by Sergio Pitol
21 APRIL 1992
I’ve moved to Rome, where I just bought a house. It must be on the outskirts of the city; it looks very poor: the furniture is sparse, old, rickety, and dust-covered. Suddenly, I see an electric cable sparking. The sparks erupt into small flames and begin to scorch a beam. I live alone, with no one to help me in cases like this. I leave to go look for an electrician, but the situation doesn’t seem to concern me very much, as if the short circuit were as unimportant as an armoire door that doesn’t close correctly. I go out onto the street with a ladder in one hand and a suitcase in the other. I notice that Sacho has followed me; I let him come with me because it’s time for his walk. I hide the ladder and the suitcase in a clump of flowers, in a small, rather plain traffic circle. I discover an entrance to the Pincian Hill, and I enter with Sancho through a gate that is unfamiliar to me. We walk by an aviary; massive cages house thousands of beautifully colored exotic birds. We begin to climb the hill; as I walk by a little store, I start to crave some bread and cheese. They won’t allow Sacho to come in, so I leave him on the sidewalk with instructions not to move while I’m gone. I leave him by a back door by mistake; I take advantage of the opportunity to walk around and enjoy the scenery. At a given moment, I discover that I’m lost. I walk around aimlessly, uneasy; I can’t stop thinking about Sacho. I walk into a café and tell everyone inside about my circumstance, that I lost my dog, that I can’t find him. I ask them to reorient me so I can return to the entrance of the part of the Pincian where the aviary is. A young man offers to take me, saying he knows the way perfectly because he’s a bread distributor for all of the businesses along the way. Before leaving, he selects, with a fatal lack of urgency, two huge loaves of bread, and then, as we walk, he explains to me how important bread is to the Romans, in particular that kind of heavy, dark bread; he says that by eating it they take communion, they reaffirm their identity. I listen to him in desperation. I mention that we’ve gone the wrong way, that I’m feeling farther and farther away from the place where Sacho lies abandoned. He replies smugly that he knows these surroundings better than anyone, that we’re taking a direct route. We walk silently for a long time. As we turn the corner, Saint Peter’s cupola appears in front of us. The Vatican! I’m absolutely convinced that I’ve followed a mad man or someone totally irresponsible, which is the same thing. I insult him, and he leaves eating his bread. I can’t understand how we could have passed the river without noticing. We’ve walked through half of Rome; I’m farther than ever from my poor dog, and it’s starting to get dark. I’m certain that he’s also desperately looking for me. In the worst-case scenario, someone will appreciate his coat, realize what a good dog he is, and take care of him. Sacho won’t have to wander the streets. I, on the other hand, won’t be able to survive his getting lost. I’ll feel guilty for having abandoned him. I remember that I left a suitcase and a ladder somewhere, unusual objects to carry along when going to look for an electrician; I also remember that my house had caught fire. So many hours have passed that nothing will be left but ashes. I went out to the street without identification, or perhaps they’re in the lost suitcase. I have no friends in the city to go to. I’ll go to the consulate tomorrow to request assistance going home. I’ll return to Mexico penniless; but I don’t care about that, the real tragedy is returning without Sacho.
At that moment, I wake up in despair, feeling that the rest of my life will be bleak, that I’ll never recover, that it’s all been my fault. I have a hard time convincing myself that I’ve been resurrected, that is, that I’ve returned to reality, that I’m in my room, that the agony that I just lived was a mere dream; at that moment, I discover that Sacho is asleep just three feet from my bed. I look at the clock, it’s very late, an hour after his walk time. Because it’s Sunday we’re alone in the house. I immediately put on his leash, and we take our usual walk through the center of Coyoacán. He turns his head every so often as if to make sure I’m there, as if he had dreamt that I had gotten lost in an immense park in a strange city.
2 JULY 1993
I’ve been living in a house in the country for some time, in some uncertain region of Italy. It’s a large house, tastefully furnished, extremely comfortable; a place where writing is a delight. From my desk I can see a beautiful cherry orchard, and at the end of the orchard, a cabin, where a Mexican professor of Italian literature lives as a guest. He spends his vacation there while finishing a translation of a classical drama. When he arrived, I offered him a room in the main house, but he opted for the solitude and independence of the cabin. At midday, he comes to eat with me and some other people, because there are always guests in the house; they come to eat lunch or dinner, have drinks, engage in conversation, spend the weekend, several days, an entire season. I like the house, the scenery, and the way of life. Not far from the house, on the bank of a river, a child’s corpse appeared one day. Someone had strangled him and thrown him in the water. A young literature student who arrived in the region recently discovered the body, already in a state of decomposition, and notified the police. All evidence points to his innocence. On the day of the murder, as determined by the pathologist, he was out of the country. He has proof and witnesses. Nonetheless, a cloud of suspicion begins to grow around him. No one in the village believes in his innocence, which becomes evident at every turn.
One night I’m hosting a very formal dinner, like when I was a diplomat, with some twenty guests around the table. At opposite ends of the table are myself and an elderly doyenne of emphatic gestures and expressions, possibly an actress. Suddenly, the student bursts into the dining room. He’s terrified; he says that he’s being followed, that they want to kill him. In a magnanimous gesture the elderly woman orders him to sit beside her. He’ll be safe there. Seconds later, a peasant, also very frantic from the chase, enters the room and stands before a window, covering it with his imposing body. His motionlessness intensifies the fierce look on his face. Two men appear in the kitchen door and stand in front of the two other windows. Suddenly, the room is filled with men and women shouting, among them the gardener and cook; they’re carrying knives, clubs, and ropes in their hands. They form a sinister circle around us. The young man, overcome with fear, stands, attempts to flee, but they manage to restrain him and take him outside. I explain the situation to my guests, about the murdered child, the discovery of his body. I insist that the evidence supports beyond doubt the lad’s innocence. I’m still speaking when we hear a horrible scream coming from the orchard. We’re frozen with fear, silent. The execution has taken place. The cook, the gardener, and a man I don’t know appear and withdraw to the kitchen without saying a word. Their hands and clothes are covered in blood. I interrogate my guests with my eyes; I’m convinced that one of them is the murderer, but I don’t know which one. Our silence lasts a few minutes, until broken by the elderly woman:
“Petrilli never liked me. My Amneris was much better than her Aida. It’s not unusual. From the beginning of rehearsals, the relationship between the sopranos, mezzos, and contraltos turns into a fierce battle.”
They begin to serve the consommé. My dinner guests talk about opera, singers, conductors, and performances that are memorable for their splendor or for their disaster, about Turandot, Der Rosenkavalier, Tosca, and Così Fan Tutte. I too take part, after all I’m pretending to be a good host, but little by little the lynching of the student, the faces contorted by hatred, the blood-soaked hands, begin to hang over the guests like an unbearable weight. The conversation that began with so much exuberance becomes subdued. The guests stare and scrutinize each other, ask trick questions. The suspicion that the boy’s murderer can be found at the table takes over. I’m terrified that someone might suspect me. I could offer irrefutable proof of my innocence. But what would it matter? The student also had proof, which did nothing to help him escape execution. My anxiety intensifies. I can’t wake up.
Xalapa, March 1995
TEST OF INITIATION
Imagine an eighteen-year-o
ld youth who suddenly decides to become a writer and consumes the better part of his nights scribbling literary articles. His tastes, you must understand, are unintentionally ecumenical. He writes about Eugene O’Neill and his theater, about a novel by Rabindranath Tagore, Home and the World, which he had just read, about a trip to Mexico told by Paul Morand. His interests are as varied as his ignorance is vast. Needless to say, the judgments he makes are not conspicuous for their originality, and his prose is only slightly less than flat. Undoubtedly, none of his pages exceed the level of a school assignment. Someone, perhaps a friend from law school, surprised by his talent, suggests that he send his articles to the cultural supplement (rather shoddy, in fact) of an important daily where a friend of his father works, and he embraces the suggestion with enthusiasm. Once the articles are submitted, his friend naturally assumes the role of advocate and spokesman, making an exaggerated defense of his writings, of his love for reading, and of other personal qualities that are unrelated. If they accept his writings, the author thinks, he will have taken the first step on a path toward the stars.
Several months went by without a single article appearing in the supplement. Having recovered from such a chilly reception, the budding literato gives up his night job. He’s still too green for literature: a sound conclusion. But one Sunday he goes out to buy newspapers in the provincial city where his family lives, and where he usually spends all his holidays. On the way home he decides to stop at a café and leaf through one of the newspapers he’s carrying under his arm. From the front page of the cultural supplement, the title of one of his articles leaps out at him, the one in which he commented on O’Neill’s theater. The sense of excitement that some authors claim to experience when they see their first published text and their name printed below the title eludes him. The exact opposite happens. He’s momentarily paralyzed; then, slowly, a feeling of shame that ends in nausea pours over him. The mere thought of returning home with the newspaper seems impossible. He suddenly realizes that he’s become an unclean animal, and at that moment he has the evidence that proves it. He’s afraid to go home. He feels incapable of enduring a single comment; the most discreet praise, any sign of surprise or celebration of his talent, unknown to his family, would drive him hopelessly mad, at least that’s what he believes as he stares blankly at the newspaper. Finally, he decides to tear out the page, fold it up, and hide it in his jacket pocket. He leaves the rest of the supplement on the table. When he reaches the dreaded place, he deposits the papers in the living room, and slips off to his room where he stays locked up the rest of the afternoon. He rereads the article without grasping its meaning. “Without understanding a lick,” was all he could think of to say. But this time, unlike in the past, the expression fails to reassure him. Only in a handful of old translations of foreign novels has he run across these words. To read that Nastasya Filipovna, desperate and exhausted, implores her prince to speak with greater clarity, otherwise to leave her in peace lest she not understand “a lick” of the lofty and passionate sermons with which he overwhelms her, or for Emma Bovary to repeat in one of her final heart-rending meditations, that she has not understood “a lick” about life, not only destroyed the desired pathos but also rendered laughable the situations written to move the reader. He is only able to discern the titles scattered throughout the article because they’re written in a different font and in bold: The Great God Brown, Mourning Becomes Electra, Desire under the Elms, The Emperor Jones, The Hairy Ape, Anna Christie, and a few others. Those dramas that have so impressed him seem as hollow and ridiculous as his own prose. He wants nothing more than to disappear from the world, to invent a chilling story to persuade his brother that he desperately needs to borrow money so he can travel to Veracruz, where he will board the first boat weighing anchor and become lost in the world without leaving the slightest trace. Or just plain die. He doesn’t even dare pour his heart out to his grandmother, his usual confidant.
The afternoon dragged on, like a nightmare. But, to his surprise, no one discovered the crime. No one came by the house or called to congratulate him. The apathy toward literature from those around him left him perplexed and disappointed. The remaining articles he submitted appeared the following Sundays. He had returned to Mexico City; his friends’ comments left him undaunted. He did not care whether anyone read them or not, whether anyone liked them or not, even if it wasn’t entirely true. In any case, he did not succumb to the vice of writing again for some time.
Over the years he has come to believe that he would have preferred to be discovered that Sunday when his guilt was made public. Not only that, but also to be mocked and condemned; everything would have been easier, cleaner. His relationship with the world could have been cleared of many cobwebs. Now, more than forty years after that incident, he’s content with merely acknowledging the event. He tries to examine the circumstances, to elaborate a few hypotheses. Why was that rite of initiation bathed in horror? Did it have something to do with a late detachment of his umbilical cord, a bloody separation of his body from those around him? He arrives at the conclusion that the exercise is becoming a pointless guessing game, that to continue it would send him into a labyrinth of astonishment. He would become lost in marshes without ever touching solid ground.
Perhaps he owes to that experience his inability to write at home, as if it were an activity to be avoided at all costs. Writing in the same space where he lives was for much of his life equivalent to committing an obscene act in a holy place. But that’s anecdotal. What is certain is that his fall into uncleanness that characterized, at the end of his adolescence, his confrontation with the word, his printed word, has conditioned his most personal, most secret, most unwitting manner of writing, and has transformed the exercise into a joyful game of concealment, an approach to the art of flight.
Xalapa, December 1994
DIARY FROM ESCUDILLERS3
(At the end of 1968, I left the Mexican embassy in Belgrade, where I was carrying out my first diplomatic mission. I refused to continue to collaborate with the Mexican government after Tlatelolco. I returned to Mexico and found the atmosphere to be unbreathable. A female friend promised to help me find a job in London as a translator at The Economist, which was about to begin publishing in Spanish. It was almost certain that I would begin working in October. I would be able to spend the summer in Poland as a guest of Zofia Szleyen. My attendance at a conference on Conrad, I thought, would allow me to obtain a visa. I stopped in Barcelona to deliver the translation of Cosmos, by Gombrowicz, to Seix Barral, which I had almost finished, thinking it would only be a matter of a couple more weeks’ work. I arrived in Barcelona on June 20, 1969, at midnight, at the Francia station. I did not know the city. I asked the taxi driver to recommend a pleasant and moderately priced hotel. He took me to a place out of this world, which ended up being a hostel on Calle de Escudillers. I was planning to wait there for some money that was being sent from Mexico to continue my trip, as well as the invitation to the conference in Warsaw, or the personal invitation from my friend Zofia, without either of which I would not be able to obtain a Polish visa. Instead of the three weeks I intended to spend in Barcelona, I stayed three years. The memory of those times, of wonderful friends, of constant surprises still moves me today. My time there, in spite of the initial snags and a few spectacular surprises that at the moment seemed like the impending Last Judgment, only to end up disappearing into the air, constituted a daily exercise of freedom.)
BARCELONA, 22 JUNE 1969
One A.M. It’s raining. My tiny room traps all the noise from the neighborhood. A very acute depression this afternoon…tremors. I’ll never drink again. It must be the hangover from a monstrous cognac drunk, or some horrid liquor they passed off as cognac. After I settled into the room I went out and toured all the city’s bars near the hostel. Limitless excitement about the city’s nightlife. I walked without stopping along La Rambla and Escudillers, driven by curiosity or rather by the necessity to become acquainted with what will
be my neighborhood for the next few days. I still haven’t been able to tackle Cosmos. I wrote two letters. One to Neus, another to Díez-Canedo, giving them my address for the checks I’m expecting. The trip to Spain was very exciting. As the train approached the border, I heard songs of the Fifth Regiment, which some teenagers were singing in the compartment next to mine. To interrupt the climax I made small talk with a plump, toothless French girl seated across from me. Collioure, Perpignan, Argelès, names I heard spoken so many times by Don Manuel Pedroso, by Max Aub, Garzón del Camino, Ara and María Zambrano: a crescendo of excitement. By the time I arrived at the border, I would forever hate the French girl, who was missing two front teeth, because of the contempt she expressed for the Spaniards and their songs. “To us they’re primitive, they think they’re going to save the world with their songs, no matter what they do, they’ll always be primitive,” smiling as she said it, her lips creased like the Mona Lisa, hiding her oral cavity.
