Source: See Buenos Aires Index.
Image: Borges speaking about the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, in his apartment in Summer 1985.

Part 4 of 4

Narrative concluded:

As I mentioned at the end of the first part of this narrative, Borges "invited me to go visit him in Buenos Aires at a later, more peaceful, time." As you've seen in the brief photo series in the Borges Show, I went to his apartment. I took the elevator to the top floor of Maipú, 8, and I rang the door bell (buzzer? I don't recall which, all these years later). I waited. I rang briefly a second time and then I waited again for what seemed a very long time. Just when I was thinking of leaving, the door opened. An elderly woman was standing in the doorway. I had no idea who she was, and by her dress I couldn't tell what her role was in Borges' apartment. Whoever she was, she was not María Kodama. (Later, I understood—although no one explained this to me—she was his housekeeper.) I explained the purpose of my visit and that I was standing there by el señor Borges' invitation. She rather frowned at me, but she invited me to step inside by a simple waving of her arm. I stepped inside, she closed the door, and, without a word, she disappeared through a closed inner door. I had barely a clue what was transpiring, but I surmised that she was going to alert el señor Borges about my arrival. After another long wait, she returned and invited me to wait. (This was a stern woman of very few words, and I imagine you can guess why: how many people had she seen call one Borges out of the blue, so to speak, and for what purposes had they all come to see him?) During a wait that was at least a half hour, I imagined all sorts of things. Did Borges not want to see me? Did he just drop dead? (Really, that was one of my silly thoughts, but he was old and in ill health, after all.) So much waiting! Borges, however, was clearly a person worth waiting for.

At last (three quarters of an hour?), the man himself appeared through another inner door. He was dressed just as you see him in these photos. In Spanish, one would describe his appearance as vestido de domingo (in his Sunday best). In English, we might say he was dressed to the nines. I was shocked in the sense that he obviously had spent all the time I was waiting to dress properly to receive a guest in his home. I felt embarassed; but I was supposed to feel honored, which, I guess, I was. (It also occurred to me, see as how he was blind, that I could see how he well was dressed—he was dressed for me to see him so well attired—but he could not see how he himself looked. We then exchanged courtesies, I in Spanish and he in English, and he reached out his hand for us to shake hands. I shook his hand. He invited me to step into his parlor (it was a 50s-style urban apartment living room or sitting room). We sat on a good but not luxurious sofa. He clearly wanted to carry on our conversation in English, so I accomodated him—while, he, knowing I am an English-speaking American, no doubt felt he was courteously accomodating me. He even said, "my English is not so bad, after all," referring to his English-speaking ancestors. We then returned to the phone conversations we had had a few years earlier in the United States, most notably the one I referred to in Part 1 when he recited the verses from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass referring to Walla Walla. I then pointed out that this great American poet was referring to a Walla Walla in Australia, not the one in Washington State founded by a missionary named Marcus Whitman. This exchange of information and the memory of our earlier contact broke the ice, and, from there we were able to begin a conversation. Following the English language thread, and being a professor of Hispanic and world literature as I am, I wanted to know about the English poets he had known personally in the early and middle phases of his life. Rather pedantically I mentioned some names: Gerard Manley Hopkins, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, and Stephen Spender. (Accessing a twenty-four year-old memory now, I recall vaguely that I was most interested in Borges' contact with Spender as a person and a poet; why, I no longer remember.) Borges was rather noticeably bored with this topic, which we discussed, me with forced enthusiasm and he with politely disguised annoyance, for about a quater hour or so.

Then, just as I was beginning to think that I was overstaying my visit, that Borges had other much more important things to do—I recall saying something to this effect—that half-century-old relationships and influences were mostly irrelevant for this old and fully accomplished genius (he would die within a year), he interrupted the conversation. Abruptly, he changed the subject, he did, not I. [To the best of my recollection he said] "You know, I did not know what was happening." Immediately, I shut up. I was actually rather stunned, because I didn't see this change coming, and I wasn't consciously aware of what he meant by "what was happening." When? Fifty years ago? Twenty years ago? Last week? Even the last hour, when he was dressing? (The last possibility was rather stupid, but it actually was a thought that flashed through my mind.) I think he could tell that he had my total attention, so he continued: "I didn't know what was happening. I'm blind, and I focus on different things. Of course, I read the papers—María Kodama comes twice a week, and she reads the papers to me—and I try to stay informed about world affairs. But I didn't know what was going on here, in Argentina. And then they came here, the women, las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, they told me what had been going on, the disappearances and the torture. The terrible things the military did." (I probably stammered something to let him, this blind interlocutor of mine, there in his apartment, this internationally acclaimed intellectual, that I was still there, I was listening very carefully to what he was saying. But I admit I was shocked and had no idea why he was telling me this.) He continued: "And I soon as I found out about the desaparecidos, I promised to help them [i.e., the mothers]. Daily they took me to the courts, and I spoke out against the injustices. If I had known earlier what [i.e., the terrible things that] had been going on in my country, I would have spoken out earlier. My conscience is clear. I have always stood for justice and, as you say in English, fair play."

He spoke about this topic in terms and tones that sounded to me like some kind of confession, but I'm no Catholic priest, I'm a simple and rather obscure American professor, and I was completely out of my visiting research professor comfort zone. He spoke about the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo for about ten to fifteen minutes. I interjected a couple of thoughts about understanding him, about solidarity with him, about my sympathy for him and the immense tragedy that his people had suffered during the Guerra Sucia. Then rather quickly I stood up and I thanked him for his kind invitation to see me at his apartment and for the time he'd given me. Very graciously, he thanked me in return, we shook hands, his maid came in (how had she known it was time for her to reappear? had she been spying on us or listening to the conversation?) and showed me to the door. Borges' door closed behind me, and I stepped into the hallway. Truly, I was shaken; I was shaking. I had no idea what had just transpired. I had no idea why Borges, that great man, had given me, an oscure foreign professor, that statement. Was I really the intended audience? Was I some kind of neutral journalist who was supposed to record and transmit his messsage? Even more problematical for me was this: was it true? Was he sincere? Was he trying to rehabilitate himself with world opinion and the world intelligentsia?

I pushed the call button on the elevator. It took me to the ground floor. I exited the building at Maipú, 8. And for quite a while I walked the streets of downtown Buenos Aires trying to grasp what had transpired with Borges. I have never really figured it out. And now, here, in this deeply embedded Web page in this online textbook dedicated to the humanities of Latin America, I have set this down in digital format for the first time.

This photographic narrative is now yours.