Norberto Soares, a literary legend of the 70s – and who Osvaldo Soriano had once called “the best unpublished writer” of his generation – invited me to go to the balcony overlooking Avenida Rivadavia. It was a day of nationwide strike and the thunderous CGT demonstration shouted: “Bring Alfonsín’s gorilla so that he can see that this city does not change its ideas and carries the flags of Evita and Perón.” The sun was shining. “A Peronist day,” the general’s born-again supporters called it.
Out of On the sixth floor of the editorial office you could feel the roundness of concentration. The drums, the federal stars, the entire Peronist cotillion had returned. The demonstrators were not only numerous, but also seemed euphoric. As if the dictatorship, a wound that had just begun to heal, had not intimidated them; as if the Malvinas War had been an event from another century and not a gap still open and bleeding. One could even occasionally see the flag of the old and defeated guerrilla formations: FAR, FAP and Montoneros. A journey back in time: Would that be the greatest utopia of these people? A repeated dawn? With Perón and Evita, with the workers with huge, strong arms that Ricardo Carpani knew how to portray? Neither a farce nor a tragedy, these people seemed determined to continue the thread of the story as if nothing had happened in the middle. “Home yes, colony no!” they shouted as if they had just woken up from a short nap.
Soares, who had poetic rather than militant contact with Peronism seventies, and had voted from Raúl Alfonsín in 1983, he barely spoke. I had my eye on the parade. His usual sarcasm was more serious than ever and seemed to have turned into mushy bitterness. For my part, still suffering from the post-traumatic disorientation of communist militancy, I didn’t have much to say either: only two years earlier I had taken my last disciplinary action by voting for the Luder-Bitel formula “to accompany the Peronist masses”. Aside from being an orphan, I was also gnawed by the bitterness of regret.
Even though we were young, we both felt left out any claim to historical significance. Of course we were protected by journalism, a privileged way of being a contemporary spy, a committed observer and a witness for the prosecution.
As happens all too often In Argentina these were times of unusual political intensity. The story seemed to go by in fits and starts, as if it was trying to go off script and return to what always was: clarity, darkness, night. In other words: elections, misrule, coup. This is what we feared on this day of national and popular Candombe.
Our generation was the daughter of violence and arrogance. Authoritarianism and arbitrariness were almost the only forms of political relations he knew. The sophisticated and pluralistic Europe was very far away. There were no nuances. So even those who suffered from fatigue and exhaustion from the many pilgrimages with their fists doubted that there could be a different way of life in society. Not even Uruguay, the republican idyll of our childhood in River Plate, was saved from the catastrophe. Not to mention Chile: the fantasies of bringing about a social revolution through elections had been dashed with the military attack on La Moneda and the suicide of Salvador Allende on September 11, 1973: Augusto Pinochet still ruled relaxed and with an iron fist. Democracy was a chimera across the continent. In this region, things were solved by shooting.
When the Alfonsinista dawn surprised us, we “the old ones” had done so already extremely tired. In a way, we were part of Argentina’s failure. It is difficult to explain the weight that weighs on the conscience of the survivors of a shipwreck and the impetus that the blood of the fallen has on those who have managed to remain in ruinous safety. It is not a question that politicians can interpret, let alone solve. It’s not just ideological or partisan aspects that play a role. They break into those who strive to overcome the past, guilt and pain. A bloody social rupture cannot be covered with new stories or narratives. The dead speak. They weigh. They shock the conscience.
Even those of us who did not use violence had many victims close to credit. The dictatorship had killed “just in case,” not only in disregard of guarantees and rights, but also as part of a “cleansing crusade.” The ultra-left groups and the so-called special formations, for their part, followed the avant-garde impulse: they had a kind of dream of justice in their own hands, each with its idea of an ideal society and its particular recipe for future happiness. Kill, die, disappear, avenge were words that shaped our youth and youth. Life was all or nothing.
That’s where we came from. We were fighters retired from other people’s trenches. The spectacle we witnessed that day from the balcony of our work – which was, moreover, an attempt to give ourselves a new life, to resume canceled or postponed readings, after years in which it was forbidden to even dream – was somewhere between frightening and ridiculous. As passengers in a newborn democracy, it was not easy to imagine a peaceful future. No one knew whether one wrong step could return us to darkness, to the darkness of tyranny and morgue madness, but we knew that normality – our humble pursuit – carried serious risks. Those people down there shouting unrestrained slogans gave us a feeling similar to fear. But also anger and, above all, helplessness.
“Bring Alfonsín’s gorilla.”
How daring, how terrifying.
You will annoy them. Eventually they will tease her. We felt that this afternoon of radioactive Peronism.
I left my own melancholy behind and felt like I desperately needed medicationa phrase from the brilliant Soares, one of his witty turns of phrase, one of the jokes he used to make when he was making full use of his creative abilities. A compulsive and nocturnal reader, a companion in intellectual celebrations of great writers of his time – Soriano and Miguel Briante, among many others -, an experienced connoisseur of the work of Sigmund Freud, Soares finally gave me the dose of creative concoction I was looking for on this day of national strike against the government of a cantankerous and stubborn democrat. He put his hands on my shoulders – which was unusual for him – and said lethargically: “In the end, when the Marines land on these shores, we Argentines will greet them joyfully and wave the star-studded flag…”.
I have often thought of Soares, who died far too early in 1999.– and its ironic puzzles. Scott Bessent and Javier Milei now seem to be fulfilling this balcony prophecy.
Let the hype continue.
Journalist, member of the Argentine Political Club
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