Hey! Wait a minute! "I'm not a tourist, I live here!"

      Not only people talk. So do walls. At least in Buenos Aires. There I was rambling around the city, wondering how the financial crisis would be resolved, letting my imagination run free, stumbling over those bricks and stones that the mayor’s workmen leave everywhere, thinking how nice it would be to be in love again, and lots of other contemporary deliberations, when whack! I practically ran into the wall.

     "I’m not a tourist, I live here!"

     I looked around in complete surprise but could find not a soul in sight--except an all red figure painted on the wall. My shrink gave me the walking papers some years ago, saying she could no longer deal with my obsessions, one of them being this feeling that someone is always there, like a shadow, following, spying, wanting to know everything, the most insignificant detail of my miserable existence--and also perturbed and unable to cope with my fits of imagination. All that just as preface. I heard that voice. I’m positive. That’s why I approached and said:

    "Pardon me, I’m not a tourist either. I live here, well, near here."

    "Really? Well, in that case..."

     The door opened at the precise place where the letters "here" appeared. For several minutes I could see nothing, as the darkness contrasted so strongly with the summer sun blazing outside on the street. A chant or chorus greeted me from some unknown location, filling me with the most exotic sensations. It was at the same time like those chants that the first Christians must have made in the catacombs and like the laments I once heard in an indigenous village in northern Argentina. Now my eyes seemed to adjust themselves better and I could make out the silhouette of my host.

     "Are you a believer?" he asked, taking my arm and leading me to a sofa chair.

    "I don’t know...I just was walking...nothing much to do...thinking about things...and saw the sign outside."

    "You haven’t answered my question."

     "You can’t just ask if someone is a believer. You have to ask if he believes in the Church, in God, in free enterprize..."

     "You are evading."

     "I am not! I am being perfectly reasonable. You have no right to get steamed up. Remember: I am your guest."

     "Precisely. The host calls the cards, asks the questions, establishes the conditions."

     There was a prolonged silence. What could I have said? Who was this guy? Was I in danger? Why in the Hell had I allowed myself to step into this crazy adventure? How was I going to get out of this? Suddenly I realized that--once again--I had arrived at a decisime moment in my life, a moment when the wrong decision could send me to Hell and the right one could get me out of this quickly and allow me to enjoy reading the morning newspaper in that neighborhood bar...