It seemed stupid to Étienne that Oliveira had come to bother him at that hour of the morning, even though he was waiting there with three paintings he wanted to show him, but Oliveira said right away that the best thing would be to take advantage of the fabulous sun hanging over the Boulevard Montparnasse, and go over to the Necker Hospital and visit the old man. Étienne gave a curse under his breath and closed up his studio. The concierge, who liked them very much, told them that their faces looked like two recently disinterred corpses, men out of space, and from that last bit they discovered that Madame Bobet was a reader of science fiction and they thought that was great. When they got to the Chien Qui Fume they had two glasses of white wine, arguing about dreams and painting as possible answers to NATO and other nuisances of the moment. It didn’t seem excessively strange to Étienne that Oliveira wanted to go visit a guy he didn’t know, they agreed it would be easier, et cetera. At the bar a woman was giving a vehement description of a sunset in Nantes, where according to what she said her daughter lived. Étienne and Oliveira listened attentively to words like sun, breeze, lawn, moon, blackbirds, peace, the lame girl, God, six thousand five hundred francs, fog, rhododendrons, old age, your aunt, celestial, I hope they don’t forget, flowerpots. Then they admired the impressive plaque: DANS CET HÔPITAL, LAENNEC DECOUVRIT L’AUSCULTATION, and both of them thought (and said so) that auscultation must have been some kind of snake or salamander hiding away in the Necker Hospital, and chased, God knows why, through strange corridors and cellars it finally surrendered panting to the young savant. Oliveira made inquiries and they sent him to the Chauffard ward, third floor on the right.
“Probably no one has come to see him,” Oliveira said. “And what a coincidence that his name should be Morelli.”
“He’s most likely dead already,” Étienne said, looking at the fountain with goldfish in the open courtyard.
“They would have told me. The guy just looked at me, that’s all. I didn’t want to ask him if he’d had any visitors before.”
“We could have visited him just the same without going by the main desk.”
Et cetera. There are moments where because of displeasure, or fear, or because one has to climb two flights of stairs and smell phenol, conversation becomes abundant, the way it does when one has to console a person whose child has died and you invent the stupidest kind of talk sitting next to the mother and buttoning up her half-open bathrobe saying: “There, now, you musn’t catch cold.” The mother sighs: “Thank you.” You say: “You wouldn’t think so, but at this time of year it gets cool very early.” The mother says: “Yes, that’s true.” You say: “Wouldn’t you like a wrap?” No. The outer-shelter chapter over. You attack the inner-shelter chapter: “I’ll fix you a cup of tea.” But no, she doesn’t feel like one. “But you ought to have something. You can’t just sit there so long without something in your stomach.” She doesn’t know what time it is. “A little after eight. You haven’t had anything since four-thirty. And this morning you barely touched your food. You have to eat something, even if it’s just some toast and jam.” She doesn’t feel like it. “Take some, just to please me, just try some.” A sigh, neither yes or no. “Look, of course you want something. I’m going to make some tea right now.” If that doesn’t work there’s always the business with the chairs. “These chairs are so uncomfortable, you’ll get a cramp.” No, it’s fine. “No, your back must be all stiff, you’ve been sitting in that hard chair all afternoon. Why don’t you lie down for a while.” Oh no, I couldn’t do that. In some mysterious way the bed is like a betrayal. “Come on, maybe you ought to take a quick nap.” A double betrayal. “You need one, it’ll be a good rest for you. I’ll stay with you.” No, she’s fine just the way she is. “All right, but I’ll get you a pillow for your back.” All right. “Your legs are going to get stiff, I’ll bring you a footstool so you can raise them up a bit.” Thank you. “And after a while you’ll go lie down. Promise me.” A sigh. “All right, all right, I’m not trying to pamper you. If the doctor had said so you’d have to obey him.” In short. “You have to get some sleep, love.” Variations ad libitum.
“Perchance to dream,” Étienne murmured, thinking about the variations with every step.
“We should have bought a bottle of cognac,” Oliveira said. “You’ve got some dough.”
“But we don’t even know him. And he’s probably dead, really. Look at that redhead, I’d like to have her give me a massage. Sometimes I get fantasies about nursing and nurses. Don’t you ever?”
“When I was fifteen. Something awful. Eros armed with an intramuscular hypodermic that was like an arrow, wonderful girls who would wash me from top to bottom, I used to expire in their arms.”
“In short, a masturbator.”
“So what? Why be ashamed of masturbating? A lesser art next to the other one, but in any case it does have its divine proportions, its unities in time, action, and place, and any other rhetoric you might want to apply. When I was nine I used to masturbate under an ombú tree, it was really patriotic.”
“An ombú tree?”
“It’s a kind of baobab,” Oliveira said, “but I’ll let you in on a secret if you swear never to tell any other Frenchman. An ombú isn’t really a tree: it’s a weed.”
“Well, so it wasn’t so serious after all.”
“How do French boys masturbate, then?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remember only too well. We had our own wild systems down there. Hammer-style, umbrella-style … You dig? I can’t listen to certain tangos without remembering how my aunt used to play them.”
“I don’t get the relationship,” Étienne said.
“That’s because you can’t see the piano. There was a space between the piano and the wall and I used to hide in there to jerk off. My aunt would be playing Milonguita or Flores negras, something sad like that, it used to help me with my dreams of death and sacrifice. The first time I came on the parquet it was horrible, I thought the stain wouldn’t come out. I didn’t even have a handkerchief. I whipped off one of my socks and rubbed like crazy. My aunt was playing La payanca, I’ll whistle it for you if you want me to, it’s quite sad …”
“Whistling is not allowed in the hospital. But you feel the sadness just the same. You’re all screwed up, Horacio.”
“I’m on the lookout for them, buddy. The king is dead, long live the king. If you think that because of a woman…Omhú, woman, they’re all weeds when you come right down to it.”
“Cheap,” Étienne said. “Much too cheap. B-movies, dialogue you can buy by the foot, you know what I mean. Third floor, stop. Madame …”
“Par là,” the nurse said.
“We still haven’t run into the auscultation,” Oliveira informed her.
“Knock it off,” the nurse said.
“Take a lesson,” Étienne said. “A lot of dreaming about a complaining loaf of bread, a lot of screwing everybody up, and then your jokes don’t even come off. Why don’t you go to the country for a while? You’ve really got an expression that Sou tine could use, old man.”
“Basically,” Oliveira said, “what bugs you is that I’ve pulled you away from your chromatic jerking off, your filthy daily daubs, and solidarity makes you drift along with me through Paris the day after the funeral. My sad old buddy, he’s got to have some fun. Friend calls, you have to adjust. Friend mentions hospital, O.K., let’s go.”
“To tell the truth,” Étienne said, “I worry less and less about you. I should have been out walking with poor Lucía. She’s the one who needs it.”
“Wrong,” Oliveira said, sitting down on a bench. “La Maga has Ossip, she has distractions, Hugo Wolf, things like that. Basically La Maga has a personal life, even though it’s taken me a long time to realize it. On the other hand I’m empty, an enormous freedom in which to dream and wander around, the toys have all been broken, no problem. Give me a light.”
“You can’t smoke in a hospital.”
“
We are the makers of manners, eh. It’s good for auscultation.”
“The Chauffard ward is over there,” Étienne said. “We can’t sit on this bench all day.”
“Wait’ll I finish my cigarette.”
(–123)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Julio CortáAzar was born in Brussels to Argentinian parents in 1914, was raised in Argentina, and in 1952 moved to Paris, where he continued to live for the rest of his life. He was a poet, translator, and amateur jazz musician as well as the author of several novels and volumes of short stories. Ten of his books have been published in English: The Winners, Hopscotch, Blow-Up and Other Stories, Cronopios and Famas, 62: A Model Kit, A Change of Light, We Love Glenda So Much, and A Certain Lucas. Considered one of the great modern Latin American authors, he died in Paris in February 1984.
ALSO BY JULIO CORTÁZAR
Cronopios and Famas
62: A Model Kit
A Manual for Manuel
A Change of Light
We Love Glenda So Much
A Certain Lucas
AVAILABLE IN THE PANTHEON MODERN WRITERS SERIES
The Winners
Hopscotch
Blow-Up and Other Stories
(originally titled End of the Game and Other Stories)
All Fires the Fire and Other Stories
Hopscotch: A Novel (Pantheon Modern Writers Series) Page 57