Where have all gone? I wonder. At least I can not think of another question to find the stillness that is sweeping the sidewalks in an area where the streets are narrow and there are many listings of bars and cafes and buildings of modern and classical facades rear up including the passers moving like crazy, while more than one say that very common phrase that locals accompany joining the fingers of one hand.
However, at this hour when the evening begins to fall there is little movement. A young man in suit, a lady with black purse and three German tourists who see the girl with floral blouse under which there is skin. Two workers in overalls slowly walk and one observes the sky due to the rain of papers.
I inquire on balconies surrounding the Sarmiento narrow street where I move eastward and discover that someone stares into the background by which I move. I see him then pour the contents of an office basket, action that produces a new cloud of geometric figures that will be soothing to the extent that the pieces due the wind pressure and manage to join the thousands of visible pieces on sidewalks and asphalt. The squares and rectangles are fragments of forms in which tables filled with numbers written in ink become visible.
Minutes later he spoke to the owner of a business where used books are sold. I knew about him through Mercado Libre website. I had ordered a copy edited in 1973 by Barral Editores.
A vast avenue separates the business of the frame building that I have left behind. It is easy to see the Luna Park and Avenida Corrientes just few meters from there.
"What is it?" I asked. "A custom from Buenos Aires he explains with his peculiar intonation. It happens for years. "A tremendous custom, I say more like a praise than recrimination. Nothing to encourage. "He complains: "If it rains, tonight will be a disaster. All drains will clog and flood. "
That night did not rain and the only truth is that in Buenos Aires, at least in downtown, seems to have snowed. The atmosphere is strange for the fake snow of paper when the heat has become dense, and the lights and decorations that show the shop windows. But mostly it is because the tumult that often shakes pathways is now irregular and intermittent.
People have not only hidden from the summer sun, but preferred to take refuge in a distant place, like the coast, the longed sea for these men who have made their life along the huge river La Plata. Shortly after I knew that some three million have gone to the coast on vacation these days.
Some cafés show signs announcing a temporary closure. Almost all owners decided to take holidays seriously. Luck is that some choose to work and such decision leaves the appearance that everything is absolutely normal, if indeed something may be normal at this moment in Buenos Aires.
The steam presses the night and it leaves no choice to go to San Nicolás neighborhood and, better Corrientes Avenue, just behind Sarmiento, the narrow road that even at this hour and because mercury lights reveals the whitish leaves, cars on sidewalks and advertisements every morning sow by thousands who promote pornography.
Some neighbors declared war. I have seen the announcement of "masseuse’s sisters" and with a grimace of disgust, an elderly couple starts in the morning one by one the small leaves left on the street, the sisters shattered naked bodies.
In Corrientes the mentioned announcements persist, and the best places to eat, buy records, books or juice. One can find pizzas prepared with style and those pies called Galicia. They are like pastry filled with cheese or fish. There are also tables on the sidewalk to drink a Quilmes beer, and sculptures of popular artists to those who are happy to see their pictures and remember artists.
And there are dirty holes and papers and posters in the shade of a restaurant that warn: "There are frogs'. And I see a man sitting on the floor with a box between his knees in which a tiny Yoda teacher overlooks who thanks you if you drop him a few coins. This is an avenue through which passers always lurk no matter the time. At midnight bars, cafes remain filled, and also bookstores which are thousands of books that locals have here.
On the opposite side the cars go in droves and in the corner a group of Brazilian stops to wait for the signal. We go to a square near the Colon Theatre and stop before the obelisk on 9 de Julio Avenue, which divides Corrientes into two zones, an abundant half of bookstores, and the other half plethoric of theaters.
Just around the corner facing the part of the books I see a wide telescope as a cannon, stationed on a tripod, near which I find the man's feet holding some bills with both hands. It costs ten dollars sighting the moon. Where is it? There. And he points to a golden ball that when I look good becomes a burger. It is an announcement of Mac Donald. Italian Chicken. But besides is the most faithful satellite that this planet has had.
A splendid moon is out tonight. And it walks fast, so that in just over two hours will cross to this side of the street and the man of the telescope will not collect his ten pesos from curious people that sometimes form a long line. So we must observe briefly. No time left to wonder. I only see a cell with malformations and I am disappointed.
Next to the Colon Theatre, one of the most beautiful in the world according to the ads, the Vatican State square is located. It has in its program a jazz quartet whose members are around forty-five years old, who beside performing well with the instrument they also jump and make jokes, acts that please the audience. They are escorted by a huge screen and behind it a Christmas tree no less impressive stands.
Forty high feet decorated with engraved stars with the names of those who have responded to the campaign: "A star for a smile." Twenty-five pesos and your name is part of the artificial sky that surrounds the metal bush. It means you made something to the fight against leukemia.
Even beyond the tree we see cows, donkeys and elephants, a Roman slept on a wooden bench and the three King Wizards watching a child in the stable. It is a life-size nativity scene made by the artist Fernando Pugliese. Both the concert and the scene were organized by the Bank of the City of Buenos Aires and the government. Sometimes it can be read on the screen the name of the Governor and there will be someone who will repeat it in his mind. Everything is used at this time, the election year.
Or not. We are still in 2014, in the last hours of its last days. That is why folly and the rain of papers with geometric shapes that only happens in this unique occasion.
