Among the anecdotes that circulated this spring after the death of María Kodama, Jorge Luis Borges’ wife and literary executor, was a story about a meeting at the home of writers Adolfo Bioy Casares and Silvina Ocampo. Borges had gone to use the toilet; Ocampo was in the kitchen. Bioy Casares then supposedly took advantage of the moment to ask Kodama if he could photograph her, since she had “an ideal face.”
The phrase was coarse, an objectification, but Kodama’s photogenic quality was undeniable. In almost every picture of her, she appears next to her employer and future husband, Borges. He was photogenic in a very different sense, almost always holding his walking stick, with his typical facial expression of a daydreamer (is he in a metaphysical trance or just distracted?). Kodama’s arm is sometimes linked with his. In some cases, he clings on to her with a firmness that might seem disturbing if it weren’t for the fact that he was blind and might have needed the support.
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