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Impatience has drained away from me. Is that what fear is? When one doesn´t want to know what may be? When one´s destiny is something one wishes to avoid? I fear to know. An old fear ... know to know no more. I´m standing at the corner of Falkner and Tejedor. An 18th century Jesuit priest from Manchester, missionary to the River Plate and splendid amateur ethnologist. And a former governor of the province and minister of external affairs under president Sarmiento. Something to hang my thoughts on. If I turn right and head along Tejedor in nine blocks I´ll be at Avenida Constitucion. If I walk a further nine blocks, heading in the same direction, I can then turn right on Alfonsina Storni - poet of Swiss parentage and infamous suicide. But some believe her wading into the cool waters of the sea right here in Mar del Plata was in fact a posthumous burial by her followers and friends. The watery suicide remains the official story however.

But I have no official story, and I´m terrified to move forward. Or more accurately, my story is not what I had thought. I stand still for a moment more, and finally a dull momentum drives me forward along Tejedor towards Storni some 19 blocks away. Tejedor is lined with shops; more bars on the windows than ever before and a few security guards standng anxiously on the sidewalk. I barely glance at the storefronts and ignore the guards who might feed my paranoia. My mind is being pushed forward. It can no longer ignore the questions. I try to walk at a steady pace, but I suppose I´m hurrying along like a madman. I no longer worry about the sweat. It´s hot and I´m dripping and that´s all there is to it. I have to wait a long time at Constitucion but the lights finally change and I walk past the gas station to my right. I always feel naked and incomplete walking past this particular service station. Not having a car doesn´t matter downtown but here with the traffic and SUV´s pulling up to the pumps I feel my poverty exposed. I feel weak and marginal even with the pesos sitting in our account and with Diego´s promises of grand schemes. There´s more shade a few blocks past Constitucion and I keep walking on the right side to make the turn onto Storni easier. A large German Sheperd surveys me critically from across the avenue sniffing the air with some disdain. I walk on. I must smell of fear and I´m sure the dog can sense it right through all the traffic. Acevedo, Miguel, Mugaburu ... who the hell was Pascuala Mugaburu?? No time. Here´s Storni. I stop and then decide that if Kabe is home or nearby there´s no point deliberating. He´ll see me coming and I might as well try to be decisive from here on in. I turn onto Storni and walk towards the coast and Kabe´s PH - Plano Habitacion or Plano Horizontal; what they call a small one or two bedroom bungalow here.

No one is waiting. No one says ¨I´ve been waiting for you¨. There´s no answer to the doorbell and I turn and move back to the sidewalk. Is Kabe inside? His car is not here and he uses it for most everything. I think he worries about getting it stolen out here in Caisamar. The sun is high, the day is hot and I´m at a dead end for the moment. Is all this paranoid fantasy? The fact I wish it to be so, wish to evade what is growing more obvious in my mind, indicates to me that it is real. There´s something here and I have to find out from Kabe how he knew who I was before we even met. Should I wait here a while? I hear a car come down the street but it´s not Kabe´s Beetle. My mind turns and then settles on David for some reason. What were those last emails from David about again? What did he say ... ? Allard, I´m very sick and Mother´s short of funds ... I think that was it ... no. There was more. Could you tell me what her stock account was again? Again ... the sounds around me don´t increase in volume like those revelatory scenes in a movie. They´re there, but I´m just not listening. I sit down on the sidewalk, something less common here if you´re not a kid. Again. I never told David what her stock account was in the first place because he never asked. He honestly didn´t give a damn. That was my job and he only wanted to know that I was taking care of that end of things. He had his job and his own accounts to worry about. He might have asked at some point but that email wasn´t right. I need her stock accounts. Something like that. And anyway ... of course ... I had made sure he also had Power of Attorney, especially when I decided to move here. My god, my grief from the news that they had succumbed to the virus had blinded me. I don´t know what to think. A motorcycle guns past. I don´t even bother looking up. Who the fuck sent me those emails? It wasn´t David, not to me it wasn´t. Nothing is holding up under any scrutiny. I´m either crazy or someone has targeted me and my family back home. Suspicion sleeps at wisdom´s gate and I feel like a fool.

That sound. It´s the Beetle. Here´s Kabe. He pulls into his weedy driveway and gets out quickly, tender concern etched on his face.

Come inside Allard he says with urgent solicitousness.
Your mother just phoned from Canada.

He´s already opening the front door to his home and I can ony follow him inside, doubt and fear and anger swirling inside me. Mother ... is she alive??