by Eduardo Lalo
— Máximo, this isn’t the time, and you haven’t made me laugh in twenty years. Anyway, she said after a pause, enjoy yourself as much as you can. Here’s Juan Rafael; I’d like you both to talk with him.
The novelist was sitting by one of the doors to the balcony and roaring with laughter. He was dressed in linen trousers and jacket and wore a silk cravat around his neck. You could tell that he had taken advantage of his stay in the tropics to go to the beach.
— He came in the full dress uniform, said Noreña. Don’t trust anyone who dresses like that. I bet you anything he’s wearing loafers with no socks.
— Juan Rafael, these are some friends, said Carmen. They are excellent Puerto Rican writers.
— I wish you would just call us writers, noted Noreña, looking at the novelist’s feet and smiling.
— Hombre, anyone would think they were from Navarra! García Pardo exclaimed.
— I also meant the part about being excellent, Noreña clarified.
García Pardo had stood up to embrace us. He paused for an instant to look directly into my eyes. Presumably this combination of gestures constituted a magnanimous greeting.
— They couldn’t be at your presentation, Carmen explained, unnecessarily; I, at any rate, never had any intention of going to the event organized by his publisher’s San Juan office. But here they are now. Juan Rafael is very interested in Puerto Rican literature, Carmen added for our benefit.
— I had the pleasure of meeting several of your colleagues in Spain, he explained, and on this trip, I shared laughs again with those friends, who are doing as well as always.
— Yes, as always, Noreña cryptically remarked.
— There is so much talent on this island. Gonzalo, my editor, has informed me that Puerto Rico imports a great number of Spanish books. That is surprising when one takes the size of the country into account. It says a good deal about this culture.
— Señor García Pardo, you may not have noticed, I began to say.
— Please, you can call me Juan Rafael.
— Juan Rafael, maybe you haven’t noticed, but we’re just as Spanish speaking as any other Latin American country.
— But this isn’t a country. Not an independent one.
— Which doesn’t mean that we’re any less Spanish speaking than Spain itself. Besides, the influence of English in the Spanish Caribbean has been a historical constant that purists have often slighted or ignored. Puerto Rico is, in this instance, merely the extreme case in the Greater Antilles.
— Even so, coming from far away, it surprises one. In Spain, we always think of Argentina, of Mexico, of any of the other large countries, but never of Puerto Rico.
— Because we aren’t seen. It’s like people who go to Barcelona and are surprised that they speak Catalan there.
— Right, but what surprised me was that you import more books than many other Latin American countries with much larger populations.
— We’re a country with a passion for consumerism, said Noreña, with an irony that García Pardo couldn’t be entirely sure of.
— The important thing is that we all form part of a common milieu. The Hispanic world unites us all. You have no idea how at home I feel, as much in Mexico City as in San Juan.
— Time is wearing away at that superstition, said Noreña.
— Which?
— The one about a common milieu. The one about the great, common Hispanic world.
— What people have in common looks completely different depending on where you stand, I joined in. Spaniards can’t ignore the bigger countries, but they can skip right past all of Central America and a good part of the Caribbean and reduce the rest of Latin America to a handful of images.
— In Spain, we’re well informed about Latin America, said García Pardo.
— Do they know anything about Puerto Rico? Many of them think it’s a state in the United States, and they think that what you people call the Cuban War had nothing to do with us.
— Well, yours is a bit of a special case.
— Do you know anything about Ecuador, about Guatemala, about Paraguay, other than that they have Indians and dictators?
— But the basis for contact exists, García Pardo explained. Factors favoring unity exist: the language, the common history . . .
— That precisely is the basis of the superstition, said Máximo.
— I don’t follow, said García Pardo.
— They overestimate their position and therefore their historical importance.
— Hombre, it’s hard to ignore Spain!
— But it’s very easy to ignore others, Máximo explained, declaring them null from the start, from birth to death, from generation to generation, justifying everything by citing a common history of unquestionable values. Within the common tradition you mention, of which I supposedly form a part, I’ve never seen myself, nor has anyone else seen me.
— Your finest works are published in Spain.
— Works from other Latin American countries, you mean.
— Have it your way, said García Pardo, but countless Latin American writers seek to have their books published in Spain.
— The economic crisis in Latin America has affected their publishing houses, I said. Spain has benefited, but the literature produced by Spaniards themselves is very uneven.
— Hombre, there’s a bit of everything, García Pardo pointed out. However, there is a whole cohort of important authors now, with complete bodies of work, with translations into several languages.
— And plenty of third-rate literature, Noreña interrupted.
— Which you’ll find anywhere, García Pardo retorted.
— But in Spain, it gets published by the bushel. You get tired of reading the same book over and over again.
— What do you mean by that?
— The publishers resort to the same formulas, Noreña explained. And they only have two or three: lots of foreign literature, which is their most substantial contribution, if it weren’t so often so badly translated; then books by the usual suspects, or their substitutes from the new generation, with variations on the same offerings.
— Although much of what you say is true, I don’t think the case is as devastating as it seems to you.
— This situation is literature’s worst enemy, and you Spaniards are on the front lines, Noreña explained.
— It’s not so awful. I don’t think you’re being fair.
— It isn’t about being fair, and anyway, literature has never pretended to be; it’s not a civil code or a democratic regime. The reader also inhabits a geography, which creates a politics of passions. Literature is still one of the few arenas where it is possible to practice an elegant and constructive terrorism.
— The time of politically committed literature is long gone.
— That’s not what I’m talking about at all, Noreña hastened to clarify.
— The novel is free from that burden. Fortunately, people read now for other reasons, García Pardo explained. In a sense, that makes it harder for the writer, who is no longer read simply because he is in political communion with his reader. Now tastes are broader and by the same token more diffuse and demanding. Those are new challenges.
— In other words, we’re all victims of the laws of the marketplace, concluded Máximo.
— Of course, García Pardo replied. It’s inevitable. We don’t like to admit it, but that’s the way it is. Writers compete with television, cinema, video games. We can’t deceive ourselves.
— A centuries-long dream from which we have awaked into a nightmare, I said.
— Perhaps just so, said the Spaniard. But one must consider that living a dream was not helping us, either. We were all deceiving ourselves.
— But look, I said, you can hardly keep your eyes open reading most books. Spanish literature seems poor. It isn’t captivating.
— Hombre, captivating, truly captivating work, hardly anyone is doing that anywhere.
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� But Spain has high aspirations, I added.
— I don’t know what gets over here to you, said García Pardo.
— The same books you have at the Casa del Libro, Noreña put in.
— You should bear in mind, I said, that here we get books imported from many countries. Apart from Spanish publications, we have books from Latin America and full access to the English-language press, aside from what is published inside Puerto Rico. This affords us a perspective that isn’t limited by a single culture or a single language.
— I don’t think you’re up on the current situation. Today’s Spain isn’t the Spain of Valle-Inclán.
A group of guests had congregated around us, attracted by the tone the debate was taking on. García Pardo’s last sentence had produced, because of the tone in which it was said, a bit of alarm. Carmen and Li were watching us with growing concern, fearing that our conversation with the Spaniard might be standing in for talks we weren’t having with them, which would have had little to do with literature. Someone had taken our glasses and gone to refill them. The rector of the university was watching from his armchair with the resignation of a man who was, yet again, witnessing a problem arise.
— Come on, let’s clear this up. Why are you here in San Juan? Máximo Noreña suddenly asked.
— I came to present The Angels of Montera Street, my latest novel.
— But how did you get here? In other words, who organized your trip?
— My publisher, who has a branch here, and also the Book Office at the Spanish Ministry of Culture.
— That is, nobody invited you, Noreña concluded.
— Hombre, if you put it that way.
— Don’t misinterpret me; what I’m getting at is a question of facts. I’m trying to show that there was no group of readers fascinated by the works of an exemplar of current Spanish literature. It wasn’t even a university or a cultural institution that brought you here. They don’t have any direct connection with your presence here. Your trip was paid for by a corporation with assistance from a ministry that invests in publicizing Spanish culture around the world.
— Is there anything wrong with that? asked García Pardo.
— That is a matter we could explore later, answered Noreña. My point is, this same advertising structure is what asserts that the great common Hispanic culture of which you speak should be taken to mean the Iberian Peninsula and a few select countries in the Americas. This same structure is what asserts that the biggest selling book is the best.
— You fellows could work with my publisher if you wish. Some Puerto Rican writers have done so.
— That isn’t the point of my reflection, Noreña cut him off. What I want to show is how the reputation of a literature gets inflated. Publishing in Spain means nothing and guarantees nothing. It has even come to be a smoke screen. If it meant something during the final years of the Franco dictatorship and the early years of democracy, now it does not have even remotely the same value.
— There’s nothing I can do regarding that. It’s natural for me to publish my books in my own country.
— But you’re part of that framework. What’s more, let me tell you, and I’m well aware that I’m being polemical, the worst thing that happened to Spanish literature was when the Franco dictatorship ended.
— Hombre, how can you say such a thing! That’s such a platitude, it’s ridiculous, García Pardo exclaimed in annoyance.
From the way I had observed Noreña closing in on García Pardo, I knew that the result of this exchange would be a mood of dismal gloom. What he said made the border line surrounding us that much darker, separating our words still more from the rest of the world. It was so easy for the Spaniard to dismiss us. Máximo’s passion was handing it to him on a silver tray, yet at the same time, I understood perfectly well why he insisted on doing it, why he couldn’t say anything else. Centuries of belittlement animated Noreña.
— When Franco died and democracy was established, he explained, Spanish literature couldn’t continue justifying its defects and could no longer keep on overvaluing its writers on the basis of their politics. Almost overnight, protest songs vanished. Since that time, the writers under democracy haven’t had a mantle to protect them and have even proved themselves inferior to the postwar writers. In one generation, faced with the conceptual vacuum created by the end of the Franco years, Spanish literature has done nothing but flounder and show this allegedly common culture its uselessness.
— I see where you’re coming from, but I cannot agree. Spain has produced a century of great literature, before, during, and after Franco.
— It’s been an insular literature that doesn’t resonate beyond the peninsula.
— And where would you leave Unamuno, the Generation of ’27, and Lorca?
— I’ll give you the first one, Noreña said. Unamuno was one the last intellectuals to confront his own society, and that always has some force. The Generation of ’27, apart from Lorca, was a local phenomenon, and his influence extended only to Latin America and in a very temporary way. Postwar Spain clung to them and mythified them, making them much more than a literary phenomenon.
— It’s the same with you, said García Pardo.
— With who? asked Noreña.
— All you, the Latin Americans.
— To a certain degree you’re right. For a long time, Latin America was a poor copy of Spain. But this part of the world is where literature in Spanish was revived.
— That claim has to be approached with a critical eye, too, García Pardo responded. The Boom was invented by a Catalan publisher, and years ago, García Márquez ceased to be the towering figure he had become. Cortázar, it’s a shame to say it, but now he looks like a writer for little love-struck couples, and Borges is an Argentine show-off.
— Those are rather simplistic opinions, I said.
— Like yours, García Pardo replied.
— We were talking about Spain anyway, said Noreña.
Carmen had set a fresh glass of whiskey on the table for García Pardo, who took advantage of the pause to light a cigarette.
— I detect tremendous frustration in you fellows, said García Pardo. Puerto Rico is a small country and that perhaps has something to do with it. You gain nothing by taking it out on us. We aren’t your enemies. I’m not even sure if enemies exist.
— You’re wrong, said Noreña.
— Mind telling me why? said García Pardo, who was starting to look for a way to end the conversation.
— Literature can’t bear a sham. That is what I am talking about. Today, Spain doesn’t have a literature; it has a publishing industry, and good readers hate being sold a bill of goods. I don’t question the value of some authors, but they’re victims of the industry, too.
— Oh, God! That’s all we need!
— A literature, Noreña went on, is more than a pile of books. A literature, no matter how minor and limited it is, such as Puerto Rican literature or the literatures of other countries around Latin America and the world, cannot be confined to being an endless succession of books. It has to grapple with something. Now, I’m confronting you and the world you come from. Tomorrow, it will be something else. The best of Spanish literature was what came from the writers who were, so to speak, anti-Spanish, external and internal exiles who couldn’t be at peace with the brutalization of their society. Today, they’re nearly an extinct species.
— Máximo, said García Pardo, that won’t get you anywhere. Only to hatred. Excuse me.
García Pardo stood up and left the living room. The guests surrounding us opened up to let him leave, and we all remained silent.
— Enough already, said Carmen. Juan Rafael is in my house, and this isn’t the treatment he deserves.
— And what sort should he have been given? I asked.
Carmen looked at me for an instant, wheeled about turning her back on me, and walked off in search of the writer. Li, who had been present at the debate, approached me.
; — I hope what you said had nothing to do with me, she said.
— You know it didn’t, though now that you mention it, I think it did, that it had a lot to do with you. Anyway, I wasn’t the lead singer.
— You were a duo.
— You look different. You even sound different.
— So do you.
— Is your friend going to let you see me?
— The situation is complicated. I lost my job and lots of things have happened since the last night. I’m sorry for getting you mixed up in my problems, but it couldn’t have been otherwise.
— You’re moving away? I asked. That’s what I heard.
— I don’t know yet, but probably.
— In other words, that’s your way out.
Li did not answer; she took my hand, and we embraced.
— I’ll call you and we’ll see each other. I promise you. You’d better go before they throw you out, she said, smiling.
We could hear voices from the other rooms. García Pardo, Carmen, and somebody else were talking very loudly. I went out the front door without saying good-bye to anyone. Noreña was waiting for me by the stairs.
— Cigarette? he offered.
It was back to smoking.
Rumors soon circulated about the scandal into which the debate with García Pardo had devolved. Carmen Lindo’s rage had been monumental. For the rest of the soirée and over the next few days, she had probably not talked about anything else. My having shown up uninvited, my having been Li’s partner and Noreña’s friend, together with our bitter debate with the Spaniard, gave Carmen an open invitation to slander me. When I went by La Tertulia one afternoon, I felt too many eyes staring at my back. A few of the people who worked there, being more informed than anyone else regarding tales great and small from the literary world, stopped me to ask about the affair. I learned through them that the prevailing version accused us, Noreña and me, of being arrogant and envious.
The controversy had served to air some old dissatisfactions. Noreña and I came out of it as a couple of minor hacks with outsized egos who had gone after the foreign writer with fever-crazed arguments. We were accused of being chauvinists, and countless professors of language and literature imputed a new mental illness to us: Hispanophobia. A novelist who, for other reasons, had earlier tried to tear us both to pieces saw the confrontation as the shameful proof of our Frenchification. Few sympathized with our position, and even fewer among them understood what had brought it about. In the end, Carmen made her move and, to mollify the great author, got the Department of Hispanic Studies to hold a discussion session with him in the university auditorium.