Zama

by Antonio Di Benedetto

  This decisive news occasioned two thoughts, both equally optimistic and agreeable. First, prior to her departure, Luciana would come to me of her own accord. Then, once in Spain, she would tenaciously spur on my promotion to a new post of higher status. I had ample proof of her diplomatic skills.

  23

  Never again did I receive a kiss from Luciana, never. The departure was organized with such minute care that it took place on the very next boat that went down to the Plata, and it had been arranged so far in advance that I never understood how I could be the person closest to Luciana and not know what had long since been apparent to many.

  For too long I’d been entirely conscripted by Luciana, a stranger to the life around me.

  She insisted we take leave of each other in the garden. “Within full view of everyone,” she proclaimed.

  But not within view of her husband, though that could well have happened, for throughout that final week I could see him or thought I could see him, nearby and clearly delineated, or far-off and vaguely discernable, in all the places a man could be, as if in each of them he had some business to conclude, some hand to shake. I harbored a suspicion that he still wished to challenge me, and that before he departed he would finally turn and confront me. Trying to keep out of his sight, I made myself so scarce that I seemed to stumble over him at every pebble in the street.

  Luciana chose the setting for our farewell, and chose, as well, to adopt an air of heroic abnegation. For my part, I consented to play the melancholy part of a man irremediably abandoned. In the false bottom of my soul I rejoiced over this journey: I would no longer confront the peril of those fruitless assignations.

  Everything about the moment was ridiculous and external, for both of us. I understood this but Luciana did not. She took my play-acting for the truth and sought to reciprocate, yielding to me, at last, the very marrow of her feelings.

  Luciana told me that no other man had ever sought her as I had, without thought of the flesh. I had become and would always remain the favorite of her heart.

  This estimation of me, so distant from reality, did me such good that I risked everything to confirm it. “The favorite, sí. Thank you, Luciana. But the only one, as well?”

  “You are mine and I am yours, yours alone, and I would have given you what you’ve never asked of me, if only you had asked.”

  She bit back a sob, clutched both of my hands in a sudden frenzy, and departed for the upper chambers of the house without leaving me time for the slightest reaction.

  It was the only visit that ended without protocol. I walked to the front door alone.

  •

  I believed that she loved me. She did not need to pretend she was pure and accepted the pretense that she could be impure. That was why she was strong: Her game was subtler and more polished than mine.

  •

  Down to the Río de la Plata, then out to sea and onward to Spain —where I had never been more than a name on certain documents —would go a mind, a human sensibility, permeated with the idea of me. Someone in Europe would know who I was, what kind of man Diego de Zama was, and would believe him to be good and noble, a wise councillor, a man of love. I was ennobled.

  For Luciana, my purity constituted a deep-rooted and permanent idea. I still hesitated over whether to believe she was pure. I could choose. I chose a redemptive faith in her reputation and her honor.

  I understood that she was more candor and despair than woman. She had refused to be flesh and she had triumphed. She was freer than I.

  •

  I wanted to witness the departure but it passed me by unawares.

  At first I tried to discern Luciana among the figures on the brigantine. Then, propped against a bale on the dock, weightless, I took what I thought would be only a brief foretaste of slumber.

  The light was sparse, the heavy clouds so low they shielded the ground, not the sky. The palm trees’ green fronds expressed their distress. The sky’s blue offered no resistance to a corrosive infiltration of gray. Heavy with humidity, possessive, the atmosphere suspended all the life within it. Lulled upon the still waters, the boat rocked with a languor devoid of all memory.

  I didn’t see it sail away. At some moment it was gone and the crowd at the port had dispersed.

  •

  A presence had been suppressed. Henceforth my afternoons would be free. I could study and be idle. Idleness is agreeable.

  I walked away from the water toward the Gobernación, where neither Oficial Mayor Bermúdez nor Ventura Prieto was to be found. Both had their reasons for living. Their destinies did not interest me. I’d erased them; their memory made no impression. Nor was I obliged to repair to my office. The Teniente de Gobernador gave no orders but to his troops, and in the Gobernación we did not wear uniforms. I could mount my steed and go hunting across the pacified scrublands.

  If I wished, I might assemble some soldiers for an excursion to the Jesuit missions that I was curious to see. I had money enough for that and for a year’s living expenses, and also to provide for Marta. Meanwhile, notice of my transfer would no doubt finally arrive, thanks to steps taken by Marta’s brother in Buenos-Ayres or Luciana’s brother at court.

  My placement in another city seemed so certain that without moving house, my family could come for a visit, to stay with me while I awaited the royal providence: Marta at last in my arms and with her my long-desired home. This was no unattainable fantasy: I had the means, and the interim governor would ensure regular pay for months to come.

  And yet all was not well.

  Something deep inside me canceled out these promising external perspectives. I saw everything before me in good order, possible, realized or realizable. Nevertheless, it was as if I, I myself, might generate failure. Not that I judged myself guilty of this failure; it was as if the guilt were an inheritance and had little to do with me. I was equipped with a kind of advance resignation. Everything is possible, I saw, and in the end every possibility can be exhausted.

  It wasn’t the mere fact of transience that concerned me. Much can be made of what is fleeting, the moment enjoyed for the moment. The cause of my overwhelming unease was something greater, I knew not what, a kind of potent negation, invisible to the eye, that was superior to any strength I might muster or rebellion I might wage.

  What was more, it threatened from afar. At present, every prospect seemed favorable. But I suspected another, irremediable phase—far-off? imminent?—that I would reach in exhaustion, as if extinguished in the depths of a void. What was it that could be so much worse? Destitution, perhaps? Poverty? Some dire affront? Death itself? What? What was it? . . . Nothing, I don’t know. It was nothing. Nothing.

  I sought an explanation for my turmoil and became aware that it was as if I had, for a great while, been approaching some long-foreseen design that I was now within.

  I felt an imperious need to grasp hold of something. My stomach, demanding nourishment, came to my aid. I went to the inn, as if in pursuit of hope.

  1794

  I WAS laboriously making my way back to the idea of a divine creator. A spirit grounded upon nothing, able to establish laws of equilibrium, gravity, and motion. But its universe was a rotation of spheres, large or small, opaque or luminous, within a precise space, seemingly delimited by the range of a gaze, where all sound was inconceivable.

  Then, to meet my needs, the divine creator took on human form but could not truly be a man because he was a god, alien and remote. An old man with white hair and beard, sitting on a rock in fatigued contemplation of the mute universe.

  His hair had been white forever. He was born old and could not die. His solitude was appalling. Malevolent.

  A god cannot create gods so he thought to create man so that man could create them.

  Then he created life. But before creating mankind, he made snakes, flies, and the germs that cause plague. He gave fire to the volcanoes and churned the seas. He needed to eradicate his torment and a rage engendered in his heart by
solitude.

  Later he carried out a labor of love: mankind. And surrounded him with a wealth of goods.

  But the god failed. For mankind created a multitude of gods who did not look kindly upon the first one. These gods divided the universe among themselves, and some imposed their own rule. The god’s greatest failure was this: He could see man, but man could not see him, could not gaze back into his eyes, which were suffused with paternal affection.

  The god was left alone and irascible. He allowed the fruits of goodness to multiply, on their own or through mankind’s labors, but did not eliminate the evils. Instead he delighted in stirring them up here or there, as a way of manifesting his presence. Other upstart gods assisted him in this.

  •

  I wished to be a father. To be a father once more, with a son there, where I was: a son who would gaze back up at me with affection when I turned my eyes and my desolation toward him.

  Emilia, the woman who attended to my needs, an impecunious Spanish widow who did not surpass me in age but did in character, resisted this idea and insulted me whenever I spoke of it.

  To preserve appearances, I kept my room at the inn, though I slept at her rancho and with her, of course.

  One lunar night we lay unsleeping long past midnight and had no taste for each other. Emilia waxed garrulous. My thoughts were occupied with Peruvian gold, racehorses, and my private theogony. She was drawing up an inventory of the family members she had lost; in truth, not a single one was left, I believe. Her own calculations must have reached the same result, for she burst forth in tears and said I was her last and only refuge and that she loved me more than her dead husband, along with other plaintive and touching confidences of that kind. She kissed me a good deal on the mouth and that night was the first we tallied up until she was a mother.

  During the nausea of early pregnancy she could not abide the sight of me and I was unable to tolerate her. She allowed me in only when I brought money, at intervals that grew ever longer, for the funds at my disposition were already scanty and I was obliged to administer them wisely.

  The child was born sickly, doubtless because his mother had directed all her energy outward, shouting at me.

  24

  The city was, to some degree, different. There were stores now; commerce went on every day. Society was no longer a single entity and its sundry constellations gave themselves license to be in less than full agreement with the learned councillor and other officials. Likewise, I gave myself license to dispense with society. The Gobernador was my secret accomplice.

  Feeling rather smug, I brought him word of my paternity. He laughed, spraying spittle, and patted me on the shoulder. This was inoffensive. I was happy.

  When his noisy effusions subsided he inserted himself into the situation, wanting to make a show of benevolence. It occurred to him that my new responsibilities gave me grounds for addressing a plea directly to the King, setting forth in moving terms my aspiration to a new post.

  His logic besotted me and, forgetting all my judicial science, I agreed.

  But the governor quickly saw the error. “It isn’t possible.”

  “What? Why isn’t it possible?”

  “Think of it! The child’s a bastard.”

  He slammed his fist into his palm. Having inspired me with this illusion and then deprived me of it in such rapid sequence, the governor wished, I imagine, to make amends, which had to be worth more to me than the procedure just rejected as impossible. He offered himself as signatory to a petition addressed to Su Majestad. In the first flush of this impulse, to keep from losing a single instant to distraction, he dragged me along behind him until we came upon a clerk.

  The clerk was writing.

  “What are you writing?” The governor’s presence was an interruption, as was the question, which was not hostile but only intended to ascertain whether the clerk was engaged in any urgent official business. The mozo, one Manuel Fernández, failed to comprehend this and in great confusion, while trying to conceal his papers, confessed, “A book, Señor Gobernador.”

  It was the governor’s turn to be surprised. But he accepted Fernández’s avowal in good humor.

  “Aha! A book! Make sons, Manuel, not books. Learn a lesson from our councillor here.”

  Fernández looked at me without conceding me much importance and I smiled to show I was participating in the jest, or whatever the governor had in mind.

  Then the clerk, in a respectful tone, deeply convinced of his words, said, “I want to realize myself in myself. I don’t know what my children will be like.”

  The governor hesitated before replying. Then he took the offensive. “Books? Ha, ha! Worse than children.”

  I laughed, too—out of obligation, not conviction.

  Fernández went red with shame and rage. Barely containing himself, he managed to say, “Children realize themselves, but whether for good or ill we do not know. Books are made only for truth and beauty.”

  “That’s what you believe, what authors believe, but readers don’t see it like that,” came the ready retort. Fernández, who’d responded rather sharply, lowered his head. I realized he could not pursue the argument further without committing a serious offense against the governor, to whom all respect and deference were due.

  The latter adopted an magnanimous air. “Bien, bien,” he said and withdrew, summoning me along with a “Vayamos, Zama.” Once in his office he took a seat in silence, out of sorts and displeased, and charged me with the disagreeable mission of ascertaining why this man Fernández was writing a book in the Casa de la Gobernación.

  The familiarity the governor habitually conceded me authorized me to inquire, “Will vuesa merced dispose of the petition to Su Majestad today? Shall I fetch another clerk?”

  “No, no. Not today, Don Diego. That will be for another day.”

  •

  That day was not to be the next day, for out of discretion I said nothing of the matter, and he, as if it had slipped from his mind, said nothing either.

  Nor was it the day after. As if he sensed exactly when I was on the verge of opening my mouth to renew my appeal, he sealed it shut by demanding my report on the case of the clerk, which I had yet to deliver.

  Thus the man’s situation grew worse, for each time the Gobernador recalled him, he grew irritated and ordered me to make my report categorically unfavorable so as to remove him from his post.

  I formed an intention not to proceed along those lines but rather in accordance with the dictates of my own mind and good faith.

  •

  I feigned good faith to Fernández when I approached him. I did not warn him that his answers would be recorded and that my interrogation was dangerous to him.

  In his office, I asked him, in a friendly and reserved manner, why he was writing in the Casa de la Gobernación, that is, when his time was meant to be devoted entirely to the King’s service. His answer was ambiguous. “The inclination to write is not a seed that germinates within a fixed period of time. It is a small animal, deep in its cave, that procreates when it is of a mind to, for its season is variable and sometimes it is a dog and other times a ferret, sometimes it is a panther and other times a rabbit. It may do so with or without hunger, on some occasions only if it is very well rested and on others if a wound received from a hunter is causing it pain or if it is returning in excitement from a day of mischief.”

  I followed this discourse closely and said, by way of assent, “Aha!”

  Having gained some part of his confidence, I asked him to show me a few pages. He consented. I read several paragraphs with slow deliberation. The line of thought seemed rather entangled.

  “But this is incomprehensible!” I was finally forced to declare.

  “Señor Doctor, it is possible that the first man and the first lizard were each incomprehensible, as well, to all that surrounded them. I not only write: I make my creation.”

  I regarded him with a certain admiration, then thought to offer advice. “No one w
ill accept it!”

  Arrogant, he cut me off. “Vuesa merced, when I write my book I have no master.”

  “And the censor?”

  “I write because I feel the need to write, to take what is in my head and place it outside. I will store the papers in a tin box. My grandchildren’s grandchildren will dig them up. Things will be different then.”

  I thought him an egotist and mused that when the box was opened a hundred and fifty years hence new forms of restriction and censure might well exist.

  I recorded his answers as accurately as memory allowed. My report, I believed, would be truthful and also provide the governor with the pretext he needed.

  But the governor was not satisfied. He wished me, the inquisitor, to issue a ruling and sign it.

  I did.

  25

  The next morning, when I thought he could have no further reason for putting off what he had spontaneously offered, another wall arose.

  A protocol was reestablished, a protocol that, in fact, was usual in all seats of government, but that this rather chaotic Gobernador, who was of uneven character and on occasion very common manners, had eliminated from the start of his administration, at least for myself and other high functionaries.

  To enter his office it no longer sufficed to knock upon the door. It became necessary to request an audience. The Oficial Mayor communicated this to me.

  I requested an audience. None was granted.

  •

  By the sort of secret channel that all of us, acting as transmitters or receivers, know well, Manuel Fernández was advised that people in high places were scheming against him.

  He came to me. He was aware of my report. He neither begged nor rebuked but told me he would turn hunter or soldier, though he doubted a regiment would accept him now, for those who make a habit of injustice complete their work by splattering their victims with ignominy. To keep him from proceeding as Ventura Prieto had done, I told him I would intercede on his behalf with the Gobernador. His fate as soldier, hunter, or beggar was no concern of mine: I simply wished to remind him that I was in communication with a governor and could intervene in a decision that would determine the fate of an individual.