The Foreigners (14 page)

I suddenly didn't feel like playing anymore. “Maybe I don't need a daddy. Maybe I even want to have a kid myself one day,” I said.

It felt absurd to say it, incongruous, and also as if I was breaking some pact.

But Leonarda, typically, rearranged everything.

“Oh, you could. He could father it. I'm sure he'd do it if I asked him.”

Suddenly, I hated the guy, pathetic as he might appear in this recent incarnation. It seemed there was no getting away from him, in which case I thought, yes, he should be punished, let's punish him even further, as much as we can.

“Do you have sex with him?” I asked, wanting and not wanting to know. She'd told me they didn't but I was no longer sure of anything.

Leonarda giggled. “No,” she said. “I told you. He's dying to see me naked. It's the only thing he wants.”

“But, I mean, are you naked? Do you take off your clothes?”

“I had an image, I had an image,” she interrupted. “We would isolate one room in a public place that would be like a cage. We'd put him in there, tied up, chained. It would be like a performance piece. You could throw things at him. He'd be howling. But he would like it too. He would agree to do it, if I asked him. The public could come by and throw things.”

She stopped and turned to me. “Can you believe what we've done? The Master Plan is working. It's really working. And it's beautiful, so beautiful.”

Two guards appeared, walking swiftly across the grass.

“Have you lost something?” the first one asked.

“Who are you?” the second one said abruptly.

“We're friends of Miguel's,” Leonarda said. “And yes, I have lost something.” She burst into tears. “My diamond engagement ring.” Grabbing my hand, she ran with me across the grass to the window of his apartment where, like children, we tumbled inside.

“What happened?” Miguel asked, as we clambered in. He was still at the stove.

“Oh, nothing,” Leonarda said,“those stupid guards. Okay, Daddy, we have to go. Come, come,” she said to me, again brushing her breasts against him as she passed, taking my hand and leading me out the door.

“What about dinner?” we heard him call.

But we were already gone.

Despite my better judgment, it seemed this hunting metaphor was going to my head. It was a September evening, spring, all the flowering trees in bloom. As there was no food in the house, I went to the grocery store. Lugging the bags home, I pictured that I was dragging an animal carcass. I suddenly felt ravenous. Had I been ravenous before? Just a block or two past the supermarket, I stopped on the sidewalk, juggling one bag in my arm, the other between my legs, and tore open the cheese package. I sunk my teeth in, then threw it, half bitten, back in the bag. Still ravenous a few blocks later, I stopped again and tore open the ham, stuffing a whole wad in my mouth.

I met Gabriel in the foyer of my building.

“Come upstairs with me,” I said.

He looked good, in his gigolo mode, tight striped T-shirt and jeans.

“I just came from the doctor,” Gabriel said, following me in down the tiled hall of my apartment.

“Really? Are you all right?”

“Yeah, just a checkup.” He smiled. “A new guy. When I arrived, he went into the bathroom and changed into a white coat. Crazy. He just wanted me to take my clothes off and get down on all fours while he examined me. That was it. A hundred pesos.”

“He did nothing?”

“No, well, I mean, he felt my balls and put his finger in my butt, but he didn't even touch himself.”

Gabriel did a little dance step. “Hey, let's have some wine.”

We were in the kitchen. A winged cockroach flew through. “Aah, shit!” He ducked. “You live with that shit?”

He danced around again, as I poured out the wine.

“This is what I'm learning,” Gabriel said. “The problem is that people think sex is one thing. Like you have to figure it out or something. When it's not. It can be anything. Whatever you want it to be.

“I mean, just look at the johns. They really know what they want. There was this guy—Oh, wow, that's right”—his face opened up—“there was this guy in my elementary school. You know what he did? He would get us to come into the bathroom. He was older, like thirteen or fourteen, we were nine or so. He'd be lying there on the ground with his arms out, palms up, and he'd get us to step on the palms of his hands with our bare feet. He had his eyes closed. Then he would pay us, three pesos.”

I had handed him a glass of wine. “Isn't that awesome?”

“Yeah, great scene.”

“That's what I admire. That guy knew exactly what he wanted.”

He wiggled his butt a bit more, dancing. “I can't help it,” he said. “I feel like I have a motor in my butt. Oh, but wait—” He stopped moving. “How's the hunt going?”

“Good,” I said. “It seems we've got him cornered.”

“Are you serious? The great man?”

I nodded. “He's enthralled with her. You should see the way he acts. Like he puts an apron on and cooks for us.”

“Really?” Gabriel paused. He seemed to be marveling. “Now, I'd like to see
that
.”

I solde woke, heart pounding, thinking of Diego. She had to see him, it couldn't wait. They'd met a few times since the time they'd kissed on the grassy slope of the Plaza San Martín, meetings that had been both tantalizing and frustrating. There had been people around. They'd only had a moment. Once, in a cab, on the way home from a dinner with a group of people, he'd lifted up her skirt and moved his fingers up her thigh, then licked both her nostrils. Impulsive, she'd put her hand on his crotch, too soon, it was clear. “Whoa,” he'd said, moving away.

The way to reach Diego was through e-mail. You were much more likely to get a response than if you called. It was nine in the morning, early for Buenos Aires. Isolde bypassed her regular café and went directly to the
locutorio
on the corner. She'd written him yesterday, frustrated. It would be different if there were something blocking them being together, like he was married or even just with someone, but that was not the case. She checked her e-mail. He hadn't answered.

The
locutorio
was gradually filling up. There was a boy crouched over a computer, watching YouTube. There was a woman in a phone booth, not even talking, just fixing her makeup in the mirror there. A student with a washed-out look on her face was writing a paper. A man sitting in front of a computer was talking nonstop on his cell phone. This seemed to be his office. He had papers taped up all around his cubicle. A row of four kids, nine or ten years old, were sitting side by side playing video games. A woman entered, looking rushed. She glanced over her shoulder. Isolde watched her. Wasn't it clear to everyone that she was having an affair? She went into a phone booth and made a quick call, all the while glancing furtively around.

Isolde read her e-mails. Friends from Austria were getting married, having babies, changing jobs. She would still receive invitations to their events, and even to the events of people from college she hadn't seen in years. One guy, who had briefly been a boyfriend of hers, had visited Buenos Aires five months ago. “But what are you doing here?” he'd asked. “You're not doing anything !” he'd concluded with some derision. Now she thought of them all thinking of her like that, in Buenos Aires doing nothing. Their lives were going on and what about her? But she wasn't necessarily jealous of her friends. Except maybe for one, who had married a British lawyer and moved to Sussex, they were all living normal lives, in Austrian cities and towns. In Uruguay last year, when she'd first arrived, she'd had a glimpse of something else for herself, something different, glowing. It was that glimpse that she was holding on to.

Or was she? What did Diego have to do with that glimpse? Unlike Alfonso, he wasn't rich or upper class, though he had friends in those circles. He'd grown up outside the city of Buenos Aires. He was smart and liked to play the maverick, the outsider, hiding that he was actually quite conventional at heart. He certainly didn't want to marry—he had a whole long anti-marriage discourse—though surely, eventually, he would marry, still reluctantly, a much younger wife, and have a few children. But that was a long way off, ten years or so. By then, Isolde would be too old to have children. No, this choice of hers was not coherent with any of her plans. Only it didn't feel like a choice, but a compulsion. Isolde felt that she would do anything for those moments when Diego looked at her with warmth, like that day on the grassy slope, kissed her as he had. These days, when she woke in the morning, facing another day when he wouldn't write or call, the loneliness stretched out. She felt that she loved him. Without a doubt, he had disrupted her system. Granted that the stability of Isolde's system was probably a bit wobblier than most.

An old man came into the
locutorio
with some papers in his hand that needed to be typed out. He asked for help using the computer. A young woman was screaming on the phone, really screaming at her father. This was clear because she kept saying, “Papa!” She came out of the cubicle, her face streaming with tears. The guy at the cash register watched her, curious, deadpan. It began raining outside, that kind of Buenos Aires rain that made the whole sky turn dark. You'd think it was nighttime when it was only noon. Isolde looked up. Had the day passed already? It wouldn't be the first time that she'd spent six hours here. But no, it was only noon.

She checked the cultural pages of the Argentine newspapers online, browsed some opera websites. What if he never wrote her again, disappeared entirely? She pictured a blank world, desolate, without him.

In that moment, Diego replied. “Sure, we can meet,” he said, as if it were entirely casual, something that happened every day. He proposed another downtown bar, again near the Plaza San Martín. Yes, Isolde thought, then we can go back and lie on the grass. That patch of grass had become enchanted ground in her mind.

She hurriedly left the
locutorio
and went home, so as to figure out what to wear. Until she had decided, it would be impossible to go on with the rest of her day.

“I like that idea, it's a Kafka idea, that there's been a misunderstanding and that misunderstanding is going to ruin your life,” Diego said. They were sitting in the window of the bar, facing the street.

Isolde was wearing a peach-colored blouse, which the waitress had admired. There were certain days like this when people were always admiring and commenting on her clothes, as a way to articulate what was in fact a larger impression, of sunniness, freshness.

Now she furrowed her brow. “What do you mean, there's been a misunderstanding?”

Diego shook his head. “Just that, there's been a misunderstanding. There's always a misunderstanding.”

But then he was kissing her again, those deep tongue kisses that someone else might have found disgusting, but she loved.

“Can we go somewhere?” He lived with his parents and she wasn't allowed to have people at her apartment. Though she had decided that, if it was the only option, today she would break the rule.

He laughed at her eagerness. “Okay, okay. Take it easy. Finish your drink.”

Diego's hair had grown longer. On the one hand, he looked shaggier than ever. On the other, he had a white leather bag, utterly unnecessary fingerless gloves, all these dandyish accoutrements. He'd stopped smoking all the time like before because it was making him sick and now just had the coveted few. Once outside, he lit a cigarette.

He led her down the street just a few blocks away to a hotel
transitorio
, or
telo
. Isolde had heard about these places—they were everywhere throughout the city—where you could go to have sex, paying by the hour. The place was called The Three Princes. They stepped inside. There was a dark red patterned carpet on the floor and a person in a booth walled in by glass. Facing the booth was a screen with different room numbers on it. You could press a number and an image would appear of the corresponding room. Diego pressed a few of the numbers and the images appeared: the Empire State Building, the Taj Mahal.

“Which one do you like?” he asked.

She chose the jungle room. They turned to the glass booth. Diego paid and ordered three beers.

“Three?” she asked.

“Yeah, just in case,” he said. He seemed nervous.

They took the elevator upstairs without touching, then walked down the hall to room number 48. Just inside the door was a plant with dark red and green leaves on a little table, lit by a lamp overhead. The walls were covered with painted leaves and animals. The bedspread had tiger stripes, the chairs spots. Animal print was a very common wardrobe choice among Argentine women, Isolde had noticed, especially among a certain kind of celebrity crowd. Isolde used to wear it too sometimes before arriving, but since had stopped, not wanting to give off a cheapish air. There was a jungle swing and a large TV playing porn, where a guy with an enormous dick was getting a blow job.

“I don't like that,” Diego said, and turned it off.

Isolde felt confused by what he wanted. Last time, when they were kissing she worried she'd been too proactive, excited. Maybe she should hold off, let him make the moves.

He waved his hand in her direction. “Take off your clothes,” he said.

He took off his clothes as well. She liked the way the hair was dispersed on his body, a nice amount everywhere, except for his lower legs, which were nearly hairless.