Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires is an offstage but consequential location in Alice Gould’s account of her disappearance from ordinary life. She says she came to investigate a possibly forged will, and later learns that her husband, Heliodoro Almenara, is in the same city. The place links her stated investigative purpose to the personal separation that weighs on her, while the failed attempts at communication leave the connection unresolved.

The Intended Investigation

Alice tells the doctors that her serious mistake was telling Heliodoro she had to conduct an investigation in Buenos Aires concerning a will that was probably forged. Her explanation establishes the city as the destination associated with her assignment, not as a place the narrative depicts directly. The qualification matters: she describes the will as probably forged, presenting the inquiry as an investigation of a suspected deception rather than a proven crime.

Distance and Failed Communication

At the doctors’ meeting, Alice says Heliodoro does not know where she is and that she cannot contact him. None of the letters she has written has reached its destination. She fears he will think she has abandoned him and imagines that, anxious at her silence, he may be searching for her across America. Buenos Aires thus sits within a wider geography of separation: the city is tied to the journey she said she was making, while her actual whereabouts remain unknown to her husband.

The Recorded Message

Later, Dolores Bernardos tells Alice that Heliodoro is in Buenos Aires. When Alice asks about the explanation given at home, she reports receiving a recorded message that repeatedly says he is traveling there and invites callers to dictate a communication after the signal, allowing one minute. The message offers a location but no personal contact; its repeated, automated wording sharpens the contrast between the certainty of the announcement and Alice’s continuing inability to reach her husband.