for Nadezda Ivanova

Back in those days the Café británico, where the novel On Heroes and Tombs was written, was one of my favorites for many reasons: there were many cats walking around very slowly, as if time was non-existent to them; sometimes one of the cats would jump on an empty chair at my table and fall asleep on it. I also liked this place because of the music playing in the background, most of the time a tango. But one main reason for liking the Tánico, as it was called, was the gathering of bibliophiles. Being a bibliophile during those days in Buenos Aires was not a very safe hobby, because the dictators’ list of banned books was growing day by day. But it was in this café where sometimes, by chance, I would find some interesting people and books.

We always feel attracted towards what is prohibited.

At the Tánico, one particular autumn day of the year 1979, while having a cup of coffee and reading The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exúpery, through well-tuned speakers permeated the sound of Piazzolla’s ‘Libertango.’ After my experience that night when I heard the cries of a tortured man filtering through the notes of this tango at the 17^th Precinct, each time I hear this piece I would begin to shiver. That day I wasn’t the only one affected by this piece: the man with his back towards me, sitting at a nearby table, also began shivering when he heard ‘Libertango’ playing. I noticed him shaking and moving uneasily in his chair while reaching for his shoulder blades with both hands to rub them, as if trying to shake off the cold running down his spine. I observed him closely, and it was clear that he felt restless. At last he stood up and began walking in my direction to suddenly come to a stop. As my eyes met his, I saw that his face turned pale.

I didn’t recognize the man, but when he spoke to say ‘what are you doing here, kid?’ a truckload of memories struck me violently. What are the chances of meeting for a second time in a city of over ten million people someone we met only once before? Slim. But chance is no longer chance once it happens, and I was looking up into the face of the police officer that set me free that dreadful night, before it was my turn to enter the interrogation chamber. The most surprising thing to me was that he remembered my face. Why? Did he remember every single one of his prisoners?

I did not answer his question. A mixture of rage and compassion overcame me and moved me to address him with petulance: ‘what is a person like you doing here? are you here as a spy? come on, tell me!’

The officer hesitated for an instant, looked around as if trying to spot a place in particular he new existed in the café, began walking and finally disappeared behind a heavy velvet curtain covering the opening of the hallway leading to the restrooms. I followed him with my eyes and I fixed my attention on the curtain to realize that though I had never noticed it before, it was clear that it had been hanging there for many years. Its once vermilion red color was now a faded pink, and its hairs that were once soft and luxurious now appeared to be displeasing to the touch, giving the place an air of cheapness. As my eyes moved from the top of the curtain down, I encountered the tips of two black shoes sticking out, motionless. A few seconds later the shoes moved and the officer came out from behind the curtain walking towards me again. ‘Forgive me, kid’ – he said shyly – ‘I always come to this café to read.’

I don’t know how I had the audacity to speak the way I did once again to a person of his type; one did not provoke a police officer during those days. Once one might be forgiven, but rarely twice. Without thinking of the consequences, and as if I were a doll responding to the ventriloquist’s will, I spoke with a severe tone of voice that did not appear to be mine. ‘How is it possible to see another human being suffer atrocities by your interrogation techniques and go home at the end of the day without feeling at least dirty?’ – I said. And this man surprised me once again: he looked at me with dreadful eyes, turned on his heels and disappeared behind the curtain for a second time, to emerge thirty seconds later or less, changed, as if he had regained his valor to answer my second question.

‘Kid’ – he said with teary and reddish eyes – ‘not one day goes by without me crying on my way home at the end of a shift; not one day goes by without me getting home and running to the shower to scrub myself under the boiling-hot water until bleeding, hoping to cleanse myself. But, kid, I am a weak man. I am weak and a coward; so much so that I don’t even have the courage to take my own life. My only hope is that someone will kill me, purposely or by accident, it doesn’t matter. Forgive me, kid.’

And with tears in his eyes I saw him disappear behind the same curtain for the last time, to never see him again in my life.

The many months following that chanced meeting, I read avidly the newspapers every morning; I don’t know why, perhaps hoping to read about the news of the death of a certain police officer from the 17^th precinct of the Federal Police. The news never reached my eyes. But, after all, the press during those days was another curtain.

At one point in time one slides through the icy lake of life, uninterrupted and more or less freely, and suddenly the ground opens up, a trapdoor appears and one is swallowed by an upside down world where everything is new and uncertain; even beautiful, in a morbid sort of way.

Buenos Aires, 1978, winter, shortly after 2 am. A bang and a broken front door. Several seconds go by before my uncle comes about his senses; enough time to turn on the bedside lamp and count 14 men of the paramilitary group Triple A around the bed holding machineguns and asking for my cousin Celeste. Five seconds later the men repeat almost in unison: “Where is Celeste?” To my uncle it seems as if one hour had passed; he replies that she is out with her boyfriend. The men do not believe my uncle’s words and he and his wife are forced out of bed; a plastic rope is placed tight about their writs, a tape on their lips, and they are led out of the bedroom and into the library.

My uncle sits on the floor, next to my aunt. They can’t move or speak. All they can do is think, and he thinks of Celeste and feels relieved that she had gone out. Otherwise, he probably would never see her again – he knows this quite well. People disappear in this country. He then thinks of his son, who is still in his room sleeping, but he doesn’t despair. He understands that there is no point in turning despondent. Life has taught him to be obedient to fate.

He finally looks at his wife in the eyes, and as through a language that only they understand, they tell each other: “let’s close our eyes and dream”.

Hours go by, and the morning light begins to filter through the venetian blinds and sets on the large marine tank; once a beautiful tank, and now with its turbid and disturbed waters and upside-down live rock, tells the story of someone searching for something within. My uncle’s eyes move slowly about the room and they see that my little cousin Federico too had been tied up next to them; unexplainably, he feels content. He continues scanning over things: cushions ripped open, books that neatly lined up in the shelves of the library are now scattered on the floor, boxes and their contents are disseminated all over the carpet, and three empty bottles of whiskey sit on the coffee table; he counts 14 glasses. He doesn’t understand how he could have slept through all of this, but he is glad he did and hopes that his wife and son did too.

Suddenly the Triple A men appear in the room and one of them says: “Tell Celeste that we’ll find her”. They take their leave. And after a couple of minutes the unmistakable smell of gas permeates the air. My uncle looks towards his wife and son and notices that they are still asleep. For the first time he is frightened, drops of sweat fall on his eyes and like a heavy curtain they begin to impair his vision, his pulse races, he thinks quickly and decides to let his body fall over to awake my aunt, but quickly too he realizes that it is better to die in the sleep and allows them to continue living in their dreams. He closes his eyes and contrary to what it is said about the dying man, his life does not flash like a movie in front of him. There is nothing in his mind, and peacefully he gives in to the smell that no longer alarms him; he begins to feel sleepy.

His state of freefalling into the other side is interrupted by the voice of one of the Triple A men who had returned. After cutting my little cousin loose he tells him: “hurry up, you have very little time left!” God only knows why didn’t this man shut off the gas himself. It would have been quicker and easier. With the same speed he entered the room he disappeared behind the thick velvet curtain that separates the library from the living room.

Federico doesn’t understand what is happening until his eyes meet his father’s; then he runs to the kitchen. When all three are free from the ropes, none of them shed a tear, nor they seem upset. They are free from the tape that sealed their lips, but they don’t utter a word.

Silently they dress and sit at the kitchen table to have breakfast. With eyes wide open and a face whiter than a white sheet of paper, Celeste walks in and joins them. She knows that questions about the state of the house are not necessary and that they are probably unwelcomed; she’s been through this with a few of her friends. She is aware that a raid had just taken place.

Every citizen of Argentina during those years had gone through this ordeal at least once, either himself or herself or with a friend or relative.

Celeste knows her father all too well, and doesn’t offer any resistance when he pushes her into the car and drives to the nearest police station. Together, in silence, they walk up to the information desk and my uncle addresses the officer in charge: “The Triple A paid us a visit last night. They were looking for my daughter; here she is. If she’s clean I’ll take her home with me, but if she isn’t she stays here with you.” Celeste’s composure is incomprehensible and almost unreal. They are led to a small room, they take their fingerprints, and their ID cards are taken away. During six hours father and daughter sit facing each other across a table. Their eyes meet; their lips don’t speak. Words have no meaning in moments like these.

They are finally released and as they drive back the sun begins to sit in the horizon. The crepuscular hour in Buenos Aires during wintertime is always uplifting, but that day the sky looks like a bleeding stabbed belly, staining the blue vault of heaven with streams of smoking blood. They enter that new world that used to be their home: all lights are out, but the sunset bathes the interior of the upside down rooms turning every piece of furniture red. My uncle crosses the large park and enters his factory, which sits in the far back of his house, the bloody twilight pouring over the recently destroyed machines becomes an omen of his fate. He too, years later, would collapse as his entire world did that winter night: cyanide was his choice.

“Old things, sad things, faded away things, things without a voice or color, know the secrets of dead times, of lives that no one any longer remembers” wrote José Asunción Silva. And as I write down these words in a language that is not mine, a faded away black and white photograph of my uncle standing on the deck of his fishing boat, holding a large Mahi Mahi, lays on my writing desk. Even the most courageous men falter in the light of a bloody sunset, but I remember him alive.

Buenos Aires, late 70s. Ten at night was curfew time during those days. My friend Alejandro and I had just finished our last glass of port or scotch at the train station’s café, we walked outside and waved farewell to each other as we took our individual paths leading home. I walked, because at ten o’clock all public transportation went out of service. After barely three blocks a police van stopped and the driver got out of the vehicle. The toned officer approached me and asked for my ID card.

I had nothing to hide, but I lied and said that I had forgotten my wallet at home. ‘Well, I’m sorry kid’ – he replied – ‘but you’ll have to spend the night in a cell until curfew ends, and while you wait we’ll do a background check.’ I had heard about these background checks before.

As the back door of the van opened many furtive eyes shining in the interior of the dark cage greeted me. Several different smells, masculine and those of the other kind, reached me from all four corners of the tight and damp place. I couldn’t see any of the faces, but I was able to smell their breaths. No one spoke, and I wondered if there was, among these people, someone I knew, but the thick curtain of darkness separated me from everyone and prevented me from seeing beyond the silhouettes. Knowing someone, I thought, would make me feel a little calmer. In moments like these, perhaps wrongly, one reviews one’s past and imagines one’s future, and in the light of this feeling I allowed a muffled sobbing sound escape from my lips; a feminine hand touched me, and her fingers wrapped around my fingers. It was the first time I was being arrested, and in the mind of a youth these people who were accompanying me to prison were dangerous criminals, but I didn’t feel that way and, in fact, later on in life I came to understand that, possibly, none of the passengers in that van were either criminals or dangerous.

At the police station we were ordered to descend from the van one by one, and on each of our heads a hood was placed. We disappeared. We could no longer see or be seen, speak or be heard. And we were led to individual cells where we waited our turn in the company of no one, but without hoods.

As the hours went by, screams permeated through loud music and filled every inch of my cell. I had heard before about this ‘background check’ technique that had the sole purpose of loosening the tongues of those being interrogated. I felt terrified, and a warm liquid began running down my left leg. I didn’t feel ashamed. The fear of being the next prisoner under the bright light in the interrogation room was much greater than any sense of dignity. Acceptance (so they tell me) is the beginning of coming to terms with one’s present; tranquility follows, and I regretted not having kissed and hugged tightly my grandparents earlier that day. I missed them terribly.

Suddenly a door opened and through the loud sound of “Libertango” playing, I heard a hair-raising cry. Then complete silence. The cry had disappeared. The officer closing the door behind him was the same who asked for my ID on the streets, and a sense of hope came to me. As he passed by my cell I stopped him. ‘You know what, boss?’ – I said – ‘I was so frightened earlier when you asked for my identification that I lied to you; I do have my ID with me. Here it is.’ And I handed it to him. He looked at the card, and turned his eyes towards mine; the expression on his face became almost that of a human being. He unlocked the cell, grabbed me by the arm and pulled me out brusquely, leading me away while hitting me in the back of the head with an open hand and yelling: ‘Come on, you stupid kid, I’ll drive you home myself before the music begins again. Come on, you stupid kid.’

My mother got out of bed alarmed when she heard me coming in. ‘The bus didn’t come, mom’ – I said with a smile – ‘Really? How is that possible?’ – she said, making a face that indicated disbelief while at the same time a certain degree of horror, as if she sensed that something was not right. While I was trying to decipher her worried look, she turned on the radio. Now I too began to feel alarmed. All the morning programming had been suspended in every station, and instead we heard the well-known male voice coming from LRA1, Radio Nacional Argentina, in Buenos Aires. The president, Isabel Martínez de Perón had been detained and taken to Neuquén. The military cabinet had assumed the ruling of my country under the power of Lieutenant General Jorge Rafael Videla, the Admiral Eduardo Emilio Massera, and the Brigadier General Orlando R. Agosti. My mother picked up the La Prensa daily, where we read the following:

‘Communication 19, 03/24/76: By this circular, the Cabinet of Commander Generals of the Army wish to communicate to the people of Argentina that anyone who, by any means, publishes, propagates, or disseminates images or propaganda coming from individuals, organizations or groups of individuals notoriously dedicated to subversion or terrorism, will receive as penalty incarceration for an undetermined length of time. In addition, anyone who, by any means, publishes, propagates, or disseminates images, propaganda, or news with the intention of perturbing, slandering or discrediting the activities of the Army or Police, will be punished with a prison term of up to ten years.’

‘It was bound to happen’ – my mother said while in slow motion she allowed herself to fall on the living room sofa. And there she sat, holding her head within her hands. Her uncombed hair fell over her face as a golden curtain that kept her hiding from me; I could not make out her facial expressions, but I guessed them.

I wasn’t even thirteen years old yet, I did know that our country was undergoing troubling changes that presaged darkness, but my mind could not comprehend what was taking place that day. A terrible sense of unease came over me, but as fast as it did it also went away once we arrived at my grandparents’ home, just a block away from our own. My grandparents hugged me, kissed me, and smiled warmly at me – I was in many ways their child – and they went on with their business as if nothing had happened; perhaps because what was beginning to brew in our country brought back memories of their past, and because history, as a song stet on repeat, was playing its music over and over again, but this time around in a different year, place and language. If they had survived other terrible times, surely they would survive these times as well. And looking at things objectively, perhaps what happened on the 24^th of March of the year 1976 was not as bad as what they had to live through long before.

All worries vanished. And not having to understand what was happening was comforting to me. But this lack of understanding would bring to my life certain consequences as well. Still, It was easier to escape reality, because present realities of any kind are almost always painful and uncertain.

Now that these events come back to me as memories of a very distant past, I am left with the same exact feeling as when they took place: this did not happen to me or to my country; I read this in some history book that spoke of some country foreign to me. I still don’t know what happened.

The years that followed 1976 brought to my life many changes; unconsciously, maybe, the words of that circular, ‘…anyone who, by any means, publishes, propagates, or disseminates images, propaganda, or news with the intention of perturbing, slandering or discrediting the activities of the Army or Police, will be punished with a prison term of up to ten years’, led me to do precisely all of those things. But I acted without premeditation, naturally and decisively. And with a youthful mind I acted without thinking of the consequences. Oh, being young and valiant! But that valor is not really valor but absolute folly.

And today I give these memories a voice, from a foreign land and in a foreign language, not knowing exactly who is writing these words.

__________

Dan Schorr falleció ayer a la edad de 93 años. Un raro sentimiento me sobrevino al oír la noticia. Bueno, si no fue raro fue por cierto desconocido. He oído la voz de Schorr casi a diario durante los pasados veinte años, prácticamente desde que llegué a los EEUU. Lo extraño es que no recuerdo haber sentido lo que siento ahora por la muerte de ningún actor famoso, figura célebre o nacional de mi país. Ni siquiera sentí lo que siento hoy al enterarme de la muerte de Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortázar o Astor Piazzola… Y esta experiencia me lleva a reflexionar sobre el hecho de que he estado en contacto, casi a diario, con Dan Schorr (aunque jamás lo conocí personalmente o hablé con él) por más tiempo que con ninguna otra figura pública durante mis años de consciencia emocional. Lo extraño es que la muerte de esta persona, con quien he estado en contacto en una tierra extranjera y en una lengua que no es la mía, me ha llegado más que la muerte de cualquier otra persona de este calibre que haya vivido o nacido en mi tierra natal y que haya hablado mi lengua natal. Esto me lleva a pensar que quizá ‘realmente’ no me ‘crié’ en mi tierra sino en una extranjera. Y aún así, me siento extranjero tanto aquí como en mi país. Pero algo más ha ocurrido: escribo estas palabras en inglés, tal vez porque mi contacto con Dan Schorr tuvo lugar en esta lengua, y luego escribo las mismas palabras en castellano. Ahora leo ambas narraciones y con sorpresa (y vergüenza) descubro que he perdido la habilidad de expresarme en mi lengua natal, pero tampoco he logrado desarrollar demasiado mis habilidades lingüísticas en la lengua inglesa…

La memoria de Funes era tal que le permitía reconstruir íntegramente un día cualquiera de su pasado, incluyendo las sensaciones musculares, térmicas, etc., pero esa reconstrucción le tomaba exactamente 24 horas. Entonces, el día que decidía recordar un de su pasado era volver a vivir, a través del recuerdo, ése día, y el día que le tomaba recordarlo se convertía, si así lo quería, en otro día para ser recordado en el futuro.

Ahora bien, supongamos que yo soy Funes y que el 20 de abril de 2010 decido recordar el día 11 de junio de 2003. Recordar ese día en particular me llevaría un lapso de tiempo idéntico al lapso de tiempo que me tomó vivir el día que voy a recordar. Ahora digamos que el día 20 de mayo de 2010 decido recordar el día 20 de abril de 2010, y ya que tengo las habilidades de Funes y soy capaz de recordar hasta las sensaciones musculares, térmicas, etc., recordar el día 20 de abril de 2010 el 20 de mayo de 2010 equivaldría a recordar la suma de recuerdos y sensaciones totales del día 11 de junio de 2003 y las del día 20 de abril de 2010; pero las sensaciones físicas del día 20 de abril de 2010 serían, necesariamente, diferentes de las del día 11 de junio de 2003. Entonces ¿esa suma de sensaciones físicas, al ser superpuestas, desplazan la una a la otra? Es decir, recordar los recuerdos y las sensaciones físicas del día 11 de junio de 2003 y las del día 20 de abril de 2010 el día 20 de mayo de 1020 ¿caben en el mismo espacio de tiempo? O sea ¿ese recuerdo me tomaría 24 horas?

What a surprise you got –
ageing yourself and using
sexagenarians calmly
as mirrors
not really distorting
but merely prophetic
and so much more reliable
than the glass in the bathroom
that gets the sun in the morning
or the one in the hall
that never gets any at all –
What a surprise you got
when one reliable mirror,
who knew himself 60 not 40
so could not need you as a mirror,
thought you were flesh not glass
human not mineral
and therefore unbreakable,
and not recognizing
himself as a mirror
in your extravagant sense
proceeded to treat you
like a toy, like a brother,
and though you were flesh not glass
you broke, and bled,
not sand or calcium either
nor dull red lead –
so how surprised you felt
assembling yourself on the pavement
flesh not glass
watching his creased nape
moving away, calmly,
as if it had never seen
itself in a flower, a child,
or another old man.

—

Distorsiones

Qué sorpresa te llevaste –
mientras envejecías y usabas
tan tranquilamente a sexagenarios
como si fuesen espejos
que en realidad no distorsionan
sino que son simplemente proféticos
y tanto más confiables
que el vidrio del baño
que recibe el sol de la mañana
o el del vestíbulo
que no lo recibe jamás –
Qué sorpresa te llevaste
cuando un confiable espejo,
que se sabía 60 y no 40
de modo que no te necesitaba a ti
como espejo, pensó que eras carne
y no vidrio, humano y no mineral
y por tanto irrompible,
y sin verse a sí mismo
como espejo,
a tu extravagante manera de ver las cosas
comenzó a tratarte
como un juguete, como a un hermano,
y aunque tú eras carne y no vidrio,
te rompiste, y sangraste,
no arena, tampoco calcio
tampoco pálido plomo rojo –
de modo que, cuán grande fue
tu sorpresa, al rearmarte sobre
el pavimento, carne y no vidrio
al observar cómo su erguida nuca
se desviaba, con calma,
como si jamás se hubiese visto
reflejado en una flor, en un niño,
o en otro anciano.

(Traducido al castellano por Jorge R. G. Sagastume)

One feels lonely when at least fifty times a day, on Christmas or New Year’s day for example, one checks for emails to see if someone remembered to write or reply. How is it possible to feel lonely while surrounded by people? That’s what I’m afraid of, feeling alone in the company of others.

—

Vivimos cada día más ocupados, pendientes de las cosas que todavía nos falta hacer; nos quejamos del poco tiempo, pero es ese poco tiempo y las actividades lo que nos mantiene en curso. Los momentos de ocio no los disfrutamos, porque la mente divaga y vuelve a enfocarse en lo que todavía queda por hacer. Pero llegará el momento en el que ya no tendremos demasiadas cosas en las que pensar, más allá de esperar que nos llegue el día en que nos recordarán mediante esas dos fechas atrapadas entre paréntesis. A eso le tengo miedo, no a la muerte, sino al aburrimiento. Entonces será cuando quizá decida enamorarme.

Day by day we find ourselves increasingly busy, thinking of all those things that we still need to do; we complain about the lack of time, but it is that, and the activities that keep us busy, what maintain us in the right track. Leisure time we don’t enjoy, because when we have it our mind digresses towards all those things we still need to complete. But the day will come when we no longer will have many things to think about, except wait for that day when we will be remembered by the two dates trapped in parenthesis. That’s what I’m afraid of, not death but boredom. That’s when perhaps I’ll decide to fall in love.

—

‘You make me happy with the things you do’, dice esa canción de Fleetwood Mac. Pareciera que la felicidad dependiese de lo que los demás hacen. Felicidad es una palabra tan de adultos. El adulto habla de la felicidad porque en gran parte es infeliz; el niño jamás piensa en ella y es feliz o no lo es.. Pero ya no soy un niño, por eso hablo de la felicidad. ¿Y si volviera a ser niño? Pero entonces no podría asociarme ni con los niños ni con los adultos. A eso le tengo miedo, a no saber de qué lado estoy.

‘You make me happy with the things you do’, says that song by Fleetwood Mac. It appears as if happiness depended on what others do. Happiness is such an adult word. Grownups speak of happiness because they are to a large extent unhappy; children never think of it and they are happy or they are not. But I am no longer a child, thus I speak of happiness. How about becoming a child again? But, then I could not be around children or adults. That’s what I’m afraid of, of not knowing where I belong.

—

Recordamos los momentos gratos y los no tan gratos, y cada vez que nuestra mente va hacia esos rincones del pasado, lo que nos llega lleva ropa diferente. Por eso escribo, para poder recordar en el futuro lo que siento hoy. Pero las palabras también son ineficaces; no puedo grabar el momento para recordarlo exactamente tal como fue. A eso le tengo miedo, a no poder recordar cómo fueron realmente las cosas, y así engañarme – aun ahora mismo -, al escribir lo que en este instante siento.

We remember the pleasant moments as well as the ones not so pleasant, and each time our mind goes towards those corners of the past, what comes back wears a different dress. Thus I write, to be able to remember in the future what I feel today. But words are also inefficient; I cannot engrave a moment on a page to recall it tomorrow as it really was. That’s what I’m afraid of, of not being able to remember how things really were, and thus fool myself even when I write what I feel at this very instant.

—

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The original video is property of Elektroschallarchiv, by Michael Augustin from Radio Bremen: http://www.elektroschallarchiv.de/blog4/