She hardly blinks. Her lips are slightly parted. In her right hand is a fly swatter; a cloth hangs from her left. She waits. She knows the fly’s flight range is limited. When it comes to a standstill, she’ll deliver the blow. She’ll immediately wipe away any traces. That’s the idea. Such a mission requires the greatest care, all her attention. That’s Zulema, with her glass of orange liqueur, her herbal tea, her lacquered hairstyle, her determination, which is like saying her strategies for survival. They deserve respect. The survival strategies, I mean. You’ve got to be on the ball. I’m sure she’s just the same today.
*
I live with my uncle Mundo and his ten-year-old daughter on the sixth floor of a building on Carlos Calvo Street. Let me explain: I had only ever seen my uncle and Angela, his daughter, in photos before coming here. Back in the village there was a lot of talk about them, particularly him: about his divorce, how brave he was to have taken responsibility for the child, and his prestigious job as a cardiologist at the Hospital Italiano.
The first time I saw him I was struck dumb. He was only slightly taller than I was. I had imagined him to be huge: in the photos he looked like a giant. There is one photo I remember in particular: Mundo is descending a staircase – I found out later that this was in the Hospital de Clínicas – with a colleague. It was a bright, sunny day. Both were wearing medical scrubs. The photographer was standing at the foot of the stairs, on the pavement. It looked like a natural shot. They were deep in conversation, pretending the camera wasn’t there. Mundo was trying to look assertive, powerful. His hands were frozen in a gesture that encapsulated his entire surroundings: the city, the people, the traffic, the traffic lights. I thought a guy like that couldn’t be less than six foot tall. These were assumptions I’d made at home in the village, the fantasies of a child. We met. He said to me: ‘Hello, Mariela.’ I opened my mouth but nothing came out. He repeated: ‘Hello, Mariela.’ I rubbed my hands and said: ‘But we’re the same height’. I have no idea why I said that. I heard myself say the words as if someone else had spoken for me. Then we fell silent. We looked at each other. I was waiting for a rebuke; he, I suppose, for an explanation.
*
Angela and I got on instantly. She was fascinated by me. I had just turned twenty: I took the role of older sister. She’d stroke my arms, sniff my clothes, stick her fingers into my pots of Hinds cream. Whenever we could we’d hang out and gossip. Saturday afternoons were our favourite time. She’d come to my room (which was the smallest, at the end of the corridor) with her brushes and combs. She’d spend hours doing my hair, telling me her secrets. And I would let her. I listened to her life in miniature and I sensed, I don’t know why, that she was in danger. Poor little thing. I envisaged her in the middle of a suspension bridge hanging over an abyss. Frozen with fear at the drop
