Delirium

by Laura Restrepo

  IT’S BECAUSE SHE’S SIMPLE, Agustina told me in a moment of calm, when I asked why she’d take food from Aunt Sofi and not from me. Aunt Sofi, who is simple, can understand why Agustina fills the house with containers of water while I, who am not simple, become upset over stupid things like something spilling, or tables being stained, or the rug getting wet, or Agustina catching a cold or going even crazier than she already is, or all of us in this house going crazy. Look, Aguilar, Aunt Sofi tells me, madness is contagious, like the flu, and when one person in a family has it, everyone catches it in turn, there’s a chain reaction that no one can escape except those who’ve been vaccinated, and I’m one of those, I’m immune, Aguilar, that’s my gift, and Agustina knows it and she trusts in that, whereas you have to learn to neutralize the charge, Tell me, Aunt Sofi, who is Agustina praying to with all this religious bustling about with water? The truth is I don’t know, I think she’s talking, not praying, Aunt Sofi replies, as Agustina, kneeling devoutly, covers a platter of water with a cloth and blesses it. And who is she talking to, Aunt Sofi? Why, to her own ghosts, And why does she need so much water? My understanding is that Agustina wants to clean this house, or purify it, says Aunt Sofi, and this gives me a start, as if I’d discovered shadows flickering in my wife that I’d never even suspected, And why does she want to purify the house? Because she says that it’s full of lies, this morning she was relaxed as she was eating the egg I made her for breakfast and she told me that it was the lies that were making her crazy, And what does she say about her own lie, about going away for the weekend with a man to a hotel behind my back? With what man, Aguilar, what are you talking about? About the man who was with her that Sunday at the Wellington Hotel, you don’t know how it torments me, You see? Now you’re the one who’s raving, Aguilar, that’s exactly what I mean when I say that you’re letting the madness contaminate you, But I saw him, Aunt Sofi, I saw him with my own eyes, Be careful, Aguilar, delirium can enter through the eyes, Then what was she doing with him, what can a man and woman possibly do in a hotel room but make love on the bed? Wait, Aguilar, wait, don’t jump to foolish conclusions, because we’re facing a more serious problem here, for the last few days Agustina has been talking about her father as if he wasn’t dead, How long has it been since her father died? More than ten years, but she seems to have forgotten it, I don’t know whether Agustina herself ever told you, Aguilar, but although she adored him, she didn’t cry when he died and she wouldn’t go to the funeral.

  BLANCA, SWEET BLANCA, your very name clears away the shadows, says Grandfather Portulinus to his young wife, but it isn’t true, because despite her efforts, Blanca isn’t always able to ease his torments, on the contrary, it often happens that her very presence is a slippery slope toward all things that split and tangle, because nothing provokes a nervous person like being told to be calm, nothing troubles him like being asked not to worry, nothing thwarts his urges to soar like the charitable ministrations of a good samaritan. This is confirmed for Blanca day after day, and yet she still makes the same mistake over and over again, as if when faced with her husband’s dark malady, she felt her ability to help reduced to a fumbling, clumsy distress.

  There’s the sleeping tree, says Portulinus, pointing to a myrtle that stands by the side of the road leading to their house, not a mango or a ceiba or a caracolí or a jacaranda, or any of the sumptuous, sweet-smelling trees that in the warm country crowd close together in exaggerated profusion, heavy with rain, fruit, parasites, and birds, but a myrtle, scraggly and stunted, though giant in Portulinus’s memory, a myrtle that has accompanied him from the lands of his childhood and is therefore his, his tree, its shade the place where he chooses to lie down after his morning walk. He likes to repeat that the sleeping myrtle nourishes itself from airborne dreams imbibed through its outstretched branches, but someone less wrapped up in his own imaginings might simply notice that it’s a tree bearing little yellow or red seeds, depending on the season or the particular efforts of each seed, something unrelated to the matter of interest just now, which is that Portulinus and Blanca have sat down under the tree to take up, once again, a certain difficult conversation, during the course of which he watches her intently, restraining his eagerness to ask her the burning question, Our tree?, and experiencing a momentary relief when he hears her confirm, Our tree. Yours and mine? Yours and mine. You and me? You and me. The two of us? Yes, my dear, the two of us.

  The reassuring power of the number two, the first even number, repeated by Blanca day after day under the myrtle, brings back shreds of the tranquillity that was lost to Portulinus somewhere between Kaub and Sasaima, cities that would have little or nothing to do with each other were it not for the imaginary line that Portulinus has traced between them. For Portulinus, a man who knows alchemy and loves kabbalistic riddles, two is a number that makes it possible for him to shield himself, at least at the instant Blanca utters it, from the unbearable duality that interposes itself like a void between the sky and the earth, the beginning and the end, the male and the female, the tree and its shade, his love for his wife, Blanca, and his urgent need to escape her control.

  What a burden you’ve become, Blanquita, Portulinus tells his wife, how fat and earthbound, while I fly over your head, light and unfettered, and comprehend the symmetry of crystals, the pathways of the blood, numbers and their analogies, the march of the constellations, the stages of life. Suddenly he sees her with new eyes, one the eye of compassion and the other the eye of scorn. How small and fat you look to me down there, my little Lard Ball, and how limited in your understanding, he says to his wife, who not only is naturally thin but has lost several pounds since his cosmic forays became frequent, forays leading her to oscillate painfully between the impulse to send him to a home for the mentally ill and the suspicion that Portulinus does in fact understand, that he understands better than anyone the framework of the constellations, the music of the spheres, the mysteries of numbers, and the unfolding of crystals.

  Apparently this restlessness of his, the restlessness of a pining German, was related to a yearning to soar that drove him into a rage when it was frustrated, and that explains many of his attacks on Blanca, which were abandoned as quickly as they were launched, leaving him sunk again in the love bordering on idolatry that had tied him to her, and to her land, for more than two decades. You and me, Blanquita darling? The two of us?, he then would insist again, knowing that the only thing that could protect him from the onslaught of recklessness and the vertigo of flight was that number, the number two, which restored to him the rhythms of night and day and came as a refuge and a last chance, as absolution and the hope of a reunion between you, Blanca my love, life raft of my salvation, and me, Nicholas Portulinus, a castaway in the stormy waters of this deep unease.

  RECONSTRUCTING THE HOURS preceding my trip to Ibagué, I remember that despite Agustina’s annoyance at having been excluded from the excursion, she offered to help me prepare for it. Have you packed yet?, Yes, I’ve packed, Let me see, and against my will I showed her the suitcase where I’d put the few things I’d need, my bathing trunks and a novel by José Saramago. That’s all? She threw up her hands, of course, and added pajamas, four T-shirts, my toothbrush, toothpaste, the flask of Roger & Gallet that she gives me for all my birthdays and that, according to her, is the cologne her father always used, the beeper in case she has to send me some urgent message, Not the beeper, Agustina, there’s no service outside the city, All right, she agreed, not the beeper, but instead she slipped in a cap and several pairs of underwear, first labeling each item with the word Aguilar in big rounded letters, because one of her personal obsessions is that she labels everything we own, books, radios, rackets, suitcases, or overcoats, as if by stamping our name on things she were seeking to control them or make it clear that they must remain in their assigned places because, as people say, things have lives of their own. But Agustina, I protested, I’m not a schoolboy, and besides, who would ever steal the old rags I’m bringing with me
, What do you mean who?, she teased, pulling my outdated trunks over her tight jeans, This little checkered number is to die for, with its triple-elastic waistband and two back pockets, blown up like a balloon for maximum comfort, nice and roomy in the legs so your balls can peek out and get a breath of fresh air.

  And maybe it’s true that things have lives of their own, because my rubber thongs were nowhere to be found and I insisted on taking them, why not, since things had gone this far already and at Agustina’s insistence I was even saddled with pajamas, which I never wore, but since we couldn’t find the thongs anywhere, I had to give up, Thank goodness, she said, thank goodness you lost those horrible thongs that made you look like an old spinster basking in the sun on her patio, But what will I walk around in, then?, Why you’ll walk barefoot, Aguilar, don’t even think about strutting around that resort in plaid shorts, lace-up shoes, and socks, although everyone there must dress that way, Las Palmeras Fashion.

  Pretending to be a vacationer, Agustina started to shout things out like a cheerleader, prancing around the room with my trunks on, and making fun of my trip, nearly doubling over with laughter, With a B-B-B, with an A-A-A, with a B, with an A, with an L-L-S, let’s all put on our thongs and head down to the pool, yaaaaay!, playtime at Las Palmeras under the supervision of specially trained staff, divide yourselves into groups by age, and hey, you old folks over there, cheer up, enter the raffle for a portable Walkman, do you remember, Aguilar, that’s what it said in that pamphlet they handed us at the Supercenter once, a portable Walkman?, Think positive, friends, don’t forget to pick up your personalized T-shirt with our I Love Las Palmeras logo, Yes sirree, sure as can be, Las Palmeras is the B-E-S-T! And she would have kept bouncing and shouting if I hadn’t stopped her, That’s enough, Agustina, stop clowning around, my resort may be tacky but Purina doesn’t pay me enough for a suite at the Waldorf, Well, tacky as it may be, I would’ve liked to go, too, Agustina retorted, sounding gloomy again, and I said to myself, Let’s not head down this path again because it’ll be the same old story, so I left her alone for a while and walked down to Don Octavio’s barber shop.

  That evening I took her to the movies and then out for fondue at one of those vaguely Swiss chalets downtown; she decided that we should see Pasolini’s Decameron again, and although we’d already seen it many times, we were happy, that I can say for sure. It was a quiet night and we were happy because Agustina, now that she’d gotten used to the idea of being left alone, took up her favorite sport again, which is amusing herself at my expense, this time making fun of the haircut I’d gotten from Don Octavio, a barber who shears you nearly bald so that you won’t have to come back for at least three months, according to him. You look like Chiras the Chicken, Agustina told me, And who is Chiras the Chicken?, If you want to know all you have to do is look in the mirror, yes sir, Aguilar, that’s quite a hairdo.

  Since she already knows The Decameron by heart, Agustina paid no attention to it, instead spending the whole movie mocking my cropped head, and since she was still going strong when we stepped out into the cold, she began to play at covering my head with her scarf, supposedly so that I wouldn’t catch cold, Let me take care of you, Aguilar, baldness is the Achilles’ heel of senior citizens, and as we walked from the center of the city along Seventh Road at midnight, in other words at precisely the happy hour for muggings and stabbings, she fixed me a turban à la Greta Garbo, Bugs Bunny ears with the two ends of the scarf, and a Palestinian head covering à la Yasir Arafat, while I, tense and vigilant, watched every shape that moved on the lonely street, a couple of figures crouched over a fire on the corner of Jiménez de Quesada, sleeping in cardboard shelters in the doorway of San Francisco, a boy stoned out of his mind who followed us for a while and fortunately passed us by, and I wanted to say to my wife, who kept improvising caps, wigs, and headdresses for me, Not here, Tina darling, wait until we get home, but I didn’t because I knew too well that for Agustina elation is just one step away from melancholy.

  Then we climbed up to Salmona Towers, through the shadows barely dispersed by the yellow lights of Independence Park; before us was the hill of Monserrate and since its bulk was invisible in the dark, the illuminated church that sits at its summit floated in the night like a UFO. Sheltered in that church is a baroque Christ collapsed under the weight of the cross, the most beaten, broken, and long-suffering of gods, his body covered in bruises and sores and bloody wounds, poor Christ, so grievously mistreated, I thought, How plain your hurt is and how much this city of yours resembles you, this city that worships you from below and that sometimes, oh Lord, rails at you for having been marked with your fate and for being inexorably crushed by your cross. At the top of Guadalupe, the hill next to Monserrate, there rises a gigantic Virgin who tried to fold us in her embrace, and Agustina, watching how the enormous statue seemed to rise up with arms extended, radiating green light, said to me, Look, Aguilar, tonight the Virgen de Guadalupe looks like a plane. As we crossed the park I was on the alert for ambushes while she stepped on the little white buds that fall from the eucalyptus trees to make them release their scent, until sleepiness, which settled gradually over her, turned her features childish, slowed her reflexes, and made her hang from my arm and rest her head on my shoulder. Monserrate kept getting closer, and I thought, Who’s left for you to watch over, old watch-post hill, when down here it seems everyone has been left to their own devices and forced to watch out for themselves.

  EVEN SPIDER SALAZAR, who’s so touchy he instantly pulls his ads from any media outlet that dares to mention him in any way, good or bad, even Spider allowed us to joke with him at those Thursday dinners at L’Esplanade about the most sacred thing of all: his masculinity. That night we’d already downed several bottles of Brunello di Montalcino during the main course, and then we got to joking about sex, you know, the whole macho routine, like whether so-and-so turned out to be a faggot, whether this guy is screwing that guy’s wife, whether the president of the Republic appointed his lover the head of such-and-such an institute, you know how it goes, Agustina, you’re nobody here if you don’t claim to have screwed a long list of women, starting with your own mother.

  And then Spider said, Don’t be pigs, how can you talk about water around a man dying of thirst?, Spider my man, what the hell, don’t tell me that little problem is still bothering you, I said, slapping him on the back, don’t tell me you haven’t been able to get it up yet, and if Spider let us get away with digs like that it was because deep down they made him feel better, deep down the jokes consoled him because they allowed him to believe, falsely, that his ordeal would come to an end, and anyway, we were only kidding around, mocking him slyly, making him think we weren’t aware that there was no remedy for his impotence. Spider, man, there are some saints at my Aerobics Center who’d be happy to work a miracle for you, I said bluntly, like a challenge, and Spider, evasive, said, Believe me, old boy, don’t think I haven’t tried everything, cocaine on the dick, placenta cream, I even sent away for a Playboy bunny and all I did was make a fool of myself.

  But I insisted, Agustina doll, I insisted, trusting in the girls who work for me and eager to boast, I’ll bet you whatever you want, Spider my man, that the babes at the Aerobics Center will bring that dangler of yours back to life, and why did I ever open my mouth, when my ruin, and yours, too, my princess-in-waiting, began the moment Silverstein, Joaco, and Ayerbe called my bluff, because that was it, the three took the plunge, bet settled, everybody against Midas, If those chicks can make Spider happy, we’ll all pay Midas; if not, he’s the payola guy. And Spider? Under the circumstances Spider doesn’t bet, he neither wins nor loses, Spider just puts up his best effort. Silver, Joaco, and Jorge Luis bet ten million a head, everybody against me and me against everybody, that if Spider got it up I’d pocket thirty big ones, but if he lost…and I knew he was going to lose. Not like that, no way, I’ll be up against the wall, I said, pretending to back out even though I’d already decided to do it, to take the bet, do you
see why, baby doll? Because even if I lost, I’d win in other ways.

  They filled my glass thinking that if I drank enough I’d fold, and then, straight-faced, I said to Spider, Tell me the truth, Spider Salazar, swear it on the memory of your sainted mother, is it only mostly dead or dead for real?, and Spider swore on his mother that it wasn’t completely dead, that sometimes he felt a tickle, something that might have been desire, and even a few times the stirrings of an erection. Then that’s it, I said, I’m in, but you’ve got to give me three chances, which means that if the first try fails, there’ll be a second, and if the second fails, I’ll still have a third chance, so we can adjust our focus. Spider, old man, all you have to do is let me know what turns you on, what gets your juices flowing, and we’ll go straight from there to the triumphant finale. Then Spider set his conditions, which were, most important, no whores or cheap sluts or women older than twenty-two, I want them to be white and daddy’s girls, classy, the kind of college students who suit up in lycra and sweat buckets at your Aerobics Center and eat sushi with chopsticks and drink Gatorade, nice girls who speak English without an accent. And it shouldn’t be just one, but a pair, though they’ve got to be girlie and the two of them have to work it out so that there’s lots of stroking and tasteful little touches, all in front of me.