A contingent of Black Paunches was chatting together while looking out for any act of illegality. Taimado had arrived early to check everything was in place, and when, half way through the evening, he noticed he’d had too much tequila, he began to top up with periodic snorts of cocaine to stay upright. From between the lenses of his inseparable sunglasses poked a jaw crowned by the pencil mustache encrusted on his top lip.
Juana Mecha had donned a flowered dress for the occasion; her thick lips were shining with a fine coating of pink lipstick. She didn’t usually drink, but had allowed herself a few glasses of wine, served from the transparent acrylic igloos. Although Maso had set Mascorro the task of entertaining her, his help wasn’t needed. Every time he looked, Mecha was accompanied by someone different: the high society of Villa Miserias was in constant search for new ways to contact their inner selves. A few days before, during the most exclusive Canasta game in the estate, a woman who masked her thinning hair with a permanent wave emotionally recounted an epiphany she had experienced on hearing one of Mecha’s pronouncements: she was coming home from the gym at noon—exhausted and distressed because she didn’t know what to tell the maid to prepare for lunch—when her driver carelessly dropped the case containing her makeup bag. Juana Mecha had hurriedly appeared on hearing the repeated shouts of, “Eufemio, why have you done this to me? It’s not fair! I don’t deserve it!” His nerves making him even clumsier, Eufemio made a mess of gathering up the tubes of mascara and lipstick so they could continue on their way. His mistress was already on the verge of a panic attack when Mecha simply said:
“Don’t take it out on him, señora. The ground’s really clean. Nothing can dirty your twinkling lights.”
The woman was instantly overwhelmed by an avalanche of revelations: it wasn’t poor Eufemio’s fault he was so clumsy, one had to have compassion for him. She went up and pointed to the cosmetics he had missed in an attempt to help him pick them up more quickly. She was moved to think that even someone like the sweeper could appreciate the purity of her soul at just a glimpse. And particularly in those clothes! She suddenly understood how trivial some of her worries were. What did it matter what the maid prepared for lunch? As long as she did it with love, it would be a delicacy. She rewarded Juana Mecha with a resounding red kiss on the forehead, and stood breathing in the dusty air while Eufemio hurriedly closed the case. She walked away, marveling at the great lessons to be learned from insignificant acts.
The word soon spread. The guests at Mauricio Maso’s party included all the important ladies in Villa Miserias, and it was the ideal opportunity for them to undergo their own mystical experiences by consulting Juana Mecha. Moreover, the unrefined features of the be-broomed seer increased their desire to decipher their personal enigmas. While they were near her, the ladies were pleased by their absolute lack of prejudice. They were so open to the world, they were capable of receiving something from anyone at all. Quivering with excitement, they didn’t notice the wine had had its effect on Juana Mecha. One by one, they took her hand and tried to look spiritual, so as to be imbued by her wisdom.
“I feel like pissing on you.”
“Oh! Any time. Receiving your golden shower would connect us on a cosmic plane. What an honor for you to have chosen me!”
“Your husband’s got an asshole stamped on his face.”
“Did you hear that, darling? I knew! The company’s going to promote you to the toilet department! That’s one in the eye for those people who didn’t believe in your dreams!”
“You’re like she-wolves in heat. You don’t even give off a scent anymore.”
“Ladies, take a minute to think of how many men silently admire us.”
“Water, earth, and fire will seal your plastic pact, all barefoot, wearing colored tunics.”
“It’s happening. It’s happening!”
When she was tired of exchanging honeyed words for insults, Juana Mecha staggered over to say goodnight to Mauricio Maso. The grateful ladies watched her with pursed lips and sucked-in cheeks. That night, the foundations of her reputation as a Play-Doh oracle were laid: she was so wise that each person heard exactly what they wanted to hear.
In one corner of the terrace, keen to avoid his presence causing any unease among the guests, was the retired teacher Severo Candelario. As if following the decree of a chronometer, he was taking small sips of some unknown bitter drink. For the entire night, he stood there, humming quietly along to the background music, stopping whenever anyone came within a prudent distance. Taimado, still gloating over the massacre of the tree, didn’t miss the chance to take the piss.
“Uh-huh. Didn’t I tell you? Give it a break, Prof. If you’re going to do that mummy act all night, you’d have been better off sitting like a frigging stiff on your bench.”
15
Sao and Pascal were sorting out the final technical details behind the curtain Mascorro had improvised from a sheet. Eidola were going to perform a dozen or so songs before the tougher stuff Bramsos was saving for the finale. Sao was checking the equipment they needed to project a short film during that number.
Max was very tense when he arrived at the party, apparently looking for something he didn’t want to find. He greeted his busy friends with the nostalgia of the excluded. As the concert was about to begin, he positioned himself to one side of the stage, his skin prickling with annoyance. His eyes swept the terrace one last time, stopping irritably on each person, annoyed and grateful that it was that person and not the other one. Even completely different women became her for a moment, then no, then maybe, and finally no again. Could that be her over there?
Bramsos opened the set with a jocular version of a rock standard played in an exuberant tone to attract the attention of his audience. Eidola’s style was so flexible that, at times, the title of the song was the only way of recognizing the original. Maso’s guests listened distractedly to the native adaptation of the classic. In Bramsos’ fatalistic delivery, the black, illiterate hick who defies destiny to play guitar like no one else in the world, was replaced by a handsome youth—also illiterate—who couldn’t sing or play any instrument. For food, he used a knife to scrape jam out of the bottom of an empty jar, while watching TV on his stolen cable channel. A talent scout took him to audition to be the next manufactured pop star. The agent convinced the record company executives they had before them the new heartthrob of empty-headed teenagers. Fame and money followed, with skintight jeans and a potato stuck in his throat. Bramsos was about to launch into the tragic ending when Mascorro disconnected the amps. The intimidating iguana skin boots were marching toward Eidola’s lead vocalist.
“My friend, don’t fuck with me. What the hell are you playing?”
“One of the best rock songs in all history according to Roll…”
“The fuck you are. Didn’t Beni give you the list?”
“It’s not our style…”
“Look, you frigging artist, don’t go giving me that.”
“What do you want, then?”
“What do you mean, what do I want? I always want more.”
“I mean right now.”
“Ah. I want you to stop wasting my time when you already know what I want.”
“Just give us a moment to regroup.”
“That’s the fucking way.”
Max was so absorbed in what was going on in his head that he didn’t hear the music stop. When he felt the stab of a familiar scent, almost by coincidence, his two eyes closed at the same moment. With one, he was begging that it wasn’t, with the other that it was. He opened them, resigned to what he had already surmised: a few yards from the on-stage argument stood Nelly, her arms crossed, thoroughly enjoying the clash of musical tastes. Max managed to restrain his first impulse when a rationalization took pity on him: she must be covering the event for the society section of The Daily Miserias. Of course, he would go up to say hello, but there was no need to be obvious about it. He’d wait until she’d finished work. Was that idiot behind
her the boyfriend?
Bramsos explained the dilemma to the other members of the band while making long work of connecting up the amps to gain time. The only solution was to change rhythm and intention. Give every note more cadences, a more colorful tone. His voice had to be directed at hips, not necks. He had to interpret the same songs, more or less in the styles requested by the boss. And wait to see what happened. He started with the jaunty requinto they’d just played, slowing down the tempo, letting the percussion take the lead. The change of direction was clear. Maso felt he was on familiar turf: his guests were now dancing horizontally instead of vertically; they were swinging their hips, not their hair. In the middle of the number, he grabbed Bramsos in a neck-pull to bang foreheads: he was giving his blessing; they could go on playing.
Max tried to pretend he hadn’t noticed that Nelly had spotted him. Or that, without a word to her boyfriend, she was walking toward him. He exaggerated his indifference to the point of turning to the bar to nod at some nonexistent person. Nelly touched his shoulder lightly and greeted him with a kiss very close to his lips. Now it was the boyfriend who was watching the scene, feigning immersion in Eidola’s lively dramas.
Nothing better occurred to Max than the obvious icebreaker questions. Nelly, in contrast, communicated on two different levels. On the most superficial, she chatted with amused sympathy; she was aware of Max’s inner turmoil, knew that it was possible for her to alleviate it, but felt it was too flattering to allow it die out altogether. She replied to his questions with sardonic courtesy, letting him know just how predictable his repertoire was. He needed to do better than that with her, though she would let it pass just for once. As if in compensation for her mild cruelty, she unleashed on Max her full range of smiles, shoulder massages, vaporous giggles, tugs of the hand and other signals to remind him of the dark ardor she possessed.
Max’s initial nervousness mutated into a permanent state of alert. He felt as if he’d sprouted a rigid consciousness of every word and gesture. Another state of consciousness then observed what the first had registered, only to be critically inspected by another that judged the preceding judgment, and so on successively. Pulled in all directions by this whirlwind, Max—or whomever it was who could still call himself that—was crammed in his own head among the competing ghostly screams. Each voice was sure it knew the only way to fight the earthquake of black eyes playing innocently with his hair.
When the polite trivialities ran out, a new fear raised its hand to be heard: the fear of paralysis. Max regrouped his loyal forces and decided on his strategy: conclusive action. The Many could demand whatever they liked; they could insult and humiliate him any way they pleased. Max would bear the lethal blows bravely. They wouldn’t divert him from the collision with the thing he most wanted in life:
“Nelly, I know this is going to sound ridiculous, but there’s something very powerful about you. I can see infinite forms in that darkness.”
“Oh, yes, Max. And you make me feel some very strange things in my guts.”
“Don’t worry. I know there are still some obstacles in the way.”
“Maybe not. I’ve already started to shake him off. But don’t come out with that stuff about being drunk and not remembering a thing afterward. Ring me tomorrow?” This time the kiss hit the mark, watched by the resigned boyfriend, who did nothing more than follow Nelly to the door, grateful that the public phase of his humiliation was over.
16
Eidola finished playing their list to riotous applause. Maso’s terrace resounded with demands for more as the curtain closed. Then, while Bramsos was sending the musicians off with a hug, Sao set up the projector. They had rehearsed the strict synchronization needed during the 4 minutes 33 seconds of the piece.
The curtain opened again to show Bramsos seated on a bench wrapped in the halo of a reflector, his polystyrene guitar exuding a dull glow. The audience stopped clapping, sensing something strange was about to happen. Bramsos waited for the silence to spread. When he saw expectation frozen on the faces in front of him, he gave the agreed signal.
The screen showed “4:33” in black letters. Pascual withdrew the hand muffling the strings and closed his eyes tightly for maximum concentration. The piece was extremely demanding emotionally. His left hand held the neck of the guitar, while the other supported it from below. The instrument was free to deploy its essence: each string began to vibrate in response to the white ambient noise.
Normally Bramsos dominated the instrument, willing it to tread the practiced chords. His guitar broke down the white noise into an archipelago of anorexic tones; melodies navigated the sea of thorns captured by the instrument and returned amplified. Bramsos had spent hours analyzing the components on the seven basic chords, liberating infinite combinations. On the floor in front of him, was the scrap of paper on which he’d written his guide:
CREPRESSED FRUSTRATION
DRAMPANT GREED
EIMPOVERISHED PLEASURE
FREASONED HIGH-HANDEDNESS
GCLOYING FRIVOLITY
ANUMBED VANITY
BHEDONISTIC INDIFFERENCE
The particular feature of “4:33” was that it didn’t impose any restraint whatsoever on the elements channeled by the polystyrene guitar. Bramsos’ arduous task was to remain completely still throughout the whole piece, resisting the impulse to tackle the fleshless white noise, and guide it along bearable paths. His ears were splitting, begging him to intervene; they were begging for some sort of progression of melodious silences to confront each of the various registers separately, rather than piled one on top of the other. The uninterrupted knot they formed seemed desolate to Bramsos. Breathing regularly and deeply, he clenched every muscle, wondering when the ordeal would be over. Feeling pity for his audience, he repented the torture he was inflicting on them: they had come to have a good time, not to be reflected in the mirror of the environment they moved in. Bramsos opened his eyes in shame, ready to stop if the anguished crowd demanded he do so. Their reaction was beyond his worst fears: except for a couple of confused individuals who had their hands pressed to their ears, no one else had heard anything at all.
Behind him, a man with a thick beard, and the appearance of a lunatic appeared on the screen, shouting randomly. He was driving a motorbike at high speed, without any fixed direction, and was wearing a cotton sweatshirt, onto which he’d sewn additional material to lengthen the original arms. Despite his great speed, he took time to assimilate his surroundings: physical objects seemed to be placed on a tray for his mind to break down.
Every so often, he came to a wall that impeded his progress. He then got off the motorbike, took out his tools, and began to take the bike apart to repair it and make improvements before putting it together again. As in a silent movie, the images were interspersed with his thoughts:
“The motorbike doesn’t in fact exist.”
He continued repairing the parts that still worked until the hooded figure that had been slowly pursuing him appeared. There seemed to be something evil in his expression. The madman calmly continued to reassemble his motorbike, then started off again, just before the shadow could capture him.
His body language suggested he was flagging: he was taking less notice of the objects around him; it was more difficult for him to tighten the screws. The hooded figure was getting closer. The motorbike seemed on the point of falling over, and in fact soon did.
His efforts to raise the bike were futile: it seemed to weigh tons. The hooded figure slowed his pace, wanting to calmly savor the process of capture. The madman had no option but to confront him. His nemesis removed his cloak, finally revealing his identity. He was a more conventional version of the madman himself: closely shaven, his hair gelled in a perfect side parting, his initials embroidered on the pocket of his sweatshirt. The madman directed his thoughts to a very distant point, in some remote corner of his inner self. It was not that he lacked the courage to face his pursuer, he was just uninterested in doing so.
; The other effortlessly lifted the motorbike, took a handkerchief from the pocket of his pants, and cleaned a mud stain from his brightly polished shoes. He gave his unkempt double one last bewildered glance, started up the motorbike, and rode off without looking back: nothing besides the goal inscribed on the horizon existed for him.
The madman picked up the garment lying bundled on the ground and wrapped it around him. Now it was he who set out in slow pursuit. As the piece came to an end, the screen showed a final idea, fading with the last wails of Bramsos’ guitar:
“They can change the system as often as they like. But so long as they don’t change the thought structures, everything will be just another version of the same.”
The audience awoke from its stupor to hail boos down on the performers, their yells pushing against the crowd at the front nearest the stage. The hatred, the possibility of someone doing something, were palpable. Maso ordered the Black Paunches to intervene. Very unwillingly, they surrounded Sao and Bramsos so they could gather up their equipment. The DJ broke the tension by playing a hit by a spacesuit-clad boy band. The crowd immediately forgot the unpleasant episode and began to dance.
Max broke through the faltering barrier of Black Paunches to stand in solidarity with his friends. Bramsos kept his attention fixed on the cables he was stowing away and refused the invitation to have a drink in Max’s apartment: he had to get up early the following morning to work on an installation.
“I’ll come for a while, Max,” cut in Sao, dismayed for her friend.
“Fine. I’ll just say goodnight to my boss and then I’ll be ready to go.”
“See you later, Max. And I’ll call you tomorrow Sao,” Pascual said, before hurriedly quitting the party.
A Zero-Sum Game Page 22