The left corner of her mouth is still healing from the cut. Coincidentally, the left corner of the mouth of her son also has a wound, but from some insect bite occurred during his sleep. She is resting in a calm afternoon at the southern edge of the main park in San Telmo, feeling the breeze caressing her face, soothing, to some extent, her cut, whose saltiness her tongue sometimes can still taste. Her little son is fast asleep now. She had to drag him out of sleep this morning earlier than usual because she wanted to be here when the festival started. The local and foreign tourists would be here, and their rosier mood may open up bigger wallets.
Her name is Alma, a name her mother had given her to remind herself that her "soul" had left her when she had given birth to this girl whose destiny would be no different from her own. Alma's son cried most of the way on the train from the slums where they were living. She was embarrassed to have woken up her sister, whose night shift meant she could only start sleeping in the early morning. She had been embarrassed for as long as she had stayed with her sister, started when her husband abandoned her and his son. Her sister tried to hide her frustration, but she saw everything wrong with her own life mirrored in Alma's life, except that Alma was even more disgraceful, having no job and an extra burden of a boy.
She did have a job, in the sense of obtaining financial resources. Her job was to perfect begging, that entirely debasing and infinitely more humiliating work of asking for what you don't deserve. She had been doing this for nearly a year now, and she had gotten very good at it, using her son as the best starting bargaining chip. She only hopes that her son will remain cute for a little while more, and that when he no longer attracted the sympathy of those with real money, he could start working.
What could he do? She is thinking now, during her rest. The breeze has stopped and the heat of the February afternoon regains its torment. She is smart enough to be sitting in the shade. She looks across the street and sees a familiar face standing in front of touristy Cafe Britanica. He is probably a tourist, she isn't sure. She asked him the previous day for money. He spoke to her. He wasn't the first person to speak to her instead of either dispensing the meager change or ignoring her altogether. And so she wasn't quite surprised; in fact, she had learned that if the target showed any interest, then the sale was already made and the only difference now was to make it more interesting so that the reward might be greater. It worked exactly like that yesterday. She smiled at him. She isn't entirely pretty, and she knows it. The women in central Buenos Aires could afford to eat well and dress well and get the best makeup, world too foreign for her to really even think about. The pretty women had been the meanest to her, often outright hostile, rarely giving her attention, let alone a few coins. This man paid attention to her. And so she smiled. Her freckles moved along the changing muscles of her face, even her eyes gleamed a little as she answered his questions, which she also had gotten used to from those few that had been curious. While his attitude was understandably condescending, she was grateful for the attention. Sometimes, she felt alone. Like this morning in the train when the boy was screaming, or in the bus after the train, when the boy was quietly sleeping. She was most lonely when she was tired, like having walked the whole morning and afternoon begging and preparing for constant disappointment.
Today she managed to avoid thinking about her boyfriend, the father of the sleeping boy. But most days she thought about him.
That man standing in front of Cafe Britanico is carrying, as he did yesterday, a huge camera. She thought about her brother, Elias, whom she hadn't seen for a few months, but have heard about from time to time. He had lost his job the last time she saw him and since then, supposedly, he had been steeling. It's a wonder she hasn't seen him since they both would be operating in the same touristy areas, especially today when there is a sea of people not being careful about what they are carrying. She wondered if he would dare to steal this man's camera.
She is a little startled when she realizes that while staring at his camera the man has at some point started staring at her. She can't help letting out an embarrassed smile. He tips his head a little to acknowledge her, and she smiles back. The last thing he said to her yesterday was, "Take this, give the little boy something to eat," as he handed her a 10-peso bill. That was enough to feed the boy a day, but she thought the comment was strange, almost comical. She didn't understand why. She was embarrassed, nonetheless.
She looks away even though instinctively she would have wanted to go over there and greet him, perhaps he would give her more money, or at least, some attention. She thinks about her brother. Oh, Elias, where are you? She looks at the sleepy face of her son.
"How old is he?" the man asked yesterday.
She wonders why people care. Why people care to know. Is curiosity so powerful that it could engender pittance of money? She didn't ask him any questions, even though he was quite curious enough. She is curious why he is now standing there, looking around, inspecting the surroundings. The festival is a few more blocks down. He isn't sitting. She doesn't understand.
She thinks about her brother again.
The boy coughs again, and by doing so waking up, giving out a murmur, and starts to inspect his surroundings. She managed to get quite a bit of money today from the festival and it's not over yet. She can get more. It is time. She looks again to the direction of the cafe and sees that the man has started walking across the street towards the some nondescript point. She wonders where he is going now. What luxury some people have for going nowhere and not having to worry about the means of getting somewhere. What luxury to be freely going anywhere without either a past to shackle their feet nor a future to wall in their existence. She caresses the forehead of her son, falling in love momentarily with his eyes, which do not look like hers.
Her legs are tired from carrying him the whole day, everyday. But work must go on. She stands up and walks past a group of old locals gossiping about people she would never know or meet. She is a walking failure with a shadow cast by the whims of the sun and the world. But she continues to walk and work in the only way she knows now. At least another five hours left before she would hop on the bus and then the train back to an ever sullen sister. She thinks one more time about that big camera the man was carrying, and wonders, if a picture had taken of her and her boy, how unrecognizable it would be to her.
