The Diaries of Emilio Renzi- Formative Years

by Ricardo Piglia

  Wednesday 22

  Excited by Plato’s Dialogues, which I read fragmentarily in their original versions and in several translations. When I come round, it is already three in the morning.

  Thursday, June 23

  Conversations with José Antonio, a philosophy student very interested—too much so for me—in Heidegger. We have ironic arguments about his style; he sounds very affected and a little kitsch from what I can tell. Of course he gets angry, and then I open another battlefront and say, “Well, he was a bit of a Nazi.” Then he really gets angry; he turns furious and tells me he won’t think of arguing over these demagogic positions, outside of philosophy, with me. “All philosophers who are worth the trouble to read, beginning with Plato, were authoritarians, philo-fascists, and also heathens.” Usually the conversation would be interrupted there, and we would spend the rest of the time making jokes.

  Friday 24

  Yesterday I went to see the short films by Resnais—Night and Fog and Toute la mémoire du monde—at Fine Arts and I ran into Julio A., who had come from Mar del Plata to study film here. I was happy and excited to see him. We went out to eat and talked until late. His intention is to progress as far as he can in his degree but, at the same time, he does not want to leave his mother alone in Mar del Plata. Julio is surrounded by a group of friends here, among them Oscar Garaycochea in particular, who is still publishing his magazine Contracampo. Julio speaks to me with great enthusiasm about Dr. Mabuse, the film by Fritz Lang, which I still have not seen.

  Tuesday 28

  I remember Attilio Dabini’s lecture on Pavese. It was important to me because he writes a diary called This Business of Living. He killed himself, but not before leaving the book ready for publication.

  I started going out with the redheaded girl who went to Buenos Aires with us on Saturday in a group in “Philosophy and Letters,” on Calle Viamonte, to interview Rubén Benítez, who has written a novel (Ladrones de luz), which we discussed in class. Her name is Vicky, and she is very nice. We plan to see each other at the College after the break.

  Wednesday 29

  I saw Vicky today. We met each other by chance in the bar on the same corner as the College and stayed together. They funny thing is that afterward she wanted to know about the stories I am writing, so I gave her my notebook and told her she could read them, no hurry, and return it to me when we see each other after vacation week.

  Thursday 30

  I am crushed. By mistake (?) I gave one of those notebooks to that redheaded girl, believing it was the notebook where I was writing my stories. It held my lamentations over Lidia from the year ’59. So, do I want her to figure it out? I cannot accept the “coincidence” of such errors. Even the idea that she could be reading them at this moment frightens me.

  The trouble came when, searching for the stories that I had written, I flipped over all of my notebooks. I suppose that, without realizing, I put one back in the wrong place and yesterday, in a hurry, I took it with me. The funniest part is that I’m trapped. I cannot say to her, “Give me my diary, I gave it to you by mistake.” The best thing would be to tell her that the diary is a novel and make myself indifferent toward her opinion. It is written in the first person, but I don’t think I included my name anywhere. I don’t think I would have written, “Emilio went here or there.”

  Neither can I expect her to read it and appear before me at the College and say, “These aren’t your notes.” I could tell her, “They are my notes, just about something else.” I also imagine a situation in which she says, “No. I don’t know how to read. I’m blind. I don’t understand Spanish. I forgot it on the bus. I didn’t have time to open it. I love you, this notebook shows that you’re the man I’ve been looking for.” She sells it; it goes on to be published in installments in La Plata’s newspaper, El Día.

  To top it all, I have no idea what kind of girl she is, enigmatic and beautiful. We only spent one night together. Vicky, send me back the notebook unopened.

  Fear of ridicule.

  It seems as though I chose that one, the most melodramatic and most idiotic. But am I sure? And what if I had lost it? I mean that they seem impossible to me, not when I am writing, but afterward.

  I think of her now, dying of laughter at me.

  Every so often I turn over the room, scatter all of my papers and search for it again. I never find it. I am responsible for this almost diabolical bind. Writing the stories, wanting to show them off, messing up everything to search for them, throwing everything on the bed. Getting anxious, putting that one away in the wardrobe with my notes from the College. Telling her, “Yes, I’ll bring you the notebooks so you can take out the finals.” Getting the time wrong and leaving much too early but in a hurry. Flipping through the other notebook (and not that one) on the tram. Not looking it over during Aznar’s class. Giving it to her in a hurry, without making sure. Too many coincidences combined.

  I also tell myself it’s not so bad. Or do I really want to believe that I wrote them for myself alone?

  It is nine at night; I have just finished dinner. Earlier I went to the College, saw Vicky. I told her about the diary. Smiling, she told me she had not looked at it (she lied). She asked what it was and I said, “Well, something too personal, not suitable for redheaded girls.” Then she burst out laughing and said, “I read it, and it was very amusing.”

  I killed time in the College library with the windows that open onto Calle 7, sitting alongside the table reading Pirandello’s stories. Afterward, I copied citations in the Philosophy Institute for my “Plato and Thought” class. And I ended the night watching Night Train by the Polish director Kawalerowicz.

  Saturday, July 2

  I went to Mar del Plata, taking advantage of the break.

  Sunday 3

  To be unreal. That is the aspiration of philosophy. It is not right to accept reality as it is. If the appearance of the world and its truth were visible, it would not be necessary to think. It seems to be about leaving out necessities, the body, and gaining access to the world of platonic ideas.

  Monday 4

  I am a fool, anyway. Tied to the false results of my life, I let myself be swept along, lost in a city, in a nation, in which no one knows me, in which no one would cry for me. I exaggerate as a way of showing my present state.

  When I am sitting at the desk against the window, time seems not to pass.

  Wednesday 6

  If I could come to the end of my ideas, I would have to be able to invent a poetics founded on art being understood as the loss of reality.

  I work on my monograph about the stories of Martínez Estrada.

  Lately I have started tossing a coin into the air every time I need to make a decision. I don’t believe there is anything to regret about a method of thought—or action, at any rate—based upon chance. That must be my way of life: turning my face to the wall so no one can surprise me and tossing a coin in order to know what to do. Letting myself be swept away.

  Great difficulty in finding a way to relate what I am experiencing. The only thing that makes me go on noting down the days in these notebooks is the possibility of finding a meaning that breaks the opacity of hours that leave no trace.

  I am reading Mallea and Murena—somber thoughts, heavy prose.

  Fidel Castro announces new nationalizations. The USA lowered the fees on sugar that it buys from the Cubans. Pressure, difficulties, conflicts.

  Saturday, July 9

  Yesterday Roberto and Alicia came here—that is, one of my favorite cousins and his wife.

  Russia announces that it will support Cuba with its missiles.

  Wednesday, July 20

  I bathe, I shave. At this altitude, these activities take me all morning. I watch my face in the mirror as I shave; it is the first joke of the day. My own scars entertain me; I make grooves.

  I have to write the essay on the Martínez Estrada stories. I am “blocked,” I cannot bring myself to begin. For the moment, I do nothing but read Edua
rdo Mallea. I am reading Chaves, an edition by Bartleby; the character says only “No,” it is the direct negative, he speaks little and it is—for those who try—indecipherable.

  All of Mallea’s characters are serious people. It actually seems as if they are half-asleep.

  I search for intelligent women, because intelligence is the best quality I have. I actually seem like one of Mallea’s characters. A slow life that moves through a slow afternoon like this one. I form sentences.

  I saw Pépé le Moko by Julien Duvivier. He spends it killing Arabs in the narrow and steep streets of the Kasbah. The best part is the death of Pépé (Jean Gabin). The dying man looks at the girl: “Bye bye, honey,” he says. “Pray for me.”

  I had a good day today. I went to the theater. I finished Simbad by Mallea. He gave it that name so as not to call it Ulysses, but that was the story he wanted to tell. All of the characters are exhausted and speak gravely about their flaws. None of them are rotten or greedy men; they all have great weaknesses. They all want to kill themselves or go off to live in the jungle; they abandon the women in their lives for ethical reasons. They are all introspective.

  My face is covered with marks, recent scars, reddish traces. I would like to be black.

  I write in bed. Certainty that I spend my life fighting against myself. Something just occurred to me, but I cannot now remember what it was. I would like to return home; we never should have left. My mother did not want to leave my father behind; she came along with him and does not forgive herself for it. Now I am going to turn out the light.

  Tuesday, July 26

  The anniversary of the Cuban revolution. Castro still endures. Only Mexico and Venezuela support him. We are about to break ties.

  I continue my monograph. Yesterday I finished the first part. The only thing remaining is the chapter on “Marta Riquelme.” I am going to try to finish it. The best part is working through the ideas: when I write, I let myself be swept away and something else always comes out. I would have to spend my whole life thinking. Rather, I would need to have the magical ability that, when I think of something, I would write only that.

  I finished the work. The final sentence reads, “The man who lives in spite of reality is greater than one who lives by virtue of it.”

  Notes preceding a prologue. A man without personality. The hollow man. He speaks only in set phrases. Readings, quotations, foreign words; a sort of Don Quixote gone off in the tangle of sentences he has read. He lets himself get carried off by books. Otherwise, no one notices this delirium. He has been a professor of literature in a secondary school. He always seems distracted. Single, retired, lives alone.

  I spend the morning writing my monograph. The work is almost ready. Remaining is an index of the characters. I could perhaps put it in alphabetical order. I hope to finish tonight.

  Saturday

  Tired of writing. I worked all morning. I am missing a lot. Rafael V. came—the farewell, the nostalgia. The trip to Tandil at the end of the course. Rafael, his extraordinary intuition for mathematics—he thinks in formulas and geometric figures. I read him ten pages of the essay. Praise, etc. Afterward we talk about suicide. He is leaving for Rosario to study physics.

  Monday, August 1

  Everything goes on the same here, as though nothing had happened. Nothing ever happens. And what could happen anyway? It is as though I spent the entire month of July underwater. Sitting on the patio before a low, small table, the same feeling as always: great struggles to come. The texts. For the moment, I secretly maintain my resolve to become a writer.

  I went to the College. I have been here for months, and now I know more people than I could have imagined. In philosophy, Pucciarelli continues with Socrates and Plato. Pure ideas: essences are material and concrete and atop reality (like a mirror). I am a typical Platonic character (living in the air). In literature, I presented the proposal for my final project on the stories of Martínez Estrada. In this way, I will read Kafka once again.

  I went to see Luis; we have great plans for the future. To go to Paris together, to study with Bachelard. I vacillate between declaring myself a Platonist and a Hegelian. Between Ideas and the Absolute Spirit, these are the rivers I will navigate.

  In the theater: Sawdust and Tinsel by I. Bergman. The scene with a clown who speaks to his wife in the mirror.

  An empty, useless day. I did nothing. As though the moment to work had not arrived. Sitting in bars, I watch the girls go by.

  Wednesday, August 3

  I go to the theater on Calle 7 to see The Keepers by Georges Franju. The light was cut off. The film stopped at the best moment. I did not want them to refund my ticket because I want to finish seeing it today. Everything takes place in an asylum, indecipherable faces, all very sensational. I spent two hours in the hall waiting pointlessly with the two or three others, miserable as I was, who had nothing better to do. Finally, I got bored and returned home. I will never know what happened in that movie.

  Friday 5

  In the afternoon I went to the College, turned in my monograph. I spoke about Martínez Estrada and Kafka.

  A lecture by Alfredo Palacios in the Great Hall of the College of Law. So many people. Palacios, with pointed mustaches, hair long and styled with gel, looks like a character from a cartoon, a mix of Colonel Cañones and Doctor Merengue. He made his appearance, accompanied by a spectacular brunette. He spoke about Cuba, where he had been invited by the government and spent three weeks traveling around the island. Agrarian reform, each laborer to receive four hundred hectares, public education, combating illiteracy. “They’re not communists, they are humanists.” I lean in toward Vicky: “If it’s true they’re humanists, they’ll last three months.” She laughs; nothing catches her off guard. She is quick and very clever. “We could use political violence as a form of education,” she said in her sweet little voice. “For every ten laborers who learn to read, an oligarch must be executed.” “Terrorism,” she added after a while, “is the political version of public education.”

  Saturday

  A meeting with Elena and two old friends from secondary school, Lucrecia and Olga. We went to the theater (Six Characters in Search of an Author by Pirandello). When it ended, we went to have a coffee in a bar with mirrors and tables against the wall. We discussed Pirandello’s imaginary games with identities, and I don’t know why but we ended up on clandestine politics and from there moved to the situation in Cuba and the executions of the hit men (of Batista). “Justice,” I said, “is the same as power. Whoever has the power is justice. Otherwise, you have to be a believer.” We returned at sunrise. Everything has faded with Elena. Now I do not love her, it is true, but I did love her so much. The desire to sleep together persists, but, when we are there, it is as though we were two little siblings bored of being together. We were so young; I was too young to understand that history with her, so we preferred to leave everything in suspense. We took the train together as far as Tempered, and from there she took the train for Adrogué and I went on to La Plata.

  Monday, August 8

  I am astonished. In class, the professor from “Introduction to Literature” said that my work on Martínez Estrada was the best that she has read in her time at the College. They are going to publish it in the humanities magazine. It was a lot of work for me to write it, and it did not seem so great to me. At the same time, indifferent before praise, I listened to her as though she were talking about someone else. The first public evidence of an ability that I have taken for granted. (First to be a writer and afterward to write.) The publications committee for the School of the College of Letters told me to congratulate you, the professor said, and I thought it would improve my relations with the girls in the hallways, especially with Vicky.

  I am going to sleep. I would like to wake up within a year (or at least within six months).

  Tuesday

  In the afternoon and evening at the cinema, I saw Last Pair Out by Alf Sjöberg and also Port of Call and Three Strange Loves b
y Bergman. The art of cinema has installed itself in Sweden. They make very dramatic films. I was in the theater for six hours.

  I said goodbye to José Antonio, the Heidegger fanatic, who left for a semester to study in the United States. Try to bring it to Faulkner, I tell him as the bus pulls up. He gives some answer and makes a gesture, but I cannot hear him anymore.

  Thursday 11

  An assembly to discuss a student statement in support of Cuba. To accept that the USSR sustains and helps the revolution is to admit that Cuba has turned into a Soviet satellite, but to condemn the help of the Russians is to play the Americans’ game. What can be done? We propose a condemnation of the American invasion plans, without including any observations in the declaration about the Soviet impact, as the anarchists were demanding. The proposal went through, 60 to 40.