Shantytown

by Cesar Aira

  “Are you deaf or just pretending? Sit me up, I said.”

  Maxi was so stunned he couldn’t react. A dialogue was possible, it seemed, but it was a dialogue with a dead man, whose voice was separated from his body. This impression was reinforced by the nature of Saturno’s command, because Maxi had always heard the verb “to sit” used intransitively, referring to a position that you adopt for yourself — “I sit,” “you sit,” “he sits” — and this “sit me up” sounded like an impossible cross between the first and second persons. In spite of which, he understood. But in order to understand he had to imagine the person who had spoken as dead and yet react as if he were alive. This reminded him of something that often happened at home. When his parents were watching TV chat shows with showbiz personalities, and some old actor came on, they would always say: I thought he was dead! Me too! I could have sworn he died ages ago! And even though the actor would be talking about his current work and projects for the future, they kept seeing him as a dead man, at once historical and forgotten, a ghost from their childhood or further back still, from the age of silent cinema or the traveling theaters of the nineteenth century. Maxi had no idea who these actors were, but he would get caught up in the parental reminiscing, and in the end they came to seem familiar.

  He kept his ear to Saturno’s mouth. Not because he wasn’t convinced, but because he’d begun to enjoy it. But if he had to sit him up, that was what he had to do. The logical solution would have been to sit him on the floor and prop his back against the fridge; as well as being easy to do, it would have left him in a comfortable position. But Maxi didn’t think of that. Instead, he lifted Saturno up and sat him on the high stool behind the bar. His legs dangled, and since the stool had no back, Maxi had to keep hold of him. The barman’s body felt as heavy as a mass of solid lead. Maxi took Saturno’s hands and placed them on the bar, like a pianist’s hands on a keyboard.

  “Shall I call an ambulance?”

  He put his ear to Saturno’s mouth again. It was more awkward now.

  “No, leave me like this. I’ll be right in a minute.”

  Maxi tried letting him go, to see if he was stable. He had to shift him a few inches so that his center of gravity was in line with the middle of the stool, but then he stayed put. His eyes were still closed.

  “I’ll get changed and come straight back,” Maxi said.

  He picked up his bag and headed for the dressing room, but before going through the door, he turned to take a last look at Saturno. The bartender was still there, in exactly the same position, with his eyes closed. He looked very fragile, perched on that high stool, and was liable, Maxi had to admit, to fall at any moment. Saturno was a middle-aged man. Not old — he wouldn’t have been sixty — but jaded, worn down by a routine job and a pessimistic character. His life had not been happy. Starved of love, his heart was rebelling against its owner.

  There are so many people like that! thought Maxi. Life feeds on life, it has no choice. Life stokes its furnace with life, but not with life in general; it burns the unique and particular life of the individual, and when there’s nothing left to feed to the flames, the fire goes out. And yet . . . no one is alone in this. There are others, many, many others, each living his life or hers, and on it goes. The little voice that he had heard, so distant or rather . . . so tiny — a miniature voice, a dollhouse voice, to be studied under a microscope — that little voice was conveying a message from another dimension. An echo, miniaturized by distance, but a distance that was neither spatial nor temporal. And yet that miniature interval could make all the difference in the world, as when a minute’s delay prevents an encounter that might have changed the course of a life. . . . In fact, thought Maxi, a marginal shift with respect to the time or the space of others — a minute, a second, a inch — could mean that you end up living in a different reality, where any kind of magic might be possible.

  When he walked into the dressing room he was always a little surprised to see the floor still wet from being mopped, but this morning there was something far more surprising than water on the floor: the semi-naked body of a young woman, lying as if she’d been suddenly struck down. She was bathed in the light shining in through the sliding doors that opened onto the balcony, which the sheen of the wet tiles intensified. The warmth of her body had evaporated some of the floor’s moisture, creating a kind of vaporous aureole around her.

  It was such a surprise that Maxi stopped dead with his head tilted slightly forward. He forgot about the swinging door, which he had shoved open, so when it came swinging back, and his hand wasn’t there to stop it, the wood struck him on the forehead with a resonant clunk that echoed all through the gym. Maxi staggered backward, recoiling from the blow, and for a moment his vision went blank. When the world reappeared, the door was shut in front of him. He opened it again, keeping hold of it this time, and slipped inside. What he had seen before was still there, exactly the same. He approached the girl, rubbing his forehead, where a bump had started to form.

  When he was standing over her, Maxi realized who she was: Jessica, one of the morning regulars, and one of the earliest starters, though not as early as him. It was strange that he hadn’t recognized her before, since he saw her every day. But when it comes to recognizing people, he thought, it all depends on context, and he had always seen Jessica in her leotard, working out on one of the machines, chatting and laughing: nothing like this lifeless figure, and yet it was her.

  The first thing that occurred to Maxi was that she had slipped on the wet floor. Except that there were no footprints; it was almost as if the floor had been mopped around her. He turned around and saw that his own footprints were clearly visible.

  He knelt down to examine her — this was becoming a habit. Jessica was breathing deeply and gently, as if asleep. Maxi looked at her lips: they were slightly open, pink and motionless. With her, getting up close to listen would have been more pleasant, and suddenly he found himself wondering dreamily what she would say to him, what her “little voice” would sound like. . . . She was beautiful, she really was beautiful, a dream come true. . . . How odd that he hadn’t noticed before, although he saw her every day. But that must depend on the context as well, he thought. In the end, sleep and waking were the fundamental pair of contexts from which all the others were derived. A pair of words came to mind: “sleeping beauty.” Maybe she was one of those girls who’s always tense when she’s awake, and can only relax and allow her beauty to blossom when she falls asleep. The naked pink of her eyelids and lips continued under the folds of the only garment she was wearing: a white T-shirt of lightweight fabric. Her breasts were just visible, pink and white. She wasn’t wearing underwear: the mishap must have caught her by surprise while she was getting changed. But Maxi looked around and couldn’t see clothes or a bag or anything. And besides, it was the men’s dressing room: she wouldn’t have come in here to get changed.

  In the absence of instructions to follow, Maxi felt he had to do something: get her off that cold, wet floor, for example, and lay her on one of the one of the long wooden benches. Which he did, rather slowly, on the pretext of being careful, but really to savor the experience of holding her in his arms. Once on the bench, she sighed and seemed to be on the point of waking. Since her T-shirt had ridden up during the maneuver, leaving her visible up to the waist, Maxi felt embarrassed and afraid that he’d have to explain himself, so he looked around again for clothes or anything, a stray towel, say, with which to cover her up. And then he saw that there was a bag, in full view, sitting on the other bench, a big gym bag. How could he have missed it before? He crossed the room with two strides, looked for the zipper, and before opening the bag, glanced back at Jessica. She was still asleep. He unzipped the bag and rummaged around inside. How strange. It contained men’s clothes: shorts, a tracksuit, a singlet, a pair of enormous shoes (she had little pink doll’s feet) and even men’s deodorant and shampoo, the same brand he used. . . . Everything in the bag looked familiar, but he still hadn�
�t realized why: it was his bag; he had left it there when he came in, before kneeling down. This absurd befuddlement could only be explained by his agitation and, perhaps, the blow to his head. Neither of which prevented Maxi from momentarily envisaging the strange possibility that the bag concealed a secret: maybe Jessica was in fact a man, or a man was impersonating her, or something like that.

  The mistake did have one benefit, though: it proved that he wasn’t thinking straight, that he was losing the plot. He should have been trying to revive her or help her somehow, instead of imagining nonsense. So he went and sat down next to her, put his hand under the nape of her neck, and lifted her head. Her hair was so silky, so fine!

  Jessica opened her eyes . . . they were eyes that Maxi had never really seen: large and dark, with streaks of gold that made them very still, veiled now with silence and bewilderment. He let himself sink into them, quiet like her, enfolded in a dream. But he snapped out of it when he heard her say his name:

  “Maxi. . . !”

  She sounded surprised, as if he were the last person she was expecting to see at that moment.

  “Jessica! What happened? Are you OK? Did you faint?”

  “Uh? What?” She moved her head, which was still cradled in his hand, but didn’t sit up. Her confusion settled into a little smile. “I fainted, or I fell asleep. I don’t know . . .”

  “You were lying on the floor!”

  “I think my blood pressure dropped. I shouldn’t have got up so early. . . . It’s the weather, the storm.”

  “I think the sun’s come out now.”

  “What do you mean? The sky’s about to fall! You never notice what’s happening around you.”

  “No, I think . . .”

  They both looked at the glass doors to the balcony, which were painted green except for a strip at the top. A dark gray, almost nocturnal light was coming in through that strip. The silence was supernatural, as if the world really was about to end. Maxi let his gaze stray to the mirror that covered one of the walls and saw himself there, like the Virgin in a Pietà, holding in his arms that warm, pink object: a woman. They seemed to be floating in a greenish element. Then he remembered:

  “The same thing happened to Saturno. I left him to recover.”

  “Really? Him too? Then . . .”

  “It must be the weather.”

  “Yeah . . . it must be. Him too?”

  “He was lying on the floor like you.”

  Maxi nearly added, “Although he was dressed,” but he stopped himself in time and said: “He didn’t want me to call an ambulance.”

  “No!” she exclaimed with a shudder. “There’s no need, not for me, anyway. I’m fine now.” She put her hands on the bench to sit up, but then changed her mind, as if reluctant to abandon the comfort of Maxi’s arms. “Give me a minute.”

  “There’s no hurry.” They remained silent for a moment. “But how come you were in the men’s dressing room?”

  She looked at him, puzzled.

  “What do you mean?” she eventually asked. “There’s a men’s dressing room and a women’s dressing room?”

  “Yes . . . I think so. I always get changed here.”

  “Me too. Is there another one?”

  Maxi thought about it.

  “You know, I’ve never checked. I come really early, you see, and there’s never anyone else around . . .”

  She shook her head wearily.

  “No, Maxi, it’s not that. It’s because you don’t notice . . . you live in your own private world.”

  “I don’t think I’m really that bad. Anyway, even if you’re right, I’m not hurting anyone; the opposite, in fact!” After all, it was the second time that morning that he’d come to the aid of someone who had fainted.

  “Yes you are, Maxi. You have victims whether you know it or not. You walk right past, you don’t even see us.”

  “I saw you. If it was like you say, I would have stepped over your body, got changed and gone to work out, leaving you there on the floor.”

  She didn’t answer. She had been distracted, not by something else but by him. She was staring.

  “What happened to your forehead?”

  Maxi touched it.

  “I hit it on the door.”

  “You’ve got a huge bump. The door? Did you think you could walk through it, like a ghost?”

  Before he could answer, he saw a grimace distort her beautiful face, and she cried out.

  “Agghh! Maxi!”

  “What is it? What?”

  “I’ve lived through this already. It’s an exact repetition! Absolutely exact, down to the last detail!”

  “Including the bump?”

  “Don’t make fun of me. It’s amazing! It’s a déjà-vu. Including the fact that I know it’s a déjà-vu . . .”

  “When you remember that the other time you thought it was a déjà-vu too, that means it’s over.”

  “But I’m not sure it’s over this time. It’s like it’s still going on, more faintly, or differently. . . . It’s beautiful but it’s horrible too.”

  “It makes sense that it’s two things at once because it’s a double experience.”

  “You know why it happened? Because I was thinking of you when I fainted, and when I came to, the first thing I saw was your face.”

  As an explanation it was dubious, but he felt flattered anyway. Who doesn’t like to be the object of other people’s thoughts?

  “Thank you very much.”

  “What for?”

  “For thinking of me.” He blushed.

  “You’re blushing. Your whole face has gone the color of your bump. You’re so shy, such a little boy. That’s why all the women are in love with you.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “Don’t go so red, please! You look like a chili.”

  He giggled uncomfortably.

  “I can’t help it.”

  “It’s all part of the same thing. A little boy has no idea what’s going on around him. No one has any reason to thank him because he never wastes a second of his time thinking about other people.”

  “Jessica, I’m sorry, but I think you’re contradicting yourself. Either you think about other people, or you pay attention to your surroundings. You can’t do both at the same time.”

  “That’s so typical of you, to make that distinction. As if we weren’t surrounded by other people. You’re just proving me right.”

  Maxi wasn’t sure how they had reached these bewildering

  dialectical heights, so he simply replied with a smile. He could feel his forehead throbbing, with an almost audible beat. Jessica half closed her eyes and went on, contradicting her own contradictions:

  “What you have to realize is you’re not the only one. It happens to us all. Not so much with people, because they find ways to grab our attention and occupy our thoughts, so we keep tabs on them. But with things and places. It’s like living in a labyrinth that’s always being modified. It’s amazing how much you can end up not knowing. Everything.”

  “I get by OK.”

  She continued with her train of thought:

  “Have you noticed how some people are always doing home renovations and are never satisfied? God’s like that too. With humans it’s so common that the council has to hire planes to take aerial photos. That way they can see the renovations and adjust the rates accordingly.”

  “Are you serious?” asked Maxi.

  “And that’s nothing. If they want, they can reconstruct all your movements, everything you did in the course of a day, everything you said, what people said to you . . . everything.”

  “No, I think you’re exaggerating.”

  “I’m not, Maxi, you’re so naïve! You’re such a daydreamer!”

  “Who’d be interested in what I do?”

  “You never know. Anything at all can turn out to be important.”

  Maxi pondered this:

  “Anyway, when you’re inside, they can’t see you.”

&nb
sp; “What do you mean? No, you didn’t understand. I wasn’t talking about the planes. There’s a thousand ways to document all the stuff that happens. Everything gets recorded somehow.”

  “Hmm . . . yeah, maybe. With hidden microphones or cameras.”

  “No. It was the same before they were invented. But now there are cameras as well, even here . . .”

  Maxi laughed:

  “Don’t be paranoid. Who’s going to put a camera in a gym?”

  “I wouldn’t be at all surprised. And even without a camera, I’m sure that . . .”

  Was Maxi imagining it or were tears beginning to well in the big golden eyes gazing up at him? He was embarrassed and didn’t know what to say. She went on:

  “Now that the gym’s closing, somebody might want to know everything that’s happened here, minute by minute, since it opened. It might be important, for some reason. And there are so many traces! If you really think about it, everything you’ve done has left some kind of mark. Someone remembers it. Even when you’re alone, it’s like you’re being watched, because there’s always someone who can calculate or deduce what you’re doing. All they have to do is gather the data and sort it out . . .”

  “Hang on a minute,” said Maxi, who hadn’t been keeping up. “Why did you say the gym’s closing? Was that hypothetical?”

  “What? Don’t you know? Come on. . . ! See how right I was before when I said you go round with your head in the clouds? Of course it’s closing. Chin Fu was just renting, and now the owner wants the premises back. He has heaps of places, all over Buenos Aires, and he’s leasing them out to an evangelical church so they can be used for services. He’s kicking out all the old tenants, refusing to renew their contracts. Either the church pays more or there’s something else in it for him. You really didn’t know?”

  “No, truly. And when. . . ?”

  “Now! The gym might be history already. Didn’t you notice that no one’s here today?”

  “Yes, but isn’t that because it’s so early?”

  “It’s not so early anymore. I was asleep for hours. Élida’s not coming. We said goodbye yesterday.”