Imagining Argentina

Martín Benn is a secondary character and the novel’s primary narrator. Martín first meets the Ruedas through his position at La Opinion, where Cecilia has recently been hired. When Martín later meets Carlos at a small Italian restaurant, they immediately develop a keen, poignant relationship. In many ways, Martín serves as Carlos’s foil: Martín is old, while Carlos is young; Martín is naturally skeptical, while Carlos opens himself to new possibilities; Martín works as a journalist, while Carlos devotes his life to the theater.

However, despite these differences, Martín is almost immediately drawn to Carlos’s enthusiasm—helped, in part, by Carlos’s resemblance to Martín’s departed son, Tomas. As the novel continues, Martín will become Carlos’s closest confidante, sharing his grief over Cecilia and attending his many garden sessions. Teresa, too, comes to rely on Martín’s constancy, referring to him as “Uncle Martín” and arguing that she’d feel “safer, more secure” (56) with Martín nearby. 

However, despite their closeness, Martín and Carlos sometimes struggle to share a similar perspective. For instance, Martín, a seasoned skeptic, vacillates in his estimation of Carlos’s gift. Sometimes, Martín embraces a “deviation from reality” (35) and credits Carlos with “a power to enter other places” (186). At other times, he admits that he has “no idea what was going on in Carlos’ mind” (51) and skeptically considers Carlos’s career as a playwright as the source of his storytelling power in his visions. Most notably, Martín maintains that Cecilia is dead, while Carlos still hopes for her return. Confident in his logic, Martín hopes that Carlos can “let himself give up” (66). 

However, Martín is nevertheless ecstatic to hear of Cecilia’s return, marveling as “life and fiction take each other by the hand and dance” (206). As Carlos recounts his experience at La Boca, Martín grows comfortable with such cognitive dissonance, allowing that truth and magic, and life and fiction, can exist side-by-side. He regrets, too, that his own reservations had prevented him from joining Carlos at the Carnival. As the novel closes, Martín joins the Ruedas at the generals’ trial, similarly committed to “Nunca Mas” and Memory and Imagination as Resistance.

Cecilia Rueda, a secondary character, is Carlos’s wife, whose disappearance marks the onset of the novel’s central plot. Cecilia is physically beautiful, with dark brown hair, blue eyes, and an attractive, engaging smile. In the novel’s beginning, prior to her disappearance, Cecilia is hired as a journalist at La Opinión, working alongside Martín. Martín and Cecilia quickly establish a friendship, with their relationship shaped by Martín’s support and mentorship: Martín, recognizing Cecilia’s skills, defends her against his colleagues’ skepticism. It’s through Cecilia that Martín originally meets Carlos.

At first, Cecilia’s gender and relative youth inspire ill-will amongst male coworkers, but her talent as a writer encourages perseverance. Cecilia is defiant and bold, questioning authority despite the risks. She waves “her editorials in the generals’ face” (20) and publishes an exposé on the disappearance of school children. Such brazenness ultimately leads to her arrest, as she is kidnapped on the morning of her article’s publication. However, her determination to resist never falters: She escapes prison, twice, and leaves behind her shoe as a message to Carlos. Similarly, while detained, she mentally drafts an article about the junta’s brutality, which she later publishes under the title “The Wall.”

Although Cecilia is a major character, and though her disappearance encourages Carlos to recognize his gift and apply it to Argentina’s resistance, she exists mostly in the context of Carlos’s mind: Only at the novel’s beginning and end does she figure in the plot more concretely. Otherwise, her story unfolds at the urging of Carlos’s curiosity, and it is only through his visions that the reader understands that Cecilia’s been imprisoned, raped, and then successful in an escape attempt. Carlos recognizes this, too. For instance, after his experience in the ocean, in which he briefly considers relenting, he realizes that “if he had given up, he would have killed Cecilia” (169), as she’s “alive only in his imagination” (170). Carlos may imagine Cecilia with the goal of her return—underscoring Memory and Imagination as Resistance—but his necessary ownership over her existence means that most of Cecilia’s experiences are only depicted indirectly through his mediation.

Ultimately, after her return, Cecilia reemerges as a concrete character, stepping out of Carlos’s imagination and into reality. Her freedom, notably, is marked by her return to La Opinión, where she “produces editorials far more compromising” (213) than that which had spurred her abduction, showing both her unbowed defiance and the greater spirit of freedom taking over Argentina. Writing remains central to Cecilia’s expression: “[W]hat she feels and the ability to write about it are not separate,” as Carlos explains (178). As the novel closes and the Ruedas’ life moves on, Cecilia is finally in charge of her own story.