Unfortunately, not all the adventurers of Saavedra had surrendered to such wholesome lyricism. Among the seven there was one who shut his ears to the Muses’ call, his attention taken up by base speculations of a scientific nature. I refer to the illustrious and never-sufficiently-praised pipsqueak Bernini. This man (if such we may call five-foot-nothing of indisputably human stature) had corrected the stingy hand Nature had dealt him in terms of physique by diligent devotion since childhood to the most curious of sciences. The two heterogeneous races responsible for his gestation fought within him, so he said, the most ferocious battle. While his Anglo-Saxon side tended toward a severe pragmatism manifesting in ghastly orgies of rationalism, his Latin side, thanks to a subliminal process invariably involving liquid spirits, impelled him to frequent fits of Dionysian frenzy that amounted to so many slaps across the left cheek of the goddess Reason. With one and the same bow, the young hero played medicine, history, geography, numismatics, sociology, aesthetics, and metaphysics. Word has it that when he read the Critique of Pure Reason, he had made Kant sweat bullets by scribbling marginal notes such as “You’re talking through your hat, old man” and “Gotcha there, Mannie old boy,” among other equally trenchant objections. However, those who admired the pipsqueak’s erudition had recently been lamenting his weakness for an unholy genre of statistics whose smuttiness was incompatible with scientific decorum. As I was saying, then, Bernini, oblivious of the others’ chatter, was mentally turning over some original conceit. And it was surely no mere trifle, for the mental exertion had Bernini breathing heavily, his arms jerking forward then dropping again, heels digging into the ground – signs of agitation soon noticed by his companions.
– Hey, what’s got into you? Del Solar finally asked him. Have you gone crazy?
The pipsqueak mumbled a few choice words in the night and concluded:
– That’s my business. Just thinking.
– Thinking, were you? said Franky. Assuming such a phenomenon is possible, what were you thinking?
– I won’t talk! growled Bernini resentfully. A while ago I wasn’t allowed to; I had to shut up, just when everybody else was running off at the mouth.
– None of that, Pereda joined in. Let him speak. Here everybody has a voice and a vote.
Franky’s laughter rattled in the darkness.
– That’s just what he wants! he exclaimed. I know that sly pipsqueak as if he were my own child.
– Fine, then, said Bernini, giving in to his buddies’ concern. I was thinking about how we’re walking across an ancient seabed.
– Hey, hey! shouted Franky. Watch out for the pipsqueak!
– The ground of the pampa, Bernini insisted, is a marine formation. The entire pampa is the vast floor of an ocean that at one time lapped up against the Andes, until it withdrew.18
Two or three indignant voices exploded in the blackness:
– Have an eye for the pipsqueak!
– That hasn’t been proven!
– The pipsqueak’s spouting nonsense!
– And it’s not merely the scientific aspect of the theory that interests me, Bernini concluded. It’s something else.
– What else? Schultz wanted to know.
– The voice of the sea will be present when the Spirit of the Earth makes itself heard.
Hostile shouts and Homeric laughter greeted Bernini’s latest sally.
– He’s coughed it up! Franky exclaimed in astonishment.
– What has our famous pipsqueak coughed up? Del Solar inquired.
– The Spirit of the Earth. He had it in his craw!
Whatever their purpose when they set out on their journey, the explorers should never have uttered, in that dark place and at such an hour, words with the magical power to spring open the invisible portals of mystery. Until that moment, despite numerous irreverent slips of the tongue, the expeditionaries had faced nothing out of the ordinary. But the extraordinary figure that suddenly appeared before them now was not of this world. Monstrous offspring of the night, it looked like the ghost of a giant peludo, an enormous armadillo radiating a vivid phosphorescent light. The excursionists might well have succumbed to incurable awe, if not for the pipsqueak Bernini who, thanks to his Anglo-Saxon side, identified the beast as the famous Glyptodon, a dinosaur indigenous to our prehistoric pampas.
The creature was paleontologically old. Its cracked carapace was encrusted with the salt of a thousand centuries that formed a second shell as tough as the original. Protruding from the carapace, four gigantic legs ended in dirty, bitten toenails. The Glyptodon’s ridiculously small head was held aloft with much dignity. But what most amazed the aventurers was the monster’s scar-filled face: a toothless mouth, nostrils scabby with antediluvian snot, and two little eyes peering out through fossilized rheum with a faraway look, as though adrift in memories of barbarous geological sorrows.
Asked by the astrologer Schultz whether it was mortal, immortal, or an intermediary being, the Glyptodon promptly self-identified as the selfsame Spirit of the Earth just summoned by the High Priest Bernini. Schultz inquired after the purpose of its advent. The Glyptodon replied that his sole object was to correct the error committed just now by the High Priest, whose theories about the pampa’s loess betrayed a macaronic erudition picked up from dime-store manuals. Vacillating between indignation and respect, the High Priest Bernini asked how he had erred. By inventing a marine origin for the pampa’s topsoil deposits, came the Glyptodon’s response.
– And what proof is there to the contrary? challenged Bernini.
– The absence of horizontal strata left by any transgression or regression of the sea.
– What about the fossil remains? insisted a stung Bernini.
– And the schistic-crystalline sediment? shot back the Glyptodon, unyielding.
Defeated and humiliated, the High Priest Bernini withdrew from the fray. Then Schultz beseeched the monster, by the god Erebos and the night, by the soul of Darwin and the shade of Ameghino,19 to reveal to us sad wanderers the authentic origin of the pampa’s loess. The Glypdoton muttered he’d have been spared the bother if his High Priest Bernini had read the work of Roveretto, Bayer, Richthofen and Obermayer,20 instead of wasting his time skulking around the shabby secondhand bookstores on Corrientes.21 After a professorial pause, the Glypdoton declared the Aeolian origin of that loess:
– In principium, he solemnely intoned, the pampa was a crystalline base formed by mountainous structures. Or better put: the peripheral relief pattern left by the metamorphic and eruptive activity of rock. Or, to make it even clearer: the pampa was a great plain of destruction.
– How so? inquired Del Solar, whose patriotic ears didn’t like the sound of the word “destruction.”
– Because, anwered the Glyptodon, thanks to a relatively warm and dry climate, the vertically outstanding rock structures of metamorphic, sedimentary, and crystalline formation underwent, in situ, a process of hydrolithic alteration or partial lateralization. Gentlemen, the topographical relief got flattened!
– What about the Aeolian origin? Adam Buenosayres wanted to know. The versifier’s ears were fondly anticipating the strains of ancient harps strummed by the god of wind.
– I’m getting to that, said the ghostly beast. A great wind then blew from the West, an implacable wind that tore at the disintegrating material, blowing it down from the mountains and depositing it in the valleys and plains. That’s how the pampa’s soil was formed. And since that sedimention, as its structure demonstrates, the pampa has suffered no more disturbances, neither aquatic nor aeolic.
– That must have been some phenomenal wind! exclaimed Pereda, struggling in the arms of doubt.
– Ha! laughed the Glyptodon. Just look into my right eye!
One by one, the seven men looked through the ghost’s eye. They saw an extensive landscape, sad and sterile, mountain ranges being eaten away by a ferocious wind that gnawed away bits of matter and set it a-whirl in eddies. Clouds of sand obscured the sun or settled slowly
like ash from a volcanic eruption. In the midst of the great simoom, large animals, armour-plated and armed to the teeth, lumbered heavily across the plain, claws and snouts picking at the mineral pampa in search of sustenance.
The prospect was bleak, and the excursionists of Saavedra went mute as statues. But Schultz the astrologer, after thanking the spectre for the valuable lesson in geology, asked if he would be so kind as to answer two or three questions from his friends, noteworthy one and all in the arts and letters. The ghost said yes, so Samuel stepped forward to ask about the origin of the human contingents who would likely come to settle that unpopulated region. The Glyptodon seemed to hesitate, mumbled something about not being allowed to reveal the future, and ended by insinuating that the plain’s ethnographic formation would be quite similar to its geological formation, for the human contingents mentioned by Samuel would also be a re-aggregation of elements in destruction, swept from the eight directions of the Globe all the way to our plains by the terrible and ever restless wind of History.
The philosopher of Villa Crespo was more than satisfied with the Glyptodon’s mysterious prophecy. And the creature’s goodwill might have reached the sublime, if Franky Amundsen – skeptical worm in the bright red apple of the ideal – hadn’t piped up, asking point-blank if its peludo-like structure didn’t have something to do, symbolically at least, with a famous political leader who at the time was both the darling of the masses and the delight of the Muses.22 His millenarian honour offended, the Glyptodon replied he was not about to listen to stupidities, or sign autographs, or give any interviews, or get embroiled in petty politicking; whereupon he threatened quite seriously to pack up and go home to his phantasmal realms. But the High Priest Bernini devoutly implored him to leave some message for future generations before departing. The Glyptodon nodded, lifted his tail to let fly three large spheres of fossilized manure, then disappeared into the blackness whence he had come. Fortunately, that message has not been lost to posterity. One of those spheres can be found today in the National Museum of Natural Science,23 erroneously classified as aerolite. Another, in the Museum of History, is displayed as a mortar shell left over from the War of Paraguay.24 The third is the terrestrial globe held aloft by two cyclopean figures of reinforced concrete standing atop the building of daily newspaper El Mundo.25
“The Adventure of the Glyptodon,”26 as it later came to be known, would have been enough to set off anybody’s imagination, and all the more so in those men, well seasoned in the dangerous game of fantasy. No sooner had the monster faded into the night, according to the epic heroes’ subsequent testimony, than a great confusion descended upon their minds and memory, producing a strange blend of reality and appearance, history and legend, the possible and the absurd. Clearly, Franky Amundsen’s metal flask, circulating with a frequency no less generous than alarming, was not completely innocent of the turbulence afflicting their souls, nor of the visions and mirages that followed one after another, culminating in “The Adventure of the Teetery Plank.” But what most inflamed the group’s fantasy were the geological and stratigraphic mysteries still up for discussion: the wildest hypotheses were buzzing like bees. The astrologer Schultz, however, eventually expressed his boredom:
– What do I care about the earth! he exclaimed disdainfully. To me, the important thing is man. After all, the earth is merely a station, a phase – and only one! – in the evolution of Universal Man.
– Fine! thundered Samuel Tesler. But what the heck is Universal Man?
– What, you ask? answered Schultz. Why, it’s MAN, in capital letters.
Franky Amundsen raised his arms toward a sky teeming with stars.
– O wisdom! he cried in exultation. What an unfathomable definition! Eat your heart out, Perogrullo, Master of the Obvious!27
He turned to Del Solar and whispered in his ear:
– Just watch! The Neocriollo can’t be far away.
But Bernini was stepping back into the arena, his Anglo-Saxon side more alert than ever.
– That’s right, he said. Let’s talk about Man. Even there, all honour goes to the Pampa.
– Eh? interrogated Samuel. What honour are you talking about?
– Practically nothing, laughed Bernini. Just this: in the Tertiary era, when the whole world was still mired in the most terrible bestiality, the first humans appeared on our plains.
The peal of laughter that shook the philosopher of Villa Crespo echoed long across the landscape.
– It’s no joke! Berinini protested indignantly. It’s a proven fact, and by an Argentine, to boot!
– By an Argentine, unfortunately, declared Del Solar bitterly. If it had been some Frenchy or Kraut, this gentleman – he pointed at Tesler – would swallow it hook, line, and sinker. But, oh no, even prehistoric man has to be imported from Europe!
– I didn’t say anything! Samuel demurred.
– Nobody said anything about Europe, said Schultz.
– And if not in the pampa, Bernini bellowed, in what other Tertiary era have they discovered traces of homo sapiens?
– None at all, responded Schultz. The pampa’s not the place to look for them. You’ll find them at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
The adventurers’ stupefaction was limitless when they heard this novel idea. But the astrologer hastened to reassure them.
– Have any of you read Plato’s Critias?
– Schultz and his whoring books! groaned Franky. The poor guy’s got bats in his belfry!
Unfortunately, Adam Buenosayres, Luis Pereda, and Samuel Tesler had all read the Critias. And so the inevitable argument broke out, thanks to Schultz, who held that the sunken island of Atlantis was rightfully the true cradle of humanity.28 The legendary Altantians were a red-skinned race, he added. But Samuel Tesler, his voice dripping with irony, wanted to know the basis for such a rash conjecture. Schultz replied as follows: given that man’s creation was a work of divine charity, and red being the colour symbolic of charity, the first humans must necessarily have had red skin. When Samuel Tesler’s only comeback was a nasty, ill-omened little laugh, Bernini jumped, declaring the astrologer’s thesis deficient in scientific rigour. This in turn roused the ire of Adam Buenosayres, who countered that, fortunately, the thesis had plenty of poetic rigour. For Schultz at least, there could be no doubt about it: the descendants of Neptune and Cleito had achieved an amazing civilization in Atlantis and then scattered over the face of the earth, perhaps moved by their Neptunian instinct to sail the seas, or by their need for conquest, or in flight from the barbarous despotism of the last Atlantian kings, whose inquity earned the island the terrible punishment of the watery god. And it was equally evident for the adventurers of Saavedra that Schultz was spouting more balderdash than ever uttered by mortal on this sorry planet. As he went on talking, a zephyr of mockery began to stir amid the group, a breeze that stiffened into a wind when Schultz alleged that the Incan and Aztec civilizations were remote vestiges of another, far more ancient civilization, a colonial reflection of Mother Atlantis, which had once flourished in North America. But when the astrologer dared to maintain that our aboriginal peoples had descended from those northern cultures, or more precisely, that great hordes of them, in flight from servitude or war, had wandered south to the pampas where they descended into barbarism; when Schultz tried to pass that one off and once again make us out to be the backwater of the world; well, then the derisive wind swelled to a full-fledged gale, and the members of the audience expressed themselves by exuberantly heckling, stomping their feet, shouting obscenities, and blowing raspberries; these, courtesy of Franky Amundsen, whose excellence in that difficult art had won him many an admirer. But that beautiful celebration of the spirit didn’t last long; the party was spoiled when the pipsqueak Bernini, who never rested on his laurels, began to show new signs of agitation.
– The origins of our Native Americans! he snorted resentfully. We’d do better to think about their final destiny, or dedicate a moment of respectful reflec
tion to their memory.
– What bee have you got in your bonnet now? asked Franky Amundsen, the raspberry artist.
– Weren’t they the natural masters of the pampa? Bernini mourned. What right did the white man have to invade their land and exterminate them like savage beasts?
Franky hugged the pipsqueak and stamped his forehead with a reverential kiss.
– A heart of gold! he explained. The most exquisitely sensitive dwarf of them all!
– A bleeding heart, Schultz corrected. If he knew anything about history or metahistory, he wouldn’t lament that violent clash between two races – the one’s time had come, and the other had a mission.
– That’s pure militarism! cried Bernini.
– A Teutonic brute! said Franky. All these Krauts have heads shaped like mortar shells.
But the astrologer was not backing down.
– The world is renewed through the spear of Mars, he announced. It’s the spear that destroys in order to rebuild.
– No! No! protested voices in the dark.
– Yes! Yes! agreed others.
And then it happened that Bernini finally took leave of his Anglo-Saxon side and gave free rein to his Latin side: he began to weep inconsolably.
– Poor Indians! he sobbed. Exterminated down to the last one, right here on the very ground we’re standing on.
A vigorous drumroll, as of a hundred horses pounding toward them; a hundred throats howling in the night; a hundred unanimous cries of Winca! Killing! Winca! All this mixed together suddenly assaulted the alert ears of the heroes, and they turned on their heels, ready for flight. But they stayed right where they were, for the same din was coming at them from all directions, as if they were encircled by a threatening chorus: Winca! Killing! Winca!29 Still recovering from their initial surprise, they saw a figure on horseback come galloping full tilt toward them out of the night. Rider and mount both gave off a greenish, ghostly, otherworldly light. But it was the horseman, naked as Hercules, who really looked menacing; he was twisting and turning atop his mount like a gesticulating demon. Within five paces from the adventurers, he pulled up savagely on the reins, his horse digging all four hooves into the soil. Then, brandishing above the seven enemy heads a spear adorned with flamingo feathers, he howled: Bicú, picué, tubú, picá, linquén, tucá, bicooooo? Not one of the seven responded, so the Indian shouted again, perhaps translating his first question: “Cursèd wincas, by whose permission passing here?” And then he threatened: “Winca passing here, winca paying.” Then one of the heroes, obeying a sudden flash of insight, took the flat, shiny flask out of his pocket and showed it to the savage: “Winca tricking!” roared the rider, not bothering to hide his suspicion. “What being inside shiny gualicho?”30 Without a word, the anonymous hero uncorked the flask and passed its neck beneath the Indian’s nose. The latter was transfigured, almost ecstatic: “Peñí, brother!” he exclaimed. In view of his manifestly ardent desire to establish contact with the magic bottle, the astrologer Schultz asked him to tell his name first. The savage proudly introduced himself: “Me, Chief Paleocurá.”31 Ignoring the group’s astonishment, Chief Paleocurá hopped down from his mount, went to the hero with the bottle, took him in a bear hug and lifted him into the air, shouting for all he was worth: “Aaaaaah!” A hundred invisible phantasms, tapping their mouths with their hands, howled in chorus: “Ah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah!” The same ceremony was repeated with the rest of the expeditionaries. The greetings finally over, Paleocurá said with rustic diplomacy: “Giving shiny gualicho, then passing.” The bottle was surrendered by acclamation. Quickly, the chief raised it to his lips, then leaned back to stare at the stars for a good five minutes. “Yapay!” he shouted at last, handing the bottle back to its legitimate owner. “Yapay!” the latter responded, and took a swig every bit as astronomical. The Native chief exchanged the same toast with each and every one of the explorers. Then he returned the empty bottle, leapt onto his horse in a single bound, saluted with his spear, and trotted off. Presently, the drumbeat of a hundred invisible horses was swallowed by the night.
Adam Buenosayres: A Novel Page 23