Translation © 1989 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc.
Originally published in Spanish as El Acoso,
copyright © 1956 by Editorial Losada, S.A.
All rights reserved
Published simultaneously in Canada by Collins Publishers, Toronto
Printed in the United States of America
Designed by Jack Harrison
First edition, 1989
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Carpentier, Alejo, 1904-1980
[Acoso. English]
The chase / Alejo Carpentier ; translated by Alfred Mac Adam.-
1st ed.
p. cm.
Translation of: El acoso.
I. Title.
PQ7389.C263A6413 1989 863—dc20 89-7667
Contents
Part I
Part II
Part III
Sinfonia Eroica, composta per festeggiare il souvvenire di un grand’Uomo, e dedicata a Sua Altezza Serenissima il Principe di Lobkowitz, da Luigi van Beethoven, op. 55, No. III delle Sinfonie . . . The startling crash of the slamming door shattered his childish pride at having understood those words. The fringes of the red curtain swept past his head, ruffling several of the book’s pages, then swung back into place. Torn from his reading, he associated ideas of deafness—the Deaf Composer, his useless ear trumpets—with the sensation of once again hearing the din around him. Surprised by the sudden downpour, the people lingering on the grand staircase returned to the lobby, laughing, jostling those standing there, shouting to each other over bare shoulders, all of them confined in the building by the deluge that collected in the hollows of the awning before pouring out in torrents onto the granite steps. Even though the crowd was being called back to their seats a second time, they all lingered there, clustered together, breathing the moist scents of green poplars and watered lawns. It refreshed their sweaty faces, the breath of the earth mixing with the tree bark, whose cracks had begun to close after the long drought. The suffocating evening having passed, their bodies relaxed, a relief they shared with the plants that had opened among the pergolas in the park. The flower beds, edged with boxwood, gave off the vapors of freshly plowed fields. “This is good weather for you-know-what,” someone whispered, looking at the woman leaning against the bars of the box office, her profile hidden by her fox stole. She seemed unconcerned that the ticket seller behind her was a man, as she had just disengaged herself from the confinement of a most intimate garment—evidently not caring that he saw her do it—in one matter-of-fact, nonchalant movement. “In a cage like a monkey,” said the ushers, mocking this ticket seller who was so different from the other ticket sellers, remaining, as he would, until the end of the concerts even though he was free to leave at ten, after locking up the money and the tickets—the Regulations stated: “Half an hour before the end of the performance.” He wanted to humiliate the woman in the fox stole by making her understand that he had seen her, so, with a cashier’s trick, he slid a handful of coins over the narrow marble slab in front of him. The woman, now visible in profile, stared at his hands floating over the coins—no one ever looked at anything but his hands—and repeated her gesture. Such immodesty was proof he did not exist for the women who filled the lobby, trying to stand where a mirror would reflect their coiffures and gowns. The furs they wore in spite of the heat made moisture collect on their necks and bosoms. To relieve themselves of the weight, they would let their stoles slip down, draping them from elbow to elbow across their backs as if they were thick festoons in a painted hunting scene. His eyes fled from what was so near yet so unattainable. Beyond the flesh lay the park with its columns abandoned to the cloudburst, and, beyond the park, behind the doorway in shadows, the mansion with the Belvedere—once upon a time a manor house surrounded by pines and cypresses, now flanked by the ugly modern building where the ticket seller lived, just under the last chimneys, in the maids’ room, whose skylight looked like yet another geometric figure among the abstract design of rhombuses, circles, and triangles. Next door, in the mansion, whose old structure was crumbling above urns and balustrades, but which at least retained the prestige of a style, a wake must have been in progress, since the terrace, always deserted because it was either too sunny or too dark, had been swarming with shadows until the first thunderclap burst. From his vantage point in the ticket booth, he tenderly contemplated that broken-down apartment, now fallen into the careless hands of the poor, which looked so much like the badly lighted dwellings in his hometown. There, when a death occurred, the lighting of the candles amid crumbling walls, bird cages draped with tablecloths, furniture whose poverty was magnified by the presence of the glittering silver of the candelabra, caused the rooms to take on something of the sumptuous illumination of a tabernacle. Having a wake meant pomp under the tile roof and its rain gutters, the presence of silver and bronze, the solemnity of dignitaries in mourning clothes, and bright lights that sometimes revealed too much—the cobwebs woven between beams or the dark sawdust left by woodworms. (Then, those who like him were studying some instrument had to explain to the neighborhood that practicing did not mean breaking the mourning period and that studying “classical music” was compatible with the grief one felt for the death of a relative.) In those days he hid his infirmity from everyone; he lived alone with his demons: wounded love, hope, and pain. If he was there, perched on the stool, leaning against the worn damask curtain, in that ticket booth as narrow as a desk drawer, it was so he could learn to understand great things, because he admired things others kept behind closed doors, locked away from his poverty. That awareness revived his pride as he stared at that soft back, which looked as though it were being pressed by a thumb at each shoulder blade. Her stole hanging low, she was leaning against the thin bars, so near to his hand. “The courage I possessed so often in the days of summer has disappeared,” he writes in his Testament. And it is the cold of the grave and the odor of Nothingness. In the lost house in Heiligenstadt, in those days without light, Beethoven screams his death howl . . . He had gone back to his book, no longer thinking about those who glittered in their jewels and starched shirts, flitting from the mirrors to the columns, from the stairway to the lyres and sistrums held by the sculpted figures in the relief, during that intermission prolonged excessively by the Maestro, who was still making the horns rehearse the trio in the Scherzo, trying out hunting sonatas backstage, behind the curtain. “In a cage like a monkey.” But he, at least, knew how the Deaf Genius one day, after smashing the bust of a potentate, had shouted in his face, “Prince: You are what you are by the accident of birth; but what I am I am because of myself!” If he took this kind of job at night it was so he could reach a place these bejeweled, decorated figures would never reach, these people who never saw anything but his hands moving over the marble slab. Suddenly the woman moved away from the bars, slipping her stole back up on her shoulders. Shouting out parting words, everyone now hurried back to the hall, whose lights had begun to dim. The musicians were taking their places, picking up the instruments they’d left on chairs; the trombonists went to their seats in the rear; the bassoon players raised their instruments in the middle of all the tuning, itself dominated by a sharp trill; the oboists, after making gluttonous faces as they tested their reeds, lingered over pastoral pauses. The doors closed, except the one that would be left ajar—until the conductor’s first gesture—to permit latecomers to enter on tiptoe. At that very moment, an ambulance passed in front of the building at top speed, swerved, and brutally slammed on its brakes. “A seat,” said an urgent voice. “Any seat,” the man added impatiently, while his fingers slid a bill through the bars of the ticket booth. The ticket books had been put away and, as the ticket taker was searching for the keys to get them out, th
e man disappeared into the darkness of the theater. Then two more men came up to the booth. And since the last door was closing, they ran in, melting into the other members of the audience, who were already in the hall looking for their seats. “Hey!” shouted the ticket taker. “Hey!” But his voice was drowned out by the noise of applause. In front of him there was a new bank note, tossed there by the impatient man. He must have been a great music lover, but he did not look like a foreigner even though he paid five times the value of the most expensive box to hear a symphony performed at the end of a concert. But his clothes were very wrinkled—like those of people who think, an intellectual, a composer perhaps. But the man who is dying hears, suddenly, an answer to his prayer. From the depth of the forests that surround him, where he sleeps, under the October rain, he hears the future Pastoral Symphony, he hears the sound of the trumpets in the Eroica, he answers the call of the Testament . . . The bank note, with its blotting-paper consistency, thick and warm, seemed to swell in his pulsating hand; it became a bridge, parting the bars, piercing walls, stretching toward the woman who was waiting—he could not imagine her in any way except waiting—in the half-light of her dining room decorated with plates, making that lazy gesture, one so characteristically hers, as she moved the fan that breathed sandalwood from each of its ribs from her temple to her breasts, from the back of her knee to the back of her neck—finally letting it rest on her lap. The woman he saw during the intermission aroused him with her movements, with the dark fur on her sweaty skin, and with her shoulders warily sharing the coolness of the metal bars. However, the hurried spectator might still return to demand the change from the bill he’d tossed onto the marble with the largess of a great gentleman—besides, the Biography, whose pages were spread open before him, had shown him that Great Gentlemen were not to be trusted. He parted the damask curtain that separated him from the hall, where silence had now frozen the musicians with their instruments poised, with a gesture of resignation, which should have been a gesture of joy after such a long preparation, after such an anxious wait. Sinfonia Eroica, composta per festeggiare il souvvenire di un grand’Uomo. Two dry chords resounded, and the cellos sang a hunting-horn theme, under the quivering tremolos. This opening exists in three states in the notes collected by Nottebohem, said the book. But the book was slammed shut. The reader breathed in the smell of earth, leaves, and humus that entered the empty lobby, reminding him of the back yards of his hometown after a rain, when the staves of the washtubs were strained to their limits and the ducks joyfully splashed around in the muddy water. That was the same smell that came—after summer thunderstorms—from the toolshed, where, perched on a broken incubator, looking through a hole where a brick had fallen out, he had so often contemplated the Widow taking a bath; hardened by her perpetual mourning, her body was still so smooth under lather that lingered on her belly and then ran slowly, foaming, down her thighs, toward legs that suddenly became those of an old lady below the knees. He had learned the secret of that smooth bosom, that arched waist, all, as it were, expressly made for a man’s arms, to the tune of a nagging, acid voice, tired of giving lessons to the neighborhood children, and ankles worn out from walking the same routes. Now, the memory of the person who had, not long before, taught him music, even as he, keeping the beat, carefully sought out what was hidden under garments dyed and redyed black. This, added to the night’s incitements, finally overwhelmed his scruples. No one here could boast of having approached the symphony with greater devotion than he, after weeks of study, score in hand, standing before the old records that still sounded fine. The newly famous conductor could not direct it better than the illustrious expert on his records—a man who had met, when he was a student and she a nonagenarian, a woman who had sung in the chorus at the first performance of the Ninth. He could proudly claim the privilege of not listening to what was being played in that concert without being disrespectful to the memory of the Genius. “Letter E,” he said, when he noticed that a tenuous phrase played by flutes and the first violins had begun. And he ran down the stairs, spattered by a rain that bounced off the heavy ironwork of the streetlights. Even the woolly smell of his wet clothing seemed delightful, intimate, and complicitous, because suddenly he felt himself to be the possessor of that bank note which would make him the owner of the house without clocks—whose doors would stay locked even if visitors knocked and shouted—for an entire night. And after waking up together, hearing the squabble of the canaries, there would be one last tussle in the kitchen; the fire burning under the breakfast pots with the fan smelling of sandalwood, and the taste of the crackers slid at dawn into the mailbox—where the sun that beat down on the house across the street, passing over the feathered headdress of the Indian Girl on the bakery sign, kept them hot.
(. . . this pounding that elbows its way right through me; this bubbling stomach; this heart above that stops beating, piercing me with a cold needle; muffled punches that seem to well up from my very core and smash on my temples, my arms, my thighs; I breathe in gasps; my mouth can’t do it; my nose can’t do it; the air only comes in tiny sips, fills me, stays inside me, suffocates me, only to depart in dry mouthfuls, leaving me wrenched, doubled over, empty; and then my bones straighten, grind, shudder; I stand above myself, as if hung from myself, until my heart, in a frozen surge, lets go of my ribs so it can strike me from the front, below my chest; I have no control over this dry sobbing; then breathe, concentrating on it; first, breathe in the air that remains; then breathe out; now breathe in, more slowly: one, two, one, two, one, two . . . The hammering comes back; I am shaking from side to side; now sliding down, through all my veins; I am smashing at the thing holding me in place; the floor is shaking with me; the back of the chair is shaking; the seat is shaking, giving a dull push with each shudder; the entire row must feel the tremor; soon the woman next to me will look at me; picking up her fox stole; the man next to her will look at me; they will all look at me; again my chest freezes; I have to breathe out this locked-in mouthful of air that swells my cheeks. Having felt my breath on the back of his neck, the man sitting in front of me turns around; he looks at me; he looks at the sweat dripping from my hair; I’ve attracted their attention; they will all look at me; there is a clamor on the stage, and they all look toward the clamor. I must not look at that neck: it’s scarred by acne; it would be there, exactly there—the only place in the hall—so that the very thing I should not look at is near me. It might be a Sign; my eyes will try to avoid it, looking above it, below it, finally making me dizzy; I must clench my teeth, clench my fists, calm my stomach—calm my stomach—I must stop that running sensation in my guts, that breakdown of my kidneys which sends sweat to my chest; one thrust and another, one jolt and another; I must tighten myself up, cover up the falling apart inside, cover up what’s flowing out of me, boiling out of me, piercing me; I must tighten myself up over the thing that’s drilling, and burning, in this immobility to which I am condemned, here, where my head must remain at the same height as every other head. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, died, and was buried; He descended into Hell; the third day He. rose again from the dead . . . I can’t fight much longer; I’m trembling from heat and cold; clasping onto my wrists, I can feel them shake the way a chicken whose neck has just been broken shakes when it’s thrown onto the kitchen floor; I must cross my legs, worse yet; it’s as if my upper thighs were flowing into my stomach; everything’s falling, spinning, boiling in foam that flows all over me, that falls off my sides, that crosses over me, from hip to hip; a bubbling that the others will hear if they turn when the orchestra plays more quietly; I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth; I believe, I believe, I believe. Something suddenly calms down. “I feel better; I feel better; I feel better”; they say that by repeating something over and over you can make yourself believe . . . Wh
at was boiling seems to have quieted down, settled, stopped somewhere; it must be the effect of the position I’m in; I must hold it this way, not move, keep my arms crossed. The woman gestures impatiently, holding her fox stole in front of her; her evening bag slips and falls; everyone turns; she doesn’t bend over to pick it up; they think I’m the one who made the noise; the people in front look at me; the people behind look at me; they must see that my skin is yellowed, that my cheeks are sunken. My beard has grown in these last hours; it bristles against the palms of my hands; I look odd to them, with my shoulders soaked with the sweat that’s dripping slowly off my hair again, flowing down my cheeks, down my nose. Besides, my clothing doesn’t fit in with all this finery: “Get out of here,” they’ll say to me. “He’s sick, he smells.” There is another burst of sound on the stage; everyone turns to pay attention to the burst of sound . . . I have to maintain my immobility; put all my energy into not moving, into not calling attention to myself, into not calling attention to myself, for God’s sake. I’m surrounded by people, protected by their bodies, hidden among their bodies; my body mixed in with many bodies; I’ve got to stay surrounded by their bodies; later, I’ll leave with them, slowly, through the door where there are the most people, the program right up to my nose, reading it as if I were nearsighted; better still, if there are lots of women, to be surrounded, encircled, encompassed . . . Oh! those instruments beating against my guts, just when I was feeling better; that man pounding those kettle drums, pounding me, each time, right in the center of my chest; those up higher, who are playing so loud right toward me, with those sounds that come out of black holes; those violinists seeming to saw the strings, tearing, grating on my nerves; all this grows and grows, hurting me; two drumbeats; one more and I’d shout; but it’s all over; now we have to applaud . . . They all turn around, look at me, hush me up, each with his index finger raised to his lips; I’m the only one who clapped; only me; all around me people are looking at me; from the balconies, from the boxes; the entire theater seems to turn toward me. “Stupid!” The woman with the fox stole also says, “Stupid, stupid, stupid”; they’re all talking about me; they’re all pointing at me; I feel those fingers stuck into the back of my neck, into my back; I didn’t know it was forbidden to applaud here; they’ll call the usher: “Get him out of here; he’s sick, he stinks; look how he’s sweating” . . . The orchestra starts to play again; something serious, sad, slow. And it’s the strange, surprising, inexplicable sensation of knowing that, what they’re playing. I don’t understand how I can know it; I’ve never listened to one of these orchestras, and I don’t know anything about the music people listen to like this—like that man over there with his eyes closed; like those people over there, sitting with their hands clasped—as if they were involved in something sacred; but I could almost hum the melody that’s beginning now, and keep the beat in that stop-and-put-one-foot-forward-and-then-the-other rhythm, slowly, as if walking, and enter into something where that acid-sounding song dominates; and then the flute, and then those drumbeats, so strong, as if everything had stopped just so that it could start up again. “How beautiful this funeral march is!” says the woman with the stole to the man on the other side. I know nothing about funeral marches; a funeral march can’t be beautiful or agreeable; perhaps I heard one, back there, near the tailor shop, when they buried the black veteran and the band escorted the gun carriage, with the drum major walking backward: And they get dressed up, they put on their frills, even get out their jewels to come to listen to funeral marches? . . . But now I do remember; yes, I remember; I remember. For days and days I listened to this funeral march without knowing it was a funeral march; for days and days I had it next door to me, enveloping me, echoing in my sleep, usurping my waking hours, contemplating my terrors; for days and days it flew over me, like the shadow of an evil shadow, moving in the air I breathed, weighing down on my body when I collapsed at the foot of the wall, vomiting the water I’d drunk. It couldn’t be just a coincidence; that was being played in the house next door because God wanted it that way; human hands did not put it there, so close, that music of a passing funeral procession, of muted drums, of veiled figures; it was God in the afterwards, just as the fire is already in the unkindled wood before the fire starts; God, who did not forgive, who did not want my prayers, who turned his back on me when in my mouth were echoing the words I learned in the book with the Cross of Calatrava on it; God, who threw me into the street and made a dog bark in the trash; God, who put so close to my face this horribly scarred neck, the neck that must not be looked at. And now He is incarnate in the instruments He makes me listen to, tonight, conducted by the thunder of His Rage. I appear before the Lord manifest in a song, as He might also be manifest in the burning bush: as I glimpsed Him, dazzled, illuminated, in that burning coal the old lady raised to her face. I know now that a sinner could never be more observed, better placed in the balance of the Divine Gaze, than one who fell into prison, the supreme trap—brought by His inexorable Will to a place where a language without words finally reveals to him the expiatory meaning of these last days. We have all been given roles in this theater, and the outcome has already been established in the afterwards—hoc erat in votis!—just as the ash is already in the wood about to kindle . . . Don’t look at that neck, don’t look at it; fix your eyes on a spot on the floor, on a stain in the carpet, on the tambourine up there decorating the frame around the stage; God the Father, Maker of Heaven, have mercy on me; I haven’t invoked you in vain; you know how I thought of you in my pain; I still believe in your Mercy, I still believe in your infinite Mercy; I’ve been too far away from you, but I know that often only a second of repentance—the second it takes to call your name—has been enough to deserve a gesture of your hand, the relief from torment, from the confusion of packs of dogs . . . The funeral march is over, suddenly, the way a person, after hearing a plea or being implored, answers with a simple “Yes!” that makes other words useless. And that was when I said I believed in His Mercy. Silence. Time of relief, of rest. The conductor prolongs that silence, with his head bent forward, his arms at his sides, so that something remains of the part that’s finished. My veins are not pounding so much, and my breathing isn’t painful. This time it doesn’t occur to me to clap . . . “Let’s see how the . . . [what?] . . . sounds,” says the woman with the fox stole, not even looking at the program. A word I couldn’t make out. I understand now why the people in my row don’t look at their programs; I understand why they don’t applaud between sections: the parts have to be played in their own order, the way in Mass the Gospel comes before the Credo, and the Credo before the Offertory; now comes something like a dance; then the hopping, happy music, with a finale of long trumpets like the ones the angels play on the organ in the cathedral where I made my First Communion; there must be fifteen, maybe twenty minutes left; then everyone will applaud and the lights will go on. All the lights.)
The Chase Page 1
