Around the time of my nineteenth birthday there was a quarrel in my family that, despite its monstrosity, revealed another aspect of my creativity: up until that point I had worked with images and sensations, but had not explored a technique composed of objects and actions. It happened that every day, between one and three in the afternoon, my parents shut El Combate to come back to the apartment for lunch. Jaime would sit at the end of the table, facing away from the window (he had appropriated this location where the light from the sky fell on his back). Beside him, on his right, sat my sister. I was disdainfully granted a seat a little farther down the table, on the left side. My mother would sit at the other end, off on her emotional island, always eating with her eyes directed up toward the ceiling to express the disgust that my father’s noisy munching caused her. On this day, enervated by an accumulation of debts, Jaime devoured the food that was served by our faithful maid, sullying his lips and shirt more than was customary. Suddenly, Sara gave a low moan and murmured, “This man looks like a pig; it makes me want to throw up.”
On the wall behind my mother hung an oil painting by a commercial artist of the lowest caliber. It was the familiar Andean landscape, illuminated by the red light of a sunset. My mother liked it because her mother had suggested she buy it. My sister and I thought it was ridiculous. Jaime hated it because it had been expensive. Raquel and I were silent with terror upon hearing Sara’s unexpected words. Generally, in such cases, Jaime would get up and punch her in one of her pretty eyes. This time it was not so: he turned pale, slowly lifted his plate as a priest might lift a chalice, and threw his fried eggs at my mother’s head. She ducked, and they landed right on the painting. The two yolks stuck there in the middle of the sky like twin suns. And oh, what a revelation; for the first time this vulgar painting appeared beautiful to me! In one fell swoop, I had discovered surrealism! Later on, I had no trouble understanding the words of the futurist Marinetti: “Poetry is an act.”
FOUR
The Poetic Act
Definitions are only approximations. Whatever the subject may be, its predicate is always the entirety of the universe. In this impermanent reality what we imagine as absolute truth becomes inconceivable to us. Our arrows will never hit the white center of the target, because it is infinite. The concepts used by reason are true for me, here, at this precise time. For someone else, in the same place later on, they may be false. For this reason, despite having been raised with the most tenacious atheism, between two beliefs I decided to choose the one that would be more useful or the one that would help me to live. Before coming into the world I was a form of will that chose who its father and mother should be in order that my spirit might develop through suffering and rebellion in contact with the mental boundaries of these two immigrants. Why was I born in Chile? I have not the least doubt: my encounter with poetry justifies my emergence in that country.
Chile was poetically alive like nowhere else in the world during the 1940s and early 1950s. Poetry permeated everything: education, politics, cultural life, love. At the continuous parties that took place every day, where people drank wine without limitation, there was always some drunk reciting the verses of Neruda, Gabriela Mistral, Vicente Huidobro, and other great poets. Why such lyrical joy? In those years, while humanity was suffering from the effects of World War II, far off Chile—separated from the rest of the planet by the Pacific Ocean and the Andes mountain range—observed the struggle between the Nazis and the Allies as if it were a soccer match. There was a map covered with little flag pins on the wall of every home; the ups and downs of the opposing armies were followed amidst innumerable toasts and bets. Despite its internal problems, for the Chileans their long and narrow country was like an island paradise, protected by distance from the world’s ills. While death prevailed in Europe, poetry reigned in Chile. With abundant food (four thousand kilometers of coastline provided delicious mollusks and fish) and an exceptional climate for producing cheap wine (a liter of red cost less than one of milk), the most important thing for all social classes, poor and rich alike, was partying. Most of the bureaucrats would behave themselves properly until six o’clock in the evening, but once they were out of the office they would get drunk and undergo a change, shedding their gray personalities and assuming a magical identity. (A respectable notary made people call him Terrible Black Tits when drinking in the bars after six o’clock, and the way he had dealt with one customer was the subject of much mirth: “Señora, I have also been a woman. Let us speak cow to cow.”) The whole country was seized by a collective madness at sunset. The lack of solidity in the world was celebrated. In Chile, the earth trembled every six days! The very soil was, as it were, convulsive. For this reason, all people were subject to existential tremors. We did not live in a solid world governed by a rational being, but in a trembling, ambiguous reality. We lived precariously, both on the material plane and in our relationships with one another. You never knew how a night out on the town would end: a couple married at noon might wake up the next morning in other people’s beds, the guests you invited over might throw your furniture out the window, and so on. Poets, night owls by necessity, lived to euphoric excess. Neruda, an obsessive collector, built a house-museum in the form of a castle, gathering a whole village around him. Huidobro was not content with writing “Why do you sing the rose, O poets! Make it blossom in the poem!” but also covered the floors of his house with fertile soil and planted a hundred rose bushes there. Teófilo Cid, the son of some extremely rich Lebanese, gave up his fortune, although he did keep his subscription to the French newspaper Le Monde, and, drunk day and night, began living on a bench in Forestal Park. He was found dead there one morning covered by sheets of that same newspaper. There was another poet who only appeared in public on the occasion of his friends’ funerals, in order to jump on the coffin. The exquisite Raúl de Veer did not bathe for two years in order to use his stench to identify those who were truly interested in hearing his verses. They had all begun to emerge from literature to participate in the events of daily life with an aesthetic and rebellious stance. For me, as for many other young people, they were idols showing us a beautiful and insane way to live.
In celebration of Jashe and Moishe’s golden wedding anniversary the family decided to throw a party, at the same time inaugurating the new house that Isidoro, the architect, had designed for his mother: a large casket from which another smaller casket rose up, balanced on a pair of columns. The event was attended by close relatives and by some distant ones who came from Argentina. Most of them were chubby retirees, and their dark skin contrasted with their white hair, which they wore proudly, full of viscous satisfaction at being part of this humdrum Sephardic family. Sara, between nervous laughter and sugary tears, went from one relative to another uttering exaggerated elegies motivated by her desire to be liked. Unfortunately, being the beautiful swan among so many ugly ducklings, she drew contempt from all. Particularly envious was Fanny, who let slip some cruel jokes about Sara’s weight and the whiteness of her skin, comparing her to a sack of flour. Jaime was also despised for having a store in a working class neighborhood. With great condescension he was invited to play cards, and conspiring among themselves they relieved him of a large sum of money.
No one paid any attention to me. They appeared not to see me. I sat for several hours, without eating, in a corner of the dark courtyard. What use had I for them? Was this a dignified life, being obliged to make a thousand bows like my mother in order to be halfway accepted into this mediocre purgatory or being gouged like my father in order to show that he was not a pauper? Seeing them in a large crowd like this filled me with rage. An ax rested next to a big lime tree, the only one that graced the little garden. Driven by an irresistible urge, I took it and began to ferociously hack away at the trunk. Only many years later did I understand the crime I had committed. At the time, when I did not yet feel connected to the world and did not see families as family trees, this plant was not a sacred being but a dark symbol that catal
yzed my despair and hatred. I increased the force of my blows with the ax, losing my awareness of everything around me. I woke up half an hour later; I was dealing blows to a wound that already covered half the trunk. Shoske, my great aunt, was shrieking in horror. “You rascal! Stop him, he’s cutting down the lime tree!” Jashe, equipped with a lantern and followed by all her relatives, burst into the small courtyard. They had to hold her up lest she faint. Isidoro rushed toward me. I dropped the ax and punched him in the gut. He fell, crushing a bed of daisies with his large rump. Everyone froze. The guests, frozen like wax statues, stared at me with a look of severe judgment. Among them was Sara, red with embarrassment. Jaime, standing behind the group, was doing his best to look detached. The thick, straight trunk of the lime tree gave forth a crack, threatening to break. Moishe emptied a bottle of mineral water onto the ground, took up handfuls of mud, and on his knees, sobbing, began to fill the huge hole in the trunk while my half-aunt, her black hair bristling, showed me the way out with an avenging index finger. “Go away, you savage, and never come back!” I was seized by intense emotion. I was afraid that I would start crying, like the pseudo-Gandhi. With an increasing satisfaction growing in me, I burst out laughing. I walked out and started running, panting with joy. I knew that this atrocious act had marked the beginning of a new life for me. Or rather, at last, it marked the beginning of my life.
I stopped after a while and heard footsteps coming behind me. The thin air and darkness prevented me from distinguishing who it was. “If it’s Fanny,” I said to myself, “I’ll punch her too.” But it was a distant cousin, Bernardo, an architecture student a few years older than I who was tall, bony, and myopic, with big ears and a monkeylike face but a velvety and romantic voice.
“Alejandro, I’m amazed. That was a rebellious act worthy of a poet. I can only compare it to when Rimbaud painted the walls of a hotel room with his shit. How did you get the idea of doing something like that? You said everything without saying anything. Ah, if only I could be like you! The only things that interest me are painting, literature, and theater, but my family, the family you’ve just left, prevents me. I have to be an architect like Isidoro to satisfy my mother . . . Anyway, cousin, do you dare to sleep at your house tonight? I’ve heard that Jaime is a fierce man . . .”
My encounter with Bernardo was providential, and I am indebted to him for my entry into the world of poetry, but later he disappointed me to the core. The admiration he appeared to have for my talent turned out to be banal: he had simply fallen in love with me. After much hesitation—knowing that he would receive a resounding rejection—he decided to confess his love to me in the restroom of the Literary Academy, with reddened eyes showing me his erect penis as if it were a divine curse.
That night, on the pretext of wanting only a pure friendship, he brought me to stay with the Cereceda sisters.
Were they orphans? Millionaires? They had a three-story house all to themselves. I never saw them work, nor did I see their parents. The front door had no locks, so their artist friends could come in at any time, day or night. There were books everywhere, with reproductions of the greatest paintings; there were also records, a piano, photographs, beautiful objects, sculptures. Carmen Cereceda, a painter, was a muscular woman with thick hair, absorbed in a pre-Columbian silence. Her room was decorated with a mural on the walls, floor, and ceiling that was somewhere between the styles of Picasso and Diego Rivera, full of thick-legged women and political symbols. Veronica Cereceda, fragile, hypersensitive, eloquent, her head covered with fine down, was a poet and future actress. Both sisters loved art above all things in life. When I arrived with Bernardo, they received me smiling.
“What do you do, Alejandro?” Veronica asked me.
“I write poems.”
“Do you know any from memory?”
“The Self is something that consumes / flames pouring from the dream,” I recited, blushing to my fingertips. Veronica gave me a kiss on each cheek.
“Come, brother . . .” And taking my hand, she led me to a room decorated with Mapuche motifs where there was a bed, a table with a typewriter, a ream of paper, and a lamp. “This is where I shut myself away when I want to create my poems. You can borrow this space for as long as you need. If you’re hungry, there’s the kitchen downstairs: you’ll find fruit and chocolate bars there; that’s all we eat. Good night.”
I stayed there, shut in, for several days without anyone bothering me. Sometimes a shadow would pass in front of the door and someone would leave a couple of apples there for me. When I overcame my shyness I went out to make the acquaintance of the group, which was no more than twenty people. They were composers, poets, painters, a philosophy student. Beside myself—I was the youngest—the others who resided in the Cereceda house included a lesbian girl, Pancha, who made large rag dolls; Gustavo, a pianist and close friend of Carmen; and Drago, a cartoonist with a stutter. Seeing that money was scarce in that house and the fruit and chocolate were provided by the members of the group, I realized that their acceptance of me was a true sacrifice. Veronica, being idealistic, shared her vast cultural knowledge with me, as well as the few things she possessed, simply because she loved poetry. She is recorded in my memory as an angel. In this world so full of violence, whenever someone disappoints me I remember those sisters and console myself with the thought that sublime beings do exist. In youth, encounters with others are fundamental: they can change the course of one’s life. Some are like meteorites, opaque shards that can hit Earth at some moment and cause massive damage; others are like comets, luminous objects bringing vital elements with them. I had the providential good fortune at this time in my life to find beings that enriched me: beneficial comets. During the same period, I knew others who, although they were just as worthy of a creative destiny as I was, fell prey to bad company that led them into failure and death: meteorites. Well, maybe it was more than just luck, through the distrust I had learned during my wounded childhood I had also developed the ability to dodge. In boxing one wins not only by hitting harder, but also by avoiding more blows. I always shunned negative contacts and sought out friends who could be my teachers.
One day Veronica woke me up at six o’clock in the morning. “Enough working with only your mind. Your hands have a lot to say, just like your words. I’ll teach you to make puppets.” In the kitchen she showed me how to cut newspaper into thin strips to be boiled, crushed, and shredded, then mixed with flour to make a paste that is very easy to sculpt. I could now sculpt puppet heads on a ball made from an old stocking and a few handfuls of sawdust, which hardened when they dried in the sun. Carmen then showed me how to paint them. Pancha sewed the costumes into which I put my hands as if they were gloves in order to make the characters move and talk. Drago built me a little theater, a kind of folding screen, behind which I could work my puppets. I fell in love with them. It was enchanting for me to see an object I had created breaking free from me. From the moment I reached inside a puppet, the character began to live in an almost autonomous way. I was assisting in the development of an unknown personality, as if the puppet was using my voice and hands to take on an identity that was already its own. I seemed to be filling the role of servant rather than creator. Ultimately, I had the impression of being directed, manipulated by the puppet! Moreover, in a certain way the puppets led me to discover an important aspect of magic: the transfer of a person to an object. Because I had had almost no contact with Jaime, Sara, and the rest of my family, I had become an incomprehensible mutant to all of them, invisible most of the time, despised when visible. However, family contact is necessary for the soul to develop. Determined to establish a profound relationship I sculpted puppets that represented them, in caricature but very accurate. Thus I was able to talk to Don Jaime, Doña Sara, and all the others. My friends, seeing these grotesque representations, laughed themselves silly. But when my hands entered the characters, they began to exist with their own life. As soon as I lent them my voice, they said things I had never thought. Ma
inly they justified themselves, considered my criticisms unjust, insisted that they loved me, and finally demanded that having disappointed them I should apologize. I realized that my complaints were selfish. I regretted the fact that I did not want to forgive them; that is to say, I did not want to mature, to reach adulthood. And the path to forgiveness required my recognizing that, in their own way, my entire family—my parents, aunts and uncles, grandparents—were my victims. I had not lived up to their aspirations, aspirations that, for all that I found them negative and absurd, were legitimate aspirations for them on their level of consciousness. I sincerely asked for their forgiveness. “Forgive me, Jaime, for not having given you the opportunity to conquer all your social complexes and for not pursuing a university career. My earning a diploma in medicine, law, or architecture was the only chance you had to be respected by the community. Forgive me, Sara, for not being the reincarnation of your father. Forgive me, Raquel, for having been born with the penis that you should have had. Forgive me, grandmother, for cutting down the lime tree, for having renounced the Jewish religion. Forgive me, Aunt Fanny, for finding you so ugly. And especially you, fat Isidoro, forgive me for not understanding your cruelty; you never grew up; you were always a giant baby. When I came to stay with your mother, you treated me as a dangerous rival, not as a child.” In turn, all the puppets forgave me. Shedding tears, one by one I too forgave them.
The Dance of Reality: A Psychomagical Autobiography Page 10
