by Ann
The candles on the dining-room table flickered in a cool breeze that blew through the lace curtains over the bay window.
‘Keep playing, Pat,’ Anthony’s father said softly.
Pat started again. He played Night and Day, but his eyes were sidewise on Dan Hollis, and he missed notes.
Dan stood in the middle of the room, holding the record. In his other hand he held a glass of brandy so hard his hand shook.
They were all looking at him.
‘Christ,’ he said again, and he made it sound like a dirty word. Reverend Younger, who had been talking with Mom and Aunt Amy by the dining-room door, said ‘Christ’ too – but he was using it in a prayer. His hands were clasped, and his eyes were closed.
John Sipich moved forward. ‘Now, Dan…it’s good for you to talk that way. But you don’t want to talk too much, you know.’
Dan shook off the hand Sipich put on his arm.
‘Can’t even play my record,’ he said loudly. He looked down at the record, and then around at their faces. ‘Oh, my God…’
He threw the glassful of brandy against the wall. It splattered and ran down the wallpaper in streaks.
Some of the women gasped.
‘Dan,’ Sipich said in a whisper. ‘Dan, cut it out–’
Pat Reilly was playing Night and Day louder, to cover up the sounds of the talk. It wouldn’t do any good, though, if Anthony was listening.
Dan Hollis went over to the piano and stood by Pat’s shoulder, swaying a little.
‘Pat,’ he said. ‘Don’t play that. Play this.’ And he began to sing. Softly, hoarsely, miserably: ‘Happy birthday to me…Happy birthday to me…’
‘Dan!’ Ethel Hollis screamed. She tried to run across the room to him. Mary Sipich grabbed her arm and held her back. ‘Dan.’ Ethel screamed again. ‘Stop–’
‘My God, be quiet!’ hissed Mary Sipich, and pushed her toward one of the men, who put his hand over her mouth and held her still.
‘– Happy birthday, dear Danny,’ Dan sang. ‘Happy birthday to me!’ He stopped and looked down at Pat Reilly. ‘Play it, Pat. Play it, so I can sing right…you know I can’t carry a tune unless somebody plays it!’
Pat Reilly put his hand on the keys and began Lover – in a slow waltz tempo, the way Anthony liked it. Pat’s face was white. His hands fumbled.
Dan Hollis stared over at the dining-room door. At Anthony’s mother, and at Anthony’s father, who had gone to join her.
‘You had him,’ he said. Tears gleamed on his cheeks as the candlelight caught them. ‘You had to go and have him…’
He closed his eyes, and the tears squeezed out. He sang loudly, ‘You are my sunshine…my only sunshine…you make me happy…when I am blue…’
Anthony came into the room.
Pat stopped playing. He froze. Everybody froze. The breeze rippled the curtains. Ethel Hollis couldn’t even try to scream; she had fainted.
‘Please don’t take my sunshine…away…’ Dan’s voice faltered into silence. His eyes widened. He put both hands out in front of him, the empty glass in one, the record in the other. He hiccupped and said, ‘No–’
‘Bad man,’ Anthony said, and thought Dan Hollis into something like nothing anyone would have believed possible, and then he thought the thing into a grave deep, deep in the cornfield.
The glass and record thumped on the rug. Neither broke.
Anthony’s purple gaze went around the room.
Some of the people began mumbling. They all tried to smile. The sound of mumbling filled the room like a far-off approval. Out of the murmuring came one or two clear voices:
‘Oh, it’s a very good thing,’ said John Sipich.
‘A good thing,’ said Anthony’s father, smiling. He’d had more practice in smiling than most of them. ‘A wonderful thing.’
‘It’s swell, just swell,’ said Pat Reilly, tears leaking from eyes and nose, and he began to play the piano again, softly, his trembling hands feeling for Night and Day.
Anthony climbed up on top of the piano, and Pat played for two hours.
Afterward, they watched television. They all went into the front room, and lit just a few candles, and pulled up chairs around the set. It was a small-screen set, and they couldn’t all sit close enough to it to see, but that didn’t matter. They didn’t even turn the set on. It wouldn’t have worked anyway, there being no electricity in Peaksville.
They just sat silently, and watched the twisting, writhing shapes on the screen, and listened to the sounds that came out of the speaker, and none of them had any idea of what it was all about. They never did. It was always the same.
‘It’s real nice,’ Aunt Amy said once, her pale eyes on meaningless flickers and shadows. ‘But I liked it a little better when there were cities outside and we could get real–’
‘Why, Amy!’ said Mom. ‘It’s good for you to say such a thing. Very good. But how can you mean it? Why, this television is much better than anything we ever used to get!’
‘Yes,’ chimed in John Sipich. ‘It’s fine. It’s the best show we’ve ever seen!’
He sat on the couch, with two other men, holding Ethel Hollis flat against the cushions, holding her arms and legs and putting their hands over her mouth, so she couldn’t start screaming again.
‘It’s really good!’ he said again.
Mom looked out of the front window, across the darkened road, across Henderson’s darkened wheatfield to the vast, endless, gray nothingness in which the little village of Peaksville floated like a soul – the huge nothingness that was evident at night, when Anthony’s brassy day had gone.
It did no good to wonder where they were…no good at all. Peaksville was just someplace. Someplace away from the world. It was wherever it had been since that day three years ago when Anthony had crept from her womb and old Doc Bates – God rest him – had screamed and dropped him and tried to kill him, and Anthony had whined and done the thing. He had taken the village someplace. Or had destroyed the world and left only the village, nobody knew which.
It did no good to wonder about it. Nothing at all did any good – except to live as they must live. Must always, always live, if Anthony would let them.
These thoughts were dangerous, she thought.
She began to mumble. The others started mumbling too. They had all been thinking, evidently.
The men on the couch whispered and whispered to Ethel Hollis, and when they took their hands away, she mumbled too.
While Anthony sat on top of the set and made television, they sat around and mumbled and watched the meaningless, flickering shapes far into the night.
Next day it snowed, and killed off half the crops – but it was a good day.
Mister Taylor
Augusto Monterroso
Translated into English by Larry Nolen
Augusto Monterroso (1921–2003) was a Guatemalan writer known for his short stories. Indeed, he is credited with writing the shortest story ever: ‘When she awoke, the dinosaur was still there.’ Monterroso is considered a central figure in the Latin American Boom generation, recognized alongside such canonical authors as Julio Cortázar and Gabriel García Márquez. Monterroso often used the weird and grotesque to create incisive contemporary fables, as in his most famous story, ‘Mister Taylor’ (1954). The story’s mixture of weird imagery with social commentary on US imperialism has made it one of the most popular Latin American short stories of the mid-twentieth century. This new translation by Larry Nolen conveys the absurdity and strangeness of the original in equal measure.
‘Less strange, although without a doubt more exemplary,’ the other man then said, ‘is the story of Mr. Percy Taylor, headhunter in the Amazon jungle.
‘It is known that in 1937 he left Boston, Massachusetts, where he had refined his spirit to the point of becoming penniless. In 1944 he appears for the first time in South America, in the region of the Amazon, living with the natives of a tribe whose name there is no need to remember.
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��Due to his dark circles and famished aspect, he soon became known there as “the poor gringo,” and the schoolchildren even pointed at him and threw stones when he passed by, his beard shining under the golden tropical sun. But this did not distress the humble character of Mr. Taylor, because he had read in the first volume of The Complete Works of William G. Knight that if he did not feel envious of the rich, poverty would not dishonor him.
‘In a few weeks the natives became accustomed to him and his extravagant dress. In addition, as he had blue eyes and a vague foreign accent, the President and Minister of Foreign Relations treated him with singular respect, fearful of provoking international incidents.
‘So poor and miserable was he, that one day he went inland into the jungle in search of herbs to eat. He had walked several meters without daring to turn his head, when by pure chance he saw through the weeds two Indian eyes, which observed him intently. A huge shiver ran down the sensitive spine of Mr. Taylor. But Mr. Taylor, intrepid, confronted the danger and continued on his way whistling as if nothing had happened.
‘With a jump (which ought not be called feline), the Indian got in front of him and exclaimed: “Buy head? Money, money.”
‘Although the native’s English could not be any worse, Mr. Taylor, somewhat indisposed, realized that the native offered him in sale a man’s head, curiously reduced, which he was carrying in his hand.
‘It is unnecessary to say that Mr. Taylor was in no position to buy it; but as apparently he didn’t understand this, the Indian felt terribly embarrassed due to not speaking English well, and he gave Mr. Taylor the head as a gift, seeking pardon.
‘Great was Mr. Taylor’s joy as he returned to his hut. That night, lying on his back on a precarious palm mat which served as his bed, interrupted only by the buzzing of the aroused flies that flew around him making love obscenely, Mr. Taylor contemplated with delight for a long time his curious acquisition. He took the greatest aesthetic pleasure from counting, one by one, the hairs of the beard and moustache and looking straight into the pair of half-ironic eyes that seemed to smile at him, pleased by his deference.
‘A man of immense culture, Mr. Taylor was accustomed to abandoning himself to contemplation, but his time he immediately grew bored with his philosophical reflections and he arranged to give the head to his uncle, Mr. Rolston, a New York resident, who from his most tender infancy had shown a strong interest in the cultural manifestations of the Latin American peoples.
‘A few days later, Mr. Taylor’s uncle wrote to ask him (after inquiring about the state of his precious health) to please gratify him with five more. Mr. Taylor acceded with pleasure to Mr. Rolston’s caprice and – no one knows how – by return mail he “was very pleased to satisfy your desires.” Very grateful, Mr. Rolston sought another ten. Mr. Taylor felt “pleased to be able to serve you.” But when a month passed and he was asked to send twenty, Mr. Taylor, a simple and bearded man but of refined artistic sensibility, had the presentiment that his mother’s brother was making a profit off of him.
‘Well, if you want to know, so it was. With total frankness, Mr. Rolston made him understand it in an inspired letter whose resolutely businesslike terms made the strings of Mr. Taylor’s sensitive spirit vibrate like never before.
‘They immediately set up a corporation in which Mr. Taylor promised to obtain and ship human heads shrunken on an industrial scale while Mr. Rolston would sell them the best he could in his country.
‘In the early days there were some annoying difficulties with certain local types. But Mr. Taylor, who in Boston had received the best grades on an essay on Joseph Henry Silliman, showed himself to be a politician and obtained not only the necessary export permit, but, in addition, an exclusive concession for 99 years. It took little effort for him to convince the Executive warrior and the Legislative witch doctors that such a patriotic act in a short time would enrich the community and that then afterward all the thirsty aborigines would be able to drink (each time they paused in the collection of heads) a cold soft drink, whose magic formula he himself would supply.
‘When the members of the Chamber, after a brief but luminous intellectual effort, understood these advantages, their love of country boiled over and in three days they promulgated a decree demanding that the people accelerate the production of shrunken heads.
‘A few months later, in Mr. Taylor’s country, the heads reached that popularity which we all remember. In the beginning, they were the privilege of the wealthiest families, but democracy is democracy and, no one is going to deny it, in a matter of weeks even schoolteachers themselves could acquire them.
‘A home without its corresponding head was seen as a failed home. Soon came the collectors and with them, contradictions: to possess 17 heads came to be considered bad taste, but it was distinguished to have 11. They became so common that the truly elegant people were losing interest and now only by exception would they acquire one, if it possessed some peculiarity that saved it from vulgarity. One, very rare, with Prussian moustaches, which in life belonged to a highly decorated general, was bequeathed to the Danfeller Institute, which in turn gave, like a bolt from the blue, 3.5 million dollars in order to further development of that cultural manifestation, so excellent, of the Latin American peoples.
‘Meanwhile, the tribe had progressed in such a way that they already had a pathway around the Legislative Palace. On Sundays and Independence Day, members of Congress went along on that happy trail, clearing their throats, displaying their feathers, laughing very seriously, on the bicycles that the Company had given them.
‘But what do you want? Not all the times are good ones. When they least expected it they were presented with the first shortage of heads.
‘Then began the best part.
‘Mere natural deaths already were insufficient. The Minister of Public Health, feeling sincere one dark night, with the light turned off, after unceasingly caressing for a little while his wife’s breast, confessed to her that he considered himself incapable of elevating mortality rates to a level pleasing to the Company’s interests, to which she replied that he should not worry, that he would see that everything would turn out well and that it would be best that they sleep.
‘In order to compensate for this administrative deficiency, it was indispensible to take heroic measures and a harsh death penalty was established.
‘The judges consulted with each other and they elevated to the category of a crime, punishable by hanging or firing squad depending on its seriousness, even the most trivial of faults.
‘Even simple mistakes became criminal acts. For example, if in an ordinary conversation someone carelessly said “It is very hot” and later it could be proven, with thermometer in hand, that in reality it was not so hot, that person was fined a small amount, executed on the spot by the army, who sent the head to the Company and, fair to say, the trunk and limbs to the bereaved.
‘The legislation regarding illnesses earned immediate renown and was talked about much by the diplomatic corps and by the ministries of foreign affairs of friendly powers.
‘In accord with that memorable legislation, the gravely ill were granted 24 hours to place their affairs in order and die, but if in this time they were lucky and managed to infect their family, they obtained as many monthly stays as relatives that were infected. The victims of slight illnesses and those simply indisposed earned the scorn of the country and in the streets anyone could spit on their faces. For the first time in history, the importance of doctors (there were various Nobel Prize candidates) who didn’t cure anyone was recognized. Dying was turned into the most exalted example of patriotism, not only on a national scale, but instead more glorious, on the continental.
‘With the impetus that reached other subsidiary companies (the coffin industry, in particular, flourished with the technical assistance of the Company), the country entered, as they say, a period of great economic growth. This growth was particularly evident in a new flower-lined path, along which strolled, envelo
ped in the melancholy of the golden fall afternoons, the deputies’ wives, whose pretty little heads went yes, yes, everything was well when some soliciting journalist, from the other side, greeted them while tipping his hat.
‘As an aside, I will note that one of these journalists, who on one occasion emitted a wet sneeze he could not explain, was accused of extremism and was brought to the firing squad wall. Only after his selfless end did the academics recognize that the journalist had one of the country’s grandest heads, but once shrunken it looked so well that no one could notice the difference.
‘And Mr. Taylor? By that time he already had been designated as a special adviser to the Constitutional President. Now, and as an example of what individual effort can achieve, he was counting his thousands by the thousands; but this did not cause him to lose any sleep because he had read in the final volume of The Complete Works of William G. Knight that to be a millionaire was no dishonor if one did not despise the poor.
‘I believe this will be the second time that I say that not all the times are good ones. Given the prosperity of the business, the moment arrived in which only the authorities and their wives, and the journalists and their wives remained in the vicinity. Without much effort, Mr. Taylor mused that the only possible remedy was to foment war with the neighboring tribes. Why not? It’s progress.
‘With the help of some small cannons, the first tribe was cleanly beheaded in scarcely three months. Mr. Taylor tasted the glory of extending his domains. Then came the second, and afterward the third, the fourth, and the fifth. Progress extended with such rapidity that the hour arrived in which despite the efforts of the technicians, it was impossible to find new tribes to make war against.
‘It was the beginning of the end.
‘The two paths began to languish. Only once in a while could one see on them some lady or some poet laureate with a book under his arm. The weeds overran anew the two paths, making difficult and thorny the ladies’ delicate steps. Along with the heads, the bicycles became scarce and almost all the happy optimistic greetings disappeared.
