Everything eventually arrived. The smell of steaming entrails rose from the rustic table up to Olympus and tickled the benevolent nostrils of the gods. The criollo wine, as well as the Sicilian, flowed in tandem, from bottle to glass and from glass to brain. For five minutes, there was the sound of busy sets of chompers, and the sight of greasy snouts gradually lighting up with satisfaction, especially the three faces of The Bohemians (greenish from nightlife), the payador Tissone’s visage (beatific and modest), and the features of Prince Charming, though he hadn’t relinquished his truculence and contempt.
At length there was a respite among the commensals. That was when Adam, his right hand holding his wineglass and his left a fistful of figs, addressed the payador in a friendly way.
– So you must be the famous payador Tissone? he asked.
The payador smiled, whether out of modest glory or glorious modesty, no one knew.
– Look, he replied. I don’t know about famous . . .
– Don’t put yourself down! Adam censured. Tell me, what can you sing?
– My gaucho repertoire.
– Hmm. Do you play guitar?
– What a question! said Tissone, gesturing toward his guitar case.
Samuel Tesler, who ever since a whack by a certain shoe was not shy about displaying his fondness for the popular muses, accosted the payador.
– I suppose, he said, that you know the art of the payada.
Tissone looked at him as if thinking to himself, “This guy’s wet behind the ears.” At last he answered, sly and cheerful at the same time:
– Guess what. It’s my specialty!
– That’s bad, grunted Adam Buenosayres. Bad news.
– How come? said Tissone.
Adam pointed at Franky Amundsen.
– Because, he replied showing his concern, that fellow you see over there is the noted payador Amundsen. The “Blond Bull of Saavedra,” they call him. The two of you might have a run-in.
– So what if we do? squawked Tissone, getting upset.
At this point Franky screwed up his face, stuck out his chest, and laid a cold look on Tissone.
– Don’t go gettin’ yer hackles up on me, he intoned in a tough-guy drawl. I just wanna warn ya upfront the kinda guy I am: if I come up short on the guee-tar, I’m real long on the knife. A word to the wise.
At those menacing words, the payador Tissone hung his head, the three Bohemians looked at one another in alarm, and a wave of uneasiness swept over the vast circle of the commensals.
– No fights, warned Ciro Rossini, turning his noble profile toward the surly profile of the payador Amundsen.
– No worry, drawled Franky. I don’t go around eating people raw.
– Me neither, the payador Tissone piped up in an access of courage.
The convivium was still under some strain, and Luis Pereda relieved it when he turned to the two payadores and invited them to lay aside their personal vanity for the sake of tradition, for their native art and for Argentina. Profoundly moved, the payador Amundsen held out a cordial hand to his antagonist, and when the payador Tissone shook it vigorously, a round of applause put paid to the incident. However, the banquet fully recovered its joy only when Ciro Rossini, teary-eyed, suggested a general toast to the advent of concord, to Ciro’s Gazebo, and to bel canto. No one refused to participate in a toast so ardently proposed, and wine once again moistened those magnificent throats. Then Luis Pereda, author and architect of the peace, observed the payador Tissone with ineffable tenderness.
– A real, honest-to-goodness criollo! he cried at last. Tissone, a name redolent of clover and prairie grass!
– No, no! protested Ciro. It’s Italian, a good Italian name.
The payador agreed good-naturedly.
– Yes, he admitted. My old man came from Italy.
– Impossible! thundered Pereda, riveting him with disconcerted eyes. And even if it were true, you were born on the pampa, you grew up soaked to the balls in tradition. You can’t deny it, Tissone old pard’!
– Look, rejoined a confused Tissone. I was born right here in Buenos Aires, in La Paternal, and I’ve lived my whole life in the barrio, may I drop dead if I lie!
– Aha! Adam Buenosayres reproached him. So you’re trying to tell us you don’t know how to mount a bucking bronco, or tether a horse to a post with the proper knot, or toss a lasso over a set of horns, or wrestle a young bull to the ground?
It was obvious from Tissone’s perturbation that he’d never practised any of those criollo disciplines. Luis Pereda could read the payador like an open book. He brought his fist down on the table and looked meaningfully around the whole table.
– Gentlemen! he exclaimed. What a great country is ours! What character! What strength in its tradition! This man, Italian by blood and native of La Paternal, never having left his neighbourhood, never having seen the pampa or its ways, one fine day picks up a guitar and becomes a payador! Gentlemen, that’s greatness!
– Truly monumental, affirmed Adam Buenosayres, completely serious.
Pereda’s enthusiasm was contagious, and soon the commensals were weaving the most intricate web of conversation. Everyone had praises to sing, an example to recount. The pipsqueak Bernini was attempting to initiate the trio of Bohemians into a certain doctrine concerning a mysterious Spirit of the Land. But they weren’t paying much attention, because at the same time Samuel Tesler was trying to tell them about his own case – that he was Semitic in origin (though from a priestly family), had been born in the fabulous Bessarabia, but that every time he looked in the mirror he saw in his physiognomy the doggon’d’st likeness to the mythical Santos Vega. For his part, Ciro Rossini, flattered by the attention the astrologer and Pereda were paying him, launched into a ferocious diatribe against those gringos who liked to badmouth so generous a country as ours. He illustrated his dissertation by chronicling his countless bellicose interventions against foul-mouthed gallegos on Lacroze streetcar platforms. But alas! There was one among the commensals who did not join in the general fervor, remaining instead entrenched in a silent sarcasm clearly manifested in the glint of his eye and the curl of his lip. Prince Charming was that man, and for a while now, Adam Buenosayres had been studying him with curiosity. Taking advantage of a pause in the conversation, Adam questioned him in a loud voice:
– And you, Prince. Do you, too, cultivate the national tradition?
Prince Charming didn’t try to disguise his displeasure at being the object of everyone’s attention.
– Look ’t, he burst out at last. The past is a joke. Means nothing to me, get it?
– Oh, him! murmured Ciro Rossini. A pain in the neck.
– What does he do? Adam asked seriously.
– Poetry, groaned Ciro. He recites it in the gazebo.
With furrowed brow, Prince Charming ran his fingers through his exuberant mane, signalling that he had more to say.
– The present is what interests me, he added. I’m a poet of the contemporary.
– In what genre? asked Samuel.
– Don’t talk nonsense! answered the Prince. My art is at the service of the masses.
– The numbskull! Franky whispered into Adam’s ear. Then Franky said for all to hear:
– I know his type. In Saavedra the ground is lousy with them. This gentleman is one of those types who go around upsetting everyone, using any silly excuse to clamour for their right to play the “lyre.” And when they get their paws on that anachronistic instrument, they claim they “pluck” it for the sake of punishing the tyrants. Good Lord! Where have they seen a tyrant nowadays?
Nevertheless, Adam, the researcher, gratified Prince Charming with a smile.
– Fine, he said. Could you give us a sample of your art?
– Hmm! grunted the Prince, almost flattered. Well, I’ve got my ten-liners, like “Night in July”; it came out in The Soul That Sings.6 I talk about a down-and-outer, freezing to death outside a luxurious mansion, while the bourgeois pigs are
inside squandering pots of money on an orgy.
– Bravo! exclaimed Adam. That’s talking truth, Prince, very accurate. But look, art doesn’t aim for the truth for its quality of being true but for its beauty.
– Allow me to disagree, the Prince shot back. I don’t go in for grammar and stuff like that. You’ve got to speak to the public in ordinary language, give ’em the straight goods.
Adam turned to Ciro Rossini and asked:
– Does the public put up with it?
– Corno! answered Ciro. The Prince just has to open his mouth and they all start chatting among themselves. Ecco!
– Bunch of bourgeois! grumbled the Prince, magnificent in his disdain.
– And yet, Pereda confronted Ciro, you have the Prince on contract here. There must be a reason.
– Cripes! Ciro admitted. When the Prince gets talking about hunger and privation, he depicts it with such verità that everybody in the audience gets ravenous. The grill can’t keep up with the demand.
Loud laughter from the commensals greeted Ciro’s explanation. He laughed too, somewhat surprised at his success. The laughter got even louder when Prince Charming, with an air of offended majesty, turned his back on the assembly and showed off his remarkable profile, whose two salient features were a chin receding between the dual wings of a floppy necktie, and a professional mop of long hair raining down over a grimy wing-collar. The trio of comedians hadn’t been left behind; their greenish faces beamed with malicious delight.
– Bah! Adam Buenosayres said, pointing his finger at the trio. I prefer the humorists, at least they’re serious people.
– Per Bacco! Ciro said in praise. They’re really worth their keep. You should hear the howlers they come out with. Do they ever make people laugh!
– Laughter! Prince Charming denounced bitterly. The laughter of clowns!
– Yikes! said one of The Bohemians. I think we’re on now!
– Do you sing or recite? Adam asked.
– Sing.
– What?
– Nonsense. Senseless gibberish.
– For example? insisted Adam.
It didn’t take much begging. Coordinating their timing with a mutual glance, The Bohemians barked out the following ditty:
The pampa has the ombú
and marrow bone has the stew.
Shake the Venetian blind
’cause here comes Clementine.
Five times eight is forty
birdy in bread that’s shorty.
Who shooed you off the branch?
You’re gone from the rosebush.7
– Lord thundering jeepers! bawled Franky on hearing that monstrosity. It’s a wonder they haven’t been shot yet!
– It’s pure Dada! exclaimed a delighted Pereda.
Adam Buenosayres had listened to the drivel with perfect sang-froid, and now he spoke:
– That isn’t nonsense. Bah! It’s too logical to be nonsense. Truth be told, chemically pure nonsense doesn’t exist. It’s impossible.
The three Bohemians gaped at him in utter surprise.
– Listen, insisted Adam. If I say, for example, The laxative jacket of melancholy tossed a sea-green guffaw in front of the luxuriously decorated navel, my sentence is invincibly logical, in spite of everything.
– No, no! protested a few voices.
Adam sent a glassfull of Latin wine down the hatch.
– Let’s consider, he expounded. Might I not metaphorically give melancholy the form of a jacket, since many others have given it the form of a veil or tulle or some sort of cloak? And since melancholy can work to purge the soul, what’s so strange about calling it a “laxative”? Moreover, using the trope of personification, I can easily assign to melancholy a human act such as a guffaw, which implies the laughter of melancholy is in fact its death, its swan song. And as for luxuriously decorated navels, a literal reading would be quite realistic.
Adam’s thesis was received in consternation by The Bohemians and by Tissone. Prince Charming’s disdain grew more acute. Ciro was labouring in arduous cogitations. Schultz endorsed it unconditionally, while Luis Pereda and Franky Amundsen had serious doubts.
– Hmm, said Franky, rummaging in his head. Let’s see. The exquisite anchorite stuck an adolescent button to the three-storied plain . . . No, too logical!
Then Luis Pereda tried his luck.
– The loud-pedalled sneeze is not unworthy of the soluble clothes-closet with the false teeth . . . Nope, that doesn’t do it either.
– Ergo, concluded Adam, nonsense is not of this world.
– Why not? Bernini inquired gravely.
– Try naming for me any two things that have nothing to do with each other, then juxtapose them through some link we know to be impossible in reality. First off, in the two names, the intellect perceives two real forms quite familiar to it. Then comes the astonishment of seeing them associated through a link they don’t have in the real world. But intelligence is not merely a second-hand store, chock-a-block with apprehended forms; it’s a laboratory that works on those forms, puts them into different relationships, and in a way frees them from the limits within which they live, restoring to them at least a shadow of the unity binding them in the Divine Intellect. That’s why our intelligence, after acknowledging the absurdity of such an arbitrary linkage on the literal level, will soon find some reason or correspondence on the allegorical, symbolic, moral, or anagogical level . . . 8
– Outrageous! griped Franky, covering his ears.
– Hence, Schultz explained, the only absolute nonsense is the belief that human intelligence is capable of absolute nonsense. Bah! Absolute nonsense belongs to the order of the angelic.
Franky Amundsen looked piteously at the payador Tissone, his rival lost in thought.
– Tissone, old pard’ he said. Them’s mighty deep waters for a Christian soul to navigate all by his lonesome.
– That’s right, that’s right, Tissone agreed, looking back at the payador Amundsen with the same sad expression.
But Adam Buenosayres was beaming with an inspiration that was irrepressible, even if fermented and bottled on Italic soil, and he was not about to let up. Again he spoke to the commensals:
– Just look, gentlemen. By formulating a thesis on nonsense, we’ve been led to poetics. Playing with forms, removing them from their natural limitations and giving them, by miraculous fiat, another destiny: that is poetry.
– Let’s have an example, demanded Franky.
– Per Bacco, Ciro supported him. An example!
Adam reflected for a moment.
– If you compare a bird with a zither, he said at last, the zither breaks with its natural limits and in a way begins to share the essence of the bird, and the bird the essence of the zither. Look: if it isn’t absolute nonsense, poetry gets close to nonsense.
– He’s trying to justify his ridiculous metaphors! shouted Franky.
The pipsqueak Bernini laughed, the trio laughed, the payador Tissone laughed. And all of a sudden Adam recalled similar laughter, in Saavedra, issuing from the mouths of fresh young girls, while Lucio Negri recited in a mocking voice:
And love, happier
than a child’s funeral.9
However, the painful memory didn’t last. In spite of the storm rising among the commensals, Adam insisted:
– The poet is forced to work with forms already given, and therefore he’s not an absolute creator. His true creation . . .
But his discourse was drowned out by the din of forks tapping on glasses, irate expostulations, laughter, and whistles. Franky Amundsen and the pipsqueak Bernini led the insurrection, and Adam angrily rebuked them.
– Listen to me, you animals! he shouted.
– No, no, the rebels chorused.
It was no use. Discord reigned within every breast. Adam saw how things stood. He picked up two bottles in one hand, the platter of figs in the other, and walked away from the table, shouting behind him:
– Come with me, t
hose who’ve got the right stuff!
Thus was produced a schism within that harmonious group. Luis Pereda, the astrologer Schultz, and Ciro Rossini all stood up and followed Adam Buenosayres to a round table ten paces away, beneath the yellow willow. Samuel Tesler, who in other circumstances would likely have gone with them, stayed put among the rebels, immersed – ay! – in a Bacchic ecstasy from which he wouldn’t emerge for the rest of the night. Franky Amundsen and his horde, for their part, closed ranks as the undisputed lords of the table.
The reader, in turn, will now have to choose between the two camps, either staying at the square table of the madmen or going to the round table of the wise. At the first table, harsh wine now flows again, and naked guitars abandon their cases. Now they shout for the payador Tissone; and strumming, he begins to sing:
On the bronco of love
I tried riding one day,
in the belief it would
only be skittish.10
At the round table – graced by the two bottles, the platter of figs, and the single glass they’d salvaged when they fled – are seated the astrologer Schultz, Adam Buenosayres, Luis Pereda, and Ciro Rossini. The astrologer has just filled the glass, first scattering a few drops in honour of Hermes the Initiate, and now he empties it at one slug. He refills the glass and ritually invites, from left to right, each and every one of his fellow banqueters to drink. The pious libation concluded, the dialogue begins under the willow tree, whose golden branches shiver in the night wind and brush the foreheads of the interlocutors.11
PEREDA
(He addresses the metaphysical bard of Villa Crespo, Adam Buenosayres, who appears to be deep in contemplation.)
Adam Buenosayres: A Novel Page 32