A Zero-Sum Game

by Eduardo Rabasa

  “To be what you hold in your hands,” said Max, pointing to the scepter.

  “I can’t do that. I’m the queen today.”

  “I don’t want to usurp your reign, Your Majesty.”

  “But I can’t give you the scepter. How can I be a queen without it?”

  “I’m not asking you to give me the scepter. I just want you to change me into it. From now on, I want to be known as Sir Max Hammer.”

  “I, Sao, Queen of Head World, employing the powers invested in me by the brotherhood of Head World, change you into a hammer. Welcome Sir Max Hammer.”

  Draped in his new investiture, Max bumped into Juana Mecha on his way home and stood in front of her to see if she would notice any difference. After a moment of complicit silence, the sweeper finally said, “Now you know. The Supreme Being is the biggest egomaniac of all.”

  10

  So many precepts, punishments, stories, and frustrations were not going to simply disappear. Max had suffered an overdose of truth, but it didn’t frighten him now; quite the opposite: he’d learned to explore its limits by prodding with a pointed stick, and the softness of the flesh didn’t bother him. Things continued the same, but everything was different. His only option was to see them as they were.

  In his building, there was a little boy who looked on in admiration at the games invented by his elders. He used to do tricky maneuvers with his yo-yo to impress them. They, in turn, would sometimes allow him to accompany them to the store to buy candy. The boy repeated every word uttered by Max he could manage to remember.

  His parents still encouraged the boy and his sister to believe in Santa Claus. They would sit with their children to write letters to him, ensuring they didn’t ask for anything unviable, making them see reason with the argument that there were many poor children with no toys, so it was unfair to ask for too much: one request per child, preferably something that could be paid off in installments over the following twelve months. That year, they had negotiated with their son until he was persuaded to ask for the maw-shaped castle of his favorite cartoon hero: a muscular righter-of-wrongs with bright red underpants and plush boots.

  On Christmas Eve, Max invited Pascual to sleep over and they took turns to keep watch at the window looking onto the parking lot. When the moment arrived, Max gave the signal. The young parents were excitedly walking to their car to fetch the presents they would leave at the foot of the crib. Pascual carefully focused the powerful lens of his camera and caught the scene to perfection. They had conclusive evidence that would destroy their little neighbor’s superstitious belief in Santa Claus.

  They let a few days go by. The child came out each afternoon to play with his castle and Bramsos photographed his earnest enjoyment of his gift. One afternoon, Max asked if he could borrow the boy’s plastic superman, promising to give it back the following day. The doll then underwent an extravagant photo shoot and was returned intact to its owner.

  The friends developed the film in Señor Bramsos’ darkroom and made the prints that Pascual would work on.

  The first anonymous envelope the harassed parents received contained a shot of them taking the presents from the trunk of the car. They had no idea who could have sent them such a thing. They always kept themselves to themselves. The photographs that arrived later terrified them.

  One showed their son kneeling by his castle. Using black felt-tip pen, Pascual had covered the walls in mold. He drew the muscular hero, in his underpants, standing proudly on top of the left-hand tower, brandishing a bloodstained sword that looked recently used. Suspended in the air in front of him was the decapitated head of Santa Claus; below, his hands still stubbornly clasped the presents they were carrying. The head with its dripping strands appeared to be falling directly toward the unwary, smiling boy.

  Next came the photos of the doll posing in extreme situations. Pascual had organized several suicides for him: the superhero blew his brains out with a shotgun, threw himself from a cliff into a crocodile-infested river, tied himself to the railroad tracks where a train severed his legs. Another series showed him in a skintight, black leather suit practicing fellatio on his age-old archenemy—a mummy with unwinding bandages—or masturbating in front of the mirror, excited by his own physique. The doll had been posed before the camera in basic postures and Pascual’s pen had done the rest. All the prints had the same message written on the back: “If you don’t want your son to know the truth…don’t tell him it.”

  Their nerves in tatters, the parents asked the head of security, Señor Joel Taimado, for help. Each photo caused him a new snigger he made no attempt to suppress.

  “Why are you laughing, Señor Taimado? It’s your job to make sure we live a peaceful life! We’ll complain to your superiors.”

  “Uh-huh. Umm. I mean, the thing is, I’ll report an F25-14 to headquarters. And while we’re waiting for instructions, you tell me how much you’re willing to shell out to get the preliminary inquiry started.”

  The investigation didn’t uncover any conclusive evidence. It must have been someone on the estate; someone with a camera; someone with a black felt-tip pen. The nightmare came to an abrupt end. The little boy’s parents never knew why. The fact was Max and Pascual had gotten bored: they were looking for a new challenge.

  11

  In early adolescence, the friends had had a class teacher whom several generations of pupils had nicknamed Chucky. On one cheek she had a prominent scar left by failed rejuvenation surgery; the tightly stretched skin of her face seemed to be gathered together in a clump by a brooch at the back of her head; her raised eyelids and slightly parted lips gave her an expression of permanent surprise. The surgeon who had operated on her had been unable to explain the cause of the cleft that furrowed her left cheek like a narrow strip of stagnant water. Chucky’s tolerance of her nickname was limited.

  During one of their first classes with her, Sao raised her hand to ask a question about the exercise they were doing. When she noticed her, Chucky returned her attention to the teachers’ edition of the textbook, without which she never stirred. Despite years of teaching history, she still failed each and every pedagogic assessment, but her answer book—and her distant relationship to the head of the union—allowed her to go on taking out her frustrations on her pupils year after year. When her arm was tired, Sao put her hand down and the teacher then allowed her to speak. Trying to remember what her question had been, she unwittingly said:

  “Señorita Chucky, I wanted to ask if…”

  The entire classroom broke into a guffaw composed of the accumulation of stifled giggles.

  “Now, child, come and stand here in front of me this very moment,” the teacher counterattacked. “I want you to clasp your hands behind your back. Raise your left knee. Very good, that’s it, right up to your chest. And will you now tilt your head to the same side. Put out you tongue and hop on the other leg until I tell you to stop.”

  Sao calmly obeyed. Max and Pascual looked at each other in fury. They were already planning their revenge.

  The school carried out periodic earthquake evacuation drills in which the pupils would line up and walk to the yard in an orderly fashion, happy to miss class. The authorities timed the exercise and made a headcount in accordance with the stipulated procedure. Despite these mechanical simulations, the last earthquake had produced a stampede of pupils, as well as teachers suffering panic attacks.

  Max patiently awaited his chance. The day he heard the wailing of the alarm, he put his things down slowly and joined the end of the line. Their teacher led them through the door. As he passed, Max picked up the answer book and put it under his T-shirt. Before they reached the schoolyard, he briefly broke file to throw the book into one of the trashcans.

  Chucky realized what had happened the moment they returned. She searched every child’s backpack down to the last pencil: the book wasn’t in the room; some vandal from another grade had taken advantage of the confusion to steal it. The replacement copy would take weeks
to arrive. To cover its absence, she divided her class into groups and assigned each a topic to explain to the others.

  At the end of the day, Pascual extracted the book from the trash and slipped it into his backpack. They had to act fast; if the new book arrived too soon, their plan would be ruined.

  The scheme involved selecting certain pages from the book and reproducing them, with slight modifications. The result was impeccable. This done, Pascual utilized a common technique for correcting errors in books that have already been bound; he sliced off pages, leaving only a thin strip on which to paste the replacements. He took great pains over every detail, including the type of paper; the most exigent editor would have approved the amendment. They planted their landmines throughout the book, leaving the most powerful explosive device for their final act of vengeance.

  Within a few days, the book had been anonymously returned. The schoolteacher inspected it and verified it was intact. Her vandal theory was immeasurably reinforced. She once again took up her classes, with blind faith in whatever the teachers’ edition of the textbook said.

  The pupils’ schooldays generally passed between boredom and fear of authority. They didn’t question even the most ridiculous errors. When Señorita Chucky began to swerve off course in directions that didn’t correspond with their own books, they resignedly noted down the rewriting of history in case the new version appeared in a test.

  At Max’s express request, the pupils learned of the all-out warfare between cavemen and the dinosaurs. The teacher gazed in astonishment at the illustration of primitive men, clothed in animal skins, being devoured by tyrannosaurs, or lifted like ragdolls by pterodactyls. Another scene showed a rock shot from a catapult knocking out a placid diplodocus. The accompanying text box explained that the dinosaurs had become extinct during the ice age, but humans had survived by taking refuge in their igloos. Señorita Chucky attributed her pupils’ surprised faces to the spookiness of the information she was imparting.

  During the rest of the year, they learned that: the conquistadores had arrived in steamships, loaded with hydraulic excavators to loot the indigenous people’s precious metals; popular revolutions were spontaneous uprisings aimed at defending financial freedoms from the beardies who wanted to go back to bartering fruit; a top-secret military base existed, where beleaguered individuals could take lifelong refuge from the harassment of the masses—a fact which explained several disappearances or supposed assassinations. That gilded cage was home to stuck-up musicians, outlaws with thick wrists and delicate hands, fallen extraterrestrials, presidents who defied the military-industrial complex, mustachioed dictators, and sombreroed peasants whose ghosts crossed mountains lashed by solitude. The schoolmistress was fascinated by these historical events she didn’t remember from previous years. The information she was transmitting to these young minds seemed nobler than ever.

  At the end of the academic year, the pupils took part in the production of a short, contemporary adaptation of a historical play that, as a form of social service, was performed for some nearby community. On that occasion, it was the turn of the Villa Miserias residential estate, where a good many of the pupils and teachers in the school lived. As the script of the play was in the teachers’ edition, Chucky had responsibility for the casting and direction of the contraband work, written by Sao. The pupils put a great deal of effort into learning their parts.

  On the day of the performance, Plaza del Orden was packed. The front rows had been reserved for the school authorities and distinguished members of the community: Dr. Michels, Selon Perdumes, Orquídea López—ex-president of the residents’ association—the directors of the T&R construction company and the entrepreneur Mauricio Maso were all there. Everyone, in fact, except for Severo Candelario, who didn’t have it in him to go and applaud his former pupils. Chucky had to take a few drops of a tranquilizing liquid to calm the nerves caused by the packed house.

  In the first scene, Sao appeared dressed as a one-legged president, hopping over the frontier to attend a summit meeting, hosted by a leader with a deformed ear, played by Pascual. She found him sitting in his chair, incessantly banging his right fist on the top of his desk. The other arm was attached to a drip, fed by a holy water font containing beer. Not even the entrance of the president could halt the beat of the desk-banging fist, which only stopped when forcibly subdued by an assistant who, during the rest of the scene, struggled with the arm that refused to lie quietly.

  “Good morning Emperor of the Cosmos. How are you?”

  “What? Quiet! Am watching domination on my screen. Far planet not accepting freedom even with a gun pointing at its head.”

  “I’ve come to make you an offer: I want you to buy our territory. It’s rich in bronze.”

  “What? Why I want cacti and prickly pears? Not interested in territory. Interested in minds. Television series, action pictures, and sports do dirty work.”

  “If you don’t buy it, we’ll paint it red or yellow.”

  “What? Okay. Buy half, no more. Not another word. Out of here!”

  The second of the two acts showed a massive invasion of President Sao’s land. In flagrant violation of her promise to say no more, she had instigated her compatriots to rise up and insist on the colonization of the whole country. The neighboring president considered it necessary to send in troops to protect his borders.

  The stage was stormed by an army of casually elegant university professors, their hair ruffled by the winds of their native city. They were armed to the teeth with machine guns firing 10,000 supply-and-demand curves per second, grenades that blew social work programs to pieces, knives that burst illusory bubbles of collective well-being, bulldozers of any distortion of the market that came in their path. The rear was covered by a battalion of corporate lawyers equipped with the specialized codes they used to defend themselves from their clients’ right to excess.

  A fierce battle broke out between the invaders and the local army—then making a stand in a convent—led by a general who responded to the codename of Hummingbird. They defended themselves against the onslaught with cannons firing thick tomes of a great treatise on the subject of capital, catapults from which they slung guerrilla manuals, and by digging pits that, unfortunately, closed up before the enemy troops fell into them. They succeeded in momentarily holding back the assault with the help of a handful of deserters from the other side—distinguished by the fact that they had giant four-leaf clovers on their helmets—who had rebelled on discovering that the army provisions didn’t include the dark beer they drunk by the gallon. Their contribution waned when the local hard liquor put them out of action for the rest of the battle.

  General Hummingbird was taken prisoner and, standing before the leader of the occupying forces—Commander Milton—pronounced his famous words of surrender: “If your women didn’t have such big tits, you wouldn’t be here.”

  In the final scene, Cadet Max was chased by an elite commando unit of foreign professors. Their aim was to tie him down and hold his eyelids open with tweezers, so he would be forced to study graphs, models, and data—with their corresponding theories—until his only means of thought was through the repetition of their dogmas. Struggling for breath, Max climbed a hill, only to find himself surrounded by the enemy on the highest point of a castle. Rather than surrender, he wound a reel of a forgotten surrealist movie around his body and threw himself to his death. The body lay unbroken on the ground.

  In the meantime, the professors were training his compatriots: some, threatened with whips, were solving differential equations on a chalkboard; others were passing through arcs of fire as a test for obtaining interviews with transnational companies. Yet others were attempting to balance on a rubber ball, their hands tied behind their backs, while trying to reach with their teeth for the acceptance letters from the university where the respected professors taught. The members of a last group were dressed as clowns; their aim was to stand for public office, where they would be able to implement what they h
ad learned. The curtain fell as President Sao gave a sigh of satisfaction: the ideas of the invading circus were being correctly implanted.

  Not a single person applauded. The only sounds were those of incomprehension and outrage. Juana Mecha broke the silence with a general comment: “If the comedy is to be repeated, it shouldn’t be played as a tragedy.” The next day’s edition of The Daily Miserias stressed the dreadful acting skills of the youths; it was a boring play, of no interest to the audience.

  Chucky was hauled before the school authorities: the Villa Miserias board had threatened to withdraw their annual donation if she was not disciplined. She turned up to prove her innocence with her teachers’ edition of the textbook in hand. The school director confirmed his suspicions: it contained the traditional version of the play; the whole thing had been a subversive invention of the teacher. Unaware that Max and Pascual had exchanged the apocryphal book for the normal version, Chucky lost her cool. Her incoherent behavior left the director no other choice: as a requirement for remaining in her post, her dose of antipsychotic medication was tripled. Inhabiting a pain-free limbo, the schoolmistress continued to teach class for years, faithfully following every line of her book. And just in case, she would even take it to the bathroom with her.

  12

  Max broke the spell of the leather-bound book that had told him so many lies by learning to use it to his own advantage. He noted the differences between the effects of oral histories and those issuing from a book: the written word perhaps clung to the permanency it had gained on leaving behind the changeable uncertainty of orality. To assert the supremacy of the oral over the written seemed by now as absurd as claiming it was the tail that chased the dog, which was, in fact, running away to avoid biting that tail. Whatever the case, it was enough for Max that it sometimes worked.

  Dr. Michels never came back until late and the nanny regularly settled down to watching that evening’s telenovelas, so Max was in the habit of making the most of this situation by inviting girls from his class to spend the evening in the apartment. He employed a variety of approaches to ask if they would like to hear one of the stories from his magic book. Whether it was from curiosity, affection, or embarrassment at refusing, the girls almost always accepted. Max would fetch the book, get the girl in question to sit on the bed, leaning against the headrest, and then close the door to avoid being bothered by the overacted wailing coming from the television set in the kitchen. He’d ask her to close her eyes so she could immerse herself in the story.