My Life in Argentina and Beyond

· “To Find That Dead Woman”, a Novel
The Story of A Healthy Life Gone Wrong
Notes For The New Novel
Chapter One



Let me tell you a story, a story of many hats. Let me tell you about the designer hats I wore back in the Buenos Aires of the 40s and 50s. I can still remember that a Frenchwoman made them especially for me, and that she put each of them in a special box for me to take them home in. And that I bought more hats from Saks Fifth Avenue and Gimbels every time I traveled to New York. Those hats! I had so many of them! They made my young and pretty face stand out even more. They made me feel important even when I did not wear them with my classic business suits. And I stood straight and tall. I knew that some people called me arrogant; they even said I was distant and hard-to-know. Oh, yes, to them I was the arrogant one, the one who gave them orders. But what did they know? They could not see who I was. They could not see the real Nora of the early years. They never found out that many years later Nora died in a horrible fire and could not be saved. ´No, she could not be saved.

Then who or what could have saved me? Who was Nora, and how did she get there? How did her life hit rock bottom? I don’t know the answer to that. I just don’t know.

Hats, as I said, were the hot things of my good years. They were the accessories to end all accessories. In my day, a well-dressed woman on her way to town would rather be caught dead than seen by her friends without a hat. Hats defined you. They allowed a woman to develop her own style, to play with fashion and at the same time break its rules. With the right hat, a woman could be the protagonist of her own life. There was nothing that I wanted more than to be the protagonist, to be important. I wanted to be seen, looked at and to never get lost in some crowd, like most of the women I knew. There were a lot of things I was determined to rise above, and many things I wanted to accomplish. I had to—I wanted--to get them done in as short a time as possible. I was impatient. I could not wait. I was young then and did not know any better. I would soon be learning, and I would learn fast.
Nothing bad would ever happen to me. I was sure and confident of that. Nothing terrible. Nothing sad could touch me again. I, Nora, would see to that.
I would live well, enjoying what I knew my mother had not been able to enjoy: My mother with her uneasy and suffered life; my mother who led a life full of self-sacrifice. It was not going to be like that for me. I would make sure that what had happened to her would not be happening to me.
I wanted glossy. And I wanted it brassy—I loved things that stood out in the crowd. I wanted glamour in my life, all the glamour and all the glitter I could find. And I did not want to wait for them. I wanted them before I was old and wrinkled, like the women I would see walking around my neighborhood, wearing nice things, but not having the asset of youth. Their wrinkled necks depressed me; real jewelry could never look good around their worn-out necks. Youth was the only asset worth having, and I had it.
Yes, I was a sharp dresser. I was quite a well turned-out woman. I was an example for other women to follow. And all the smart young women of my generation followed me and made me their role model. I was the only one they imitated and copied over and over again: Me, the little immigrant from Ukraine. Me, who arrived in Buenos Aires when I was six, without speaking one word of Spanish.
Were there three fresh red carnations on my grave this afternoon? Who put them there? Somebody must have remembered that I’ve been dead these past two years. How strange for that to happen, considering the fact that nobody came to my funeral. Yes, this is strange, but not as strange and ironic as a lifetime dedicated to wearing hats and to looking royal, majestic. I felt royal. I was quite the lady. I made my statements and I was the best. And everyone got my message so well that nobody ever guessed the poverty of my childhood. What came after all that success was gone? I don’t remember, but it wasn’t good. None of it was. And in my condition, so sick that I couldn’t even get up some mornings, I still had to take care of my dogs—all three of them and all three always hungry. They asked for my attention when I had no body to give me attention, when I didn’t want to give attention to myself. I didn’t care about me anymore. I only cared about who I had once been, so long ago in that other Buenos Aires. It was a gentler city then, still always hustling and bustling but nicer, kinder. I still had to make it on my own, but the climate wasn’t as demeaning as it is now in the late 90s. It would have been a lot harder for me now. As it is, I know that my life is over—practically over, except for my dogs. They interest me a little; they keep me alive, just barely alive. But not enough to have a tolerable life during my last years. I have a hard time remembering that now is not then, that before has been over for a long time or that my grand lady like past is no more. I keep thinking I’m still living then and not now. This can’t be now; it’s too horrible, too lonely to be real. But when I look at my dirty walls (I think they were white once upon a long time), I know this is reality, my reality, and I try to live with it. I wake up and see that ugliness and cringing is not enough. Not enough at all. I still see it and it’s still there—uglier than ever.
So here I am remembering old times, so much better times. I loved my café con leche in the cafeteria with all the gang, with all my co-workers gathered there at around 10 in the morning. We would drink our café con leche and media lunas, so buttery and crisp that they would melt in our mouths. But the camaderie was the best part, the part where I was part of something, where I felt important and protected at the same time. I was Señorita Nora then, I was useful and well liked by everyone. Señorita Nora. I enjoyed every minute of it. There were perks for me to enjoy everywhere. Now the only perks I get are my memories.
There’s nothing else and nobody to talk to. My eyes get sad when I think about this. Once so pretty! So bright and alive! Men used to say my eyes were my best feature. And for once they were right.
I really didn’t need men to keep me like other women I knew. I had my own money because I worked hard for it. Very, very hard, from the time I was 13-years-old, sticking labels on medicine bottles at the laboratory.
Nora with the expensive hats: What a beautiful sight I was! How they all looked at me!
Only me. I was always taking center stage then. I was always the best. I had to be the best. There was no other way. I had to be the only one. I had to be a winner.
That was how it was then, a long ago then. As for now, I don’t even want to know that now exists. It might as well not exist because it is so ugly!
What is even uglier is that no one comes to visit me. No one comes to my apt., and, unfortunately, I can’t talk to my dogs, and they can’t talk back to me. They just bark and ask me for food. What food? Where do I get it for them and for myself? Where do people like me go for what we need? Where do I find kindness now, when I need most? Where will I find peace? It’s nowhere, nowhere for me to see it. I can just see this ugliness and traces of my dogs’ urine on the walls. Oh, the urine. How can I escape it? It’s always there for me to see. And I have to see it, I can’t help but see it. Oh, God! It is such an ugly sight! It looks like a clumsy child’s drawing on my wall. And my dogs bear the brunt of what’s going on. That’s what I am so sad about. I’m sad for them, I’m even sadder for me. So sad because of what’s happened. If there was a way for me to stop it, why didn’t I know about it? Why wasn’t something done about me? Something anything? Why will I have to die like this, with no love, no kindness, no nothing?
The smell of my dogs’ urine keeps me up at night. They pee everywhere and anywhere and I’m too tired most of the time to clean up after them. They are my family, but can’t they learn to clean up after themselves? I wish they could. I wish they were able to go out and find or buy their own food too. I need someone to take care of me, and here I am, taking care of them. They are nice, I do love them, but that’s not all. I need things. I never get anything these days—from them or anybody. Maybe the God I once thought existed isn’t really up there anymore. Maybe he was always gone because he’s not there when I need him most. How can I believe in God when I feel so terrible, when my days are gone? How can I believe in anything? I can’t, not the way I feel each day when I wake up in the morning. Then I see the ugliness and I think about the past. Things are the way they are for me, and I hate them.
How do I handle my life? How do I handle my dogs when they get sick or when they need me all the time? Why is my life such hell and how did it get there? I remember days, months, years where I was happy. Why didn’t they continue, why didn’t they go on and on like a happy dinner party where everybody is having such a great time they don’t want to go home? I used to love going to those dinner parties so much! I was the life of the party then. I was the life of all the best parties. My name was Nora and everyone knew it. Who knows me now? Who wants to know me now? I don’t want to know the Nora I avoid looking at in the mirror. I don’t want to know her. She’s ugly. She’s old, so old.


Chapter Two

I missed my mother. I hadn’t seen her since she left me at the train station. I was going to leave her, but I didn’t know for how long. And she had told me I was going to go to a strange country, but I’d never heard of it. I didn’t know where Argentina was. Somewhere in a continent called South America, my mother said. But I was six-years-old, and I had no idea where that was, either. I knew I missed her. My cousin was nice, but she was no substitute for my mother. When I held on to my cousin’s hand, it didn’t feel like my mother’s hand. My mother’s hand felt warm; my cousin’s hand was almost the hand of a stranger. But we couldn’t stay in the old country. Things—life—were hard there for a single mother with a little girl. My mother had to send me away to Argentina; she said she would follow me in a few months. I almost didn’t want to go to Argentina with my young cousin, but I was a child and we were so poor in our country. And I had no father. If I ever met him, I don’t remember what he looked like. I never had anything from my father, except for his last name. I still needed him them, and my mother must have needed him even more. But he was gone. He had immigrated to America and I didn’t remember what he looked like. My mother wouldn’t keep any pictures of him—no reminders of that man are necessary, she would say. We didn’t need him now or ever. We were going to be independent women from now on. We didn’t need any man.
My first days in Buenos Aires: My first thought was: It’s big! It’s huge! People everywhere! The schoolroom where my mother left me had wooden desks for at least thirty children. I was scared to be there by myself. My white smock didn’t fit me, and my white socks dropped to my ankles. I didn’t want to be there at all. I wanted to be with my mother; I wanted her to hug me and protect me. But the school bell rang and I had to pay attention to the young schoolteacher. And I didn’t speak one word of Spanish. But I was in the middle of it and I had to learn.
So my mother left me in the new schoolroom, and for that one day I pretended I was deaf and mute. It was my protective shield against the pain I felt those first weeks in school. And those first weeks were hard. I couldn’t understand what was happening around me, what my teacher or classmates were saying. I was not like them, and they didn’t like me. I didn’t know why at first, but then I found out—they didn’t like me because I was an outsider, I came from another place. And it was a place nobody had ever heard of—Ukraine, near Russia. I had never heard of Buenos Aires or Argentina either, for that matter. If I was a foreigner to them, they were foreigners to me. And that was that.
There were about thirty of us in the classroom, and we got used to one another in that small classroom. It was 1930, the beginning of the Depression in Argentina. I had few clothes to wear under my white school uniform. There was nothing to change into or out of. I made up my mind then and there that this was not going to happen to me when I grew up. I would have all the clothes I wanted. I’d be well dressed, like a real lady. And I’d earn my money. I was going to be an independent woman like my mother. Like my mother who worked as housekeeper in some rich family’s house.
I knew I would have tea one day with important people, maybe even the most important and famous in Buenos Aires high society. I would be part of their inner circle. I would be one of them, and I’d earn that place by myself. All by myself with only my determination and perseverance for help. And I did it! I earned that place on my own. And I was the big boss of bosses—the one in charge of all the typists in my dept. I called the shots—always.
Yes, I called the shots—everywhere except in my personal life. There I had to look the other way and pretend the pain wasn’t there.
Si, Señorita. No señorita. Over and over again I’d hear these words. Power—that’s what it was: Power and feeling good about going to work every single day. That was because I was needed, because I was important. And I wanted to stay that way: important and unshakable. After all, I had become the queen of my workplace. I had gone from being a bottle sticker to their most valued employee. I was the one they—even my especially my boss—turned to in times of need and stress. Power! Once you taste it, you can’t have enough. I would stand in the middle of my boss’s office—me the immigrant from Ukraine dressed in my sharp black suit and say: Me? Yes, it’s me! I can rule him, I can rule this business when I want to.
Not bad at all. Not bad at all for the little bottle sticker from the Ukraine.
Yes, I like to reminisce at night so I won’t have to see the ugliness of my apt. I’m not dumb, I’m not stupid. People prefer to think I’ve lost my senses, but I haven’t. I know what I had then and what I have now. Back then I had everything and now I have nothing. I have nothing except knowing what once was.
I was Nora and I wanted everyone to know it. I wanted them all to applaud me. Me and only me.
Oh, the times I spent with the gang in the cafeteria for our midmorning snack. We would all drink café con leche and munch on crisp media lunas. But the food wasn’t important, the camaraderie we felt was. The time I spent there was precious to me. It was a great big family gathered around the table. It was like the family I never had as a child. I couldn’t have enough of it.
There was never enough of that feeling. Never enough of feeling I was in a family. My early life didn’t allow me any sentiments. It was just me and my mother working hard. The two of us were always together. We were inseparable—until she met that new man in her life. He came between us and ruined everything.
Too bad, because that was the end of the happy relationship between my mother and me. From then on, we had to hide our meetings. We would meet in secret, like clandestine lovers. We didn’t like it, but we made the best of our weekly cafes con leche. Yes, yes! It was hard for my mother and me. It was really hard to keep this new stage of our relationship hidden from my stepfather. But we did it. He was never sure when we would be meeting. I liked the idea of keeping him guessing, keeping him in suspense. He never knew what was going to happen next. And my own mother didn’t seem to mind. She played the game even better than I did myself. I know it hurt her to do it, but she did it. I was proud of her for that! I liked the fact that she actually did it!
She left me. She left me waiting at the train station and I was scared. I didn’t know the security guard, I didn’t know anybody. I had never seen them before.
Give my three dogs attention? I can barely give that to myself. But they’re innocent animals; they are not to blame for what’s happened to me. And I must make the effort to do what I can for them. I must do it even though I’m sick.
Nobody can take care of me. Nobody looking at the old woman I’ve become would want to. If I were the happy-go-lucky Nora, people would be lining up to do things for me. Then people would care. But the way I am now, nobody wants to mess with old age, with my old age.
Yes, I’m old, and therefore I’m no good anymore. Nobody needs me, no human being smiles at me. They never see me when I walk with my dogs. They see them, but I might as well be invisible. I’m just the arm that pulls the leash. I’m just not there.
Once I was Nadia, the lady with her elegant hats. Now I have bags under my eyes and I know nobody wants me.