III
By now everyone knows that I killed Maria Iribarne Hunter. But no one knows how I
met her, what kind of relations there were between us, or what made me want to kill her.
I will try to relay everything impartially because, although I suffered a lot because of her,
I do not have the foolish aspiration of being perfect.
In the Salon de Primavera, in 1946, I exhibited a painting called Maternity. It was
done in the style of most of my previous paintings; like the critics say with their
insufferable patois, it was solid, and well formed. In short, it had the attributes that these
charlatans always see in my art, including “something profoundly intellectual.” But in
the upper left corner, through a small window, there was a small, remote scene; a lonely
beach and a woman who was looking at the sea. It was a woman who looked like she
was waiting for something, perhaps some muted, distant call. In my opinion, the scene
suggested an anxious and total aloneness.
No one noticed that scene; they passed over it as though it was something unimportant,
only decorative. With the exception of one person, no one seemed to realize that that
scene constituted something essential. It was the opening day. Some unknown woman
stopped for a long time in front of my painting without paying much attention of the large
woman in the foreground that was watching a baby play. Instead, she was staring at the
scene in the window, and while she was doing that, I was certain she was shut off from
the the rest of world; she didn’t even notice the other people who passed by, or stopped in
front of the painting.
I watched her anxiously for a long time. After that, she disappeared in the crowd,
while I vacillated between an invincible fear, and the desire to call to her. Fear of what?
Perhaps something like the fear of betting all the money that you have in life on a single
number. And when she disappeared I felt angry and unfortunate, thinking I would never
see her again, lost among the millions of anonymous people in Buenos Aires.
That night I went home, feeling quite nervous, discontented, and sad.
Until the gallery closed, I went there every day, staying close enough to my painting to
see the people who stopped in front of it. But she never showed up again.
During the following months I never stopped thinking about her, and the possibility of
seeing her again. It was as if the small scene in the window began to grow and fill the
entire painting, and all the rest of my work.
IV
One afternoon, finally, I saw her in the street. She was walking resolvedly down the
opposite sidewalk, like someone who has to get to a particular place at a particular time.
I recognized her immediately. I could have recognized her in a crowd of people. I felt
an indescribable emotion. I had thought about her so often during all those months,
imagining so many things, that when I saw her I didn’t know what to do.
The truth is that many times I had thought carefully about what I would do if I ever
saw her again. I may have said that I am very timid, and because of that I had thought,
and rethought many times, about a possible encounter, and what I would do if it occurred.
The biggest difficulty I had in those imaginary encounters was always how to start a
conversation with her. I know many men who would have no problem if they started to
talk to some unknown woman. I confess that I once envied them a lot, since, because I
had never been ladies man, or since I hadn’t been one on two or three different occasions,
I feared this meant that I was going to always be alone in my life. Unfortunately, I was
condemned to be separated from the life of any woman.
In these imaginary encounters I had thought about different possibilities. I know what
I am like, and I know that sudden, unexpected situations make me loose, control because
of bewilderment and timidity. For that reason I had prepared various options that were
logical, or at least possible. (It is not logical that an intimate friend would send you an
insulting anonymous letter, but we all know it is possible.)
Evidently the woman often went to art galleries. If I saw her at one of them I would go
and stand by her side, and it wouldn’t be too difficult to start a conversation about some
painting we saw.
After thinking more about this possibility, I rejected it. I never went to art galleries.
That may seem like a strange attitude for a painter, but in fact there is an explanation, and
if decided to reveal it, everyone would say that I was right. Well, perhaps I exaggerate by
saying “everyone.” No, I’m definitely exaggerating. Experience has taught me that what
seems clear and evident for me almost never is for the rest of my fellow men. I am so
burned that I now usually hesitate before trying to explain or justify one of my attitudes,
and I almost always end up shutting myself off and not saying anything. This has been
precisely the reason that I have waited so long before finally deciding to reveal the story
of my crime. Nor do I know if, in the final analysis, it would be worth it to try to explain
the way I feel about art galleries, but I am afraid that if I don’t explain it people will think
it is just some mania when, in fact, there are some very serious reasons for it.
As a matter of fact, in this case there is more than one reason. I will say, to begin with,
that I detest all groups, sects, associations, corporations, and in general, all the groups of
vermin that join together for professional reasons, for profits, or for some similar whim.
These conglomerates have a great number of grotesque attributes: a repetition of styles, a
jargon, or the vanity of feeling they are better than all the rest of us.
I can see that this is complicating the problem, but I don’t see any way to simplify it.
On the other hand, anyone who wants to stop reading this account only has to do just that.
Once and for all I want to make it clear that they can count on my complete agreement.
What do I mean by this “repetition of styles”? Everyone knows how annoying it is to
meet someone who constantly winks their eye, or twists their mouth. But imagine if they
were all united in one group. However it is not necessary to go to such an extreme; it is
enough to observe those families where certain habits, certain gestures, or a certain tone
of voice are repeated. I have fallen in love with a woman (anonymously, of course) and
then ran away, frightened by the possibility of meeting her sisters. Something that was
horrible also happened to me on another occasion: I found some interesting aspects in a
woman, but when I met her sister I became depressed and ashamed for a long time. The
same attributes that seemed pleasing in her, seemed accentuated and deformed in her
sister, a sort of a caricature. And the view of the deformed nature of the first woman in
her sister produced in me, in addition to that, a feeling of shame as though in a way I was
responsible for this ridiculous aspect that the sister cast over the woman that I had at first
admired so much.