City of Knives

by William Bayer

  She grinned back. "Not too well, I'm afraid."

  He took her hand. "Doesn't matter. I'm a pro. I'll teach you. Would you like that?"

  "Yes, very much," she said.

  She turned back to the dance floor, picking out dancers, following them a while, they moving on to other pairs. Her eyes kept returning to Ana and Javier's father. Ana looked radiant. She seemed to sparkle in Dr. Hudson's arms. Tonight, for the first time, Beth saw her not as a professional but as a woman, a woman in love, she thought. It showed in the way Ana danced and in the glow that had transformed her face.

  Does it also show on me?

  Javier rose, took her hand, guided her silently back to the floor. Taking her tenderly in his arms, staring into her eyes then drawing her close, he whispered: "When we dance we become so close, our hearts beat together as one...."

  Tomás could feel something happening on the dance floor, something powerful, transformative.

  "Do you feel it?" he asked Ana.

  "Yes. What is it?"

  "I don't know. But I think it's wonderful," he said.

  It was, he thought, a sense of confidence and exhilaration that seemed to have spread across the floor like a slow-moving wave. Before everyone was dancing at a certain level, some couples superior to others, all moving with competence and good form. Now, suddenly, inexplicably, everyone's dancing seemed enhanced. Here they were, a sea of approximately one hundred couples, each moving in an individual way, yet also in a kind of unison...as if all had been swept up in something bigger than themselves, moving as couples but now also as one.

  "It isn't just us, is it?" Tomás asked.

  Ana opened her eyes, peered about. "No, it's everyone. The lighting seems different and the tempo seems to have slowed. I don't think I've ever felt anything quite like this."

  "What is it then?"

  "Maybe some kind of magic," she said.

  Tomás searched the floor for Javier and Beth, found them, fastened on them, and began to guide Ana toward them. He felt clearly that they were the ones leading the transformation—the couple whose dancing had somehow impacted the entire floor. People made room for them, gave them space to shine. And shine they did, becoming almost luminous, he thought. It was as if, he thought, on account of them, the barriers that had existed between the other dancers had fallen away, and now each couple had found its place in the scheme.

  Tomás looked around. The lighting, as Ana had observed, did indeed seem to have changed. The walls of the old gymnasium appeared darker than before, while brilliant light, pouring down upon the dancers, seemed to etch each couple out. The music seemed to have gained power as well, revealing its secrets, its inner structure, as time was warped, motion slowed, and each dancer moved according to a grand design. A mystical togetherness pervaded the humble hall. The air was redolent with life. Everyone was connected. The private dance-conversations of each couple were now part of a general conversation, the great conversation that was Buenos Aires.

  Tomás, reeling from his awareness of this transforming magic, was seized by a vision of this great sprawling city that he loved: that tonight this milonga on this obscure dance floor was Buenos Aires:

  There are so many stories here. And to all of us who live here, the city is an obsession defined by who we are for one resident a magnificent metropolis, for another a torturous labyrinth. So many stories, each an embellishment upon the other, here in our city of intersecting destinies....

  We prowl the streets, seeking partners, avoiding enemies, searching for opportunities and to requite our passions. Often our paths cross. Sometimes we look at one another, then pass one another by. A man recalls a nameless girl he saw peering at him at sunset from the window of a bus; for years he remembers her face, reddened by the dying summer light. A woman recalls a boy whose eyes met hers one sweet spring afternoon in the park how their eyes locked, and then, after she turned in modesty and then looked back, he was gone and the aroma of the earth and the fragrance of fresh blossoms ballooned so boldly within her that she felt her soul expand.

  In this vast city, where it's so easy to become lost and to lose oneself, there are times like this, moments of magic and respite, when we all— unrequited lovers and self-justifying torturers, impotent revolutionaries and unreconstructed fascists, steamy tangueras and tangueras, grasping chantas, incorruptible cops and weary psychoanalysts—come together... dancers of the dance.

  AUTHOR'S AFTERWORD

  Buenos Aires is a huge city; approximately twelve million people live in the greater metropolitan area. It also has a large Jewish population, over two hundred thousand, making it one of the largest urban Jewish communities in the world. For information on Jewish sites in the city and the history of its Jewish community, see the guidebook Shalom Buenos Aires edited by Elio Kapszuk and Damián Lejzorowicz.

  Lest anyone think the anti-Semitism expressed by various characters in this novel is exaggerated, I refer them to the words of Argentine ex-Colonel Mohamed Alí Seineldin, now serving a life sentence for leading his unit, the extreme right-wing anti-Semitic military group called the carapintadas or "painted faces" (on account of the camouflage paint members applied to their faces) in various coup attempts. Seineldin famously stated: "It's easier to find a green dog than an honest Jew."

  Unfortunately, remnants of the carapintadas are still active. Other notorious anti-Semites are the politician, Alejandro Biondini, who has worn an SS uniform to political rallies, and the shadowy political ideologue, Norberto Ceresole, who insists that "Hollywood invented the Holocaust." Perhaps the worst manifestation of anti-Semitism is the belief, held by otherwise well-educated people, in the so-called "Plan Andinia," a supposed Jewish-Israeli plot (akin to the one in the forged Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion) to carve a second Jewish homeland out of the bottom third of Argentina.

  For information about the neo-Nazi movement in Argentina, I refer readers to Sombras de Hitler ("Shadows Of Hitler") by Raúl Kollmann. I also want to thank Mr. Kollmann, a highly respected investigative journalist, for granting me a fascinating interview. It was Kollmann who first told me about the anti-Semitic Argentine intelligence officer, Alejandro Sucksdorf, who ran a neo-Nazi training camp on an island in the Delta del Paraná, and who allegedly planned to bust Colonel Seineldin out of prison.

  For background on Nazis in Argentina, I refer readers to The Real Odessa by Uki Goñi, another superb investigative journalist.

  A word about proper names: Argentina, like the U.S., is a nation of immigrants. Thus, as in this novel, one finds people with Italian names (Ricardi), Spanish (Vargas), English (Hudson), German (Kessler), Sephardic (Abecasis), French (Charbonneau); etc. However, since Argentina is Spanish-speaking, most first names are of Spanish origin.

  Buenos Aires is a world center for psychoanalysis, primarily classical Freudian, but with numerous Lacanian and Jungian resident analysts as well. There are more psychoanalysts per capita in the city than in any other, including New York, by a multiple of three. And, yes, Café Sigi does exist! And so does Radio La Colifata!

  For an excellent history of the psychoanalytic movement in Argentina, readers should consult Freud in the Pampas by Mariano Ben Plotkin. I want to thank Mr. Plotkin for granting me an interview.

  From 1976-1983 Argentina was ruled by a military regime which called itself the "Process" (el Proceso de Reorganización Nacional). During this period terrible atrocities were committed, innocent people were arrested, tortured and disappeared. Several hundred infants, born to arrested women during captivity, were illegally adopted by military families, sometimes by the very people who had tortured and killed their birth parents. Due to various amnesties issued by later regimes, most of the people responsible for these atrocities are still free.

  There are numerous powerful texts regarding this period, also known as 'The Dirty War': A Lexicon Of Terrorism: Argentina and the Legacies of Torture by Marguerite Feitlowitz; Nunca Más, The Report of the Argentine National Commission on the Disappeared; The Disap
peared and the Mothers of the Plaza by John Simpson and Jana Bennett; The Flight, Confessions Of An Argentine Dirty Warrior by Horacio Verbitsky (another brilliant investigative journalist); and, for a psychological perspective, Love In A Time Of Hate, Liberation Psychology In Latin America by Nancy Caro Hollander.

  During the 1990s, two devastating anti-Semitic terrorist bombings took place in Buenos Aires. In 1992, the Israeli Embassy was blown up, the building was totally demolished and twenty-nine people were killed. In 1994 the building of the AMIA, a Jewish cultural and welfare organization, the center of Jewish life in Argentina, was blown up. In this explosion eighty-six people were killed and hundreds injured. At the time it occurred, the AMIA bombing was the most devastating attack directed against Jews since the end of the Second World War.

  There have been two prominent theories about these attacks; the first, that there was police and military involvement; the second, that both were engineered by the Iranian-backed terrorist organization, Hezbollah. Current thinking is that both theories are correct—that the attacks were organized by Hezbollah agents, working out of the Iranian Embassy, assisted by sympathetic Argentine police and military elements. Despite the offer of huge rewards and many years of investigation under the supervision of several investigative judges, the full story of these crimes has yet to be told.

  For more information on Hezbollah operations in the three borders area of Argentina, I refer readers to Sebastian Junger's "Terrorism's New Geography" (Vanity Fair) and Jeffrey Goldberg's "In The Party Of God" (The New Yorker).

  Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring had a number of specially made daggers (a wedding dagger, hunting dagger, etc.) including one now in the museum of the U. S. Military Academy at West Point. Despite numerous rumors and apocryphal stories, his jewel-encrusted Reichsmarschall dress dagger has never been found...although it's alleged that several pieces from it may have surfaced. For more information on the various Göring daggers, I refer interested readers to Colonel Thomas M. Johnson's multivolume reference work Collecting The Edged Weapons Of The Third Reich, particularly a chapter in Volume VIII by Ben Swearingen that deals with the Reichsmarschall dagger, reproduces the two period photos of it, and concludes: "As of this writing 'the hunt' is still on."

  For an excellent description of Buenos Aires, its citizens and their concerns from a foreigner's perspective, I recommend Miranda France's thoughtful and amusing Bad Times In Buenos Aires. (The quote concerning tango "Danced properly it should be as passionate, yet as loveless as a one-night stand" is from her text). Ms. France's book deals with tango, politics, psychoanalysis, soccer and other topics close to the hearts of all porteños.

  On police corruption as it impacted upon a high profile homicide case, read Cabezas, Crimen, Mafia y Poder by Enrigue O. Sdrech and Norberto Colominas. I want to thank Mr. Sdrech, perhaps the most important and experienced crime reporter in Buenos Aires, for a most illuminating interview.

  There are numerous books on tango, its history, etc., but little has been written about the tango obsession, particularly as it affects foreign dancers. In this regard, I recommend the book Paper Tangos by Julie Taylor; Mindy Aloff's article "After The Last Tango" (New Republic); Laura Shin's article "There Will Never Be A Last Tango" (New York Times); Lin Sampson's article on the obsessive-compulsive aspects of being a milonguera in which I first encountered the term "tango bum" (The South African Sunday Times); and Cherie Magnus's terrific on-line articles: "The Church Of Tango" and "Solo Tango in Buenos Aires." I want to thank Ms. Magnus for accompanying me to several tango halls in Buenos Aires and for her invaluable help when I was doing tango research for this book.

  Perhaps the best introduction to Argentine tango is to be found in cinema. I recommend the following films: The Tango Lesson, directed by Sally Potter; Tango Bar, directed by Marcos Zurinaga; Tango: The Obsession (a documentary), directed by Adam Boucher; Tango, directed by Carlos Saura; and Tango, Our Dance, directed by Jorge Zanada.

  Borges' poem "The Dagger" may be found in his Selected Poems. A Julio Cortázar story concerning the Güemes Arcade is titled "The Other Heaven" and appears in English in the collection All Fires, The Fire and Other Stories.

  In addition to my first-hand research, I relied for background on despatches by reporters Clifford Krauss of The New York Times and Sebastian Rotella of The Los Angeles Times.

  I want to express special gratitude to my friend of nearly fifty years, novelist, translator, expert on Latin American literature and porteño, Luis Harss, for his kind assistance during the research phase, for showing me around Buenos Aires, accompanying me to interviews and on long walks through the city, and for checking over my manuscript for "howlers." Thank you, Luis; you are a true mensch! And if there are still a few howlers here, you are not responsible!

  I also want to thank the following who spoke to me on background and submitted to my many (often dumb) questions: retired Homicide Chief, Nelson Horacio Corgo (who didn't think much of my idea of featuring a female homicide investigator); Dr. Carlos Mario Aslán, former president of the Asociación Psicoanalítica Argentina, who kindly showed me around the building; Dr. Ignacio Fojgel; and many others who prefer not to be named.

  But even those who are named are in no way responsible for anything in this novel, which, of course, is a work of fiction. Except for references to well-known public figures and historical events, all names, characters and scenes are the product of my imagination, and any resemblance to actual persons and events is entirely coincidental.

  —WB

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