Farewell to Buenos Aires

A thin sun lights a damp autumnal San Martin. The lattice doors of the Palacio Haedo lift clang closed as we start our descent to a bustling Av Santa Fe. Raul looks pensive.

"If you have forgotten anything, James, I will send it on to London", he says, more to fill the silence than to declare an intention. He knows that, in one leather bag, I have everything that I brought to Buenos Aires. And in his heart he knows too that I have left behind the thing most precious to me. He sees my strained, creased face, and feels my loss - a bereavement that goes down to the soul. 

As the lift clatters to a halt on the ground floor, Cleo, Raul's black cat, crosses purposefully on her way to the palacio kitchens. Horacio's eyes leave the flickering television in the attendant's lodge and he leaps up, rushing into the entrance hall. "Senor Bond, I going to miss you", he stutters with emotion, waiting for his hug.

A black and yellow radio taxi is standing in the street, its driver re-reading the news in Clarin. Raul opens the rear nearside door. "Have a good flight, James, and stay in touch won't you". There is another moment of silence before he adds, "you are the last of the old guard". A sweep of the second hand pushes time and urges the moment of parting.

And away, threading the morning traffic, the taxi windows wide open to admit the breeze bearing last early autumn scents of the barrio, then heading to the raised carriageway of Av 25 de Mayo that will zip out to Airport Ezeize - and beyond, over an Atlantic night, to a Heathrow dawn.

Farewells are bitter-sweet. The intrinsic sadness of leaving friends and familiarity is tempered by melancholy. Thoughts and feelings heighten, and I grasp for final memories. There remains but a glance across the roof tops of the city, and back - before the present unveils the changing picture of life's new challenges.