Restoring Power

Life got real this week. It started with a burglary. Marisa and I had our bags snatched. The contents of my bag included a water bottle, a used handkerchief, 2 maps, the keys to our apartment, money, and my journal. The journal was my greatest personal loss. It included writing and sketches from the last two years as well as sentimental notes, love letters, and an assortment of fortune cookie fortunes. It has taken several days of self-imposed house arrest to recover from this shock. 

A thought from my new journal

It was also unfortunate that the keys to our apartment were taken, not because I fear being robbed again--the bags contained no information as to our local address, but because after the robbery it was difficult to actually get back into the apartment. We had an extra set of keys but they were inside the apartment and the only other set that existed were with the cleaning lady. 

This propelled us to involve our building's custodian who phoned our landlady. She asked the cleaning lady to send the key over to us with a driver and the custodian lent us money so we could pay the driver for his service. We promptly repaid the custodian and Marisa also gave him a generous tip for all his help.

Though the worst was over, we had more challenges ahead. A few days later, I bumped into the custodian as I came home from the grocery store. He was more affable than usual. As I went toward the elevator, he followed and opened the door, even pressing the button to my floor. I thought it odd, but went up and began preparing dinner. 

The buzzer went off and it was the custodian signaling me to pick up the phone. He said he needed to speak to me and that I should go to his apartment. With misgivings, I went. He explained that he had been robbed and that he needed me to lend him 100 pesos (US$25) until next Monday. I truthfully told him that I didn’t have that much. I hadn’t been to the bank since the robbery.

I hoped that he would not repeat his request. However, the next morning he buzzed me again and asked if I now had the money to lend him. I told him no. I felt conflicted because he had lent us 60 pesos for about 15 minutes between the time we had received the key from the driver and gone to to our apartment to retrieve the money. We had no other option. But, he is from Buenos Aires. Shouldn’t he have other people he could borrow money from? 

In the meantime, our electricity went out. I thought it was a temporary outage, so I stayed in the apartment until Marisa got home from class. When she found out that the custodian had asked me for money a second time, she said that we needed to talk to him straight away. She looked up the Spanish translation for what she wanted to say and marched down to his apartment. I nervously followed. She explained to him clearly that she was very sorry but we would not be giving him anymore money. Then we added that our power was out. 

Despite an awkward silence, he came to our apartment to see what was wrong with the electricity. He fiddled around with a light switch and then asked if we had contacted our landlady and went away. I called her and told her the whole situation and explained that the custodian had been up in the apartment but there seemed to be nothing he could do.

She said I should go ask an electrician to come take a look, so off I went in search of one. After explaining the problem to a friendly man at the hardware store, he said that he could come but this was a problem for the custodian to fix. I called the landlady back and informed her of what I had learned. She said she would take care of everything.

By the evening, we still had not heard anything from her and there was still no electricity--no light, no AC, no hot water, no internet, no TV. We ate empanadas from the corner bakery by candlelight and went to bed early. 

The next morning I marched back to the electrician and asked him to please come by and fix the electricity. He said that he could come that afternoon, but I would need to contact the custodian to let him into the basement. So back home, I again contacted the custodian. He asked me to come to his apartment and then asked why we were angry with him. I explained that I had no problem with him whatsoever. He said that we didn’t need an electrician and that he could fix the problem. Besides, he would not be in the building at the time the electrician said he could come by. He had wanted me to call the landlady the day before to work out the payment for his restoring the power. I explained that I was not angry and that when he had asked if we had called our landlady and then left, I had assumed he could not fix the problem.

So again, I called the landlady and asked her to work out the payment. Less than ten minutes later there was a knock on the door and the custodian was there with his tools and a can-do look. He unscrewed the fuse box, readjusted some wires and presto, power was restored. I called the landlady and informed her of the repairs. Before hanging up I put her on the phone with the custodian so they could work out the payment directly.

Yesterday, Marisa and I made a new copy of our key to replace the one that had been stolen. It took two trips to get the key cut correctly, but we persisted. We then made a visit to the Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires. We were in need of something beautiful and it did not disappoint. Our favorite was a series of photomontages by Grete Stern titled “The Dreams.” Her work depicted women up against difficult situations--big waves, locked doors, desolate wilderness. The women appear calm, strong, and undaunted. 

I returned home feeling restored. The anxiety of the week was mitigated. I felt like cooking. I chopped vegetables and boiled them into a rich soup. I ate until I was full and then fell into a deep sleep.