THE FIRST ONE OF US to talk to the widow López del Mazo was Chaudron, if I remember. His partner, the photographer, was making a fortune in a previously untapped part of the market: photographic portraits of people who had just died. Occasionally, someone would also request a painted portrait, depending either on the wealth of the deceased or the guilt of the next-of-kin. Don Indalecio López del Mazo had been an attorney to the great Anchorena dynasty, Vice Minister of Commerce, and above all, through his many memberships in this and that commission or delegation, had organized the Archbishopric of Buenos Aires to protect his various business interests.
His wife had not given him any children. To occupy herself and maintain her devotion free of all tests, she was active in several of the ladies’ associations from the better parishes of Buenos Aires society. Her grief on becoming a widow did not prevent her from deciding to commission a portrait of her dear departed that would forever adorn her salon.
When he presented the portrait to her, Chaudron asked if she had decided yet what to give to the Church of San Francisco, where, as Don Indalecio had stipulated, one hundred masses would be said for the eternal rest of his soul. When the widow replied that she hadn’t, Chaudron told her that he could recommend the ideal donation and suggested that she contact me, Don Eduardo de Valfierno.
We waited for six days and were finally in despair when I received a note from the widow inviting me to visit her at her house on the Calle Esmeralda. I remember being nervous as I rang the doorbell. A dark young maid opened the door. There was something about the way she lowered her eyes and didn’t look at me that calmed me.
The widow raised herself very slightly to greet me and then fell back into an armchair that was much too big for her. I was also relieved at how tiny she was. I offered my condolences and she served me tea in a china cup.
Thankfully the small talk was brief. I had dreaded that part much more than the negotiation itself. But the widow was not one for trivialities, or she may have felt that this was not the moment for them. So as soon as she brought up Chaudron’s proposal I told her about the painting that had been in my family for generations and that now, regrettably, I was obliged to part with. A work by the master Murillo, Madam; you can imagine the heartbreak. From what I could tell she could imagine the heartbreak but not a painting by Murillo, the great master of the Spanish baroque, whose name sounded Croatian to her. Of course she didn’t want to admit this, and she asked me a few general questions about the painting. I did my best to inform her without wounding her pride: “It is, of course, a painting of San Francisco, Madam, but painted as only a baroque master could, with that richness of detail, and the Christian feeling of such a depth that he seems to be right there, Madam. I can assure you, there has never been a painter closer to the doctrines of our Holy Mother.”
The widow López del Mazo listened attentively, sunk in her large armchair, and seemed quite defenseless until I mentioned the price I expected for the painting. At this, she sat up and showed me her teeth. They were a yellow color but all there. She told me that I should not be fooled by appearances.
“Never, Madam,” I replied, “but I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”
“Everything you see around you, Señor de Valfierno, my husband required for his business dealings and social functions; don’t for a moment imagine that we are millionaires.”
“Please, Doña Socorro—if anyone knows how easily money can come and go, it is I. But what we are discussing is a true work of art.”
“Yes, of course.”
“A work of art and, moreover, a donation for the eternal repose of your husband’s soul.”
“Of course, and I realize that it’s a different thing to be buying from a gentleman like yourself, rather than from one of those Italian or Galician peddlers.”
The widow presented me with another cup of tea and with a smile that was clearly supposed to be meaningful but that I didn’t understand. I responded with one of my own. She rose to her feet—a difficult process. While we waited for the maid, she told me she wanted first to consult with the parish priest of San Francisco, and that after that we could speak again—and she asked me to lower the price. I replied that I’d be delighted, but that it was a Murillo.
“A Murillo, yes, of course,” she said.
On the way back I passed people but no one gave me a second look. I couldn’t believe it, it was working! Ten days later we had concluded the deal, and Chaudron’s painting was installed with great ceremony next to the altar in the church of San Francisco. The priest was happy; he must have done some research into the price of a Murillo and had bent over backwards to attend to the generous widow.
It was our first operation. The next two were also successful, and, more than that, they were the confirmation that we could pull this off. The confirmation that I was, finally, Valfierno.
That the world is a place full of things, shining things, and above all, full of other worlds.
“So you made your first big haul.”
“Yes. Trite as it is.”
“I wouldn’t call it trite to have taken ten thousand pesos off a couple of millionaires. Ten thousand pesos is a tidy sum.”
“It’s very easy to become rich, Mr. Becker. There’s nothing easier. All you have to do is to take a look at who they are—the ones who don’t have the imagination to want anything else. The ones who want the same as everyone else, only a little more.”
Yes, of course. The thing is, I lived in Paris most of my life, that’s why, and I no longer care for the city, so I’ve come back.
Yes, exactly, I’d like to sell a handful of paintings. They’re just trifles, really, whims of my late grandfather, and I must confess that the upkeep of my various houses keeps me rather busy.
Yes, why not?
Most certainly. Of course.
In the end, to change—to tell yourself that you are now someone else—is not all that difficult. The problem is to get others to believe it. The problem is not the creation, but the recognition—to be is to be perceived. Lucky that it’s Argentina, he thinks.
Argentina was perfect for that.
To look in the mirror and see the traces.
Still
to see
so many traces.
Then he offers me a drink and says, “How is it that we’ve never met before?” and I explain that I’ve had such an itinerant life, so many years abroad but now at last I’m back, in the landscape of my childhood, and he says of course, that he’d forgotten that. “A good thing to have met now, Marqués. You know with all the riffraff that’s come pouring into our country it’s a pleasure when you do meet a decent man, a gentleman, someone like us.” And he tells me that we must get together some day soon at his club for lunch, and I say, “Of course, with the greatest of pleasure,” and something flashes in his eyes and I find out later that “with the greatest of pleasure” is wrong, that we don’t say that, and I don’t know that then but I do know that I’ve made some mistake—the fear of making a mistake always there, always present—but he continues, concluding, I imagine, that my years abroad must be to blame for these small slip-ups. But I have just gone through a difficult moment, another difficult moment, the trap always ahead, always menacing.
I was right on the edge. Always right on the edge.
She isn’t thinking what all the others have thought. She sighs heavily when I lift my champagne glass and tell her that her eyes have cast a spell on me. Her smile is an invitation I pretend not to accept yet so that she’ll have to insist. She fixes my eyes with the most provocative gaze and slips the strap off her left shoulder like a dare, challenging me to keep my eyes on hers as she undresses, and I do, of course, being a man of the world, with lots of experience. This is what she is thinking about me—not about whether I am who I say I am—as she lowers the other strap and her slip slides off her shoulders and barely catches on her breasts, in such a fortuitous and precarious way, threatening to fall with every breath. And, breathing fast now, she looks up at me and smiles awkwardly, nervously, afraid of how my eyes are judging her, and my hands, and of my years of carousing; afraid of not measuring up. To cover this, she lets herself fall onto the couch with a little pout and I pretend not to notice that now, mischievously, the slip has fallen down to her waist, barely around her waist, no longer covering anything, and finally she says, “Marqués, please! Can’t you see that I’m crazy about you? Please, Marqués, I can’t pretend, don’t be so cruel, Marqués,” and then at that moment I know that I wasn’t mistaken.
Yes—on the very edge, crossing back and forth over it constantly. Inventing myself, creating myself.
The important thing is to appear indifferent. Everyone there believes that to betray any hint of wonder would be vulgar, a sign of poor breeding. There are more than nine hundred guests present, as if to prove that Buenos Aires is one of the cities with the greatest number of the great and the rich, and they eye one another knowing that apart from the occasional oversight, they can be safe in the knowledge that they are the best, or as they say, “the right sort,” which is to say, the ones who held on to their lands and their retinues. They are comfortable—it’s so good to be in such a privileged setting, surrounded by friends, family, and colleagues, not out of fear, thinks Aliaga, but just for the comfort of knowing one is understood.
While the guests project a certain indifference, they look around surreptitiously, impressed by the display: the Limoges china monogrammed with a gilt G. The solid sterling cutlery by Christofle, the handles capped with a cattle-head crown. The Baccarat crystal smashing periodically in a constant tinkle of money. The fine Andalusian needlework of the table linens. The enormous arrangements of flowers. An orchestra made up of twenty-four music professors, which can barely be heard. The commemorative medal every guest has received, inscribed: Guerrico Family—Golden Wedding—By the Grace of God.
It isn’t too difficult—certainly less difficult than it looks—to maneuver the partridge stuffed with foie gras without spilling it on himself. Valfierno is wearing tails; between sips of the French champagne he dabs his lips with a napkin.
“So you are Eduardo de Valfierno? My aunt Amelia has told me a great deal about you.”
“Marqués Eduardo de Valfierno, at your service.”
“Ah, yes, of course—Marqués. I am Mariano de Aliaga. How do you do.”
“You told him you were a marqués?”
“Yes—I am a marqués. If you’re going to make it up, my dear Chaudron, you mustn’t be timid. You must exaggerate if you want them to believe you!”
“Be careful, Valfierno. Make sure you don’t ruin everything now.”
The servants who approach with the rôti de veau truffé and the Château Latour are English and German. Valfierno, too, is feigning indifference, but he is afraid to speak. In spite of all the preparation of the past few months, he is afraid of getting his words wrong, of just missing the accent. By contrast Aliaga, his neighbor at the dinner table, has no such problem. It’s stupid, thinks Valfierno, that what takes so much effort for him is so natural for the rest of them. They don’t even notice his effort: they have no way to appreciate it. He does it better than they do, he thinks, and he’d like them to realize it, but he knows he must be satisfied with simply parting them from their money.
Aliaga is ranting. He tells Valfierno that he won’t put up with these European servants who for God knows what reason believe they are superior.
“They steal from us, they sneer at us, and they live off us! They’re only here because they were dying of hunger in their own country and now they act as if they’re doing us a favor, those good-for-nothings! There was a time when we had our faithful Negroes, who had been with us sometimes for two generations.”
The woman across from him nods vigorously in agreement and says, “Don’t worry, Mariano, in ten or fifteen years this lot will also have learned their place.”
“You’re right, my dear, it doesn’t usually take longer than that, but right now it’s very annoying. We’ve had enough of these foreigners coming in and watering down our traditions, don’t you agree, Marqués?” and the Marqués agrees, of course. And he tells some Bavarian to bring him more wine—yes, Latour.
“Did we manage to get any clients?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Chaudron. Just to be there was itself a real triumph.”
“In other words—no.”
“You need to show a little patience, Chaudron.”
Mariano de Aliaga tells him he mustn’t pass up the Château d’Yquem, that though he himself prefers it as an aperitif, it has to be said that it’s delicious with the marrons glacés. Valfierno, who has never had it but has read about it somewhere, replies that no, he considers it a dessert wine, and the two begin a debate. Aliaga is about the same age as Valfierno but is at least a head taller, even sitting down, and he shows the signs of having lived, with greyish skin and small veins around his eyes.
By contrast, Doña Inés Ezcurra, a distant cousin of the hosts, is a woman of more than seventy years, imperious and wealthy. She says excuse me, that she happened to hear his name and wanted to know if he was the one who had sold Doña Soledad that nice painting. Valfierno can’t decide if this is lucky or a disaster, but he has no choice but to respond.
“Yes, Señora, I was the one; delighted to make your acquaintance. My grandfather, you know, was an incurable collector. Unfortunately, these are different times.”
“I think I understand,” says Doña Inés, and she attempts to exchange a knowing look with Aliaga, but he doesn’t respond. The first waltz begins to play—the “Blue Danube”—and the honored pair, bearing their fifty years of union, dance heavily while a thousand people applaud.
Soon more people follow, their pristine soles moving on the floor of English oak, dancing beneath an enormous chandelier, its three thousand crystals sparkling under a cupola painted with seven buxom nymphs escaping from Apollo, three plump sirens driving men mad, three curvy maidens bathing the blood from their bodies, and two even plumper Hesperides watching over their mythical garden. And in the middle of it all, up on that ceiling, was Jupiter, as a bull, ready to take a voluptuous Europa, half naked, her skin white.
Below, turning in time to the waltz, were women such as Valfierno had never imagined, women who don’t exist outside of that realm. Women from the society magazines but who in those photographs didn’t smell like this, whose hair and skin didn’t shine like this, who didn’t move like this, who weren’t graced with such majesty. These women are clearly of another world, one that smells of roses and gardenias, and Valfierno tries not to be too affected by it, knowing that whatever else, they are not his. Women, he thinks, who work on themselves even more than I do. Who make themselves more beautiful, into superior works of art, to be seen.
“So, my friend,” says Aliaga, “you are something like an art dealer,” and he raises his champagne glass in a toast.
“I’m not sure that’s it exactly, but yes, I have sold the occasional painting here and there,” replies Valfierno. “Only classics, mind you.”
“That’s what we’re missing, dear fellow—classics,” says Aliaga. “We’re a young country. And powerful. We are the future; what we don’t have at the moment is a past,” he says, and Valfierno takes a chance.
“That, too, can be purchased,” he says, and surprises himself for having said it. But Aliaga is with him.
“Very true, dear fellow. There’s nothing easier to buy than a past,” he says and smiles to himself. Valfierno hopes that the sound of the waltz has covered up his sigh of relief. “Soon, my friend, Europe won’t even have that left. Quelle décadence, mon ami, quelle décadence. They created it, but we’ll have it,” says Aliaga. “And then soon, we’ll begin to make our own.”
“Perhaps we’re already making it,” says Valfierno. “Peutêtre, Aliaga, ne croyez-vous pas?”
“Perhaps, Marqués, perhaps. I’ll drink to that.”
“The smugness of some Argentines knows no limits!”
“You should be grateful. If it weren’t for that we wouldn’t be able to make our deals.”
“You’re right, Valfierno. That’s what we’re living off now.”
“Not just living, Chaudron. This is more than that.”
There’s a moment where many people finally let themselves go. They have eaten like the kings in their fantasies and drunk rivers of silver. They have exchanged the highest compliments, valuable nuggets of information, thrilling gossip, jokes that are subtle and jokes that are coarser, and then even eternal promises of friendship. They have danced with bodies they know and with new bodies, rejected the temptation to respond to the pressure of that hand on their back, accepted that temptation, imagined futures with that hand, rejected those futures. Grateful for their luck and to their God for having put them where they are, for bestowing on them that country, that moment, that surname, that grace. For being allowed to be one of them, offered the chance to decide for so many others, to help so many others.
And then more champagne, more toasts, more smiles, more satisfied faces, promises, greetings, the stifling of a belch, some gentler dances, then exhausted, they rest briefly, feeling a pang that the end of the party is approaching. They sit—many of them—on chairs and in softer armchairs, and they loosen—some of them—their ties, or a button on their dress, and they let their bodies relax, their minds relax; they tell themselves they deserve this last rest before declaring the party dead. It’s at that moment, tucked away on his chair, that Valfierno notices the hands.
He discovers—has just discovered and been surprised, then amazed, then finally alarmed—what hands can do when their owner isn’t paying attention. He had been looking around for a while at people’s hands, and suddenly he sees his own hands and is startled. Unattended, his hands lie with their palms up as if beseeching, the fingers slightly bent, an air of flaccid disarray that discredits them and, he fears, discredits him also.
He looks back at the hands around him, the perfectly poised hands of the wealthy partygoers, delicately posed—the hands themselves both delicate and posed—their jeweled rings glittering along the edge of a tablecloth like a miniature, sparkling shoreline. One hand on the other, resting delicately on the thigh, on the black evening dress. One hand resting delicately on the other with the white gloves held in between them to prevent sweat from making them moist and slippery. The fingers of one hand laced with those of the other and held in front of the midriff, or the chest, not touching, just in front, intertwined in midair. An ancient learning, years of work that allows their hands to be controlled even when they are not controlling them. Valfierno looks at his own hands, which are now sweating, and sees that he has no control over them, that everyone can see them, can see him. That he still has so far to go.
Then, to signal that the party is over, the orchestra begins to play the overture to Ponchielli’s La Gioconda. The sound is sad. Valfierno is not listening.
“The most complicated thing was to have to keep making up my history. To have to do it all the time.”
“What do you mean?”
“If someone asks you about your family, Newspaperman, I’m sure you don’t have to think too much. All you have to do is remember, right?”
“Sure. Though I do forget some things.”
“That doesn’t matter. I, on the other hand, had to be ready all the time to put aside my own memories and replace them with Valfierno’s. Doesn’t that seem to you like a fascinating exercise?”
“No, it sounds terrible.”
“Well, Newspaperman, it was and it wasn’t. Until the day that it wasn’t anything: the day I realized that I no longer had any memories of my own. Then I knew I had truly become Valfierno. But you have no idea what it cost me later to get those memories back.”