Like Flies from Afar by K. Ferrari

Published in Spain in 2011; published in translation by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on March 24, 2020

Mr. Machi has a problem. Someone deliberately caused his BMW to have a flat tire. When he opened the trunk to find the spare, he instead found a dead body. His instinct is to get rid of the body, but it is attached to the trunk’s hinge with the fur-covered handcuffs he keeps for encounters with his mistress.

Getting rid of the body is a challenge, even in Buenos Aires, where dead bodies are not uncommon. But as he gathers the tools he needs to detach the corpse from his trunk, Mr. Machi is preoccupied with thoughts of how the body — of someone he doesn’t recognize — ended up in his car. He doesn’t think he has many enemies, certainly none who would go such extravagant lengths to cause such a serious problem. And how many of them could know about the fur-covered handcuffs?

Much of Like Flies from Afar consists of Mr. Machi scrutinizing memories of the people he has angered or alienated. His wife. His gay son. His daughter’s boyfriend. His bodyguard. Various women. People who have an interest in the Buenos Aires club he owns. The employees he fired after years of loyal service for missing a shift. Although he won’t admit it to himself or doesn’t care, it seems unlikely that anyone actually likes Mr. Machi, because he acts with a callous disregard for the people he doesn’t actively despise. Mr. Machi thinks of himself as an innocent victim, but the reader recognizes that his shallow lack of self-awareness is a barrier that shields him from self-reproach.

Like Flies from Afar is a dark comedy. Mr. Machi’s cluelessness furnishes the humor. The story, in fact, builds to a surprising punchline. Readers might be disappointed that there is no satisfying resolution of the mystery — its continuation is left to the reader’s imagination — but the ending is a satisfying, and almost karmic, non-resolution of the simple plot.

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