The Foreigners - Maxine Swann [41]
I didn’t know if they were sleeping together. I knew that they were appearing in public together, yet I also knew that appearing to be sleeping with someone was, for some, supremely more significant than actually doing it.
I’d read in a short book Brian had given me, Buenos Aires, Daily Life and Alienation, that from early on, to the recorded surprise of visitors, the Argentine aristocracy took on a highly mannered and sumptuous role only comparable to czarist or Central European aristocracy in its heyday. For many of these families, the money itself was already gone. Their lives were dedicated to obscuring this fact, well-known though it was among people who mattered. Yet the point was not, in fact, what was known, but what was revealed. Without revelation, there was no shame. Certain houses, including The Palace of Pigeons, were designated as suitable for the upper classes, even though the rents were cheap. Another bulwark against reputational ruin, even if material ruin had already occurred, was to be listed in the voluminous tomes of the Nobiliario del antiguo Virreynato del Río de la Plata.
The game, while acknowledged by everyone, functioned precisely because the truth was of very little interest to all parties, and only existed on a much lower rank of prestige than appearance. Thus, today within certain Argentine social circles, you can discover prominent couples who, after appearing in public at an art opening or theater event, then apparently go home together only to part on the sidewalk in front of one or the other’s house, complicitly acknowledging with the standard one-cheek kiss what seems but will never be, before turning and going their separate ways home.
One day, Leonarda asked me to pick her up outside the guy’s house. She came out breathless. “You know what the problem is? Without beauty, there’s nowhere to hide.”
Another day, she told me she was growing a dick. “I always wanted to be a sailor. I have an ontological dick. But now it’s really growing.”
“It is?” I asked. It was amazing how with her I always half believed.
I couldn’t help looking down at her crotch, which she covered quickly with her hands.
“No, no, it’s not ready. You have to wait,” she said. “He’s so excited about it. He wants me to stick it in him.”
She would sometimes insinuate that I should come along with her, that we should play with him together, drive him crazy that way. She would talk about his bald head, gleaming, how the orb of his bald head would confront the two “lovely orbs” of my butt. I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to go. But then at the last minute, she would flit away anyway.
Finally, one evening, the encounter occurred.
He was in the doorway, bowing, baring his teeth, rabbit-like. His brown eyes actually, surprisingly, a bit simple. He was tall and hairy, except for on his head. You could see the hair bristling up around the neck of his shirt.
He led us inside. Everything about the apartment was wellchosen, masculine, an almost effete choice of masculine items, as if a very good female set designer had been involved. There were bookshelves along all the walls extending nearly to the ceiling. The couch and armchairs were of soft brown cow leather. The desk, in dark wood, was large and sturdy. On it were papers stacked neatly, a row of pipes. The apartment was on the first floor. Before the desk was a window that looked out onto a garden. The view was low, of the grass and the bottom part of bushes. You had to crane a bit to see the sky. The bedroom, a smaller room, was off the living room, its walls also lined with bookshelves. There was a not unpleasant smell of pipe tobacco.
Leonarda was smiling, holding my hand.
Between the leather furniture, armchairs and couches, was a very big, very bright lamp, as you would use on an operating table. I glanced at it. I pictured being placed under that lamp, me and Leonarda, unclothed.
He led us into the kitchen. He had long