Guadalupe Loaeza’s most recent novel, The Lover of the Nile River (Planeta, 2023), explores the turbulent life of Suzanne Avramow, a Sephardic Jew born in Turkey and raised in Bulgaria.
Her father and uncle, Jewish businessmen in Mexico, plotted the arrival of the young twenty-two-year-old Suzy by sending a letter to the then-president of Mexico, Manuel Ávila Camacho, explaining the plight of Jews in Europe during World War II, requesting asylum in Mexico.
But there was also an arranged marriage involved: offering Suzy—with a hefty dowry—to Paul Antebi, a Palestinian Jew living in Mexico and director of the Roussel Group Laboratory—and later of the Carnot Laboratory—and that’s how Suzy emigrated to Mexico, engaged to a man of whom she only knew his wealth. “I hope he’s not ugly,” said poor Suzy, newly arrived from Warsaw, Poland, with a small suitcase, unaware of all that awaited her.
As false as it may seem, this is a novel based on true events. A fictionalized biography.
Shortly after her marriage, Suzy Avramow began to appreciate the luxuries and worldly life that could be enjoyed in Mexico. Her husband, Paul, who wasn’t particularly handsome, gave her all kinds of expensive gifts—cars, coats, and jewelry—which she shamelessly flaunted at events for the Mexican bourgeoisie, at the Jockey Club, Ciro’s, “at embassy cocktail parties and during my bridge games,” among other nightclubs in the capital, Loaeza recounts. This was not the case in the homes of wealthy women: “For her, there were no gatherings more boring and provincial than those organized by those tight-knit, gossipy ladies whose lives seemed totally sterile.”
Loaeza accurately portrays, as always, with highly practiced satire, the coldness and impudence, but also the charms of bourgeois society portrayed in the social columns, so important at the time, as everyone was attentive to the latest rumors, the hot gossip of wealthy families. While their wealth was usually built on pure trickery, corruption, and shady foundations, a good portion of working-class people—and of course the bourgeoisie—liked having access to those luxuries, those splendid houses, those heavenly dinners, even if only through the pages of newspapers.
Let’s remember that back then, the press had a much more defining influence on the lives of Mexicans. And it was precisely in the gossip columns that all of Mexico learned that the beautiful Suzanne Avramow, dubbed “the best-dressed woman in Mexico,” had been imprisoned in the Lecumberri Palace. Her crime: adultery.
Avebi, Avramow’s husband, noticed from the start that his wife was no longer a virgin. Indeed, Suzy had had a Polish first love, Herschel, with whom she lost her virginity and whom she last saw in Warsaw. He was later murdered by the Nazis in that same city, before she arrived in what was then Mexico City.
Paul Antebi used his wife as a mannequin. He modeled her to be the center of attention at gatherings where photographers and gossip columnists appeared, as it was convenient for his business, which is why he never denied her anything in principle.
However, Antebi played him dirty: together with his friend Robert Gilly, he plotted a romantic ambush. In exchange for forgiving his friend Gilly’s many debts, Antebi proposed to woo his wife, the beautiful Avramow, seducing her and inviting her to participate in public social gatherings in plain sight, so that there would be no doubt that there was an affair between them. Avramow immediately fell for the gallantry of the handsome Robert. Thus, one night, the capital’s police caught Suzzane Avramow leaving Robert Gilly’s apartment, who, in reality, was barely affected by the scandal.
This novel is full of facts that are as irrelevant as they are extremely interesting, historical details of everyday life in the capital in the 1950s that give it even greater depth, such as the fact that the use of horns was banned on June 27, 1951, “A fine awaits anyone who violates this provision”; that the advertisement for razor blades, Ala Blades, read: “They shave and caress”; or the way the daiquiri was prepared at Ciro’s in the Hotel Reforma: “First white rum, lime juice and a little sugar”, clothing brands, types of fabric, interior decorations and, naturally, lots of gossip from the time.
Loaeza expresses her taste for fashion in this story. It’s a delight for those of us who enjoy adornment and decoration to read these pages filled with dresses, scarves, headdresses, necklaces, and other unnecessary accessories—but how beautiful they look! A quality never before explored by Loaeza in her fiction: eroticism. In this novel, the eroticism expressed in and about the young Suzanne Avramow becomes present and recurrent, described with ease.
As a true chronicler, Guadalupe Loaeza blends research with imagination. And the result is radiant with this great, great novel about 1950s Mexico. She doesn’t hold back; she ruthlessly and humorously critiques the paradoxical and ridiculous behavior of the Mexican bourgeoisie, and she does so with her distinctive, tender, and comforting narrative voice.
The novel bears a striking resemblance to Enrique Serna’s The Seller of Silence, a fictionalized biography of social journalist Carlos Denegri, who, in fact, appears as a character in Loaeza’s novel, as he also wrote about the famous adultery.
It’s a shame there are so many typos in this first edition of The Lover of the Nile River, gosh. Typos are everywhere, in the French words and phrases, in the European names and surnames, but also in the Spanish wording itself. The editing needs a thorough revision to make it a more enjoyable read.
I think anyone interested in the history of mid-20th-century Mexico and in chronicles, especially social and fashion chronicles, will love this novel.
Source: laverdadjuarez
