“I’m impressed by how well stocked your cousin’s house is,” said Frida, as she hesitated between a bottle of Absolut and another of Finlandia. Verónica watched her from the doorway.
“Frida.”
“Yes?” Still hesitating between the bottles, Frida answered without turning round.
“I was going to say ‘we need to talk’ and now that sounds pathetic, even to me.”
Frida turned round with the bottle of Absolut in her hand and, putting on a serious voice, said, “Verónica, we need to talk.”
“See? It sounds stupid.”
“Shall I bring a bottle of whisky for you?”
Verónica nodded and walked towards Frida, who now had a bottle in each hand. Verónica kissed her. Not a very long kiss. Frida had no chance to put the bottles down or make any kind of gesture.
“Looks like you don’t want to talk after all,” she said, and laughed.
“It’s the first time I’ve ever tried to kiss a girl. Don’t make it difficult for me.”
Frida put the bottles down on a cabinet. “You are a beautiful soul.”
“I already know that. Now explain to me what we’re doing.”
“Enjoying ourselves, having a good time.”
“And Petra?”
“I imagine she’s having a good time too.”
“Are you two a couple?”
“No, we aren’t. And neither are you and I.”
“I know we’re not. But I want to know if you two are having the same sort of good time we did the other night. If today or tomorrow it’s my turn with her, or if we all have a good time together, like playing cards or something.”
“Petra prefers men. I like women. That doesn’t mean we don’t get on, or that we haven’t had good times together, to keep using this metaphor we’ve adopted. All three of us together? It could happen. Petra likes you. She thinks you’re great. Although I know my limitations: I like one person at a time.”
“And the day before yesterday it was my turn.”
“Is that a reproach? Next you’ll be telling me you were drunk.”
“I was a bit drunk, but that had nothing to do with it. I’m not used to this kind of thing and it’s —”
“Yes, I know, it’s the first time you’ve had to ask a woman to explain what’s going on. Think of it this way: it’s just the same as asking a man. Awkward.”
Frida laughed again and put her hand on Verónica’s face. Then she kissed her. “Shall I take you to the living room and get you drunk?”
If the question contained the promise of something more interesting, the reality was going to bring any such illusion crashing down to earth. They drank (wine, vodka and whisky, Petra, Frida and Verónica, respectively), they chatted, they listened to music. After an hour, Frida stood up and said she was going to bed, since they would be leaving early the next morning. Petra went soon afterwards and Verónica thought of following her to see if the Italian went to her room or Frida’s, but decided this would be a petulant gesture. She stayed in the living room on her own. She wasn’t tired yet. Verónica thought about the next day. They would go to Yacanto del Valle, she would meet the man of her dreams, she would spend the rest of her time off there or she’d continue on her trip with the guy in tow and the experience with Frida would just be something that had happened on vacation. Frida would send emails asking to see her again and Verónica would have to explain that they could have a drink some time, but that she shouldn’t get her hopes up. I’m rapidly turning into a massive jerk, she told herself.
Suddenly she remembered the dead rodent she had seen a few nights ago. What had happened to it? She hadn’t seen it the morning after finding it. Could the girls have picked it up and thrown it in the garbage? If so, it was strange neither of them had said anything. The animal’s appearance was too alarming not to mention. There was always the possibility that the disembowelled animal had never existed. That it had been a figment of her imagination. A dream, a nightmare, a message she had yet to decipher. As she walked out of the door leading to the garden, she felt as though she might find the animal’s body tossed on to the veranda. But there was nothing there. Just the chirping of crickets, a few stars above, the rustling of branches and the sensation that someone (a human, an animal, a divine being from another world?) was watching her from the shadows. Fearfully, she retreated.
4 A Party
I
Before setting off for Yacanto del Valle, Verónica checked her email. It was the second time she had turned on her laptop while on vacation, and that already felt excessive. There was a reason why she refused to upgrade her mobile phone for one that allowed her to check her inbox; she didn’t want to be thinking about emails or feeling the pressure to reply instantly. She glanced at the inbox: among the spam, press releases and the odd work-related message was exactly what she was looking for – an email from Paula. She wanted to know her friend’s thoughts on what had happened with Frida. To her relief, Paula had suppressed the scandalized tone that came to her so easily and instead told her about her own teenage fling with a friend at secondary school. She gave plenty of details, most of which Verónica would have preferred her to leave out – but then her friend was like that, an enemy of ellipsis. Paula also urged her to do whatever she wanted and not give a shit what anyone thought. What happens on the Bolivian border stays on the Bolivian border, she wrote, betraying a dismal ignorance of geography along with the best kind of female solidarity. Verónica thought of writing back instantly to tell her what had happened the day before, but she didn’t want to come across as a bewildered and confused ingénue. She would write to her the next day instead, and collapse what had happened with the girls into a minor episode in her wanderings through the north.
Cousin Severo had told her not to bother tidying up too much. After she left, he would send the maid over to clean the place. Verónica preferred to leave everything as tidy as possible. She got up at eight o’clock and an hour later had the house more or less shipshape. The girls appeared then with their rucksacks and the guitar. Petra insisted they take some selfies and photos in the house and garden, with the panoramic view as a backdrop.
They filled up the tank and had breakfast at a service station before heading south on Route 38. They were going to take the scenic road through the Calchaquí Valley and expected to reach the city of Tafí del Valle in time for lunch. Over breakfast they looked at the map again. They had to go to Acheral and join Route 307 there. It was a glorious day, not a cloud in the sky. Frida and Petra were wearing sunglasses. All three had on their shortest shorts, and the sight of so many female legs together brightened the weary expressions of the men at the service station. The three women made no comment.
Frida was sitting beside her and Petra was in the back. As Verónica rejoined the freeway (a denomination that seemed too grand for this potholed road), Frida connected her MP3 player to the USB port in the car stereo.
“What are we listening to?”
“‘La Fille du Lido’. It’s by a singer called Inna Modja. She’s from Bamako.”
“From where?”
“The capital of Mali, in Africa. She sings in French and English. She also sings in Fula, her native language.”
They found the right road without difficulty. The view that opened up before them was dazzling, the route winding through mountains and jungle-like forests. At one point they pulled off the road to enjoy the landscape and take some photographs with Petra’s camera. Verónica kept a few paces back.
“Don’t you like photos?” Petra asked her.
“I love them,” she replied.
“But you never take them, not even with your phone.”
“I don’t think my phone can take them, and I didn’t bring a camera.”
“I think you don’t want to take away any memories,” said Frida teasingly.
“It’s possible. I don’t rule that out.”
“I’ll email you ours. Stand together so I can take one.” Petra focussed the len
s on Verónica and Frida joined her, putting an arm around her shoulders. Verónica, motionless, smiled at the camera.
“Can you relax a bit?” Frida asked, and tickled her. Verónica tried to fight her off but couldn’t help laughing or stop Frida from hugging her tighter.
Arriving in Tafí del Valle well before lunchtime, they set out to explore the city. They found a clothes shop all of them loved, where Frida bought a little cotton cardigan which she quaintly referred to as a rebeca in her European Spanish. Petra bought some artisanal slippers that were more pretty than practical and Verónica a multicoloured waistcoat she thought was beautiful but which she would doubtless end up giving to one of her sisters, once the vacation fever had passed.
Lunch was in a little tavern, where the soft drinks came in litre bottles. All three of them ordered Wiener schnitzel with fries. They were hungry and not in a hurry. After coffee they wandered a bit more but found only a few lost tourists. The locals were all having a siesta. It was quite a while before they continued on their journey. This time Frida drove and the landscape was less striking.
They arrived in Yacanto del Valle at about 5 p.m. and drove around the town. It comprised six or seven blocks with a typical square at its heart, around which were a church and various shops: an ice-cream parlour, bars, clothes and antiques shops and even a veterinary surgery. Verónica had identified a hotel on the internet that looked quite pretty, called La Posada de Don Humberto. It was a rambling old house that had been converted into a hotel for tourists. High season was finished and, perhaps for that reason, there were rooms available.
La Posada de Don Humberto was run by its owners, a loquacious gay couple from Buenos Aires. In a matter of minutes the girls learned that they had come to live in Yacanto del Valle five years ago and that they were not related to Humberto Correa, a rich landowner who’d had the house built at the end of the nineteenth century when he left the home on his estancia and moved into town.
“I’d like a single room. How about you two?” Verónica asked.
“A double is fine for us,” Frida replied.
Verónica was given a double room to herself anyway. As the girls walked to their rooms, they agreed to meet back at the hotel entrance after a few minutes’ rest. Their plan was to have a coffee in some little bar and then go on to the art gallery recommended by Verónica’s sister.
“What’s the name of the eligible bachelor?” Petra enquired as she sipped her cappuccino in the bar.
“Ramiro. Ramiro Elizalde.”
II
“Is Ramiro Elizalde here?” Verónica asked a cleaner in the empty gallery. They had arrived either too early or too late for art.
The gallery was called Arde, a play on words alluding to the Tucumán Arde protest art movement. Tucuman Is Burning, a campaign born in Rosario and Buenos Aires in 1968, had set out to denounce the social inequalities in Tucumanian society at that time. Arde was housed in an old building similar to their hotel, except that the exhibition rooms had been refurbished along the lines of a New York art gallery. The resulting contrast with the little town of Yacanto was like an odd piece of performance art, perhaps unintended by the owner, who appeared at that moment. He was wearing worn-out jeans, sneakers and a lilac-coloured Lacoste polo shirt. His hair was too short and tidy, a style that didn’t flatter him but didn’t look bad either. As for the rest of him, he was a little taller than Verónica and could still conceal his gut. He didn’t have a limp or any discernible tics, and his smile boasted all the teeth a human could possibly have. He could have starred in a toothpaste ad. If he didn’t turn out to be gay or married, you might say this man was a rare catch.
“Ramiro? I’m Verónica Rosenthal.”
“Verónica. Leticia’s sister. Your reputation precedes you. I got two emails saying you’d be coming some time around now. One from your little sister and the other from my cousin Cristina.”
“They obviously wanted to warn you about me.”
“That seemed to be the gist of it – not that they succeeded.”
What had her idiot sister and Cousin Severo’s bitch wife written about her?
Verónica introduced him to the girls and explained that they were travelling together. Ramiro invited them into his office. Verónica examined the paintings on display as they walked.
“Do you only show contemporary Argentinian art?”
“I mainly have works from the sixties, seventies and eighties, actually. If something good turns up, I don’t care what year it’s from.”
“I thought I saw a León Ferrari.”
“I’ve got a few Ferraris. If you like I’ll give you a tour of Arde’s three rooms later.”
Ramiro had a large office divided into two parts, his desk in one and a more relaxed area with armchairs and a coffee table in the other. They sat in red leather pop art chairs, very seventies, like all the other furniture in the room. Ramiro asked them what they would like to drink. He phoned his secretary to request coffee, orange juice and water. “Oh, and if there’s anything left over from lunch, bring that too,” he added, explaining to them: “We also use the space for book launches. There was one today and we have some sandwiches left over. Which is rare because usually nothing’s left over, not even paper napkins.”
Like a good host, Ramiro asked all the right questions, even showing a great interest in Frida’s social studies and Petra’s music. That meant sharing the limelight with Petra and Frida, something Verónica wasn’t entirely happy about: they were prettier than her, after all, and had the charm of being foreign. For a moment she regretted bringing them to the gallery, but then realized that was absurd. It wasn’t as if she had gone there looking for a boyfriend.
After they had polished off the sandwiches, juice and coffee, and before the conversation dried up, Ramiro offered to show them round the gallery.
“Have you been doing this long?”
“The gallery’s been here for seven years. I opened it when I moved to Yacanto. My family’s from Salta and I started buying artworks there, ten years ago. My dad had a good collection of Argentine art, and when I moved here I brought some of his canvases as an advance on my inheritance. And there’s always some acquaintance or friend of a friend who wants to get rid of these strange pieces because they prefer more traditional art.”
They went to the first room, which was also the biggest.
“I try to buy everything available by the artists who showed at Di Tella or who started coming to public attention in the seventies. So you’re going to see a lot of works that aren’t paintings but more like installations or sculptures, like these ones by Marta Minujín. I’ve also got these suits by Delia Cancela and Pablo Mesejean, which I acquired in London. There are some pieces by Edgardo Giménez, and those shoes with a double platform are by Dalila Puzzovio, the wife of Charlie Squirru, who made these two pieces. And here’s my favourite, Intimacies of a Timid Man, by Jorge de la Vega.”
“Is everything for sale?”
“Not everything. In fact, some day I’m hoping to have a permanent collection. I put a few works up for sale that don’t particularly interest me, so I can acquire others.”
They moved on to the next room, where works by Pablo Suárez were displayed alongside ones by Rómulo Macció and Marcia Schvartz. Verónica’s eye was caught by one of the Schvartz paintings, because she had seen it on the cover of a book she had never finished reading.
“Do you like Schvartz? This is Portrait of Cacho. A work from the early eighties. Come on, let’s go to the next room. There are some paintings by Alfredo Prior and Kenneth Kemble I think will surprise you.”
The tour concluded, Ramiro asked what their plans were.
“Nothing special,” Verónica said quickly. “Any suggestions?”
“Today’s a bit busy, but we could get together tomorrow. I can give you a tour of the area. Give me your number.”
The next day? He was going to let her escape so easily? He was letting them all escape. There must be something wrong w
ith the guy. Or perhaps he felt flustered having so many women around him. Whatever the reason, they might as well meet up tomorrow to discover the telluric secrets of Yacanto del Valle.
The three friends walked across the square. Before returning to the hotel they visited the church and then stopped to look in a few shop windows. Frida and Petra seemed happy. Verónica, on the other hand, was beginning to feel antsy. What was their plan? Would they get together for a round of strip poker in one of their rooms? Would Frida start leading her on again? She wasn’t sure she could bear that, and she had no idea how she would react.
Her mood changed a couple of hours later when she got a call from Ramiro.
“There’s a party tonight that’s going to be really good. Would you all like to come?”
“We love parties. Where is it?”
“Just on the edge of town. I can come and get you around eleven o’clock. What do you think?” “Perfect.”
Verónica hadn’t asked the others if they felt like that kind of outing, but she was confident of persuading them. A party. It was all they needed that night.
III
She tended not to wear dresses but a year ago, in a María Cher sale, she had bought a short, white fitted dress that had never been worn and was now languishing at the bottom of her suitcase. It wasn’t too creased and she could wear it with some white flats she had bought at the same time. Come to think of it, she hadn’t been to a party for ages. That was what came of hooking up with a married man. You don’t feel like going to a party on your own and having everyone look at you as if you’re missing a leg.
She got out her evening bag. The strap was detachable to make it a clutch. She applied a little foundation and some lipstick, put on sunglasses, looked at herself in the mirror and was happy with what she saw. It was already nearly eleven o’clock. She went to get the girls from their room. Frida was adjusting the belt on her flowery dress. Petra was still in the shower.
The Foreign Girls Page 8
