emily’s Reviews > Somebody Is Walking on Your Grave: My Cemetery Journeys > Status Update

‘—my first visit to Barcelona—party in El Born—I was offered everything: coke, heroin, Ecstasy, pills. The only reason I didn’t buy—I had no money; back then I wasn’t so scared about where my substances came from. I didn’t want to buy heroin because that did scare me: you couldn’t find it in Argentina, or else it was only for those who were really in the know—Memories from toxic years tend to be tenaciously sticky.’

‘François stayed outside—between the plants—days—in Paris. Then he traveled among my clothes in a wheeled suitcase. Nobody noticed him. I took him to Spain on—train—then on the plane to Argentina. Not a single objection or worried look at the airports. Now he’s—on my—voodoo altar—next to—a jawless skull I found lying in the street in La Plata—I still don’t know what kind of bone François is—He’s broken at the ends—’

‘Heavy showers—ominous sky so gray it was almost white—came across it for the 1st time in—‘Perfume’ by Süskind—2nd time—sealed my infatuation with its fabulous rottenness—There’s no time—I have to get to—Cortázar—To one side—next to a withered bouquet of flowers—an old packet of Taragüi yerba mate. I hope no one takes Cortázar away from here; I hope the Argentine mania for exhumation doesn’t lead to his repatriation’

‘Heavy showers—ominous sky so gray it was almost white—came across it for the 1st time in—‘Perfume’ by Süskind—2nd time—sealed my infatuation with its fabulous rottenness—There’s no time—I have to get to—Cortázar—To one side—next to a withered bouquet of flowers—an old packet of Taragüi yerba mate. I hope no one takes Cortázar away from here; I hope the Argentine mania for exhumation doesn’t lead to his repatriation’

‘Malcolm McLaren (Sex Pistols) has the best epitaph: “Better a spectacular failure than a benign success—Nearby—Pat Kavanagh—who left her husband—Julian Barnes for Jeanette Winterson—then went back to him. Do they visit her together? Do they hate each other/even know each other? I have a hard time finding—Alan Sillitoe—I understand—the privilege of my life and the frivolity of my sadness. But I allow myself to feel—’

‘—sky—so blue—limpid—it makes you want to get on your knees and pray it stays this way—Highgate Cemetery—I understand my state of nostalgia perfectly—this trip is the end of my youth—And later—in the pub with Mary—all I could think about was—if that man came in—and said : “Oh I’ve read your stories” I’d be—leaving my life behind—a kind of fetish of another life—when options—possibilities existed that are gone today’

‘They sang about the greed of banks—about Patrick Bateman—pornography—Sylvia Plath—Van Gogh—J. G. Ballard—They educated me more than—school—first rock band Fidel Castro authorised to play on the island—I soon learned that “at night” was a lax—broad temporal marker—everything from sunset until well into the early morning—Trotting —behind Albertico, I soon came to the first grave he wanted to show me, Alejo Carpentier’

‘—didn’t want to go to Cuba for its beaches—or to see what the revolution wrought or—Playa Girón—didn’t go in search of—turquoise Caribbean—or —idea of a socialist paradise—or to confirm the—excellent or dismal functioning of the collective utopia. I went to see my favourite band: Manic Street Preachers. I spent all my savings—which wasn’t much. The Argentine economic crisis was heavy in the air—it was now or never.’

‘That Old Black Magic, sung by Frank Sinatra and—Ella Fitzgerald—about the black magic of love—sitting in the small entrance gallery, drinking what looks like iced tea but could also be whiskey—He doesn’t go in for any nonsense. “Well,” he says. “A person can be very unhappy in the prettiest place on earth, and he can be his happiest in some industrial suburb. Savannah is lovely, but we’ll see if it makes me happy.”’

‘—so many representations of death all together and all happy and I don’t care, I don’t care at all how touristy this encounter is—Over Skype, I show my figurines of the dead to my husband, in Buenos Aires. He tells me, “It’s your lost paradise. It’s your place in the world. You shouldn’t come back.” That’s a little much, but he gets me, he understands my happiness, the joy that runs through me—’