MY MOTHER, EVERYONE WHO HAS ever changed their country, the girls in the ledgers—at first it was easy. Monsieur Jourdain, who realized he’d been speaking prose all that time and was happy to become that other person. Monte Cristo, who became a count to seek his vengeance. Garay, who went from swineherd to founder of Buenos Aires. Ulysses, who set off as an outcast and a beggar and arrived back where no one expected. Juliet, who asked, “What’s in a name?” but whose name killed her.
My mother, everyone who has ever changed their country, Alonso Quijano, of course, Don Quixote. Jupiter himself, who seduced as cow, swan, rain, but not the night, no, not the night, which turns to day to turn back to night, and day, and night again, no. The greatest traitors—who knows?—Merceditas, Don Simón, the Frenchman in prison and far from his home, me—Bollino, poor little Bollino, imprisoned for so little and changed; my mother, the devastation of not knowing, Bollino changed but into what? Going on but without knowing what, changing, changing more, and then Sarmiento, above all Don Domingo Sarmiento; everyone who has ever changed their country.
I had never thrashed about so much in my bed, never turned over so many times. I would think, then turn over again: where did I get the nerve to decide who I was going to be? I thought more. Turned over more. How do you decide who to be? And why? More thinking, more turns, more questions. When I am already me, when I am already this person here.
I had spells of calm toward dawn when I realized that I had already been others in my life, had already done many times what I didn’t want to do now. And also that I had not really done it because it had been automatic; I had been others without deciding who to be. I had simply gone from one name to the next, like a leaf blown in the wind, letting fate and certain names carry me along. This time it was different. This time I was deciding who and how to be. This time, a mistake could be disastrous—Juliet with poison, another name. I had made mistakes before, so many times. I kept turning. It wouldn’t be easy to keep being who I was, either. I wasn’t even who I was. Not easy. Who was I? What would I lose? Domingo Faustino and Monte Cristo. Filthy Ulysses, my mother of the ledgers. I would lose me, as I had before—not a lot to lose, but also everything. Everything is nothing—enough, for God’s sake! Garay, Garay. If I sleep then perhaps my dreams will know who it is that’s sleeping. Perhaps. Who knows? Who knows anything?
Don Eduardo de Valfierno. I was born on the twenty-ninth of May, 1861, in San Juan, where we owned some land. I am forty-five years old. A little before I turned two, my father moved us to Valparaiso to take over the family business, the principal shipping company there, which his uncle had left him. Of course, his uncle had been born in Genoa. My father was the first generation of Valfiernos to be born in Argentina, and he kept up the customs and traditions of his homeland. Because of this, among other things, when it was time to marry he decided to find a young lady from a good Genovese family, whom he courted by letter and who arrived in Valparaiso when she was barely twenty-one to give herself to this man, who was just a little younger then than I am now.
That girl, my mother, expected the worst. She had few illusions about her future. She knew that her family had sent her to this South American isolation to forge closer bonds with the powerful Valfierno family. She also knew that she would be nothing if she disobeyed. And as this girl, my mother, had expected the worst, I could imagine her relief when she instead found a man who was devoted and respectful, still young, and who tried to make her exile bearable.
In those days, Valparaiso was the busiest port on the South American Pacific coast, and it was there that I grew up. My parents spoke Italian to me, my governess French, and the maid, of course, the peculiar Spanish of that region. I lived there happily, without incident, until I was eighteen. I recall a protected and solitary infancy, my first boyhood games, the jet black hair of that maid, whom we called Nena.
Then that year the war with Bolivia broke out. As all maritime commerce was now interrupted, my father decided to move us to Mendoza, where we waited for over a year for things to change. I saw nothing to attract me in that small, arid settlement, recently rebuilt after its terrible earthquake, and I celebrated when my father, disheartened by the unexpected duration of the war, announced that we would take advantage of this interruption in our lives by going to visit our families in our own land. My mother was delighted; it was the cruelest irony that she died on the Atlantic crossing. My father and I were now alone.
My father refused to return to South America. Over the years, the Genoa family house was the setting for our discussions. He meant for me to continue in the Valfierno tradition of commerce, but I did not honestly feel my heart to be in it, as much as I tried. When I was twenty-five, the death of my mother’s father left me with a respectable inheritance, and I wasted little time in deciding that France would be the best place to spend it. I won’t tire you by describing those years—you can imagine what it is to be in one’s twenties, to have some money, and to take full advantage of what Paris offers. I enjoyed that life until I was thirty-seven; if only it could have gone on forever.
But then my father chose this moment to die. He had married again, and though they had had no children, his widow managed to get much of what he had, though by then his finances were not in such robust shape. I nonetheless received a fair legacy and of course the title, which I admit I had forgotten about. My father was by rights the Marqués Valfierno but had never liked to flaunt it. On this point I follow his advice: in a republic like this, an aristocrat can be at quite a disadvantage. In Paris, of course, it was different.
I stayed on in Paris for a few years, though in all honesty, my income no longer allowed me the life I had become used to, and on top of that the city was becoming a refuge for decadent bohemians and opportunists without scruples. I no longer considered it a suitable place for a decent man.
People said then that Buenos Aires was the future, though without any contempt for tradition or the old customs. There, they said, a gentleman was still shown the respect he deserved. I have to admit that I had also been thinking of settling down, and that I recalled from my youth the beauty of the women there, and of course the bounty of the land. And that’s how I came to return home, and I assure you, I’ve never regretted it.
“A marqués, Bonaglia? Isn’t that a bit much?”
“Who’s this Bonaglia, Chaudron?”
His mother, everyone who has ever changed their country, Quixote, Monsieur Jourdain, Sarmiento, the girls in the ledgers, Monte Cristo…
It was only later—much later—that he came up with the perfect justification: that he’d always wanted to tackle what was undoubtedly the most difficult of all works of art—a life. And that in order to make a work of art of a life, one had to make it up. That to be the child of one’s parents was nature, and that to remain so was simply to resign oneself to nature. That to be a work of art, a life had to be invented.
The justification came much later, though without realizing it, he’d been doing it all along.
“I am Valfierno. I am the Marqués Eduardo de Valfierno.”