Escaping the Cemetery

The grave's a fine and private place

But none I think do there embrace.

                                                    -Marvell

Recoleta cemetery is a captivating yet strange place. This is partly why it's one of Buenos Aires's major sites. As a tour guide said earlier today, the cemetery encapsulates a certain aspect of the city - its mixture of elegance and shabbiness, arrogance and humility; its death-defying extravagence and vulgar populism; at times, its shifty psychology.

Not that it's the only cemetary with highly crafted mausoleums, but it seems to represent a particular irony. The irony is the uncanny gap between the grave's intention (to commemorate a person) and its effect. Like most tourists, I forget almost all the names within seconds of having seen each tomb; what lasts is an aesthetic impression that tells little about a person, or suggests a very different impression than was intended. The generals' tombs seemed particularly overblown and suggestive of an overly egotistical character, not of the careful judgement that characterises an effective general.

And these are not the only ghostly figures haunting the city. For example, there are still a number of monuments to Peron and Evita - two theatrical figures who used the political stage to enchant the masses and suppress dissent. To some extent, Evita brought 'social justice' to enhance her own ego - with some very positive effects (women's liberation; nurses; more universal education) and some very negative consequences. Any good student of the twentieth century should understand that the term 'social justice' has often been manipulated to enforce aggressive top-down control over society in the name of the people. The uncritical stance towards Evita suggests something very worrying and oppressive about the way the name of Peron is still used to manipulate and distract voters from deeper problems.

For me, another set of ghosts hover over the city. In 1905/6 my great-grandparents fled the pogroms and SDP movement in Russia and joined the Jewish Colony in Argentina, where my great-grandfather became a law lecturer. My grandfather was born on the road to Buenos Aires (he tells the story of 'how the crocodiles attended his birth' vividly in a book he wrote on his early life). Within a few years, my family would leave for Israel. But I can't help but think it was a propitious time to see Argentina - near the peak of its glory years, when its growth rivalled the US. Over a century later, that dream has faded into the nightmare of prolonged economic instability. My family at that time saw Argentina at close to its greatest success.

Then there is the ghostliness of being a tourist. I've felt this most acutely in the past few days due to having far fewer companions than in Turkey, Japan or New Zealand. While many people have about as much English as I have Spanish (very basic), it's rare to find a fluent speaker or someone more comfortable in English than Spanish. Consequently I´ve felt more lonely in a place which thrives on company (hence the poem quotation above; another profound line that I think of is W.S. Graham: "this is always a record of me in you." 

'Record' suggesting not a direct communication, but a copy of a past inscription by me to you. The line comes from a lonely, remote place.)

After all, border control make it a condition of entering a country that your stay is temporary. Your existence as a tourist is supplementary to the ordinary inhabitants of that place. You are an observer who can take part to a limited extent but no more than is allowed by the length of your visa or your ability to adapt to the native approach to life. There is the pleasure of imagining the possibility of living in that country without the burden of having to adjust to that particular society's demands. It's very fun and I deeply appreciate the privilege of the experience. But in all the pleasure I also confront the fact that most of my activities have been done by thousands of tourists before me. I record in me my own version of other people's experiences. I can then relate that to someone else, such as you the reader. In a very different way to Graham, it is a record of me in you.

Buenos Aires is a strange place. For example, Palermo Viejo is a very funky area full of cafes, restaurants and bars, music and literature, drink and laughter. But in its clean, vibrant fun, it seems somehow hermetically sealed from the more down-at-heel side of Buenos Aires, the city of 13 million where many struggle to make a living. Like most tourists my main concern is profiting from the fun.

I find another line of poetry ringing:

I have learned not to look down

So much upon the damned.

Evita and Peron let in Adolf Eichmann, a man whose role in the intellectual life of the twentieth century encapsulates some of the deep paradoxes at the heart of Argentina. They let us Jews in too. Everybody´s welcome as long as they bring the dollar* and leave when we tell them to. No terrorists please.







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*Dollars are one of the shiftiest aspects of Argentina. The official rate is 9.09 pesos to the dollar; the blue dollar rate is 15 pesos to the dollar. Everyone recognises that the official rate is a convenient fudge that prevents economic chaos but it really makes one think about what money is and what makes it worth x rather than y. Just like many things in Buenos Aires, the value of the peso is not what it seems. Our guide today said: don't trust Argentinians, including me.