As per usual, after work, he stood in front of his TV, remote control in hand. The brightness of the screen, its pyrotechnics, was simply spectacular. He flicked from channel to channel. He did this for a while, attentive to the light alone. The images lasted only a few seconds: a male broadcaster in shorts, a set of retractable claws, a crowd, the snowy peak of Cocuy, a plate of food, three aeroplanes up in the air, a plant growing, a building in Richmond, Saturn, the seas of the Moon, Saturn, fish gills, a weather graphic in all its splendour. Yet only one thing persisted in his mind: the image of a brown bear, hibernating. It was a huge beast, but its body still suggested the clumsy movements of a cub. It looked gentle. One of its eyes, the left, was barely open and through it, through that slit, bright as a spark, flashed menace, pure irrationality. Lingering on the image of the bear, Amer went into the kitchen, sharpened a knife against a second blade, and began chopping onions.
She wasn’t sure they were ants. They were certainly tiny insects, moving aimlessly, yet very fast. Marina Kezelman grimaced in disgust. Kneeling down, wearing a pair of running shoes and rolled-up trousers, a torch clenched between her teeth, she looked like a mad explorer. She shone the light into the crevice between the wall and the fridge. It was a narrow, mournful space: the scene of a hidden world.
Marina Kezelman stretched her right arm as far as she could – the cartilage made a noise as it tensed – and moved it around in the dark. Then she overcame her revulsion, clenched her fist and struck hard. She killed ten or twenty of the insects. The survivors rustled frantically. Marina Kezelman was clearly a threat. Her height became apparent when she stood up, which she did in two movements. She was five feet four inches tall. This fact was relevant to a feature of her personality, perhaps the most significant one: her determination. Marina Kezelman was someone who faced her problems head-on. As her husband put it, she crushed them. Right now, although she was pressed for time, she decided to take action. She left the torch on the counter and opened the cupboard. She searched and searched some more. She pushed aside a pack of candles; a can of WD-40 fell from her hands. She didn’t find what she was looking for, but she kept searching anyway. In the end, she got creative and sprayed the bugs with fabric stiffener. Bewilderment engulfed the community, and yet all its members continued to throng, covered in bright white foam. Marina Kezelman didn’t know what to do next. She bit down hard on her lower lip, knelt for the third time and stormed them blindly. She flattened over a hundred with her bare hand. Death writ large – this longed-for massacre – filled her with elation, a state of excitement. She rubbed her forehead and continued her mission, but the impulse faded after ten seconds. With an over-hasty swipe of her hand, she snagged one of her fingernails in a crack in the wall and it broke. A rush of cold rippled up her spine. She let out a short shriek of pain and ran to the bathroom. For three seconds (no longer than three seconds) she became aware that a neighbour – an eighteen-year-old kid she’d seen around – had started to play the first chords of a Dvorak polka on the piano. The battle against the bugs had reached a ceasefire.
Everything was equally important in his head. He struggled to get organised. On the second Wednesday of July, he found himself walking down Cerrito Street with a fellow musician from the orchestra. They had just spent three hours at the Colón Opera House rehearsing a piece by Weber. Now they were relaxed, still flush with a sense of accomplishment. They were enjoying the sun and their shared indifference to the anxious traffic. Broadly speaking, their stories were similar: both of them came from small towns; both were third-generation musicians; both had started families in Buenos Aires. Karl was German; the other, Santiago, was Colombian. They were delighted with the city’s culinary offerings. They mentioned an Italian place that was said to have the best lasagne in town, as well as a steak house in the Monserrat neighbourhood. They spoke as if they were experts in beef cuts, cooking temperatures and pairing meat with different types of wine. They were making an effort. They were showing off what they knew, and their fervent language somehow bolstered their words. They were used to tracking their own rhythms. They were enraptured by their topics of discussion, but also by the register – the tone, the cadence – of their own voices. They were actual voice boxes. This is how they worked.
They had their musical instruments with them: Karl’s oboe, Santiago’s viola. They crossed Lavalle Street. And a few metres from the corner, they ran into a group of schoolgirls in their tartan skirts. The girls were blocking their way as they milled outside a newsagent. The pavement was wide, but the two musicians decided to step down onto the road to circumvent them. Karl adjusted the strap of his oboe case. And in that very instant, he realised that one of the girls – he was struck by her beauty as she distractedly handed a hundred-peso note to a schoolmate – reminded him of his eldest daughter, whom he hadn’t seen in five years. Five years, he said out loud, but the noisy exhaust of a passing bus drowned him out. The city adapted to even the most intimate moments. Karl had a vision: the girl’s hair – a compact mass – had a life of its own, independent from the rest of her body.
He’d planned to say goodbye at the corner of Corrientes Avenue, but something indefinite – the balmy weather, the pleasant conversation – made him change his mind. They decided to step into a bar. A long counter, five tables in a row. They ordered black coffee and regular sandwiches, which were brought to them toasted, but didn’t complain. It even amused them, the mistake. The sound of a radio began to filter through the background noise. The light streaming in from the street got tangled in Karl’s hair before it spilled onto the table. Mostly they spoke about Germany. Karl detailed his routine as a conservatory student in Dresden. His account was administrative in tone: the day as a succession of demands. Suddenly, the electric drone of the radio seemed to sharpen and take on shape. It was a bolero. Karl abruptly changed the subject. Somehow, he found his phone in his hand. He brought up pictures of his wife, Marina Kezelman. She’s a meteorologist, he said. She’s got a postgraduate degree from the National Research Institute, he added. She’s had a government job for seven months now. Sometimes, she travels to different provinces to assess the weather conditions in desert areas. She’s part of an interdisciplinary team. The Colombian finished his sandwich in a single gulp. Seen from outside, the musicians sketched an old-fashioned scene. There was something unsettling about them. They were characters from another era.
A mistake. Her mind was elsewhere as she walked down Sarmiento Street. All of a sudden, there she was, tripping over the wares a street vendor was flogging from a square of tarp. The guy had been waiting his entire life for this opportunity. He screamed blue murder. Marina Kezelman prepared her defence – bulldog face and counter-attack – but when she saw that things were turning nasty and noted the indifference of the passers-by, she lowered her gaze, shrinking back as if she were at fault. She walked on for another two blocks under the sun, the collar of her shirt turned slightly upwards.
She stopped at a lottery booth on Corrientes. She looked at the tickets on display and burst into tears. A bespectacled hipster guy asked her if she was ok. Marina couldn’t catch her breath to reply. She washed her face in the toilets of La Ópera café and rushed to her chiropractic session. She’d had a pain in her neck for two months now and a friend had suggested this practice. She was seen by a very tall woman who had hair just like an aunt of hers who’d died a decade earlier. Marina Kezelman didn’t believe in coincidences, and so she was stunned when the therapist said her first name was Julia: her dead aunt’s name. She didn’t say a word. She lay down on the bed, closed her eyes and let the woman work on her back. She left with a sensation of relief and mild lumbar pain. Julia had warned her that some temporary side effects were to be expected. Marina Kezelman clung to those words. She stopped thinking about her body and carried on towards Rivadavia Avenue.
Twenty minutes later, she was in a café. A macchiato with toast and jam. She’d taken a table next to a mirror. Marina’s movements were deft, assured. It was her style, a bearing that, deep down, she considered aristocratic: she refused to associate time with productivity. Serene, she ate. Every now and then, she turned her head to the left, unable to resist her own reflection. She fixed her hair – a lock at her temple – and checked her face for marks of time. Her chin had receded, her cheeks had gained in volume. Her eyes were still the same almond shape, but they had gradually sunk into their orbits. Marina Kezelman was an attractive woman and this fact, evident to the world and no secret