The Polish Boxer

by Eduardo Halfon

  Milan vanished without a word. The people were on their feet, applauding and smiling serenely and begging for more. Clearly, he wouldn’t be coming back on.

  We found him in an ad hoc dressing room: on his own, smoking, a light blue towel around his neck. Lía kissed him on both cheeks. I embraced him. I don’t know why, but he had the air of a wounded soldier, not fatally wounded, but vitally wounded, happily wounded, buoyantly wounded, contentedly wounded, wounded in such a way that finally he’d be able to abandon the war and go back to the peace and quiet of his home. Right, he said, stubbing out his cigarette, should we go get some food?

  Lía needed to rest, she said, sleep for a few hours, but she’d join us after lunch for a coffee, she promised, and say goodbye to Milan before he made his way to the airport. He was flying back to New York that night.

  We went to La Cueva de los Urquizú—a rustic, basic eatery with plastic tablecloths, plastic trays, and disposable cutlery that was probably never disposed of—so Milan could get a taste of Guatemalan food.

  What’s this music? he asked as he was sitting down. I told him it was a ranchera song and Milan frowned, although I had no idea why. It was dog-day hot. I ordered two beers and we began a liturgy of smoking. On one side of us, an entire family was rushing through their meal ravenously, barely even looking at one another. Živeli, said Milan, raising his beer. Salud.

  I asked if he always decided what pieces to play at the last minute. Always. But please don’t ask me how I decide. I don’t know. Sometimes they threaten not to pay me, and once, in Rome, they even insulted and booed me, he said rather proudly, but audiences are in general tolerant or maybe they’re a little innocent and they put up with my whims anyhow. You improvise, I said, depending on whether it’s raining or not. Something like that, he said, smiling. I asked about the last piece. Liszt, he said, but a Liszt piece even Liszt experts don’t know. I looked at him, perplexed. I played it to Berman, or Lerman, as they call him round here, and he admitted he’d never heard it before. I found it (or maybe he said discovered or rescued it). It was hidden away, gathering dust in a library in Belgrade.

  The waiter came, and Milan, between sips, said you decide. To start, I ordered portions of guacamole, black beans topped with cheese, chorizo, and tortillas.

  Actually, he said after a moment of quiet, it’s an arrangement by Liszt for organ and later by Busoni for piano, from an opera by the German, Meyerbeer. But a strong arrangement, dark, beautiful, and one that for some reason no one knows about.

  The waiter served us a number of dishes and Milan began picking at everything, freely, not asking questions, not putting out his cigarette, and not mentioning Monk.

  And why such an affinity with Liszt, Milan? He looked up at me and remained quiet for a moment, but it was a bustling sort of quiet, weighted, like the portentous silence just before a train arrives. He opened his mouth but then quickly shut it again—thinking better of it, I suppose. We both watched the family of gluttons leaving slowly. Oh I don’t know, he suddenly whispered in a mentholated voice, maybe because Liszt still allows for improvisation. This was what Milan said, though I’m sure there was something else he wanted to tell me. His music is an open structure, that’s one way of putting it, he said, and took an immense bite out of his tortilla, which was piled high with guacamole. I suspect, he said, still chewing, it’s like being able to play and stretch and fly inside a framework made of air. Hearing this, I imagined thousands of little musical notes floating around inside a white cloud, bumping into one another, desperately wanting to escape. Liszt’s works allow for that, he said, much more than other composers. Know what I mean? The musician, he said, cannot be an automaton. There are boundaries laid down somewhere that at the same time aren’t really there or shouldn’t really be there. For instance, boundaries within a piece, or boundaries between interpretative techniques, or even boundaries between genres. Why create boundaries between genres? Why differentiate between one type of music and another? It’s all the same. Music’s music. And he took an endless swig of beer. Should we order something else? he said with the look of a famished, mischievous adventurer, and so I ordered a dish of pepián stew, another of caquic, and two chipilín tamales.

  Sure, Milan, I said without really understanding what he was talking about, or perhaps understanding too well. But why are you so keen to push these boundaries, ignore them, make them disappear? Why are you so interested in the music of someone who invites you to move them and make them disappear? It’s revolutionary. It’s seditious. It’s a bit bohemian, I said, in the strictest sense of that overused word. Why not work within those boundaries? Why the stubborn need to avoid them or rebel against them? Milan said nothing, swirling what was left of his beer around in the glass. Forgive the inquisition, I said, not knowing exactly where I was headed, but I’m fascinated by internal rather than external revolutions. I’m obsessed by them. For example, I’m far more interested in the motorcycle journey Che Guevara embarked on when he was twenty-four—where so many of his ideas were formed and where something magical incubated inside him for the first time—than I am by all the revolutions he went on to foment in Latin America and Africa. Up to a certain point, how and why someone is pushed toward a revolution of the spirit, whether it be artistic or social or whatever, strikes me as a far more honest search than all of the spectacle that follows. Because everything after that, Milan, is pure spectacle. Everything. Painting a canvas? Spectacle. Writing a novel? Spectacle. Playing the piano? Spectacle. And the Cuban revolution? Pure spectacle. The waiter came with our food, but I ignored him. Anyway, I said, sighing a hazy conclusion.

  Milan was looking at me angrily, or at least it seemed that way: about to throw beer in my face and roar Serbian insults or perhaps burst into tears. I served myself a mountain of white rice and began covering it with big ladlefuls of spicy pepián.

  Do you know what my father does? he asked me, sitting back and crossing his arms, looking like a great leader who doesn’t know he’s been overthrown. He was clearly nervous. I put my spoon down and sat staring at him. He’s an accordionist, he said. I’m the son of a Gypsy accordionist, he said, and finished his beer. Waiter, he called, lifting his bottle, two more. He smiled ironically. And your mother? I asked. He shook his head with an air of shame or bitterness. Only my father is a Gypsy. Not my mother. I look more like her, I mean, my features are more Serbian than Gypsy. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say. For as long as I can remember my father has fought to keep me as far away as possible from both his world and his music, to keep them from me. But, like you said yesterday about jazz, I’ve got Gypsy music deep in my gonads. I could have sworn, given the menace in the way he said it, that Milan was grabbing or at least stroking his gonads under the table. I never bring any Liszt CDs on any of my trips, no Chopin, no Rachmaninoff. But I can’t go a single day, Eduardito, without hearing a bit of Gypsy music, a bit of Boban Marković, or Oláh Vince, or the legendary Šaban Bajramović. He smiled. Deep down, I’m a nomad, like them, even if my father wants to deny it. And a nomad doesn’t much like boundaries. Ah, he said to the waiter, thanks very much, and took a sip of beer. Imagine, he went on, as if gripped by some terrible inertia. I’ve been sitting at the piano for twenty-five years, studying with the best classical teachers in the best schools in the world, and all I dream about is being among Gypsies, playing and dancing and feeling the pain of their music. Ridiculous, isn’t it? Milan began serving himself generous spoonfuls of pepián and caquic, and I, considering him brave to attempt such a mixture, could only think about how some people flee their ancestors, while others yearn for them, almost viscerally; how a few run from their fathers’ world, while others clamor for it, cry out for it; how I couldn’t get far enough away from Judaism, while Milan would never be close enough to the Gypsies. And your father? I asked, sensing the answer. He doesn’t know, he said without looking up, his gaze lost in pieces of carrots and squash and goodness knows what else. He can’t know. Milan cut a chunk
out of one of the little chipilín tamales with his fork and then, as if I were some watered-down version of his father, confessed: I want to give up classical music. Neither of us said a word, and we finished the food and the beers in that drawn-out silence, exhausted by all the talk, or maybe just allowing all those words to finally find their mark.

  We ordered flan and coffee. Suddenly—I don’t know whether out of sincerity or impertinence—I said I wanted to know more about Gypsies, about their music, and Milan just said sure, with a disdainful flick of his head. How did you get on last night? I asked. And lighting a cigarette and raising his eyebrows with the mischievous air of a teenage troubadour, he asked me if all Mayan girls liked to fuck standing up.

  White Smoke

  When I met her in a Scottish bar, after I don’t know how many beers and almost an entire pack of unfiltered Camels, she told me that she liked it when men bit her nipples, and hard.

  It wasn’t actually a Scottish bar, just some old bar in Antigua, Guatemala, that only served beer and was called (or was referred to as) the Scottish bar. I was drinking a Moza at the counter. I prefer dark beer. It makes me think of old-fashioned taverns and sword fights. I lit a cigarette and she asked me in English, sitting on a stool to my right, if I’d give her one. I guessed from her accent that she was Israeli. Bevakasha, I said to her, which means you’re welcome in Hebrew, and I held out the box of matches. She got friendly right away. She said something to me in Hebrew that I didn’t understand and I clarified that I really remembered only three or four words and a random prayer or two and maybe how to count to ten. Fifteen, if I really tried. I live in the capital, I told her in Spanish, to show that I wasn’t an American, and she admitted that she was confused because she hadn’t imagined there were any Jewish Guatemalans. I’m not Jewish anymore, I said, smiling at her, I retired. What do you mean you’re not? That’s impossible, she yelled in that way Israelis have of yelling. She turned toward me. She was wearing a thin white Indian-style cotton blouse, torn jeans, and yellow espadrilles. Her hair was dark brown and she had emerald blue eyes, if emerald blue even exists. She explained to me that she had recently finished her military service, that she was traveling around Central America with her friend, and that they had decided to stay in Antigua for a few weeks to take Spanish classes and make a little money. With her, she said, pointing to show me. Yael. Her friend, a pale, serious girl with exquisite shoulders, had served me the beer. I greeted her while they spoke in Hebrew, laughing, and I thought I heard them mention the number seven at one point, but I’m not sure why. A German couple came in and her friend went to serve them. She grabbed my hand firmly, told me it was a pleasure to meet me, that her name was Tamara, and then took another one of my cigarettes, this time without asking.

  I ordered a second beer and Yael brought us two Mozas and a plate of chips. She stayed where she was, standing in front of us. I asked Tamara her last name. I remember that it was Russian. Halfon is Lebanese, I said, but my mother’s last name, Tenenbaum, is Polish, from Łódź, and both girls shrieked. It turned out that Yael’s last name was also Tenenbaum, and while she verified it on my driver’s license, I started to think about the remote possibility that we were related, and I imagined a novel about two Polish siblings who thought their entire family had been exterminated but who all of a sudden find each other after sixty years apart, thanks to the grandchildren, a Guatemalan writer and an Israeli hippie, who meet by chance in a Scottish bar that isn’t even Scottish in Antigua, Guatemala. Yael got a liter of cheap beer and filled three glasses. Tamara gave me my license back and the three of us drank a toast to us, to them, to the Poles. We stayed silent, listening to an old Bob Marley song and contemplating the immense smallness of the planet.

  Tamara picked up my lit cigarette from the ashtray, took a long drag, and asked me what I did for a living. I told her seriously that I was a pediatrician and a professional liar. She raised her hand like a stop sign. I liked her hand a lot, and I don’t know why, but I remembered a line of poetry by e. e. cummings that Woody Allen quotes in one of his movies about infidelity. Nobody, I told her while I trapped her hand like a pale and fragile butterfly, not even the rain, has such small hands. Tamara smiled, told me that her parents were doctors and that she also wrote poems once in a while, and I supposed that she had attributed e. e. cummings’s line to me, but I didn’t feel like correcting her. And she didn’t let go of my hand.

  Yael filled our glasses while I clumsily smoked with my left hand and they spoke in Hebrew. What happened? I asked Tamara, and with a sorrowful pout she told me that the day before someone had robbed her. She sighed. I walked all morning, through the artisan market, by some ruins, everywhere, and when I sat down on a bench in the central park (that’s what the Antiguans call it, even though it’s really a square), I realized that someone had cut my bag with a knife. She explained to me that she had lost some money and some papers. Yael said something in Hebrew and they both laughed. What? I asked, curious, but they kept laughing and speaking in Hebrew. I squeezed Tamara’s hand and she remembered that I was there and told me that the money didn’t matter as much as the papers. I asked her what papers they were. She smiled enigmatically, like a Dutch tulip seller. Four hits of acid, she murmured in her poor Spanish. I took a drink of beer. You like acid? she asked me, and I told her that I didn’t know, that I had never tried it. Tamara, euphoric, in her element, talked to me for ten or twenty minutes about how necessary acid is to open our minds and make us more tolerant and peaceful people, and the only thing I could think about while she chattered on was ripping her clothes off right there, in front of Yael and the German couple and any other Scottish voyeur who might want to spy on us. In order to stop her and also to relax a little, I suppose, I lit a cigarette and held it out to her. The first time I tried acid, she said while we passed the cigarette back and forth, was with my friends in Tel Aviv, and I got all sleepy, and very, very relaxed, and I think I saw God. I seem to remember that she said Dios, in Spanish, although she also could have said Hashem or God or maybe G–d, the way Jewish people write God so as not to take his name in vain—in case they rip the paper it’s written on, I guess. I didn’t know if I should laugh and so I just asked her what God’s face looked like. He didn’t have a face, she replied. So what did you see? She told me that it was difficult to explain, and then she closed her eyes, taking on a mystical air, waiting for some divine revelation. I don’t believe in God, I told her, waking her from her trance, but I do talk to him every day. She got serious. You don’t consider yourself a Jew and you don’t believe in God? she asked me reproachfully, and I just shrugged and said what for, and then went to the bathroom without giving any more time to such a useless topic.

  While I was taking a piss, I noticed that, in spite of being a little drunk, I already had a slight erection. Then I washed my hands, thinking about my grandfather, about Auschwitz, about the five green digits tattooed on his forearm, which for all of my childhood I thought were there, as he used to tell me himself, so that he could remember his telephone number. And without knowing why, I felt a bit guilty.

  I came back from the bathroom. I could hear Bob Dylan’s raspy voice. Tamara was singing. Yael had filled my glass up again and was flirting with a guy who seemed Scottish and was very possibly the owner of the bar. I sat watching Yael. She had a silver belly-button ring. I imagined her in military uniform, carrying a huge machine gun. I turned back and saw that Tamara was smiling at me while she sang. I could only imagine her naked.

  I took a long drink until the glass was empty. An old campesino had come in to the bar and was trying to sell machetes and huipiles. I told Tamara that I was already late for a meeting but that we could get together the next day. Can you come from the capital? she asked. Of course, gladly, it’s a thirty-minute drive. All right, she said. I get out of class at six. Should we meet here again? Ken, I said to her, which means yes in Hebrew, and I half-smiled. I love your mouth, it’s shaped like a heart, she said, and grazed my lips with
her finger. I said thank you, and told her that I loved when women grazed my lips with their fingers. Me too, Tamara murmured in her bad Spanish, and then, still in Spanish and baring her teeth like a hungry lioness, she added: But I like it better when men bite my nipples, and hard. I didn’t understand if she knew exactly what she was saying or if she was joking. She leaned toward me and I got chills when she gave me a soft kiss on my neck. With a shudder, I wondered what her nipples would look like, round or pointed, pink or red or maybe translucent violet, and standing up, I told her in Spanish that that was a shame, that when I do bite them, I bite them softly.

  I paid for all the beers and we agreed to meet there the following evening, at six o’clock. I hugged her tightly, feeling something that couldn’t be named but that was as thick and distinct as the white smoke of the Vatican on a dark winter night, and knowing very well that the next day I wouldn’t be coming back.

  The Polish Boxer