“Maximiliano has an outstanding talent for telling stories. When I allow myself the luxury of considering his future options, I see him as a sports commentator or news anchorman. I don’t have to tell you, my boy, of the huge salaries earned by those who excel in those areas.”
“What are you talking about, Dad?”
“Now, now, Max. At your age, I too was a rascal. I’m aware of the tactics you use with your little girlfriends and I’m proud you know the secrets of the leather-bound book.” His father gave him a wink of complicity.
“At your age, I liked watching Westerns,” Señor Sierra unexpectedly put in. “They helped me a lot in understanding the mentality of the underclasses. These people never, in fact, want to move up the ladder, but they need us to make them victims. The only way to help them is to be like the sheriffs of the old West: you have to show them the line and whip them before they cross it. It’s for their own good. That’s why our pipes have given a living to so many people. It’s the same with family. I only have to give my wife and my son a look to keep them under control, and they are grateful because they know I do it from love. I sacrifice myself every day for them to live the way they do. We need structure and stability. Don’t forget, Max, discipline and an iron glove.”
The rush of blows was too much for Max. His kidneys were spinning from the one-two-three-four-five-six…Bile flowed to his eyes. Like an echo, he heard their coarse laughter, bathed in the tequila that was loosening their tongues. The kitchen door opened and the nanny came in carrying a dish of roast pork loin with mushrooms, surrounded by halved chambray potatoes. While she was serving the guests, Max broke the silence:
“Señor Sierra, I must say you’re a very valiant man.”
“Thank you, my boy. But why?”
“It can’t be easy to find the courage to say so many stupid things so calmly and in such a short time. Only someone very sure of himself can wear his imbecility on his sleeve like that. I don’t know how you do it, but it’s worthy of admiration.”
“Maximiliano! Apologize to my friend Sierra this instant! As the boy’s father, I ask you to forgive his insolence. His words were unacceptable, but I hope you will understand that my son is going through an extremely confusing stage.”
“Your friend, Dad? And all those times you’ve said your clients are like cows in the East, as sacred as they are dumb? Said you sell them your name at a high price for something any second-year student could do? Told me you amuse yourself waiting to see what new ways they can find to roll in the mud you’ve just cleaned off them? And you call that man your friend, Dad? Couldn’t you do with a bit of gentian violet?”
“Sure, son. Your father and I share certain codes you don’t comprehend. Friendships are based on these sorts of tacit understandings. You think that out of the whole world, you’ve found the people most like you? Don’t delude yourself. If you didn’t share a social class, you wouldn’t even know them. You think that within the miniscule group of people you have the possibility of knowing, you get on better with other weirdoes like yourself? Sure. Well, you’ll see just how strong those friendships are. It’s enough for one of you to have a little bit more than the others and it’ll be all over.
“Unlike you, I don’t fool myself and neither does your father. I know the day I stop paying his monthly retainer he won’t be available to answer my calls. He knows the same would happen if he didn’t help me make three times that retainer. It doesn’t mean we’re not friends enough to go out whoring together. Forget the sentimentality. It’s a win-win situation.”
“Maximiliano, what my friend Sierra has just expounded with his accustomed eloquence also means that when a man reaches maturity, things…”
“Is my hair real spongy? That’s why I hate it. I can’t keep it either bouncy or a bit…” Coming out of her self-absorption, the young wife accidentally interrupted Dr. Michels.
The only sound to be heard was of knives and forks cutting pork loin before it was processed by teeth. The doctor fanned his face with his linen serviette. Señor Sierra took a drink of his tequila, placed his glass on the table, but before he could retract his hand it had picked up the glass again to take another swig. The woman touched up the compacted mass covering her forehead and nose. Max’s lower lip trembled. The toy gas truck continued crashing into the dinner table.
“Don’t take it badly, son. That insolence of yours can be channeled to good use. You might even become a useful man. Chin up!”
“Thank you Señor Sierra. You’re right. A useful man. Like you and my dad. Codes. Life as it really is. Not as we’d like it to be. Excuse me please, I’ve got a lot to learn.”
“No problem, son. Don’t forget, discipline and an iron glove.”
“Just one question, Señor Sierra. If I follow your advice, will I get to be like you?”
“Well, son, things aren’t that simple. You need determination, vision, talent. If you make sacrifices and work hard, maybe, one day.”
“That’s what I’ll do, sir. I know it’s tough but I want the reward. I’m going to dream of a brainless life. Be just like everyone else except for the odd quaint obsession, like collecting glass holders from exotic places or reciting from memory the line-up of some famous team. I’m going to study to join a profession that gives me the chance to sell things in order to buy other things. I’m dying to spend my days in an office wearing designer clothes I don’t even know how to appreciate, competing to prove to my boss I’ve just the right mixture of obedience and guile. Before I’m thirty my manboobs will be sagging and I’ll have a triple chin, but I’m sure to find a modest woman who’s interested in other frivolities. I’ll fulfill my duty to accumulate, and we’ll be able to afford the latest music system, dine in the best restaurants, and rub shoulders with some friend of a friend of an important person. And she will always dress impeccably, make me look good at dinners like this, spicing them up with innocent jokes about how disorganized I am. With luck, we’ll have very pretty children and we’ll be able to video every single thing they do. I’ll go on, like you, padding myself with the fat of pleasures that distance me from any real contact with myself. None of that matters because I’ll have learned to value my friends as my father does. We’ll be able to boast of having young lovers we shower with gifts. When I’m old, I’ll have reproduced myself in various clones of my mediocrity who will come to my funeral to cry without asking why. You’ve opened my eyes, Señor Sierra. I owe you.” Max rose from the table before his father could even recover from his shock.
“What a wonderful dinner party! Let’s get drunk!” the wife interposed as she put on a CD with a dizzying beat to dance with Dr. Michels, who was unable to decline her invitation. He swung his hips almost automatically while watching what his son was doing. Señor Sierra quickly knocked back two double tequilas. The toy gas truck went on crashing into the table.
Even the music seemed shocked when Max came out of the bathroom. Señor Sierra demanded an explanation of the doctor, without daring to speak it. His wife was swaying with her arms in the air, her palms open outwards. Max had, for the last time, taken the bottle of gentian violet and painted his whole face, with the exception of his nose. He looked like a burns victim who has just been prescribed a protective bandage. He went up to his father, raised his arm to gather momentum, and when he dramatically brought it down, held out his hand. “Goodbye, Dad,” he said before going out, completely ignoring the guests. As the door slammed shut, he heard the toy gas truck crash one final time.
He strode firmly out of the building into the shelter of the night. He had only one place in his mind: Sao’s parents’ laundry. With any luck she would be on the late shift, before they closed. As he was on his way there, Juana Mecha pushed her broom into his path. On noticing the clean triangular island in the mass of purple, she pronounced:
“Some people say purgatory is a place rather than a time.”
14
Despite the fact that the laundry was closed, light still filtered un
der the metal roller shutter. Sao would be putting away the last of the equipment. Max knocked, using the code he shared with his two friends; the private door was soon opened. The expression in Sao’s almond-shaped eyes changed from their habitual smile to stupefaction: it was years since she’d seen the purple stain and it had never before been so extensive. He gave her a hug, brushing his face against her right cheek, and then repeated the action when he saw the purple mark of solidarity on his friend’s dark skin.
“What happened?” asked Sao as she locked the door behind her.
“Another overdose of truth.”
“Come on. Let me clean you up.”
Sao took an olive green and purple striped duvet from its cover, folded it in two, and lay it down in a space near the ironing area. She told Max to take off his shoes and left him sitting there while she went to fetch alcohol, cotton wool balls, and a damp towel. She knelt down in front of him, resting the full weight of her buttocks on her bare heels, naturally holding her back straight, as if she were suspended by a taut cable attached to the center of her head. Then she patiently began to uncover Max’s face. Each cotton wool ball removed a layer of purple that seemed to be grateful for finally reposing in the trash. Max was thinking of all those oasis mirages that forced him to keep walking without fixed direction, his legs heavy with dejection. Although he could repeat her words, he wasn't listening to her; he felt Sao’s breath as a residue of the events of the day she was recounting to him. As she leaned forward, the low neckline of her blouse allowed him a glimpse of the nipples crowning small breasts. After the waist, her thin torso broadened again at the hips, before passing on to a pair of legs accustomed to walking. Max had never considered her in that way before.
When Sao had finished rubbing his face with the damp towel, a different Max sat before her. His forehead was more creased, giving him a melancholy air, as if he’d discovered that, underneath the surface of things, there are other, hidden surfaces.
The closeness of their bodies quashed the barrier of childish fraternity. Following an improvised script, they came together in a kiss that incorporated all the abuses suffered by Max and Sao on their way to the one-way street they had just found themselves on. They lay down on the folded duvet, giving themselves up to their caresses. Sao noted Max’s erection, contained by his pants, and hurriedly eliminated obstacles until they were both nude.
Max felt his habitual shudder. He tried to gain time by positioning himself over Sao, his head toward her feet, so they could explore each other with their mouths. When her moistness was uncontainable, Sao rotated her body to be in tune with his. For once Max wasn’t thinking. He scarcely noticed when Sao took hold of his penis to gently break her hymen. There was neither too much nor too little space. Max felt as if the step that had, on every other occasion, cooled his ardor had now been made just for him. Sao held tightly to his back to synchronize their movements, but also to ensure they didn’t lose themselves until they had finished what they had started. There was a single spasm, a single cry, and then spent calm. With his head resting on Sao’s shoulder, Max very slowly separated himself from her. A deep, lingering kiss sealed the moment. Sao stood and went to the bathroom, waddling like a duck; nostalgically, she wiped away the blood. After thinking it over for a few seconds, she returned and sat next to Max. Stroking the thick chestnut hair that reached his shoulders, she spoke a private thought aloud.
“We can’t do it again, Max. We’ll end up making a shitty mess of it.”
“No worries. We’ll find another way.”
15
After the episode with the Sierra family, Max’s cardboard relationship with his father became even more corrugated. On the surface, everything seemed the same: the majority of the time his father ignored him with distracted cordiality. They had breakfast at the same table without exchanging a word, the doctor reading the newspaper and tapping his spoon four times on his cup to indicate to the nanny when he needed more coffee. Max was about to finish high school; in a few months he’d have to decide the direction his future life would take. Whatever his decision, he’d already disappointed his father.
The problem wasn’t his scruffy appearance. The doctor was confidant that, when the moment came, Max would cut his hair, gel down his side parting, and exchange his Baja hoodies for something more appropriate. And neither was he concerned about his son’s friends. That likeable oriental girl was no threat and life would take care of giving the one with the mutilated ear a thrashing. Max would discover the people who he should, in the real world, one day become. He’d learn that the only lasting friendships are based on mutual social benefit, would soon acquire the prejudices indispensable for accessing the most appropriate circles.
His son’s professional future wasn’t worth worrying about. And it was the conviction that Max would never surpass his own achievements that made that lack of concern possible. Conscious of his proximity to his final sunset, the doctor trusted his pact with his organism: in exchange for only moderate mistreatment, his body promised not to cling to life when its condition became deplorable. That time was not far off. And as the doctor wouldn’t now see Max become somebody, why waste his thoughts on something that didn’t involve him? It was a matter that occupied him on a remote, abstract plane, situated far enough away to allow for fatalism.
Whenever he looked at his son, what he couldn’t bear were all those wasted precepts. Max had so thoroughly assimilated them that he’d crossed the boundaries of disillusion. He’d converted the noble, upright truth, designed to protect us from ourselves, and by extension from others, into an uncomfortable lantern, shining straight in the face, blinding with its excess of light. His case was like that of elite fighters, trained in the most lethal techniques, programed to inflict maximum pain without the capacity to feel it, who one day decide to change sides, and use all they have learned against those who trained them. It’s almost impossible to bring them down as they anticipate the movements of the master-executioner. The doctor considered this bitter irony: he’d succeeded in perpetuating himself in his son, but in a version he found repulsive.
16
Pascual Bramsos was determined to go to art school. He wanted to free himself from parental patronage, which meant he needed an income that would allow him to live independently. One day, he heard his aunt complaining about the cost of living as she was paying back some money she’d borrowed from his mother. Before handing over the bill, he saw her look with hatred at the national hero adorning it. Pascual ran to his bedroom.
He took a bill of the same denomination and carefully excised the portrait of the hero and pasted it onto a sketchpad; the remainder, he cut into thin strips and composed the image of a hill topped by a scaffold, from which hung the head. He drew a tongue protruding downward from the mouth, and a pair of uplifted eyes, signifying strangulation. With fine pen strokes, he provided the fallen hero with a limp body, swinging in the air. He was surrounded by four thickset men in frockcoats and top hats, smoking cigars. They were each holding an unusual bell, larger than the potbellied men ringing them. Sharply pointed vibrations emanated from the bells and stuck like thorns into the statesman’s body. It was a tortured death without any possibility of peace since the body swayed chaotically in all directions under the ferocious attack of the bells. On the edge of the sheet, Bramsos drew a frame formed of thousands of money signs, packed together as closely as possible without quite touching. A few hours later—after he’d lined up a squadron of mighty soldiers with bent heads, pierced by mortal thrusts—he decided the piece was finished.
When he gave the artwork to his aunt, she and her sister stared at it in astonishment. Señora Bramsos was aware of her son’s talent for drawing, but she’d never seen one of his original designs. Moved, his aunt pressed the work to her breast.
“Sorry, Aunt Hilda. I can’t make a gift of it. But I’ll sell it to you cheap,” said Pascual, breaking the spell with his avarice.
“What do you mean, sell it to me cheap? How much
?”
“Twice the value of the bill. It’s just that I need to save for my education.”
The aunt’s offense transmuted into understanding. The amount was reasonable, and it was a noble cause. Pascual had discovered the only possible way he could accept payment in exchange for his art.
Bramsos established the rules: the first was that the client would decide how much he wanted to spend on the work; he would then hand over the cash value of the materials needed to produce it, plus an equal amount for the purchase. The other rule was that the client had to respond in writing to the question “What use is money?”
His first clients were from members of his extended family, moved by either envy of the unsettling works others had acquired, or the desire to help the young student. Bramsos made trial versions to understand the properties of this new material, continuing at the same time to explore the technique of collage with superimposed drawing. He also slid bills across the canvas to paint tenuous opaque tones, or ground them up and whisked the resulting powder with egg white and other materials to obtain a form of paste, with which he painted curved and static figures, whose veins seemed to be corroded by the very material that gave them life. Some people offered him coins rather than paper money: when he had enough, he produced sculptures from the molten metal.
His favorite piece was commissioned by a university professor of social theory. While the deal had been agreed and the professor was writing his note stating that money was a diabolical invention designed to alienate the masses, his driver walked back and forth from the car, carrying a heavy sack containing thousands of one-peso pieces.
A Zero-Sum Game Page 15
