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A Kind of Introduction
When I left Providence (Rhode Island) in early December, the first fall of snow already lay buried beneath the second, and the second fall beneath the third. I didn’t care what Henriette’s mother said, or the child psychologist at her kindergarten. It would be easier for her to accept my absence for a whole month than to have me show up on the doorstep of what had once been our house, knocking at the door like a stranger on Christmas morning or Boxing Day or Christmas Eve, after calling to make and confirm the arrangements, not to mention the parting that would have to follow. The divorce was still recent, and a new routine was gradually and painfully taking shape. I didn’t feel ready, in my new situation, to face the season’s cloying formalities. A temporary withdrawal on my part would be the kindest thing, for me and for my daughter. When I returned, all smiles and gifts, we would reestablish our relationship on the terms laid down by the judge.
They hadn’t seen each other since the day they met, which was also the day that had marked the end of their childhood. It had been a meeting and a parting in one, precipitated by an accident or an adventure that, over time, had grown in their memories, taking on cosmic proportions, like a galactic explosion. That day was in fact a night, and only a brief part of a night, lasting perhaps just a few minutes, but so charged with entropic force that it remained indelibly etched. The incident had occurred fifteen years earlier, and could have left each of them with the impression that the other was an imaginary being, a figment of panic or of some obscure survival mechanism. Yet both of them had persisted in the belief that the other was real, and in something like the hope of recovering that reality . . . And now, suddenly, there they were, Leticia and Enrique, in the flesh, looking into each other’s eyes. The reunion was amazing not only because of the absurd circumstances in which it had occurred, but also because of its material cause: water. The water enveloping Enrique’s body, still flowing over him . . . As it happened, the cause of their first meeting and subsequent parting had been a fire. It was as if Destiny were working with primordial blocks. Fire had separated them; and now water had brought them together. Taking air for granted, or keeping it in reserve for a later stage of their shared story, all they needed to complete the classic quartet of the elements was the “earth, swallow me up” of unexpected and unwelcome encounters. But this encounter, so unexpected, was by no means unwelcome to either of them. On the contrary: what they were experiencing in that moment was something like the blessed consummation of memory made real. They were real, and had been real at the time of the College fire.
Leticia looked at him and smiled. Deeply moved, Enrique held the gaze of his long-lost friend. But then, with a sigh, he looked away, and there was another surprise. As before, there was no need to turn around or change his posture; he was still in the place where the water had doused him — it was still flowing over his body — and he was holding the handlebar of his bike with his left hand. His pupils swiveled just enough for his gaze to shift from Leticia’s face to mine. He raised his eyebrows in astonishment, which altered the flow of the water over his face, diverting it around his shallow eye sockets.
It was a casual but high-end guest house, catering to a cosmopolitan, educated clientele, who were very fussy in certain respects and not at all in others, according to the dictates of fashion. It had opened at a time when “thematic” hotels and guest houses were springing up everywhere: the decor, the staff, the service, the general atmosphere, everything had to be related to a particular theme, be it Buddhism, Polar Exploration, Classical Music, the Middle Ages, Under the Sea, Tango, Film Noir, or thousands of others. As Buenos Aires became a Mecca for tourists, these establishments multiplied to the point where it was hard to find a theme that hadn’t been used. The choice itself, which required no more than a little imagination or, failing that, a dictionary to open at random, was only the first step. Then it was a matter of exercising a certain artistic or theatrical flair, in order to ensure that the place fulfilled the promise of its founding concept. The realizations varied in thoroughness and quality. Some people simply went through the motions, without really committing to the idea: they looked for something easy, like Polynesia, put up some posters of surfers and reproductions of Gauguin, and that was it. Others went overboard: every last coffee spoon had to be somehow related to the theme, which created an oppressive atmosphere; it was like a relentless, inescapable masquerade. With the influx of visitors, establishments with morbid, even disgusting themes began to appear (Death Metal, Hospital, Twisted Crime), proving that there is a public for everything. Partly because the obvious (and less obvious) options were already “occupied,” and partly because of the progression or emulation that fashions always generate, some entrepreneurs chose odd and provocative concepts, which were difficult to illustrate, like the Complement. My young friend faced none of these problems; he didn’t fall into any of these traps, because his choice had been settled from the start, and it turned out to be very apt and productive: Evolution. This was not an arbitrary choice like those of his colleagues; it wasn’t prompted by the desire to surprise or find an easy option or set himself the challenge of matching the ambience to the theme. It was, in his case, a deep-rooted predilection, a former passion, and because of this long affinity it was natural for him to expand on the theme and live with it. And the exercise went beyond simple illustration; it took on new dimensions, since the concept of Evolution, as well as being illustrated on the walls and in the furniture, could be made manifest or actualized in the life of the guest house as a commercial enterprise: it evolved as the client base grew and technological innovations were adopted, as glitches were ironed out and the service was continually improved. Within the first few days of my stay I had noticed this evolutionary movement, not as movement naturally, but as a climate, a disposition to impermanence and change, which adapted itself (in good evolutionary fashion) to the mental climate of travel.
I took a step back after hugging Enrique, so as not to get any wetter. I was about to say that I hadn’t recognized him at first, and was mentally preparing a comment or a joke about the dousing that he had received, when something else happened. As I stepped back after the hug, I probably tilted my head to one side, to get a better a look at him and come out with my joke or comment. In fact, the hug itself was already a comment on the accident, a gesture of moral support at a difficult moment since, having seen each other at breakfast a few hours earlier, it wouldn’t normally have made much sense to hug him so demonstratively. In any case, by tilting my head I must have cleared a line of sight for Enrique, and what he saw seemed to catch his attention. I didn’t need to turn around. I could see him gazing past me and responding with a clear look of recognition to the sound of a woman’s voice. The sound of her voice, not her words, which were indistinct. But when I heard what he cried out, it was no surprise that he had been able to recognize the speaker without needing to know what she had said.
Many years before, Enrique’s mother had been found dead, murdered, in the boot of a car, with five gunshot wounds to the face, arranged like the dots on the face of a die: one at each corner and one in the middle. Her hands and feet were tied, but there were no cuts or scratches or bruises. A neat job. The story was all over the papers for two reasons. The first was the arrangement of the shots, indicating that this was a mafia crime, with a “message.” That mysterious “five” showed that the homicide was not an end in itself: it also conveyed a warning or a threat. And even if only a few initiates, who remained as elusive as the perpetrators, could “read” the message, the public as a whole became fixated on how to decipher it. The sign exercised a fascination.
Enrique hadn’t moved; the cold, crystalline water was still streaming off him. The accident had frozen his slim form before us, as if a magic ray, a lustral ray of liquid, had immobilized a single story in the midst of the unstoppable flow: the storyless story of the youth of Palermo Soho.
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