The Planets

by Sergio Chejfec

  But Rosenfeld, as soon as he appears, sows the seeds of a vague disquiet: two neighbors, Leike Rosenstein and Jaike Rosenbaum, comment secretly after seeing him pass that he has arrived from Europe after becoming a widower with no descendants—to all appearances, because of his own incapacity. As is well known, to arrange a marriage without being able to have children is to condemn the woman to the greatest misfortune. Raquel receives her betrothed with shyness and affection: her eyes sparkle more than usual, and her lips take the shape of a suppressed kiss. The father, Rosemberg, embraces Rosenfeld as though he were already his son, though in the play he is only five years older (in reality, the actor Rosenfeld is noticeably older than the actor Rosemberg). Behind Rosemberg’s affability, one can sense a deference to power, in this case to wealth, that he cannot contain. For his part, Rosenfeld behaves like someone aware of his own importance: he raises his voice without discretion, he addresses recent acquaintances with excessive familiarity (though it would be fair to say that these people feel flattered, and in some way protected, by Rosenfeld’s friendship), he demands details about the community and flaunts his worldliness, alluding constantly to Viennese customs. It is true that the many references to Vienna unsettle Rosemberg: more than the Parisians, who are already completely foreign to the restricted world of a Jew from the East, the Jews of Vienna embodied the height of assimilation and the loss of tradition. At the same time, it is also true that, for a poor Galizian family living in a tenement in Villa Crespo, hearing of Viennese customs meant glimpsing a part of Buenos Aires that they had just barely seen, only more.

  The marriage ceremony was set for a few days later. As a sign of the change underway, one night the manager of the tenement comes to collect the rent and is surprised by the way Rosemberg pays him without curses or complaints. Raquel grows happier and more beautiful by the day, and is gradually making progress as she is instructed in the work of her mother; she is already able to prepare the most elaborate meals on her own, including the confections. Meanwhile, Rosenfeld entertains advice regarding possible investments of his money: certain friends recommend trade, others, industry. His interest in this stands in contrast to the indifference, even rudeness, with which he receives the wistful comments of his future father-in-law, who lists possible names for his grandchildren, acts out the games and sings the songs that he will teach them, and happily thanks God that they will not experience the privation his own family did. The audience also notices the haughtiness with which Rosenfeld treats Raquel, as though she were soon to be his property. He is satisfied with the quick sympathy felt toward any girl, and with his control over even the smallest—though for this reason, highly significant—details, but never displays the typical affect one feels toward one’s betrothed. In these moments, Raquel’s bitter, suppressed gestures disclose her melancholy premonitions. Of all social climbers, Rosenfeld is the worst sort because he is rich, though no one is able to pinpoint the source of their aversion and all see wealth as a virtue.

  During the preparations for the ceremony, Rosenblum, a young baker from the market on calle Uriarte whom Rosenfeld contracted to prepare the food, on Rosemberg’s recommendation, appears. He is shown calculating the budget, indignantly defending his merchandise, being moved by Raquel’s innocence, and wishing happy tidings upon the couple. Rosenblum is endowed with many virtues: he is honorable, hardworking, observant of tradition; he even breaks out into irrepressible bouts of lyricism. Thanks to his songs, the members of the family are able to temporarily forget the vague sense of anxiety that is slowly taking them over, and they begin to dance. Yet Rosenfeld is blind to all this; toward Rosenblum he feels only disdain, for his poverty, and suspicion, for his goodness. A series of increasingly unusual events takes place, designed to add to the disquiet; even Raquel, at first so vivacious, charming, and happy, is now—like a defenseless animal that senses great danger in the slightest movement—unable to react even to the simplest of questions, bursting into tears for no reason at all. As a counterpoint, Rosenfeld, completely self-possessed, displays his bounty of ire and arrogance as though he owned everything and everyone there. An example: Rosemberg does not dare to come to the defense of his wife when Rosenfeld insults her cooking, dumping the contents of his plate onto the tablecloth. Raquel, also at the table, looks down and silently cries.

  The day of the ceremony, one sees only forced gestures. The threat is palpable, though no one is able to latch on to it and bring it out into the open. The syndrome that has infected the actors, the raising of one hand compulsively to tug at their left eyelid, is an indication of the spiritual chaos that dominates the characters: it is a confusion that can only really express itself through something as mechanical and immaterial as a tic. Eventually, after marches and countermarches, after impossible preparations and essential things forgotten, the moment of the ceremony arrives. Proof that something is not right appears in this moment: there is a stranger among the guests, somebody that everyone asks about, everyone but Rosenfeld, who knows him and watches him with animosity. He is aware that he cannot be the one to let loose the storm and that, in any event, he lacks the upper hand, so he remains silent. The guests try to act as though it were just another marriage ceremony, which does little to justify the martial movements of the actors. The air is filled with forced laughter, with repeated jokes, with sorrowful silences. Finally, at the climax of the ceremony, when Raquel and Rosenfeld are about to exchange rings, the stranger steps forward and, begging the guests’ pardon, says that he knows Rosenfeld and asks God not to allow their marriage. He, Rosenthal, the person on whom all eyes were set at the moment, had been the man’s father-in-law for many years, fifteen, until his daughter died without any descendents despite having been a healthy woman. Rosenfeld was not able to father a child, he was certain of it. With these words, Rosenthal would produce an unexpected stir, no less real for being spontaneous. Jaike and Leike began to whisper, as did their spouses. Raquel threw herself into her mother’s arms; Rosenblum stood paralyzed, with a tray on his arm; Rosemberg began to sweat; and Rosenfeld turned, screaming, toward Rosenthal, overcome with rage. My darling daughter visited doctors and rabbis, and all of them assured her that there was nothing keeping her from having a child, but that man never agreed to see anyone about it, Rosenthal accused, pointing his finger.

  The marriage could not take place; everyone knew it, though no one said anything. Everyone—apart from Rosenfeld, that is—except Rosemberg who, surprisingly as pusillanimous as always, tried to be accommodating, saying that everything could be sorted out and that the ceremony should go on. Then Rosemberg’s wife spoke, saying that she would not allow it, for her only daughter never to give her grandchildren. The husband fell silent: it was not a comfortable situation for him. Everything was one generalized, collective murmur peppered with shouts here and there. That is, until Rosenfeld, pulling a thick bundle of papers from his pants with a flourish and a look in his eye that consolidated all the ire of which a person is capable, said that if the marriage was not celebrated, Rosemberg had to pay back all the promissory notes he owed. Raquel let out a shriek of terror; her mother fainted, Rosenbaum and Rosenstein would rather not have been there, but Rosenblum kept his calm and, consoling Raquel and attending to her mother, he found time to turn and curse Rosenfeld. This is how the scene ends.

  The following morning, Rosenfeld turns up dead. There are so many people under suspicion that it does not occur to anyone that his death might have been a natural one. The manager of the tenement arrives to announce that the police are on their way. A little while later a patrolman walks in—the same actor, dressed in a uniform—who means well but has trouble understanding the situation. He writes in a notebook and says to leave Rosenfeld where he is, that he needs to notify the judge. When the judge arrives, it is the same person as the manager and the patrolman. He closes himself in an empty room in the house with each of the suspects and the guests at the gathering. The judge also means well, but he does not have trouble understanding. In
the end he concludes that it is a complex case, and that they should know the cause of Rosenfeld’s death before coming to any decision. And so Rosenblum calls the most respected doctor in the community, Doctor Rosenblat, a man of simple yet distinguished stature, behind whose affability one could sense an extensive knowledge of both tenements and palaces, as well as a genuine interest in all Jews, even the most impoverished. When he arrives, Rosenblat greets Rosemberg—they actually know one another—and asks about Resie, his wife. “Resie is Resie,” Rosemberg says as an answer to all questions, and leads the doctor into the bedroom.

  Rosenblat carefully examines Rosenfeld’s body; he asks Raquel, Rosemberg, and his wife, and especially Rosenblum, what he ate and drank the day before. Nothing out of the ordinary, they answered, nothing that they themselves had not eaten or drunk. Rosenthal intervenes once again. He knows a secret: a certain disease, slow and merciless, had been eating away at Rosenfeld for years. That explains the death, Rosenblat ventures; the effects of the illness could be seen on the corpse. Everyone looked at one another, relieved. The judge had the doctor sign the death certificate, wrote a few notes in his folio, and withdrew, though he was not able to resist a glass of honey wine offered to him by Raquel’s mother. Raquel and Rosenblum ran to each other and embraced: as the only two young people in the group, the violent tension had, naturally, brought them together. Rosenblum broke into song, Rosenbaum and Rosenstein immediately returned to the stage and all the actors began to dance with joy and contagious fervor.

  This was how the play ended, with a resolution that did not demonstrate Rosenfeld’s cruelty, but—on the contrary—refuted it: aware of his imminent death, he had decided to marry Raquel in order to leave her his fortune. All the way from far-off Vienna, to benefit a girl in Argentina. It was strange, how distance made certain episodes more enigmatic. If Raquel had lived in Vienna, Galizia or anywhere else in Europe, Rosenfeld’s gesture would have seemed like a forgettable eccentricity. But to cross the ocean and go to the ends of the earth to leave his inheritance to a girl he hardly knew! Those thousands of kilometers made of the decision a disquieting mix of chance and goodness, as though the souls of millionaires floated through the air until finding, with a quick and accidental glance, one lucky individual. Everyone dreams of getting rich, M continued; words in which I recognized the echo of similar, but different ones often spoken by his father.

  Thanks to Rosenfeld, the new arrival, the insurmountable distance that separates Buenos Aires from Galizia vanished in the minds of the characters, representing itself instead in just a few meters, or in the delicate thickness of the partition that divided the rooms of the Rosemberg home; seeing the play, it was evident that those who were not in one room were in the other (listening). They may also sometimes have felt that they were in the same one, since Rosenfeld was the one who most fully represented the past and, along with it, the diffuse territory from which they all came. Despite the simplicity of his intentions, Rosenfeld appeared to the audience and to the other characters as an enigmatic figure, at once despicable and attractive. The mystery of Rosenfeld. The mystery of Rosenfeld, arising neither from his actions nor his appearance, relied upon something that was impossible to conceal: his status as a traveler. In a manner that was simple and slight, rapid, stealthy, and vaguely heroic, Rosenfeld came from everywhere to end up in one place, but the journey had done little for him and he began to wander again. It would be easy to say that death, had it held off a little, would have allowed him to marry and follow through on his intentions, but the truth is that Rosenfeld lacked absolute time: he was condemned not to finish, to meet his end before achieving anything. He would not have been able to avoid failure, even if he had twenty years. I know this chimerical time, the one that stands still while the other, as the saying goes, slips through one’s fingers; I know it well. I know this broken half, explained M, in different words—the real turned to solipsism: Rosenfeld the individual aspiring to attain a totality made impossible by the fact that the search itself was behind him, in a forsaken time and place.

  SIX

  It was like a solar eclipse, but in reverse. He pictured the night turned to day without prologue or intervention, the urgent din of the animals and then the return of darkness. This is what it would be like not to wake up, to fall asleep like on any other day, but with the knowledge that there would be no dawn. Bad thoughts are replaced by worse ones, he ventured, resting the empty bottle on the floor. Face down on his mattress, his arms hanging to either side, Grino selected from among the few “scenes of abundance” that helped him tolerate his unfortunate situation. It was the sea, the far end of an elongated bay flanked on both sides by mountains that were higher and more uneven on the right than on the left. According to his memory of the photographs, waves appeared like uniform reproductions of the horizon, that remarkable plane from which they emerged, by virtue of a complex mechanism of constant repositioning. They were spread evenly apart and their height was the same; their crests, crowned with airy foam, seemed more like embellishments than crests. Thanks to the photo, the natural world—there is nothing more natural than the sea, with its unchanging horizon—showed its artificial, even mechanical, condition. To Grino’s mind, this was the source of the bewildering abundance of the scene. Simple people like him cannot help but feel overwhelmed by nature; yet in a strange, compensatory turn of intelligence and perception, the supernatural appears straightforward to them. This is how the urge to travel that torments so many begins, thought Grino, pinned to the bed by the weight of his bottle of rum and the semen he had freed earlier, caught somewhere between confusion and sleep. Despite the difficulties, he was someone who felt capable of getting up at any moment and setting out on foot in search of that photographic landscape, though in reality it might be impossible to find. Anyone could see that, just as the photo was a partial—and, in its way, false—depiction of an imprecise model, the sea, too, and the waves and the beach that bordered the water like a ring of ash, were nothing more than metaphors of freedom. It is in this second or supplementary nature that, paradoxically, simple souls find their proof, the landscape: anything able to bear multiplication and use, like waves and especially photos, holds a truth that transcends the simple and mundane deep within it. And so, Grino understood, his devotions converged in relocation and religion. The machine that moved the waves was the same one that made photos and guided both planets and people.

  No one is immune to deceit, not even their own; take Sito, for example, who I think still believes he fooled me, as I wrote earlier. His mistake was not controlling his impulse to say more than I expected. Excess, in such cases, either reveals the deceit or becomes a falsehood itself, in one way or another. I talked too much, as well, and because of that we both clung to the tiny bit of truth at the mottled nucleus of the stories we told, but at least I can honestly say, as I do now, that I didn’t tell him that or I only told him half the story. Despite his misdirection, he would have had a hard time not telling me something, no matter how minor. Sito has probably drawn his own conclusions, inferred things based on my words and my silences, and thinks that I am much more transparent than my reticence would suggest. In any event, it is important to say this because, though it may seem obvious, certain events remain unknown if they are not brought out into the open. I am referring to something I did not tell Sito, something I was careful to conceal due, in truth, to my own weakness and shame.

  I don’t know how it might seem—strange, ridiculous, foolish—but I know what it was: futile. To put it concretely, there was a time when I tried to change my name; I wanted to take M’s. Perhaps tried is too strong a word, and I should say that I was “inclined” to change my name to his. Since he had the misfortune of being killed, since it was he who had suffered martyrdom, it seemed fair to me that, being the one to have survived, I would compensate for his absence by imposing his name over mine. I didn’t think of it only as a compensation; it was something more profound or superficial, depending on how you look at
it: a balance that needed to be restored. I felt that M and I had achieved an unprecedented and varied sense of unity that should be recovered, if only in a purely verbal or even strictly figurative form. Yet despite the simplicity and precision of the reasoning, and setting aside the justice and dignity of the cause, some things are just impossible.

  One day I went to a government office on calle Uruguay, the civil registry. That morning marked the beginning of the final episode, until today, of an adventure that has involved M as an intangible companion. I waited in line for a long time with people who needed to file certificates of birth, death, marriage, or adoption, or who needed to correct errors that appeared in the same, or several of these things at once. (There I learned something I had not known before: that there are errors that can just appear, that may not exist as such at first but can all of a sudden abandon the realm of the correct, moving to another and never being discovered, but rather simply materializing at some point as errors.) Aside from ours, there was another, much longer, line of foreigners waiting to do things with their residency; it seemed as though they had been there all night, with friends and relatives along to relieve them from time to time. I’ll say one thing about calle Uruguay: that morning, its wide sidewalk was constantly full.