Southerly. Jorge Consiglio

‘Give it a name.’ But the hamster lasted what hamsters last: no time at all. A week later, Angela had an allergic reaction. She came out in a rash on her neck, nose, cheeks and arms. Her eyelids swelled up. She couldn’t breathe properly. We had to rush her to A&E. They injected her with corticosteroids. The doctor broke the news: ‘There’s a risk of oedema of the glottis.’ I looked at him astonished. ‘I can’t believe it,’ I said. ‘The glottis is an opening in the larynx. Through which air passes,’ he clarified. I felt like I was going to die. Everything turned blue. I steadied myself against the back of a chair. I almost fainted.

      I didn’t give up. A week later I bought a canary, but Angela had lost interest in animals. I was the one who became fond of the bird. I discovered the way in which birds make themselves present. How to put it. They’re unpredictable. Sometimes silent, keeping an ear to the ground; at other times, frenziedly chirping. They’re strange creatures. We give our canary birdseed, apple, a little carrot, but some days it won’t touch its food. ‘It’s melancholy’, the vet told us. It only eats when it wants to.

      *

      I hate how dingy the flat is. I’m used to sunlight streaming through the windows. In Carlos Calvo we had to have the light on all day long. The flat is a hole in the wall. That’s why it took me a while to clean the top shelf of my wardrobe. I only got round to it one Sunday a month after my arrival. I stood on a chair, opened the doors and dusted the inside. As I went to wipe the shelf with a wet cloth, I noticed some abandoned papers stuck right at the back. I brought them down. Two legal-size envelopes. One contained a letter and some photos; the other an X-ray and a guide to playing the piano. I started with the photos. There were four. Three in black and white and one in colour in which you could make out two old ladies on a patio full of potted plants. They were sitting on plastic chairs around a table with a bottle of Coke and four glasses. They were smiling. It was summer: they were wearing sleeveless flowery smocks. The other photos were even older. The scene was an empty beach. It seemed remote. It showed a young woman, about thirty, walking beside the shore. The other two were alike: the girl was wearing jodhpurs and a black polo shirt. In the background, partly hidden by the sand dunes, was a tower. At first I thought it was a lighthouse; then I realised I was mistaken. It was the chimney of a factory or something like that.

      *

      I pushed aside the other documents and concentrated on the photos. I spent several weeks studying them. I was obsessed. I couldn’t take my eyes off those images. Then I began working as an administrator at an estate agency and started studying at college. These two things kept me busy all day. I would leave the flat at nine in the morning and would get home at half ten at night, when I’d warm up some leftovers in the microwave, eat quickly and go straight to bed. Sometimes, I’d find my uncle slumped on the sofa watching a film. One evening, he got up, turned off the telly and made coffee. ‘I’ll keep you company,’ he said, and sat down opposite me with the cup in his hand. It was extremely uncomfortable. I didn’t know what to say and he didn’t say anything. He just watched me eat. I started talking nonstop. I got really nervous. This always happens to me. I told him about my job, the public transport system, my course and what I had found in the wardrobe. Mundo wasn’t really listening to me. I thought he was just pretending to pay attention but, a while later, as if he was thinking about something else, he asked me to show him my discovery. ‘What discovery?’ I asked. I suddenly realised what he was talking about. I got the envelopes and spread them out on the table. ‘Those two ladies used to live here,’ my uncle said. ‘Now they live in the countryside near Navarro. Their daughter rents the flat to us.’ Strange as it may seem, this was the first time I had connected those images with real flesh-and-blood people. Before that, the photos, the letters, the X-ray and the piano-learning guide had no people behind them. They were testimonies from another planet, traces of a distant civilisation.

      *

      I lasted just three months at the estate agency. ‘You have no sense of urgency,’ my now former boss said to me. He threw me out. I didn’t really understand but I kept my mouth shut and put up with it, as Zulema had taught me. Then, I packed up my things and shut myself in the toilet to cry. On the upside I now had more free time, and I never get bored. I found things to do. One was to return to my discovery. I found out that the X-ray was of a knee. Mundo held it up against the light. He couldn’t find any signs of fractures. One of the ladies must have had arthritis.

      *

      There were six letters. All written by different senders but all sent to the same recipient: Edda. The handwriting was alike. Not in their style but in other ways, different ways. How each writer experienced time, for example. This conditioned the lettering. They wrote about simple things, made promises, gave their opinions, recalled things, all backed up by the soundness of a syllogism. If I sniffed the letter, I could smell the hand that had written it. It was the perfume of another era. Similar to the fragrance Zulema used to wear in summer. All the letters had that atmosphere, what they described was the reflection of a different reality. In one, they spoke of a tree as if it were a man; in another, of a sudden south-easterly wind in El Tigre; in another, of holidays in the province of Córdoba; in another, they explained how to make rice pudding. There I was with my letters. Sprawled on the bed in Carlos Calvo Street. I read. I speculated. I immersed myself in Edda’s story, which was sweeping and fragmentary, and hence, better than my own life. I crept gradually closer like when I was little and wanted to catch a cricket, my heartbeat pounding in my ears.

      *

      One hot afternoon, the caretaker of the building invited me over to her place for an iced mate. She was plump, with bulging eyes, more oval than large. We both enjoyed watching one particular afternoon soap. We also liked avoiding our neighbours. These things created a bond between us. She smiled; I smiled. She was a chatterbox; I, a woman of few words. Gradually, almost reluctantly, I began talking. I asked her about the ladies who had lived in my flat. She remembered them but had trouble articulating herself. She didn’t give me any useful information. I asked about Edda. The caretaker rolled her eyes. She sniffed the air just like a deer or a guanaco. She sucked the straw down to the last drop. Then, she moved closer as if she were about to kiss me. She said: ‘Edda was wild. Bold. No one would dare step on her toes. Like Tita Merello.’ She didn’t have to say anything else. You could see the certainty in her eyes. From then on, in my eyes Edda would be Tita Merello, a woman who could settle on any shore. Or shape the shore to her liking.

      *

      I like to think there are hidden connections in life. Any act, for reasons unknown, can be connected to another act. One day I woke with toothache. I rushed to the dentist. I sat in the chair and opened my mouth. A guy with a poker face picked up some forceps at random. It was his métier. He felt powerful. He put in a temporary remedy. It fell out after a day and a half. He tried again. It lasted a week. Admitting defeat, he said: ‘I recommend extraction.’ He took the tooth out on a Saturday morning. Hearing the crunching of the bones and bursting into tears was one and the same act. Overflowing with emotion, the poker face said: ‘It’ll be over soon. Don’t move.’ I went home with half my face numbed by the anaesthetic. Every little while I probed my numb cheek with the tip of my tongue. I flopped down in front of the telly with Angela. She looked after me in her own way, with all the paraphernalia kids have around them. She brought me dolls, pencils and a paint box. She brought me water I didn’t drink, an uncomfortable pillow, and a comb so she could comb my hair. I wouldn’t let her. That was the first time I had ever been strict, and it went well, I was a natural. I hit the mark. Angela began to draw a dog but she wasn’t pleased with how it turned out. In a fit of rage she ripped the paper into tiny pieces. Inconsolable, she shut herself away in her room. Thankful for a bit of space I went to lie down on my bed, which I had been dying to do ever since I got home.

      *

      Poor health modifies your perspective. I’m sure of it. Even something as routine as the discomfort after a tooth extraction. It changes the way you see things. It’s like putting on new glasses. Everyone knows that the best place to read is in bed. In my case, I read magazines, whichever ones I can get my hands on, or that people lend me. I also read the letters sent to Edda. After the tooth extraction, I kept myself entertained with three in particular, which, in my opinion, were the best. One from a guy who tells her about making