Shantytown

by Cesar Aira

  Shantytown

  •

  CÉSAR AIRA

  Translated by Chris Andrews

  A NEW DIRECTIONS BOOK

  I

  One way Maxi chose to spend his time was helping the local cardboard collectors to transport their loads. An act performed once, on the spur of the moment, had developed over time into a job that he took very seriously. It had begun with something as natural as relieving a child or a pregnant woman of a load that seemed too great for someone like that to bear (although the woman or the child was, in fact, bearing it). Before long he was indiscriminately helping children and adults, men and women: he was bigger and stronger than any of them, and anyway he did it because he wanted to, not because he was asked. It never occurred to him to see it as an act of charity or solidarity or Christian duty or pity or anything like that. It was something he did, that was all. It was spontaneous, like a hobby. Had anybody asked him why, he would have had trouble explaining, given how terribly hard it was for Maxi to express himself, and in his own mind he didn’t even try to justify what he was doing. As time went by, his dedication to the task increased, and if one day, or rather one night, he had been unable to do his rounds in the neighborhood, he would have had the uncomfortable feeling that the collectors were missing him and thinking, “Where can he be? Why hasn’t he come? Is he angry with us?” But he never missed a night. There were no other obligations to keep him from going out at that time.

  The expression cardboard collectors was a euphemism, which everyone had adopted, and it conveyed the intended meaning clearly enough (although the less delicate scavengers served that purpose too). Cardboard, or paper, was only one of their specialties. They also collected glass, cans, wood . . . in fact, where there is need, there is no specialization. They had to find a way to get by and they weren’t going to turn up their noses, not even at the remnants of food that they found in the garbage bags. And perhaps those borderline or spoiled leftovers were, in fact, the real objective, and all the rest — cardboard, glass, wood, tin — no more than a respectable front.

  In any case, Maxi didn’t ask himself why they were doing what they did. He tactfully averted his gaze when he saw them rummaging through the trash, as if all that mattered to him were the loads that they assembled, and only their weight, not their contents. He didn’t even ask himself why he was doing what he did. He did it because he could, because he felt like it, because it gave his evening walk a purpose. When he began, in autumn, he would set off in the sinister half-light of dusk, but by the time the habit was entrenched, the year had turned, and it was dark when he started. That was when the collectors came out, not because they wanted to, or were trying to work under cover of night, but because people put out their trash at the end of the day, and, as soon as they did, the race was on to beat the garbage trucks, which came and took it all away.

  That time of day had always been hard for Maxi ever since he was a boy, and now that he was entering his twenties, it was even worse. He suffered from so-called “night blindness,” which of course is not blindness at all, just a troublesome incapacity to distinguish things in dim or artificial light. As a result of this problem (or was it the cause?) his circadian rhythm was markedly diurnal. He woke up at first light, without fail, and the shut-down of all his systems at nightfall was sudden and irrevocable. As a child he had fitted in well, because that’s the natural rhythm of children, but in his teenage years he had started to lose touch with his friends and classmates. They were all eagerly exploring the night, enjoying the freedom it granted them, coming to maturity as they learned its lessons. He had tried too, without success, and had given up some time ago. His path was solitary, all his own. At the age of about fifteen, already falling out of step with the routines and pursuits of his peers, he had started going to the gym. His body responded very well to weight training, and he had developed muscles everywhere. He was very tall and solidly built; without the training he would have been fat. As it was, when people saw him in the street, they thought: “meathead” or “brainless hulk,” and they weren’t too far from the truth.

  In March he had sat exams for some of the subjects that he still had to pass to get his high school diploma, and there would be more in July or December . . . or not. His studies had languished in a slow but steady and definitive way. Looking to the future, both he and his parents had come to accept that he’d never go back to being a student: he wasn’t cut out for it; there was no point. This was confirmed by looking back: he’d forgotten almost everything that he’d learned in the long years spent at high school. At the intersection of the future and the past were those aptly named preliminary subjects, suspended in a truly perplexing uncertainty. So when that autumn began, he was at a loose end. Over the summer he’d studied in a desultory sort of way, and his parents were resigned to the fact that he always took a long break after exams, not to recover from the effort so much as from the sad, inadequate feeling that came over him when he studied. Although he had flunked the three exams in March, or maybe because of that, the gulf between him and the world of education deepened even further. In theory he was supposed to try again in July, and then, according to the plan, re-sit exams for another two subjects (or was it three?), but he couldn’t even think about studying, and nobody reminded him. So his only activity was going to the gym. His father, a wealthy businessman, didn’t pressure him to look for work. There would be time for him to find his way. He was a biddable, affectionate young man, happy to stay at home; quite the opposite of his only sibling, a younger sister, who was rebellious and headstrong. They lived in a comfortable modern apartment near Plaza Flores.

  There were a number of reasons why Maxi had begun to go walking in the evenings at the end of summer. One was that, around that time, the arguments between his mother and his sister tended to intensify and fill the apartment with shouting. Another was that his body, by then, had energy to spend, and a sort of alarm had begun to sound. He went to the gym in the morning, from opening time until midday. After lunch he took a nap, and after that he watched television, did some shopping, hung around at home. . . . During those long hours of inactivity he grew increasingly restless, and in the end he simply had to get himself moving again. He had tried running in Parque Chacabuco, but his body was a bit too heavy, too muscular, and his gym instructor had advised him against it, because the jolting could upset the delicate balance of his joints, which were already under stress from the weight of muscle. Anyway, he didn’t enjoy it. Walking, on the other hand, was the ideal form of exercise. His walks coincided with the appearance of the collectors, and that coincidence was how it all began.

  Cardboard collecting or scavenging had gradually established itself as an occupation over the previous ten or fifteen years. It was no longer a novelty. The collectors had become invisible because they operated discreetly, almost furtively, at night (and only for a while), but above all because they took refuge in a social recess that most people prefer to ignore.

  They came from the crowded shantytowns in Lower Flores, to which they returned with their booty. Some worked all alone (in which case Maxi left them to it), or driving a horse and cart. But most of them worked in family groups and pulled their carts themselves. If Maxi had stopped to wonder whether or not they’d accept his help, or tried to find the right words, it would never have happened. But one day he came across a child or a pregnant woman (he couldn’t remember which), barely able to shift an enormous bag, and he took it from the child’s or woman’s hands, just like that, without a word, lifted it up as if it were a feather and carried it to the corner, where the cart was. That first time, perhaps, they said thank you, and went away thinking, “What a nice boy.” He had broken the ice. Before long he could help anyone, even the men: they didn’t take offence; they pointed
out where they’d left their carts, and off he went. Nothing was heavy for him; he could have carried the collectors as well, under the other arm. They were tough, resilient people, but scrawny and malnourished, worn out by their trudging, and very light. The only precaution he learned to take was to look into the cart before loading it up, because there was often a baby on board. From the age of two, the children scampered around among the piles of garbage bags with their mothers, helping, in their way, with the search, learning the trade. If the family was in a hurry and the children were lagging behind, rather than listening to the impatient shouting of the parents, Maxi would pick up all the kids, as if gathering toys to tidy a room, and head for the cart. Actually, they were always in a hurry because they were racing against the garbage trucks, which were hard on their heels in certain streets. And ahead of them, in the next block, they could see big piles of promising bags (they had an intuitive sense of where it would be worth their while to stop), and this made them anxious: an urgent buzz would spread through the group; some would shoot off ahead, the father and one of the sons, for example, because the father was the best at undoing the knots and opening the bags and spotting the good stuff in the dark; meanwhile the mother would stay behind pulling the cart, because they couldn’t leave it too far away. . . . That’s where Maxi came in. He’d tell her to join her husband; he’d bring the vehicle. That was something he could do; all the rest was up to them. He’d grip the two handles, and whether the cart was empty or full (sometimes it was piled high), he’d pull it along almost effortlessly, as if he were playing a game, using his excess strength to stop it jolting, so as to spare the mended axle and the dicey wheels, and not to disturb the baby asleep inside.

  All the local scavengers got to know him eventually, though he couldn’t tell them apart, not that it mattered to him. Some would wait for him, watching a corner, and when they saw him coming, they’d rush to get ready: he saved them time, that was the main thing. They didn’t say much, hardly a word, not even the children, who are usually so talkative. He’d come across a group of them almost as soon as he stepped into the street, but sometimes he’d go across to the other side of Rivadavia and the railway line, where they congregated earlier in the evening, and then he’d accompany their slow southward march, passing from one family to another. When they stopped to work a specially rich vein, and he left them behind, they never tried to stop him; it was as if they realized that others, a little further on, needed him more than they did.

  If there was some sharing of the places with the richest pickings, it was a customary, tacit arrangement, or perhaps a matter of instinct. Maxi never saw them fight, or even get in each other’s way. When two groups met at a corner, he was the only link between them. His imposing presence must have been enough to establish order and guarantee peace: for these diminutive, downtrodden people, his giant’s body served as a bond of solidarity.

  Marching southward, they were heading for home, that is, for the shantytown; as their loads grew heavier, the distance to be covered shrank. But they were also preceding the garbage trucks, which advanced in the same direction. This was such a practical arrangement, it might have been set up deliberately.

  The richest plunder was to be found near Avenida Rivadavia, in the cross streets and the parallel streets, packed with tall apartment buildings, restaurants, greengrocers, and other stores. If the collectors couldn’t find what they were after in that stretch, they wouldn’t find it anywhere. When they got to Directorio, if things had gone well, they could relax and rummage in a more leisurely way through the less numerous piles of trash. There was always something unexpected: a little piece of furniture, a mattress, a gadget or an ornament, and curious objects whose purpose could not be guessed simply by looking at them. If there was room, they put these spoils into the cart; if not, they tied them on with ropes brought specially for that purpose. It looked as if they were moving house: the volume of what they ended up hauling must have been equivalent to that of all their worldly goods, yet it was the fruit of a single day’s work; when all the deals were done, it would be worth a few coins. By this stage, the women had generally identified anything edible and put it into the plastic bags that they were carrying. Beyond Directorio they entered the council estate: a dark, deserted tangle of crescent streets lined with little houses. The pickings were much slimmer there, but that didn’t matter. The collectors hurried on, anxious now to get back as soon as possible. They took short cuts down the little alleys to Bonorino, which led to the shantytown. But they were tired and burdened; the children stumbled along half asleep, and the carts wandered erratically. Marching home, they looked like refugees fleeing from a war zone.

  By this time of night, Maxi had to struggle to keep his eyes open. Dinnertime was late at his place, luckily, but he got up early and needed lots of sleep. As he was helping his last family, if he was sure that they really were the last, he’d be waiting for the moment when he could say goodbye and go home, which he usually did when they came out onto Calle Bonorino. From there on they continued straight ahead, and he went back in the opposite direction (he lived on the corner of Bonorino and Bonifacio). The collectors, however, often made detours, which took them beyond the council estate, into ill-defined areas occupied by factories, warehouses, and vacant lots. And there it was sometimes the other way around: they said goodbye to him, because, on the spur of the moment, or in accordance with a pre-established plan (Maxi couldn’t tell: his rudimentary conversations with them never got that far), they would stop in some derelict building or open space that could serve as a refuge. This surprised him, and he could never work out why they did it. Obviously they were tired, but not so tired they couldn’t make it home. Perhaps it was so they wouldn’t have to share the food that they were carrying with relatives or neighbors. Perhaps they had nowhere to live, or just a portion of some flimsy little shack, and it was more comfortable for them to set up a provisional camp. One advantage of going out to work all together, as a family, was that wherever they happened to stop instantly became their home.

  In any case, as long as the family kept moving, Maxi put off the moment of saying goodbye. As long as he wasn’t asleep on his feet, he could do a bit more to help them. He didn’t like having to leave them to their fate, they looked so exhausted; and it was no trouble, he enjoyed it. They trusted him, and his strength was plain for all to see. Imagine an elephant pulling a baby carriage: that’s how easy it was. Soon all the collectors got to know him. They accepted his help without fuss and gratefully let him take the handles of their carts, even those who looked unfamiliar to him, either because they were new to the trade, or came from another neighborhood, or hadn’t yet happened to cross his path (or because he was getting them mixed up, since he had no memory for faces, and there were so many of them, and they looked so alike, not to mention his poor night vision). And perhaps they didn’t need to have seen him to know who he was, because the news of his existence had spread among them like a legend: a humble, realist legend, so they weren’t amazed when it became a reality.

  For the last part of the way, if there was room, he lifted the children up onto the cart, and as he pulled it along he could feel them falling asleep. If there was room, with a smile and a gesture, he would invite the mother to climb up as well. She would smile timidly, as if for the first time in her life, and ask, “Are you sure it won’t be too heavy?” This was just good manners, because he could obviously manage, but he would hasten to reply that it was no trouble at all. “Please! Up you go, all of you!” And he’d look at the father as if to say, “Make the most of it.” If the little man climbed up too, the whole family would roll along, riding the rickshaw, seated on their trove of trash. Sometimes an older boy would refuse to get up, out of pride, or because he thought it would be “too much,” but there was nothing contemptuous or aggressive about this refusal: on the contrary, the boy identified with the good giant who was towing the rest of his family, and watched him out of the corner of his eye, feeling proud, admiri
ng his voluminous muscles bulging in the moonlight. More than once, at times like that, as he pulled a whole family along, Maxi felt that he had actually fallen asleep on his feet.

  From the intersection with Rivadavia, where Calle Bonorino began, all the signs said “Avenida Esteban Bonorino,” but no one knew why, because it was a narrow street like any other. Just another bureaucratic error, it was generally assumed, made by some careless civil servant who had ordered the painting of the signs without ever having set foot in the neighborhood. But the name was actually correct, although in such a secret way that no one realized. Eighteen blocks from Rivadavia, further than anyone would choose to walk, beyond numerous high-rise apartment buildings and warehouses and sheds and vacant lots, just when Calle Bonorino seemed to be petering out, it widened to become the avenue that the signs had been promising from the start. But this wasn’t the beginning; it was the end. The avenue continued for barely three hundred feet, leading only to a long sealed road that ran off along the edge of the shantytown. Maxi had never gone that far, but he’d gone far enough to see: in contrast with the dark stretch of road leading up to it, the shantytown was strangely illuminated, almost radiant, crowned with a halo that shone in the fog. It was almost like seeing a vision, in the distance, and this fantastic impression was intensified by his “night blindness” and the sleepiness besetting him already. Seen like that, at night and far away, the shantytown might have seemed a magical place, but he was not entirely naïve; he knew that its inhabitants lived in squalor and desperation. Perhaps it was shame that prompted the scavengers to say goodbye to him before they reached their destination. Perhaps they wanted this handsome, well-dressed young man, whose curious pastime it was to assist them, to believe that they lived in a distant and mysterious place, rather than going into the depressing details. But although they can’t have failed to notice Maxi’s purity — which shone in his beautiful childlike face, his clear eyes, his perfect teeth, his cropped hair, and his clothes, which were always freshly washed and ironed — they were hardly in a position to exercise that kind of tact.