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They are wooden figures bearing the weight of 19th century romanticism and the burden is too much for them. If you love Argentina or are fascinated by 19th century Latin American historical developments, then this is a good book for you. If you are a student of Latin American literature you probably ought to read the book, as many claim that it is the first "novel" written in South America. Either way, you will see theories expounded as to why dictatorship took over the recently independent Argentina; perspectives on what Marmol thought should constitute the Argentine nation and what should not ; and portraits of a society living in fear of a brutal political regime.

If none of the above is germane for you, then you may be better off skipping this novel, as you will also have to deal with occasional digressions, overwrought prose, and annoyingly idealized lead characters. If you are not a fan of Romantic literature, by-pass this one. There's a problem loading this menu right now. Learn more about Amazon Prime. Get fast, free shipping with Amazon Prime.

Get to Know Us. English Choose a language for shopping. Explore the Home Gift Guide. Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers. Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon. Alexa Actionable Analytics for the Web. AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally. One night, when there were only a few people left in the main hall of the Body Max, I saw her raise her shirt and flex her abs.

Those six symmetrical fragments had abolished any previous marks of maternity. Then she tensed her shoulders and her triceps and looked herself in the eye. Her triceps were growing like roots or like slumbering boas. Then she slapped a towel over her neck, breathed out, clapped twice and went into the locker room. The one who seemed to be their leader went around all day wearing Spandex. His name was Berni. I asked Amalia if Berni was gay. She said not at all, that Berni was a man. I knew that gay guys liked to go around wearing Spandex with their balls scrunched up tight.

So I was almost certain that Berni was gay.

"Amalia" in English

Eduardo said it was too expensive a place for me to get so little out of it. All I wanted was to pick up girls, learn to be a good kisser—with tongue—and rack up stories to tell the other kids. I was a scrawny kid with the body of a bird, sort of stupid-looking, and besides, the fourteen-year-old girls were all going out with seventeen-year-olds who stayed late in dance clubs drinking alcohol and smoking, and who had cars.

No girl wanted to date a boy who looked like a bird. Of my peers, the ones who had kissed with tongue were the ones who played rugby and the ones who had facial hair. At that time I was smooth as a kidney. I started missing class in the afternoon to go to the Sparta, the new family gym, which was run by Pepe, an old staple of Argentine weightlifting, fattened now by the passage of time.

Pepe knew perfectly well I was playing hooky in order to improve my muscles. I had to bulk up immediately. The stakes were my virginity. One of those afternoons, just after lunch, I ran into Amalia. There was almost no one at the gym. She was with Berni, the Spandex cyclist. Berni was helping her work out. I kept going on the stationary bike as though nothing had changed.

AMALIA CAFÉ

The week before a letter had come reporting my behavioral issues, leading both my parents to give me a sermon of extraordinary length. Martincito was there too but just watching cartoons on TV. Every so often he would laugh as Eduardo and Amalia pretended to be serious parents. Now, I kept going on the stationary bike.

If Amalia found me, Amalia found me. The kiss was discreet, not one of the French ones with tongue that they did on TV, the kind I rehearsed in the mirror and on the back of my hand. Amalia subsequently brushed his balls tight inside their Spandex. It was just a second. Nobody, except for me, was aware something had happened. And I lost all respect for him. He sent me to my room and cut off my allowance. Eduardo kept going to the gym with Amalia. For my dad, a guy in Spandex must be gay.

One Saturday the four of us went to the gym. Martincito, who was ten, goofed around going backwards on the treadmill. From the stationary bike Amalia told him to try running so he could tone his legs a little. He loved that phrase. I was down below, with dumbbells weighing five kilos, working on my biceps. I was fourteen and needed to bulk up quick or I was never going to get laid.

Berni, the guy in the Spandex, was doing squats with a hundred kilos on either side of his Olympic bar. Rocky, one of the competitive bodybuilders from the Sparta, was whooping him on. On his other side was Pepe. The rest of the family came downstairs to where the machines were, Martincito hopping two stairs at a time. Eduardo smiled at him. My parents worked out in their respective sections. Martincito was around somewhere. His skull never got crushed by a dumbbell because miracles exist.

Martincito was curled up in his lap. He was eight and I was twelve. Without knowing why he did it, Martincito burst into tears. It took him a lot of effort to disguise what he was saying as ho-hum. He did a long intro on the lives of grownups and the construct of the couple. It was a harsh no, followed by an awful silence, which poor Martincito finally broke with the howl of a wounded child.

Amalia, as though not registering the situation, waited for Eduardo to finish talking. She was wearing the Spandex she wore to work out in and an athletic top. And so we too fell victim to the tremulous tragedy of divorce. I thought of Berni and his balls tight in that Spandex—evidently gay. Eduardo clarified that neither of them had a lover, when it was in fact precisely these leaks in the marriage that had sunk the whole endeavor.

Related Names

Martincito started working out. Like me, he knew everyone at the gym and got into it quickly. His name was Alejandro Barrientos. Barrientos was the owner of a clinic where Amalia did ultrasounds. He was a radiologist but never practiced. As Amalia would say later, he was too much of a brute to take good X-rays. He was younger than Eduardo, played tennis, and said he was the Argentine national champion of Basque pelota. Later on, when I would finally get to know him, I would realize that in reality he was one of those guys that had what is known as a cocaine-taking temperament, a scammer and a compulsive liar.

Like any good narcissist, he instantly made me adore him. He was balding, smaller than me, with a suntan. He tried to make meeting the kids of his new wife as pleasant as possible. Martincito got in the car without a word. I liked Barrientos for my mom. Amalia was happy, although more and more distracted, as though all the life changes had completely spent her intellectual capacity. Nothing had changed that much. The rest of her time she spent at the gym and going out with her new boyfriend, whom she called her husband.

I worried about Martincito, who was still pretty young, but he could be soothed by TV. The first one was named Griselda, and what happened with her was an outright ransacking. He bought her a Honda Shadow with leather fringe on the handlebars. With me in particular he said he was overall quite disappointed.

Some secrets are like acid. The next years would be difficult between me and Eduardo. One night she gave me a cigar and explained that when she felt like it she could be very slutty in bed. It must be even worse for women. Now Amalia said she was forty-two. By now no one knew how old she really was. She worked out more than before, four or five times per week. In a few months Barrientos had lost weight and regained some of his youth. The initial stage of couples, like the initial stages of a presidency, is always good. That was why his eyes got red when he was fighting.

Not because he had Basque blood, like Amalia said, or because he was moody. It was the blow. We had a talk about drugs. It gave him paternity practice. He said that in his time smoking pot was totally normal. He kissed his index finger, making a cross to lend himself veracity. Aside from Basque pelota, he was national champion of lying. On Saturdays we spent the night with them. The house was in the suburb of Pilar. Amalia had started drinking champagne, and she let me drink, too, so that I would learn. They called this initiation into the culture of alcohol. That night she showed up in a robe with a large glass.

She sat down on the edge of the couch.

Amalia - Wiktionary

She tenderly raked her fingers over the nape of his neck. Martincito fell asleep again on her lap. She had her own very particular way of crying: Her voice got squeaky. Would you like to tell us about a lower price? If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support? This is a reproduction of a book published before This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc.

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