The Foreigners by Maxine Swann Page A

scowled. “Given the material, I think I was kind.”
    â€œI don’t believe you,” Isolde said to Diego in her luscious voice. “What did she do?”
    Diego made a hex sign. “You don’t want to know.”
    â€œNo, really, I don’t believe you. She seems divine.”
    â€œMaybe so. Maybe that’s the explanation. Divine wrath.”
    A little while later, as I was coming in from the balcony, I happened to catch a scene. Isolde was standing with a small contingent by the front door. Several guests were leaving. The standard greeting in Argentina, both hello and goodbye, is the one-cheek kiss and you’re pretty much required to give it to everyone in the room. Bettina, the designer, had done her rounds. Diego, who had only stayed briefly, was just finishing his. He arrived at Isolde and, instead of turning his cheek sideways, aimed for her lips and stuffed his tongue into her mouth.

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    That Mercury stuff’s going nowhere,” Leonarda said. “It’s all talk, but they don’t do anything. Like I presented them with this whole project to do cultural terrorism, but nothing came of it.”
    â€œWhat’s cultural terrorism?”
    â€œWhatever. I’ll tell you later. Listen, I’ve decided we have to go it alone. I think it’s time we embarked on the Master Plan.”
    We had just passed the prison on Las Heras Avenue, now turned into a park. The prison had been of the panoptic variety—I’d seen photographs—a central point, with wings radiating outward, architecture as vigilance strategy, the idea being that from that central point, you could see what everyone was doing at any given moment anywhere on the premises. Now there were patches of green, flowering trees. The purple jacaranda blossoms dropped down, translucent trumpets. The pink palo borracho ones were star-shaped, slightly rubbery.
    â€œWhat’s the Master Plan?” I asked.
    â€œYou’ll see.”
    She was carrying a stick of nardo in one hand and an ice cream cone in the other. She smiled. “You’re a very important part of it,” she said.
    â€œI am?”
    â€œYes,” she said. “So is someone else, the prey. See that building?” Up ahead on the corner was a building in gray stone, with a semicircular entranceway on pillars. “It’s called The Palace of Pigeons. This was one of the few buildings historically where it was okay to retire into aristocratic poverty. The prey lives there.”
    â€œAnother aristocrat?”
    â€œNo. Just a snob. He’s a famous writer. But he’s more than that. He was, like, a member of a leftist group in the seventies, a TV personality in the nineties. He’s done everything. He’s our Argentine Renaissance man.”
    â€œAnd why’s he the prey?”
    â€œBecause I have a plan.”
    We stopped at a light. “To seduce him?” I had to admit I didn’t like the idea.
    She shrugged. “If necessary. I want to control his mind.”
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    Due to her changeable aspect, Leonarda possessed entrance to all kinds of scenes, the upper-class and foreigners circles, the underground art world, university student parties. Often, in the course of an evening, we’d pass from one circle to the next—Leonarda was particularly skilled at the quick exit. Shortly after this conversation, Leonarda and I made our first foray into the literary crowd. The prey was winning the National Argentine Prize for Literature.
    Leonarda came by my apartment to pick me up. Knowing that we were going to a bookish event, I had dressed bookishly. She looked critically at what I was wearing. “No, no,” she said, “we have to look fabulous.”
    â€œI feel like my butt is very prominent in this dress,” I said as we got out of the cab on Parana Street.
    â€œThat’s good,” Leonarda said. “Because your butt is also part of the Master