last port on the Atlantic seaboard before Cape Horn and offered access to a network of rivers that connected it with the heart of the continent. Rivers meant trade and trade would bring wealth, civilization, culture. But in practice Buenos Aires was a nightmare. The River Plate offered scant depth, making it difficult for large ships to dock and though there were rivers, they presented even greater navigational problems. It was at this point that the dichotomy between the idea of Buenos Aires and the reality of Buenos Aires became apparent, a dichotomy that has never been resolved: the conflict between what we might be and what we are leaves us paralysed, a ship run aground on a muddy spit of land.
Sometimes I think that everything you need to know about life can be found in geography books. The result of centuries of research, they tell us how the Earth was formed, how the incandescent ball of energy of those first days finally cooled into its present, stable form.They tell us about how successive geological strata of the planet were laid down, one on top of the other, creating a model which applies to everything in life. (In a sense, we too are made up of successive layers. Our current incarnation is laid down over a previous one, but sometimes it cracks and eruptions bring to the surface elements we thought long buried.)
Geography books teach us where we live in a way that makes it possible to see beyond the ends of our noses. Our city is part of a country, our country part of a continent, our continent lies on a hemisphere, that hemisphere is bounded by certain oceans and these oceans are a vital part of the whole planet: one cannot exist without the other. Contour maps reveal what political maps conceal: that all land is land, all water is water. Some lands are higher, some lower, some arid, some humid, but all land is land. There are warmer waters and cooler waters, some waters are shallow, some deep, but all water is water. In this context all artificial divisions, such as those on political maps, smack of violence.
All the people who inhabit all these lands are people. Some are blacker, some whiter, some taller, some shorter, but they are all people: the same in essence, different only in details because (as geography books teach us), that part of the Earth allotted to us is the mould from which our essence pours forth, molten and incandescent as in the first days of the planet. What form we take will be a variation moulded by that place. We grow up to be placid in the tropics, frugal in the polar regions, impulsive if we are of Mediterranean stock.
Durrell intuits something of this in his letters when he talks of flatness, of melancholy; Buenos Aires forces him to adapt or die, as bacteria were once forced to contend with oxygen, forced to convert this toxin into the air they breathed. Durrell left, but those of us who choose to stay, adapt our sensibilities. Some of the characteristics we develop as a result of this mutation are as extraordinary asthose developed by bacteria. Tango, for example: music of Baltic melancholy which expresses the flatness, the humidity and the nostalgia which mark us out from the rest of the Hispanic world. On this point I disagree with grandpa: I believe what that Piazzolla plays
is
tango. But it is a conclusion I arrived at through reading geography books.
Between the primeval swamps and the Buenos Aires of today, centuries have passed, but time is the most relative of all measurements. (I believe all time occurs simultaneously.) We are still shapeless creatures, as shifting as the muddy coastline. We are still creatures of mud, Godâs breath still fresh in our cheeks. We are still amphibious, on land we long for the sea, and longing for land we swim through the dark waters.
20
THE SWIMMING POOL
The
quinta
papá had borrowed was on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. It had a kidney-shaped swimming pool surrounded by flagstones. The water was not exactly what you might call
Sometimes I think that everything you need to know about life can be found in geography books. The result of centuries of research, they tell us how the Earth was formed, how the incandescent ball of energy of those first days finally cooled into its present, stable form.They tell us about how successive geological strata of the planet were laid down, one on top of the other, creating a model which applies to everything in life. (In a sense, we too are made up of successive layers. Our current incarnation is laid down over a previous one, but sometimes it cracks and eruptions bring to the surface elements we thought long buried.)
Geography books teach us where we live in a way that makes it possible to see beyond the ends of our noses. Our city is part of a country, our country part of a continent, our continent lies on a hemisphere, that hemisphere is bounded by certain oceans and these oceans are a vital part of the whole planet: one cannot exist without the other. Contour maps reveal what political maps conceal: that all land is land, all water is water. Some lands are higher, some lower, some arid, some humid, but all land is land. There are warmer waters and cooler waters, some waters are shallow, some deep, but all water is water. In this context all artificial divisions, such as those on political maps, smack of violence.
All the people who inhabit all these lands are people. Some are blacker, some whiter, some taller, some shorter, but they are all people: the same in essence, different only in details because (as geography books teach us), that part of the Earth allotted to us is the mould from which our essence pours forth, molten and incandescent as in the first days of the planet. What form we take will be a variation moulded by that place. We grow up to be placid in the tropics, frugal in the polar regions, impulsive if we are of Mediterranean stock.
Durrell intuits something of this in his letters when he talks of flatness, of melancholy; Buenos Aires forces him to adapt or die, as bacteria were once forced to contend with oxygen, forced to convert this toxin into the air they breathed. Durrell left, but those of us who choose to stay, adapt our sensibilities. Some of the characteristics we develop as a result of this mutation are as extraordinary asthose developed by bacteria. Tango, for example: music of Baltic melancholy which expresses the flatness, the humidity and the nostalgia which mark us out from the rest of the Hispanic world. On this point I disagree with grandpa: I believe what that Piazzolla plays
is
tango. But it is a conclusion I arrived at through reading geography books.
Between the primeval swamps and the Buenos Aires of today, centuries have passed, but time is the most relative of all measurements. (I believe all time occurs simultaneously.) We are still shapeless creatures, as shifting as the muddy coastline. We are still creatures of mud, Godâs breath still fresh in our cheeks. We are still amphibious, on land we long for the sea, and longing for land we swim through the dark waters.
20
THE SWIMMING POOL
The
quinta
papá had borrowed was on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. It had a kidney-shaped swimming pool surrounded by flagstones. The water was not exactly what you might call
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