There they all were, together and distinct, at one end of the sky-blue divan. Their vein of laughter exhausted, the first to speak was Marta Ruiz.
– I see, she said to Solveig, that your Adam Buenosayres has come back to us.
– The fugitive poet! chimed in Haydée. It’s the first time we’ve seen him since that famous Thursday.
– He looks kind of lugubrious, said Marta. He’s another strange bird. Like that ghost Schultz and that hypnotist engineer.5
– The Amundsen Lunatic Asylum is at full capacity, observed Haydée, passing a benevolent gaze over the tertulia.
Marta Ruiz had become pensive. To be sure, none of those fellows with fevered brains was the kind of man who could fulfil a woman’s destiny. Intellectuals? Bah! Weak creatures, frozen men. And Marta Ruiz was a live coal amid ashes.
– A real man, she sighed abstractedly, as if invoking a utopian dream. A real, honest-to-goodness man, with strong muscles, and his feet firmly on the ground!
– A cave man? Haydée asked.
– No, not that! protested Marta.
And no, that wasn’t it at all. A female Diogenes, Marta Ruiz was looking for a true man, searching with no other lantern than her treacherous eyes.
– I’m talking about a man who has the delicacy of a gentleman and the energy of a wrestler. A man with instincts! Someone like John Taylor in Jungle Inferno.
– John Taylor? exclaimed Haydée scornfully. A brute! He always plays the stupid macho with silly women wanting to get whipped. John Taylor!
– He has character, said Marta.
– What? shot back Haydée. Would you put up with a barbarian like him?
– Put up with him, no. I’d stand up to him, clarified Marta, fire amid ashes.
Yes, Marta Ruiz would stand up to him, even if he thrashed her black and blue or dragged her by the hair through an absurdly sumptuous living room. Marta’s soul was a lightning rod, her calling was to be a breakwater, and she longed to give herself over to the realm of untamed forces, although, let it be understood, not without a struggle. Marta was a “character.” And wasn’t History full of similar characters? In that fat volume on mythology, furtively devoured not long ago at the school library, Europa, Leda, Pasiphae, Aegina had all filed by. To be sure, Leda’s adventure with the swan didn’t impress her all that much. But Pasiphae with the young bull! The white bull, at high noon! What a strange stratagem! It was too much. The abyss of dark desire! Don’t look too deep! Marta Ruiz didn’t want to look all the way down, but her nostrils were flaring now, she’d caught a whiff of the fiery region. A live coal amid ashes, she snapped eyelids shut to conceal eyes that were giving her away.
But Haydée could not accept it.
– There’s something abnormal about it, she said pensively. Why can’t a man and a woman get together without war?
– Life is war, Marta declared sententiously, half opening her eyes.
Fortunately, Haydée hated serious subjects. And so her changeable humour, spinning like a weather vane, now showed a face full of mischief. It would be difficult, though one searched lantern in hand, to find a happier cage-full of birds than the one Haydée Amundsen had for a head.
– As for me, I’m happy with my philosopher, she announced. No complications, please.
– Merciful God! wailed Marta. That caricature of a man? Isn’t that even worse than war?
– Bah! said Haydée. Between my suitor and me, war is philosophically impossible.
– What d’you mean?
– According to my suitor, I’m not a woman, declared Haydée with mysterious air.
– So what the devil are you?
– Primordial Matter!
Marta gazed at her for a moment in astonishment.
– What’s that supposed to mean?
– Don’t ask me! He says I’m a ghost, the shadow of a shadow, pure smoke.
– He’s crazy.
– So you see, concluded Haydée, war just isn’t possible with my suitor. You can’t give a ghost a thrashing.
The two young women fell back laughing, their heads flouncing against the sky-blue cushions. Haydée’s laughter sang, Marta’s wept. Meanwhile, Solveig kept quiet and smiled, applying herself to the two only operations that befitted her mystery: she smiled to reveal herself, she stayed silent to hide. With one foot still in childhood and the other in the dance of the world,6 Solveig listened to adult chatter as if to a language still strange but whose general sense she was beginning to glimpse. And the most incredible things were happening in her, oh wonder! Just yesterday she was a little girl, a child nobody noticed. Then suddenly something beautiful and awesome had happened to her. Solveig had begun to sprout firm buds that kept growing; her whole body was breaking out in flowers and fruits, as though an enchanted season were dawning beneath her clothes. And then, oh my God, what was this? Half frightened, half amazed, she confided in her mother, who sighed, stroked her hair, shed a few tears: Spring has arrived for you, dear. It was Solveig’s springtime, that was all. But no, that wasn’t all! Solveig was discovering around her a world transfigured. Different eyes looked at her now, formerly silent lips sang her praises, hitherto anonymous wills paid her homage. She sensed the birth of new power within her, and vague daydreams of conquest wended their way through her imagination. Left alone in the house one night, she’d tried on her sister Ethel’s dress, a long black dress adorned with silver. She’d walked solemn as a great lady in front of the mirror, responding with a slight nod to the bowing and scraping of an invisible court of admirers. And she certainly didn’t understand Marta Ruiz’s taste for violence. What pleased her in Lucio was something quite different, the way he flattered her with his adoring gaze, and the timid tremor in his voice when he spoke to her. And every time he danced with her, he trembled all over and let his eyes half close. Just like her dog Nero, that afternoon at siesta time when she’d been lying on the ram’s skin that Mister Chisholm had brought back from Patagonia, and she had rubbed Nero’s smooth, warm tummy. For Solveig sensed in Lucio a certain diffidence; and if things kept going in the direction they were headed now, she would know how to direct his talent, arouse his ambition, make a man of him, turn him into a “someone” – her, a mere girl! And Adam Buenosayres? Incomprehensible. Why did he leave her that Blue-Bound Notebook? She didn’t understand; she wasn’t an “intellectual” like her sister Ethel.
– Beethoven? Schultz rejoined. A tin-eared banjo-banger. Grieg? A squeeze-box from the sticks. They’ve stuffed human ears with vaseline, ears meant to listen to the music of the spheres!7
But Ethel Amundsen was having none of it. She shook her strong, Palas-like head, the light flashing from her curls as from a warrior’s helmet. She turned to Ruty Johansen, whose solid Valkyrian body shared the other sector of the sky-blue divan with Ethel.
– This crazy Schultz is quite hopeless, Ethel said.
And as she warbled these words, her friendly hand fell on Schultz’s thigh, oh, but lightly! Punishment or caress?
In either case, the astrologer Schultz received it in a speculative spirit: there was no denying that the gross manifestation of his individuality had just responded pleasurably to the brush of that hand. However, thanks to the gods, the astrologer’s subtle manifestation remained free of terrestrial fluids, his astral body perfectly intact.
Once he had reassured himself on that score, a colourless smile moulded itself on his plaster-of-Paris face:
– Stupid-making music, he added. Music for the deaf. Look, how many notes fit into the classical five-line staff? Just seven. Bah! I’ve designed a staff that handles twenty-eight.8
– God help us! exlaimed Ruty Johansen, horrified.
– And our musical instruments? Schultz went on, visibly displeased. We need to invent new ones. In Rome I had just about finished a pianosaxophone-drumset that was shaping up quite nicely.9
– Did you get it to work? asked Ruty.
– No.
– Why not?
– S
aturn and Jupiter were messing around up there, muttered Schultz.
The engineer Valdez, bald and pudgy, studious and calm, penetrated Schultz with his cobra-like gaze.
– You go around reinventing everything, he warned. First it’s the language of Argentina, next our national ethnography, and now music. Better watch out! I can just see you with a crescent wrench in your hand, trying to loosen the nuts and bolts of the Solar System.
– The Great Demiurge, Schultz responded, sets us the example, ceaselessly modifying his work.
Ethel Amundsen repeated the punishment to his thigh.
– You know what your problem is? she said. You like to pose as a genius. The demon of originality torments you night and day.
– Me, original? rejoined Schultz with an air of complete astonishment.10
Ruty laughed out loud.
– That’s right, she said, confronting the astrologer in turn. What about the other night at the Menéndez house, when you ate that bouquet of hydrangeas?11
A sad smile dawned on Schultz’s face.
– That’s a good one! he grumbled. Four times a day you people eat anything and everything chewable you can find on the terraqueous globe, and then you get upset because I eat a couple of flowers.
– Okay, we’ll let the flowers pass, laughed Ethel. But you can’t tell me it’s normal to go up to greengrocer asleep at his stall and sniff him.
– He sniffed a sleeping greengrocer? asked Ruty, wide-eyed.
– At the Mercado de Abasto,12 three o’clock in the morning, testified Valdez.
Schultz inclined his brow in modesty.
– What’s so unusual about it? he said sweetly. A nose, if put to proper use, can glean interesting odours from a greengrocer’s body. The armpit area, for example, smells of damp earth, mouldy sacks, and sour sweat. The pelvic zone, on the other hand, gives off a scent of weeds and sheepfold, mixed with perceptible emanations of ammonia.
– That’s enough, Schultz! ordered Ethel Amundsen.
– And the feet steaming with slow fermentations . . .
– Enough! insisted Ethel, wrinkling her nose.
– The olfactory sense is despised nowadays, Schultz concluded. And yet its possibilities are infinite.
Ruty Johansen, a reclining Valkyrie, began to unfurl Wagnerian laughter. At the same time, Ethel Amundsen, suddenly serious, reflected with some bitterness on the intellectual decadence of the sex that claimed to be superior; men were so proud of their one-kilogram brains, but they wasted them on such nonsense as Schultz was spouting. Just you wait! Women were going to get their own back, and it wouldn’t be long before she recuperated the three hundred grams of grey matter that men had so perfidiously caused her to lose since the Stone Age.
Meanwhile, the engineer Valdez was scrutinizing Schultz’s countenance with the sharp eyes of a hypnotist.
– I’d like know, he demanded finally, if the criollo superman you’ve invented will have only five senses.
Curiosity flashed in Ruty’s eyes:
– What? You’ve invented a superman too?
– It’s grotesque, an abomination, asserted Ethel. A laboratory freak.
Schultz looked at her in mild reproach. Then, turning to Valdez, he said:
– First of all, I didn’t invent the Neocriollo.13 The Neocriollo will be produced naturally as a result of the astrological forces governing this country. Secondly, the Neocriollo will be endowed not with the five senses known to us in the West, but the eleven of the Orient.
– Schultz! pleaded Ruty. Tell us about the Neocriollo!
– There’s nothing otherworldly about him. Imagine, Ruty . . .
– Schultz, I absolutely forbid you! cried Ethel, aghast.
But Ruty Johansen insisted with her demand, and finally the engineer Valdez came up with a compromise solution:
– Let him tell us about the Neocriollo’s eleven senses, nothing more. Can you do that, Schultz?
– It’s nothing, grunted the astrologer, resisting. A kindergarten theorem.
– Don’t get him going! exclaimed Ethel in alarm.
– The Neocriollo! demanded Ruty, imperiously Wagnerian.
As though forced to explain a mere bagatelle, Schultz adopted a resigned attitude.
– All of you will admit, he began, that the Neocriollo is destined to realize the great possibilities of America, and that he must be born under the most favourable astrological conditions.
– Naturally, allowed Valdez with extreme gravity.
– Goes without saying! said Ruty.
– That being the case, continued Schultz, the Neocriollo’s senses will be more or less as follows. His right eye will be ruled by the sun, his left eye by the moon. Which means that through his solar eye, he will tend to see the light directly, while the lunar eye will see by virtue of reflected light. Or, to simplify further: the right eye will make him holy, and the left will make him scientific. The eyes will no longer be confined to their sockets; they will be exteriorized, on the tips of optic nerves some eight inches long and protrude like insect antennae, capable of extending up or down, right or left, depending on the object of vision. Furthermore, each eye, perched on its antenna, will be rotary, capable of turning on itself like a periscope, and will be fitted with an eyelid-diaphragm, ultra-sensitive to variations in the light.
Ruty Johansen was already shaking with stifled laughter.
– As for his ears, Schulz expounded, the right ear will correspond to Saturn and the left to Jupiter. With the right ear the Neocriollo will tune in to the music of the heavens; that is to say, the nine choirs of the angels. The other will listen to earthly music, which won’t be anything like Grieg or Beethoven. His outer ears, of course, will be shaped like two large microphone-funnels that can be oriented in the six spatial directions.
At this point Ruty released some of the laughter pent up in her body.
– He’s the man from Mars! she hooted.
– If you’re going to interrupt, Schultz told her, then I’ll just pack it up, and that’ll be that.
– Oh no, Ruty begged. I want you to tell me about the Neocriollo’s nose.
– It will be a beautiful nose, said the astrologer. Its right nostril will be ruled by Mars and the left one by Venus. Which means that the Neocriollo will breathe destructive furor through one side, and loving or constructive furor through the other. Imagine an enormous nose, with its windows wide open and pulsating, free of hairs and mucous.
– There he goes with the disgusting details, scolded Ethel.
But Schultz paid no attention.
– The Neocriollo’s tongue, he expounded gravely, will be an organ for both taste and expression, and will be under the dominion of Mercury. It will have the shape of a long, flexible ribbon, like the anteater’s tongue, and the Neocriollo will stick it into all kinds of places, avid for flavours. This means his mouth will be merely a small hole, and toothless, since the Neocriollo will no longer feed on gross substances – ah, no! He will subsist on all that is subtle in this world. And now I must describe his skin, the tactile organ. The Neocriollo will have a very large skin area, accommodating a prodigious number of nerve endings; and, logically, since it will be too big for his body, it will fall down around him in wrinkles and folds, like the skin of Merino lambs.
– A regular Beau Brummell! exclaimed Ruty.14
– I told you so, said Ethel Amundsen, indignant and amused. An abominable freak.
The engineer Valdez seemed to be looking at the Neocriollo in his imagination.
– Let’s just say he doesn’t have a lot of sex appeal, he finally allowed. There’s no accounting for taste, as my old mom used to say. But there are still five senses we haven’t heard about yet.
– Six, Schultz corrected. Five under the sign of Action, plus the single sense of Feeling.
– Go on.
– Don’t encourage him! Ethel pleaded with a worried air.
– If you’re just going to take it as a joke, said Schultz,
we’d best drop it here.
But Ruty put on a contrite face, and the astrologer spoke thus:
– The organs of Action are the word, the hands, the feet, the digestive tract, and the instruments of generation. The language of the Neocriollo will be a cross between metaphysics and poetry, without logic or grammar. His hands and feet will be of a magnitude unknown at the present, and will operate on a complex system of second- and third-degree levers. I’ve already mentioned that the Neocriollo will feed on perfumes, dew, and other quintessences. Thanks to this diet, his digestive tract will be simplicity itself and will emit neither putrid gases nor repugnant shitlets.
– Schultz, Schultz! remonstrated Ethel, furrowing her Pallas-like brow.
– What are shitlets? asked Ruty impetuously.
– Now then, concluded Schultz, implacable, let us go on to consider his generative organs. The testicles will be ruled by the sign of Venus and the penis by Mercury. I shall now describe their forms.15
But Ethel Amundsen, splendid in her fury, was already on her feet.
– Schultz! she warned. One more word and I’m throwing you out.
The sense of relief in the salon was palpable when Ramona made her solemn entrance, pushing a cart loaded with clinking bottles. It was clear the tertulia was dying of thirst; dried-out glasses scattered here and there testified to the severity of a drought that was becoming worrisome. Only Mister Chisholm and Adam Buenosayres still held on to theirs, the former because he’d already exacted a new tribute from Ramona, detaining her in the vestibule with truly imperial circumspection, and Adam because he’d forgotten about the empty glass in his hand, distracted as he was by the soliloquy of his soul:
Adam Buenosayres: A Novel Page 16