All Roads Lead to Austen (28 page)

“The point here isn't to teach poor children how to farm. They're not stupid—they already learn that from their families. What they
don't
learn,” Martín had explained, “is how to make money at farming. Not just how to raise chickens, but how to make a profit from chickens. That's what's going to make the difference in the end.”

Although I thought I'd confronted the classism of
Emma
head-on back in the States, its full implications didn't sink in until I read the novel in Paraguay, with Paraguayans—until I could talk to a man like José and visit a school like Martín's. Democracy means freedom, and freedom always means risks. But if you really want to combat crime, the progressive theory goes, you don't need to call out the army, impose curfews, and shoot anybody who disagrees with you—just give more people a fighting chance to make ends meet. To be self-sufficient.

The system under which Austen's characters lived, with its lack of social mobility, doesn't look so sinister when the people at the top are compassionate landowners like Emma and Mr. Knightley or Mr. Darcy and Lizzy, just as patriarchy doesn't seem so bad when you've got kind, responsible brothers to care for you as Austen's did for her, Cassandra, and their mother. It's only when the people in power don't hold up their end of the deal—like John and Fanny Dashwood—that it's clear how dangerous it is to have so little control over your own fate.

***

During the night before my last full day in Paraguay, back in the safety of Martín and Dorrie's house, something disturbed my sleep. I heard a whining close to my ear. Then I felt the sting on my neck.

As I'd toured the missions I'd coated up with bug spray. I'd soaked and stayed vigilant when, before breakfast, I explored the tangle of forest surrounding the alleged-Nazi-harboring hotel near Encarnación. When I'd visited Martín's agricultural school, the same. Ditto for every time I set foot outside of the house. So of course, a mosquito had to bite me in the comfort of my own bed after I'd showered.

I lay awake for hours. Now I was going to get Super Dengue. I was going to die thousands of miles from home after all, in some country no one from my immense family had ever set foot in. I'd never see my mom again. I wouldn't get to apologize to her for making light of her fears as I was traveling or for lying about using a sun hat in Guatemala or for having that beer party in junior high and throwing all the cans over the neighbor's fence. I'd never see my sister or my brothers or their kids or any of my friends, ever again. It would cost
a
lot
to have my corpse shipped back. Why hadn't I bought travel insurance?

I fretted myself into a state of exhaustion and finally dropped back to sleep. When I awoke, the hideous panic of the wee hours had subsided. Okay, so a mosquito bit me. What were the chances, really, that lightening would strike me twice?

“Don't worry about it,” Martín and Dorrie reassured me. “There are dengue mosquitoes here, but they're much more common in the countryside. You'll be fine. And you're going to
love
Buenos Aires!”

Still, when I called my mother that afternoon to remind her I was heading to Argentina for my final Austen group, I made sure we had a nice long talk. And I thanked her for being so patient with me, so supportive of all the wacky ventures I'd embarked on over the years.

I didn't expect lightning to strike twice, but Emma never expected to wind up married to her own brother-in-law, either.

In which the author hunts down Jane Austen readers on the streets of Buenos Aires, meets a proud Argentinean, visits boodles of bookstores, has an encounter with a tango dancer, learns a bit of embroidery, gets a snow surprise, and, finally, reads
Emma
with a bunch of lively, argumentative, cross-talking Argentineans.

Guatemala
: “When Argentineans see lightning, what do they think is happening? They think it's God, taking their picture.”

Mexico
: “How do Argentineans commit suicide? By jumping off their own big egos.”

Ecuador
: “Why don't Argentineans use hot water in the shower? Because it makes the mirror fog over.”

Chile
: “You're going to love Argentina! It's only got one drawback—it's full of Argentineans.”

Paraguay
: “How do you get rich overnight? Buy some Argentineans for what they're really worth, then sell them for what they
think
they're worth.”

I arrived in country number six thoroughly prepped on what I should think about Argentineans. I'd heard it all in countries one through five from friends, acquaintances, and, in one case, a total stranger in an Internet café. Short version: they're arrogant.

Goodness knows I should have learned my lesson by now about making assumptions. But these weren't my assumptions—they came from folks I'd met on the road, beginning with Luis back in Guatemala, the first (but not the last) to pass on an “arrogant Argentinean” joke unsolicited. Leti from the Ecuador reading group, while warm and engaging, seemed pretty content with herself, but that was one person only. Secondhand stories should be treated with caution. Were the good people of Argentina getting Wickhamed by their fellow Latin Americans?

Still, I had to hope that another stereotype about Argentineans
would
be true—that they're voracious readers. I'd stepped off a plane in Buenos Aires without an Austen group arranged in advance and with no connections to set one up. I had a month; surely I could find people willing to join a book group in what's widely considered the literary capital of South America. And if yet another stereotype proved true—that Argentineans
adore
arguing with each other—then offering up a literary evening, verbal sparring welcome, should be just the thing for making new friends.

Back in Paraguay, Martín and Dorrie had recommended a building in Buenos Aires that rents apartments by the week. Anything they could afford would be pricey for me, but I couldn't resist spending at least part of my visit there in Emma style, so I went for it. Located in a posh neighborhood a short walk from the Avenida 9 de Julio, one of the city's main arteries, the building on Juncal was surrounded by chichi cafés and clothing stores with two or three tastefully arranged items per window—a sure sign that if you have to ask how much it costs, you can't afford it.

When I arrived, the doorman ran a practiced eye over my rumpled, never-stylish-in-the-first-place clothing and exchanged a look with the building manager, a stiffly elegant woman with a distinctive accent, which turned out to be French. Great. A displaced Parisian, in a country famed for snobbery. She looked thrilled to see the likes of me, battered suitcases and all.

“I know you'll love the apartment.” She smiled tightly as she handed over the keys with the smug air of someone offering a much bigger Christmas present than the one they expect to get.

Too bad she didn't stick around to see what happened next. I rounded up all of the tasteful “accents” in the apartment and stashed them in a closet. From my overstuffed bags I pulled my purple Mexican fish blanket and various indigenous-patterned fabrics from Ecuador and Paraguay. Every beige surface in the place disappeared under riotous color. Then came my faithful entourage of traveling critters. Foremost was Señor Guapo the stuffed Chihuahua, the treasured gift from Diego. Next, the big-eyed owl statue, three wooden llamas, and the small copper Chilean alpaca. From Paraguay I'd brought a pudgy little family of clay birds that looked best roosting on the windowsill.

Home away from home—for the last time.

It was the homestretch for my mother as well, because I was finally in a country she wasn't too nervous about.
Dancing
with
the
Stars
had taken care of that. As I settled onto the bed and called to report that I was still alive, she skipped her usual questions about airport delays, my seat on the plane, and if I had gotten any sleep during the flight. “Will you go out to see any shows with people dancing ‘the Argentine tango?'”

***

A nap and a shower later, I descended into the lobby and spoke again with the doorman and manager. When I explained that I was a university professor carrying out a literary project, they both warmed up, apparently shifting me mentally from the “slob” category to “eccentric academic.”

“Oh, you've come to the right city for literature,” Vivienne the manager assured me, while the doorman proceeded to mark up a map to show neighborhoods with the highest concentration of bookstores.

“This city is full of bookstores,” he assured me. “But along Corrientes, about eight blocks from here, you'll find one after another.”

Because of the unexpected turn of events back in Paraguay, I'd given away the copies of
Emma
I'd planned to use in Buenos Aires. So, even before hunting down Austen readers, I needed to make sure I had enough books for them. In no time I located a store with three copies of
Emma
. They could, the clerk promised, have three more the following day.

Ecstasy over the sheer number of bookstores I found whisked off the rest of my travel weariness. Santiago had been impressive, but now I could see why even my Chilean friends traveled here just to buy books. In a single stretch of about eight blocks on Corrientes, heading west from the Avenida 9 de Julio, there were more than twenty bookstores. Some had only new books; others, used; and some, both. There were stores with every kind of classic you could want, translated from any language; stores focused on Latin American politics, history, and literature; stores specializing in overstock with new books for less than two dollars apiece; stores with used books stacked precariously from floor to ceiling; stores with antiquarian books guarded jealously behind glass. And this was just the beginning, just a single neighborhood!

In all fairness, it's probably worth mentioning that there's plenty aside from bookstores in Buenos Aires.
Fin-de-siècle
architecture from Argentina's golden era, 1880 to 1920, is the kind of thing that might attract some tourists, plus there's no shortage of tempting shops, cafés, and restaurants. And packing these shops, cafés, and restaurants (and, of course, the bookstores), one finds perhaps the most appealing thing of all—those fabled beings who think God wants to take their picture, who can't bear to have their mirrors fogged up, etc.—Argentineans themselves.

Of all the traveling I've done in my life, the only other country that had me ogling the passing locals so much was Italy. Italians have the charming custom of dressing their best and strolling the city streets not only to see the sights but to be seen. In fact, they have a name for this—
passeggiati
. When both political and economic turmoil forced tens of thousands of Italians to emigrate at the turn of the nineteenth century, many went to the United States and leaped into the melting pot. Most who didn't went to Argentina. Three or four generations later, Italian blood runs strong in Argentina, and it shows. A noteworthy percentage of men and women alike in Buenos Aires dress handsomely, carry themselves with confidence, and know how to make the most of what they've got.

“It's not just the women who get plastic surgery here. Men do, too,” a chic store clerk informed me one day when we'd gotten to talking about just how many well-preserved older gentlemen one sees in Buenos Aires. “Even the ones who aren't fags,” she added. I tried not to wince at the not-so-polite term “
maricón
,” given that she was trying to be helpful.

So there they were, in all their splendor—Argentineans. Or more to the point,
porteños
, as the inhabitants of Buenos Aires are called, given that it's a port city. And more to the point still,
porteños
in a prosperous neighborhood. The very long ride from the airport had shown me that Buenos Aires is massive, and I didn't have any illusions about what some of the neighborhoods must be like. But I was where I was. Leti from the Ecuador group would fit right in on Corrientes, browsing the shops, whiling away her time in the cafés with the cultured and the coifed.

Now I needed to determine which five or six of these folks would be up for reading
Emma
. Emma is Austen's own experiment with “handsome, clever, and rich,” so I hoped she'd go over better here than she had in Paraguay. Bookstores seemed the right neighborhood to start. The handsome twentysomething who'd sold me my
Emma
copies had been pleasant, but when I tried to engage him on the subject of local literature, it became clear that he could just as easily have been selling shoes.

Used shops were probably a better bet. Keeping a used bookstore afloat is a labor of love, and I needed to find booklovers, not just booksellers. I bypassed several stores that somehow didn't look promising and entered one with a motherly woman at the counter penciling prices into a stack of books. After browsing until I'd found something appealing in a bargain bin, I approached and put in my bid for Austen.

“Oh,
cariño
, I'd love to be in a reading group! And I love women authors. But I just don't have time.” As I paid for my book and thanked her, she added, “You know, there's a nice store two blocks down, on one of the side streets.
Librería Romano
, it's called. You should try them.”

I set off down the street but hadn't gotten far when I heard a voice behind me calling, “
Señora!
Señora!
” The kindly bookseller, having hurried out after me, pressed something into my hands and said, “
Bienvenida
a
Buenos
Aires!
” She bustled off again before I could get out more than a surprised “
Gracias!
” I found myself holding a small pack of cards with the label “
Naipes
Gauchescos
Argentinos
.”
Gauchos
are, in a rough translation, Argentinean cowboys. Well, still no readers, but I now had a lead, a very sweet welcome, and something to entertain myself with in the apartment.

Turning down what I hoped was the right street, I found the store. It was 10:58 a.m., and two sharply dressed men were gazing in the window like dogs outside a butcher shop, waiting for it to open. No 7:00 a.m. schedules in Buenos Aires. A sign centered in the glass, just below eye level, read:

EN ESTA LIBRERÍA

EL PRESIDENTE

DE LOS ARGENTINOS

SIGUE SIENDO

DOMINGO F. SARMIENTO

“In this bookstore the president of the Argentineans is still Domingo F. Sarmiento” (note to self: ask). After a short wait we were allowed in by a tall, dark, and silent type who immediately sat back down again behind the store's computer. As I debated whether to speak to him, a cheerful voice called up from the store's basement level, and, suddenly, Edmund Gwenn from the 1940
Pride
and
Prejudice
emerged—short, portly, with a glint in his eye and a book in each hand. Could this be a magic tunnel to the library at Longbourn?

“I'm Ernesto Romano,” he introduced himself. From that point on I only understood about half of what he said. With each new country in Latin America came a new accent, and my comprehension level dipped, sometimes precipitously, until I readjusted. Argentineans have the most distinctive accent in all of South America, a singsong, lilting Spanish that sounds for all the world like Italian—presumably an ethnic inheritance from their biggest European influence after Spain. Plus, their “y” and “ll” sounds are more of a “sh,” so that “
yo
” sounds like “ssshoo” and a common word like “
ella
” (meaning “she”) becomes “eeessshaaa,” rather than the “eya” sound of Mexican Spanish. To further complicate matters, they don't use “
tu
” as a familiar form, they use “
vos
,” which comes with a whole other set of conjugations for the second person familiar.

But goodwill is goodwill in any language, and clearly, I'd come to the right place.

“A book group—what a nice idea!” Ernesto said. “You can do it here, if you'd like. Come down and see my basement.” I'm filling in a few words here and there, but that was the basic idea—and being led down the stairs required no translation. “This is my Sarmiento library. Look, there's a table here. You can use this space!”

When I asked if he'd like to take part, he declined but offered up his girlfriend, Carolina. “I imagine she'd like to join you. And you should ask my employee Hugo, upstairs. He loves British literature!”

After profuse thanks and a promise to let him know when the date was set, I tried for Reader Number Two. But waiting for Hugo to finish something at the computer, I was dubious; there was nothing inviting about his manner. With thick dark hair and the heaviest eyebrows I'd seen in some time, he looked, well, like what I'd been told to expect from an Argentinean—handsome and arrogant. If I had to play “which star does he look like,” it would be Chris Noth, aka Mr. Big, with some extra pounds on him—dark, intense eyes, strong Roman nose, intriguing lips.

When he finished his task, he looked up at me expectantly. That seemed to be all the invite I would get, so I plunged in, my Spanish taking more bad turns than usual as I explained my project. He stared at me, practically unblinking, his solemn expression unaltered.

“And so, the novel that I want to read with everybody here is
Emma
,” I concluded. He continued to study me silently.
Whew
. Well, there was always the next bookstore.