RadioProfile | Stanislaus, the “Russian”

In the south of the Flores neighborhood, all the resilience of immigrants in the eyes of a child, and in a smile that translates sadness; an enduring friendship that never knew of different origins or provenances.

Estanislao his name, a relic of the last batch of immigrants, prior to the Second War, whose parents found a precarious refuge, roof and bread, in the city that had received the impulse and the crisis of the first conflagration, that one, which had been called “the last war”

They settled in one of those houses with apartments with a long and narrow corridor, almost endless, with doors on only one side, which replaced the tenements of the first half of the century. An important mass of Poles, Estonians and Lithuanians, who arrived mixed with Calabrians, Sicilians, Galicians and Turks.

Those from the center of Europe, and much more if they were Jews, directed their desires towards education and a university degree for their children. They immediately adhered to that complement of republican liberties that had just begun in our country. Estanislao must be, like so many others, “the russian”, in the corner bar.

Contrary to custom, he barely passed seven grades of elementary school and stubbornly refused any other type of education. Not to mention a possible tertiary level career. He chose freedom, the dawn of the pastures of Soldati and Lugano, the “vagabundias” of Puerto Madero and the escapades to where, then, the Costanera Norte and the Fishermen’s Club were being built, in a tenacious fight against the marshes. Núñez and Rivadavia Station.

Estanislao, as impervious to football as he was to studying, chose fresh air and a broad horizon. Sometimes I would call him “Russy”, and then I would get a smile from him, which in truth many years later I was able to decipher in all his anguish.

A ghetto sadness, persecution and needs, leading to successive sacrifices, seemed to take over his face when he remained silent. Refugee in my solitudes of strike and cane, to imitate Güiraldes a bit, I then remained oblivious to the drama that hung over the old world and from which, farsighted, Estanislao’s parents had escaped for a while. We didn’t make good friends. The overcoat, which ended up threadbare, was one of the first gifts I gave him. I never forget.

The overcoat and visor cap, a true symbol, that appeared on Sunday mornings on the corner of Avenida Caseros and José Mármol. The outfit allowed me to verify his punctuality from the balcony of my house. It always came on time; I crept into the kitchen and there we enjoyed a café con leche with raw ham sandwiches, an unforgettable work of my dear grandmother. Later, always in silence, we went down the stairs to the cold and loneliness of the walk to Boedo, to take the 55 tram, heading to Retiro and the stone breakwater of Dock “F”.

Then I stretched out my lines when the sun had already risen and my fingers, a little less numb, allowed me to embody the string of twenty white, paddle hooks, whose knot I learned watching the fishermen of La Boca, it was one of my pride .

At that time the Dock was empty. She had no use, except to house the seaplanes of the then CAUSA, or Compañía Argentino-Uruguaya de Servicios Aéreos. There we fished for silversides when there was pike. In summer we used to go to the Italo boardwalk, facing the open river; On the other hand, fishing in the incipient Costanera was more sheltered, and we reserved it for the icy days of July and August.

The “Russian” was a great comrade but certainly sparing. I matched his pace to mine, light from the anxiety of reaching the chosen site before other fishing enthusiasts, and they followed my lucubrations, speeches, and promises of adventures, still enviable in Salgari’s mind. Each ship name was then an invitation. Estanislao listened to me and I clearly remember his eyes sparkling with astonishment at the ferocious deeds of which he believed me, I am sure, a worthy recipient.

He, who was, in a certain way, the product of dark persecutions and endless exoduses, admired the saber and spear attacks that, I told him, were marking our slow march towards coming of age as a nation. He was amazed by my stories and my memory while, mate in hand, we waited for the moment to raise the hooks. This is how I was teaching him the different phases of that pillaging of the river; including clearing, scaling, evisceration and subsequent cooking in the pan.

At that time, the National College arrived for me and for him, the counter of a store, where his father got him a job. Sundays, however, for a long time they remained ours.

Then we stopped seeing each other for years and years, and through a common friend, I learned that he reached a good level in business, and that he always remembered fishing and my friendship, as well as his smile, which I valued and longed for later. He must have conquered certain happiness, in his own way, like everyone else. For my part, I keep that face and rescue that attitude, as a constant recovery of life.

Even today, when they talk to me about conflicts, wars and misery, Estanislao is an almost infallible resource for all those unanswered questions.

Text by Rodolfo A. Perri.

by Juan Ferrari