As a result of these constant defeats, Ezequiel began committing amateurish mistakes without my having to do anything at all.
Step by step, I was getting closer to my goal of completely humiliating Ezequiel. The Engineer would have no other option than appointing me caretaker of the archives. And I would soon fulfil my destiny of sitting permanently in the basement with the files.
I must confess, however, that I became a bit greedy because of my success.
Once I turned back time twice in a row—oh, what a headache it gave me!—just to enjoy the foolish look on Ezequiel’s face again: he’d asked the Engineer, on a Thursday, if he’d read the information circular on Ice Studies from Bombay . . . when we all know it comes out on Friday!
I was fast becoming more adept at Time travel. No more bloody noses. The headaches came less frequently. I could turn back time several times a day, without that giddy feeling. In fact, the more I used my power, the stronger I felt.
But one, final Herculean task awaited me . . .
One day, the receptionist buzzed my desk and said, ‘The Engineer wants you in his office right away.’ I could tell the importance she attached to this request by the crisp edge of her voice.
As I walked in the door, I saw the Engineer sitting at his desk, his glasses half-way down his perfectly-aquiline, Emperor’s nose. Ezequiel was standing in front of him, his hands clasped behind his back.
A less Saintly Being than I would have trembled at the sight, worried that they were colluding against me. But I was confident that, no matter what happened, I would prevail.
Without looking up, the Engineer waved a sheaf of papers at us both. ‘According to this new circular, we can only have 100 pesos in petty cash for “miscellaneous” at one time.’ He paused like a practiced Shakespearean actor playing King Lear, and then said, ‘Which we have already topped.’ Then he said sharply, ‘So what are we going to do with this?’ and pointed, accusingly, at a crisp, five peso note lying on his desk.
Ezequiel whispered to me, ‘It’s the leftover from this year’s Task Force in Bariloche,’
Of course, it was. The fool! The secretarial pool had been gossiping about it all morning long.
We’ve had projects in the red before: 12,363 pesos over budget for the Italian delegation’s surprise site visit to the Perito Moreno glacier in 1976; 15,750 pesos over budget for the Albanian delegation’s fact-finding mission to Mendoza in 1982.
But explaining overspending was what budgetary line 79 is all about!
We were caught completely unprepared for being in the black. (It rarely . . . no, it never happens.) The five peso note on the Engineer’s table was a strange thing to see, like a mummified dog or a monkey’s hand in a bottle.
The Engineer continued, ‘Of course, it’s not correct for us to keep it.’ Then, with a rakish gleam in his eye he continued, ‘and, if we did, we’d have to do a line 51 budget revision, send it to the Legal Office and then to Procurement. Why, the man hours alone for this would be incalculable! So, young man,’ and here he turned to Ezequiel, ‘what do you suggest?’
Ezequiel’s eyes glimmered with intent. I could see him trying hard to summon his creativity, to gather around him the lessons he had learned at university. To siphon the strength that comes so naturally to youth . . .
But nothing came. Only a long silence.
After a few, luscious seconds, Ezequiel finally said, ‘Mr Engineer, why don’t we just buy today’s croissants with the change?’
That was it. I had driven the beast over the edge of the precipice. The sound of grating hooves, a bellowing, and then a gentle falling into nothingness. Hadn’t he paid attention? Hadn’t he learned anything in the last few months?
We already had too much money left over in the yearly pastry budget, and if we didn’t spend it all this year, they’d lower our pastry budget the next. Why else did he think we were buying ninety-eight croissants a day and tossing them out in the trash?
It was so sweet, that I didn’t even turn back Time to enjoy it again. I just let the moment glide on, enjoying the grimace of disgust on the Engineer’s face. Ezequiel’s shoulders slowly rolled forward, as he slumped in disgrace.
Ah, but when the demi-gods leave the stage, the pure gods arrive!
I said, matter-of-factly, to the Engineer, ‘The only thing to do, of course, is to deposit the money back into the Task Force account and roll the funds over for next year. It’s as simple as filling out a 97-J-2300 series form. In fact, I’ll do it now myself.’
Without losing inertia, I bent over and confidently pinched the five peso note between my thumb and forefinger. Then I turned around and left the room, heading straight to the bank.
***
As I walked into the bank, I took my place in the Herdish line. As I slowly moved forward, I pictured myself sitting amongst the archives, carelessly flipping through the sacred publications. However, I was roused from these happy thoughts, when my eyes touched upon the large, brass clock above the teller’s head. It was almost closing time!
If I didn’t deposit the five pesos into our account that day, I’d have to return tomorrow. And if I went back to the office without the deposit slip, I’d look as foolish as Ezequiel. (Perhaps even worse!) Oh, my cock-strut out of his office. Hubris, hubris! I had to make that deposit now, or Ezequiel might be given another chance.
He might get back into favour with Mr Engineer. Perhaps he’d even gain the upper hand.
But I put my faith in the darker forces of the universe and waited patiently in line, as the fleshy column moved forward slowly. Then, just a minute before 4:00, the teller at the solitary window slot in front of me said ‘The next person in line, and then I’m closing.’
I was that ‘next person’. What pure joy!
Then, ‘CRASH!’ A terrible sound made me flinch.
Stunned, I looked around to see an obese old woman turned upside down. Her monstrous blue-and-yellow flowered frock was hitched up above her knee-length stockings that stretched, quivering, over dimpled skin.
Between fanning bank statements and heavy, rolling tears, she shrieked her tale of woe to the entire bank.
Her husband—a rural mailman by the name of Reynaldo, with a ‘y’—needed a triple bypass heart operation tomorrow. But they had no money. If only they could borrow from his retirement account! Oh, why was bureaucracy so uncaring?
Dear, sweet Reynaldo had never missed a day of work in his life, had never asked anyone for anything. He was dying, and she couldn’t do a thing.
That’s when the Lawyers’ Commission for the Human Rights of Postal Retirees (LCHRPR) had taken up her case. It had taken precious days to get an emergency hearing with the Judge. But she’d just gotten it, less than an hour ago. And the surgery was scheduled for tomorrow.
So she’d hobbled to the bank—with that bad hip of hers—all those blocks from Tribunales. She had to submit the paperwork to borrow against her husband’s retirement fund right that moment, or the deadline would expire, and she’d have to start the process all over again. In the mean time, Reynaldo would surely die!
I clutched the five peso note and tried to push forward to the teller window . . . but it was too late.
A wave of sympathy was breaking through the line of idiots like the ice at Sevastopol in the Spring. Nods and cooing sounds erupted from the people behind me (who, technically, had no say in the matter, because they had been dismissed).
Before I could properly state my case, the mob was pushing me aside, I, who’d been on the verge of snuffing Ezequiel’s haughty candle out . . . I, whom that very teller had so recently characterised as ‘next’.
The old woman was held aloft, lifted, wobbling, by the crowd. I bore horrified testimony to the flight of that chubby Valkyrie whose sole mission was to unclog Reynaldo’s arteries . . . all at my fucking expense.
No! I couldn’t permit this farce, this perversion of propriety to occur. Pooling all my strength, I hurtled back through Time . . . And there was th
e teller telling me, again, that I was ‘next’.
I leapt forward and thrust my money under the little slot, just as the heavy woman slipped on a loose tile. Just before the ‘CRASH!’, I screamed ‘FOR DEPOSIT!’ at the top of my lungs. Then I quickly cupped my hand against the teller’s slot and pressed my portfolio against the glass, so she couldn’t hear or see the grotesque spectacle unfolding behind me.
As the woman’s sobbing grew more powerful, the teller—still totally unaware—deposited my five pesos and handed me the slip. True to her word, she immediately pulled down her window shade and turned off her lamp.
Seeing the teller’s window close, the Herd’s interest in the fallen woman dissipated. They slowly began to break ranks and lumber home. Only a few stragglers, here and there, bent down to say ‘There, there, Dear’, or to ask, ‘Would you like a glass of water?’
As the row upon row of fluorescent lights were slowly clicked off, I stepped around the crumpled thing still trembling in a flowered pattern on the floor. I heard her sob the name ‘Reynaldo’ one last time, as I stepped gingerly out the door.
Book XIX
Back at the office, I approached the half-open door of Mr Engineer’s office. As I did so, I overheard the tail-end of a telephone conversation. The words are etched in my memory:
I know . . . I know. The post should really go with Ezequiel. He’s younger, and has the right education, so he’s more of a long-term investment. But I’ve to go with the other guy. I know, it’s just to satisfy my ego, but he’s such a perfect kiss-ass . . .
Tears were beginning to well in my eyes, but I still had my dignity. I took hold of myself and strode through the door, as if I hadn’t heard a word. Placing the receipt firmly in his in-box with a salute, I said ‘As requested, Mr Engineer Smaevich,’ and I snapped back around and returned to my cubicle.
Back in the dark, I let heavy teardrops fall upon my desk. I cried and cried, a catharsis that made me tremble until my ribs ached. I felt sick in the pit of my stomach.
After all I’d done, after all I’d sacrificed, there it was. That’s what the Engineer thought of me. I was a ‘perfect kiss-ass’. The emphasis was quite clear, no double-entendres this time. I was ‘perfect’, a perfect kiss-ass. What ecstasy! What joy! I sat, trembling in the dark for several hours . . .
As I left my cubicle to go home for the night, Ezequiel ‘accidentally’ ran into me. (Again, the Kabbalah is clear there are no accidents.)
The chimp faltered at first, ‘As you’ve probably heard, it . . . it didn’t work out for me here. Uh . . . well, you know, these things happen. I guess you’ll be taking over the archives instead.’
I glowered, enjoying Ezequiel’s uneasiness, like a long puff from a Turkish hukkah.
Ezequiel continued, ‘Well, I’ve got to say it was a real wake-up call. I mean, here I’ve been trying to do everything right, saying “Yes, Mr Engineer” and “No, Mr Engineer”, bringing him his newspaper, booking dinner reservations for him and his lover at Le Biblot. And this is what I get.’
He continued wandering through the prickly forest of his mind, ‘But you know, I’ve still got my teaching certificate. I don’t know if I every told you, but I graduated from a teachers’ school in Chubut, and when I first started out, my intention was to . . .’
His grovelling was taking such a boring turn, that I began to block out bits here and there.
He babbled on, ‘It’s made me think, you know, about my priorities, about giving back to the community. In fact, I heard there’s an opening in public school 239 in La Matanza. Well, the pay’s a lot less, but I’d be affecting children’s lives, and, anyway, they’ve had a recent meningitis outbreak and . . .’
His meandering had gone from simply puzzling to infuriating. Now I understood the annoyance Poseidon must have felt, as the faint tunes of ‘Nearer, my God, to Thee’ came filtering down to him, as the Titanic’s band tried to cheer up the chilly damned. ‘Just die already and be done with it!’ I thought.
He interrupted these reflections with the question, ‘You know Elisabet, right?’
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘Elisabet Rivatelli, the receptionist.’
‘Y-es,’ I said noncommittally, considering my three-minute masturbatory fantasy perched on high heels behind the front desk. Suddenly, I noticed there was something different about the shape of her lips.
‘Well, I’m sure you noticed she left several months ago.’
Gone? No, I hadn’t noticed. I shrugged my shoulders.
‘Well, we’ve been seeing each other, off and on, you know. And, well, like everyone these days, I’ve got a thing about commitment. But this whole experience . . . I’ve been thinking maybe I should ask her to move in with me. Life’s too short, you know.’
Now, he’d really gotten my goat. Life’s not too short, not if you’re the Saint of Time Travel. Life is as beautiful and as long as you want it, and you can fill it with infinite moments of revenge.
Just as I was about to give him a good boxing on the ears, for some reason I still can’t fathom, the little bastard took my hand, shook it firmly, and walked out the door.
CHAPTER TWELVE
As I read the last lines of that entry, I savoured the victory of my Saint. Fuckin’ Ezequiel deserved everything he got, the little shit. I stretched my arms and cracked my back and wondered what time it was.
I now knew Saint Perpetuus had acquired the Secret Power of Time Travel, but the instructions to the location of where he’d found it must have been ripped from the book. What was the ‘ordeal’ he’d suffered and in what ‘cave’? What was the Black Train, and how had he taken it?
Leaning back in my chair, I wondered how I could find out. Maybe there were clues in the other books. Maybe there was a hidden code within the text, and I just needed to look a little farther.
I began rooting around in my cubbyholes for a pencil to take some notes . . . when I felt a crushing blow to the back of my head, and I fell, crumpled, to the floor.
***
I peered through the window of Bernardo’s bookstore, the ‘Closed/Open’ sign slowly twisting and untwisting on a hook. There was a feeble light glowing in the back. The customers were long gone, but I could just make out the figure of Bernardo bent over his books.
I held a paper towel to the back of my throbbing head. It had finally stopped bleeding.
When I’d woken up on the floor of my office, I’d seen my backpack was gone, with all the copies of Lives of the Saints! Most of my notes were still there, scattered all over. Whoever it was knew what they were looking for. It was at that moment that I’d finally realised who had arranged this all.
Looking at Bernardo’s figure through the glass, I muttered ‘That bastard! He’s the one who started all this. And me thinks Bernardina doth protest too much! She played me perfectly, pretending not to want to sell me the book. They left it for me on the shelf to find and used it as bait to get the rest of them.’
Either it was Bernardo who’d jumped me, or, maybe it was that awful, retarded brother of his, doing his bidding. All this time, they’d been following me. Who else could have known I was looking for Saint Perpetuus?
I tried the brass door knob, but it wouldn’t budge. I rattled it slightly, to see if I could force it open, but still nothing. After all I’d been through—the orgy, the beating, the death of Professor Pendleton—I wasn’t going to let some stupid door stand in my way. I looked around me to make sure no one was in the street, and then I kicked the door open.
Actually, I kicked it three or four times, almost twisting my ankle in the process, until the door frame splintered. When the door finally collapsed, I fell, sprawling onto the floor of the bookstore, skinning my knee against a small stepladder. I picked myself up and rushed to the back. Bernardo was still there, surrounded by his ring of books.
I shouted at him, ‘There you are, you bastard! Didn’t think you’d see me again, did you? Well, I’ve got the whole thing figured out. You and the Sain
t Perpetuus Club. What do you think about that?’
Bernardo continued staring at his book. He didn’t seem to register my presence.
Thinking, perhaps, he was deaf, I shouted, ‘I said, you sack of shit, that your little game is up. I’m not going to be your stooge any more.’ He still didn’t move, and this infuriated me even more.
I reached towards him, when, suddenly, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move. I jumped out of the way, just as a whole shelf of books came crashing down. Out of the darkness from the back of the store, emerged Bernardina, waving a long stick with pincers she used to get books off the highest shelves.
‘Don’t you touch him!’ she screamed. ‘Don’t you dare touch him!’
‘And what are you going to do,’ I asked, glowering at her, ‘shelve me in the wrong section? I’ll do as I damn well please.’ Then I reached over Bernardo’s little wall of books and tried to grab his shirt collar.
Just as I did, however, I felt a horrible pain in my arm that seemed to explode from the marrow of my bone and reverberate like a gunshot to the hairs on my skin. It felt like my arm was being microwaved up and down, both searing hot and icy cold at the same time. Withdrawing my arm with a cry, I saw all the hairs on my forearm had turned white, and I had livermarks spotting my hands. Cradling my hand in pain, I screamed, ‘What the hell did you do to me?’
Leaning her stick against a shelf and coming closer, Bernardina said, ‘I tried to warn you, but it’s just as well you saw for yourself. That’s why I put up the stack of books—as a barrier—so no one touches Papá anymore.’
Bernardina sat on the edge of the table and spoke as if there were nothing strange in what just happened. ‘Bernardo’s our father . . . Edgardo’s and mine. I was the oldest—I guess, technically, I still am—and that’s why he named me after himself. And Edgardo, well, he’s my little brother, one of those “mistakes” that sometimes happen in life. He was born when I was thirty-two. Mother and father were about fifty then—they’d had me very young—and, well,’ tears welled up in her eyes, ‘Mother died in child birth.’
The St Perpetuus Club of Buenos Aires Page 18
