Matt Pfarrer’s week started the best way possible. After awakening then brewing his morning coffee, he checked his laptop for emails that had arrived overnight.
One of the subject lines consisted of welcome news. Another article he’d written had been accepted by the syndicate.
The subject of his authorship wasn’t much. Not that he considered any paying topic beneath him. It was a travel piece. Another travel article. Can’t stuff the world with too many of those.
If the destination someplace remote, just known in general terms, or better, only known to a precious few, the activity involved uncovered mysteries or presented adventures, those were the travel pieces Pfarrer enjoyed reading.
So why shouldn’t other readers?
A good writer at least performed the requisite obligations. He or she gave worthwhile restaurant recommendations. Naturally, he or she also dropped in touristy points of interest as well as included one or two quirky sites or customs unique to the residents.
The sort that should visitors participate in would let them carry away more from the experience than gorging on exotic food, swilling drinks infused by uncommon ingredients, and tour some variation of places tourists ought to appreciate because the natives venerate them.
Rare was the travel article Pfarrer ever read that could let readers live vicariously. That stated, he saw himself as one of the most cautious men alive. Nonetheless someone climbing a sheer rockface solely using his or her hands and feet, or a matador able to let his emotions become words spoken aloud after conjuring his inner Hemingway in describing life and honorable death in the corrida, or a deep-water sports fisherman who’d be sufficiently honest in acknowledging perhaps whatever prey he’d hooked might have greater determination to escape than the angler’s own to exhaust then reel in the trophy, now those challenges captivated Pfarrer.
Those were immersive accounts in which enthralled readers. To plant urges in some to partake in them. Or should’ve.
The assignment which Pfarrer had delivered had slight chance of summoning his blood. It dealt with wine. The worst he had to fear was overindulgence and hangovers.
Basing himself in Buenos Aires, Pfarrer had had come down to Argentina in mid-March for his yearly three-month respite from New York. Since Southern Hemisphere seasons were reversed, he’d left the still wintery Northeast, happily forsaking its last slaps of shivering, shoveling, and scraping for the usually mild, though occasional late-summer/early autumn tropical misery that dipped down from the Amazon.
Pfarrer’s wine excursion also served to cleanse his mental palette. The article he’d delivered the year before started off as a good twisty mystery. One that devolved into the worst kind of deception and duplicity. A murder, yes, but a killing that could be held up as a nasty social x-ray.
The part which fascinated, drew interest, derived from beautiful people being involved. The same incident among tenement dwellers living hand to mouth would’ve earn yawns. But since the suspects who might’ve behaved badly were attractive and wealthy, there’s a reader’s natural inclination to gawk at any bearing elevated status in the hope at least one of them would be brought crashing down and pay a demoralizing penalty.
Just the case’s peripheral characters could’ve been absolved. And this only so because neither of that pair was in Argentina during the blood spillage’s hours. Yet this being Argentina the most mendacious subjects had done all they could to ensnare more persons of interest simply to muddy the trail, to mislead or deceive investigators.
In the end, the victim remained dead, the crime itself remained unsolved. A result almost as satisfying as any conclusive one. After a while, speculation would subside but never die. And once believed the matter had faded, a grenade flung from left field would revive interest. The story remained alive.
Upon that article’s publication Pfarrer imagined the letters received from amateur sleuths. As he knew, the more oddball ones invariably would quickly detour from the matter at hand then meander through strange landscapes. And those fevered jottings invariably came from the readers who thought themselves completely rational.
The wine pursuit arrived at just the right moment. Like the woman herself whose scent put him on its path.
Pfarrer had rented workspace in Buenos Aires almost upon his initial arrival years ago. It was one thing to be cooped up, research, and write inside his own New York walls. It was an entirely different animal to have been so boxed in BA. At home he was a city creature. His lifetime there gave him intimacy with Gotham. During his early BA journeys, he at best had an outline of his environs. A squiggly drawn one at that.
Even after his footing steadied, the habit behind “labor” and “home” separation stuck.
Therefore, a workspace. The different walls removed himself from his short-term rental apartment those hours Calliope’s called stirred him. The commutes to and from “his” desk – it, the chair whose open space configuration contained him Pfarrer which called a “cubby” – always revealed some new aspects through casual conversations engaged with other foreigners who shared the premises. Seldom did he meet similarly occupied Argentines inside these temporary quarters.
One of the rarities? Florencia Cardinale. Their receptionist. Her name alone let him find favor in her. After all, wasn’t “Florencia” one of those old-fashioned names that had fallen out of favor? Like Ruth?
A Porteña, she fit the insisted female criteria throughout business offices in Conurbano Bonaerense. Attractive, certainly. Exceptionally feminine, no problem. Those aspects could never be viewed as problematic. Clearly, Pfarrer saw Florencia easily filled the unspoken initial highly visible appearance standard.
Though employers could not flat out discriminate, they used classified ads terminology that told upfront who their enterprises preferred as secretaries/receptionists as well as certain other females employed. Deciphered correctly that meant unless they served as kitchen staff, housekeeping, other positions regarded as menial or in the background, no indigenous, no blacks, no Asians, no fatties needed apply.
If the applicant wasn’t guera, if she didn’t maintain an eye-pleasing visage, seeking employment which cast the enterprise’s first impression was futile.
Under her summer tan, sly Florencia was definitely fair complected.
Funny how that worked. If she sun-worshipped too much at the beach, wouldn’t Florencia’s complexion have exceeded a tolerance level an all but “openminded” employer might’ve judged as unsuitable? Of course, that woman also would needed to have been several times more qualified than any visually verified applicant.
Chestnut hair streaked through with highlights circled Florencia’s head before twisting into a ponytail. A minor bump interrupted a regal nose passed down from some Italian immigrant ancestor. Her brown eyes weren’t luminous though they might’ve asked the right man to mesmerize himself. An unnecessarily vivid shade of red rendered her lips superfluously generous.
Lean, the top of her head just under his chin, Florence’s hips didn’t flair nor did any cantilevers proceed her or ledge trail her. Since their location an office offering sporadic workspaces, she could wear casual office attire. Sensible garments, not gym wear.
His searches having taken him into many BA bureaus, Pfarrer had lost count of how many secretaries/receptionists he’d seen who hadn’t really troubled themselves making full transitions from previous nights’ fab glam into less garish outfits.
Florencia spoke English. Business English fluently. That helped any Europeans finding refuge at the workspace who at best spoke restaurant, bar, and hotel Spanish. After all, doesn’t English allow Norwegians to converse with Poles?
Perverse as it might’ve sounded, Pfarrer enjoyed bruising Florence’s ears with New York Spanish. Despite his alien accent, she later confessed herself glad he made the effort.
Her favorite “New York Spanish” word Pfarrer imported with him into Argentina? Cuchifritos.
Pfarrer kept a checkerboard schedule. Only whenever writing moved him did he schlep from apartment to “office.” Maybe two, three days a week. Tops!
Pretty much Florencia was the sole constant within those walls of his business activity. Owing to the place’s nature, the roster continually changed. While no other freelancers – or as he loved calling himself, a Feuilletonist – like himself took up space there, plenty of specialists representing various fields briefly dropped the quickest lightest anchors. Just through eavesdropping then shallowly ingratiating himself, Pfarrer acquired enough facile knowledge of engineering, agriculture, animal husbandry, and mining by which he could perhaps expand the breadth of items bearing his byline.
And all the while Florencia observed.
Reflecting, Pfarrer would gather her sharp-eyed though from distances. Or rather she’d size up the changing field, shuffle who might best help her, then perhaps strategize what actions might allow her to encroach.
Later, when they became intimate that’s how he described her maneuvering. If she had behaved blatant like bait, their arrangement just would’ve delivered superficial sex. Instead, she’d considered what could be the next steps that might result in a substantial effect rather than take satisfaction in the quick shallow score.
It also helped Pfarrer was solicitous of her. Florencia just wasn’t the “office girl.”
By himself he paid homage at the city’s better known tourist lures. Sanguine heavy portraiture at El Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA) let him ask himself whether art along that gallery’s walls had been curated directly through Madrid.
During one of his previous South American escapades, Pfarrer toured an Henri Cartier Bresson photography exhibition. Years later, he couldn’t remember the facility having held it. Fundacion Proa? Or Museo Fotografico Simik? Which displayed the Frenchman’s images?
No. The Simik was too compact. He’d seen the Cartier Bresson pictures in roomy conditions. Besides, the Simik was ramshackle. Better seen as a curiosity shop for gilded imagery as well as devices and accessories from earlier photography eras.
The Frenchman’s black and white contemplations had been mounted elsewhere. However, their insouciance did fit the conurbano attitude.
Delve as Pfarrer did, one destination confounded him. The Hotel Jaures. An edifice renowned throughout the South American Cone as exquisite on the highway to extravagant. It just wouldn’t do for a single male to participate in the pleasure dome’s charms by his lonesome. Such a browse needed arm candy.
While Pfarrer had become acquainted with numerous BA beauties who amply fulfilled the dazzle requirement, even he knew his pilgrimage to the Jaures deserved more appreciative accompaniment. He considered one or two of the foreign women he’d met clubbing and had maintained contact. Though each would bring sufficient bearing with them into the hotel, both would also have something in her background to which she could compare against the Jaures.
That he could’ve done alone by himself. Such an angle left him empty. Instead, wonder whether his companion for the evening should be a woman who likely never thought of herself being inside the Jaures – other than by accident or through the employees’ entrance.
Pfarrer laughed to himself upon realizing the Cinderella aspect. He let his First World attitude retreat. Gradually his thoughts turned to Florencia.
A woman considerably his junior, she nonetheless already carried herself with the kind of gravity he supposed most of her contemporaries might barely ever fully acquire. Not that Florencia was prematurely fusty. Yet she could code switch nimbly. So smoothly as to seamlessly distinguish with whom she interacted and thereby avoid possible confusion, embarrassment, or misunderstanding.
Hers was a behavioral agility Pfarrer had noticed absent throughout the swath of her generation. The country immaterial.
An office cordiality had developed between Pfarrer and Florencia. Or so the writer had surmised once he had overcome his minor sense of superiority. Not that Pfarrer implicitly felt himself her superior, just the fact North-South perspectives so widely apparent between them. He didn’t want Florencia believing herself obliged to him. Certainly, he had no wish to impose obligation upon her.
Nevertheless, of Argentine women met thus far, Florencia seemed the finest one with whom to breach the Jaures. The hotel was a conurbano showcase. Pfarrer wanted to tour it. Entering unescorted struck him wrong. During his time in BA, he’d met casually plenty of Porteñas for him to have selected one as suitable. But he felt the Jaures demanded more than beauty.
The hotel’s renown had him raising standards. Pfarrer couldn’t walk inside with just any woman. She needed to have appeared as if she “belonged” there. Though an easy 40 years her senior, he determined Florencia carried that right countenance. Despite their age disparity, this was South America. The pair might earn glances, a few mildly catty comments, but no high dudgeon umbrage. If presented properly, Pfarrer believed her sufficiently perceptive enough to understand the proposal for what it would be: a basis of research, not a date.
It took no courage for him to ask la Porteña.
One afternoon nearly a month ago, Pfarrer simply found himself at her workstation. Rather than stand there and loom above her, he slid a chair near her station and sat. Since the matter bore no romantic intent, he spoke directly.
An article featuring the Jaures his sole objective. The reasons behind needing a female accompaniment aroused no skepticism on her part. Nor did she squeal teen-girlishly at the prospect. Moreover, a woman beside him might could throw some meat on his bony male perceptions. Superficial as café culture was worldwide, having a Porteña steeped in BA life feeding him locals’-only impressions, he hoped, should reward readers with warmer deeper insights of the Jaures.
A face-splitting smile further brightened her. Florencia overcame disbelief to admit that entering the Jaures as a patroness, not a local to be overlooked or looked down upon, had been one of her dreams. A distant one. The kind requiring a miracle to fulfill.
Pfarrer heard the enormity of his gesture in her response then but only realized its depth later. By way of comparison, he’d understand it as a “bridge and tunnel chick” who’d been invited to ride a coach into Manhattan to be squired inside the Plaza.
But would the outerborough girl have retained the same amount of composure as Florencia? While she rejoiced in Pfarrer’s invitation, it did not render her prostrate.
They arranged to meet. Then, it didn’t bother him she chose a rendezvous outside the Jaures. He’d have much preferred collecting Florencia at her home. But thinking without being informed, Pfarrer considered her decision one that spared him a journey into incognito BA.
On one hand, he appreciated the conscientiousness displayed. On the other, such deprived an explorer of discovery.
Rather than club-showy, she had dressed demurely. Accustomed to seeing Florencia togged in office casual, her mannered attire lifted his esteem of her. She wore a single strand of pearls atop a heritage little black dress with an appropriate pair of fancy sandals. No rings. No bracelets. No bangles. No anklet.
Instead of a clutch, thin bands slinged around the front of her waist. There a small black leather pouch drooped. If she wore earrings instead of the usual studs that pierced her lobes, the mane she kept bound at work had been loosened obscured them. Early evening light darkened the released luxuriance curtaining the sides of her face before ending as a drape hanging between her shoulder blades.
While Pfarrer had appraised her, she had assessed him. She complimented the peacock’s look.
Her stroke pleased him. A tall and broad man, Pfarrer prized himself as one who not only knew how to wear suits, but also knew he looked good in them. Wearing a suit required no art. Just confidence in carrying off the appearance.
The saying is, “Clothes make the man.” No. Worn correctly clothes should project the man.
But then few men could be Burt Lancaster.
The writer had packed two suits for Argentina. Both lightly woven single breasteds. The first black in case he somehow needed to attend a funeral. As he’d aged and matured, Pfarrer more and more adhered to the Fats Waller declaration: “One never knows – do one!?”
On the Jaures evening, Pfarrer wore his other suit, a navy-blue rig. Only black footwear had squeezed into his luggage. Wingtips. Skippies. Clodhoppers. Monochromatic went with everything. He’d had the suit pressed, the white shirt beneath it ironed. Earlier, a bootblack buffed his shoes into gleams. By Argentine standards perhaps his red & blue striped tie as well as the white pocket square (monogramed naturally) peeking from his jacket further confirmed norteamericano stodginess. Nonetheless, some habits while squiring a woman into an exalted address could never be broken.
A lovely woman at that.
Inside that particular Jaures restaurant, iterations of the same sort of Porteña charmed the man whose table she shared or parties she sat among. Just by the serene faces and purrs from the freshly lacquered lips Pfarrer knew little of substance emanated between these diners. Nonetheless as artifice he enjoyed the show.
Pfarrer then turned focus on Florencia. She also scanned the room. But as she mentioned later, her survey encompassed more. Oh, yes, the décor. Its motif. The implements of fine dining spread before them on the table. Flat- and glassware captured light just right to produce glimmers.
Only because of their immobility were periwinkles prevented.
Leaving inanimate objects aside, Florencia studied numerous women within her view. She’d contradict Pfarrer’s contention they were all the same. Yes, each shared commonality. Hair teased and shaped to within inches of splendor. The understated extravagance of their outfits, of course. Every stitch in place. Nothing professed “class” (whether truly inherited or obtained via stylists) more than muted affluence. But beyond their placid surfaces for what he’d mistaken as some kind of kabuki, many of the female diners unsheathed then unleashed sharper guiles and more pointed wiles through feminine stealth than others.
The thinnest stilettos here served the same purpose as angry wielders of machetes would in far less rarefied BA. Where men in every class beat their chests and issued roars from the wild, these oblique women plunged bloodlessly. Done expertly, the victim wouldn’t have realized she’d been thoroughly pierced until reviewing this evening the next morning.
Way too late for mots justes then.
Pfarrer heard her last declaration then was struck by a lightning bolt. Figuratively, of course. He accused Florencia of being able to read lips. An evasive smile followed her eyes away from him.
Question answered, Pfarrer asked whether she could decipher English or other languages in the same manner as Spanish.
That query remained unresolved. The waiter appeared. A boy filled their water glasses. The senior man greeted the couple then professionally solicited whether they desired cocktails or glasses of wine before engaging in what Pfarrer heard as “the Jaures Experience.” No. The waiter did not say that. But during a later date, Pfarrer got a giggle from her after imitating through exaggeration the waiter’s overly competent mannerliness.
The writer would’ve been satisfied with a cocktail. A couple of them, in fact. However, Florencia had grabbed the wine list. She scanned through it. The Porteña found a vintage that would satisfy her crave. She suggested the same to Pfarrer. It had him agreeing once waiter also approved her choice.
During the wait for their ambrosias, Florencia launched a quick thorough discourse regarding wines she found heavenly. Pfarrer just couldn’t keep up. All he gathered of her evaluations, side evaluations, sub-evaluations was his being in the presence of an oenophile. At least in his estimation she must’ve been damned close to having been a wine connoisseur.
Not that he’d know.
After their glasses had been filled and she sipped, Florencia then went on a ramble extoling this vintage. Left to Pfarrer all he could’ve done – and did – was admire her choice. He liked it – but explain why? No.
He acknowledged her apparently extensive wine background. Florencia must’ve misheard/misinterpreted him. She retreated, responded a tad defensively. She wondered whether her youth – not relative to his age, but to the cohort to which she belonged – imposed difficulties in his believing her tastes sufficiently educated then refined?
Where a contemporaneous male of Florencia’s might’ve sputtered, seeking, no, praying for answers that saved him from this tiger trap, Pfarrer simply bent the charge back at her. Calmly, in a measured manner he settled her disputes.
Florencia mollified, he brought the nugget of an idea from the back of his mind. It had weighed on him for several of his prior Argentine sojourns. He’d learned of Rosario, the nation’s premiere wine growing region west of the conurbano. The Andes Mountains defined the region’s western horizon. Now, wine, pfroo-phroo as it was to him nonetheless captivated vast numbers of readers. Wine tasting expeditions hosted by vineyard owners who let visitors commune in their fields could transform the most uptight and stolid individuals into besotted roundheels in no time.
A whole mob of the same in that circumstance would let themselves become human carpets.
Pfarrer knew of Rosario’s likely allure. He didn’t know how he could make that subject intimate, intricate, yet inviting. Until Florencia.
Over dessert he pitched the idea to Florencia. This delighted her. She always wished to have been a more frequent visitor to Rosario. The vintages produced there, the whole terroir in general, could soothe as well as enliven her.
As he did with dinner, Pfarrer maintained if she agreed accompanying him on a Rosario venture, he’d exhibit himself in the most upright manner. That concerned her not a wit. The oddness of her response dissipated quickly.
Florencia would be his guide, his assistant, his go-fer, his whatever, if necessary. The last category amused her in a way he found mysterious. She coyly mentioned payment. He heard the figure as way too low and tripled it.
His revised number momentarily shook her level demeanor.
Negotiations concluded, the pair sealed the deal in norteamericano fashion. They shook hands.
(Noch mehr)
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