The Foreigners - Maxine Swann [28]
She was engaged in a militaristic campaign of her own, on the one hand purely aesthetic—she liked military clothing—and on the other, intellectual. She demanded that the Left account for themselves, investigate their own actions during Argentina’s Dirty War. Enough of the victim role, if they ever want to be taken seriously. It was a provocative stance, and promised to get her into all kinds of trouble, which, it seems, was precisely what she wanted.
Without understanding what was happening, I felt youth reviving through my limbs. The opposite of Gombrowicz, I would look in the mirror and find myself young. Night after night passed—how do I explain these nights? I see black squares, one after the other falling. I would be with her. We’d go parading about, or I’d be alone, lying on the floor of my apartment. The building was silent. I’d feel the blood in my veins. Did anyone know I was here? It didn’t matter. I felt hidden here, sensing without understanding this strange revivification.
Sometimes I would stop to wonder what my old friends would think of Leonarda. And my parents? Occasionally, I’d feel shocked by things she said. But this intrigued me too. Part of the attraction was what I thought of as her different morality.
She took me places in the city I would never have gone to. Once, we passed by a nightclub called Solid Silver. “It’s a sex show,” Leonarda said. “Have you seen one? C’mon.” The show wasn’t on. The guy standing at the door didn’t want to let us in. Leonarda suddenly changed her physiognomy entirely, standing very near and pressing her face into the guy’s face. “Listen, buddy, we’re journalists. We write for Time Out New York. We’re reviewing the place. You’re lucky if you show us.”
It seemed to be the last thing the guy expected of her. He looked over his shoulder.
“All right, you can take a look.”
We went down the stairs. Below was a bar and a stage with colored lights. The floor was carpeted. There were several poles around which women were practicing their routines. Some of them were dressed in sexy outfits, others in sweatpants. The only spectators were a couple, an old man and woman, sitting side by side on square stools and watching.
“Wow, that’s great,” Leonarda said, looking at the couple. “But I don’t know about the girls. I think we should come back and see them in their splendor.”
Within a second, we were on the street again. It was always like that. Leonarda lived under the sign of speed. Everything with her developed so rapidly, went by in a flash.
But the door to youth was a strange one. It opened into a dark vestibule. What made it youth for me was that it implied action. In my actual youth, I had been in a melancholic posture, overly receptive, the membrane between myself and the world very thin. Now, with her, I was learning a new strategy.
She told me on one of our first “dates” that she thought she could actually learn something from me, which she didn’t feel about many people. Arrogant, of course, she had plenty to learn, but I took this as a compliment. “I used to hate this city,” she said to me one day, “but when I walk through it with you, everything seems glorious.” Another time, she said, “I’ve never loved anyone before.” She was speaking with urgency, gripping her small, hot hand in a fist. “I don’t know how to do it. You’re teaching me.”
Initially, I brought some reasonableness to the proceedings. That is, until she touched something in me and I would be set off, act wild. I would want us to lie down in the grass in a tricky neighborhood late at night. Then she would be the one to be reasonable, calm me down, pull me up. I gave her that gift—she could play that role with me.
We went to the port for a drink. The walls of the hotel bar were lined with antelope heads decked with pendants and pearls. In the dining room alongside, there were rows of white unicorns with red eyes. Outside was a perpetually overflowing swimming pool. We ordered the house cocktail.
“I used to work