That’s what he was thinking when he heard the little bell his mother had tied to the door so that he would know when someone walked into the shop. He looked at the clock with large numbers that his father had placed on the wall. It was a quarter past six. Everything happened so fast. The second hand ticked only once as he felt the impulse to run and lock the door, to push whoever was there out onto the street. But his feet stayed put. At the door was the woman in the maid’s uniform, the one with short hair and beautiful hands.
“You did it!” she said, as she held up the coat from the counter. “It’s incredible! You’re an artist!”
He thought about lying so he wouldn’t have to return the suit. “It’s not ready yet” was all he would have to tell her. But she pressed forward into the shop as he turned down the music.
“I just figured I’d stop by to see how things were going,” she explained, almost apologizing. “You didn’t call, so we wondered… But never mind! Would you pack it back up in the box for me?”
He hadn’t called her. How could he have forgotten? His mother would never have let this happen. It was for exactly this reason that his father had given him his spiral notepad. While he mechanically folded the flat-front trousers with their satin stripes, the woman counted the articles that lay on the counter.
“And the bow tie and hat make six. Perfect!” She beamed. Without a murmur, she paid the agreed-upon sum and told him to keep the change.
The little bell chimed again, breaking the spell that should have already been broken by his premonition. It was seven o’clock, exactly when he had planned to begin getting dressed. He would have started with the socks, then the trousers … At that moment, the shop seemed to him like a cemetery. He walked back and forth among the silent machines and the baskets of clothes. The light turned the walls an oppressive yellow. The stillness overwhelmed him. A line of cars passed slowly on the other side of the glass door, like in a silent film. His pupils held the afterimage of the blinking red lights. Shouts of Carmen issued from the speakers and echoed throughout the shop, but without penetrating his ears. He walked in smaller and smaller circles, finally arriving at the table in the back, as dizzy and bewildered as a child. He took his toy theater down from the shelf and set it carefully on the table, where he could think of nothing else to do except play, for a very long time, before returning at last to his strange, or rather, his singular life.
VERTICAL DREAM
SHE DREAMED THAT she was fast asleep—just like when she was a child, carried away by the flow of her mother’s voice and the stories she told, or resting her head on her father’s chest as he rocked her with his smoker’s wheezing breath. Back then it had been a relief to close her eyes and sleep a little, despite her excitement and everything she had to learn and remember, like all those numbers and directions, like the weight of her guilt as her freedom unfolded. It couldn’t exactly be said, however, that she’d had trouble falling asleep on the eve of the big day. She’d spent a long time half-awake, looking out her window, the faraway, shaky lights of the city killing her slowly.
“Are you asleep?” Her father opened the bedroom door slightly, and a yellow triangle of light filtered through, illuminating the floor. She didn’t answer, although she did hear him. She didn’t want to have to lie: to talk over, once again, the itinerary, the streets, the buses, the address of the Scottish professor in charge of meeting students whose cosmic luck led them to the dorms, their future confirmed, approved. As her departure loomed, it became more and more difficult for her to keep track of the hours. Her father looked at her, full of pride, for once sparing her the weight of his expectations, as if already reaping the fruits of some task carried to completion. He was vulnerable and on the verge of tears, and for this reason, she closed her eyes, pretending to be sleeping, her back to the big window.
Her window was one in an infinite wall of windows, stacked atop one another like framed paintings that revealed the secrets of their subjects. In front and on both sides, at an unimpressive distance, stood similar walls and they encouraged voyeurism: everyone there liked being watched. The windows, scrupulously cleaned, awaited the nightly pornography; in the daytime, they remained uninhabited, empty. They glowed with artificial, amber lights that bathed each interior with brittle luster, gave epic proportions to the daily minutiae: ordinary events became tall tales, some with more art (more realism) than others, depending on the talent and lineage of their performers. For example, an evening meal became an epicurean feast, glorifying the simple biological function that was swallowing. Life’s fantasies on display in every window. And as for her, they’d taught her to be wary of any kind of exposure, so that she couldn’t imagine herself being looked at. She could barely look at herself in the mirror. Although, sometimes, in secret, she did.
Nothing portrayed in the windows was ugly—nothing abject, nothing miserable. And this, precisely—the mindlessness, the vanity—attracted her. The tenants of these windows were never crude or unrefined, not even when the living painting focused on tragedy—for example, a death—because these dark episodes were also an artistic representation of the world, an imitation achieved with meticulous skill, designed to please. Aren’t heroic events, however small, predestined for glory? Objects mattered, even in their economy. Few, but beautiful. Few, but significant. Few, but never excessively fine: a cordovan lounger; a couple of books, bound in leather like fetishes, left on a table; a green desk lamp; or one of these new ergonomically designed gadgets, the kind that produce perfectly aromatic Sumatran coffee without bruising a single grain.
She had believed that everything was judiciously lit to arouse admiration or idolatry, although the compliments were easy, the kisses vain, and the affections insincere. And also, the warmth of simply being, it’s well known, tends to acclimate, numb, and finally bore you… But it was illogical, wasn’t it? That so much time could be spent composing these small evening tableaus, when so few people walked by: just a few moments at night, after hours of work during which one had run endlessly so that something memorable could be created after dark. Forget the present, forget the now. People carried around an obsession with the future—a fear. It disturbed them—like a nightmare unfolding—the idea that they, or their successors, might descend into vulgarity, or worse, poverty. For poverty was the quintessence of horror. The windows were not only a form of vain ostentation, but also a connection with the world they yearned for, and a defensive barrier against the world they feared.
Her window (all the windows of her house, in fact) was an exception on that wall. A picture window with curtains that were thin, but not transparent. She lived there with her family in a pristine environment, unsoiled, almost sacred. They had little furniture, numerous books—so many stacks that they no longer fit anywhere—and an old grand piano. Neither she nor her younger brother had ever gone to school; their parents saw to that. Teachers by trade, they homeschooled their children to shield them from the obscenity of this other world that they rejected for its posturing, its indifference to what they believed to be true. They valued courage, honesty and intelligence. They were “enlightened,” determined to instill knowledge in their children so that all doors would open to them. They discussed methods and content, the evolution of literature and language. Science, art, but also the care of body and soul. Their father taught the past, attempting a dialogue with history; he kept faith with the classics and ancient languages, establishing the primacy of Latin, along with other indispensable tongues. Their mother, on the other hand, celebrated the present and prepared her children for the future, focusing on science in all its practical applications. Films and music also helped them to mold the souls of their warriors. The girl played the piano with a frightening innate virtuosity. Her brother, the violin. At some point they had to learn to shield themselves from the mockery of the other children who roamed the outside world, until they felt capable of presenting themselves to others, much like vegetarians who refuse to eat meat without embarrassment. They acquired,
as a defense mechanism, an astute sense of humor they used to sidestep their critics.
Their parents not only showed them the beauty of the world, they also taught them about what they saw as the dire reality of its shortcomings. That false world to which they didn’t belong—even when they believed otherwise—and instead of which they had chosen a monasticism that isolated the family over time, turning the children into laboratory specimens that their parents meant to fix, enhance, refine with the chisel of their beliefs.
Sometimes, because of the children’s curiosity (mostly hers), the parents opened the curtains for educational and comparative purposes. Over the years, she’d secretly drawn back these curtains herself and looked out the window. She wondered about the reality of both worlds, and of others that she might not even know about. Increasingly she felt as if she were an encrypted message that no one cared to decipher. Often she sought pleasure, gripped by the pure desire to enjoy, but she always fell back into the austerity of her family. She thought over and over about her gifts as a burden, asking herself whether intelligence and erudition could lead to arrogance and boasting. She wondered if courage and honesty were not also cruel forms of labeling everything, so that one could pretend to be better than the rest. She did not know which route to follow on the family map. But she craved an emergency exit: she wanted to escape, breathe: be brought to life: cut the wires carefully woven over the years. To flee from the ancient and venerable university, founded in the fifteenth century in the priory of a cathedral. To abandon the obsequious precision of mathematics and music; to rip off the corset. “Give me the superfluous; for anybody can have the necessary.” She’d repeated this secret war cry ever since adolescence. At those times, words completely lost their meaning, as if in her memory, the parts of an infinite puzzle had been scattered.
She felt rage, but also pity for her parents. She thought about everything she had been taught, and about the futility of knowledge. Can a creation betray its creator without being punished? Can a work of art aspire to be anything but what has been dreamed by the artist? She pondered these questions the night before her departure, in the solitude of her room, looking out at the windows that resembled paintings.
She rose from her bed, walked to her own window, and peered down at the street below. On the sidewalk a woman cowered, her feet bare against the pavement. Beside her, discreetly, lay a stiff human form. She imagined the woman was crying from the cold, because that’s what people cry over, the ones who are going nowhere: the cold… They were protecting themselves not only from the wind, but also the light, which revealed everything with its patina: the trash heaps and the deadend roads; the dogs, street corners, and windows. The road stretching towards the unknown was made of fear; the world’s glory lay on the other side of misery. Just now, the moonlight was beginning to wane. The girl also felt the cold, like a premonition, but did not stop looking out. Fast asleep, or maybe not at all sleeping, she simply looked out the window.
MOEBIA
The certainty that everything has already been written annuls us, or renders us phantasmal.
JORGE LUIS BORGES (TRANS. ANDREW HURLEY)
THE NIGHT HAD BEEN long, and the prison was silent with the breath of revenge, or at least that’s what the warden chose to believe; otherwise, nothing made sense. The sight left him speechless: your man half-naked, with his trousers at his knees, mouth open and drooling, maybe wasted, maybe on a bad trip—a dirty slump on the mat. The baby lay next to him, her legs open, bent, and limp, like a broken doll. Dead.
Yes, Magdalena: this time, the one they called “your man” woke up in Hell, the prison guards kicking him as he tried to process the reason for the shouts around him. Small, sharp needles of light forced him back into reality, as his eyes adjusted slowly. He was struggling to sit up when he saw them taking your daughter’s body away, covered up by a blanket. Still on his knees, he tried to get to her but fell face down on the floor in a faint. When he opened his eyes again, he later told you, he found himself in a green, dimly lit room; he could smell that someone was smoking cigarettes very close to him. His nose and forehead were swollen like a dry cork, still throbbing. “I didn’t do it, I swear!” he sobbed, and those words would remain his only defense.
No. Let’s not call you naive, Magdalena. For in naiveté, there is innocence and bewilderment. You were never innocent. If it makes you feel better, you can say that, in your eyes, Moebia had ceased to be the embodiment of horror, depravation, and putrescence. In your eyes, Moebia was no longer a prison, but simply an archaic structure, a labyrinthine palace with, oh, so many towers! And, oh, so many rooms! Like an adobe hive. That place allowed you to live in the most improbable kind of parallel universe, with no present, no future, among all the different languages and all the different kinds of inmates: men, women, and children mixing promiscuously in this serpentarium. You convinced yourself that none of it was real, that none of it was serious, and that what mattered was that you had good reasons. Important reasons: your little girl, of course, and also Rafael … Well, keep telling yourself whatever you want. Keep running in circles.
Ghosts surround you. Time usually soothes dark memories—but not yours: you are not yet ready to forget. You’d have to let go of him, Magdalena. And what would remain then? At least, you know that Rafael never lied to you, that he never had it in him to deceive you, that he always showed his true colors. In this world, few men are so unashamed, so impudent. Even when they caught him working as a mule, with thirty balloons in his gut, he was defiant. They convicted him, and he’d almost served his three years in Moebia when what happened… happened. But, for him, Moebia had never meant condemnation, but rather predestination. He was blond and well mannered, so everybody liked him, and El Pata was enraptured. Rafael had charisma, an innate and limitless ability to seduce, thanks to which his incarceration soon became bearable, almost easy. From the moment he arrived in prison, people noticed him: he stood out among the masses, with the long golden curls that reached his shoulders, his firm chest, and the flicker in his perpetually amused eyes. His gestures were never vulgar, but also never effeminate. Yes, he stood out, there was no one he didn’t attract, and this made him the perfect vehicle to transport and carry, to come and go, to give and receive.
El Pata, on the other hand, was a small man, his jaw scarred by a dagger’s blade at the age of thirteen. He understood that the drug trade was the ministry of fascination. He had a method. First: enticement. And later: slavery. You’d watched him. He chose his prey and played with it for a day or two. He anointed his followers with all kinds of privileges: banquets, gypsy dance … The prison guards knew to stay away from El Pata’s men. But, above all, he gave them a fragile sense of trust, self-respect, and filial protection, all of which was reinforced with increasingly savage initiation rites. In this way, they were reduced to submission; ears were cut and bodies brutally raped. And then, they were reduced to oblivion; he took away everything, but continued to issue commands and punish them, until finally they rejoined the inner circle.
But Rafael was special. El Pata was under a trance, just like you. So you must acknowledge that, in this sense, you two were no different. You imagined the start of it all: Rafael in the tight jeans he always wore to show off his big package. Reptilian eyes undressed him, lingering on the round ass hugged by thin cloth, as the man feverishly envisioned fucking him… The others told you the rest: El Pata approached him openly, offering his protection and taking him under his wing. That very night, El Pata rode him like a climbing plant, but also howled as he was penetrated by Rafael, dominated by his strength, made helpless by his beauty. Your man was aware of his telluric magnetism. He walked around like he owned the place. Most of the time he slept with El Pata, but he sometimes screwed a guard or some other prisoner’s wife. El Pata allowed it…. Why was it so difficult for you to understand his nature?
By now, the time for tragedy and disbelief has passed. Time hierarchizes the intensity of pain. Do you think about this as you
brush your pearly white teeth, from top to bottom, and then from bottom to top, 1-2-3 times on one side and then on the other, first the outer surfaces, and then the ones that are harder for the brush to reach? How much did your arrogance have to do with it, Magdalena? Do you think about that? You arrived on a gray day. You wanted to bring down the ones in charge. For you, journalism was a type of moral despotism, which you practiced by trusting your nose for front-page stories. And the hunger for attention is insatiable. You were willing to use all your might and all your influence to get the scoop. You knew yourself well. There was something both repulsive and appealing about you. Something offensive and somewhat disquieting. It had to do with your intelligence, the way you dug up dirt, the way you asked all the right questions. What were you aspiring to? More glory? Don’t lie, Magdalena. You weren’t looking for trophies; you had them all. You wanted more than admiration. Your barren heart craved affection; you just wanted to be loved. But who could love you, Magdalena? Sometimes, you couldn’t even come to love yourself. Rumor had it that you hated other women, but this was not true; you simply despised beauty. You’d learned that defense mechanism during childhood: you held a cloak of disdain over whatever you weren’t good at. And you were not just imperfect, Magdalena. You were plain ugly, plain hideous, grotesque even, and it led to your solitude. You spent hours immolating your body and hardening your heart. Your public face—resolute and imperturbable—only accentuated your hauteur.
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