City of Knives

by William Bayer

  Numerous tango songs recounted tales of such fights, and Tomás knew from his patients that the imaginations of the young were flooded with them. Tango dancers, too, often thrust their feet at one another as if engaged in a knife fight. But the reason he liked that particular sobriquet, thought it particularly well suited to Buenos Aires, was the way it conveyed the nascent violence concealed within the city's beauty, an implied violence which, in Borges' words, sometimes moved him to pity.

  Tonight as he walked through the downtown streets, he felt lighter of heart than at any time since the evening when he'd first heard Tony's awful toneless bureaucratic voice on his answering machine.

  It was a relief to have decided not to deal further with the scoundrel or to be tempted by fantasies of revenge. Here too Borges had been his guide. Somewhere the Poet had written that the only true revenge was to expel the memory of those by whom one had been wronged, and then to forget the wrongs themselves.

  The city was so complex, so labyrinthine, Tomás never tired of treading it. Tonight he wondered whether there was some pattern to his walks, whether they were less aimless than he thought. A chilling notion: that his unconscious drove him to follow particular routes, turn at particular corners, retrace his way down particular alleyways and streets.

  Arriving at the locked gate to the Güemes Arcade, he became aware of someone moving stealthily behind. Turning, he caught a glimpse of a man concealing himself in a doorway a few buildings down the street.

  He didn't think of himself as paranoid. But still he wondered whether he was being followed. Thieves, he knew, stalked lone pedestrians at night. And these days the city was filled with thieves. These were desperate times. Crime had become so flagrant that normally honest people had taken to thrusting their hands into the pockets of innocent strollers in search of wallets, and to ripping gold chains off of women's necks.

  Peering back down Calle Florida, he spotted a homeless man crouched on the sidewalk as if asleep. Perhaps his glimpse of a stalker was an illusion.

  He started back the way he'd come, walking toward Retiro. He'd taken but a few steps when a short man emerged from a doorway, then stood facing him, legs apart, in the center of the walkway.

  It was Tony.

  "You!" Tomás said, advancing. "You said you wouldn't bother me." Tomás wanted his annoyance to show. "What the hell do you want?"

  Tony shrugged. "Now that your four weeks are up, I wanted to make sure that was really your decision."

  "So you followed me?" And, when Tony didn't answer: "It is my decision. Now please leave me alone."

  "Well, Doctor, I must say I find that unbelievable. I mean, how could someone not want to know a thing like that?"

  "I'm just not interested."

  As Tomás started to push by, Tony grasped his jacket.

  "You can't just walk away like that."

  "Of course I can."

  Tony, dropping his obsequious manner, suddenly turned vicious. The little man, with his sausage-tainted breath and musty little mustache, leered at him, then barred his teeth.

  "Since you don't want to know, I'll take the matter up with your son. I believe Javier's his name. Perhaps my information will interest him."

  Tomás laughed. Javier, if approached, would likely smash his fist into Tony's face. But Tomás didn't like the threat. He knew he must break free before he lost his temper.

  He reached into his pocket, pulled out his cell phone.

  "I'm calling the cops. We'll see what they have to say about this."

  Suddenly Tony lashed out at Tomás' hand, knocking his cell phone to the pavement. Then in a single well-practiced gesture, he pulled out a knife, at the same time releasing a lever that made the blade leap out then lock into place.

  So here we are, Tomás thought, with perfect tranquility, in the very center of the City Of Knives. And now I'm going to end up in a pool of blood.

  Fury overcame him. No! Oblivious to the possibility of being cut, he grasped hold of Tony's forearm and wrist with both hands and applied full force. There was a snapping sound, a shriek of pain, then a sharp clang as the knife fell to the sidewalk.

  Tomás did not stop, rather continued to twist Tony's wrist until the man fell whimpering to his knees. Then he kicked Tony in the side and fell upon him, pinning him to the concrete.

  Kneeling hard on Tony's chest, he smelled vomit on his breath.

  "I'm going to charge you with attempted murder and extortion."

  Tony, fearing a serious beating, began to whine.

  "I promise I wasn't going to cut you, Doctor. And I don't know anything. I made the whole thing up."

  Tomás stared into Tony's eyes.

  "So you're just a cheap crook, a chanta. My son suspected as much. How many people have you swindled this way?"

  "Only a few. I promise." The whimpering continued. Fear and the pain of his broken wrist contorted Tony's face.

  How pathetic. He thinks I'll kill him if he swindled more than "a few"!

  "Who are you, you little shit?" Tomás demanded. Still pinning Tony with his knees, he reached into his pocket, extracted his wallet, found his ID, read off the name.

  "'Ignacio Piglia Scaparelli, Matrimonial Investigator.' At least you didn't lie about that!"

  Tony, twisting beneath Tomás' weight, was still trying to escape. "If you report me, they'll take away my license. Then I won't be able to eat."

  Peering closely into Tony's face, just inches from his own, Tomás saw the embodiment of the very worst in Argentine society. But he felt good about himself, that he'd resisted the manipulations of this chanta. Now, learning that the temptation had been a fake, he began to laugh.

  "How much were you going to charge me?"

  Tony, terrified by Tomás' laughter, attempted to sit up.

  Tomás pressed him back to the sidewalk. "How much?"

  Tony squealed his reply. "Whatever the marketplace would bear."

  "Sure, 'the marketplace!' And if I'd fallen for your scheme and paid, what would you have told me?"

  When Tony looked back at him with uncomprehending eyes, Tomás understood he didn't have an answer, that he would have run off with the money, or made up a name, or picked one at random, or, being a trained investigator, mentioned a friend or acquaintance of Tomás based on his research. He might even have given Carlos Peña's name, and then, no matter how strenuously Carlos might have denied it, their relationship would never have been the same.

  Repelled, Tomás stood up, flicked the dust off his clothing, looked down at Tony with contempt.

  "Do you have any idea," he asked, "what a loathsome speck of scum you are?"

  "Yes, I know...I know..." Tony whined. "But, you see, a man must feed his family, a man must eat...."

  It was time to withdraw, not worth the effort to turn Tony over to the cops.

  "Yes, of course, a man must eat," Tomás agreed.

  He turned his back, continued on his walk, past the Güemes Arcade, then left onto Rivadavia, to the Metropolitan Cathedral, then on to Plaza de Mayo, at the base of which, Casa Rosada, the seat of political power in Argentina, glowed a mellow pink beneath the spotlights.

  At their next session, Claudio brought a gift, a beautifully drawn portrait of Tomás in his role as therapist, with an expression of deep compassion on his face.

  Moved, Tomás wondered if that was really how he appeared while listening to his patients.

  So kind and empathetic! I hope I do look like this!

  "Thank you! I can't tell you how much this means to me."

  But Claudio had another surprise.

  "I've been thinking a lot about the Solers, that maybe it will be possible to forgive them. Not to their faces, of course. They don't deserve that! But to myself, in my heart." Claudio shook his head, then smiled. "It won't be easy, but eventually I may manage it."

  There was yet a third surprise, one Claudio did not reveal until the end of session. He had met a girl he liked; in fact, he liked her so much he intended to p
ursue a relationship with her.

  Tomás was enormously pleased. "And what do you like most about her?" he asked.

  "Her compassion," Claudio replied. "We went out dancing. That was fun. Then, later, she wept when I told her the story of my life."

  "A girl like that," Tomás advised, "is one you mustn't let get away."

  After Claudio left, Tomás stared out his window at the city. What kind of a shrink am I, he asked himself, if I can't give my own son the love I give my patients?

  The next afternoon, meeting Javier at the Palermo Tennis Club, he found him delighted at the prospect of a rematch with his middle-aged dad.

  "You know, I usually charge fifty bucks for a match," he told Tomás.

  "Please charge me then. I'll be happy to pay."

  "Will you take instruction? That's part of the deal."

  "Of course I'll take instruction. You're the superior player after all."

  This time their match, though highly competitive, was not tainted by Oedipal conflict.

  Perhaps, having already slain the Father, the Son's now willing to throw him a couple of extra games!

  In fact, their match ended with another lopsided score, Javier winning easily, but Tomás managing to hold his serve approximately half the time.

  Afterwards, Javier was full of compliments.

  "Your form's good, Dad—your strokes solid. But you need to sharpen up on strategy and placement."

  Tomás beamed. "You're too kind."

  "I mean it! With a dozen or so lessons and a lot of practice, I could turn you into a fine over-fifty player. We have a tournament for seniors here. I think you'd make a good doubles partner too."

  "Who would you partner me with?"

  "Myself, of course!" When Tomás smiled, Javier explained: "We have a fathers-and-sons tournament every spring."

  After showering, Tomás met Javier on the terrace for a drink. Shadows were long. The sun was about to set. Then, at six-thirty, flood lights came on illuminating the courts below. Club members, who'd stopped by on their way home, were playing, working off their aggressions. Tomás and Javier sat quietly nursing their drinks, listening to the sounds wafting up to them, cries of "love," "deuce," and the soft thuds of balls rebounding off the clay.

  After a while they began to talk about politics, the decline of safety in the city, the pervasive sense of unease. Yet, Javier told Tomás, he found no sign of despair at his favorite tango club.

  "It's always been that way. People who love the dance take comfort in it during hard times like these. There's a lot of joy at the club I go to. I think you'd be surprised."

  "I didn't know you were serious about tango," Tomás said.

  "I've loved it since I was a kid. I took it up in the States. All those years in Boston with Grandpa and Grandma, it was a way of staying connected to Argentina."

  Tomás nodded. "We used to go out dancing, your mother and I. She loved to dance. She was a terrific milonguera. I was barely good enough to partner her."

  "I didn't know that."

  "I haven't danced in years," Tomás said wistfully.

  "You should take it up again. I bet it'll come right back to you. 'Once a dancer always a dancer,' they say."

  Tomás smiled.

  "Why don't you come with me one Saturday night? The club I go to isn't fancy, but the dancers are great. No pressure. You can dance if you like, or just sit back and watch."

  Tomás nodded.

  "Yes, let's do it," he said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  BUENOS AIRES BY DAY

  Beth Browder looked up from the breakfast table, met Sabina's eyes. The aroma of coffee was overpowering. Sabina took a sip of her café con leche, put the cup down. "Please don't take this the wrong way, dear," she said, "but I think you're clinically depressed. You've been back here five days and you haven't gone out dancing once. In fact, you've barely left your room. I know you've been through a tough time. The people you were staying with sound awful. But what happened to your joie de vivre, your love of tango? The way you've been moping, it's clear something's wrong."

  Sabina's kitchen was clean, but not at all neat. The open shelves were filled with plates, bowls, glasses, bottles of herbs and cans of food. Cooking pots and spatulas hung from the walls. Knives lay at odd angles on the counters. Large pans dangled from a rack suspended above the stove.

  Since it was only 11:00 a.m., the other residents in the apartment were still asleep. When Beth, having fled the Céspedes', turned up in the middle of the night, Sabina had given her a tiny room in back reserved for emergencies. Though Beth had been gone just three weeks, there'd been a complete turnover among the milongueras. Kirstin Anders had gone back to Sweden, the German girl who'd been Kirstin's nemesis had returned to Frankfurt, and the South African and French girls had also gone home. They were replaced by an enthusiastic pair from Glasgow, a middle-aged dancer from Turin, and a very young, frail Russian ballerina who'd stayed on, after her troupe returned to Saint Petersburg, intent on mastering Argentine tango.

  "The problem with depression," Sabina said kindly, "is that it gets worse if you don't attend to it."

  Beth shrugged.

  "Have you thought about going home?"

  "I can't," Beth said. "I sublet my apartment through June. If I go back now, I'll have no place to stay. Anyhow, I'm not done here yet."

  Sabina took her cup to the stove, refilled it then sat down again across from Beth.

  "I think you should see a psychotherapist," she said. "We have many good ones here."

  "Like that dumb shrink Kirstin was seeing? Come on, Sabina, give me a break!"

  "No, dear, most definitely not like her. Kirstin picked her up at a milonga. I'm talking about a first-class therapist, one of the best in the city. She's an old friend, a good dancer too, though not obsessive like us. Your Spanish is excellent but you can talk to her in English. During the Dirty War, she practiced in New York. You can't go wrong with her, and considering the state you're in, a sympathetic listener could really help."

  Beth said she'd think about it. She returned to her little bedroom in the back to wait until everyone left for the day. She didn't feel like sitting around the breakfast table with the four new residents, listening to their tango tales and boyfriend troubles, especially as Sabina had told her that Kirstin's Jorge had taken up with the Italian lady, and that her own ex, Fernando, was already sniffing around the Russian. So she lay on her bed for two hours reading Borges short stories until finally the apartment cleared out. Then she emerged, located Sabina in her study, stood timidly in the doorway until Sabina looked up.

  "I think I'd like to see that shrink you mentioned."

  "A wise decision, dear. I'll phone her, see if she can fit you in this afternoon."

  Dr. Ana Moreno was not at all the dowdy psychotherapist Beth expected, nor anything like Kirstin's slutty milonguera-shrink. Rather she was an extremely handsome, well-dressed, well-composed woman about fifty years old, with tender blue-grey eyes, a compassionate smile and lovely soft shoulder-length grey hair. Beth liked her at once. Her English was fluent and she was an excellent listener. This latter attribute was especially important as, during the first half of the interview, Beth spoke non-stop, spilling out the tale of her stay with the Céspedes with such intensity that sometimes she had to stop to catch her breath.

  As Dr. Moreno took her in, Beth peered around the consulting room. It was furnished much like an American shrink's office, but there were Argentine touches—a pair of colonial-period wooden candlesticks, an etching of tango dancers by Antonio Berni, and a trio of manipulated surrealistic photographs that so fascinated Beth, she interrupted to ask Dr. Moreno who'd made them.

  "An artist named Grete Stern who emigrated here in the 1930s. Basically they're dreams. The one of the man throwing the net over the woman is called 'Dream No. 13, Consent.' The one of the woman bent over in anguish on the street is called 'Dream No. 46, Estrangement.' Which of the three moves you the most?"

&
nbsp; "Estrangement."

  "Interesting. We must talk about that. But not today. Today I want to get a full sense of what you're feeling."

  "Tango burn-out," Beth said quickly.

  "Might it be a little more complicated than that?"

  "Perhaps."

  "These people you were staying with, what was their attraction for you?"

  "Purely sexual. That first night, dancing with Lucinda, I got incredibly turned on. Then, when they invited me to stay, I thought that with them I could dance at another level."

  Dr. Moreno nodded. "I think you were pursuing sensation costumed as dance. Real tango is about love and tenderness, meeting someone, making a connection—the kind you made with that man you've been looking for."

  "Mr. DreamDance."

  "Yes. But this brother-sister pair isn't interested in connecting. From your description I'd say they're only interested in sex, power and themselves. They're narcissistic fascists, sexual predators and seducers. They use tango, used you. You know it now, and that's why you're depressed."

  "Of course, you're right," Beth said. "But what bothers me is that I knew it all along...and still I stayed with them. What on earth was I thinking?"

  "We're all subject to seduction, Beth. Nothing wrong with that. The important thing is that in the end you didn't stay with them. You had a three week fling, then left. Now you're free of that, free to do anything you want."

  "I want to get back to dancing, but I seem to have lost my heart for it. I'm hoping you can help me find it again."

  When Dr. Moreno sat back to study her, Beth felt she'd placed herself in good hands.

  I like her. She's smart too, Maybe she can figure me out.

  "Tell me something; why did you come to Buenos Aires? What were you looking for here?"