Purgatory

Notes

1 kaffeklubben: a remote island near Greenland.

2 Rand McNally cylindrical projections: the ‘standard’ map of the world in which meridians are mapped to equally spaced vertical lines and circles of latitude are mapped to horizontal lines.

3 Almendra: probably the most famous 1960s and 70s Argentinian rock band.

4 Taoist encyclopedia: A description of Pangu, the first living being in Taoism. The Mundaka Upanishad describes him: ‘This is the universal Self, the Virat; his head is the shining region of the heavens; his eyes are the sun and the moon; his ears are the quarters of space, his speech is the Veda full of knowledge; his vital energy is the universal air; the whole universe is his heart; his feet are the lowest earth.’ When Pangu died, his breath became the wind and clouds, his voice the rolling thunder, and his eyes the sun and the moon. His hair and beard became the stars in the sky, his skin the flowers and trees, the marrow in his bones became jade and pearls, and his sweat the good rain that nurtured the earth.

5 How ‘came I in’?: from Ezra Pound: ‘The Tomb At Akr Çaar’ (Faber, 1955).

6 brainless burlesque dancer: Bataclana (a stripper) — María Estela (Isabelita) Martínez de Perón was a nightclub dancer before she married. General Perón. She took power as acting president after his death and was deposed in the coup of 1976.

7 Raya morada: this may refer to the Franja Morada — a university-based political movement in Argentina.

8 ‘El discurso de Ayacucho’: A piece of patriotic rhetoric routinely learned by school children, written by Leopoldo Lugones (1874–1738).

9 Caracazo (or Sacudón): the name given to the wave of protests, riots and looting and ensuing massacre that occurred on 27 February 1989 in the Venezuelan capital Caracas and surrounding towns. The riots — the worst in Venezuelan history — resulted in a death toll of anywhere between 275 and 3,000 people.

10 Valle de la Luna: Ischigualasto is a geological formation and a natural park associated with it in the province of San Juan, north-western Argentina.

11 I want everyone to know: lines from a poem by Julia Prilutzky called ‘Quiero Llevar Tu Sello’.

12 Montoneros (Movimiento Perónista Montonero): an Argentine Perónist urban guerrilla group, active during the 1960s and 70s.

13 People’s Revolutionary Army: Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (ERP).

14 Tiempo de revancha (1981) is a serious, sober film directed by Adolfo Aristarain about the price of remaining silent during the Dirty War; La fiesta de todos, a short documentary directed by Sergio Renán, is a piece of blatant propaganda funded by Videla to hide the ‘disappearances’ by depicting Argentina as a paradise during the 1978 Football World Cup.

15 Diario del Juicio: the testimony given at the 1985 Trial of the Juntas/Juicio a las Juntas, collected daily and published in newspaper form as El Diario del Juicio (‘The Newspaper of the Trial’) by Editorial Perfil, currently republished online at http://eldiariodeljuicio.perfil.com.

16 a book by Donald Rayfield: Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him (Random House, 2005).

17 the annoying gaggle of women: the ‘Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo’ who for years campaigned about Argentina’s disappearance.

18 ‘Hail Mary, most pure’: Ave María purísima is said in the confessional to the priest and is the equivalent of ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned’; the priest’s response being ‘sin pecado concebida’.

19 José María Muñoz, the commentator for the 1978 World Cup.

20 Horangel: famous Argentine astrologer.

21 ‘Hear, mortals, the sacred cry!’: the first line of the national anthem.

22 Carmona: a character in Martínez’s novel La mano del amo (1983).

23 ‘La hermanita perdida’ (‘Little Lost Sister’): a poem (later a song) about the Malvinas/Falklands War.

24 Señor Ga: a character in Macedonio Fernández’s very short fable, ‘Un paciente en disminución’.

25 The house on the corner. : these lines are from a poem by Juan Gelman, ‘La casa de la esquina ya no es un río ni llora’.