The Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club (24 page)

When I turn into a room lined with three enormous abstracts, I slow to a near-stop. I could look at these for hours. I'm held captive by every brushstroke, the thickest licks of paint wrenching themselves away from the canvas as if they could almost leap free. It takes guts to paint this big, to blow yourself wide open like that. My favorite is a massive city scene done in brilliant oranges, yellows, and reds. It should be angry, but it’s sad, instead. The short buildings twist and lean in to one another. A lone face, square and gray, peers out of a window. It reminds me of something I can’t put my finger on, stays with me as I move between the sculptures in the next room.

I am outside again, sunlight on my face, before I remember the red paintings in El Taller. Wasn’t there one with a square gray face? It can’t be a coincidence. It can’t. Ignoring the woman at the front, I run back into the gallery, to the room with the enormous paintings. There it is, printed on a small white card beneath the giant canvas:
MATEO DE LA VEGA
, 1995.

A few blocks from El Taller, I start to run. The speed of my legs matches the speed of questions storming through my head. How is that Mateo’s name on that painting? How is that painting in that gallery? Why were there only three? Why so long ago? What happened between then and now? There are too many things I need to know, and if I don’t know them soon, there’s a good chance I’ll spontaneously combust right here on the streets of Buenos Aires. There’s also the question of why I need to know these things so desperately, but I push that one away and run.

Bursting through the door into the half-full café, I head straight for the back wall, bumping into three chairs along the way and almost knocking over a waiter’s tray. There they are, all four enormous paintings, nearly identical to the one in the gallery. The small square gray face looks out at me again and again. At the bottom right of each canvas, written in thick black paint, is a large M.

The waitress with the tribal tattoos down one arm approaches and asks if I’m okay. I nod, unable to take my eyes off the paintings. My chest still heaving, beads of sweat above my lip, I ask if Mateo is here.

“
No entiendo,
” she says.

Right, I remember, she doesn’t speak English. I try again in Spanish. This is no time to be shy about my language skills.

She shakes her head. “
No trabaja hoy.
” He’s not working today. She turns her attention back to the refilling of salt shakers.

Does she know where I can find him? I continue in Spanish, surprising myself no small amount. As if I’m speaking a foreign language in a dream, the words flow easily and without thought or second-guessing. Suddenly, I am a Spanish-speaking savant. If only Marcela were here to give me a gold star. I have to talk to him, I tell the waitress. I have to.

She looks me up and down, skeptical, then nods with recognition. Am I one of those Buenos Aires Broken Hearts Club people? she asks.

“
Sí,
” I say, embarrassed until I see that she is smiling warmly. “
Sí, yo soy. Me llamo
Cassie.”

“Ah,
sí.
” She turns to the painting closest to her, tipping her head toward it with reverence. “
El es muy talentoso,
” she whispers as though sharing a secret.

“
Sí,
” I agree. “
Muy talentoso
.”

“
Y muy hermoso.
” And very handsome. Where this is going, I have no idea.

“
¿Sí?
” I draw the short word out into a question, expecting her to finish the thought.

“Entiendo,”
she says with Andrea-esque confidence, nodding sagely as though she knows something I don’t. As though she knows something I should.
“Sí, sí, sí. Entiendo.”
What is it that everyone thinks they understand? I just want to know where Mateo is.

I press her for his whereabouts again. She holds up a finger and disappears into the kitchen. A few minutes go by, and that anxiety creeps into my skin again. My Spanish might be better than I thought, but it’s still shaky. I probably asked her for a turkey sandwich. She reappears with Mateo’s address. I recognize the street.

It’s nearby? I ask.

“
Sí, muy cerca.
” She gives me directions.

“
Muchas gracias,
” I call over my shoulder. Out on the sidewalk again, I start running.

I go into autopilot, flying past block after block of homes and stores, so familiar they barely register. The street signs need only a glance to confirm I’m not there yet. Finally, I come to the street written on the torn piece of paper and only then realize I don’t know which way to turn. Did the waitress say
izquierda
or
derecha
? Guess I should have listened better to those directions. I fumble for my map, hands shaking, and locate the street. “Left!” I shout. A woman cradles her small daughter against her chest as she passes, moving to the outside of the sidewalk, but I don’t care. “Left!” I shout again. “Left!”

2245. 2249. 2257. When I see it, I double-check the paper, then the address plate. There’s no mistake. She wrote 2257, and this is 2257. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting this. The pink and blue house.

I stand there behind the rusting bars of the iron fence for a long time. At last I see him. The house is dark inside, but there’s no mistaking those paint-splattered overalls or the way he walks with his hands shoved deep in his pockets. He crosses the gap of half-raised blinds on a second-floor window, and they fall shut. He hovers between the gauzy curtains of another set for a second, and they snap together. Like a ghost, he drifts from room to room closing out the light. His presence in that house is so ethereal, I don’t even think to hide myself. How is this where he lives? Why didn’t he say anything that day we walked by here together? Andrea was just as mute, though I specifically asked her about the house’s story. Unsure how to process what I see, unsure what this means—or if it means anything at all—I stand there behind the iron bars and watch.

Back at my apartment, I Google Mateo. I can’t believe I didn’t do this before. In Seattle, this was as much a part of my dating ritual as buying new stilettos. The oracle of search engines offers me twenty-seven pages of Mateo miscellany, from his name on a list of 1994 fine-arts graduates to an old advertisement for a cooking job at El Taller. Clicking on entry nineteen, I land on a short article on an art website that mentions an exhibit in 1998. I make my way through it slowly, with help from a translation site. The new pieces are full of promise, the critic proclaims. This is an artist to watch. Three other Web pages mention Mateo in passing. On another is a photo of him participating in a neighborhood rejuvenation project in 1996. The young Mateo, one hand holding a bag of trash, the other squeezing the shoulder of a pretty girl leaning on a rake, smiles widely at the camera. It’s the Mateo from Andrea’s photos, a Mateo at ease with the world. There isn’t a trace of cynicism in that face. He looks happy. Really, really happy. What could have happened to change that?

Beside the photo, someone has included a caption:
Local artist Mateo de la Vega and fiancée Silvana Diaz.
A slim girl with long dark hair stands behind them in the photo. She’s younger but unmistakable: Anna.

Downstairs in the kitchen, Jorge is helping Andrea make cookies. Her balls of dough are uniform and evenly spaced on the baking sheet. His, to the delight of the dogs, are mostly on the floor.

“Looks like you have a budding baker in the family,” I say, laughing. Jorge eyes me suspiciously. Over four months and I’m still the outsider, the interloper, the party crasher.

“Oh, Jorge is going to be great chef someday.” Andrea tweaks her son’s nose, leaving a splotch of cookie dough. He giggles softly. “Or maybe world-famous dog trainer. We haven’t decided, have we,
hijo
?”

“Can I help?”

“No, no. Just sit. Relax. Have some tea.”

I pour myself a cup and add a bit of milk. “So I saw something interesting at the rose garden today.”

“Oh, are the roses still there?”

“No, they’re long gone. But there was an exhibit at the little art museum. Do you know it?”

She rubs her jaw the way she does when she’s thinking hard. Bits of cookie dough fall on her T-shirt. “
Ah, sí. En la casa blanca. Sí,
I know it.”

“There was an exhibition on Buenos Aires artists.”

“Mmm?” She pops the baking sheet into the oven.

“And there was a painting by Mateo. Our—your Mateo.”

“Mm-hm . . .” She shoos away the dogs, who are licking dough from Jorge’s sticky fingers.

“It was dated 1995.”

“Mmm.” She holds Jorge over the sink while he plunges his hands into the stream of water.

“He was a painter,” I say.

“
Sí.
”

“And engaged.”

“Ah.” Andrea sets Jorge in his high chair, pours herself another cup of tea, and sits down. She’s smiling, but it’s a sad smile. “It is many years ago,” she begins. “Much things have happened.”

Andrea takes her time with the telling, each turn of events something to mull over and examine carefully before articulating. I appreciate the pace. It gives me time to digest. I sit, literally, on the edge of my seat, washing down her words with hot tea. Jorge squirms, bored and cranky, on the floor between us.

Andrea moved here from Brazil when she was nine, she says. Mateo and Silvana were her best friends. They went to the same school and lived a few blocks from each other. As children, they played together on the streets of Palermo Viejo, these streets I stroll each day. Mateo’s and Silvana’s parents were good friends. There were Sunday
asados
that rotated from backyard to backyard and legendary Christmas parties at the de la Vega house. Then Mateo moved to the U.S. with his family.

“He wrote letters sometimes, and we sent him pictures so we wouldn’t forget each other. We did, of course. We were thirteen, fourteen. But then he came home again.” Andrea laughs gently, shakes her head at the ceiling as though remembering a secret joke. “He was changed. A man now. Not so easy to forget anymore.”

I nod in understanding. I seem to have the same problem.

With his family still in the U.S., she continues, Mateo moved back into his empty childhood house and enrolled in the university’s fine-arts program. Silvana was in the psychology department. “Every girl in school wanted his attentions, but he only saw Silvana. She was beautiful. Long hair, huge black eyes. And a kind heart, you know? Even as a small girl, she was gentle and caring. Would catch spiders in a jar and put it outside.” It was no surprise to anyone, she tells me, when they fell in love.

“It was perfect,” she says, wistful. “They planned to be married when they graduated. The families were very happy. Everyone was happy. It was like a . . .” She looks at me for help.

“A fairy tale?”

“
Sí,
a fairy tale.
Sí, sí.
” Andrea pauses to take a long sip of tea. For her last year of school, she tells me, Silvana wanted to go to New York to study there, like Mateo had done. She wanted to see it, too, wanted to know the things that he had known. He didn’t want her to go, but he understood. So she went and he stayed behind, getting things ready for his bride-to-be. He arranged a date at their families’ church for the wedding. He bought Siamese kittens like the ones she’d had when she was a little girl. He started to paint his house pink, her favorite color. Andrea stops and looks down at Jorge, who has fallen asleep against her feet. His small chest rises and falls. The peace of a sleeping child fills the room. “He wanted everything perfect for when she came home.”

“What happened?” I ask, though I already know. It’s all crystal-clear now. Andrea doesn’t even need to speak the words. While his childhood sweetheart was away, he fell for a bewitching girl named Anna. Poor Silvana. Mateo is the Argentine equivalent of Jeff, I realize. Thank God I didn’t let myself fall for him, I think. Thank God. Thank God.

Andrea lets out a breath, like a balloon deflating. “She didn’t come home,” she whispers.

That can’t be right.

“Because he hurt her?”

“No, no. She say she is in love with another student there.”

The puzzle shifts. Nothing fits.

My eyes open wide, I encourage her to continue. Mateo went to New York, she says. He thought that Silvana had cold feet. He would forgive her and everything would be like they’d planned. “I don’t know what happened there,” she says. “She stopped writing to me—but she never came home again.”

The puzzle shifts again.

“And he stopped painting.” I am the one whispering now.

“He couldn’t anymore.” Andrea rests her chin against her hand. Under the curl of her fingers, I can see her lips tremble slightly. “I wish you had known him before, Cassie. He was different before. Always laughing, always joking. He saw good things in everyone. You know that painting there?” She points in the direction of the foyer. “This is Mateo.”

“Really?” I should have known, I suppose, but it looks so different from the others, lighter and more hopeful somehow. “It’s beautiful.”

“
Sí, sí.
” Andrea pets Jorge’s brow, smoothing hair from his eyes. She shakes her head. “I loved Silvana, too. She was like a sister to me. But she broke him inside of his heart.
Entiendes
?”