Three
book chronicles CITY PAPER (Trilce, Montevideo, 2009)
Caulaincourt
CHRONICLE STREET BUENOS AIRES: INTIMATE JOURNEY TO THE CITY CHRONICLE
CIUDAD JUAREZ
STREET Caulaincourt
Sunday morning. Batignolles I got to eat something in the coffee Jacky, but it's Sunday and is closed. I still walk to the Place Clichy, might find something open, then go up the street to the house Caulaincourt Jean-Francis. The apartment of Jean-Francis is sad and beautiful, an attic in a dead end near the metro Lamarck-Caulaincourt. The problem is Caulaincourt up the street, which is curved, steep slope, and never seem to end, as in nightmares.
was clear that everything would be closed in the square had have foreseen that, considering my luck. I feel a moment on a sidewalk, because this place has no banks, no more than an urban corridor, deserted at this hour. I look at the boulevard Clichy, the closed doors of the library where Jean-Francis worked for several years and that in its heyday open until late at night. Nearby is The Turquoise jewelry, where the Brazilian transvestites take checks. Many customers are paid by check and they do not have papers, can not open a bank account to deposit. The owner of The Turquoise, Madame Bordelais, out of sheer courtesy, and while this does not compromise your tax return, deposits the checks into his own account and gives them money. It is a gauchos, if I can use that word here, sitting at the Place Clichy, thinking about the plight of Brazilian shemales. A gaucho is what I would need now, someone to take me home to Jean-Francis. I'm still young, it is true, I have thirties. But today I slept little, I'm cold, I have an empty stomach and little luck.
In the middle of the square stands the monument to Marshal Moncey, who defended Paris, at the end of the Napoleonic empire, against the Russian invasion. I think transvestites are here to raise money, and dream of Russian nobles (but may be English) fall in love with them. Sometimes fail first and return to Brazil with money to buy at least one apartment. I have none of these projects. But since 1978 come about every two years. This average will last until the mid 80s. I am here because I belong to another tribe wandering of the exiles. I come to find my Uruguayans, to get news of them, myself.
gather strength and get up from the sidewalk in front of the deserted square. Clichy Square gray Sunday morning in winter: a good summary of indifference. That is my feeling for Paris at that time. Girls who pass hasty work in Pigalle, in the Place Blanche, or in Rochechouart, you know. The other passers-by are tourists going to the Basilica of the Sacré-Coeur, the church uglier than the Place Clichy, or buy souvenirs with the number of painters in the Place du Tertre. Clichy Square on Sunday morning does not exist, or I am confused with the general grayness of exile.
begin to climb the steep slope of the street Caulaincourt. I do not watch anything, or yes, look at the sidewalk and trees, huge. To this the French call them "Sophora." I think Montevideo broken sidewalks and havens in which he climbed as a child. Also come to Paris to hear from Montevideo. I live in San Pablo, I am a professor at the local Alliance Française, I come to Paris because I have Jean's house, where I installed as it is installed in the mine in San Pablo. The news of my air Montevideo impossible are, sometimes flawed, I breathe for many years.
why I need my friends, especially my unholy Trinity, John, Jean, Adalberto. Juan Introini, of course, my friend since adolescence. He is a professor of Latin at the Faculty of Humanities. Many years of study, so much talent, he and Jorge Cuinat, and a day kicked out of the University. Were unreliable. A teacher's category will be replaced. Because there are people A, B and citizens citizens C. When I took to me from Uruguay that division into categories not yet exist, or did not have a name, these three letters. I went to San Pablo in silence, nobody knew it, my exile was no category. In my many crimes I think the worst was to be a friend of a political prisoner, Nelson Marra poor. Go to Punta Carretas prison every Saturday, inevitable. Fidelity is not forgiven. Being an honest man, practicing friendship, solidarity, that is not forgiven in a dictatorship. There is always an implicit consensus in dictatorships, the idea of \u200b\u200ba lesser evil, a value-free space where opportunists thrive. Also why dictatorship is terrible, not only as a regime "of force." I think the demolition of the IPA, I can not help it.
Stop a minute to regain strength, I on the bridge of Caulaincourt street on Montmartre cemetery. I love this cemetery. But I like all of Paris. In the '70s and early '80s the cemeteries are all that love in this city. I promise to come these days to visit the graves of my dead beloved Montmartre: Alfred de Vigny, Stendhal, Berlioz, Théophile Gautier, the Goncourt brothers, Vaslav Nijinsky and why not, Emile Zola. The journey will not be small. And in the Montmartre cemetery is to pamper the cats, at least feed them or keep them warm, to ward off bad luck.
stubbornly I come to Paris to spend three months of my vacation Brazilian day, ie if the European winter to find the warmth of friends, chats, hope. Whenever I walk my journey of "Political Refugees", and says in his documents. I will see my Uruguayan Grigny-La Grande Borne. But are those of the Porte des Lilas, those who study and live around the Rue des Ecoles. There are so many. I need them all.
Just this early morning I'm coming from Grigny. It is a far periphery. We laughed: The Great Whore would be a better name than La Grande Borne. I had dinner last night at the home of Jean Stern, a French gay activist. There were two guests, a Dutch activist and me. But I want to stay in Grigny, I call to Stern, I can not go, would never Turenne Street, I am stuck in a traffic jam in Grigny. Stern and understood everything. I can not and do not want to leave my friends, he knows it. After the Dutch will know he and I write a note to the magazine Gai Pied. But now my urge are the Uruguayans.
ended up sleeping in La Grande Borne, I woke early, took a laundry mat and went by train to the Gare de Lyon now tomorrow. What do the Uruguayans to meet in Grigny, poor, or in the Rue des Ecoles, richer, or at least more intellectual? Drink wine, remember. Some are projects. I recompose the dead body unites us. Uruguay is called, is immense. It is what we came up huge, huge loss. Years ago we met up and always come back to this perplexity, we gather to contemplate, to measure, is an absence of mouth. We tell stories.
Did not you know the story of Gustavo M.? Knew it, we return to tell us forever. He went to Cuba to train for the guerrilla. He had some breakdowns, he was interned. Finally the direction of the guerrillas renounced him. He was sent to Warsaw, to do what he wanted. From there they came by train to Paris. I see him again. We are young, very young. It was in 1978, calls me, is in Asnières, a suburb wants to die. Step whole month of January with him in Asnières. Years later I will. Not because my presence killed some sense back to life. "Is that good?" I asked. Does not acknowledge my joke, I guarantee it is. I know I live for my Uruguayans, lest we pass the border, to remember: we are facing the abyss.
Caulaincourt in the street after the big curve, is a square. Constantin Place Called Pecqueur, is near the house of Jean. I do not know who will have been Constantin Pecqueur, but who made the plaza took pity on pedestrians, Sophora filled. Paris also has its respites. I
in the daily life of exiled Uruguayans. Grigny those with children. The children speak English badly, they have difficulties. They live in tall buildings, blocks with no identity. Live there Uruguayans, Argentines, Chileans, Brazilians, Vietnamese, many Africans as equatorial Africa and the Maghreb.
I'm almost there. I cross the block with the studios of Pathé, the film company that created worlds cosmopolitan cheesy stories. Today these studies are no longer used, they must hold only ghosts. Jean-Francis is his neighbor.
sleep when I arrive. Prepare coffee and my memories. I think Juan and in it, my "two Johns". Jean-Francis Aymonier is my support, my safe haven, so many years, since March 1977, he would say that is very accurate with dates. He had gone to St. Paul to get married, I arrived by taxi to the bride and groom, to get me in the library of the Alliance Française. I called the doorman, I have to run down, ordered to board the taxi. Achieving fit between the bouquet of flowers, her train of the bride, Jean radiant in her dress, made for the occasion. The marriage may not last long, but others will love, in San Pablo or Paris, we go through life together, indifferent to changes in the hemisphere. Jean, who speaks no English, the most Uruguayan French, go to Montevideo, home of Grace Miguez and John Introini, bring me news, be friends with my friends.
Many years later, on May 17, 2000, I would remind him have to go through the form of exile, the traffic accident. Jean, spelling of a newspaper in Paris, is coming on a motorcycle to work, bad luck, with helmet and all, hit in the head against the curb. Jean quadriplegic. Jean strong. For some time you are tempted by death, wants to die, he asks. He says: "Kill me." I spread the discouragement, I come to seriously consider this final order. But the spirit again, the will to live despite everything. Thirty years later, Jean and I kept talking, sometimes silent, or we hang up that phone Internet calls with me for hours on weekends.
Friends of Uruguayans "uruguayizan" too, and we all tell stories to survive. Need policies. For years, Esther Roque and Seixas, my friends Gaucho, have returned to Brazil after decades in Montevideo, they call me from Rio Grande, we discussed the prisoners. We can not talk of the missing. Margarita, la Flaca, has been missing, was in Buenos Aires. The three we know. But we need the saving account. Someone in Montevideo said Hank married a Bulgarian cellist of the symphony of Buenos Aires. That had children. We repeat this narrative, if we cling to it, do not mention that it is probably dead. Came to Paris and story: the Skinny is married, lives, have children in Buenos Aires.
Yes, says Daniel, the Uruguayan de la Porte des Lilas, he knew, Esther wrote from Brazil to Roberto in Grigny. Daniel married Beatriz Argentina. The police was looking for was in 1977. They found his sister, just off the subway. She was killed because of mistaken Beatriz. Someone can tell Beatriz. To leave, where I could. A UN commissioner receives the early morning, does ship it to Paris. She bear blame for a dead sister in her place. Esther calls me from River Grande, Daniel knew he married a Argentina, is a refugee, have a son. Saved their lives, repeated Esther. Adalberto
, my friend of Ribeirão Preto, which one day will live in Maringá, makes his Masters in Paris. Before traveling, in 1980, Adalberto de Oliveira Souza going to Asuncion. Take my books Josefina Plá, return with photos and gifts from Josephine, including his latest poetry plaquettes. Those pictures of Josefina will of the few images of him that will be saved, is a document, Josefina among cats. The post will years later, in 2003, in a tribute book that will be dedicated to his memory for mayor of his hometown, La Oliva, Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. Adalberto Asuncion to Buenos Aires down by train. Buenos Aires also return with news of the parents of G., who had left the religious life, these boys, and had gone to live in Brazil without explanation, first in San Pablo, then to Recife. Adalberto follows Montevideo, will be with John Introini, with Miryan Pereyra, I will report the situation. Repeat their information in Paris. Adalberto's friend Alfredo, as Jean, built pending Uruguayan exiles.
to Ivo, my Czech friend, circulate in the orbit of the Uruguayan and exile. Ivo was the necessary counterpoint of Uruguayan exiles, was the man caught in another of the nightmares of the twentieth century. Catholic and nuclear physicist, Ivo was twenty years in the Prague Spring, Alexander supported Dubček, threw stones at Russian tanks, mourned the loss, he lived as a violation.
we are friends since 1978, when I go to Rome to spend January with John Introini, in the student hostel of Trastevere. Expelled from the University, John received a scholarship from the Italian government to refine his classical studies. One student is a Czech named Ivo, makes studies in nuclear physics. I'm new to Europe, I know the world, John was sick during my days in Rome, the Juan allergies, liver. Ivo tells me in his best Italian: you walk upon Rome.
and I ride, indeed. Because for Ivo through all Rome was making "a passegiata piccola." We had the same age, both were born in August of '48, but Ivo forces were from another world, for me at least. The first few days talk much about the Uruguayan dictatorship, which was news thanks to John. In addition, he discovered that his knowledge of Italian enabled him to understand many phrases in English. But gradually the focus of our talks is moving. Ivo does not shut up, count the events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, dictatorship. The despair that leftists in the West can not understand the crime that is happening in your country, throughout the socialist bloc.
I try to give voice to their protest in some poems, a few, too few, about the invasion. I'll talk to all my friends, take the issue to Refugees in Paris, then take as Montevideo. I'm out of my Uruguayan exiles to my "insile" Czech Slovak Carpathians, where he gives his classes. Heard learned that helps them survive, to alleviate the injury history.
At the end of their period of specialization Ivo tries to prolong his studies in Rome, but the authorization is denied by the government their country and return to Slovakia, where it will be tight. The only way to see us will be that I go, I find it easy to get the visa by the Czech authorities. Yes, I need to introduce "against the police within 48 hours of stay in Czechoslovak territory," they say in French visas granted. The "piccole passegiata" huge, are now in Prague, in the Carpathians, in Bratislava. And we will continue telling stories of resistance to dictatorship, in the plural. Ivo I know leads me to the baroque churches and medieval uses in prayer. I could not do without me. Doing so without an excuse could Desk be resigned from the university. "But at least here you do not starve, and the West", I remember him. No, but humbled, they will put for example a building porter, and he wants to study. From Paris
go twice in Czechoslovakia in 1982 and 1985. The "real socialism" will cease to exist a few years later, but in the '80s did not suspect. Ivo faithfully waiting for me at the other end of the nineteen-hour train from Prague. Jean and John was left in the Gare de l'Est, Ivo picks me up in Prague and Center the next day. In the middle is a border with barbed wire and soldiers, was called "iron curtain." In 80 also did not know who would come Worst borders.
In Bratislava, the last night, it was January 1985, Ivo is not retained. In an elegant restaurant, frequented by the local nomenclature and I can afford because I changed FF on the black market, is a futuristic tower on the Danube, and local spin-Ivo seems cries. I do not know how to react, I do not know how to comfort someone so energetic and full of faith as Ivo. We are two crazy indignant cry of dictatorships, not born to accept them.
back from Bratislava to Prague on the night train to go to Paris. It is the first time I am without Ivo in Prague. Step through the house of Pavel and Klara, two friends who learned to be estimated. In Europe coffee on Wenceslas Square, where the regime tolerates minimal gay life, I am writing to Ivo a postcard, which open for shipment to arrive. But is written in Italian. My card will never arrive. Ivo knows what I wrote on it.
But in January 1985 that are happier on the weekends with the Uruguayans, and even the daily lunches in restaurants with Adalberto university Cîteaux Street, or Jean Calvin. We celebrate the return of democracy. I still I have some apprehensions, but you feel the happiness in the air. Weighs less steep slope of the street Caulaincourt. Juan Introini spends month in Paris. Already written most of the stories that will comprise his book The intruder. I knew some of them, now read the whole is great. Jorge
Cuinat is living in Paris, has a scholarship from the Venezuelan university where he works. Cicero studied. Die following year in August, the day of his birthday. Heart problems, exile to complicate those problems. But during the month of January we are all together in Paris, Juan Introini, Adalberto, Jean-Francis, that is, the unholy Trinity, and Jorge Cuinat, and all Uruguayans. Almost everyone gets ready to return.
One night Jorge comes to look into the street Caulaincourt, wants us to spend the night at his home near the plaza d'Italie, and bought the whiskey. It will be our farewell. John and returned to Montevideo, I'd go to St. Paul two days later, and most would not see George. Part of him knows it, hence this parting watered alcohol, and authorized by the physician. We reviewed our adolescence in the neighborhood of the Redoubt, Marseille street where we lived-Introini both lived nearby in Marcelino Sosa, fellow of IPA IPA always so loved, the humanities, each and every year before and after the exile. Jorge speaks, I know I need, it is necessary to do so because then there will be time. Will not live Montevideo. Awaits an operation in the Pitie-Salpetriere hospital, and a few months of life abroad.
This January, the lightest of my winters in Paris, going to shows with George and the people in my Trinity. Visit the Rodin Museum, which is so fond of George, spend an afternoon in Versailles, attending Wagner's Tristan and Isolde at the Opera, and because Jean had bought the ticket months ago and I came in with his identity. Let's theaters, a Chekhov by the Comédie-Française, Saint-Denis, champagne offered by Jacky took her bowling in the Avenue de Clichy because that year I took the flags from Brazil soccer team San Paulo and Rio that he outlined in his coffee. It is the year we spent an unforgettable week at the cottage of Jennifer's mother Jean English, in Normandy. Walk the beaches, from Honfleur to Cabourg, relearn happiness. With Jean will make a trip a few days to Italy, where I would not since the days of John Introini in Rome.
I realize that I had never walked through the Rue de Rivoli, or the Place Vendome, Paris always as if were walking in step and in a hurry. Long time man was coming up the street as if it loaded Caulaincourt a world on my back, I walk away neighborhoods, it takes me to know or appreciate the places held, at least in the joy without rules and commitments is also a right. The same was in Montevideo. Long time I only knew the street near where I was born and Minas Marseille street where I lived for many years. Take to get to know the center. Any delay in my life. Why study literature baffles me, because I find the world that was hidden for me. I'm still always amazed at neighborhood boy Sorocabana coffee, one who needs to hear and learn.
In January or February of 85 drink coffee on the street Jorge Soufflot, and two tourists apparently decided later. Adalberto we are together, strange speaks English but does not want to be identified by real tourists Brazilian coffee fill the front garden of Luxembourg. We laughed. The English phrase Adalberto "We are happy today", especially the "today", will our Parisian folklore, with John Introini's say today. For caution, certainly.
write these memories in 2000, when it is especially in my horizon travel to Paris, Jean is no longer living on the street Caulaincourt, Czechoslovakia itself no longer exists, the Brazilians appear to have changed travestis Paris and Milan or Barcelona exiles are all back in Uruguay, or at least return to Uruguay as often as desired. I still do not know who Pecqueur was Constantin, but I confess that the last time I would sit in the square after the big bend of the street Caulaincourt, under Sophora, and look relieved the sidewalk down to the cemetery and the statue Clichy Moncey distant.
CHRONICLE OF BUENOS AIRES
CITY TRIP TO THE INTIMATE
In the winter of 1944, the Brazilian poet Cecilia Meireles (1901-1964) traveled through the two capitals of silver. River Plate this season left a series of reviews that were published in newspapers of Rio de Janeiro A Manhã and Folha Carioca. In these texts (reissued in 1998 by publisher Nova Fronteira Rio titled Chronicles viagem) is very clear that he loved Montevideo says, he repeats, describes the city with a deep affection and to leave to go to Buenos Aires, was dismissed with: "I want to say goodbye I can not, Montevideo, to the look of your horse turns me on to you. But if I stayed might never see them, because the human trade is sad, and easily taints: the eyes fail to see what they see forever, and the heart gets used, and forget what you do constantly wonder ... And so, to love, you'd better leave. "
On the other side of the river, Cecilia compared to the Argentines and Uruguayans. Bold undertaking: at least is generally view as the share-Montevideo only we know our differences, that would say not very visible to the River Plate. For indeed, there is a unit called "Rio de la Plata." Cecilia was a poet, that is, the world could read in between the lines, and provides this comparison: "I'll say quickly that I can think difference between Argentina and Uruguay: the first seems to weigh English blood, in seconds, the Portuguese . Portuguese blood is lyrical, the English drama. We Brazilians do not feel any estrangement between the Uruguayan people, among Argentines feel a difference nature. The Argentine can be extremely polite, can not be tender. This roughness is what surprises us, even though I admire other qualities, which undoubtedly possess. The Argentine is easily anecdotal, ironic, very prone to laughter, though at first glance they look impressive, solemn, austere. " (...) He continues: "Meeting in a paint shop. I think that in Uruguay probably would not be so well dressed, speak of art, would remember a warm episode, which occurred at a time, with a friend now dead, who would have been good and sad. Would stir us, feel our kinship of spirit, we would by moments in silence, as in a dream, the night would getting us all together for more air, and call on it to be friends and be happy. "
Appointments are long, yes, but also interesting. The intuition of nostalgic happiness Montevideo should be correct if one remembers the date of the visit of Cecilia. It is very possible that the 1944 Montevideo were so nostalgic and happy, as well as prosperous. For its part, the locals of Cecilia also must have changed a lot because they are definitely not met decades ago and revised in July 2004. Theirs is perhaps the locals narcissistic the stereotype. Or the poet had loved too much to Montevideo and, dazzled by the love given and received, was not able to appraise fairly the locals?
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thirty years I have a friend from Buenos Aires. I'll call him G., best to use only his initial. We met in San Pablo, where G. spent several years in the seventies, in times and circumstances favorable for us to make good friends. G. appeared some months after the now legendary Fundaro and always endearing first group of gay activism in Brazil. By coincidence we were also neighbors. We lived in the center, about Bexiga, neighborhood bohemian, me in the old center. I lived alone, he and a friend also gay activist.
I am proud of those times, or nostalgia, I do not know, or whatever. But I would talk hours of those guys. Militábamos dictatorship and was clandestinely. Between us, there were poets and essayists, long known now, and even an American today is an important bazilianist in U.S. academia. One of the youths was a doctor and a few years later would the government coordinator of the campaign against AIDS. Today is a world authority from the UN in the fight against the disease. And there was my friend G., singular past. G., son of a tango singer. G., monk important Order of the Catholic Church. I think that it had failed to make the final score. His long revolved around sex confessions, this item is impossible for the Church. - Father, I am gay, I need to make my wish, what? "Pray, son, Reza. The priest confessor would know what he said. As G. I do not know if they stopped to pray (not do), but instead left the Order. So simple: G. wanted to live. In the Argentina of those years being gay was not only a sin, as practice was something legally offense. Like his friend the poet Néstor Perlongher, also come to live in San Pablo times then G. say had a problem with the customs police, providentially solved by a deputy friend. AND G. left, began the adventure of freedom under the sign of exile.
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night I came from Retiro station during the trip properly indoctrinated by my seat neighbor, a woman thin and slender fingers like a parka, so you never take a taxi there: "They are all thieves. To me one robbed me, I took everything I had. Remise Now I only take when I return from Montevideo, where my son lives. " I obeyed the advice of the reaper. I like listening to the locals. If there is an art that most dominant and dominated by many-that art is conversation. I asked the remise that did not take that I was pointlessly pasearme stranger to the city, that my savings were slim. "There are integrated and there is desperate," he replied, enigmatically, as he drove in a hurry. "Doom?" I asked, to see what happened. "Yes, or you fit or you're not anyone." "Well, I'm nobody." "Me neither," he said, I believe in solidarity. The trip was too short for the reflections that the driver engaged and will surely develop, and drivers and only exist in Buenos Aires, at least I never played one like me in Montevideo or St. Paul or anywhere else. In the end I left the hotel combined Corrientes. And that's when the commotion began.
must be said: all major Latin American cities are noisy. San Pablo is a noisy, Mexico is, to Montevideo, which seems a huge city (but large), is barullenta. The silence, or perhaps the impression is rather silent in Europe. Several times I went to Rio de Janeiro to land in Paris, and I always had the impression of a smuggling Heavens and Hells. Sometimes left and reached tropical paradise to hell cold. Or then came to the Paradise of urban order, history recognizable Hell and left green and gray version, the forest of stone. Even the times that my heart was in Brazil, and Europe was Hell, I clung to the meager comfort of silence, a hope that Paris is only possible for those coming from any of the Latin American cities, beautiful and loud.
course, the ugly of Corrientes is not so much neon facades, that giddy, because it is intended, nor in the usual and general urban decay, or the impoverishment of the middle classes who frequent-and tourists, and thieves, and the inevitable prostitution. (I saw that in a comedy went to National Lapaccó Claudia, who did not hear about since I had leave Montevideo. My God, I thought, are you still there? But what about me? Is it not also existed thirty years ago? Why so much perplexity? It's not news that the long distance is another). The ugly, the anguishing on Corrientes is the lack of hope. I knew, on the fifth floor of the hotel where I had made, that the Hell Jungle crash in stone that would not cease, they would wake and, as in nightmares, all continue equally intolerable.
The solution, obviously, was to switch to the next morning, and re-establish calm, and from my second night in Buenos Aires that rules, relative to the rest of downtown called. Because with few exceptions, the rest of downtown seems to be exacerbated his back to the Corrientes Avenue. I ended up in a hotel on Avenida de Mayo, the empty nights like the rest of the center, couples drinking beer on the street curb, bar (brave, perhaps) smoking marijuana, night workers or the reverse, people coming in the morning to work. It was the silent, modest Paradise.
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G. is a poor parish priest in the poorer southern suburbs of Buenos Aires. Since returning to his city sent me some mails, few, indeed, with its innovations, many. Resumed her active religious life, struggled to accept it at his age, and his past, he says. G. explained, but does not say everything. Write a document to the community, "he commanded, made about four or five years, it remains silent about their sexuality. His vocation took him back to the bosom of the Church. The economic distress also has his nonagenarian father and depends on it. He returned to Buenos Aires when his mother died, and then discovered he was suffering from hepatitis C. After his years in São Paulo, G. lived a decade in Recife, Pernambuco. Said to have been the happiest years of his life, and it is true, at least in certain Canavale I witnessed that happiness. Again. Also to escape Pernambuco sensuality, he insists. Their destination was Buenos Aires, and the Church. From Montevideo come carefully keeping the paper where I wrote down her address. I call him and give him the surprise. G. I do not expect. I call on the evening of my arrival. I'm the man exulting in the parlor.
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dear Cecilia, me the locals were not ironic or incapable of tenderness or rough and his appearance was not imposing and solemn nor entirely austere. Perhaps because they knew some of my poetry and I was just reading poetry and talking about it. But it is also true that you went to read your poetry and poetry speaking. Must be the time. You were in times of plenty, Cecilia loved, and do not know if we opulence anesthesia, but I know it can be a bad counselor. Or maybe you felt out of Montevideo to hide behind a province, a beautiful and peripherals, and when the steam hit the dock porteño guess that you got to a hegemonic center with all of the law, and even those outside of it. And you always sympathize with the kids. You remember: The Conde de Lautréamont-the very Montevide-and knew the Reina del Plata. He says towards the end of Canto I of Les Chants de Maldoror: "Buenos-Ayres, la reine du Sud, et Montevideo, the coquette, the main links designed amie, à travers les eaux du grand Estuaire Argentine." A Montevideo he had to be "coquette," remember?
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I was greeted with generosity by many poets. Horacio Fiebelkorn, the poet of La Plata (which insists on being "provincial", even living in Buenos Aires), whom he met years ago during a poetry reading at the Palais des Saints Montevideo, was a generous infinite. He offered his company almost entire time, and the company Fiebelkorn is a privilege. We strolled through the center, he showed me (part of) "all the places that should be known by those visiting Buenos Aires," I saw the words written in the window of a travel agency Cordova Street. And dinner was sponsored by his wife, Soledad, in the beautiful Recoleta apartment where they lived until a few months after my visit. In those days he was leaving his book Dead Zone, with back cover written by me. Just hope the birth of the book (in vain, was born a few days after my departure). With Fiebelkorn read in the House of Poetry, the institution run by the poet Daniel García Helder Rosario, serious man and good as his poetry. The Poetry House is situated in the former residence of the popular poet Evaristo Carriego (1883-1912), "back in the gray area Carriego sang the poor", as Borges said, who much admired this poet of the suburbs. The gallant but melancholy Carriego lived in a relatively narrow petty-bourgeois of Palermo, this elegant neighborhood today. Objects are preserved by the poet, are Francophiles, conventional taste, questionable. The audience was
Daniel Samoilovich, knowingly a brilliant poet, but, at least I, did not know who is an enthusiastic and knew that look so sweet and penetrating. It is as if all the intelligence of the world had taken refuge in their eyes, that "brand Samoila" ID (and then he was creating a comic opera called The Awakening of Samoila). Instead Samoilovich sensed the scholarship, I checked in bowling after reading (an amazing knowledge of Brazilian literature, for example), these coffee talks were also a tradition in Montevideo Montevideo but disappeared because all public places were degraded compared to the complete indifference of the Administration. Fiebelkorn
also accompanied me to the conference that I should make Cultural Center Quinta Trabucco, in Vicente López. The place is a palace neo-Renaissance style that belonged to a family called Trabucco and comes amidst a stunning garden, become almost a small villa with trees of the native flora, the pride of its director, another poet, Rodolfo Alonso. Without doubt, Buenos Aires is a city of psychoanalysts, and several of them were present on the readings (they are at most raise their hands to ask, with relevance, is the step-and present: "I am a psychoanalyst.") In Buenos Aires most analysts seem to have analyzed, it is true. But there are many poets. And I met are great. Alonso is also a translator of Portuguese and other languages. It was the first translator of the four most famous heteronyms Fernando Pessoa, in 1960 when not yet Octavio Paz (s) had been reported in Mexico. Alonso has created an original poetry, short poems and bright. And indeed, once again finished the day chatting in a cafe, it's posh suburb of Vicente López.
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G. is happy and bewildered by my presence in Buenos Aires. Unfortunately you can not see me. Come to the facility it is impossible, if I knew the problems of their community, poverty, and do not know how to keep the parish. How is your hepatitis? The bearing is, but refuses to take drugs for pharmaceutical multinationals, opted for alternative medicine. Me? I continue with my breathing problems, even after the operation. "The price we get," says G. I have no time to respond: "I have a past of hedonism" adds in person. Okay, G., my dear G. "Hearing me talk about poetry? No, not even time to read. By the way, has no sexual life, he says, so many problems, and they do not want is a vote. Today afternoon was a wedding, he gave good advice to the newlyweds. "News of Recife? Yes, by e.mail, at times. 'll Call you back. Call me, Alfredo, I hear you. Vernos no, no, it is very difficult.
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I'm in the Retiro station to go back to Montevideo and still later to San Pablo. My life is strange, Cecilia? And will there be any that is not? I say goodbye to Buenos Aires and Montevideo you. And I say, I say goodbye and I can not, the human trade is sad, the heart gets used and forget what you do constantly wonder. Hell and Paradise live many times, do not you, Cecilia? For me, Buenos Aires was also close, made of destinations like mine, embroidery Fates. Almost coquette.
CHRONICLE OF CIUDAD JUAREZ
airport is small, or if all airports are actually the same, this is the province. It shows in the silence of the corridors, resilient despite the number of passengers who got off flight "from Mexico City." This was announced by loudspeaker in a volume that increases the feeling of silence. A giant thermometer warns: "42 degrees." In the calm
there was no place for police to examine travelers and now calls me. But there is, look at my Uruguayan passport and duly sealed in the capital, and asks, Dry
- What brings you here?
I watch while I think: that I had never asked before, in the United States itself is true ("Why you came in America?"), But not in Mexico. I try to imagine why you ask me. Meanwhile, explain I come to a meeting of writers, "Literature in the Brave" is called, and then go to Chihuahua Book Fair, September 2007-but my explanations are useless, the police identified and I am a reliable person " Go ahead, welcome to Ciudad Juárez, "adding:" Lord. "
I do not like this "Lord" and I hate to be reliable. The police should never rely on writers. Definitely got to Juarez with many warnings. "Do not read Bolaño, better read our poetry and come alone," I had written two Juarenses poets I met years ago in Michoacán. In fact, I read them both carefully, and discover it again will be one of the pleasures I have in Juárez.
The young man I waited in the lobby of the airport with my name written on a placard is who I move for a week in the city. It is not official Chihuahua Institute of Culture, or Conaculta, or any other official body. He was hired just for this event. The rest of the time working in a nightclub, prepared cocktails, is a changa there in the sector where the bars. And his name is Jesus. Juárez recalls
Brasilia. There are "areas" for everything: industry these trendy bars, ie, away from the center decadent the Juárez Avenue which ends at the international bridge, hotel sector, where Jesus takes me and helps me to install, and of course are the sections of the poor and the rich sector, administrative areas and everything is joined by major urban corridors. Is there no sidewalks and streets with clubs in the corner? Yes, but only in the center, and entire blocks are being demolished. The art-deco replaced by modernity. Renew is live.
The Juarez have an easy smile and are friends of long explanations. "All are friendly and hospitable northerners," they say, and it is true. "With the exception of Chihuahua," they add. Juarenses and of Chihuahua, the state capital, compete in everything, so do not do well. But Juarez has the border.
PASO DEL NORTE
Before there were border, Juárez and the current El Paso, Texas, was a single city. Called Paso del Norte. It was a "step", ie had no vocation to the city center, at least traditional. It was the Paso to Santa Fe, into what is now New Mexico, but Mexico was up to the agreements of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, which defined the border after the U.S. invasion of 1846-48. By this treaty Mexico was robbed of two million square kilometers. Therefore
Ciudad Juarez has the colonial palaces themselves are in Chihuahua, as in all provincial towns Mexican nobles. In Juarez is always in step. You can spend a lifetime, by the way in step. The number of people, read, amounts to 1,313,338. Next to El Paso, form the largest urban area bordering the world, with 2,187,662 inhabitants in total. Now Juarez is divided into sectors, so easy to destroy entire blocks to revitalize the central region. The border is a serious accident, but you get used to it. And does not stop many live Juarez on the Mexican side and work in El Paso. One of my poets, Edgar Rincón Luna, is diagram of El Diario del Paso, a newspaper published in English and sister of El Diario de Juárez. Almost all Juarenses shop at El Paso, especially when consuming electronic products, very cheap. To cross the three bridges (four, if one considers a slightly off-center) U.S. Customs seeks visa. There is a special, which gives the right to enter U.S. territory thirty kilometers. The visa (they call it "laser visa") is issued to those who demonstrate that they intend to stay on U.S. soil, and is pursued by thieves Juárez.
From here I look at the downtown El Paso. The buildings have the same lack of interest of all downtowns. It's the same city Juarez, in the same desert, with the same extreme temperatures (winter spend much below zero), all have the same unreality of hallucinogens in the desert, yet one imagines grass between the buildings, and Why not, squirrels jumping. Imagine bad, of course, even as the population of El Paso is in seventy percent of Latin origin, which does not make it the model American city. One night the poet Rodolfo Hasler and I entered the bridge, the most central, which is a continuation of Avenida Juarez. Lined after we reach milestones that indicate the border of the Republic of Mexico and the Boundary of United States of America. We already in the gringa, before the first Guarita. We watched the scene under the bridge: the passage of a train, infinite, comes from Chihuahua, going to Santa Fe, New Mexico. In the middle of nowhere, the channel of the Rio Grande that was on the Mexican side, has no water. They are about two blocks the way, but deserted. Who can cross over the bridge. Who does not, you die. We see the patrols after the fences. Everyone commented two weeks ago a soldier of the patrols shot dead a young man who wanted to jump the fences. The soldier was the son of Mexican.
The border is both illusion and reality hit, and often there is no life cost. For knowingly Mexico is greater than its northern border and continues in the United States. So the idea sounds so false dividing line, edge, of "borderline." And while the United States border is the only border that can be definitely known. Rodolfo I tell my trip to Prague in the '80s, when the "iron curtain" seemed immovable. Seemed to border. Americans now cast a wall, a stretch of wall that starts from El Paso. It will be a mere act of arrogance. Because the wall already exists. And many will go through, driven by poverty. What brings me here? I am a Uruguayan poet and came to the border to give all I have, which is poetry, and learn humility. Anoto
phrases written in black ink on the sides of the channel: "Down with the empire," "Mass Weapons Destroyer." There is also an unfinished sentence: "Bush's war is not only against Iraq. It is against the (...) "and there are drawings. I remember two fists, almost identical, as facts about a role model, and one, blunt, the Statue of Liberty. Rodolfo and I were silent. We have before us some ideograms, banal or commonplace, those who have joined us since the twentieth century. The strange thing resides only in the location where the met again, on a bridge between two worlds, where any allegory can lose their meaning, or meanings charge new, unexpected. We are silent.
Back in Juarez, Avenue bar with Kentucky, where he invented the Margarita cocktail, a bar with mahogany interior was installed in New Orleans and was transported to Juarez, piece piece, and there reopened during the years of Prohibition. In the first corner of Avenida Juarez, left, is the poster of the Chihuahuan Transport "We give 50% discount to the deportees, but only the exiles. Submit deportation document. Do not insist. Travel to Guadalajara and Mexico City. " The enes are dyslexic, but I feel that the world upside down was the other side, with lawn and squirrels. What brought me over here was the Gathering of Writers, but it would have come anyway because I am a border. The went through my whole life. Some are scary.
PARK FORGOTTEN
prostitution on either side of Avenida Juarez. I was impressed by the transvestites, I know I deserve a poem. There will be a real man to be a transvestite in Juárez, where passions are likely to end in gunfire, and very wise, be true Odysseus, Odysseus attentive to the slightest movement in the face of men. Ulysses ours, as marked by stunted American males, transvestites here do not speak, do not call the clients, only mouth put the heart. They know the truth just at the edges of the sheets or stains of love, and dangerous. And so very white and blonde get lavadísimas, or device, to be gringas overnight, being the other, the Other, the "other side" as called Juarez on the border, the Ulysses tied to the mast to avoid entering in other words, the siren of fatal truths, often fatal.
To the south of the Cathedral, male prostitution. There are many gay bars in the Plaza Cervantes, with hotels in the "alley of la Mancha", but there's nothing different from the gay bars anywhere. Gays always margin margin margin. Yes, maybe one thing: pictures of Maria Felix Doña could not miss the gay bars in Mexico. The comic transvestite show Star Palace has become a small tradition of the border. One must know how to laugh at himself.
From the day that I am concerned with the river, I imagined, was the natural border between the two countries. The Rio Grande, that Americans prefer to call Grande, is gentle and small, and also in Juarez, does not separate anything. Not far from the center, the fences to the east, is the park called El Chamizal, pride of Juarez. It was the least the first place where I was Jesus. "You have to know the Chamizal, this park is the only territory which the Americans returned in its history." The park boasts 177 hectares, is crossed by the inevitable urban corridors to the Anthropology Museum contains local, but what matters is that it was returned by the invader. The United States delayed a century to admit that "a mistake" caused by a flood in 1864, had been unduly with that piece of Mexican territory. He was returned in 1967, after a first "delivery", only symbolic, President Lyndon Johnson to Adolfo Lopez Mateo on February 25, 1964. What Juarenses not have is that the Americans were left with the Rio Grande. Juárez after the river is, in fact, the natural border between the two countries, but within the metropolitan area Juarez-El Paso, the border was drawn by a channel, generally dry, and not by the river side remained totally gringo. And get anemic
to El Paso. The abuse that Americans make the river would dry a few times during the year. And tell me when you do not contaminate it dry. He says the poet César Juárez Silva until the 30s were sold very cheap land that overlooked the river, and in the writings consisted clarifying that, work of any possible flooding, the new owner could wake up one day on the Mexican side. They were times when some restaurants gringos were allowed to prohibit the entry "of dogs and Mexicans" ("No dogs and Mexicans allowed.")
Juarez is an important industrial center. Particularly striking is the number of sub-treatment plants for industrial products, ie, such a "maquila" that has become famous because of the "dead women of Juarez", these crimes against women, usually employees of the maquiladoras, that have been accumulating in the crime pages since 1993, without anyone discovering the murderers. By the time passes four the number of bodies found. But you must remember that many bodies were never found, and nobody seems to know how much the number of "disappeared." Disinformation is the first weapon who does not elucidate the crimes. The "missing" may be five or two thousand.
Everyone agrees that there is no single cause for these crimes. May be due to "snuf movies, these films that are raped and killed the woman in front of cameras for the amusement of an audience willing to pay high prices for every film. There are also indications that could Being black magic, ie rituals with human victims. The members of the Juarez drug cartel in the tattoos on display through the protection of the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Santa Muerte. The latter is a popular cult that calls Mexican human sacrifices. But other rituals of protection if requested. The level of violence that the U.S. border can be set is immeasurable socially. Prostitution is the most visible market (but not the largest), coveted by Americans who cross the bridges over all weekends for distillation, get high and enjoy the nightlife in Juárez. In a speech, the writer Veracruz Luis Arturo Ramos, filed in El Paso, compares Halloween to Americans with the day of the Dead in Mexico. In the second, he says, is discussed with the death and the image of this skeleton is accepted in all of us. Halloween Already dramatizes the horror that comes from beyond, which brings with it the danger is the spectrum, the monster, illegal. The gringos, I think, come to Juarez to know less clean side of themselves, and re-cross the bridge late at night, to resume their lives of honest citizens and tidy, clean appearance. Clean, they say.
LIFE NARCO
drug cartels have created a whole aesthetic excess of easy money, a "narco" that naturally interacts with the machismo of the region. For now, musically, there are "narcocorridos." I went to a Sanborn, those big magazines, and buy one of these CDs. Bluntly asked the seller: "What discs narcocorridos have?" The answer came directly: he had "Los Tucanes de Tijuana" and "Northern Tigers." Corridos are a type of this music, whose lyrics tell of an adventure, sometimes epic, possibly historic (eg, Pancho Villa and his "Adelita", or his horse). The narcocorridos are an unexpected aggiornamento of this kind: Adventures of youth have joined the drug, sometimes only of immigrants "illegal." The narco includes those men with hat, belt and leather boots, such as crocodile, and sometimes pink. See them walk the Avenida Juarez impressive. A Rodolfo Hasler that character (or narcopersonaje) inspired a poem anthology rightly called "Ciudad Juárez." They are the new-male of the border.
The attacks of September 11, 2001 were also dire for Ciudad Juárez. Customs controls should be intensified and drug trafficking, unable to transport the drugs to U.S. territory common destination, had to lower prices and spread it in Mexico. It was a disaster for the youth of the border, who were seduced by drugs and drug trafficking. In the narco can enter codes embedded in the tattoos. Juarenses count the number of tears tattooed on the right side of the body corresponds to that of the tattooed people and killed, and the tears tattooed on the left's own body are still uncollected accounts. Jesus tells me about the murder of his cousin: "The area of \u200b\u200bthese stylish bars is more dangerous than the Centre. Occasionally there are shootouts between drug dealers. There is no family in Juarez who has not experienced any violence due to traffic. " Juárez and Rio de Janeiro. I think both cities with a mixture of love and bitterness.
What brought me to Juarez? In principle, was the Meeting of Writers, the tribute we did to the great Mexican poet José Emilio Pacheco. As Uruguayan fit me remember the story of when Jose Emilio was in Montevideo. Then the president was Jorge Pacheco Areco, and the poet found a city that was covered with graffiti that read "Pacheco thief and murderer," "Down Pacheco." And just poor Jose Emilio had gone in search of the city where her grandparents lived. Stories of mishaps in Juárez made us smile. Elena Poniatowska, who had gone to lecture and to defend the "legitimate government" of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, another story of missed opportunities, "he said in the hotel:" My Uruguayans are unforgettable and General Idea Seregni Vilariño Lieber. " "For my Mexicans today are all Juarenses unforgettable," he said. I looked puzzled, perhaps because Juarez gets a bad press, but gave no further explanation. And I confess that a week later, I was a little sad and a little relieved. I expected Chihuahua, ie a city, not a "pass" without a border made as a cutting knife, a city \u200b\u200bwith its palaces, its neighborhoods, and not sectors, with its epic story, both as Benito Juarez, Pancho Villa. But one day return to Ciudad Juárez, I know, and when I ask what brings me here, I will say, "The Juarez, still miss them.
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