In the 80s when I visited Mexico City I often went with my heavy duty medium format equipment. Those years you could pass by airplane customs with no problems.

In the mid 80s on a trip to Mexico City I went to visit a friend who was a closet gay man. Being gay in Macho Land was tough. One of his stories is that he would fall in love with women who were about to leave the country. He would be sad for days after going to see them off.

This particular one was a Hungarian baroness by the name of Katarina Nádasdy. Her family had escaped the Soviet invasion of her country with only a few carpets. That was all. They settled in Los Angeles where my friend befriended her as both were instant translators for the courts.

Nádasdy was in town with the idea that she wanted my friend to commit to a relationship. She had an eager suitor in Los Angeles.

It could not be.

I was asked to take her portrait and for it I used a Polaroid Instant Negative film with my Mamiya RB-67. She had a haunting face which I imagined had lots of blue blood running through it.

A few weeks before he died (in this century) my friend told me that the one tragedy of his life was that he had never made the choice on how to live his life. He said it was his big regret.

On the other hand love them and leave them may not have been such a bad idea.

Recently I spotted a novel translated from the Hungarian. The author had a name close to the one of the baroness. In it the heroine travels to Mexico and falls in love with a man who is the illegitimate son of the first Philippine president, Manuel L. Quezon who one day mysteriously disappears.

I wonder.