The Scent of Buenos Aires

by Hebe Uhart

  Christmas Eve in the Park

  IT’S nine o’clock in the evening and there’s a strange mix of people in the park. One guy is out for a run, but not like someone who consciously prepares to go jogging. He looks disheveled, like someone who’s just about to wrap up his day after a million comings and goings. Finally, after that last little lap, he’ll go home to shower and change. There’s a boy riding around on his new bike. The lights from the Christmas tree reflect off the bike, making it shine. A beautiful woman is out walking a handsome healthy dog, his tongue hangs out affectionately. The dog has a white coat and his body is an enormous mass that glides along, his fur grazing the ground. On the sidewalk, two old neighbors weighed down with bundles greet each other as if they haven’t crossed paths in a long time; they get caught up in gossip as they say their farewells.

  Across from the park is the San Gabriel Veterinary Clinic: they treat dogs, cats, parrots, and also one sheep. Most of the animals are members and pay a monthly fee. In the waiting room, an employee sits at the computer admitting clients. She gives them each a slip of paper, constantly picking up the phone to say: “San Gabriel, good evening.” The computer keeps the animals’ names on file. They strut on by: Felipe, Celeste, Duquesa, Pituco, Beethoven. Her tone is flat and neutral as she pronounces their names. To her, they’re just clients. The walls are lined in white tile up to the ceiling; the light is even and yellow. Where it comes from is a mystery—not one light fixture, not one lamp. In the park, the Christmas tree, all decked out, shines its light onto the people passing by, who then cross through a patch of darkness. Inside the veterinary waiting room the light softens people’s idiosyncrasies, as if they were all the same patient. One lady has a kitten in her arms. The two are motionless, waiting for a dose of medicine. It seems as if she’s been waiting a long time in the same position. She looks like a sad and somewhat poor mother, as if she were embarrassed by her child’s disease. In the far corner, a much younger woman sits scowling with a mutt passively next to her. She’s done its hair up with a little red ribbon, forming a lopsided plume, which the dog wears with complete disregard, as if the hairdo were not part of its body. She speaks to it in a hushed voice—a voice that must be much louder and more energetic at home. She talks to the dog so everyone knows that she is a tough and progressive woman:

  “Pamela, sit up straight.”

  And farther down, alone, an elderly couple and a dog that’s lived with them for a long time: you name it, he’s got it; and it’s clear they will patiently cure him of all his ills. He looks pleadingly at his owners, as if to ask, What does fate have in store for me today? The only voice calling the shots is the employee’s: the telephone calls continue. Name? Farolero. Problem? Ear infection. Name? Jasmine. Problem? Mumps.

  Perhaps the people in the waiting room feel somewhat overwhelmed by the realization that there are so many critters with problems in this world. It’s not just them. The world is filled with problems; they feel like a needle in a haystack. And perhaps that feeling is heightened when a sleek, skinny young woman comes in with a greyhound, her canine doppelganger. They walk in with the flippancy of frequent visitors, just dropping by on their way to a more pleasant place: this dog is the picture of health. The employee says to the dog:

  “Hello baby…”

  Inside, beyond the waiting room, the atmosphere changes entirely. There are three nurse’s stations where the dogs and cats get their IV lines. Here the light is different; there are bright spotlights above the stretchers and areas of shadows. At one station sits a couple with a kitten: the woman is blond and the man has dark hair. They are smiling and calm, as if they were sitting under a tree chatting. In another room there are more people monitoring their pets’ IV lines; the mood is cordial, everyone talks to one another, and a handsome young veterinarian named Roman strides around as if he were walking down the street. A couple who look like they come from a modest neighborhood sit watching over their dog hooked to an IV. They’re both dressed in shabby clothes, her hair is somewhat mussed. They both exhibit exuberance; they come off as a couple with four dogs, five cats, and one sheep. The woman says to the veterinarian, teasingly:

  “Roman, be careful that Popi doesn’t bite you.”

  The chances of this happening seem slim because Popi is in a lethargic state. Roman doesn’t answer, he just walks back and forth. She presses him further:

  “Roman, should I feed him that special dog food? Last time it didn’t go down so well.”

  “Mhh-mmh,” says Roman, as if echoing the first suggestion.

  And at a much larger table, alone, there’s an older man of an indeterminate age. His hair is dyed a chestnut brown, but there’s nothing charming about him: it’s as if he started to dye his hair a long time ago and now he does it out of habit. His clothes are reminiscent of something an athlete might wear, throwing on whatever they can find to cover up; and his brown coat is like an old habit. His haggard appearance contrasts with his energy; when Roman walks by he says loudly:

  “The care today pales compared to yesterday. Yesterday they gave him a real massage so he would poop. This is ridiculous.”

  Roman paces back and forth; he doesn’t seem to take the hint. The man is holding on to a cat’s paw, with an IV line in it. He’s an alley cat who showed up at his mechanic’s garage, he says. Luckily, a nice lady started to feed this cat and some others, too. The cat is splendid, filthy and—with what’s left of his health—ornery. The man says to him, over and over:

  “C’mon little guy, lie down a bit. That’s it, that’s right.”

  And he carefully holds onto the cat’s paw so the IV line doesn’t fall out.

  “Lie down, lie down. The care yesterday was much better. I’ve been here since eight o’clock.”

  It’s ten o’clock at night and this man will keep holding onto the cat’s paw as long as he has to. Suddenly his mobile phone rings and he says:

  “No, I won’t make it to dinner. I’m still here.”

  The cat is bored, but he puts up with the immobility as if it were a necessary evil. At times he tries to get up, but his owner lays him back down so that the sacred IV line doesn’t fall out. The cat looks at him every once in a while as if to say: Alright, if you say so. And he lies down to humor the man, curling his backside up against the man, as if to take a nap.

  The man says to the couple with the dog:

  “He’s so smart. As soon as he sees me, he comes running. Yesterday they gave him a massage, like this.”

  And he pats the cat’s behind with one hand, without letting go of the paw. The cat’s rump seems to say, I’ll poop when I’m good and ready.

  Roman walks by, like someone making the rounds at a dance hall.

  “Is he getting enough saline?”

  No answer. Then he says:

  “Maybe it’s the water he drank. When he was out on the street he didn’t have access to good water. Why don’t you give him some more saline?”

  Roman answers these questions by gracefully tossing his lab coat onto a chair. As if by magic, he’s wearing a jacket and he’s at the door; his replacement has arrived. The replacement is an old man with a pained, canine expression. His face is that of one who has seen it all and who every so often takes pity on someone. He says:

  “That’s enough saline for today. We’ll keep him ticking as long as we can.”

  And then, as if he were suffering on behalf of the cat, as if it were his own, the replacement vet says:

  “He’s very sick, but spry at the same time.”

  “Should I come back tomorrow?”

  “Come on back tomorrow, we’ll be here. Good night and good luck.”

  “Thank you, doctor.”

  The man grabs a cardboard box printed with the words: SMALL ANIMAL CARRIER. It’s decorated with dogs, little cats, and flowers: a clear, happy box fit for a picnic. The glass door of the veterinary clinic is pr
inted with the same design: little cats and dogs, flowers. The proximity of the green park affords a glimmer of hope. The man hesitates at the door and then walks to the only open bar, on the corner. Some fireworks go off and the cat stirs inside the box.

  “C’mon little guy, we’ll be home soon.”

  He enters the bar with his box.

  There’s only one customer inside, a harmless drunk, the kind who has the same temperament whether it’s one drink, two drinks, or five. The drunk clears his throat and the waiter brings him another glass of wine. The waiter blithely watches the television, switching between a European league soccer game and a Venezuelan soap opera. The drunk clears his throat again, and the waiter brings him another wine. The man places the little box with the cat on the ground next to him. He sits down and orders:

  “Boss, I’ll have a glass of cider and some olives.”

  Some kids, far from the bar, are setting off fireworks in the park. The sound is muted and the cat is still in his box, as if it were his little house. The man runs his hand over the box and thinks: Who knows if he’s going to live? No, the care was no good today…If only the tall man from yesterday had been there…What if he doesn’t make it? What if he doesn’t live? Then I’ll donate his organs to science. They study all sorts of things.

  He gets distracted thinking about science: What a wonder! All that progress that nobody could even imagine fifty years ago! And how they study and learn all about those tiny little bodies! But then he thinks about the little guy, dead, and he says to himself: No, not his whole body; just a couple of organs.

  “Waiter, I’ll have another glass of cider and some more olives.”

  He’s not going to have more than two glasses. After the second he decides that he’ll bury what’s left of the little guy in his backyard, his name written on a slab of wood. Maybe he’ll make it, maybe he won’t. His enthusiasm for science peters out because it dawns on him: They die without knowing any words. They die as if it were nothing. He always reads the back page of the newspaper, the section with quotes by famous people who leave some sort of advice when they die, something they wanted people to know, anything at all. But in this case…No, that wouldn’t work out.

  “Waiter, a cup of coffee, please.”

  He’ll stay a bit longer. He’ll go back to the clinic, maybe there will be someone new on duty. He’s going to suggest another round of saline and a good pat on the rump.

  “Merry Christmas, waiter.”

  “The same to you,” says the waiter, smiling, and he walks back behind the bar to change the channel.

  At the Hair Salon

  THE hair salon feels entirely separate from the outside world, as far removed as the cinema. It’s so isolated that when I’m bored at the hair salon I can’t help but think about my favorite bar on the corner, and with my hair covered in that tar they use to dye it, I say to myself: “I want to go get some coffee right now, wearing this black smock, with my hair all plastered down.” Luckily, for the sake of my reputation, I then conclude that getting coffee is as far away and impossible as a trip to Chascomús. With my dyed hair I look at myself in the mirror. It’s not like my mirror at home—at home I look better. In the mirror at the hair salon I notice all my imperfections, like the tired eyes that make me look groggy. I wore an old sweater so I wouldn’t have to worry about getting it stained, and in the light of the mirror I can tell how old it really is—it doesn’t look like this at home. Since I look so shabby I have to be nice to compensate; I have to demonstrate that I’m a reasonable person, that I would never say out loud what I’m thinking: I want to go to the bar on the corner, or to the ATM, or to buy some pears. So I chat with the hairdresser—he says his name is Gustavo—and I ask him if he works long hours and what time of day business gets slow and whether they cut children’s hair. I know all the answers, and even if I didn’t, I couldn’t care less. My conversation with the hairdresser leads me to reflect on all the time and effort we spend on small talk, which in turn makes me feel tired and resentful. I figure if I were more attractive he would treat me better. If I were pretty I could be pushy and I’d be able to put up with them using toner on my hair. I wish I could be one of those ladies who drives her hairdresser crazy saying, “Higher up…shorter…No, the other side…No, more down the middle.” But even if I were attractive, I would never have the patience to make all those demands. I’m more like this taxi driver I met once. We chatted about teeth and dentists, and he told me what he said to his dentist:

  “Look, I don’t have time to get my teeth pulled one by one. Just take ’em all out.”

  Six teeth.

  With my hair covered in dye—my head is freezing—I’m going to get my feet done, and I feel better there. They show me to a cubicle in the back because heads can be displayed in public, but feet cannot. There are two pedicurists, Violeta and María. (The hairdressers are always changing.) Violeta is Ukrainian and I want to know all about her country but I can never get her to say anything more than, “Oh, it’s a little different, but mostly the same as here.” I don’t know if she’s hiding something or if she just doesn’t give a damn—she’s really pretty and no one seems to have noticed. She walks around like a shadow, gliding along as if she didn’t even have a body. No, she couldn’t care less about being pretty. That’s why, when she’s there, I prefer María, who comes from Corrientes. She reminisces about all the animals her father kept in the countryside: the armadillo, the little mare fed on a bottle, and the woodpecker. And suddenly that cold, stark white cubicle is bursting with little animals from the countryside and the forest. Now I couldn’t care less about the bar on the corner. I’ve forgotten about the ATM and the pears: I want to go to Corrientes to see the woodpecker. I’m starting to relax somewhat because the goop on my head is drying out while they do my feet. I can’t bear to sit still—doing nothing or having nothing done to me—because I feel like the world around us never stops. It’s like when I’m boiling vegetables and at the same time keeping tabs on a soccer game or a tennis match on TV if Argentina’s playing: I do everything all at once. So, on my epitaph, they’ll put what they did for Roman matrons: Fecit lanam. (She spun her wool).

  Then the girl who washes our hair calls me over. These girls are always changing too, but for different reasons than the hairdressers: the stylists walk out slamming the door behind them, or they find work at another salon. When the girls who wash our hair realize they’ll never be given a job as a stylist (except the occasional girl who’s really bright and pursues a career), they start staying home to watch the afternoon soaps. There are different social classes at the salon. The guy who runs the register, sitting in a tall swivel chair, is upper-class. Everyone has to take their paperwork over to him. The pedicurists are like their own parallel group: hard to classify because they don’t interact with each other as much as the hairdressers. Besides, the hairdressers move around in a central area, with mirrors and posters of gorgeous women with shiny hair. There are no photos of hands or feet, it seems that limbs are merely accessories. The girl who sweeps up the hair from the floor is part of the lower class; she doesn’t make coffee for the clients or blow-dry their layers. There’s nothing special about her hair, she just wears it up in a regular ponytail. When the girl washes my hair I’m relieved, I’m one step closer to that coffee on the corner. She scrubs my head with her pointy fingernails. If she really went to town, my scalp would bleed. Instead, she rations out the assault like a cat.

  It was Natasha the pedicurist who really went the extra mile; she was the opposite of Violeta. Natasha was like a tractor plowing away in that white cubicle. She used some sort of gadget that runs along the soles of the feet, as if she were tilling the soil or a vast field of wheat, for example. She was destined for heroic deeds, like driving a tank in the steppe—not for minor remedies of the hands and feet. She couldn’t handle the clients’ complaints (they said everything hurt) and she went back to the Ukraine.

 
Once my hair has been washed I go back to find the hairdresser. Was it Gerardo or Gustavo? I forget that I’m supposed to come off as a sensible, courteous lady and I tell him gruffly:

  “Trim all along the top and down the back, but on top I want it to look like a carancho’s nest.”

  He doesn’t ask what this hairstyle involves. I don’t know whether even he knows what a carancho is, or what its nest looks like (I sure don’t). He looks at me like he’s heard it all before and readies his scissors. I leave upbeat.

  Leonor

  WHEN Leonor was a girl her mother made cassava flour balls, which are hard as lead, dry as sand, and viciously compact. If you eat them when you’re feeling sad it’s like ingesting a wasteland. But if you’re happy, those brown balls, without a trace of oil, are a well-deserved, nutritious food.

  When Leonor grew up and turned eighteen her mother told her, “It’s time you get married, dear. You get a certificate when you get married. The man brings white bread and high-heeled shoes. After you marry the Pole, he’ll bring your mama some earrings.”

  Leonor said, “Alright Mama, but the Pole is so tall.”

  The Pole was over six feet tall; he pulled up weeds all day and never went dancing on Sundays. He worked.

  “What does that matter?” her mother asked.

  “Alright Mama,” said Leonor. “I’ll get married, but I’m embarrassed to speak in his presence.”

  Her mother said, “You won’t be embarrassed forever. Besides, he never talks. Just ask him, ‘Would you like a bowl of beans?’ And one day you’ll eat beans; another day, you’ll make bread with white flour, and he’ll be happy because you’re such a good girl. Always make sure there’s a smile on your face, never talk back to him, and he’ll soften up and speak. One thing for sure: never provoke him. He knows how to use a hoe and a shovel.”