* * *
—
When he got to Buenos Aires, the city was as beautiful as Joachim remembered, and he still felt at home there, even after so long. He easily found the small, shabby apartment building where they had lived. He was shocked by how dreary it looked to him now. The neighborhood had gotten worse than he remembered. His mother had often pointed to the house she had grown up in. Other people had lived there for more than forty years now. It had been sold when her father died, right after the twins were born. It had changed hands several times with reversals in the lives of the owners, which had become run of the mill in Argentina. Many fortunes had been lost, and once very wealthy people had almost nothing now. Their exquisite homes had been sold, their French antiques filled the antique shops, and there were wonderful purchases to be had, which wealthy Americans and Europeans had known for a long time. Liese had only once pointed out the pretty house where she had lived with Joachim’s father before he died. She said it was too painful for her to talk about, so he knew very little of his father’s history, except that he had died in a riding accident, and his family had lost everything, and had all died shortly after he was born. Liese didn’t like to talk about the sad times in her life. She was private about them and was vague whenever he asked.
He walked all over Buenos Aires in the first few days he was there, soaking up the sounds and smells and familiar sights. Having lived in France for so long after he left, he realized now how French the architecture of Buenos Aires was. The wide boulevards, impressive buildings, small lovely parks, and famous plazas all looked similar to the landmarks of Paris he knew so well now. The Avenida de Mayo looked distinctly like Paris, and the Plaza de Mayo, with historic monuments. The Congreso de la Nación resembled the grandeur of the Paris opera house. He remembered the Plaza del Congreso from his youth, and the Casa Rosada, the pink palace of the presidential offices.
He sat in small parks, wandered through the barrios, and remembered his childhood on the streets where he and Javier had played. It was a trip back in time for him, full of sights he remembered, smells which jogged his memory, and familiar music. It was different now, seeing it as an adult, and a tourist. And everything he saw brought back tender memories.
Joachim contacted all the old friends he’d planned to in Buenos Aires. He hadn’t seen them since he’d left, and no one had heard from Javier in at least twenty years, or longer. Joachim and his twin had shared many of the same friends in their childhood, and it touched Joachim to see them again. But in his mid-teens, Javier had collected another group of friends, racier, tougher, from a different background. Joachim was told that his twin had gotten in trouble with them, once Joachim and their mother left. It was everyone’s opinion, among the people he spoke to, that Javier had disappeared into a dark underworld. Some of their old friends were outspoken, saying how dangerous his friends and connections were, and that many of them were suspected of being involved in the drug cartels of Colombia, once they were adults. They were a bad lot, and they suspected Javier had become one of them. Joachim believed that too and wondered if his twin might be dead by then. But he had a gut feeling that he wasn’t. Joachim knew no one in that world to contact.
An old friend of his who was high up in the police volunteered to do some investigating and told Joachim a few days later that a police contact he had called in Colombia said that they thought Javier was alive, and deeply embedded in a very dangerous network of drug dealers. It wasn’t reassuring to hear that, and the friend told Joachim to stay well away from his brother, that he might regret it if he finally reached him. In that world, family ties and loyalties by blood didn’t exist. Their only family was the group of highly dangerous men they worked with, and Joachim could be at risk, now that he was in Buenos Aires. Joachim had trouble believing that Javier would be a danger to him, but he had no way of reaching him anyway. The drug world was entirely removed from Joachim’s life, he had no access or connection to it, nor did his friends, who had grown up to be wholesome men.
He left Buenos Aires with regret after a week there. It was still a beautiful city and held a warm place in his heart and memory, but it wasn’t home anymore. He had ties to France because of his mother and had lived and worked in England for seventeen years. Buenos Aires was the home of his childhood, but he had left so long ago, he no longer had a strong bond there.