The Foreigners - Maxine Swann [0]
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Part I
one
two
three
four
five
six
seven
eight
Part II
nine
ten
eleven
twelve
thirteen
fourteen
fifteen
sixteen
seventeen
eighteen
nineteen
Part III
twenty
twenty-one
twenty-two
twenty-three
twenty-four
twenty-five
twenty-six
twenty-seven
twenty-eight
twenty-nine
thirty
thirty-one
Acknowledgements
Also by Maxine Swann
Also by Maxine Swann
Flower Children
Serious Girls
RIVERHEAD BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Copyright © 2011 by Maxine Swann
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Published simultaneously in Canada
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Swann, Maxine.
The foreigners / Maxine Swann. p. cm.
ISBN : 978-1-101-54768-7
1. Self-realization in women—Fiction. 2. Buenos Aires (Argentina)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3619.W356F67 2011
2011009413
813’.6—dc22
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
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to P
Part I
one
The amount of pollen that comes in on travelers’ sleeves is vastly disproportionate to the number of species that hold. However, once an invasive species takes root, it can become voracious. An apparently innocent figure can topple whole ecosystems. Consider, for example, the rosy wolf snail of the southeastern United States. Or the case of the Iris pseudacorus currently taking over the Argentine wetlands, threatening to annihilate the habitat of the Curvebilled Reedhaunter and the Asian privet.
The foreigners in Buenos Aires come, searching as they always were, for a kind of utopia, though the definition of “utopia” varies. They fall into categories. There are the South American neighbors, Bolivians, Paraguayans, Peruvians, who come to work as maids, construction and agricultural workers and send the money home. The Belarusians come because there is an accord with their country, still now, papers delivered unquestionably. There are, apparently—it has not only been rumored but confirmed—whole communities of Africans. They are being taught the language so as to insert themselves. But where they are inserted remains a mystery. They are never seen. A black-skinned person on the street is an anomaly. Everyone, however furtively, turns and stares.
Then there is