NICOLAS FRANCOMANO ESTA MUERTO

I am still quite alive (I even had my hair cut to celebrate), but Nicolás Francomano, my Argentine doppelgänger, may have suffered some unspeakable fate. You see, recently I took it upon myself to locate whatever distant relations I may have in this country. There are several Francomanos listed in the Buenos Aires white pages, a few of whom received unexpected calls from yours truly this monday past. Alberto J. and Alfredo M. Francomano no longer reside at the listed numbers, so the first person with whom I managed to speak was a Señor Francisco Francomano. 

Imagine my surprise to discover that in this city there is a man with nearly the exact same name as my own father. One discovers that the farther he travels, the world only seems to grow smaller and smaller. This Francisco Francomano was a very nice sort of man, and he gave a nice little laugh when I told him that I believe myself to be his very distant cousin from America. He was quite surprised as well to discover that he and my father share a name, by the way. I left him with my number, not to push the point about making contact with me, to call at his discretion about any possible meeting (or reunion, as I like to think of it). I am, as it were, a complete stranger to this end of the gene pool.

Being a stranger, I was made to feel somewhat strange by the other Francomanos with whom I spoke that monday. The next number I called belongs to a Monica B. Francomano, a woman whom I presume to be of a certain caducity. I informed her, as I had informed Francisco, that I was Nicolás Francomano, her cousin from America. I generally introduce myself this way in Spanish, as I find the Spanish "Nicolás" close enough to our own Anglo "Nicholas" that the same understanding is preserved (no so in the case of a William/Guillermo, for example), and native speakers are not inconvenienced by pronouncing my English name. The confusion that ensued in this instance, however, was brief but remarkable. 

"Don't lie. You are not Nicolás Francomano!" A point I might have justly conceded, in hindsight.

"I am, I think I am your cousin from America."

"Must you invent such things?" 

"I invent nothing, ma'am."

A profound silence met this remark. Then, Daniel O. Francomano picked up the phone. I decided not to ask his relation to Monica. According to what he told me, he has several older cousins. He made no mention of a younger generation of Argentine Francomanos, and seemed somewhat surprised by my own relative youth. Also, he claimed not to know Francisco. Otherwise he seemed pleasant. I gave him my number, and he said that he would call me in order to meet this week. He has not called me yet.

The last one of my list that I was able to reach over the telephone was Martha J. Francomano. Martha received news of her distant relation's appearance rather coldly, to say the least. Interestingly, though, when I told her that I was Nicolás Francomano she too seemed perplexed. She asked me, after a short pause, whether I meant to say that I was Nicolás Francomano's son. When I explained to her that I was he himself, and that I was from the United States, she was nonplussed. She regarded me with a very obvious species of mistrust, as if I were calling her in order to initiate some elaborate swindle. In the middle of me trying to explain that I merely wanted to contact her out of curiosity, she told me that she did not have what I was looking for and hung up.

Needless to say, this frustrated me inestimably. I was left, however, with more to the mystery of my doppelgänger. In my idle moments, I developed a few theories concerning this mysterious man.

WHO IS NICOLAS FRANCOMANO?

1. Nicolás Francomano is dead. The Argentine Francomanos want nothing to do with me because my appearance in their lives will spur the resurfacing of terrible, terrible memories.
2. Nicolás Francomano is (or was) in prison for Crimes Against Humanity.  He is a pariah because the family cannot bear the shame of having their illustrious name associated with his despicable crimes.
3. Nicolás Francomano became involved in organized crime outside of the country. This explains how Martha didn't seem surprised when I said I was from America; she merely assumed that I had been born there and raised on the spoils of Nicolás Francomano Sr.'s criminal empire. 
4. All of the above. Martha never expressly mentioned that she was related to Daniel and Monica, and therefore Nicolás Francomano may in fact be two (three counting myself) people. Also, 2 and 3 do not exclude option 1, and do not in fact even exclude each other.

LIFE IS A MYSTERY