Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

End of Maneuvers

2024; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 98; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wlt.2024.a925278

1945-8134

Matías Capelli,

End of Maneuvers Matías Capelli (bio) Translated by Kit Maude Click for larger view View full resolution Photo by Allan Vargas / Unsplash.com Some mornings from my ground-floor study window I see a man pass by on a bicycle with a boy on the backseat behind him. Normally by then I'd be sitting at my computer, but one morning I had to go out early and saw them approaching just as I was getting onto my bike. We were headed in the same direction, them in front, going along Gamarra toward the Tornú Hospital. On every block there seemed to be construction work, or a brand-new building with units for sale. My neighborhood had been deregulated, paving the way for the demolition of low-rise housing, to be replaced by middling apartment blocks. Gamarra comes to an end at Campillo, which runs through the cone of shadow cast by the Tornú. I've never been into the hospital. All I know is that it was built to treat tuberculosis patients in the early 1900s in an area of relatively higher ground, surrounded by farmland. Campillo is cut off in turn by Malvinas Argentinas, and you have to swerve in an S-shape to continue along Girardot. Father and son crossed when the pedestrian crossing was green, but I had lagged behind and wasn't going to make it. I cut across the avenue just when the cars were starting up on either side. Dangerous, but I made it. You might say that I was following them, but I wasn't going very far out of my way from my original route. We went along Girardot, passing houses that stood next to warehouses and the former headquarters of large companies of yesteryear. Perhaps the presence of these industrial buildings was what had held up residential development. There were a lot of side streets and smaller lots containing housing for workers and small workshops. A hypermarket took up an entire block, next to a community center, and after the hidden oasis of Malaver Plaza was a dead end where the city is abruptly severed by impassable railway tracks. The only options are to go up over the pedestrian bridge or head toward Artigas train station. Before getting there, one sees by the right-hand track a large sign for engineers that reads "End of Maneuvers." [End Page 52] This area of the city is made up of irregularly shaped fragments. Puzzle pieces a few blocks long brought to an end by a hospital or a factory or arteries of heavy-goods traffic that run parallel to the railway lines. Maybe it was all once an estate subsequently divided up into lots but preserving the geography of large fields bordered by rural roads and tracks. After crossing the railway tracks, we had to wait at a traffic light. It was one of the few in the city that are activated by pressing a button, as though the technology had been specially adopted for this area alone by an enterprising administration. We sat next to each other for a few seconds. I got a better look at them. They were both wearing helmets; I wasn't. The boy called him "Papa." They were chatting while they waited. The kid had a backpack and a stuffed toy on his lap. His feet on the ground, the father turned around to speak to him. We crossed the road in single file over to the side of the German and British cemeteries, which are like diplomatic annexes for the afterlife. I heard the boy ask his father whether the car parked at the traffic light was "a car for dead people." The sidewalk by the British cemetery was very narrow. A flower kiosk left little room, and the few remaining flagstones had been displaced by tree roots. Our path broadened when we got to the wall of the municipal cemetery of Chacarita. I began to wonder where they'd go next; the lane they were on was about to come to a halt. Father and son turned into the cemetery through a back gate, nodding at the guard, and went onto the...