Look at these papers. Just keep looking at them and they will make sense eventually. My spanish is good, if unnecessarily sloppy. But with the seals and the official legal language it is proving very hard to pull things together. And the damp heat here in Almagro is killing me. I should just gather them all up and organize them when I get back to Mar del Plata. But for some reason I need to at least place them in some sort of minimal order before piling them into the three briefcases and duffel bag I´ve brought with me. Way too much luggage for the amount of papers in the end - but they still overwhelm me. Isadora wouldn´t come. A thousand reasons with all the cunning and aggresion of the true phobic made it impossible for me to keep arguing with her. But I had to come here and bring back her past for her. And she damn well knows it.
The door bell rings and yes I jump. It´s the taxi driver who´s returned a little early it seems to me. I glance at my cell phone. No. He´s not early. I tell him I´ll be right down and start piling the papers into two of the briefcases. The duffel bag has a few small items the swindler left behind that may or may not have belonged to her grandmother - some photographs and a silver máte set which I´m sure he pried loose from some poor old soul. They had been in Mar del Plata a few years back and Greta had sold that apartment and given the old witch her money but there had been a falling out regardless. Aida was ... let´s say a turbulent woman and with the name of Verdi´s Ethiopian princess ... a dramatic woman let´s add as well. She had stormed off with her swindler Luciano and left Greta with one more bitter aftertaste after a lifetime of confrontations. Funny, Aida would disapper for months sometimes years on end but it never seemed to help. The wounds reappeared with fresh bloodly battles between the two. Even after Isadora was born and Aida was a grandmother. Greta and Aida spent their collective lives avoiding and confronting each other - but never confronting themselves of course. That was Isadora´s lonely task. To carry their burdens. Mine are easier. Two briefcases and a duffle bag ( the third briefcase is tucked inside the duffel bag ). The taxi driver is waiting outside and I fumble into the cab and we pull away from the sidewalk and into the traffic on Gascón - rather near where Isadora lived with her paternal grandparents. Luciano did well it seems. We´re near El Hospital Italiano and the apartment was a bright two bedroom four floors up. And not cluttered at all. Maybe he began pawning things off as he felt his heart giving way. And spent it all at the tracks in Palermo where in fact he dropped dead. And no, I have no idea if his horse had just won or lost.
The air is claustrophobic for me. After living in Mar del Plata you really taste the smog in Baires. I´m sure Santiago de Chile not to mention Mexico City is far worse but I´m caught between keeping the window rolled down to catch a breeze or rolling it back up and hoping the air conditioning keeps me from sweating. It´s not a terrible heat wave at all ... high twenties without the humidex but I´m in a sweating mode regardless. The good thing is El Mar Platense runs in season and so I can use that as an excuse to finally take the train back. Six hours easily but I´ll buy some magazines at Constitucion and hope I don´t doze off and wake up without my luggage or my wallet. We turn onto Independencia and head back east towards the river. I lean back and close my eyes and the driver doesn´t bother engaging in small chat. Normally I would but I feel the weight of all that history crowding around me. And of course, it really fascinates me. The bits and pieces that Greta dispenses when she´s in the mood and that Isadora then gathers up and repeats to me. And it´s Joaquin´s history too of course.
South on Lima and under Autopista 25 de Mayo´s grim concrete underpinngs and we´re there. Plaza Constitución. For some reason I´ve gotten the departure time wrong and I have to hurry a little to make it to the train but at least I manage to pick up a copy of Clarin and it´s Sunday supplement Ñ. It´s the afternoon train and it´s not packed at all - most people take the buses or their own cars and a small minority fly in to Mar del Plata. I find two empty seats behind an elderly couple ( how can she wear a cardigan on a day like this?? ) and dump the bags in the window seat and take the aisle seat as a precaution. I took a piss at the apartment and I haven´t had time to drink much so let´s hope I can hold out and don´t have to drag this luggage with me to the bathroom. Talk about discrete ...
We slowly pull out of the station and weave our way through the tracks and start to make our way through the southern suburbs towards Mardel. I manage to open the window slightly and let in a small breeze and the fans inside even work. It´s retro kitsch decor ... because they haven´t bothered really upgrading in decades. With rates subsidized and passenger rail traffic a sliver of what it was , why bother? We should be at the station by ten tonight. I hope. I hope. Well, we have time don´t we? Let´s take a look at some of these papers again.
