The Mad Toy

by Roberto Arlt

  As they had no way to keep a maid, and also as no servant would have been able to support the goatish vigour of the three hairy louts and the bad humour of the irritable maidens and the whims of the toothy old witches, Enrique was the intermediary needed for the right functioning of that lame economic machinery, and so accustomed was he to ask for credit that his shamelessness was both unheard-of and exemplary. One can say in his praise that a bronze statue would show embarrassment more easily than his refined features.

  Irzubeta would spend his long hours of free time in sketching, a skill at which he did not lack either invention or delicacy, which is a fine argument to show that there have always been good-for-nothings with aesthetic ability. As I had nothing to do, I was often in his house, a circumstance that did not please the old women, about whom I didn’t give a damn.

  From my union with Enrique, from the long conversations we had about bandits and thieves, we developed a strange predisposition to commit acts of mischief ourselves, and an infinite desire to gain immortality as delinquents.

  Enrique once said to me, apropos of the expulsion of some bandits, some ‘apaches’ who had emigrated from France to Buenos Aires, and whose case had been reported by Soiza Reilly in an article accompanied by eloquent photographs:

  ‘The President of the Republic has four “apaches” for his bodyguards.’

  I laughed.

  ‘Stop pulling my leg.’

  ‘It’s true, I’m telling you, and they’re like this.’ And he opened his arms like a crucified man to give me some idea of the thoracic capacity of these dyed-in-the-wool thugs.

  I don’t remember how, by what subtleties and casuistry, we managed to convince ourselves that robbery was a meritorious and beautiful act; but I do know that it was by mutual agreement that we decided to organise a gang of thieves, whose initial membership was ourselves alone.

  Later we would see… And in order to kick off our activities in a befitting manner we decided to begin by ransacking abandoned houses. This is how we did it:

  After lunch, when the streets were deserted, we would go out discreetly dressed to roam the streets of Flores or Caballito.

  Our tools were:

  A little monkey wrench, a screwdriver and some newspapers to wrap up the pickings.

  Where a poster announced a property for rent, we would go and ask about it, with our manners perfect and our faces composed. We looked like Cacus’s altar-boys.5

  Once we’d got the keys, ostensibly so that we could find out whether the houses were habitable or not, we would spring into action.

  I have not yet forgotten the joy we felt upon opening the doors. We would rush in violently; eager for booty, we would rush through the rooms assessing with rapid glances the amount of stealable material.

  If there was electric light installed, we would tear out the cables, the light fittings and the doorbells, the bulbs and the switches, the chandeliers, the glass lampshades and the batteries; we took the taps from the bathroom because they were nickel-plated; we took the taps from the kitchen sink because they were made of bronze, and we only didn’t take doors and windows to stop ourselves from looking like removal men.

  We would work inspired by a certain kind of painful joy, a knot of anxiety held still in our throats, and moving as fast as quick-change artists, laughing with no cause, shuddering at imagined sounds.

  The cables hung in rags from the ceilings which were ripped up by the vigour of our efforts; chunks of plaster and mortar stained the dusty floors; in the kitchen the lead pipes would release an endless trickle of water, and in very few seconds we were able to get the house in good shape for a costly repair-job.

  Then Irzubeta and I would hand back the keys and with rapid steps disappear.

  The meeting-point was always the backroom of a plumber’s shop; the plumber was like a collector’s card version of Cacaseno:6 moonfaced, getting on in years, with a large gut and horns, because it was well known that he tolerated the infidelities of his wife with the patience of a Franciscan friar.

  Whenever his situation was indirectly hinted at, he would reply with lamblike meekness that his wife suffered from nerves, and in the face of such a solidly scientific argument there was no possible reply apart from silence.

  However, he was an eagle where his own interests were concerned.

  This knock-kneed man would meticulously examine our haul, weigh the cables, test the bulbs to see if the filaments were burnt out, sniff the pipes and with an aggravating patience would calculate and recalculate his sums until he ended up offering us a tenth of the cost price of what we had stolen.

  If we argued or got annoyed, this good man would lift up his cowlike eyes, his face would fill with an ironic smile, and, without letting us speak further, and giving us cheery slaps on the back, he would show us to the door with all the charm in the world and leave us with the money in our hands.

  But don’t think that we limited our exploits to uninhabited houses. Nobody could compare to us as snappers-up of unconsidered trifles.

  We were constantly aware of other people’s property. In our hands there was a fabulous dexterity, in our eyes the speed of a bird of prey. Without hurrying, but with the speed of a gyrfalcon falling down on an innocent dove, we fell upon those things that did not belong to us.

  If we went into a café and there was a piece of cutlery or a sugar bowl forgotten on a table and the waiter was distracted, then we would lift them both; we would find, in the kitchen display cabinets or any other hidey-hole, whatever we considered necessary for our common benefit.

  We spared neither cup nor plate, knife nor billiard ball, and I remember well that on one rainy night, in a busy café, Enrique very neatly purloined an overcoat, and on another night I got a gold-headed cane.

  Our eyes would spin in their orbits or open as wide as saucers while we were looking for things to turn to our advantage, and as soon as we saw what we wanted, there we were, smiling, care free and free-speaking, our fingers ready and our eyes alert for everything, so as not to blow it like minor-league grafters.

  In shops we would exercise this same pure art, and you had to see it to believe it how we took in the kids who worked the counters while their bosses were sleeping their siesta.

  Using some pretext, Enrique would take the kid outside to look at the shop window, so that he could get the price of certain objects, and if there was no one in the office then I would quickly open a display case and fill my pockets with boxes of pencils, artistic inkstands; once we were able to snaffle money out of a cashbox that had no alarm, and another time, in a gun shop, we got a box with a dozen penknives made of gold-plated steel with mother of pearl handles.

  When we went through a day without being able to get our hands on anything we were crestfallen, sad at our incompetence, disappointed about our future.

  Then we would go around in a bad mood until something came along to cheer us up.

  However, when business was on the up and coins were replaced by delectable peso bills, we would wait for a rainy afternoon and go out for a ride in a hired car with a driver. How delicious then to be driven through curtains of rain along the city streets! We would lie back on the soft cushions, light a cigarette, leaving the busy people behind us in the rain, and imagine that we lived in Paris, or foggy London town. We would dream in silence, a smile balanced on our condescending lips.

  Later, in a high-class cake shop, we would drink chocolate with vanilla, and go home sated on the afternoon train, our energies doubled by the satisfaction our blowout had given our voluptuous bodies, by the dynamism in everything around us that shouted with its iron voices in our ears:

  Forwards, forwards!

  Said I to Enrique one fine day:

  ‘We need to form a secret society, a real society, for smart kids.’

  ‘The difficulty is that there aren’t that many of us around,’ Enrique argued.

  ‘Yes, you’re right; but there can’t be none of them.’

  A few weeks after
saying this, Enrique’s efforts turned up a certain Lucio who joined our group; he was a fool, short in stature and livid from too much masturbation, with a face that was so shameless that it made anyone who saw it want to laugh.

  He lived under the protection of some pious old women who cared little or nothing for him. This nincompoop had one favourite occupation, which was telling people the most ordinary things as if they were immense secrets. This he did by looking all around him and moving his arms like certain film actors did when they played petty suburban crooks.

  ‘This nutcase won’t be any use to us,’ I said to Enrique; but as he brought a newcomer’s enthusiasm to the recently formed brotherhood, his keen decisiveness, together with his bizarre arm movements, gave us hope.

  It was impossible for us to do without a meeting-point, and we called it, at Lucio’s suggestion, unanimously accepted, The Club of the Midnight Gentlemen.

  The club held its meetings round the back of Enrique’s house, in a narrow room of dusty wood with large spider-webs hanging from the roof beams, facing a filthy-walled and decrepit latrine. There were lots of broken and faded puppets in the corners, the legacy of a failed puppeteer who had been a friend of the Irzubetas, as well as boxes filled with horrifically mutilated lead soldiers, rank bundles of dirty clothes and boxes overflowing with old newspapers and magazines.

  The door to the hovel opened onto a dark patio covered in cracked bricks, which became muddy on rainy days.

  ‘Nobody here, che?’

  Enrique closed the shabby casement through the broken panes of which were visible huge roiling tin clouds.

  ‘They’re inside, chatting.’

  We made ourselves as comfortable as possible. Lucio offered us Egyptian cigarettes, a formidable novelty for us, and smoothly lit a match on the sole of his shoe. Then he said:

  ‘We are going to read the Minutes.’

  So that there would be nothing lacking in this aforementioned club, there was a Book of Minutes where all the associates’ projects were entered, and there was also a stamp, a rectangular stamp that Enrique had made out of a cork and which displayed the emotive spectacle of a heart pierced by three daggers.

  The Minutes were kept by each of us in turn; the end of each set of Minutes was signed; each new topic was given its stamp.

  The Minutes contained such things as the following:

  Lucio’s Proposal – In the future in order to rob without needing locksmith’s tools, we should make wax models of the keys of all the houses we visit.

  Enrique’s Proposal – We should also make a plan of each house where we get the keys from. These plans will be kept secret with the documents of the Order and must be sure to mention all peculiarities of the building for the greater convenience of the person who will be sent to operate there.

  General Agreement of the Order – Associate Enrique is hereby named the Club’s official forger and draughtsman.

  Silvio’s Proposal – To introduce nitro-glycerine into a fortified zone, take an egg, empty it of the yolk and the white and inject the explosive using a syringe.

  If the acids in the nitro-glycerine destroy the eggshell, make it a sheath out of gun cotton. Nobody will suspect that the harmless-looking sheath hides an explosive charge.

  Enrique’s Proposal – The Club should have a library of scientific works in order for its associates to be certain that they are robbing and killing according to the most modern industrial procedures. Also, after being a member of the Club for three months, each associate will be obliged to own a Browning pistol, a pair of rubber gloves and 100 grams of chloroform. The Club’s official chemist will be Associate Silvio.

  Lucio’s Proposal – All bullets should be poisoned with prussic acid and its toxic power should be tested by shooting a dog’s tail off with a single shot. The dog has to die in ten minutes.

  ‘Che, Silvio.’

  ‘What?’ Enrique said.

  ‘I was just thinking. We should organise clubs in every town in the Republic.’

  ‘No, the important thing,’ I interrupted, ‘is to practise for what we’re doing tomorrow. There’s no point concerning ourselves with trifles now.’

  Lucio pulled up a bundle of dirty clothes that he was using as an ottoman. I continued:

  ‘Training as thieves has one key advantage: it makes you cold-blooded, which is the most important thing for the job. Also, experiencing danger makes you prudent.’

  Enrique said:

  ‘Let’s cut all this speechifying and get down to something interesting. Here in the alley behind the butcher’s shop – the wall of Irzubeta’s house gave onto this alley – there’s a gringo who parks his car every night and then goes off to sleep in a room he rents in one of those big old houses in Zamudio Street. What about it Silvio, if we make his magneto and his horn… disappear?’

  ‘You know that’s a serious job?’

  ‘There’s no danger, che. We jump over the wall. The butcher sleeps like the dead. Yeah, we’ll have to wear gloves, I guess.’

  ‘And the dog?’

  ‘And why should I care? I’m friends with the dog.’

  ‘I just think he’s going to go off on one.’

  ‘What do you think, Silvio?’

  ‘And don’t forget that we’ll make more than a hundred for the magneto.’

  ‘It’s a good job, but slippery.’

  ‘Lucio, are you up for it?’

  ‘Trying to strong-arm me?… sure… I’ll put on my old trousers so I don’t rip my Sunday best…’

  ‘And you, Silvio?’

  ‘I’ll get out as soon as the old lady’s asleep.’

  ‘When should we meet up?’

  ‘Look, che, Enrique. I don’t like the job.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t like it. They’re going to suspect us. The alley… The dog that didn’t bark in the night-time… if we can get there so easily we’re bound to leave traces… I don’t like it. You know I’m up for anything, but I don’t like it. It’s too close and the pigs are too nosy.’

  ‘Well we won’t do it then.’

  We smiled as if we had just escaped from danger.

  And so we lived days of unparalleled emotion, enjoying the money we had made from our robberies, money that had a special value for us and even seemed to speak to us in its own lively idiom.

  The banknotes with their coloured pictures seemed to us to be the most meaningful, the nickel coins jangled merrily as we juggled them in our palms. Yes, money that we acquired through our scams seemed much more worthy and subtle, seemed to have some kind of maximum value, seemed to whisper in our ears with smiling praise and enticing mischief. It wasn’t the vile and odious money that is hated because it needs to be earned by hard work, but rather it was supple money, a silver sphere with two goblin legs and a dwarfish beard, jocular money, dancing money whose smell, like good wine, intoxicated us.

  Our eyes were untroubled; I would dare say that our foreheads were haloed with a nimbus of pride and daring. Pride in knowing that if our actions had become public we would have been taken before a judge.

  Sitting round a café table, we sometimes spoke about this:

  ‘What would you do with the Judge in the Criminal Court?’

  ‘I,’ Enrique replied, ‘I would speak to him about Darwin and Le Dantec.’ (Enrique was an atheist.)

  ‘And you, Silvio?’

  ‘I wouldn’t tell them anything, even if they cut my throat.’

  ‘And what about the rubber?’

  We would look at each other in fright. We were terrified of the ‘rubber’, that truncheon that left no visible marks on its victim’s flesh; the rubber truncheon that is used to punish the bodies of thieves in the Police Department when they are slow in confessing their crimes.

  With scarcely repressed rage, I replied:

  ‘They will never break me. They’ll have to kill me first.’

  Whenever one of us would say this word, kill, the nerves in our faces would quiver, our e
yes would remain fixed and open, looking at an illusory and distant scene of butchery, and our nostrils would flare as we breathed in the smell of gunpowder and blood.

  ‘That’s why we need to poison the bullets,’ Lucio insisted.

  ‘And make bombs,’ I continued. ‘No mercy. We have to blow them up, terrorize the fuzz. When their guard is down, bullets… send bombs to the judges through the post.’

  This was how we spoke around the café table, solemn and enjoying our impunity before all other people, all the people who did not know that we were thieves, and a delicious fear gripped our hearts as we thought about the way in which these unknown girls who were passing by would look at us if they only knew that we, so young and so well-dressed, were thieves… Thieves!

  A few days later, I met with Enrique and Lucio in a café at midnight to finalise the details of a robbery we were planning to commit.

  Choosing the most solitary corner, we sat down at a table next to the window.

  A thin rain tapped on the glass as the orchestra unleashed the dying climax of a jailhouse tango.

  ‘Are you sure, Lucio, that there are no guards?’

  ‘Positive. It’s holiday time and everyone’s gone away.’

  We were discussing nothing less than taking down a school library.

  Enrique, thoughtful, supported his cheek with one hand. The peak of his cap shaded his eyes.

  I was worried.

  Lucio was looking around with the satisfaction of someone on whom life smiles. In order to convince me that there was no danger he screwed up his forehead and spoke to me confidentially for the tenth time:

  ‘I know the route. What are you worried about? All you have to do is jump over the fence that goes from the street to the patio. The porters sleep in a separate room on the third floor. The library is on the second floor on the other side of the building.’

  ‘It’s an easy job, it’s in the bag,’ Enrique said. ‘It’d be a great job if we could get away with the Encyclopaedic Dictionary.’

  ‘And how are we going to carry twenty-eight volumes? You’re mad… unless you order a removal van.’

  Some cars drove past with their tops down and the brightness of their arc lights, falling on the trees, threw long trembling stains on the ground. The waiter brought us coffee. The tables around us were still empty, up on the stage the musicians were chatting, and the sound of heels stamping on the ground came from the billiard room, where enthusiasts were applauding a particularly complicated cannon.