Adios Argentina

The ceiling fan wobbles ineffectually on the ceiling. Lying in bed just underneath I decide it is probably better to turn it off and open the window rather than risk losing a kneecap in the night. I walk the four paces to the window, lift the latch and tug. Nothing happens. The window has not been opened for a while. Eventually it gives way, fresh air streams in and on it floats the noise of Neuquén at night; children playing in the streets, music from an apartment across the street and loudest of all the sounds of a crowd watching football on tv in the bar below me. I have never managed to get the football habit, but it is everywhere in Argentina. The most remote mountain village will have a set of goals somewhere, even if it is just painted on the side of a house. I love them for their passion, realising I have no passion left at all. Mine has been spent. I see how even in the direst of circumstances, their passion makes them feel alive. Why have I entombed myself in Cushamen, exiling myself into a living death? This makes no sense. I feel the need to retrace my steps, like a man looking for his lost car keys. Only I have lost something far more precious. I think I may have lost my soul. I know I will have to go back a long way to find it. I lie on the bed listening to the sounds of the night and try to trace back the steps in my mind.

Before Cushamen, I had lived in Buenos Aires for a number of years. A great city. It welcomed me with open arms and I fell in love with her faded charms like an old lover who knows that at his age he is lucky to have anyone. And in the right light, she scrubs up very well. I bought myself a beautiful apartment, in the heart of the city. I went to the art galleries, I played chess in the squares and listened to the stories the men and women told. My Spanish had become pretty good over the years and I began to write down the stories and translate them into English. Gradually I built up a collection, I started to travel to different parts of the city, playing chess, sipping wine, listening to stories and writing them down. The stories were almost always extraordinary, and I thought at last I had found my subject. I had been writing for years, but I had nothing to say. I had never been published. In trying to keep myself as neutral as possible, unwilling to expose myself in any way, I had not allowed myself to develop a voice, I had deliberately made myself uninteresting. Now I worked hard to become the voice of others, collecting tales of the Disappeared, of financial disaster; tales of hope triumphing over despair. The stories were always relayed with a sense of dignity and resignation.

Eventually I pulled them all together and put them into a book. I sent the manuscript off and expected to get back a rejection slip, like I had so many times before. But I got a letter. A publisher was interested in my stories. I hadn’t written anything about myself, could I send a biography that they could use and confirmation that these people were happy to have their stories published, as some of them were controversial reflections on Argentina’s recent past. I was an idiot. I had never actually told these people I was writing down their stories. At first I just did it for my own amusement, it was only later that I realised how great they were and built them into a collection. I’d called the book “The Price of Passion”, which I thought was brilliant title. And so I had to write back saying that I didn’t have permission, and of course I would never get it. These were personal stories told to me privately over a long time, I could not go back and find these people now and ask them if it was alright to publish their stories. I would never be able to find them. I finally realised that I had absolutely no right to take their lives and try to make money out of them. I don’t know why I hadn’t seen that from the very beginning. You can only use people in your stories if you modify them so that won’t recognise themselves. It’s still a kind of theft, but no-one gets hurt. A while collar, victimless crime.

I went back to my drinking and lost my purpose. While I had been working on the book I had felt alive, I was connecting with people, discovering their secrets, learning of their loves and losses, empathising with them. And all the while I had been defrauding them. I hated myself. I’d heard that Butch Cassidy had gone into hiding way up in the mountains of Patagonia when he gave up robbing banks in America. I rented out my apartment, I couldn’t quite bring myself to sell it, I bought a Landcruiser and I headed west into the mountains. Butch Cassidy’s ranch was in Cholila, but I ended up staying in Cushamen. Cholila was a little too beautiful for me. The lakes and rivers of Cholila unexpectedly reminded me of Ireland, and I didn’t deserve that grace.

Lying there in Neuquen I knew that Argentina was not to blame. If anything it had given me a brief respite from the blame I had heaped on myself. I turn out the light and fall asleep to the night music from the bar below. By tomorrow I will be on my way back to New York, the source of all my woe.

Highway 32 to Buenos Aires stretches endlessly ahead of me. I retune the radio hoping for a better sound than the one on the current radio station, but every frequency I land on seems to grate on me this morning. Either, they talk too much, the music is too young or they play too many stupid ads. When I hear an ad for haemorroid cream I give up and turn the radio off. I wish I had bought some cd’s in Neuquen. All I am left with is my own thoughts for company. I’m not sure this is much better. I’m in the kind of mood where I even aggravate myself. Too many thoughts are jostling for the little space in my head to cope. Too many regrets, too much wasted time, too many things I wish had done differently. Amongst all the swirling I realise I have to formulate a plan,; simply going back to New York is not enough to change anything.

As I drive I ponder how I can possible right a wrong that can’t be undone. Too much time has passed for me to be able to help the people I have hurt. Instead I will have to try and redeem myself some other way. I just have no idea how.

The Argentina pampas rolls past my window. For most of the day I see more cattle and horses, than cars and people. I take a stop in some nameless town along the highway, like so many others here it seems to be more of number than a name. I sink a cold beer and take a walk in the sun to stretch my legs. I can’t drive all day without a break. The sound of my own thoughts is driving me crazy. I need people around me, anybody, as long as they are human. The long cold winter in Cushamen trapped me alone with Max and Rosa for company and only now do I realize how much of toll that has taken on me. On the road at last I feel like I have just broken out of solitary confinement. I wonder if part of the reason I am so irritable is I have been out of circulation for so long, I’m not used other people anymore. In shutting myself off I have shut myself down. I may need human contact again, but I’ve become a rusty, tin man. This is such a strange thought, even at my worst in Atlantic City I was never alone. Messed up, drunk and thoughtless maybe; but not alone.

In Cushamen even drinking had stopped working. The only way to stop the ache was to not feel anything, that is, anything except the cold. I think my heart must have got frost bite up there, and now as I slowly make my way down to the sea my blood is thawing out, my heart is beginning to pump again, but the ache is returning too.

The endless miles of pampas begin to give way at last to roadside shacks, the shacks begin to huddle together for warmth, they are better built with windows and roofs, and as I get nearer to the coast the shacks become townships and the walls have a lick of paint on them. At last the suburbs of Buenos Aires slip into view. I don’t plan to spend anytime in the city. I know it’s streets like the face in my mirror. I can close my eyes and be back in the Museo de Bellas Artes in a moment. Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, I can picture the colours, the detail, the warmth, the girls. But I know that stopping here would just be a way of postponing what needs to be done. And I have procrastinated long enough.

I drive straight to the airport, and buy a ticket on the next flight to New York. As I sit in the departure lounge I remember my car is in the short stay car park. It’s not going to be a short stay. I take a tour of the shops but can’t find what I’m looking for, the plastic uniformity of airport shops surprises me, this is my first ever flight. I had no idea what to expect. But it wasn’t this. I thought it would be more glamorous. Eventually I give up and go to the john and there I find what I was looking for. The toilets are kept immaculately clean by serious madame with a face whose furrows can only be the result of years of worry and misfortune. Or so I suppose. As I walk out of the washroom I drop my car keys into her tip box. She looks up at me in surprise.

“Here’s the ticket. It’s in short stay just opposite the terminal. You’re looking for a silver grey Toyota landcruiser, two years old. I’ve put the registration number on the back so you know you have the right one. Keep the car, it’s yours now. I shan’t be coming back. “

The woman takes the ticket and looks at me dumbfounded. She is unable to speak. I nod my head in answer to her unasked question.

“Yes it’s true. It’s really yours.

As I walk away I hear her shriek.

“Gracias, muchas gracias senor. Gracio Dio. Eso es un miraglo!”

The tannoy announces my flight, it’s time to go. Giving away my car feels like shedding my skin. I leave the old me behind in the departure lounge of Ezeiza airport and hope to find a better one by the time I land in Newark.

I join the queue of passengers waiting to board, we shuffle slowly forward. Through the glass I can see the plane; close up it is much bigger than they appear in the sky. The stewardess takes my boarding pass, and points me left towards the front of the plane. I settle into the leather arm chair and the cabin attendant hands me a hot towel and a glass of water. I accept both gratefully and smile.

“Do you have any whisky to go with the water?”

“I’ll be bringing the drinks around shortly after take off.”

“I’ve never flown before.”

“Oh. Let me see, what I can do.”

She smiles and moves on. I am sure she has more important things to do than follow the whims of an old man. I recline the chair and am delighted to find it reclines all the way back into a sort of bed. I’m most impressed. A moment later the stewardess returns.

“I’m afraid sir that you’ll have to put the seat upright until after take off. Once the fasten seatbelt signs are switched off it will be safe to lie back. Here have this, it should help.”

She passes me a tiny bottle of Jim Beam.

“Thank-you, I’m sure it will be a big help.”

The nice gesture helps me feel slightly less stupid. I have no idea what the rules of flying are. I look around at my fellow passengers; they are either listening to music or reading the complimentary papers. I’m the only one staring into space with nothing to do. If there was a passenger next to me I would have struck up a conversation. But I sit alone, these seats are enormous and designed so you don’t have to sit and listen to another human being. I wonder if I’ve made a mistake buying a first class ticket. It’s a long way and I would have been glad of some friendly company.

The engines roar into life, we rumble down the runway while the cabin crew gave the safety briefing. I am alarmed at the idea of jumping out of the plane. I glance out of the window and see we are still on the tarmac. The whisky is beginning to kick in. I try to relax and reach for the magazine in the seat pocket. I discover that I have my own personal video screen with a huge selection of movies to watch. The choice is almost too great, I don’t know where to start. Without me noticing the plane has left the ground and Argentina is fading from view. I spend the next five hours glued to my screen,plugged into a better place. Occasionally the stewardess comes by with offers of food and drink and time flies by.

I drift off to sleep, soothed by the wine and whiskey, but am awakened with a jolt. A calming voice assures us that we have just hit a spot of turbulence in the skies above Atlanta. We are on the edge of a major storm and we are going to have to try to go above or around it. The captain makes it sound simple enough, but for the next fifteen minutes the plane rises and falls like a rollercoaster ride. The crew are strapped into their seats, no life saving supplies of Jim Beam are on offer. The plane drops suddenly and oxygen masks tumble out of the overhead lockers, like prizes at the fair. I am just wondering whether I should put mine on and feebly trying to recall the safety briefing, when the calm voice returns to tell us that this was triggered automatically by our sudden descent, and now we are level again, they won’t be required. He apologises for the continued bumpiness as if it were nothing more than a few drops of rain at a summer picnic. My fellow passengers, frequent fliers to a man, have all gone various shades of white and puce. I’m pleased I am not the only one to be fearing this could be my first and last flight. The irony of dying now does not escape me.

The pilot is as good as his word and steers us around the storm. We are going to be late landing in Newark, but I am pleased to be landing at all. The stewardess returns with more offers of food, I take a bottle of Argentinean red and two Jim Beam on the rocks, but decline the chicken. Looking around I see I am not the only one who appears to have lost their appetite. I pour my wine and slip back into my movie and a semblance of oblivion.