The Scent of Buenos Aires

by Hebe Uhart

  Francisca:

  “The lady in 3-G opens the door for anybody, day or night. And besides, her awning is not the approved color. We should send her a registered letter.”

  Super:

  “But, Mrs. Mastropiero…”

  Francisca:

  “And then there’s the fumigator. I’m not letting him in. Does he have some sort of license, or anything at all to prove he is who he says he is? For all we know he could be some sort of charlatan, because he just sprays Lord knows what in the gratings and meanwhile he traipses dirt all over with those galoshes of his…”

  Carlos:

  “Mary, shall I write down ‘safety’?”

  Super:

  “Yes, Carlos, record that tidbit.”

  Somebody knocks on the glass door and Francisca opens it. It’s the taxi drivers from the adjoining premises. They’re led by a fat little man who looks like a tapir. He addresses the superintendent without saying hello to anyone:

  “I had to come over here myself because when I go to the office you don’t give me the time of day. I call and I call and I just get that little music, and I don’t want to go over there again because that guy who works for you is a fucking snob. What’s the deal? What, you’re better than us because we’re cab drivers?”

  Carlos (in a neutral tone):

  “Lower your voice, please.”

  Cab driver:

  “I’m not gonna lower my voice, it’s raining in there, brother! There’s water pouring down from the ceiling. I’ve got the whole place filled with buckets, and if it’s not fixed this week I’m sending a registered letter. To hell with that fucking music, to hell with that good-for-nothing moron you’ve got working there.”

  Super (in a weary voice):

  “Please understand that the terrace will only be fixed once the rainy season is over—”

  Azucena:

  “That’s for sure, it’s been so rainy. I’ve never seen anything like it!”

  Super:

  “Isn’t it something, Azucena? Can you believe all this rain we’re having? Well, as we all know the climate is changing, the planet is changing—”

  Cab driver:

  “Which fucking terrace are you talking about? We’re on the ground floor! And something else: it’s a good thing that guy isn’t here, the one who calls for a cab at night and then doesn’t show up. Lucky for him he’s not here. Well, now you know.” (They leave.)

  Super:

  “What manners! How rude! Look how late it is!” (To Carlos:) “Did everyone sign? Alright, you can all go. We’ll stay here to write up the minutes.”

  The newlywed:

  “Um…I, I’ve got…uh…There’s mold growing on my ceilings and—”

  Carlos:

  “Never buy the top-floor apartment. We’ll deal with that when the rainy season’s over.”

  Azucena and Francisca, each carrying their stool, go upstairs with the newlywed.

  Super:

  “Good night everyone. Get some rest.”

  She and Carlos stay in the foyer to write up the minutes.

  The Uncle and the Niece

  I HAD an aunt and uncle who lived pretty far away, in Casilda. They were always the subject of conversation at my house, and I was going to visit them soon. Everyone said that my aunt had suffered a lot with her first husband and now she was married to my uncle, who was her second husband—but you weren’t supposed to mention that in front of them. They said that my uncle had aged a lot lately, that he was practically a shadow of himself, and that my aunt, despite all the pain and suffering, was twice as fat. She was a self-sacrificing person because she gave my uncle massages with all sorts of ointments and stayed up with him until late at night because he had a lung problem. I had also overheard someone saying, one summer afternoon during siesta time, “Before, at that house? You would walk into a room and the hats on the coat rack, a napkin on every lap, and not a fly to be seen. But now…”

  It took me a while to figure out what it would look like: a hat on every lap…no, I knew perfectly well. The hats on the coat rack and not a fly to be seen. I was just avoiding the idea of what it looked like “now” because it tortured me. What was it like now? What would become of all those flies there, tons of flies on the table and in the air? And despite all her self-sacrifice, wouldn’t my aunt be tired? Would she stay in bed? And since she was so fat, would she even be able to get up? I would be going there soon and my mother told me:

  “If they ask how we’re doing financially, tell them we’re fine.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “And don’t ask for a cent. Don’t accept any money, even if they give it to you.”

  “Alright,” I said.

  It was practical advice, I had already heard it many times before; but her face was so strange when she said it. Why wouldn’t they give me any money? Do they have to spend it on injections? And even if they did, why couldn’t I accept it? They might be offended, they might think I turned them down because I think they’re poor. My mother told me to say that we’re doing alright financially. Why? If we have more money than they do, that’s obviously boasting; and if we have less, why would it be a problem for them to give us money? Are we too proud? I didn’t ask my mother even though I’ve always wanted to know whether we’re rich or poor, but I’ve never gotten a straight answer and I realized I wasn’t about to get one this time either. The two days before I left I kept running it all over in my head. They hadn’t told me to be mindful at meals and eat everything on my plate. Why not? Why hadn’t I been told to show them my good grades, either? I was going to take along my report card anyway, on my own. I would take all my tests with the highest grades to show them one afternoon. But it was strange that no one had suggested it to me.

  “Shouldn’t I take something to play with outside?”

  “You don’t play much outside.”

  “I’ll take a ball with me.”

  “Alright, go ahead.”

  Don’t be so accommodating, I thought about saying. Remember the time you wouldn’t let me take it along? Besides, she said “alright” like she didn’t care whether I took it or not. In other words, I was free to take it but it came with a price: she was letting me take the ball in the same way that I wouldn’t get a beating if my clothes got stained, for example, because right now there were more important things. It was the first time I was going off like that, with a suitcase, far away, and I had packed it myself. I asked,

  “Should I take some perfume?”

  She replied absentmindedly,

  “Perfume? No.”

  “Alright, then I’ll close it up,” I said.

  “What do you mean you’ll close it up? You haven’t packed your socks, your scarf, your cape—Lord knows what else!

  “If I’m not taking any perfume, I’ll just close it up,” I said.

  Even I knew there was something secretly wrong with closing a suitcase before packing socks, but I did it anyway. I’m not taking any perfume, I thought that afternoon, it’s better that way. And that night I couldn’t fall asleep until late, I got up to see if the suitcase was still there.

  The first thing I saw when I got to my aunt’s was a woman who must have been a neighbor. She had her back to me, she was drinking yerba mate and talking with someone who I figured was my uncle. “What’s different about him?” I asked myself. My uncle was a thin man, by all odds, but compared to the ringmaster at the circus he looked like a whale. I’d seen my uncle before, when I was really little, so I didn’t notice anything that different. After chatting awhile—he didn’t ask how we were doing financially—my aunt came in. She was pretty fat, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. She had just gone out to the store to buy salami. And she was smiling and wearing earrings. She doesn’t seem so self-sacrificing after all, I thought. She even goes out to buy salami and stuff�
�I always imagined a self-sacrificing person to be someone who’s shut up in a small space with no windows. She patted my head and fiddled with something that was falling out, a clip I think. That’s when the neighbor left and my uncle coughed. He coughed a bunch of times, uncontrollably, and my aunt asked him in a gentle voice, an early-morning-before-breakfast voice:

  “Shall I get it ready for you?”

  “No, not now. Later.”

  It was like when someone asks you if you’re going to have breakfast now and you say, “Not now. Later.” That’s how my uncle answered. And right away he added, when she came back with a glass of water and a little pill:

  “Where’s the new charm for your bracelet?”

  “I lost it. I don’t know where I could have put it.”

  “We’ll have to look for it,” said my uncle as he stirred the little pill into the glass. “It was the prettiest of them all.”

  While I arranged my things in the wardrobe, he looked all over for the charm and my aunt hummed some tune. It was late and I thought, We’ll see tomorrow. But I didn’t know what tomorrow would bring and I fell right asleep.

  The next morning my aunt said:

  “Luisa, would you like to play checkers with your uncle?”

  “Alright,” I said. “I don’t know how to play that well.”

  I assumed it didn’t matter whether I was good or not, it was just a way to kill some time in the morning. I was distracted and my uncle won every game, even when he gave me a head start, and then he looked at me and smiled. That’s when I realized I should have tried harder, that he’d been beating me on purpose. I said:

  “Now the last game, the last one of all.”

  “I’m done for now,” he said. “Tomorrow or the next day.”

  My aunt told me to go buy some eggs to make mayonnaise.

  “Can he eat mayonnaise?”

  “He can eat everything,” said my aunt in an oddly detached voice.

  I chose brown eggs, and asked the shopkeeper to remove the white one because I didn’t like them. Then I helped to make the mayonnaise. The kitchen had checkered curtains and matching cushions on the chairs. There was a big window where the sun shined in and you could see people walking by on the street, not far off.

  “Where is he?” I asked.

  “He’s fixing the chicken coop.”

  “Can I go then?”

  “Let’s finish this first, hmm?”

  “Okay.”

  We finished, and on my way out of the kitchen I noticed there were some flies. At home sometimes there are, too, I thought. It’s just because someone left the door open. And the grass wasn’t long, it was cut evenly. Even nicer than at home, I thought on my way to the chicken coop. My uncle was sitting down, resting on a tree trunk.

  “You’re tired,” I said.

  “A little.”

  “Anyway,” I said reassuringly, “you worked all morning.”

  “Not really,” he said. “It’s only eleven o’clock.”

  “But you’re retired,” I insisted. “You worked your whole life.”

  He didn’t say anything back, he just gestured like he was going to start working again and then he did something I’ve never seen before: he walked around the chicken coop, running his hand over the wood, as if he were about to get down to work, and then—who knows why—he just inspected everything and sat down again to look at some seedlings.

  I thought for sure that his first impulse had been to work. I almost asked him if he wanted some help, but then it seemed inappropriate. Instead I said:

  “Would you like to play checkers with me?”

  “Bring out the board,” he said.

  And I couldn’t beat him, not even once, but I didn’t lose as horrendously as I had the time before.

  * * *

  —

  At night, from my room, I heard them talking. My aunt said:

  “You didn’t take it.”

  “So, I didn’t take it.”

  “What do you mean, so, I didn’t take it? Do you know what this means?”

  “Now what was I going to take it for, anyway?…I’m sorry.”

  That last part perplexed me. Why had he apologized? Maybe he’d been rude to her? I couldn’t hear so well, but I was sure that he hadn’t been rude and it left me wondering. Then I heard her insisting, but I still couldn’t believe the part before. I thought I would be embarrassed the next morning because they didn’t know that I knew about “it”…Just what was “it”? I went back over the dialogue. In the end, I told myself, it was something that he was supposed to take and didn’t. It seems like he didn’t want to take it, and then he said he was sorry but I don’t know why. What’s all the fuss about? The next morning after breakfast my aunt told me:

  “There’s a boy next door, he used to come over a lot. Take the checkerboard over to play with him.”

  “But I don’t even know him. I don’t know who he is.”

  “Tell him you came to stay with us a few days and that you want to play. Better yet, I’ll tell him.”

  And my aunt stopped doing something important to go tell the lady next door that I had come to visit for a few days. The neighbors welcomed me with smiles. Meanwhile, I still hadn’t seen my uncle and my aunt told me that he hadn’t gotten up yet. The neighbor asked how my uncle was doing and my aunt didn’t answer. She could have said ‘so-so,’ I thought. I would have said so-so. Right away I decided that the boy next door had a fish face, or depending on how you looked at him, a grapefruit for a face.

  “Your uncle’s sick,” he told me.

  “I know.”

  “And he’s gonna die.”

  “That’s a lie,” I said. “Why did you say he’s gonna die?”

  “It’s not because I say so,” and now his face looked like a grapefruit, “it’s because the doctor says so.”

  “That’s a lie,” I said.

  “Whatever,” said the boy and he took out the checkerboard.

  I thought he might let me win on purpose; I decided I was going to let him think I was a complete idiot so he would leave me alone. In the middle of the game he said,

  “Last time an ambulance came.”

  I wanted to say that was a lie, but I stopped myself when I realized the boy, with that fish face of his, knew more than I did, simply because he lived next to my uncle. He wasn’t even a relative or anything, and I was his niece, so I said:

  “I already knew that.”

  “Do you know how many times it’s come?”

  “What does it matter how many times it’s come? I know the ambulance comes, and that’s that!”

  “Seven times,” he said.

  And then he beat me. He’s skinny, I thought. He’s skinny and spiteful, too. And it was twelve o’clock and nobody came over to get me; then it was twelve-thirty and still nobody came. That’s when I said:

  “I’m going back to eat lunch.”

  And the neighbor lady said:

  “No, stay here and eat with us, with Leopoldo.”

  “Does my aunt know?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  And I don’t remember what I ate, only that it was something mushy. At two o’clock my aunt came to get me. She was wearing a different blouse and she’d put on heels. Her hair had been styled, as if she’d had guests over, and the neighbor squeezed her hand.

  “Where’s my uncle?” I asked.

  “They took him,” she said. “They took him to get better.”

  And Leopoldo raised an eyebrow, sitting in the corner. I noticed that the neighbor took my aunt by the arm and said something to console her. That lady looks like a bunny rabbit, I thought, and to my aunt timidly I said:

  “Can we go?”

  “Yes,” she said, “we should.”

  We walked into the kitchen, with i
ts checkered curtains. It was a splendid, sunny day. And I started to walk around the house as if I were missing something. There were clothes strewn around and the wardrobe had been moved. I know what I forgot, I told myself almost enthusiastically. I forgot the checkerboard at Leopoldo’s. I’ll go get it.

  “Leopoldo, will you give me the checkerboard?”

  “It’s mine. I let your uncle borrow it.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know,” I said.

  That’s what it was, I thought. It was the checkerboard that was missing. I considered asking my aunt if Leopoldo was lying. What for? I thought, Leopoldo wouldn’t lie. In the afternoon, after a lot of thinking, I said:

  “Auntie, I’m leaving.”

  “Don’t you want to stay until tomorrow?”

  “Alright,” I said, “but I’ll just get my suitcase packed.”

  For a moment I considered asking her if she had any perfume, but then it seemed inappropriate. I don’t have any perfume, I said to myself, and not only that: I don’t have socks, or a scarf, or a cape either. And what’s more, I’m going to leave a coat here, and I’m going to throw something out on the street, too, when no one’s looking, because I don’t want to carry around such a heavy suitcase. That thought made me smile all afternoon. And the next morning (I left the ball and the coat at my aunt’s house), when I threw a skirt out on the street, I trembled and my heart skipped a beat.

  The Piano Recital

  “SHE’S going to play Chopin’s Mazurka No. 2,” said Hebe’s mother to the woman who lived next door, looking at the program.

  “How nice!” the woman said sweetly, almost as if to butter her up, as if it were Hebe’s mother who would be playing the piano.

  “And she should be at the piano practicing right now, otherwise she’ll never learn in time. I’m not saying that she’s not capable, she’s just so careless!”

  Hebe knew her mother spoke the truth, but it left her with the dull sensation that something wasn’t right.

  Actually, she knew what her mother meant by calling her careless: leaving her clothes strewn on the floor, not bathing often enough, putting her feet up on the sofa. When it came to ability, she didn’t quite know how to apply herself. And if her mother said she wouldn’t learn in time, she wouldn’t. Her mother predicted everything: not long ago she had prophesized that the old man next door would die in two or three days, and no sooner said than done, he died.