“Take a whiff,” she said, forcing him to sniff. “Take a whiff.”
“It smells vaguely of rot and salicylate.”
“It must be what they call the smell of time,” said Clara with a shiver. “Oh, it’s fascinating. How well Beethoven went with this felt.”
“And with us,” said Juan, lowering his voice. “With us in the box.”
Outside, they ran into Pincho López Morales, an expert in hot jazz and the poetry of Xavier Villaurrutia. Pincho informed them that the virtuoso had just fainted and that perhaps the rest of the concert would have to be canceled. The chronicler was mixing in with the people in the foyer, in the area right around the cloak room; Mr. Funes set out in his quest for comments on the news. Pincho was concerned with the problem of how he was going to fill up the two empty hours before he could take his first evening drink.
“The idea of going outdoors with this sunshine, you understand …”
“But the sun isn’t shining,” said Clara. “You made it up just so you could get mad. You haven’t changed a bit, Pincho. You are egoism plus.”
“Look, my dear ex-classmate, I don’t wish the artist ill. By the same token, it isn’t right to ruin the program this way. Planning is everything, as you well know. These two hours are like a hole in the wall. If I look through, what will I see? Libertad, Corrientes, the broad and alien world. At least with the walls, you can put up pictures between this and that.”
“So true, Pincho, so true.”
“All that aside,” said Pincho, “the street is—how can I put it?—pretty strange. Mom wants me and Wally to go out to Los Olivos. I’m almost convinced she’s right.”
“The technique of the ostrich,” said Juan. “Of course I can say that because I don’t have a ranch like Los Olivos. By the way, Wally, I must tell you I do think Schumann didn’t compose music exactly, that Die Davidsbiindler and Carnaval are at the gates of a different kind of art.”
“Really?” said Wally López Morales. “But the elements are the same.”
“Both prose and poetry use words, but they don’t resemble each other in the slightest. Schumann intentionalized
excuse me for saying it this way
his music; he brought it closer to an enunciative form that was no longer esthetic
or, better put, was not only esthetic
and, of course, it wasn’t literary, either. That is, he didn’t try to pull a fast one. To me his music sounds a bit like a rite of initiation. That never happens to me with Ravel, for instance—or Chopin.”
“Yes, Schumann is strange,” said Wally, who was a great woman to talk to. “Perhaps madness …”
“Who knows? Listen, Wally. Schumann knew he was in possession of a mystery—by which I am not saying that it was a transcendent mystery. His work reveals that he had a dark awareness of this mystery—but it was as unknown to him as it is for others. The anti-Socrates: All I know is that I do know something. I just don’t know what. He seems to have waited for his music to tell him, the way Artaud expected it from his poems. Look how alike they are.”
“Poor Artaud,” said Wally. “The perfect kaleidoscope. His work goes from one person to another, and at that instant the inside glass shifts (the person changes), and then it’s something else.”
“Perhaps,” said Clara, who was standing between them, “the works that matter aren’t those that mean something but those that reflect. I mean, that allow our reflection to appear in them. Quite a bit like what Valéry said.”
“From which we may deduce a rather conceited conclusion,” said Wally. “Which is that the important part is us. Your idea is something a readers group would come up with. As far as I’m concerned, I’d rather forget myself and let the book take over me.”
“You must be one of those people who reads two books a day,” said Clara, in a slightly mocking tone.
“Sometimes I do. With the number of books around these days, it’s good there are some voracious readers.”
“Too bad,” said Clara, “that the writer is always counting on a different kind of reader, one that’ll always be carrying him around in his pocket.”
“In that case, why do they print five thousand copies? Why write five or ten different books? It’s like bowling—each new book knocks the others out of the way.” These last words Wally spoke smiling, waving good-by with her cigarette holder. Pincho took her by the arm, and the two of them ascended the lateral staircase, Wally leaning over the balustrade and gesturing toward the woman selling candy, something that did not meet with Pincho’s approval.
“They’re colossal,” said Clara. “So clever.”
“So clever,” murmured Juan, “that before tomorrow they’ll be on their ranch. Look at those people over on the left, no, further on. The woman with the bluish hair.”
“She seems to be hiding something,” said Clara. “A little like us, like me.” She squeezed Juan’s arm, while he looked at her and smiled. “Juan, why hasn’t this day gone by? It’s 3:15, only 3:15.”
“It’s always an hour before …” said Juan. “And you can skip the rest of the sentence. Is it the exam that’s put you in this state?”
She didn’t answer. They returned to the box, where the chronicler was explaining to Mr. Funes about the takeover of the National Lottery and the effects of a farm-worker strike up north. They’d barely taken their seats when the lights went out (suddenly), and a gentleman with a double-breasted, pearl-gray suit walked briskly onto the stage.
“The theater views it as an obligation to put to rest the malicious rumors that have been circulating about the physical condition of the artist, who is honoring us with his recital,” he said in a burst. Some dry applause was heard. “The artist is perfectly fine.”
Someone—just one person—clapped two, three times.
“We beg the audience to pay no attention to unfounded rumors. In a few moments, the second part of the concert will begin. Thank you very much.”
“I’ve never understood why people say thank you in situations like this,” said the chronicler. “Besides, the guy really did collapse.”
“We believe you,” said Juan. “You’re obliged to know. What else is going on?”
“Aah, things. I’m leaving for the paper in a minute. If you want, call me tonight, and I’ll give you the latest gossip. In the foyer, I saw Manolo Sáenz from La Razón, and he told me tons of things about the mushrooms and the nervousness of the people on the street. He wasn’t really worried about that. A lady had just told him about the virtuoso’s private life, along with the fact that he isn’t blind and that his great-grandmother was black. Can you imagine the sources that lady must have? Manolo thinks she’s a total mythomaniac, but he took careful notes of all the gossip. He’s got a reporter’s blood, much more than I do—I was really born for contemplation and music. Anyway, I’ve got to satisfy the needs of a thirsty Editor, though I don’t really have much.”
Juan was going to ask him another question when there was a burst of applause. The two bewigged employees placed the artist on his spot, and the artist said something into the ear of one of them that seemed to disconcert him, as if he didn’t understand. Then the artist turned toward the other, with the same result. Exchanging a glance, the employees released him and left, more quickly than necessary. The blind artist hesitated, moving around a bit, first leaning back, as if the piano offered refuge; then he walked toward the orchestra pit, while a murmur of warnings, of shock grew in the orchestra. Mr. Funes was on his feet, waving his arms and breathing heavily. In the box next door, a lady shrieked, with the dry and extremely high pitched screech of a trapped rat. Clara felt a dizziness and held on to the ledge of the box with both hands. People stood up everywhere, and a bank of lights came on and then went off. The artist raised his bow, as if feeling the air in front of him, and went back to his place with an air of secret mischievousness. Before the audience could quiet down, he was already playing Bach’s Partita in D Minor.
“Well, well,” said th
e chronicler. “He was a foot away from becoming news.”
“Don’t be nasty,” said Juan. “Do you think he did it on purpose?”
“Of course. This guy knows what he’s doing. The great thing is how closely they’re watching him. Just look on the left there.”
The man in the pearl-gray suit was clearly visible behind one of the bewigged employees. Posted just outside the halfclosed door painted old-rose, which led backstage, they feigned indifference.
Allemande
Courante
Sarabande
Gigue
Chaconne.
“A bit long,” was Mr. Funes’ epitaph, “and the violin got a little lost when the piano wasn’t there.”
“Yes, of course,” said the chronicler, whose voice was trembling with rage. “It’s much better when forty violins play the prelude to La Traviata together.”
Clara glanced at her father and saw he was delighted to have the chronicler’s support. She was returning from Bach with a feeling of displacement—of having traveled vertiginously. She found nothing to say, would have wanted to stay right there for hours (and for the applause to stop, so that the virtuoso not return to the stage and leave escorted again by the two bewigged employees). She was pleased to be left alone during the intermission. Ensconced in the secretive forward part of the box, she covered her face with her hands and closed her eyes. Sleep, Bach, the beautiful sarabande, sleep, bach, sleep—She saw stars, red dots; she pressed harder on her eyes, shaken. Snapping out of it, the fear. Get the right number on the exam. As if that mattered now. She heard a distant shout (an extremely long time had passed for her, perhaps she’d nodded off). Running feet. It was nothing, of no importance. Someone shouted again “… Listen to unfounded rumors. Thank-you very much.” Sleep. Get the right number question on the exam. Sleep.
With Mr. Funes between them, Juan and the chronicler wandered the corridors. There had been some vague talk about raiding a Gentlemen (which in the Teatro Colón was called: Men),
and Pincho and Wally were devouring mints.
“Hey, the guy got better!”
shouted Pincho, delighted to see Juan. “Now we’re off our heels and on our wheels!”
“The guy’s obsessed with motion,” said Juan to the chronicler. “Beautiful world, where the horror of the unforeseen is covered over with the ink of a road map. I don’t think anyone’s better than the good citizens of Buenos Aires in this masquerade of elaborating plans.”
“You’re too critical,” said the chronicler. “In fact, a life isn’t made up of anything else. Planning is a way of going against chance a little, remember the Chinese guy.”
“There is no chance. Chance is the bounce caused by our weaknesses, mistakes in our plan for life.”
“Is that so? Then an earthquake that catches you in bed and …”
“But that isn’t chance,” said Juan a little defensive. “That’s poetry, which is something greater.”
They stood aside for Mr. Funes and entered the lavatory behind him. There were many men relieving themselves, smoking, and laughing with one another; but others were washing their hands with intense concentration, waiting their turn to use the little nylon comb connected to the shelf over the sink by a chrome-plated chain, under the mirror.
“Formulas delight you,” said a slightly resentful chronicler. “If chance turns out to be poetic, it’s hard to tell what’s chance and what’s poetry.”
But Juan had already spotted Luisito Steimberg standing at the urinal next to his. He was paying close attention to Luisito’s opinion of the concert. Pincho also came in and stood nearby, delighted at how well everything was going. The chronicler opted for a urinal on the opposite wall, where he could watch Mr. Funes waiting to take his turn with the comb. It was getting hotter and hotter, but when the doors moved—further away, in the cubicle modestly dividing the lavatories from the hall—a breeze entered, saturated with perfume and hot talcum powder, perceptible even amid the overpowering ammonia smell that, as Mr. Funes said to a crinkly-haired gentleman standing behind him in line, was shameful,
as if the Colón couldn’t use good deodorizers, the powerful ones mentioned in Reader’s Digest. The crinkly-haired gentleman answered in a German accent that it was always the same, which didn’t satisfy Mr. Funes. He was still one turn away from the sink. Then the chronicler heard Juan calling him over to meet Pincho and Steimberg, who became quite interested when they found out he was a journalist. They wanted to ask him some questions; the chronicler was a bit uncomfortable—not because of the questions but because it bored him to foresee them and foresee at the same time the lie or distortion in his answers. Now another group of men came in, and from the toilets emerged gentlemen (men) with the false naturalness of those who leave those places (which lengthened the line, now crossing the room from end to end and doubling back on itself). And there came a moment when the crowd was huge and someone was heard to remark to someone else that those who’d already urinated should leave, because otherwise they were just taking up space for the pleasure of it.
“Always the same,” said Mr. Funes, surprisingly. “The young rooster wants to kick out the old one. No sooner do they enter than they want to take over.”
“Ah,” said the crinkly-haired gentleman. “That’s youth for you.”
“It’s bad manners, that’s what it is,” said Mr. Funes, who now stood before the sink, where his predecessor had just carefully rinsed the comb and deposited it on the shelf. Mr. Funes stepped to the left to put himself opposite the mirror, stretching out his hand toward the comb. The chronicler was staring at precisely that space (hearing in the distance the clapping of the ushers signaling it was time to return to the box);
and Pincho was saying to Juan that the police had the mentality of hens, that they were acting with an inefficacy that was mon-stru-ous,
which seemed to please Steimberg;
and the pull on the little chrome-plated chain was so sharp and unexpected that the chronicler saw the comb fly through the air like a shiny projectile,
eluding the hand of Mr. Funes, who stood there as if suffering a terrible abuse—a brief path was traced to the fingers of the man behind who had grabbed the chain
until the comb was in his hand. The guy took a step to the right, visibly dislodging Mr. Funes, pushing him away from the mirror,
and bending over slightly in order to use the comb more easily
the little chain was not very long.
“Well, that beats everything,” said the chronicler, taking Juan by the arm so he’d look.
“Wait a second,” said Juan rapidly—he’d asked Steimberg something (people who work in government ministries always know things) and didn’t want to miss the answer. With the chronicler’s second tug, he turned his head and saw in that instant Mr. Funes, red and reckless, take a step forward, causing the man with the comb to lose his balance, drop the comb, and grab hold of a blond man smoking a cigar.
“What the hell’s going on?” said Juan. “Let’s go. Don Carlos! …” Juan couldn’t see him clearly, partly because of the line (which was shaking and coming apart) and partly because Pincho and Steimberg were between him and the sink. He tried to get through, but the chronicler was there first, just in time to see the man with the comb, livid with rage, shove Mr. Funes, putting his open hand against the old man’s shirtfront and flexing his arm like a spring. The chronicler grabbed hold of the back of his jacket and pulled him away—not knowing exactly to what end—but the man violently freed himself (grabbing the young blond man smoking the cigar a second time). He half turned to face the chronicler, unintentionally elbowing a very short fat man right in the face. The injured party stumbled, dazed, emitting a strange shriek. Cursing him out at the top of his lungs, the chronicler went toward the man with the comb, who had an air of knowingness mixed with astonishment; and just then Juan interposed himself (he’d suddenly understood what was happening or he simply leapt in). Luisito Steimberg broke the line, which oscil
lated, already shaken in its herd-like consequences, and the whirling extended. The small gentleman stood there, his face covered in blood, amid a confused entanglement of arms and torsos;
the general objective was to reach the exit doors, but in order to accomplish that, it was necessary to pass through the most narrow space, which lead to the cubicle, all of which went against the efforts of Mr. Funes, determined still to reach the comb (which was hanging by its chain below the sink) and take control of it like some sort (it might be supposed) of affirmation against the man who was now a short distance from the chronicler, but now Juan and Steimberg were between them. He was staring at the chronicler, as if inviting him to take the first swing, saying something to him that the high-pitched imprecations of the short, bloody man drowned out, aside from the general racket and the pounding of the double doors being pushed by numerous new men entering the washroom. Mr. Funes was seen, finally, to raise the comb up and almost immediately lose it because Pincho, presumably intending to calm his excitement, pulled on the chain, yanking it out of his hand; and at the same time, other hands (the chronicler, definitively separated from the aggressor, saw those new men entering in great numbers, faces known or never before seen piled up at the entrance, forcing their way in)
at the same time that other hands grasped from all directions at the chain, pulling it with all their strength until Pincho shouted with pain and let go of the comb, which, when it slipped, cut open two of his fingers, making him swear at the top of his lungs and land (with his bloody hand) a ferocious right on the blond man with the cigar—the cigar fell into a corner and burned slowly like an eye watching the insane rotation and movement of dozens of pairs of shoes.
At that moment, Juan shouted to his father-in-law to get out of the fight, but Mr. Funes was by then holding on to the chain, very close to the comb, and the first usher, white with fear, was just arriving, raising his arms;
the shouting was a single roar carried by the acoustics of the washroom to all the floors of the theater, where the alarm was spreading …
Final Exam Page 15
