The Foreigners (8 page)

“Okay,” I said. It was true that I'd been having some romantic thoughts in this respect.

She looked at me differently. “Have you ever been close friends with a girl?” she asked.

“Yeah. Haven't you?”

She shook her head, her face in this moment very exposed. She was smiling, but then her tears came quickly and suddenly. “Oh, no, I don't like how I'm being,” she said, wiping them away brutally with the back of her hand. “I want to be different with you.”

“That's okay,” I said, patting her back.

“Don't treat me like a dog.”

I hesitated for a second, then said, “Good little dog,” and went on patting.

It turned out to be the right calculation. She laughed and in that moment, we were interrupted by exactly what we'd come for, guys. Since we'd arrived, they hadn't taken their eyes off Leonarda. She'd removed her glasses and was showing considerable cleavage with her negligee.

“Where are you girls from?” a man with a red sweater over his shoulders asked.

Leonarda quickly perked up. “Estonia. I am, and she's from Latvia.”

“Really? Hey”—he turned to his friend—“these girls are from Estonia, and what was the other one?”

“Latvia,” I said.

His friend, blonder, leaned in too.

“Do you like Buenos Aires?”

“We love it,” Leonarda said. “We're neurologists. We've come to study the effect of Viagra on jet lag.”

The first guy made a swirling motion with his head, indicating confusion. “What?”

“Yeah, we carry Viagra with us all the time,” Leonarda said. “We have some on us now. We love it. It's great for women too.”

She turned to me.

“See,” she said, softly, “isn't this fun? Now the really funny thing would be if we kissed.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah, then they really don't know what to do.”

“Okay,” I said. If I had been wearing glasses, I would have taken them off.

Her mouth seemed bright and full of teeth. She was laughing. “Are you ready?”

I nodded. If only I was drunker, but we'd barely taken two sips. It seemed she was always doing this to me, acting crazy before we'd even had time to get drunk. Unlike me, she clearly didn't need to drink to behave in any way she pleased.

She put her hand on my back and brought her face near mine. She kissed me very gently, almost too gently, lightly, it was like a butterfly, with just a little bit of tongue.

The gesture did cause a stir. Before, there had been a little space around us. Suddenly, there was none. Was it an illusion? It was like something I'd seen in an Antonioni film, Monica Vitti standing on a ledge with white stone stairs below. More and more men gather on the stairs, looking up at her, hemming her in. The place now seemed to be wall-to-wall guys, with leering male faces everywhere we turned.

“Oh, shit,” Leonarda said. “Let's get out of here.”

She slipped her arm through mine and pulled me off my stool. She was crouching down, slinking, moving through the crowd.

“Hey, wait.” I lumbered behind, realizing we hadn't paid. I hadn't picked up on this habit of hers of going places and leaving without paying.

As we headed toward the exit, the crowd pressed even tighter. Was it my imagination? Suddenly, they were frantic, pawing and pulling at us. One guy's arm went around my neck from behind. I lunged my head back and shook him off.

We rushed down the stairs. A few of the drunker, younger guys were following. We made it to the street. Leonarda took my hand and we ran. Several guys came tumbling out the doorway, yelling. One or two began to run after us, then stopped.

We turned the corner of a street and were in a plaza, lugubrious, half lit, with those huge, squat, sprawling trees, the ombu, their trunks and roots undulating like human bodies. There were people on benches making out. Oh, I remembered, we just kissed. I looked over at Leonarda shyly.

But she was already on to something else.

“C'mon, I want to show you something,” she said.

She stopped a bus and we got on. Because of the crowd, we were separated slightly. I was glad for the distance, which allowed me to be alone for a moment and absorb what I was feeling. It seemed to me that everything was quivering, the lights, the sidewalk, the leaves on the trees and the dark, huddled shapes of people walking by.

“Here we are,” Leonarda said after a while, reaching over someone and pulling on my sleeve. We both stepped down from the bus.

I felt something touch the back of my hand, Leonarda's hand. We were going through glass doors and then were in an elevator. The elevator was shiny with mirrors. On the fifth floor, we got out, Leonarda leading the way. I followed her down a series of nondescript halls, turning once, then again and again and again. How could she remember the way?

Next thing I knew we had stepped outside. We were in a garden, but it wasn't just a garden. It was a whole landscape, a rooftop park. There were palm trees, a lawn, flower bushes, a swimming pool. Insects and birds flitted around.

Leonarda led me by the hand past the swimming pool to the far edge of the rooftop, which looked out over the neighboring skyscrapers. In the far distance we could see the rippling brown water of the Río de la Plata.

“All this used to be underwater,” Leonarda said. “One day it all will be again.”

She dropped my hand and ran toward the flower bushes. They were a variety of jasmine. She picked some, smelled them. I followed. We lay down on the grass. The sky turned pinker, bluer. A blot of cloud passed. I was looking at the palm trees, wondering how deep the dirt was, how the roots held. The blades of grass curved downward. They were long enough to curve, and green, so green. Were they actually even real? I sat up. Was any of this real? It was misplaced, of course, an entire ecosystem transplanted to this unnatural height. Suddenly I saw it in eerie colors, the artificial green of a mint drink, the chemically treated turquoise swimming pool. I lay back down.

“Listen,” Leonarda said, “I've been thinking. If you want to do this with me, I think it would be great. Together we could make the perfect being.”

If I felt with Leonarda in the presence of a highly developed mind, about thirty times more active than my own, the synapses firing all at once, with Isolde, it was different, even the contrary. She seemed to know what she wanted, wealth, glamour, upper-class status, all swimming in a concoction of cocktail parties and art. At the same time, there was something unconscious about her behavior, even brute-like. She pressed forward, without seeming to understand herself in the slightest. She went after things, would butt her head against them again and again, then wander around dazed. When she was desperate, you had the same impression that she was an animal, dazed, reeling around in front of you. On the other hand, she seemed very alone and her bravado touched me. She made me think of heroines of novels I'd read, Lily Bart, Madame Bovary, a Lily with Emma's aspirations. Going out to cocktail parties and putting on airs without a cent to her name.

Isolde and I met for lunch, we met for tea. She would call to tell me the news—the French girl had caught Ignacio, the most eligible bachelor in BA. Or she'd call in desperation, urgently soliciting my advice about one or another of the trials in her life. Bubbly, affectionate, she would sometimes call three times in a row. One guy, a Brazilian diplomat, with whom she was flirting while simultaneously badgering him for a job, put it this way—“Your phone behavior is perfect for finding work, but disastrous if you're looking for love.”

After one of our meetings, she had arranged to see her landlady. “Oh, please come with me. I can't face her alone today.”

I agreed. Besides wanting to respond to her plea, I'd been told about this woman and was curious.

Isolde's entire existence in Buenos Aires was predicated on her living arrangement. Isolde's aunt had been the lady companion to a wealthy old Frenchwoman. It was through this Frenchwoman, a fourth cousin to Isolde's landlady, Beatriz, that the connection had been made. The unspoken requirement in exchange for an apartment where Isolde needn't pay rent were these weekly visits. Isolde would sit by the bedside while Beatriz talked.

The apartment was in Barrio Norte, spacious—Beatriz had had five children—but now the only illuminated areas were the woman's bedroom, the kitchen—the domain of Clara, the Paraguayan maid—and the pathway between them. The rest of the rooms lay in darkness. Once Clara had let us in, we followed this pathway straight to Beatriz's bedroom. The bedroom was like a little girl's, with frilly things everywhere. Beatriz lay in her bed with a white mask of makeup on and glittering eyes. A mirror, makeup and creams were on the side table. Each morning, Isolde had told me, she put on a dense layer of makeup and in the evening she took it off.

Isolde introduced me. “Hello, dear,” Beatriz said, staring at me hard for a moment. Then she turned away.

Isolde had told me that she suspected Beatriz of judging her and disapproving. On the other hand, it seemed clear that Beatriz was also trying to impress.

Clara came in with a tray of tea. She was dressed in a pale blue maid's outfit. “In 1910, in the Campaign of the Desert, led by General Rojas, the Indians were all wiped out,” Beatriz said once she'd left. “That's why you don't see Indian traits among us. Shortness, dark skin, flattened features. In other South American countries, you will see those things. But we Argentines are European. You can find all my ancestors in the Recoleta graveyard.” She batted her eyes slightly. “It's ridiculous, but people here think of me as Lady Di.”

During the daytime, Beatriz lay in bed and watched TV. She collected horror stories from the news. This was her main subject, Isolde said, since the crisis. She relished in repeating the stories she'd heard, about people getting their purses ripped out of their hands by motorcyclists or being held for ransom in their houses, mistreated, fingers cut off.

“No one's safe anymore,” Beatriz said now. “Never go out alone. The city's not safe. It's a terrible thing to live alone. Don't you see? Everyone's moving to gated communities. Clara? Call Clara. Get her to call you girls a cab.”

I dropped Isolde off at her apartment, let the cab go and began to walk. Isolde's loneliness had been palpable that day. Should I have lingered on with her? I pictured her in her apartment, a smaller version of the woman's apartment. Although the arrangement was that she could stay as long as she never brought anyone back there, she had once shown it to me. I pictured her retreating to the bedroom, which she'd told me was the only place she felt comfortable.

It was still early, 2:00 P.M. in the afternoon. Familiar with my own loneliness, I had no trouble imagining Isolde's. The day stretched before her. What should she do? She'd glance at the cultural pages of the newspaper, where she had marked certain events. If only she had, at least, an evening activity. A cocktail party was preferable. She'd heard there was one at the Portuguese embassy. Though she hadn't received an invitation. Usually it didn't matter. Still, in her mind, there was always the doubt. And then there were the agonizing moments, inevitable if you went to these events alone, when you floated there, waiting, with no one to talk to, pretending to be utterly riveted by the art. No, she wouldn't go. She wasn't feeling strong today. But what, then? She couldn't bear either to stay at home, all afternoon and then all night as well. A movie? A modern dance performance on her own?

The foreigner's loneliness should not be underestimated. Anyone who has felt it knows what it is. At first, Isolde would sense something like a dark liquid dripping into her chest. She'd grow more and more uneasy. She'd get up, try to do something, shake herself, dress or change her clothes. But even here, while dressing, usually for her such a pleasure, the beautification of her already very pleasing frame, nothing correction, all enhancement, the level of the dark liquid would be rising. As she put on her pink lip color, picking up the glow in her pinkened cheeks, she'd already feel the futility. Why? What would it matter? She felt herself isolated, cut off, behind glass.

She'd make up an errand, talk it up to herself, “Yes, this'll be good, this is what I've been meaning to do,” step out, start the errand. But already by then, the city seemed blurry, as if she couldn't see it. Everything was grayed over. She felt herself stumbling along through this gray landscape. Making it to the shop where the errand was to be performed was a feat in itself. She was incredibly tired. Then she had to go inside, confront someone. She wouldn't just leave, no, she cared too much for appearances. But along with the darkness came confusion. She couldn't even entirely remember what the errand had been, what exactly she'd wanted, a border around the collar of this dress, but was it really this dress? And she, who had normally such a good eye, doubted if she'd ever be able to choose the right border in this moment. After a brief, muddled conversation with the seamstress, she postponed the errand and left the shop.

Now what? The streets were truly gray, washed over with gray. She didn't want to go back home. She sat down in a café on the corner. The loneliness overwhelmed her. Now it appeared as a dark pit in front of her. She was falling, falling in. She tried to claw her way out, frantically, like an animal. People moved around inside the café. They passed by on the street. No one knew, no one knew anything. She was clawing at the sides of a dark hole. There was nothing she could do. But she had to do something.

She would call someone, that's what she would do, anyone. In her cell phone she had a list of contacts, assiduously collected at social gatherings. She called a girl who was somewhat of a friend, though she didn't trust her, Australian, Melody, a complete butterfly. Melody wasn't there. She left a message. Then she called Melody several more times in case she actually was there. She called me. I also didn't pick up this time. Next she started calling one by one down her list of contacts, putting on her best voice and upper-class accent, richly melodic in the extreme, “Hello, it's Isolde. I just wondered what my great friend was doing tonight, I'm free.” Sometimes she'd call twice, or several more times for good measure, throwing away all her manners, ruining, in many cases, all her chances, with this man or that very sought-after society hostess, toppling the delicately assembled social edifice she'd been constructing so carefully over these months. But at least, momentarily, the calling brought relief. The illusion of contact, if not contact itself, soothed her enough, so that she could safely stand up and, braving the pit, leave the café and make her way home.