Maman, which is how my Mother liked to be called, had the most wonderful quality about her~ she could laugh at herself. This came in useful when she moved about in the social life of the times in Buenos Aires going out as she did with her Porteño husband to every cocktail, tea, and dinner party, to every asado or barbecue, kermesse, gallery opening, polo match, rugby match, guitar recital, private party, and to the parent school days at Saint George’s in Quilmes.
She had only been in Buenos Aires for a few months when at a dinner party attended by distinguished guests in the heart of the Barrio Norte of Buenos Aires on a magical evening in the grandest dining room of one of the largest petit-hotels in the neighborhood, and with every important name in Argentine society represented, Maman made one of her famous memorable debut remarks in Spanish. One of those remarks that made sense only if you speak English and can guess at the words.
~Absolutely everyone was there, she told me at tea the next day, and I mean everyone. She went through the list of names~ Argerich, Zuberbuhler, Bullrich, Perralta- Ramos, Duhau, Onassis, Constantini, Galvalise, Brown, Peña, Navajas, Gurevich, and so on…and you know how the Argentines loooove to talk, she said to begin the tale of the immense faux-pas.
~We were standing during drinks forever! It was quite a crowd.
They sat down to dinner at a very long table after hours of cocktails and it was about eleven by then, and it was a warm evening. No one had air conditioning in their homes in Argentina, and the seasons were all much warmer than in the Northern Hemisphere.
Always able to chatter with skill Maman was limited by only her newly acquired Spanish in table talk, and although she studied with a tutor every day, she was not yet quite at the conversational level. Nevertheless, always practicing her manners, she turned to the man seated on her right, and asked him if he didn’t think she was very hot?
~ No le parece a Usted que soy muy caliente?
Everyone heard this remark, and the whole table fell silent. People put down their knives and forks and their glasses of wine and turned their heads to stare at her.
~Tesoro, Audrey my dear, her husband declared from across the table, I am sure that is not what you meant to say, is it Dear?
Maman told me she giggled and said ~ Well I don’t know. I was trying to say Don’t you find it terribly hot in here?
Instead, people said, she had asked her dinner companion a different question.
~ Don’t you find me very hot?
Everyone laughed and there ensued a lively conversation about the hilarious mishaps of translating Spanish and English directly using words that are false friends, and Maman found ~Enter no more and eat a chair~ to be her favorite example she could remember of how things can go wrong and as a transfer of Pase nomás y tóme asiento. There was even a champagne toast along with dessert to her for her valiant efforts at speaking Spanish, which for an American was commendable she heard, as most people didn’t bother to learn. Argentine Spanish isn’t so easy she confided in me. And at her age!
~ Well then everyone laughed, and I laughed she said gleefully, until tears rolled down my face.
~ And Papa? I asked. Did he laugh?
~Well he did laugh too when the table exploded with laughter, only afterwards in the car on the way home he gave me a stern lecture about grammar and Castillian Spanish and ignorant Americans and not appearing to be a crass American and embarrass him in his own town, and proper etiquette which he knows nothing about in Argentina or elsewhere, and he plans to hire another tutor just for conversation as he thinks Nora isn’t good enough.
~Nora isn’t good enough! She’s the best tutor you could have! He can’t fire her now!
~ I know. I will handle it, she said, in her slightly giddy voice.
~How? What will you do? He can’t be convinced of anything ever.
~Oh, I don’t know Mignon, she said sternly, and then smiled radiantly.
~ I’ll think about it tomorrow.
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Photograph : Horacio Coppola, Plaza San Martin 1936
From the book Buenos Aires, Coppola y Zuviría, Ediciones Lariviere