Saturday, July 30, 2011

It is late afternoon.

I am writing this in a ‘literary cafĂ©’ in the old part of the city. I do not know what here is exactly literary but the waiter refills my glass with good red wine for free. Outside, past the sausages hanging in the window, the streets are made of cobblestone. The lighting is dim and everything feels decidedly Argentine.

I have been living mostly at my aunt’s house downtown. It is beautiful and old, and dangerously close to what I would call a mansion. Nobody lives there right now and it is in the process of being moved out of: the only furniture inside is the massive oak table in the dining room and a couple of beds covered with coarse wool blankets upstairs. Most of my aunt’s paintings are still hanging, as are, unfortunately, her many antique and phenomenally creepy mirrors. Currently the house is unheated, and I spend a lot of time sliding around the dark hardwood floors in my socks to stay warm and entertained. When I wake up in the morning, I can see my breath condense on the air; it reminds me of camping in the wintertime.

Last night, a friend and I were walking back from the supermarket when it started to pour. With ten blocks to go and tired from the day, we decided not to make a run for it. All around us people were sprinting by and hailing taxis and dramatically splashing through puddles-- it seemed like we were going in slow motion. When we got to the house, my hands were cold and it took me forever to unlock the front door's three ancient deadbolts. I’m not sure if this is possible, but I think it was colder inside the house than out. We put on dry clothes and made some pasta we had found in one of the empty cupboards, listening to Spanish music while we cooked. We found a dusty bottle of wine and opened it, but the seal was bad and it tasted like vinegar. There were no knobs on the stove, but we managed to tinker with it and some matches until we got it lit. Later, my friend burnt his hand and I found it funnier than he did.

The rain made a lot of noise on the roof and it felt good to speak English for a little while.