own
family, and therefore continued to vex her. The young men, on the other hand, had left before it finished: Graciela Borges’ acting was divine, but we couldn’t handle so many dogs in
every scene, they said. They were barking all the time, even the cinema smelled of dog shit.
They preferred
The Son of the Bride
, where they’d cried their eyes out. I hadn’t seen the most recent movies and couldn’t contribute. I liked works soaked in time. In
Buenos Aires, just like in Manhattan, I frequented art house cinemas and film clubs, where I found wonders that no one remembered anymore. In a little room in the San Martín theater I saw in
a single day
The Flight
, an Argentine gem from 1937 that was believed lost for six decades, and
Chronicle of a Lone Boy
, which was comparable to
Les Quatre cents coups.
A week
later, in a series at the Malba, I discovered a short from 1961 called
Faena (Slaughter)
, which showed cattle being knocked out with hammers and then skinned alive in the slaughterhouse. I
then understood the true meaning of the word barbarous and for a whole week could think of nothing else. In New York, an experience like that would have turned me into a vegetarian. In Buenos Aires
it was impossible, because there was nothing to eat but beef.
Shortly after eleven, Valeria and her students asked for the bill and stood up. They had to start filming tomorrow morning at dawn, and they still needed two or three hours of practice. When
they left, I was expecting nothing more from the night, but one of the little actors surprised me:
We have to go to the ends of the earth without even sleeping,
che
. The Liniers Arcades, imagine. They’d told us to be there at noon, but then they found out it was reserved. Some
deformed singer got in ahead of us. That asshole, what’s his name, he said, snapping his fingers.
Martel, the other matinee idol said.
Julio Martel? I asked.
That’s the one. Who’s ever heard of him?
He’s a great singer, Valeria corrected him. The best since Gardel.
You’re the only one who says that, insisted the little actor who wasn’t turned on by her. No one understands what he sings.
The anxiety wouldn’t let me work or sleep. For the first time fate had allowed me to anticipate the place where Martel was going to give one of his private recitals. After seeing
Faena
, I could surmise why he had chosen the arcades, three two-story buildings, with a succession of cloister-like archways at the front, the construction of which had begun on the very
same day as that of the Waterworks Palace. The northern gate was used in the past for access to the slaughter lots and the old livestock market, where at daybreak they auctioned the cattle to be
eaten that day. In 1978, the dictatorship had closed down and demolished the slaughterhouse. On the forty hectares they built a pharmaceutical lab and a recreation park, but the cattle still came
into the adjoining market by the trailer-load, emptied into the corrals and sold by lot, at so much a kilo.
The street the arcades were on had changed its name so many times that everyone called it whatever they wanted. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when the place was known as Chicago,
and the slaughtermen used only knives imported from that butchers’ city, those who ventured down that street called it calle Décima. In the parish records it was inscribed as San
Fernando, in memory of a medieval prince who ate nothing but beef. The auctioneers who got together behind the blue and pink chamfer of the Oviedo bar, right across the street from the arcades,
were still calling it Tellier until recently, in homage to the Frenchman, Charles Tellier, who was the first to transport frozen meat across the Atlantic. Since 1984, however, it was called
Lisandro de la Torre, after the senator who exposed the illegal meat-processing monopoly.
There are no reliable maps of Buenos Aires, because the street names change from one week to the next.
family, and therefore continued to vex her. The young men, on the other hand, had left before it finished: Graciela Borges’ acting was divine, but we couldn’t handle so many dogs in
every scene, they said. They were barking all the time, even the cinema smelled of dog shit.
They preferred
The Son of the Bride
, where they’d cried their eyes out. I hadn’t seen the most recent movies and couldn’t contribute. I liked works soaked in time. In
Buenos Aires, just like in Manhattan, I frequented art house cinemas and film clubs, where I found wonders that no one remembered anymore. In a little room in the San Martín theater I saw in
a single day
The Flight
, an Argentine gem from 1937 that was believed lost for six decades, and
Chronicle of a Lone Boy
, which was comparable to
Les Quatre cents coups.
A week
later, in a series at the Malba, I discovered a short from 1961 called
Faena (Slaughter)
, which showed cattle being knocked out with hammers and then skinned alive in the slaughterhouse. I
then understood the true meaning of the word barbarous and for a whole week could think of nothing else. In New York, an experience like that would have turned me into a vegetarian. In Buenos Aires
it was impossible, because there was nothing to eat but beef.
Shortly after eleven, Valeria and her students asked for the bill and stood up. They had to start filming tomorrow morning at dawn, and they still needed two or three hours of practice. When
they left, I was expecting nothing more from the night, but one of the little actors surprised me:
We have to go to the ends of the earth without even sleeping,
che
. The Liniers Arcades, imagine. They’d told us to be there at noon, but then they found out it was reserved. Some
deformed singer got in ahead of us. That asshole, what’s his name, he said, snapping his fingers.
Martel, the other matinee idol said.
Julio Martel? I asked.
That’s the one. Who’s ever heard of him?
He’s a great singer, Valeria corrected him. The best since Gardel.
You’re the only one who says that, insisted the little actor who wasn’t turned on by her. No one understands what he sings.
The anxiety wouldn’t let me work or sleep. For the first time fate had allowed me to anticipate the place where Martel was going to give one of his private recitals. After seeing
Faena
, I could surmise why he had chosen the arcades, three two-story buildings, with a succession of cloister-like archways at the front, the construction of which had begun on the very
same day as that of the Waterworks Palace. The northern gate was used in the past for access to the slaughter lots and the old livestock market, where at daybreak they auctioned the cattle to be
eaten that day. In 1978, the dictatorship had closed down and demolished the slaughterhouse. On the forty hectares they built a pharmaceutical lab and a recreation park, but the cattle still came
into the adjoining market by the trailer-load, emptied into the corrals and sold by lot, at so much a kilo.
The street the arcades were on had changed its name so many times that everyone called it whatever they wanted. At the beginning of the twentieth century, when the place was known as Chicago,
and the slaughtermen used only knives imported from that butchers’ city, those who ventured down that street called it calle Décima. In the parish records it was inscribed as San
Fernando, in memory of a medieval prince who ate nothing but beef. The auctioneers who got together behind the blue and pink chamfer of the Oviedo bar, right across the street from the arcades,
were still calling it Tellier until recently, in homage to the Frenchman, Charles Tellier, who was the first to transport frozen meat across the Atlantic. Since 1984, however, it was called
Lisandro de la Torre, after the senator who exposed the illegal meat-processing monopoly.
There are no reliable maps of Buenos Aires, because the street names change from one week to the next.
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