The Scent of Buenos Aires

by Hebe Uhart

  Arturo said to the old woman:

  “Granny, I’ll be back soon. I’m going out with Honorio.”

  The old woman didn’t know whether Arturo was on his way in or out. She looked at him as if trying to remember who he was and said:

  “Good morning, boy.”

  “Vamos, let’s go, man.”

  The old woman said something Arturo didn’t understand, but he couldn’t stop now because Honorio would get upset.

  “Should I bring some money?” he asked Honorio.

  “No, let’s get going.”

  Arturo recognized the street, but not the way back to the bus station. He would have gone the other way. They took a bus and Honorio told him:

  “To go downtown ask for a one-hundred-peso ticket. Take the number 30 that says ‘City Center.’ Don’t get it mixed up with the other 30 that says ‘Cemetery.’ Don’t forget.”

  What if he couldn’t get a good look and he took the 30 that said “Cemetery?” This was a problem he’d have to figure out. He would ask a hundred and one times—the more eyes the better. Plus, both buses started with a “C.”

  On the bus Honorio showed him the local currency.

  “The bright red bill is a one-hundred peso note. This greener one with San Martín printed on it is one thousand.”

  “Who’s San Martín?”

  “Look, this guy right here. Remember this face.”

  When Arturo went back to his room he was going to separate all the brown notes from the ones with San Martín and study them. Honorio said:

  “We’re getting off here. This is the Grain Exchange. Remember it so you know where to get off.”

  It was a gray building with a black marble base; a lot of buildings looked the same. They walked down a pedestrian street. Honorio pointed out a dead-end and said:

  “There’s the restaurant. If you’re downtown and you don’t want to go back you can eat there for cheap.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, Honorio. Tell me, is there a lot of mold in Rosario?”

  “What kind of mold?”

  “The kind that spoils women and things.”

  “Cut it out, man! Let’s go to that café.”

  At the café there was a waiter who looked like a prince: blond with slightly wavy hair; he was wearing a green jacket with black lapels. Would such a prince come to their table if he were called over? Amazingly, he would. Honorio gestured to him and over he came. Honorio said:

  “Two coffees. Do you want anything else?”

  “No, Honorio.”

  “Now, listen up,” said Honorio, gesturing vigorously with his arm to get a look at his watch. “I’m going to give you three golden rules to live by. One: Don’t go out on the street all the time. When do you go out, be smart and do everything you can to run all your errands in one trip. None of that, ‘I’ve got to find my notes,’ or ‘I’m just running out to the kiosk,’ or ‘I forgot a book and I’ll be right back.’ Procrastination is the thief of time. Two,” he said as he stirred his coffee with an odd little spoon—it wasn’t like the spoons in Portofino. “Set a schedule, a time for studying. You’ll get the best results by working for fifty minutes and then relaxing for ten. Did you know that?”

  “No, Honorio.”

  “Well, now you do. Three: When you have a serious exam, lock yourself in.”

  “What do you mean, Honorio?”

  “Stay inside until you’ve memorized everything you need to know.”

  “It must be tough. Is it, Honorio?”

  “You bet,” said Honorio in the voice of an experienced man. He called to the waiter, who didn’t come this time. No, the fact that he’d come earlier had been one in a million. He was serving a nearby table with two blonde women who were pretty and chubby with light streaks in their hair. A boy, probably one of their sons, was running around the table with a toy gun and holster. One of the blondes said to him:

  “Cut it out. You’re driving me batty!”

  The boy walked calmly out to the sidewalk but Arturo was shocked because she had said “batty.” A bat is a filthy animal, like a rat, something that festers, it stinks. Maybe that Gualberto or Freddy guy was right; maybe in Rosario there was something about mold and sickness. When the princelike waiter miraculously came over to charge them for their coffee, Honorio told Arturo:

  “I’ve got to go. Just walk straight back about five blocks and then one block to the left to catch your bus.”

  When Arturo went outside he discovered a sea of people, as far as his eyes could see, walking down the street. It was a very wide street and the light was blinding. No sooner had he taken his first steps, he immediately bumped into a woman.

  He said to her:

  “Excuse me, I didn’t mean to.”

  The woman continued on her way and said nothing; she looked at him as if it were perfectly natural to bump into one another. He took a few more paces and bumped into a tall fat man. Arturo thought, it must be because I’m so short. I should pick up the pace and pay more attention. For the time being, he discovered there were three streams of people: one that went toward the boarding house, one going in the other direction, and in the middle a fluctuating, more peculiar mass. He would join the people walking toward the boarding house. But then, across the street he saw a bookshop like he’d never seen in his life: books as far as the eye could see. He decided to cross over and get a better look; slowly, so no one would bump into him. He looked around; there were people everywhere. Just when he was about to cross, a man wearing a blue uniform stepped in front of him and said:

  “ID.”

  “Oh, I don’t have it with me, sir. It’s at the boarding house. I’m Arturo Zaldúmbide, from Portofino. I’m a studious, obedient young man and—”

  “How much money have you got on you?”

  “Well, I just realized that I don’t have any money with me, sir. Honorio was carrying it.”

  “You think this is a joke?” he said, somewhat louder. People drew nearer and another blue-uniformed man appeared.

  “Pues, I came from Ecuador to study, sir. I’m a well-mannered boy. The old lady and her daughter at the boarding house can—”

  The other uniformed man walked up and said to the first:

  “Greenhorn.”

  “If he’s got money hidden on him, I’m booking him,” said the first guy and frisked Arturo right there in front of everyone.

  Arturo was on the verge of tears. While he was being frisked he started to say:

  “I’m a good person, sir. I’ve never done anything to anyone.”

  “Shut up,” said the man in blue. The other uniformed man said impatiently, in a derogatory tone:

  “What did I tell you? He’s a greenhorn.”

  The first uniformed man told him:

  “Get outta my sight.”

  Arturo couldn’t move. How could he instantly get out of the man’s sight when the man in uniform could see so far in the distance?

  “C’mon, move along,” he said.

  Arturo was paralyzed; a nearby gentleman took him by the arm and led him to the other side of the street. He seemed nice, but where would he take Arturo? He led him far from the police and Arturo said to him, almost in tears:

  “I swear I’m a good boy, sir. I didn’t do—”

  “It’s alright,” said the man. “Don’t worry.”

  “I…” said Arturo. “Now I don’t know where to take the bus.”

  And that man—who was a regular Saint Gabriel the Archangel come down from heaven after witnessing such terrible injustice—walked Arturo over to the bus, entrusted him to the driver, and gave him a brown bill for his ticket. As he led Arturo to the bus, Saint Gabriel the Archangel said:

  “I don’t know who you are and I don’t care, but that cop was a real son of a bitch.”

  * * *


  —

  Now Arturo was in the kitchen, where the old lady was chopping up green onions. Over the course of that week Jorge, the Venezuelan from Caracas, won the primary conventions; Ana studied the difference between the transcendent self and Kant’s transcendental self; the Venezuelan from Maracaibo added seven things to his list of what Argentina was lacking; and Mabel went out wearing a white dress, then a red one, then green, and finally white again. Only Arturo stayed holed up in the boarding house. He went from his room to the white sofa on the patio. He held his head, saying:

  “Granny, my head hurts.”

  “Didn’t I tell you? That’s from drinking too much beer.”

  Protesting weakly Arturo said:

  “I didn’t drink any beer, Granny.”

  “Beer bloats your stomach and gets to your head,” said the old lady.

  She chopped energetically and turned around, bobbing her head as she tended to do, and said to him:

  “Poison, that’s what it is.”

  She turned back and continued chopping confidently. No one else was home. The cat, free of the residents, studied in the corners. Arturo waited a while to see if his headache would go away, keeping still. Then he said again:

  “Granny, my head really hurts.”

  Mister Ludo

  MISTER Ludo turned up in fairly unpopulated places. He had a wife and six children who walked like young camels. The first time the town neighbors got a glimpse of him, he was hammering four stakes into the ground, fastening a canvas on top. They were dumbstruck. One neighbor came up and asked:

  “Is this a circus?”

  “No,” replied Mister Ludo. “It’s my house.”

  The following day they noticed the family didn’t prepare any food—they just shared one big alfajor cookie cut into pieces by the father and divvied up. Meanwhile, the mother stayed in a corner. They never ventured out on their own, but sometimes one of the children would stick his head out from under the canvas and then quickly draw it back underneath. Nobody asked them anything, although everyone kept an eye on them.

  Mister Ludo had a long brown beard and he was bald. Three days after his arrival the neighbors noticed a large animal—it looked like a dog and walked like a duck—but soon enough a hand pulled it back under the canvas. Several days passed and no one saw any movement. Everyone had all but forgotten about them until they came out on the street. They walked in a line with Mister Ludo at the front, wearing sandals. When one of them spoke they didn’t stop to listen—they simply repeated the words down the line to the person behind them, from Mister Ludo all the way back to the smallest child. They walked up and down every street in town and then back home. They never bought anything and all the people stared at Mister Ludo’s children, who looked like little camels. Then the mother, who was bashful, said to Mister Ludo:

  “They’re staring at our children.”

  Mister Ludo told her, “Our children are strong.”

  And they kept walking, barely uttering a word. Only Mister Ludo spoke, to tell them when to turn or to rest. They rested standing up, and Mister Ludo wiped his brow with a purple handkerchief. Then he said, “Fall back in line.”

  And they marched until well into the night. Then they walked back to their home.

  * * *

  —

  One day they were walking down the street; Mister Ludo was at the head and the smallest boy was last of all. When they turned the corner, the little boy said:

  “I lost a shoe.”

  The child in front of him repeated this to the next one, and so on and so forth, until the news reached Mister Ludo. Mister Ludo thought for a while, but he didn’t say anything. After he’d stopped to think he said:

  “We’ve got to look for that shoe.”

  So they all turned around and went back to look for the shoe. They searched every street in town but it was nowhere to be found. The littlest boy was limping, he looked like a cripple. So when they walked by a shoe store the mother said humbly:

  “We could buy new shoes.”

  Mister Ludo didn’t hear her, and they searched for the shoe until well into the night. By the time they were all tired Mister Ludo said in a serious voice:

  “The shoe is gone.”

  They all repeated this down the line, and then they walked home.

  * * *

  —

  Mister Ludo told this story to his children:

  “Children, your father was an Alpine legionnaire. He was on the frontline of the mountain army. Back home, we fought and we won. We hunted wild ducks, but now, here we are. We won’t stay here forever—one day we will return to the Alpine mountains.

  The mother nodded her head, but the children had never been Alpine legionnaires, so they just peered at their mother curiously. The father continued:

  “Back home, no one has to forage food from the ground and anyone who eats a wild duck with a wounded eye is shot by a firing squad in front of everyone.”

  The littlest boy said, “What if the wound is just near his eye?”

  But Mister Ludo didn’t answer him. Instead he said, “Back home, people sing songs and no one rests. Everyone marches along and they relieve themselves without falling out of line.”

  The children were in awe, imagining so many active people walking. The littlest boy was tired and he wanted to go to sleep. Finally, it was bedtime, but Mister Ludo stayed up to keep the fire going. Once they’d all fallen asleep and no one was looking he took out a book with red letters. He made strange gestures, and when he started to nod off, laying his cheek on the book, he slapped himself to stay awake and kept reading. But no one—not even his wife—ever knew what that book said. No one even knew that he had the book.

  * * *

  —

  Mister Ludo wasn’t home during the day and his wife had to go fetch water at the neighbors’ house. At first his wife went, but then she started sending the littlest boy, who was happy to fetch the water. One evening Mister Ludo came home early and saw the boy carrying a bucket of water. He said to his wife:

  “Whose job is it to fetch the water?”

  She lowered her eyes and said, “Mine.”

  Raising one finger Mister Ludo said, “It’s not his job to fetch water. He will be an Alpine legionnaire.”

  Then the boy, who was waiting with the bucket of water in his hands, asked: “What should I do? Should I toss it on the ground or give it back?”

  Mister Ludo looked at the boy. It was nighttime; the neighbors’ houses were dark, only a few lights shone in the distance. Raising one finger he said: “Bring the water inside, just this once.”

  * * *

  —

  One day the neighbors watched as the family took down the canvas and walked away, carrying their house as if it were a banner in a procession. They all carried a bundle on their back and seemed quite serious. They walked to a new plot of land and set up their house. A ruddy-faced man came along right away and told them to leave. The father solemnly took out a medal with some very old pearls. The ruddy-faced man looked at the pearls and then said:

  “I don’t care.”

  So Mister Ludo and his family continued to lug their house around until they found another empty field. When they found one, tired as they were, they quickly set up the house. But once they were inside, with the canvas up, they realized the field was covered in horse manure, so they had to go elsewhere. It was nighttime and they erected the canvas on someone else’s land. The following morning, the first neighbor who awoke to find them called everyone else. They spied on the family until the first head peeped out from under the canvas. It was the littlest boy, and he quickly drew his head back underneath. Later his mother sent him to fetch water, but the neighbors refused. That night they had to move again.

  * * *

  —

  Mister Ludo ended up selling his pearl medal fo
r a plot of land, which they had to share with two horses and a rabbit hutch. The littlest boy made a hole in the canvas to spy on the horses and the rabbits, but the hole was almost impossible to notice. They had new boots by then too, and Mister Ludo even bought a perfume spritzer. Every afternoon he spritzed perfume all around the house; sometimes he even spritzed it into the fresh air outside. They all reeked of that perfume, and they were happy—even his wife was happy because she had a new rug and had bought some fish. They ate the fish raw. Mister Ludo broke it into pieces and poured the blood into a little bucket. Afterwards everyone got cleaned up, although in their house they almost always washed up only with water and never with soap.

  Once they all went out walking, one behind the other, carrying small bags. The littlest boy had the largest bag—it was because he had grabbed a rabbit from the hutch. He’d looked at the hutch and said to himself:

  It’s been forever since I got to have a rabbit.

  So he nabbed one and stuck it in a bag. As they walked down the street he opened the bag to peek at the rabbit and it escaped. But he couldn’t tell Mister Ludo that his rabbit had escaped. So, on his tiptoes, without saying a word, he went off to look for the rabbit. He said to himself:

  I won’t come back until I’ve found it.

  He searched and searched, but he didn’t find it. The other children didn’t tell their mother that the littlest boy had left. Instead, as if they’d silently made a pact together, they just turned around and started walking in the opposite direction. When they turned the corner, it dawned on the mother what had happened and she covered her eyes. She started to cry and moan and Mister Ludo, without even turning around, told her:

  “You can go too, if you want.”

  So the mother left, crying and moaning.

  * * *

  —

  Mister Ludo went home. He spritzed everything with perfume and right there, in the middle of the day, started reading the book he saved only for nights. He read for a long time. When night fell, he went out and ended up in the plaza where a man sat reading the newspaper on a bench. Mister Ludo sat down next to him. The man with the newspaper looked up and Mister Ludo said: