The woman on tape.

• Author: Piglia, Ricardo
• Position: Latitudes - Personal narrative of writer - Brief Article

Some years ago I lived for a few months at the Hotel Almagro at the intersection of Rivadavia and Castro Barros. Right around the corner from the hotel is the Boxing Federation and I went to watch the fights every Wednesday night. At the entrance to the stadium there was always a woman who sold flowers and who had a photograph of Macedonio Fernandez pinned to her dress. Her name was (or is) Rosa Malabia and for several months I met her at the door of the Boxing Federation and took her to the Las Violetas confectionery store for tea. I never found out where she lived because she never wanted to tell me; I suppose she also rented a small room in a nearby hotel or slept in a hallway somewhere. She had breakfast at the missionary church and otherwise ate whatever she was given by the vendors at the market across the street from the boarding house.

She had met Macedonio as a kid, when she was fifteen and still going to school. She said that at the time Macedonio lived in a little house around Moron or in Haedo and that she visited him because he lived close by and his father was a physician. I never found out where she got his photograph or whether she was telling the truth. I assume she had really known him and loved him; sometimes she would keep silent for a while and afterward tell me that she was "wholly Macedonian," perhaps her way of trying to tell me that she was pure. There were times when she became momentarily lost, looked at me with empty eyes, and said that she was dead and that her body was all hollow inside, as if she were a china doll. She was in and out of the asylum, disappearing for two or three days at a time, and then reappearing unexpectedly at the Boxing Federation entrance to sell the flowers she had stolen from tombs in...