El Chato Matta came to the restaurant for a chicken dip with sweetbreads, little hearts and yellow potatoes. He also ordered a jug of emollient with linseed and horsetail for thirst. “María, as Christmas approaches, I cannot deny that nostalgia invades me. I remember that at that time she spent time with Anita, my youthful love from Nueva Esperanza, in Villa María. Years go by and these days are sad for me now, because Anita is no longer with us and I was left alone because I was a womanizer. Our relationship, of more than three years, went through stormy and warm moments like all those of our youth. I remember that together we saw Pope John Paul II at the Jockey Club, in a fiery February of 1985.
SIGHT: Take care of your life
As always, sometimes one ended for nonsense. Later I received a letter from him delivered by our ‘mail’, my smartphone from those stone times, the lady who sold sweets and cigarettes at the door where we studied. I would go to an empty room, because there was the ‘crazy’ Elizabeth, who was bent on destroying my relationship. She had become obsessed with this little chat. What I read made my eyes water: ‘When I lost you / you and I have lost: / Me because you were / what I loved the most, / and you because I was / the one who loved you the most, / but of the two of us / you lose more than me: / Because I will be able to love others / as I loved you, / but they will not love you as I loved you…’. ‘Chato -she confessed to me-, I did not write it, but the poet Ernesto Cardenal, but I feel that it came from my heart.’ María, I swear I ran out to look for Anita.
She was happily sitting on a bench, reading an offprint. I ran, knelt down and with red eyes I implored him: ‘Forgive meeee, I don’t deserve you!’ As always, she hugged me and kissed me and we went out into the street, away from gossiping and envious glances at our reconciliation. But around that time Pancholón appeared, who lived the crazy life. He was with some brunettes from Condevilla and was the king of the ‘Máquina del Sabor’. ‘Chato, don’t be healthy, what are you doing attached to that skinny girl, I have two dancing sisters who are forward, one is for you…’. I never imagined that this exit would spell my downfall. The ‘crazy’ Elizabeth took pictures of me and went with them to Anita’s.
I lost a great woman because of my bad head and Pancholón’s advice. Our paths, as the Argentine Jorge Luis Borges would say, forked. She and I married other people, we had children, we separated and then we met again, much more mature. He called her ‘young lady’, because she never lost that innocent smile. She was always a woman of integrity. She advised me and when we began to rebuild a great friendship, I again began with my ‘scratches’ of crazy misguided and we separated again. I went to the hospital when she was already in intensive care and I couldn’t say goodbye to her.” Wow, that Chato, for following the advice of the filthy and shameless Pancholón, lost a good woman. I’m leaving, take care.
