The Fugitivities, стр. 76

the World Cup finals. No foreign wars. No racial conflict spilling into the streets every day, no mass shootings, no sudden world-altering terrorist attacks would come screaming across the sky. Also, no black people. Which meant no place he could ever really be. Well, almost none. Once Jonah saw a glimpse of what appeared to be a drumline parading down one of the avenues. It was brief. He came around a corner and saw in the far distance a group of black men, one of them waving an albiceleste flag with a black diagonal stripe. But they were walking away from him and the music faded. He had asked Oscar about it, and had learned that there was in fact a small community of blacks in Uruguay, the descendants of slaves who had escaped south from Brazil, where emancipation didn’t come until 1888, a full sixty years after the Uruguayans had fought their way to independence from the Portuguese Empire. The diaspora was always larger than one imagined. But whatever the situation of the black folk in Montevideo—and he guessed it probably wasn’t magnificent—could it be as bad as Brownsville? As the bloody streets of Baltimore? He walked in a daze of muted anger. At what, he didn’t know exactly, mostly at himself. He felt guilty and stupid for being where he was. For having it so easy, but also for not having an answer, something that would justify his trajectory. While in this state of agitation he found himself, having wandered a good deal farther to the north than he had anticipated, standing outside the green entrance of the colonial solare that Laura had described to him. It was late in the afternoon by the time he arrived on the beautiful, tree-lined street, which showed no signs of life other than the occasional car or small truck thudding along under a light load.

Laura met him at the door and led him in through cool dim hallways to a spare living room. A neoclassical mold stood in one corner, a large palm by the window fronded a passage to an inner courtyard, and in the middle of the room a long, heavily worn-in couch, dark and sea green, faced a small fireplace flanked on both sides by towering bookcases. Glancing over them, he noted artist monographs, old volumes of classical literature in Spanish, and moderns like Borges alongside names that Jonah didn’t recognize, that he guessed were Argentine or Uruguayan writers of decades past.

As he was taking in the room, Laura brought a bottle and two glasses in from the kitchen.

“Will you drink with me?” she asked.

“Avec plaisir.”

“Ah, tant mieux. I’ve been waiting for an occasion to have someone to drink wine with—you know they love their whiskey here. I hope you will be pleased with the vin de maison—naturally it’s Argentinian.”

“Honestly, I’m not picky. Besides, I think I can trust your taste.”

She uncorked and poured them each a glass, then turned to him again.

“Do you mind if I ask how old you are? You look…very young, you know.”

“Old enough.”

She smiled at this. “Ah! Well, cheers to that. I enjoyed our talk. I realize I did most of the talking. But you put me at ease in a way I haven’t felt in so long. I think I told you…you remind me…”

“Of someone you knew, someone from years ago in Paris…a black man.”

“Did I say all that? Well, it’s true enough. He was special to me…Something about him was different from all the others.”

“And I remind you of him?”

“In some ways, yes.”

He was very conscious now of controlling his voice, every intonation, of the way his hands were placed and more still of how her eyes fell on them at times as though quietly imbibing something there at the surface that she wanted to keep for a later time.

“Do I make you nervous?” she asked.

“No, only a little, maybe.”

“I hope you don’t mind if I say this. I can’t help it, I’m always very direct. But you have the air of a young man who doesn’t stay anywhere for too long, or with anyone for too long. Are you still planning on leaving Montevideo very soon?”

“Yes, I can’t stay much longer…I think I’ve started to realize that there are a number of things back home that I really need to get back to.”

“A girlfriend perhaps.”

“No, actually. Not that.”

“Are you sure? I would be surprised if there wasn’t more than one you might have left behind.”

“You seem to see more in me than others. I wish it were true in a way, but it isn’t.”

“Well, I feel lucky then to have caught your eye while you were passing through.”

“Did you catch me? I feel like it’s more that I’ve…found you.”

“You’ve found me at an interesting time. I feel more myself now than I’ve felt in years, almost as if I’m coming out of a deep sleep.”

“Tell me, what was he like?”

“Who?”

“The man you knew in Paris.”

“He was a beautiful man. Handsome, athletic, darker than you—very intelligent and kind. He knew how to make love in all the ways that matter. What about you? I think you are probably too young to have such experience.”

“I haven’t got as much as experience as I would like.”

“You wish you had more?”

“Yes. If I were with someone who wanted to give me the chance, then yes.”

Instead of responding to this directly, Laura rose from her end of the couch and walked into an adjoining hall. He heard the creak of a faucet. A moment later, she reappeared in the living room, lifted her drink, and took a sip while looking upon him, and sat down again.

“I’m going to take a bath. Would you care to join me?”

Her gaze was steady, and he met it as he thought carefully about his answer. She was older, of course, and rounder and heavier than in the picture Nate had sent along. In the picture she still had a girlish prettiness, but also a blankness to her features. Now