Hopscotch: A Novel (Pantheon Modern Writers Series)

by Julio Cortázar

  “Come here and drink this milk before it all curdles,” Gekrepten said. “Why do you people always talk about such strange things?”

  “You’re making me too important,” Talita said.

  “Oh, you can’t decide things like that,” Oliveira said. “There’s a whole order of things you can’t decide by yourself, and they’re always the most bothersome, even if they’re not the most important. I tell you this because it’s a great consolation. For example, I was planning to have some mate. Now this one comes home and starts to make café con leche without anybody’s asking her. Result: if I don’t drink it the milk will curdle. It’s not important, but it gets under your skin. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “Oh, yes,” Talita said, looking into his eyes. “It’s true that you’re like Manú. The pair of you can talk so well about café con leche and mate, and one ends up realizing that café con leche and mate, in reality …”

  “Exactly,” Oliveira said. “In reality. So let’s get back to what I was saying before. The difference between Manú and me is that we’re almost exactly alike. At this level, a difference is like an imminent cataclysm. Are we friends? Yes, of course, but I would never be surprised at anything that … Notice how ever since we’ve known each other, I can tell you because you already know that, all we’ve done is hurt each other. He doesn’t like for me to be the way I am, all I have to do is try to straighten out some nails and look at the hassle he starts, and he gets you into it along the line. But he doesn’t like for me to be the way I am because in reality a lot of the things that come to my mind, a lot of the things I do, it’s as if I’d stolen them out from under his nose. Before he has a chance to think of them, zip, there they are. Bang, bang, he comes to the window and I’m straightening out the nails.”

  Talita looked backwards and saw the shadow of Traveler, who was listening, hidden between the dresser and the window.

  “Well, but you don’t have to exaggerate,” Talita said. “Some of the things that occur to Manú can’t always have occurred to you.”

  “For example?”

  “The milk’s getting cold,” Gekrepten grumbled. “Shall I put it on the fire a little more, sweet?”

  “Make a custard with it tomorrow,” Oliveira advised. “Go ahead, Talita.”

  “No,” Talita said with a sigh. “What for? I’m so hot, and I have the feeling I’m going to get sick.”

  She felt the bridge vibrate as Traveler straddled it by the windowsill. Lying prone and staying on his side of the sill, Traveler put a straw hat on the board. With the aid of a mop handle he began to inch it along the board.

  “If it gets the least bit off course it will fall into the street and it will be a terrible drag having to go down and get it.”

  “I think I’d better come back inside,” Talita said, looking at Traveler with a mournful expression.

  “But first you’ve got to give Oliveira his yerba,” Traveler said.

  “It doesn’t matter any more,” Oliveira said. “In any case, let her give it a toss, it doesn’t make any difference.”

  Talita looked back and forth at them and remained motionless.

  “It’s hard to understand you,” Traveler said. “All this work and now it turns out that one more mate, one less mate, it doesn’t really matter.”

  “The minute-hand has made its circle, my son,” Oliveira said. “You move in the time-space continuum with the speed of a worm. Think of all that has happened since you decided to go find that overworked Panama hat. The cycle of the mate came to a close without reaching fruition, and in the meantime the ever-faithful Gekrepten made her showy entrance, loaded down with cooking utensils. We are now in the café con leche sector, and nothing can be done about it.”

  “That’s some argument,” Traveler said.

  “That’s no argument, it’s a proof, arrived at in a perfectly objective way. You tend to move in the continuum, as physicists say, while I am quite sensitive to the giddy discontinuity of existence. At this very moment the café con leche has burst upon the scene, has installed itself, rules, is propagated, and is repeated in hundreds of thousands of homes. The mate gourds have been washed, put away, abolished. A temporary café con leche mantle now covers this segment of the American continent. Think of all that this presupposes and brings with it. Conscientious mothers lecturing their offspring on the virtues of lactic diet, children grouped around the pantry table, all smiles on top and all kicks and pinches underneath. To say café con leche at this time of day means change, a friendly get-together towards the end of the working day, the recounting of good deeds, deeds to real estate, transitory situations, vague prologues to what six o’clock in the afternoon, that terrible hour of keys in the door and a race to catch the bus, will bring home with brutal concreteness. Practically nobody ever makes love at that hour, they do it either before or after. At that hour people think about a shower (but we’ll take one at five o’clock) and people begin to think about something to do in the evening, whether they’ll go to see Paulina Singerman or Toco Tarántola (but we’re not sure, there’s still time). What does all this have to do with mate time? I’m not talking about mate that’s not taken properly, superimposed on the café con leche, but the authentic one I wanted, at just the right moment, just when the weather was coldest. And it’s all these things that I don’t think you understand enough.”

  “The dressmaker is a crook,” Gekrepten said. “Do you have your clothes made by a dressmaker, Talita?”

  “No,” Talita said. “I know a little bit about cutting and sewing.”

  “Smart girl. This afternoon after the dentist I run over to the dressmaker’s, it’s a block away, to inquire about a skirt that should have been ready a week ago. She says to me: ‘I’m awfully sorry, miss, but with my mother as sick as she’s been I wasn’t even able to thread a needle, you might say.’ I tell her: ‘But I need the skirt.’ She says: ‘I’m terribly sorry, miss, believe me. A customer like you. But you’ll have to forgive me.’ I say: ‘Forgiving won’t get me anything. It would have been better if you’d had it done on time and we’d all be better off.’ She says: ‘If that’s the way you feel, why don’t you go to another dressmaker?’ And I say: ‘Not that I don’t feel like it, but since I put in an order with you it would be better if I waited, but I don’t think you’re very reliable.’ ”

  “Did all that happen?” Oliveira asked.

  “Of course,” Gekrepten said. “Can’t you hear me telling Talita all about it?”

  “They’re two different matters.”

  “There you go again.”

  “There’s your example,” Oliveira said to Traveler, who was wrinkling his brow at him. “There’s your example of what things are like. Everybody thinks he’s talking about something he has in common with everybody else.”

  “And that’s not the way it is, of course,” Traveler said. “What a fresh piece of news.”

  “It’s worth repeating, damn it.”

  “You repeat everything you think is a sanction against somebody.”

  “God put me here to watch over your city,” Oliveira said.

  “When you’re not judging me you do it to your old lady.”

  “In order to prod you and keep you both awake,” Oliveira said.

  “Like a Mosaic mania. It came to you on the way down from Mount Sinai.”

  “I like things to be as clear as possible,” Oliveira said. “It doesn’t seem to matter to you that right in the middle of a conversation Gekrepten sticks in a completely fantastic story about a dentist and some damned skirt or other. You don’t seem to realize that these outbursts, pardonable when they’re beautiful or at least inspired, become repulsive as soon as they start to cut into an order of things, torpedo a structure. How I do go on, old man.”

  “Horacio is always like this,” Gekrepten said. “Don’t pay any attention to him, Traveler.”

  “We’re so bland it’s unbearable, Manú. We let reality slip through our fingers like any ordina
ry trickle of water. We had it right there, almost perfect, like a rainbow between our thumb and our little finger. And the work that went into getting it, the time that was required, the way we had to make ourselves deserving of it … Boom, the radio says that General Pisotelli has made a declaration…Kaput. Everything kaput. ‘Something serious at last,’ the errand-girl says, or this one, or maybe even you yourself. And me, because I don’t want you to think that I’m infallible. How should I know where truth is? I only know that I liked the feel of that rainbow, like a little toad between my fingers. And this afternoon … Look, in spite of the cold I think that we were beginning to hit upon something serious. Talita, for example, carrying out the amazing feat of not falling off into the street, and you over there, and me … One feels certain things, what the hell.”

  “I’m not sure I understand you,” Traveler said. “That business about the rainbow is pretty good anyway. But why are you so intolerant? Live and let live, brother.”

  “Now that you’ve had your fun, come get the wardrobe off the bed,” Gekrepten said.

  “You see?” Oliveira said.

  “I see what you mean,” Traveler said, convinced.

  “Quod erat demonstrandum, old buddy.”

  “Quod erat,” Traveler said.

  “And the worst of it is that we hadn’t even got started.”

  “What do you mean?” Talita said, tossing her hair back and looking to see if Traveler had pushed the hat far enough along.

  “Don’t get nervous,” Traveler advised. “Turn around slowly, put out that hand, that’s the way. Wait, I’ll push it a little more … Didn’t I tell you? There it is.”

  Talita grasped the hat and put it on, all in one motion. Down below there were two boys and a woman who were talking to the errand-girl and looking up at the bridge.

  “Now I’ll toss the package to Oliveira and that’ll be it,” Talita said, feeling more sure of herself with the hat on. “Hold the boards tight, it’ll be easy.”

  “Are you going to throw it?” Oliveira asked. “I bet you miss.”

  “Let her try,” Traveler said. “If the package goofs off into the street I hope it hits old lady Gutusso on her nut, repulsive old owl.”

  “So you don’t like her either,” Oliveira said. “I’m happy because I can’t stand her. What about you, Talita?”

  “I’d rather toss the package to you,” Talita said.

  “O.K., O.K., but I think you’re rushing it too much.”

  “Oliveira’s right,” Traveler said. “You don’t want to ruin everything right at the end, after all the work that went into it.”

  “But I’m so hot,” Talita said. “I want to come back, Manú.”

  “You’re not so far away that you should be complaining like that. Somebody would think you were writing me a letter from Mato Grosso.”

  “He’s thinking about the yerba when he says that,” Oliveira explained to Gekrepten, who was looking at the wardrobe.

  “Are you going to play much longer?” Gekrepten asked.

  “Odd point,” Oliveira said.

  “Oh,” Gekrepten said. “That’s better.”

  Talita had taken the package out of her bathrobe and was swinging it back and forth. The bridge began to vibrate, and Traveler and Oliveira held it down with all their strength. Tired of swinging the package, Talita began to wind up with her arm, holding it with her other hand.

  “Don’t do anything silly,” Oliveira said. “Slower, do you hear me? Slower.”

  “Here it comes,” Talita shouted.

  “Slower, you’re going to fall off.”

  “I don’t care!” Talita shouted, letting the package go. It went full force through the window and broke open as it hit the wardrobe.

  “Splendid,” Traveler said, looking at Talita as if he were trying to keep the bridge in place with nothing but the strength of his look. “Perfect, my love. You couldn’t have made it clearer. That’s a demonstrandum for you.”

  The bridge gradually stopped moving. Talita hung on with both hands and lowered her head. Oliveira could only see her hat and her hair hanging down over her shoulders. He raised his eyes and looked at Traveler.

  “If you want to know,” he said. “I agree, she couldn’t have made it clearer.”

  “At last,” Talita thought, looking down at the cobblestones and the sidewalks. “Anything is better than being out here like this in between the two windows.”

  “You’ve got two choices,” Traveler said. “Keep going forward, which is easier, and go into Oliveira’s, or come back, which is harder, and save yourself going up and down the stairs and crossing the street.”

  “Come over here, you poor thing,” Gekrepten said. “Your face is all covered with perspiration.”

  “Drunks and little children,” Oliveira said.

  “Let me rest a minute,” Talita said. “I feel a little nauseous.”

  Oliveira lay prone over the sill and stretched out his hand. All Talita had to do was come forward two feet to touch his hand.

  “A perfect gentleman,” Traveler said. “It’s obvious he’s read Professor Maidana’s manual of social graces. A real count. Don’t miss that, Talita.”

  “It’s because of the extreme cold,” Oliveira said. “Rest a little, Talita, and then cover the distance in between. Don’t pay any attention to him, you know that the snow makes one delirious before the deep sleep sets in.”

  But Talita had raised herself slowly, and leaning on both arms had worked her behind a half-foot backwards. Another grip, another half-foot. Oliveira, still holding out his hand, looked like a passenger on a boat which is slowly pulling away from the pier.

  Traveler stretched out his arms and got his hands under Talita’s armpits. She didn’t move, and then she threw her head back with such a quick movement that the hat went gliding down to the sidewalk.

  “Just like at the bullfight,” Oliveira said. “Señora Gutusso is going to try to steal it.”

  Talita had closed her eyes and was letting herself be held up, hauled off the board and through the window. She felt Traveler’s lips on the back of her neck, his quick, hot breath.

  “You came back,” Traveler murmured. “You came back, you came back.”

  “Yes,” Talita said, going over to the bed. “Didn’t you think I would? I threw him his god-damned package and I came back, I threw him the package and I came back, I …”

  Traveler sat down on the edge of the bed. He was thinking about the rainbow between his fingers, those things that occurred to Oliveira. Talita slipped down beside him and began to cry quietly. “It’s her nerves,” Traveler thought. “She had a rough time.” He wanted to get her a tall glass of water with lemon juice, give her an aspirin, cover her face with a magazine, make her sleep a little. But first he had to pick up the self-teaching encyclopedia, put the dresser back where it belonged, and pull in the board. “This room is such a mess,” he thought, kissing Talita. As soon as she stopped crying he would ask her to help him clean up the room. He began to caress her, say things to her.

  “At last, at last,” Oliveira said.

  He left the window and sat down on the edge of the bed, using the space remaining next to the wardrobe. Gekrepten had finished picking up the yerba with a spoon.

  “It was full of nails,” Gekrepten said. “How strange.”

  “Very strange,” Oliveira said.

  “I think I’ll go down and get Talita’s hat. You know how kids are.”

  “A wise thought,” Oliveira said, picking up a nail and twirling it with his fingers.

  Gekrepten went down to the street. The children had picked up the hat and were arguing with the errand-girl and Señora Gutusso.

  “Give it to me,” Gekrepten said with a prim smile. “It belongs to the lady across the way, someone I know.”

  “Everybody knows her, child,” Señora Gutusso said. “What a performance for this time of day, and with children watching.”

  “There was nothing wrong about it,” Gekre
pten said without much conviction.

  “With her legs out in the air on that board, what an example for the children. You probably couldn’t see, but from down here it was quite a sight, I can assure you.”

  “She had a lot of hair,” the smallest child said.

  “There you are,” said Señora Gutusso. “Children tell what they see, poor things. And what in the world was she doing straddling a board, might I ask? At this hour, when respectable people are having their siesta or are busy at work. Would you straddle a board, madam, if it’s not too much to ask?”

  “No, I wouldn’t,” Gekrepten said. “But Talita works in a circus. They’re all performers.”

  “Were they rehearsing?” asked one of the boys. “What circus is that girl with?”

  “It wasn’t a rehearsal,” Gekrepten said. “What happened was that they wanted to give my husband a little yerba, and so …”

  Señora Gutusso looked at the errand-girl. The errand-girl put her finger to her temple and made a circle with it. Gekrepten took the hat in both hands and went back into the building. The boys formed a line and began to sing to the tune of the Light Cavalry Overture:

  Oh, they came from behind, oh, they came from behind,

  and they stuck a pole up his aaass-hole.

  It wouldn’t come out, it wouldn’t come out,

  the poor man was out of his mind.

  (Repeat)

  (–148)

  42

  Il mio supplizio

  è quando

  non mi credo

  in armonía.

  UNGARETTI, I Fiumi

  THE job consisted of stopping kids from crawling under the tent, lending a hand with the animals when necessary, helping the man who worked the lights, writing copy for advertisements and the gaudy posters, getting them printed, dealing with the police, keeping the Manager informed of anything wrong that he should know about, helping Señor Manuel Traveler in his administrative work, helping Señora Atalía Donosi de Traveler in the box-office (if necessary), etc.

  Oh, my heart, do not rise up to bear witness against me!