Killer Crónicas: Bilingual Memories

IX. ESTRAGOS ACU

IX Estragos Acuáticos Crónica 27 enero 2001 Buenos Aires Para Lucía Guerra-Cunningham Estoy sentada en el comedor de nuestro departamento, taipeando en el laptop de Pierre which somehow, de milagro, did NOT get ruined by the sheets of water que inundaron nuestro departamento while we were in Chile. Si hay un Dios, his/her name is écriture, porque although we returned to the disconcerting fact of una cañería reventada in the departamento above ours, y muchísimo water damage in our apartment, the computer, my work and most of my books were spared (my first editions of Pizarnik, unscathed!). Several rather boring garments were ruined by mold; y hay un olor fuerte a moho en casi todo el departamento. Un plomero supposedly tenía que venir to begin to fix things, including one of our toilets que está a punto de reventar, pero . . . we’re still waiting. Only minutes ago we found out que ahora something burst también en el piso de abajo, and as a result ahora sólo tenemos agua in the tiny, squalid “maid’s bathroom” off the cocina. Those of you who keep up with international weather news may be aware of apocalyptic happenings en our cuello del bohque, to wit:  Weather Report:  Hubo tres tormentas terribles en la provincia de Buenos Aires entre el 10 de enero and yesterday. Cuatro ancianas died en el subsuelo of a nursing home en el barrio de Belgrano, right next to Palermo, where we live. Más de metro y medio de agua cayó in just over 5 hours, leaving many people homeless. La gente y los autos nadaban en las grandes avenidas; a one-legged asistente de peluquería heroically rescued several people trapped in small mom ‘n’ pop stores. Una psiquiatra lost all her Lacan books, her dog drowned y OB-vio, her beautiful casona in Belgrano, on the verge of being sold, is going nowhere now, with its marshy Oriental carpets, y con unos green water marks halfway up the walls. Todo esto en las últimas 48 horas; so I kind of suspect our wait for a plomero will be a long one . . . Yo llevé conmigo (from the library of la Dra. Lustig de Ferrer, the Austrian-Jewish psychiatrist whose now waterstained , anteriormente de lujo third floor apartment we are renting) al viaje a Chile la novela más o menos bestseller La creciente de Silvina Bullrich, from 1967, and I thought, mientras la leía, it was a pretty grotesquely exaggerated allegory (en términos, especialmente, de las posibilidades metereológicas) of Buenos Aires. The story of the bestialization and horror of a city edificada en un pantano. It’s never named, pero está claro que es Buenos Aires. “Now that we are cool” (ah . . . W. H. Hudson’s Green Mansions, STILL—de nuevo—uno de mis libros mas queridos of all time), I breathed relievedly as our plane touched down en 58  KILLER CRÓNICAS Santiago el 3 de enero, and we emerged into the Andean shimmering dust-brown heat—blessedly dry! Los que me conocen saben cuánto detesto el calor, so for me to be appreciating heat you can understand the horror, the horror of the humid River Plate summer. Nuestro host, Wilson Chevalier, complained bitterly how hot it was! Las afueras de Santiago looked uncannily like the Ontario Intn’l airport just minutes from Claramonte, and the Juvenile shrieked nostalgically in recognition. The drive in to the city reminded us very much of Los Angeles, o de otras ciudades latinoamericanas, quizás mexicanas. Nai que ver, poh, con Buenos Aires. Short, somewhat chillón buildings. Lots of graffitti. A squat, sort of grey looking city, with sudden, occasional bursts of tropi-pintura. Nos hospedamos en casa de Wilson, un amigo de mi amigo chileno Luis, from Cornell. Su wife and son were in Japan. Había pensado que on vacation pero resulta que no. This was some longer-term ausencia we later would find out was not del todo unpleasing to our host. Wilson resides in a house in Mary Helper Street. Descubrimos al tiro, poh, que he had deep plans to introduce me to a zillion poets and other cultural figures todos los días, altho I tried to tell him que estábamos de vacaciones, y yo medio intoxicada, besides, de poetas, escritores y otras figuras mediáticas, after five...