shared with Mary Kodama endless hours of friendship and endless hours of conversation about books that each of them makes a habit of going to often. Re-readings, nuances left behind by years, mishaps of fortune. For several years, when we lived in Buenos Aires, we shared a coffee every Thursday after lunch. That meeting had a ritual: the same time, the same place, variations on the same themes, the same type of coffee at Recoleta. Gradually, I discovered some of its habits that imitate Japanese discipline and ancient traditions. He would reread Greek tragedies every night and then answer the phone from two to three in the morning. This was the time he devoted to his friends. I know it’s identified with titanium, and it wasn’t a coincidence. In appearance it turned out to be fragile, durable, cold-blooded, just like the element titanium, which is almost indestructible with little weight. She was an upright, graceful, determined woman with iron logic, a controversial woman who could not always be shared but the product of much thought. He avoided comfort and clung to the care of the memory of Jorge Luis Borges to the end.
I was lucky that he trusted me for a few projects. We opened the Jorge Luis Borges Chair together in San Luis, and when I invited him he also came to the opening of the Law and Literature Chair at the Universidad Nacional del Litoral in Santa Fe. I interviewed him extensively for SureS, the publication I’ve been directing in Tangier in recent years. The last activity I did with him was the Borges and Morocco conference held at the Argentine Embassy from Rabat in 2021. On this road we set out with him, I learned about his belief in destiny, that is, what we call a letter. When projects got complicated and I was impatient with the urge to shut things down, he told me condescendingly and affectionately that we had to overcome all these challenges if what was done was going to come out, and if it wasn’t, which I didn’t have to come out. Gradually, I learned directly from many memories of Borges, of travel anecdotes (like meeting Mick Jagger in Madrid and admitting to the surprise of Mick Jagger that he had read all of his books and invited them to the concert). ), admiration and love for what he calls “Borges’ third eye”; that unique, unrepeatable and non-transferable way of perceiving the world. For example, when I was talking about some of his texts, I now remember some of the Arabian Nights and I would ask in amazement and admiration how he could have seen these stories so deeply without knowing Arabic. Then he answered: the third eye he has, the cyclops. He said that when Borges dictated to him, he closed his blind eyes, as if not seeing was not enough, and that he had to dig much deeper within himself to get his words out. Perhaps this repeated image brought to mind the metaphor of the third eye.
after the egyptian teacher
One thing I shared with him was to call the Egyptian who taught Borges Arabic before his death. While they were in Geneva during Borges’ illness, Kodama saw an advertisement for an Arabic teacher in a newspaper. She called him without saying who the lessons would be for. When the Alexandrian little and skinny professor—as he described to me—recognized Borges, whose work he had read, he didn’t want to blame him. It was clear that Borges knew he was not going to learn Arabic. But he confessed to the teacher that he was working not for mastery, but for the adventure of study. Like Kodama, he was active and sane to the end. I have always loved to see an echo in this Borgesian movement of Socrates, before he smoked hemlock in prison, playing a flute melody to the laughter of the guards who did not understand the enormity of this attitude: learning without seeking profitability. Kodama talked about learning at age 80. That was the case in Japan. Something I shared with him was to call the Egyptian who taught Borges Arabic before he died. While they were in Geneva during Borges’ illness, Kodama saw an advertisement for an Arabic teacher in a newspaper. She called him without saying who the lessons would be for. When the Alexandrian little and skinny professor—as he described to me—recognized Borges, whose work he had read, he didn’t want to blame him. It was clear that Borges knew he was not going to learn Arabic. But he confessed to the teacher that he was working not for mastery, but for the adventure of study. Like Kodama, he was active and sane to the end. I have always loved to see an echo in this Borgesian movement of Socrates, before he smoked hemlock in prison, playing a flute melody to the laughter of the guards who did not understand the enormity of this attitude: learning without seeking profitability. Kodama talked about learning at age 80. It was like that in Japan.
He said I shared his efforts to search for the Egyptian professor because, with the disaster of Borges’ death for Kodama, this man had secretly disappeared without leaving his name, address or phone number. Years later, Kodama didn’t forget him and called him to thank him. I called Egyptian friends looking for their friends in Switzerland. It was only possible to find out once that a man went to the Instituto Cervantes in Cairo to commemorate Borges and told the director that he lived in Switzerland, that he was Borges’ professor, and that he had visited Egypt. He also didn’t leave a name or address.
Beauty and art lesson
But the rose he wanted to save was from a day before the Samothrace Victory when they went to the Louvre and they were both emotional. Borges recalled an anecdote from Kodama’s father: when he was 5 years old, he asked her what beauty was; The next weekend she brought him an art book, opened it, and showed him a sculpture. Samothrace Victory. The Kodama girl said, “But he has no head!” she cried. His father motioned for him to look at the folds of the robe. They were stirred by the sea breeze. To stop the sea breeze forever in the movement of the tunic folds, that was the beauty. All his life he asked his father to repeat the explanation because he wanted to keep in mind the aesthetic lesson his father had given him and, as he confessed to me years later, allowed him to merge with his beloved.
In Swords, a poem from La rosa profunda, Borges says that the only memory is the memory of the verse. He once dedicated this verse to María Kodama: “For the Venice of glass and twilight…”.
Ulrica entered the Great Sea with Javier Otálora. And they are not afraid. And what a castle.