At the beginning of the holidays, I’d joined the local theatre troupe as the lone teenage member. I hadn’t acted in any plays yet, but the director had taken me on as his intern. I sat by his side, drinking in all I could during rehearsals for a scathing piece that exposed Argentina’s class system. When the lead actress didn’t show up for rehearsal one evening, I figured I’d have to wander the downtown streets until one in the morning, the time my mother was picking me up. My family had moved to the apartment complex on the Atomic Centre grounds, so I could no longer walk home. Just as I was about to head off, the troupe’s volunteer lighting designer called out to me. “Hey, Skinny, let’s go for coffee.” Over hot chocolate at the Saint Nicholas Café, Alejandro told me he was from Córdoba and had moved to Bariloche to work at a nuclear plant on the outskirts of town. He had done his military service during the double-whammy times: under the dictatorship and during the war with England.
