Kamtchowsky had one lip curled, as if a pane of glass were pressing against her face. From that point on she would take recourse to this same expression whenever she needed to express surprise, disdain, or anal dilation.
–Hey, said Pabst, the select few are checking you out.
–You’re the one they’re checking out.
–Does it matter?
The girl waving to them was a redhead with a cute little turned-up nose, big eyes, bright blue eyeshadow. Beside her was a boy with a friendly smile and short curly blond hair swept up in a half-crest. Both had that indefinable glow that all beautiful people exude so effortlessly whenever they smile.
Pabst and Kamtchowsky fell silent and tried to breathe normally as they watched the couple approach. The girl was wearing a short vintage dress, the cloth patterned with little pine trees in lilac and green. From closer up, they saw that her dress was almost translucent, and that her nipples were almost as attentive as her smile.
–Hi! she said to Kamtchowsky. Aren’t you the girl from the documentary?
–Well . . .
It was a simple question, but Kamtchowsky couldn’t think of the answer, and decided at last just to close her mouth.
–How’s it going? Don’t you remember me? Rotstein introduced us one day maybe halfway through the film festival—the day they were showing that new Fassbinder film, the one named after a woman . . . Monika, maybe?
Kamtchowsky took a symbolic step backward so that Pabst could join in, which he did, as laconic and solemn as ever:
–Summer with Monika is a Bergman film. Martha is the Fassbinder.
–Oh, that’s right! Of course!
The girl shot a glance at her watch, a cute little number decorated with the Swiss flag.
–Anyway, we’ve got some time before the party gets going. Would you guys let us buy you a drink?
The Research Commission agreed to allow a quick break at the downtown apartment that Mara and Andy shared—Kamtchowsky and Pabst didn’t learn their names until a nervous silence in the elevator, one that gave Mara the opportunity to seem carefree and solvent while Andy smiled ironically in the background. The apartment had high ceilings, and living room walls with curves instead of corners. A coquettish window gave onto an intersection that was silent at this time of night. A mirror ball hung in the center, its red and blue lights flashing across the black-and-white photographs that covered the walls—a series of extraordinary images of Buenos Aires.
The room’s centerpiece was a gigantic photomontage. In it, the rocket-shaped Kavanagh Building had been turned on its head and embedded in the roof of the Álzaga-Unzué mansion. Next to it slumped a hotel (the Hyatt, or maybe the Four Seasons) that had been digitally retouched to make it look as if an enormous fire had destroyed the side that gave onto Cerrito y Alvear Avenue. A low-angle shot showed the landmark Rulero Building collapsing onto the 9 de Julio Expressway; another showed the Alas rotated forty-five degrees, looming like a massive gargoyle about to slam into the Hotel Catalinas Suites. The National Congress building had been reduced to charred ruins, its dome riddled with holes. There were also two photographs of automobile accidents. One had taken place on the infamous Curve of Death where Figueroa Alcorta swoops beneath the train tracks, a dotted line overlaid to show the path of someone who had run wounded into the trees, then collapsed and died. The other had occurred out toward the boardwalk near La Mosca Blanca, along a shortcut that runs from the wrecking yard to Retiro.
As the guests contemplated her work, Mara put a hand on her waist and launched into an appropriately languid commentary:
–I wanted to push the accident theme a little harder, but at this point it’s already kind of a cliché, right? Because of Crash, I mean. It’s all . . . you know. Anyway.
–Crush is a dead soft drink and nothing more, said Pablo, drawing closer to study a series of blurred images of the Río de la Plata. In places the surface of the river had been sliced into geometric shapes, as if whole buildings were drifting crosswise in the current, architectural skeletons of rebar and concrete. Then his gaze was drawn to a blurry mass covered with blood and loose grass beneath a bridge.
Andy returned from the kitchen bearing drinks. He was wearing a batik shirt, and thanks perhaps to the magic exuding from the rest of his persona, which had apparently been carved exquisitely by hand, the shirt managed to look almost good on him. He sat down on a beanbag chair and folded his legs into the lotus position, gave them all a tranquil gaze, and cracked his neck joints. Pabst turned his eyes skyward like a scandalized priest, but Kamtchowsky couldn’t look away from this trim modern Buddha on his ground-bound throne, not even when she realized that he was staring right back at her.
–Excellent, isn’t it, he said.
He moved his head in slow circles, a sort of auto-massage.
–What?
–The drink, I mean. Isn’t it great?
Kamtchowsky managed a hm! of agreement.
–It’s called an “Andy Wants . . .”
–A what?
–An “Andy Wants Dot-Dot-Dot . . .”
–And what exactly does Andy want? asked Pablo, more than a bit irritated.
Andy spoke as if from some tawny beach in Thailand:
–You’re supposed to complete the sentence in your head, with thoughts of your own. Like a fill-in-the-blank, you know, those exercises they gave us in English class.
–I know what fill-in-the-blanks are.
–Okay. And you also know what thoughts are, right?
Pablo propped himself up against the wall by slapping his sweaty hand flat against the gigantic photograph of the blackened remains of the Hyatt. All of the morbid admiration that kept his relationship with Kamtchowsky erect was based on that old chestnut of natural selection, according to which ugly people are inevitably more intelligent than beautiful people, because they’ve had to develop more sophisticated means of obtaining things. This pull-string Ken doll was not only destroying the theory as far as Pabst himself was concerned; he was also torching the cherished prejudices that Pabst and Kamtchowsky had shared up on that quiet, serene hilltop where, their cheeks caressed with greasy pizza crumbs, they were occasionally able to dream of superiority.
–Actually, no, said Pabst. I haven’t the faintest fucking idea what thoughts are, nor–
–The stuff dreams are made of, said Andy, smiling, his sudden English almost Etonian, and yet, what is this quintessence of dust?
Pabst noticed an emphasis on the word “dreams” as Andy had looked him up and down.
–. . . Nor what’s in this drink, nor who the fuck you are . . .
He almost added, Nor what planet people like you come from, but caught himself in time. At least he’d nailed the British accent on “fuck.”
–Hold on! said Andy, rising to his feet. Nobody shouts at anybody in here. Nobody gets to be Toshiro Mifune—not me, not you, nobody. Mara’s apartment is . . . well, it’s Mara’s apartment. Nothing but good vibes allowed.
Pabst sighed in relief. From that point on, the mockability of “good vibes” became something of a talisman for him. He was happy to see that Kamtchowsky had found an interesting object on the floor to stare at, even if it happened to be invisible to him, and made her bow her head somewhat ashamedly (and perhaps this was how she went about disapproving of Andy’s vibes? One could hope!). Then Mara stepped out of the shadows, and gently corrected her boyfriend:
–Andy, the vibes here aren’t just good. They are excellent. Absolutely and extremely excellent.
She laughed, turned and put her hand on Kamtchowsky’s shoulder.
–I think you guys are the best.
Kamtchowsky was by now fairly drunk, and felt like she was going to throw up.
–Really? she said. What’s so great about us?
She lifted her head and opened wide her caca-colored eyes. M
ara smiled as if about to caress a child’s hair. She went to speak, laughed instead, looked at Andy as if hoping he’d step in. Then she scratched her head charmingly.
–I’m not very good at explaining things. Let’s see . . .
Andy seemed to be cheering for her silently.
–Look, Andy’s my boyfriend and I also think he’s a really special person. That seems obvious, right? Well, it is and it isn’t. Hold on.
In two quick hops Mara reached the corner of the room, and pressed a pair of buttons on the wall; the maelstrom of disco lights quieted, the reds and blues fading to a glow of rose and orange. The entire space was now lit warmly, deliciously. It felt like being inside an apricot.
–Close your eyes! said Mara.
Pabst and Kamtchowsky squinted, then obeyed, leaning into one another like tipsy soldiers. Mara wrapped herself in a vaporous shawl dotted with tiny silver stars, twirled like a fairy godmother, and planted a kiss on Kamtchowsky’s open mouth. The moist lips, the smell of grape-and-strawberry lip gloss, Kamtchowsky shivered, and now the bewitching, the meandering, the soft, slow, fleshy tongue. For several long moments Kamtchowsky kept her eyes closed, and concentrated on mimicking these luscious movements, but now she could hear Pabst bleating from where he lay struggling beneath Andy atop a floor cushion.
–What are you doing? shrieked Pablo, now clutching the cushion to his chest. Get off of me! What are you doing?
Kamtchowsky unwound her scarf and straightened her skirt, embarrassed by Pabst’s shrill outburst. She glanced at Mara, hoping to find her way back to that extraordinary mouth, but the moment was gone. Pabst was still howling hysterically, his incredulity now incontrovertible. “They brought us to their apartment to pin us down and fuck us because we’re ugly—they think that because we’re ugly we can’t say no!” he shouted, giving voice to his refusal to allow this lack of equal opportunity to result in his intentions begin taken for granted. Pabst defended his independence from the social dictates of what one should do or seek; sleeping with any given gorgeous human being was something he could luxuriously indulge in rejecting.
Even so, Kamtchowsky was baffled by Pabst’s analysis of the situation. She dried the saliva at the corners of her mouth, wondering if there was any easy way to re-interpret the situation that didn’t make her feel so unabashedly stupid.
–Yes! continued Pabst. They think we’re desperate because we’ve never fucked anyone who isn’t as ugly as we are! Because no one else will fuck us! They think we’re dying to touch them but we . . .
He seemed to be on the verge of tears, but in fact he just had a runny nose. Andy stood nearby, his shirt half-open, his hair artfully mussed. When he shook his head to deny what Pabst had said, it was a most beautiful, taciturn gesture.
Kamtchowsky took a deep breath. She was, after all, an important young woman: only a few weeks before she’d been offered a job running the Young Jewish Cinema segment of the Independent Film Festival.
–So, I guess there’s just the one question, she said. Why do you want to sleep with us?
Mara and Andy looked at each other for an instant; they were ready to confess.
6.1
For a brief moment, the silence that followed Mara’s answer glued them all in place. Pablo wasn’t in any condition to ask for specifics; he had a feeling that if he’d been in a different mood, he would have found the answer frankly insulting, and couldn’t overcome his desire to flee. Kamtchowsky followed him out of the apartment and pulled the door closed with a bang.
What Mara had said was, “Well, who knows, maybe because you two are just like us?”
Pabst and Kamtchowsky walked down the hall, and the us from only seconds ago was now a distant them. Then, waiting silently for the elevator, they heard laughter coming from inside Mara’s apartment. Pablo stabbed at the elevator button. Kamtchowsky tugged at his sleeve. He turned to see Andy hanging from the door frame by his fingertips, gazing sleepily at the two of them.
–Guys, we’re sorry. We didn’t know that . . . Well, but you also didn’t have to take it like that, right?
The small bulb overhead covered him in a crystalline, pious light, and Kamtchowsky caught her breath.
–Do you want us to call you a cab? asked Mara.
She’d poked her head out through the space under Andy’s arm. Together they formed a bicephalous monster with exquisitely beautiful young features.
–Okay, well, bye then, and again, sorry if we offended you. Oh, and you, Documentary Girl, you never told me your name.
–It’s Kamtchowsky.
–No, I mean, your real name.
Squat dark K stared intently into Mara’s eyes for a moment, her own eyes wet with sadness. Then she stepped into the elevator, and Pabst slammed the grill shut.
Down on the ground floor, they heard the panauricular screech of a passing garbage truck.
–As researchers go, observed Dr. Kamtchowsky, we’re awfully prudish.
–No we aren’t, said Pablo, his voice trembling slightly. This isn’t the 1970s.
Dr. K observed the nervous expression on Pabst’s face as he shouldered his rucksack and checked the ground obsessively to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind. His erroneous diagnosis of the Argentine zeitgeist made her suspicious. She was willing to admit that the whole armed rebellion thing had pumped the ’70s full of sexual energy, but actual sexual follow-through—which is what he was referring to—hadn’t exactly been its strong point, regardless of its many feverous desires, its profound sense of imminence, its well established petite mortes, or petites mortes en masse.
Of course this wasn’t the ’70s; the only thing that had anything to do with the ’70s was acting like promiscuity was a thing from the ’70s. Which meant that Pabst was just jealous. Which meant that he loved her. She put her arms around him and gave him a kiss.
–You’re an idiot, she said.
–I know.
–We could have fucked them, could have seen what they looked like naked.
–Yeah.
–And afterwards we could have gone right back to fucking each other.
–You think? But you’d have seen his dick . . .
K lit a cigarette.
–Oh please. And now who knows when we’ll get another chance. What happened to you? Did it freak you out because he’s a guy?
She expelled the smoke sharply.
–I don’t think he’s just a guy, whispered Pabst. He’s built like Achilles.
–Do you want to go back?
–Do you love me?
–Yes. Do you love me?
–Obviously.
–Damn it, there goes the elevator.
–There’s got to be a service elevator somewhere.
The second time I saw Kamtchowsky, it was in footage shot that night in Mara’s apartment.
7
He can’t have failed to notice how frequently we’ve been running into each other—he must have sensed the appearance of a new celestial body whose orbit intersects his own, destroying its symmetry. But he has no idea which law determines such movements. I have closed in on him slowly, inexorably; I know that he is feeling the temptation to glance up at what is going on around him, but he hasn’t yet been able to pinpoint the new source of gravitational attraction, can’t yet explain the sense of urgency brewing deliciously behind the curtain of his thoughts. As far as he is concerned, I am still just a specter circling a bastion of contingencies. I’m sure that a fondness for me will soon overlay his initial paranoia.
Augusto García Roxler arrived half an hour late to our most recent class. He was wearing his little gray pinstriped suit, with a white dress shirt under a v-neck sweater; all his clothes were old and worn, but the overall effect was charming. As a national holiday was drawing near, he had a flag pin stuck in his lapel, which gave his lecture an infinitely more tender feeling than
usual.
I suppose it would be trivial of me to point out the prevalence of misunderstandings in this world, or to note that errors are simply a function of the subject’s distance—be it moral, physical, what have you—from the object. As I said at the start, my early experiences of Professor García Roxler’s theories involved a fair amount of rejection and denial on my part. To my kindly but not inexpert eyes, Professor García Roxler was the embodiment of a herd leader locked in a repertorial morgue: stooped over a shapeless mass of decomposing ideas, scalpel at the ready, mask to block the stench. My views must have started to change when I first began attending his classes, wandering in like some sleepwalker at midnight, irresistibly attracted to the sound of his voice. Or, strictly speaking, to the hypnotic system of language secreted by his mouth—the labial art of Augustus.
There was something inevitably precise about his way of speaking—something that came to life as naturally as voices spreading out through one’s brain. There was nothing accidental about the musical cadence of his speech; he knew the exact progression of each sentence’s interior drama, knew the clever workings of each velvet-smooth hinge. To gloss the secret shape of the world, a very special set of paraphernalia is required, along with, in Augustus’s case, a series of intricate proofs—their hordes of subordinate clauses lined up in columns behind their enlightened Subject—whose complexity occasionally bordered on confusion. (My kingdom for a footnote supporting—organizing—these scattered crystals!) But like one calming a spirited steed named Panegyric, or Redundancy, I shall prevent myself from going on about this at length, perhaps because as History (and her Aegean scribe, Melpomene) are wont to teach, this drama’s true protagonists are not to be found in the stimulus itself, but in the extraordinary repercussions said stimulus provoked in me, the glowing pitcher of their echoing voices.
Savage Theories Page 6