Hopscotch: A Novel

by Julio Cortázar

  “Besides, the end of it is resting on my board,” Oliveira said. “It would mighty strange if they both broke at the same time.”

  “Yes, but I weigh a hundred and twenty-five pounds,” Talita said. “And when I get to the center I’ll weigh five hundred at least. I can feel the board bending more and more.”

  “If it was bending, my feet would be off the floor, and I can still feel them firmly planted. All that can happen is that the boards might break, and that would be damned unusual.”

  “The fibers have a lot of resistance lengthwise,” Oliveira agreed. “That’s the whole story behind a bunch of twigs and other examples. I suppose you’ve got the yerba and the nails.”

  “I’ve got them in my pocket,” Talita said. “Hurry up and throw me the rope. I’m getting nervous, believe me.”

  “It’s the cold,” Oliveira said, twirling the rope like a gaucho. “Watch out that you don’t lose your balance. Maybe I’d better rope you, that way we can be more sure that you can tie it on.”

  “It’s funny,” he thought, as he watched the lasso go over her head. “Everything really falls into place piece by piece if you really want it to. The only thing untrue about all this is the analysis of it.”

  “You’re getting there,” Traveler announced. “Get into position so you can tie up the boards, they’re a little bit apart.”

  “Look at the good job I did of roping her,” Oliveira said. “There you are, Manú, you can’t tell me now I couldn’t get a job with you people in the circus.”

  “You hurt my face,” Talita complained. “The rope is scratchy.”

  “I can put on a cowboy hat, come out whistling, and rope anybody or anything,” Oliveira proposed with enthusiasm. “The bleachers will break out cheering, a show that has few precedents in circus history.”

  “The sun’s starting to get you,” Traveler said, lighting up a cigarette. “And I’ve told you not to call me Manú.”

  “I haven’t got the strength,” Talita said. “The rope is too coarse, it keeps catching on itself.”

  “The ambivalence of the noose,” Oliveira said. “Its natural function sabotaged by a mysterious tendency towards neutralization. I think that’s what they call entropy.”

  “It’s pretty tight now,” Talita said. “Shall I loop it again? There’s still a little left over.”

  “Yes, tie it around tight,” Traveler said. “I hate things that are left over and dangling; it’s diabolical.”

  “A perfectionist,” Oliveira said. “Now come on over onto my board and test the bridge.”

  “I’m afraid,” Talita said. “Your board doesn’t look as solid as ours.”

  “What?” said Oliveira, offended. “Can’t you see that it’s a fine cedar board? Are you comparing it to that piece of pine? Come on, don’t worry.”

  “What do you think, Manú?” Talita asked, looking back.

  Traveler, who was about to reply, looked at the spot where the two boards overlapped and at the poorly tied rope. Straddling his board, he could feel it vibrating between his legs in a way that was neither pleasant nor unpleasant. All Talita had to do was put down her hands, pull herself up a little and she would be over on Oliveira’s side. The bridge would hold, of course; it was well built.

  “Wait a minute,” Traveler said doubtfully. “Can’t you hand him the package from there?”

  “Of course she can’t,” Oliveira said, surprised. “What’s on your mind? You’re ruining everything.”

  “Like he says, I can’t hand it to him from here,” Talita admitted. “But I could toss it, the easiest thing in the world from here.”

  “Toss it?” Oliveira said resentfully. “All this trouble and you’re going to end up by tossing me the package?”

  “If you stick out your arm you’ll only be a foot away from the package,” Traveler said. “There’s no need for Talita to go all the way over there. She’ll toss you the package and that’s that.”

  “She’ll miss, the way women always do,” Oliveira said, “and the yerba will spill all over the street, not to mention the nails.”

  “Rest assured,” Talita said, quickly taking out the package. “Even if it doesn’t land in your hand, it will still go through the window.”

  “Yes, and it’ll spill all over the dirty floor and I’ll have to drink mate that’s all full of dust,” Oliveira said.

  “Don’t pay any attention to him,” Traveler said. “Go ahead and throw it and come on back.”

  Talita turned around to look at him, doubting whether he meant what he was saying. Traveler was looking at her in a way that she knew very well, and Talita felt a sort of caress run up over her shoulder. She clutched the package and gauged the distance.

  Oliveira had lowered his arms and seemed indifferent to what Talita was or was not going to do. He was looking at Traveler over Talita’s head, and Traveler returned his look fixedly. “Those two have got another bridge working between them,” Talita thought. “If I were to fall into the street they wouldn’t even notice it.” She looked down at the cobblestones, she saw the errand-girl looking up at her with her mouth open; two blocks away she saw a woman coming along who must have been Gekrepten. Talita paused with the package resting on the bridge.

  “That’s the way it is,” Oliveira said. “It had to happen, nobody can change you. You come right up to the edge of things and one gets the idea that finally you’re going to understand, but it’s useless, you see, you start turning them around to read the labels. You always get stuck in the planning stage, man.”

  “So what?” Traveler said. “Why do I have to play games with you, chum?”

  “Games play along all by themselves; you’re the one who sticks a pole in the spokes to slow down a wheel.”

  “A wheel that you invented, if you want to bring that up.”

  “I don’t agree,” Oliveira said. “All I did was create the circumstances, as anyone who can understand would see. The game has got to be played clean.”

  “You sound like a loser, old man.”

  “It’s easy to lose if somebody else is rolling the dice.”

  “Big shot,” Traveler said. “Real gaucho talk.”

  Talita knew that somehow they were talking about her, and she kept on looking down at the errand-girl, motionless on her chair with her mouth open. “I’d give anything for them to stop arguing,” Talita thought. “No matter what they talk about, it’s always about me in the end, but that’s not what I really mean, still it’s almost what I mean.” It had occurred to her that it would be very funny to drop the package so that it would fall into the errand-girl’s mouth. But she didn’t really think it would be funny because she could feel that other bridge stretched out above her, the words that passed back and forth, the laughs, the hot silences.

  “It’s like a trial,” Talita thought. “Like a ritual.”

  She recognized Gekrepten, who had reached the next corner and was beginning to look up. “Who’s judging you?” Oliveira had just said. But it wasn’t Traveler they were judging, it was she. A feeling, something sticky, like the sun on the back of her neck and on her legs. She was going to have an attack of sunstroke, that’s what the punishment would probably be. “I don’t think you’re in any position to judge me,” Manú had said. Still it wasn’t Manú but she who was being judged. And through her God knows what, while stupid Gekrepten was waving her left arm around and making motions as if she was the one who was about to have an attack of sunstroke and fall down into the street, condemned without appeal.

  “Why are you wobbling like that?” Traveler said, holding his board with both hands. “Hey, you’re making it shake too much. Watch out or we’ll all be up the creek.”

  “I’m not moving,” Talita said miserably. “All I wanted to do was toss the package and get back inside again.”

  “The sun’s beating down right on your head, you poor doll,” Traveler said. “This is really too much, damn it.”

  “It’s your fault,” Oliveira said in a fury
. “There’s nobody in all Argentina who can fuck things up like you.”

  “You insist on blaming me,” Traveler said objectively. “Hurry up, Talita. Throw the package in his face so he’ll stop screwing around with us once and for all.”

  “It’s a little late for that,” Talita said. “I don’t know whether I can hit the window now.”

  “I told you so,” Oliveira muttered, and it wasn’t often that he muttered and only when he was on the brink of some outrageous thing. “There comes Gekrepten loaded down with bundles. There were only a few of us, and grandmother gave birth.”

  “Throw him the yerba anyway,” Traveler said. “Don’t worry if you miss.”

  Talita lowered her head and her hair flowed down over her forehead to her chin. She had to keep on blinking because the sweat was getting into her eyes. Her tongue felt salty and covered with something that could have been sparks, little stars running back and forth and bumping into her gums and the roof of her mouth.

  “Wait,” Traveler said.

  “Are you talking to me?” Oliveira asked.

  “No. Wait, Talita. Hang on tight, I’m going to hand you a hat.”

  “Don’t get off the board,” Talita pleaded. “I’ll fall down into the street.”

  “The encyclopedia and the dresser will hold it down fine. Don’t move, I’ll be right back.”

  The boards dipped a little and Talita hung on desperately. Oliveira whistled with everything he had as if to stop Traveler, but there was nobody in the window any more.

  “What a bastard,” Oliveira said. “Don’t move, don’t even breathe. Your life depends on it, believe me.”

  “I know,” Talita said in a wisp of a voice. “That’s the way it’s always been.”

  “And to make matters worse, Gekrepten is coming up the stairs. She’s going to ball things up, damn it. Don’t you move.”

  “I’m not moving,” Talita said. “But I think …”

  “Yes, but don’t even do that,” Oliveira said. “Don’t move at all, it’s the only way.”

  “They’ve already passed judgment on me,” Talita thought. “Now all I have to do is fall and they can get on with the circus and life.”

  “What are you crying about?” Oliveira asked with interest.

  “I’m not crying,” Talita said. “I’m sweating, that’s all.”

  “Look,” Oliveira said resentfully, “I may be stupid, but I’ve never confused tears with perspiration. They’re quite different things.”

  “I’m not crying,” Talita said. “I almost never cry, I swear. People like Gekrepten cry and she’s coming up the stairs right now, loaded down with bundles. I’m like the swan bird that sings when it dies.” Talita said. “That’s from a record of Gardel’s.”

  Oliveira lit a cigarette. The boards had settled together again. He took a satisfying drag.

  “Look, until that fool Manú comes back with the hat, what we should do is play seesaw-questions.”

  “Go ahead,” Talita said. “If you want to know, I put a few together yesterday.”

  “O.K. I’ll begin and we’ll each ask a seesaw-question. The operation which consists of depositing a coat of metal dissolved in a liquid on a solid body by use of electric currents, isn’t it an old-fashioned ship, triangular sails, hundred-ton cargo?”

  “That’s what it is,” Talita said, throwing back her hair. “Sailing at random, wandering, missing cannon-shots, civet-scented, collecting payments according to the tithe of first fruits, and isn’t it the same as any plant juice used for food, like wine, olive oil, etc.?”

  “Very good,” Oliveira admitted. “Plant juice, like wine, olive oil … It never occurred to me to think of wine as a plant juice. Splendid. But listen to this: To bloom again, turn the fields to bloom, tangle up hair, wool, get tangled in a fight or quarrel, poison water with great mullein or some similar substance to stupefy the fish so they can be taken out, isn’t that the ending of a dramatic poem, particularly if it’s a tragic one?”

  “How beautiful,” Talita said enthusiastically, “it’s beautiful, Horacio. You really can squeeze the juice out of the cemetery.”

  “Plant juice,” Oliveira said.

  The door of the room opened and Gekrepten entered breathing heavily. Gekrepten was a bleached blonde, she could talk quite easily, and she was not in the least surprised to see a wardrobe flung across the bed and a man straddling a board.

  “It’s sure hot,” she said, throwing the bundles on a chair. “It’s the worst time of day to go shopping, believe me. What are you doing out there, Talita? I don’t know why I always go out at siesta-time.”

  “Good, good,” Oliveira said without looking at her. “Your turn, Talita.”

  “I can’t think of anything else.”

  “Think a little, you must remember something.”

  “Yes, the dentist,” Gekrepten said. “He always gives me the worst hours for a filling. Did I tell you I had to go to the dentist’s today?”

  “I remember one now,” Talita said.

  “And what do you think happened,” Gekrepten said. “I get to the dentist’s, on the Calle Warnes. I ring the bell, and the receptionist comes to the door. I say: ‘Good afternoon.’ She says: ‘Good afternoon. Please come in.’ I come in and she takes me into the waiting room.”

  “It’s like this,” Talita said. “One whose cheeks are puffed up, or a row of buckets lashed together and floated like a raft to a place where reeds grow: a storehouse for items of prime necessity, established so that certain persons can acquire them there more economically than in a store, and everything pertaining to or relative to the eclogue, isn’t it like applying the science of galvanism to a living or dead animal?”

  “Such beauty,” Oliveira said astounded. “It’s simply phenomenal.”

  “She tells me: ‘Please sit down for a moment.’ And I sit and wait.”

  “I’ve still got one left,” Oliveira said. “Just a minute, I can’t remember it too well.”

  “There were two women and a man with a child. The minutes dragged on. I tell you I got through three whole issues of Idilio. The child was crying, poor thing, and his father was a little nervous … I’m not lying when I say that more than two hours passed from the time I had come in at two-thirty. Finally it was my turn, and the dentist says: ‘Come in, madam’; I go in, and he says: ‘Did the one I put in the other day bother you much?’ And I tell him: ‘No, doctor, how could it bother me. Besides I only chewed on one side all the time.’ He says: ‘Good, that’s what you have to do. Please sit down.’ I sit down and he says: ‘Open your mouth, please.’ He’s very pleasant, that dentist.”

  “I’ve got it now,” Oliveira said. “Listen carefully, Talita. What are you looking back for?”

  “To see if Manú is coming back.”

  “He’ll be back. Listen carefully: the action and effect of passing in opposite directions, or in tournaments and jousts, the movement of a rider to make his mount run his chest against that of his opponent’s mount, isn’t it a lot like the fastigium, the most critical and serious moment of an illness?”

  “It’s strange,” Talita said thoughtfully. “Is that how they say it in Spanish?”

  “Say what?”

  “That business about a rider making his mount run his chest against …”

  “In tournaments, yes,” Oliveira said. “It’s in the cemetery, after all.”

  “Fastigium is a very pretty word,” Talita said. “Too bad it means what it does.”

  “Hell, the same thing can be said about bologna and lots of other words,” Oliveira said. “The Abbé Bremond has already worked on this, but what could he do. Words are like us, they’re born with one face and what can you do about it. Think about Kant’s face for a moment, tell me what you think. Or Bernardino Rivadavia’s, to stay closer to home.”

  “He put in a plastic filling,” Gekrepten said.

  “This heat is terrible,” Talita said. “Manú said he was going to get me a hat.”

&nbs
p; “It’s hard to tell what that guy will bring back,” Oliveira said.

  “If it’s all right with you, I’ll toss you the package and go back inside,” Talita said.

  Oliveira looked at the bridge, measured the window with a vague motion of his arms, and shook his head.

  “You might miss,” he said. “Besides, I get a funny feeling having you out there in this freezing cold. Can’t you feel icicles forming in your hair and in your nasal passages?”

  “No,” Talita said. “Are the icicles going to be like fastigiums?”

  “In a certain way, yes,” Oliveira said. “They’re two things that do seem alike from the point of view of their differences, a little like Manú and me, if you think about it a little. You’re probably aware that all this trouble with Manú is that we look too much alike.”

  “The butter has melted,” Gekrepten said, spreading some on a piece of dark bread. “The butter, with all this heat, it’s a battle.”

  “The worst difference is in all that,” Oliveira said. “The worst of all worst differences. Two guys with dark hair, with the face of a Buenos Aires low-life, with practically the same disdain for the same things, and you …”

  “Well, I …” Talita said.

  “There’s no reason to hide,” Oliveira said. “It’s a fact that in some sort of way when you join us the similarity and the difference come out at the same time.”

  “I don’t think I sum up the two of you,” Talita said.

  “What do you know about it? How could you know? There you are in your room, living and cooking and reading the self-teaching encyclopedia, and at night you go to the circus, and then you think that you’re only where you are at that moment. Didn’t you ever notice latches on doors, metal buttons, little pieces of glass?”

  “Yes, I notice them sometimes,” Talita said.

  “If you were to take a good look you would see very easily that on all sides, where you least suspect, there are images that copy all your movements. I’m very sensitive to all that foolishness, believe me.”

  “Come here and drink this milk before it all curdles,” Gekrepten said. “Why do you people always talk about such strange things?”