As I crossed plaza Constitución, I remembered a play M once told me about. In it, several characters were played by the same person, as was the case with Sito. It was a piece of Yiddish theater, in which one actor was sufficient to play several non-Jewish characters. Through this unique convention, they demonstrated the secondary nature of the Gentile world and also expressed a sense of superiority; or else it was a form of disdain, or a simple instance of symbolic justice. A certain young lady is promised to a man who is about to arrive in Argentina from Europe; Rosenfeld is from the same town in Galizia as the young woman’s father, named Rosemberg. Because everyone attests to his seriousness, and because the parents respect the savings with which, according to several acquaintances, Rosenfeld will be arriving after many years of work in Vienna, the marriage had been arranged months earlier. The girl expresses her enthusiasm with anxiousness and surrender. Rather than feeling unlucky at the thought of the difficult work of maintaining a home and the imminent daze of becoming a mother, it would have the virtue of keeping her from the difficult passage through adolescence, tedious years in which time seemed to have no meaning and days floated by in pure nothingness.

But Rosenfeld, as soon as he appears, sows the seeds of a vague disquiet: two neighbors, Leike Rosenstein and Jaike Rosenbaum, comment secretly after seeing him pass that he has arrived from Europe after becoming a widower with no descendants — to all appearances, because of his own incapacity. As is well known, to arrange a marriage without being able to have children is to condemn the woman to the greatest misfortune. Raquel receives her betrothed with shyness and affection: her eyes sparkle more than usual, and her lips take the shape of a suppressed kiss. The father, Rosemberg, embraces Rosenfeld as though he were already his son, though in the play he is only five years older (in reality, the actor Rosenfeld is noticeably older than the actor Rosemberg). Behind Rosemberg’s affability, one can sense a deference to power, in this case to wealth, that he cannot contain. For his part, Rosenfeld behaves like someone aware of his own importance: he raises his voice without discretion, he addresses recent acquaintances with excessive familiarity (though it would be fair to say that these people feel flattered, and in some way protected, by Rosenfeld’s friendship), he demands details about the community and flaunts his worldliness, alluding constantly to Viennese customs. It is true that the many references to Vienna unsettle Rosemberg: more than the Parisians, who are already completely foreign to the restricted world of a Jew from the East, the Jews of Vienna embodied the height of assimilation and the loss of tradition. At the same time, it is also true that, for a poor Galizian family living in a tenement in Villa Crespo, hearing of Viennese customs meant glimpsing a part of Buenos Aires that they had just barely seen, only more.

The marriage ceremony was set for a few days later. As a sign of the change underway, one night the manager of the tenement comes to collect the rent and is surprised by the way Rosemberg pays him without curses or complaints. Raquel grows happier and more beautiful by the day, and is gradually making progress as she is instructed in the work of her mother; she is already able to prepare the most elaborate meals on her own, including the confections. Meanwhile, Rosenfeld entertains advice regarding possible investments of his money: certain friends recommend trade, others, industry. His interest in this stands in contrast to the indifference, even rudeness, with which he receives the wistful comments of his future father-in-law, who lists possible names for his grandchildren, acts out the games and sings the songs that he will teach them, and happily thanks God that they will not experience the privation his own family did. The audience also notices the haughtiness with which Rosenfeld treats Raquel, as though she were soon to be his property. He is satisfied with the quick sympathy felt toward any girl, and with his control over even the smallest — though for this reason, highly significant — details, but never displays the typical affect one feels toward one’s betrothed. In these moments, Raquel’s bitter, suppressed gestures disclose her melancholy premonitions. Of all social climbers, Rosenfeld is the worst sort because he is rich, though no one is able to pinpoint the source of their aversion and all see wealth as a virtue.

During the preparations for the ceremony, Rosenblum, a young baker from the market on calle Uriarte whom Rosenfeld contracted to prepare the food, on Rosemberg’s recommendation, appears. He is shown calculating the budget, indignantly defending his merchandise, being moved by Raquel’s innocence, and wishing happy tidings upon the couple. Rosenblum is endowed with many virtues: he is honorable, hardworking, observant of tradition; he even breaks out into irrepressible bouts of lyricism. Thanks to his songs, the members of the family are able to temporarily forget the vague sense of anxiety that is slowly taking them over, and they begin to dance. Yet Rosenfeld is blind to all this; toward Rosenblum he feels only disdain, for his poverty, and suspicion, for his goodness. A series of increasingly unusual events takes place, designed to add to the disquiet; even Raquel, at first so vivacious, charming, and happy, is now — like a defenseless animal that senses great danger in the slightest movement — unable to react even to the simplest of questions, bursting into tears for no reason at all. As a counterpoint, Rosenfeld, completely self-possessed, displays his bounty of ire and arrogance as though he owned everything and everyone there. An example: Rosemberg does not dare to come to the defense of his wife when Rosenfeld insults her cooking, dumping the contents of his plate onto the tablecloth. Raquel, also at the table, looks down and silently cries.

The day of the ceremony, one sees only forced gestures. The threat is palpable, though no one is able to latch on to it and bring it out into the open. The syndrome that has infected the actors, the raising of one hand compulsively to tug at their left eyelid, is an indication of the spiritual chaos that dominates the characters: it is a confusion that can only really express itself through something as mechanical and immaterial as a tic. Eventually, after marches and countermarches, after impossible preparations and essential things forgotten, the moment of the ceremony arrives. Proof that something is not right appears in this moment: there is a stranger among the guests, somebody that everyone asks about, everyone but Rosenfeld, who knows him and watches him with animosity. He is aware that he cannot be the one to let loose the storm and that, in any event, he lacks the upper hand, so he remains silent. The guests try to act as though it were just another marriage ceremony, which does little to justify the martial movements of the actors. The air is filled with forced laughter, with repeated jokes, with sorrowful silences. Finally, at the climax of the ceremony, when Raquel and Rosenfeld are about to exchange rings, the stranger steps forward and, begging the guests’ pardon, says that he knows Rosenfeld and asks God not to allow their marriage. He, Rosenthal, the person on whom all eyes were set at the moment, had been the man’s father-in-law for many years, fifteen, until his daughter died without any descendents despite having been a healthy woman. Rosenfeld was not able to father a child, he was certain of it. With these words, Rosenthal would produce an unexpected stir, no less real for being spontaneous. Jaike and Leike began to whisper, as did their spouses. Raquel threw herself into her mother’s arms; Rosenblum stood paralyzed, with a tray on his arm; Rosemberg began to sweat; and Rosenfeld turned, screaming, toward Rosenthal, overcome with rage. My darling daughter visited doctors and rabbis, and all of them assured her that there was nothing keeping her from having a child, but that man never agreed to see anyone about it, Rosenthal accused, pointing his finger.