by Cesar Aira
‘That means you don’t understand a thing,’ Mao interrupted her with characteristic distant disdain. ‘There’s nothing more to say.’
‘I don’t understand why you refuse to discuss these things!’
‘You will, I promise you. Have you finished?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m glad. Let’s talk about something else.’
They fell silent for a moment. The Pumper had started to fill up, and this reassured Marcia, because they were more easily hidden in the crowd. But if all the tables became occupied, which seemed likely to happen soon, they would come and throw the three of them out. They had finished the ice cream. As if it were a charm to prevent them from being interrupted, Marcia quickly raised another question she thought might lead somewhere:
‘Earlier today, opposite here, were you with someone?’
‘No. I already told you, we were on our own.’
‘There were so many people…’
‘We’d mixed with those stupid kids to see if we could pick somebody up, but we didn’t know anyone and didn’t have time to choose because then you appeared…’
This information offered a few interesting elements, but seemed deliberately to ensure that they were of the kind Marcia preferred not to pursue. So she continued along the same line she had already taken.
‘Do you belong to some group or other?’
‘What does that mean?’
‘I mean some group of punks.’
‘No,’ said Mao, venomously emphasising every word she said: ‘We’re not part of any carnival band.’
‘I didn’t mean it badly. People always like to associate with others who share their ideas, their tastes, their way of being.’
‘Like you and Liliana, for example? Do you belong to a group of innocents?’
‘Don’t try to twist what I’m saying. And don’t pretend not to understand. Here and everywhere else in the world punks get together and support each other in their rejection of society.’
‘Bravo for your erudition. The answer is no.’
‘But you do know other punks?’
She was proud of her own question. She should have asked it right at the start. It was a perfect lure. It was as though someone had asked them if they knew other human beings. If they denied it, which is obviously what they wanted to do, that would show their bad faith. She had no idea what good that would do her, but at least she would have an answer.
Mao’s eyes narrowed once more. She was too intelligent not to spot how great the danger was. But she wouldn’t let herself be forced into anything. Ever.
‘Why is that important?’ she said. ‘Why are you always trying to get us to talk about what we’re not interested in?’
‘We made a pact. We made an agreement.’
‘All right. What was your question?’
Marcia said implacably:
‘If you know other punks.’
Mao, to Lenin:
‘Do you know any?’
‘There’s Sergio Vicio.’
‘Oh yes, of course, Sergio…’ She turned to Marcia. ‘He’s an acquaintance of ours. We haven’t seen him for ages, but he’s an excellent example. Shame we don’t have a photo of him. He was the bass guitarist in a band; he was always high, and was a great kid. He still must be, though he’s a bit crazy, out of it. When he talks, which isn’t very often, you can’t understand a word. Something extraordinary happened to him once. A very rich woman went to a party, and amongst other things she was wearing a pair of earrings that had four emeralds as big as saucers in each of them. All of a sudden she realised one was missing; and even though they turned over all the sofas and carpets, they couldn’t find it. Since it cost millions, and rich women are very concerned about their possessions, which always cost millions, there was a huge scandal, which even got into the papers. All the guests agreed to allow themselves to be searched on the way out, apart from the Paraguayan ambassador, who refused and wasn’t frisked. Of course, that made him the prime suspect. The foreign ministry got involved, and the ambassador was recalled to his country and lost his post. A year later, the same lady went to a party at Palladium. Imagine her surprise when on the dance floor she spotted Sergio Vicio, with the four emeralds dangling from one ear. Her bodyguards went for him at once, and brought him back by the scruff of his neck. She was with a colonel, the Interior Minister, Pirker, and Mitterrand’s wife. They brought another chair and made Sergio Vicio sit down. As they had been talking in French at the table, the lady in question asked him if he spoke the language. Sergio said he did. “Some time ago,” she told him, “I lost an earring that was identical to yours. I wonder if it’s the same one?” Sergio looked at her, but couldn’t see (or hear) her. He had been dancing for three or four hours non-stop, something he often does because he loves to dance, and when the movement ended all of a sudden he had a problem with his blood pressure. This was the first time it had happened to him, because he always instinctively stopped dancing gradually, and then went out to walk until dawn. The effect of being hauled off the dance floor left him blind: everything was covered with little red dots and he couldn’t see a thing. It’s called “orthostatic hypotension”, but he didn’t know that. Other symptoms accompanying the vision loss are nausea, which he didn’t get because he hadn’t had a bite to eat in two or three days, and vertigo, which he was used to because of all the dope he smoked, and which, far from upsetting or alarming him, kept him amused during all the rest of the scene, which he spent rocking himself in cosmic space. The lady, a light-fingered expert, made the earring disappear from his ear as if it was a magic trick. Now at the party being held there that night, which was in honour of a French orchestra visiting Argentina, Palladium was inaugurating a system of quartz strobe lights, the cutting edge of technology. And they switched them on at that very moment. At the table they were so taken up with Sergio Vicio they didn’t hear the announcement. When the lady had taken the earring from his ear, she held it up by the little hook for all of them to see and began to say: “These emeralds… ” She didn’t manage to get any further, because as the new lights hit the stones they made them completely transparent like the purest crystal. There was no trace of green in them. Her jaw dropped. “Emeralds?” said Mitterrand’s wife. “But they’re diamonds. And of the first water! I’ve never seen anything like them.” “What do you mean, diamonds?” said Pirker. “Where would this layabout get something like that? They’re bits of glass from some granny’s chandelier, tied together with wire.” Struck dumb, their owner was gasping like an axolotl. And at that moment, the first bars of Pierrot Lunaire could be heard. No less a personage than Pierre Boulez was onstage, with the fantastic Helga Pilarczyk as soprano. The guests at the table transferred their attention to the music. No emerald turned into a diamond could compare with the moonlit notes of this masterpiece. The most basic elegance dictated the supremacy of music over gems. Moving like a robot, the lady copied her previous gesture in reverse, and fixed the earring back on Sergio Vicio’s earlobe, then watched in anguished silence as the bodyguards, misinterpreting what was going on, lifted him up and deposited him back on the dance floor. He started dancing again, regardless of the music, until he got his sight back and left to go for a walk, still on automatic pilot. And she never saw her emeralds again.’
Silence.
Marcia couldn’t believe it. This was the first time in her life that she had heard a well-told story, and it had seemed to her sublime, an experience that made up for all the fears this meeting had caused.
‘It’s… marvellous,’ she stammered. ‘I know I ought to thank you, but I can’t find the words. You’ve surprised me far more than I could say… While you were talking I felt transported. It was as if I could see everything…’
Mao waved her hand dismissively. This was such a new experience for Marcia that she couldn’t help thinking of the rules of etiquette there must be in such cases. She had to discover them all on her own, as they went along. To start with, she grasped
that it was not done to go on praising the form; such praise had to be transmitted implicitly in her comments on the content. But she was so dazzled that content and form became intertwined; whatever she might say about the former would inevitably be transferred to the latter. The most practical things – and what came most naturally to her – were questions, doubts. What happened next to Sergio Vicio? And the earring? How had he got in to that party at Palladium? Had the two of them ever been there? Marcia of course had never set foot in the famous nightspot. Probably the punks were allowed in free, even on the most important occasions, to add some local colour, as part of the decor. To her, Palladium had all the hallmarks of somewhere from a dream, and it was no surprise to her that all those famous, important people were there… It was almost another world, but one linked to this one through the fantastic aspect of the tale… Could it be that her friends had been in Palladium that night? How had they heard about what had happened? That was what was important, and to a certain extent that was what the story of the earring was about…
She began asking them questions, which they seemed to find inopportune. Who were the musicians they had mentioned? The only one that sounded well-known to her was the one called Pierrot. She thought she remembered he had played with Tom Verlaine in Television. Mao’s art as a narrator had transported her from the plebeian neon lighting of the Pumper to the shadows of this dream, shot through with that lunar glow. She even thought she had heard a song she had never heard before, something that, almost inconceivably, was even better than The Cure and the Rolling Stones…
None of her questions got an answer because a second supervisor had appeared at their table. This one was formidable, threatening, and demanded to be taken into account. She was exactly the sort of person who had to be taken into account. Especially as she was the spitting image of the first supervisor, with each of her features intensified: she was taller, her hair even more dyed; her miniskirt even shorter. She was prettier, sterner, more determined. Whereas the other one seemed like someone who wouldn’t allow herself to be pushed around (that must be a requisite for the job), this one was the model of a strong character, of energetic initiative.
‘Get out.’
Her voice left no room for doubt. Marcia would have happily got up and left. She glanced at Mao, who slowly raised her eyes towards the intruder like a cobra uncoiling. Here was a worthy opponent. The Liliana phase was over. The establishment had kept its heavy artillery for the end.
‘What’s wrong with you?’
‘You have to leave.’
‘What?’ It really was as if Mao were coming out of a dream. ‘What… ? And who are you?’
‘The super…’
All at once Lenin had an open flick knife in her hand. The blade was twenty centimetres long, and sharp as a razor. Marcia blenched. Lenin was sitting on the same side as her, next to the wall. If there was an attack, she was blocking her exit. But it didn’t seem as if things would get that far. Mao glanced at her friend and said:
‘Put that away, there’s no need for it.’
‘Do you want me to call the police?’ said the supervisor, making to move away.
Mao took her time replying:
‘You’ve got such a fucking ugly bitch’s face.’
‘Do you want me to call the police?’
‘Yes, please. Go on, call them.’
All this, noted Marcia, was said in a paroxysm of violence that revealed a new dimension to the punks… and also, yet again, to the world. They faced each other like two powerful beasts, both of them sure of their own strength, and even of the balance of power between them, at an excessive level. In confrontations of this sort, victory went to whoever possessed a secret weapon, and it was obvious that in this case it was Mao who had it.
‘You were threatening one of the girls…’ said the supervisor.
‘Which girl? Liliana? But she’s a friend of ours.’
Slightly disconcerted, the supervisor looked over at Marcia, who nodded. That was a point in her favour, but it was a shame that Mao immediately threw it away:
‘We’re waiting for her to finish her shift to go and have a fuck. Do you have a problem with that?’
‘Are you making fun of me, you piece of scum?’
‘No, shithead. Liliana is a lezzie, and delighted to go to bed with us. Do you want to stop her?’
‘I’m going to ask her right now.’
‘You think she’d tell you the truth? If you do, you’re not just a bitch, you’re a cretin.’
‘Liliana gets off at ten, and you’re not going to spend hours here.’
‘We’re going to stay as long as we fuckin’ well like. Ciao. Go call the cops.’
They stared each other out for a moment. The supervisor moved away, with a look on her face that said: I’ll be right back. They all left with this same threat, but never returned.
When the tense moment had passed and she had recovered the power of speech, Marcia felt completely shocked.
‘How could you be such a traitor! You put it all on to poor Liliana! That could cost her the job. I think her minutes are counted.’
‘Why?’
‘D’you think they will want a lesbian employee who makes dates with lovers who pull out flick knives?’
‘It’s all relative, Marcia. Maybe now they’ll respect her more. And if they throw her out, she’ll find a better job: that’s life. That means we’ve probably done her a favour without meaning to. She didn’t seem to me particularly happy with what she’s doing. The fact that she spoke to us shows that she is open to other possibilities.’
‘Possibly,’ said Marcia, not convinced. ‘But anyway, I’m not happy about lying. That’s always an insult. To me, truth is sacred.’
‘Not to me.’
‘Or me,’ said Lenin.
‘So much the worse for you. It devalues everything you’ve said…’
For the first time since they had come in, Mao showed genuine interest, as if Marcia had finally hit on a topic that was worth considering.
‘Fine,’ she said. ‘So what?’
‘What d’you mean, “So what?”’
‘I mean, why is that important?’
‘It’s important because it is. It’s what makes the difference between talking for its own sake and wanting to say something.’
Mao shook her head.
‘Do you think anything we’ve said since we sat here is important?’
This was not a completely rhetorical question: she was expecting a reply.
‘Yes,’ said Marcia. ‘It was important for me.’
‘Well then, you’re mistaken.’
‘If that’s what you think, why bother to speak at all?’
‘If for nothing else, to make you understand that, Marcia: that none of it is important. That’s it’s all nothing, or the same as nothing.’
‘And you told me you weren’t nihilists!’
‘We’re not. You are the nihilist. Could you really spend your life talking crap, worried about the kind of things that happen here, in this hamburger microcosm? All this is accidental, nothing more than the springboard to launch us back to what is important. Which brings us back to our starting point. Are you satisfied now? Have you found out all you wanted to know about us? Can we get back to talking about the other?’
‘I don’t get you, Mao…’ There was a pleading note to her voice that was completely involuntary. But as she said the punk’s name, Marcia once more felt the indefinable something was now closer to her awareness, but still outside it. The restaurant had become unreal, perhaps due to the constant coming and going of adolescents along the corridor, or the dazzling white lighting, or more probably because they had been sitting without moving for a while, which was something Marcia always detested. There was a mirror on the wall, which she looked at for the first time: she was pale, glassy-eyed. The faces of the other two looked veiled. ‘I don’t feel well. I think that ice cream disagreed with me. What time can it be?’ Her question fell into
an indifferent silence. ‘Isn’t the time important to you either? I guess not. Of course not. Why should it be? What gives you the right to decide what’s important for me and what isn’t? You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. Who are you? What do you want?’
‘I’ve already told you that.’
What did they want? Who were they? Who was she? Everything was blurred in a corrosive mist. Marcia felt paralysed. If she moved, she would evaporate like a smoke ring. OK, so nothing was important. They were right after all. Some young boys went by, arguing loudly. Behind them was Liliana, with that swaying gait of hers. She glanced at the table as if this was the first time she had seen it, lifted the tray with her left hand and used her other hand to wipe it with a wet cloth, even though there was no need because they hadn’t made it dirty. As she was doing so, she said:
‘We get all kinds of weirdos in here.’
‘Let’s go,’ said Mao, suddenly standing up.
Lenin imitated her, and since in order to get out she needed Marcia to get up, she took her arm and helped her stand. Mao took the other arm, and the two of them pointed her towards the door. Serious, inscrutable, still holding the tray, Liliana kept staring at them until they were outside.
The cold air revived Marcia. It was not that cold, but the heating inside the Pumper had been too high and she could feel the contrast, especially because she had not taken off her pullover. By the time they had taken a few steps, her discomfort had vanished… possibly because it had never really existed. She felt very lucid; her thoughts stirred and spread, even though there was still nothing to apply them to. This gave her a sense of completion. She felt that the moment was coming – in fact it was rushing towards her – to find a way to say goodbye to them. It was a kind of compulsion to think, for the moment, in an imminent way, and Marcia knew that when her thinking presented itself as ideas, and the ideas as words, the contraction of the fullness would make the world a toy. In reality everything was becoming tiny. The street itself showed her this: all the light of the street lamps did was reduce the night to a kind of protective bubble from which it was impossible to escape, as if from a dream. With a gesture very common in all those leaving an enclosed space, she raised her eyes to the sky (to see if it was raining). She seemed to see the stars; or saw them but absent-mindedly, without thinking, which when it comes to stars was the same as not seeing them at all. Not much time had passed, because the activity in the street had not changed since they had gone into the Pumper. Most of the youths were still standing on the opposite pavement; on this side there were small groups on the steps of the bank next to the Pumper, but mostly everything was in movement. The traffic was so dense it made your head spin. The punks’ rapid steps, which for some unknown reason she fell in with, only added to this sensation. The crush of people separated and then brought them back together two or three times within a few metres. Mao took her by the arm impatiently, and pulled her towards the triangular recess of a perfume shop. Lenin followed them.
