– So? asked Samuel, as soon as he saw Adam arrive.
Adam Buenosayres, still panting, went to the curb, peered into the secret depths of the street, pricked up his ears, and listened for a long moment. Canning Street was still completely deserted; along its whole length, not the slightest sound disturbed the silence of the night.
– Nobody, he answered. Not a soul.
– What about the others? Samuel asked again.
– They disappeared.
At this unpleasant news, the philosopher began to declaim in a stentorian voice:
What’s become of my comrades
from the Cerrito and Ayacucho?1
But Adam, shaking him by the shoulders, cut off his recitation of Bartolomé Mitre’s famous poem:
– Don’t raise a ruckus in the neighbourhood! he said. We’re going back to Monte Egmont Street.
– Hmm! Samuel grunted skeptically. I wonder what time it is.
– Four in the morning.
The philosopher tried to get up. After considerable tribulation, he at last got to his feet, took two or three uncertain steps, wobbled dangerously, and grabbed hold of an iron railing to keep from falling.
– What’s the matter now? Adam asked in incipient alarm.
Samuel chortled indulgently:
– The street’s spinning. It’s drunk, the poor thing!
– You’re drunk as a skunk, Adam upbraided him, not hiding his displeasure.
– Who? shot back Tesler, as though mortally offended. Me, drunk?
He wrenched himself free of Adam Buenosayres, who was trying to hold him up. Haughtily straightening up his torso, he said:
– Look at me now!
He began to walk rigidly, tripped again, ran into a tree and embraced its trunk, laughing like a lunatic. But then a terrible nausea shook him from head to foot, and the laughter froze on his lips.
– Listen up! he said. I’m going to launch a manifesto.
Adam ran to help and held his forehead covered in a cold sweat. Evidently, the philosopher’s wild dance in the vestibule, immediately followed by his mad dash, had agitated the spirits so liberally imbibed that night, which were now roiling chaotically inside him. Seeing how things stood, Adam mentally calculated how far he would have to drag that Silenus: two and a half blocks to Warnes Street; three long blocks from Warnes to Monte Egmont; and one more block to number 303. Not counting the stairway, which promised to be quite a challenge. Meanwhile, Samuel, for all his anguished heaves and sweats, couldn’t chuck it up.
– It’s no use, he admitted at last, straightening up and wiping his sticky forehead with a handkerchief. I’d need the ivory finger of the Romans.
Seeing that he was coming around, Adam took him by the waist, and together they set off at a stumbling sort of gait, a compendium, Adam reflected, of all the local movements described by Aristotle. Breathing with relish the night air whose freshness hinted at the coming dawn, the philosopher was obviously recovering the natural harmony of his physical constitution.
His soul, on the other hand, was growing perturbed and showing signs of a stormy contrition. Sighing deeply and heavily, Samuel Tesler cursed the hour when his own weakness and the influence of disastrous friendships had led him to such extreme craziness. In a single glance, he took in his present indignity and, putting his head on Adam Buenosayres’s shoulder, he wept a long while for his misspent youth. He turned finally to the silent friend standing by him in his grief and, breathing an effluvium of alchohol and stomach acids into his face, treated him to an incoherent monologue that ended in a somewhat laboured justification of his sin. After all, if one considered the matter dispassionately and from a philosophical point of view (and his friend Buenosayres, to whose indisputable equanimity he was appealing, was an expert judge in such intellectual niceties), what did his nocturnal drunkenness and his final sarabande mean? What else, he asked, if not a Dionysian move of liberation, demanded of him by his oppressed soul? Moreover, his race was very familiar with those exalted states of liberty, for the theme of bondage and escape resonated all too strongly in their history.
– And, he asked between two burps, isn’t my race a symbol of both terrestrial incarceration and ultimate liberation in life eternal?
In front of Baalzephon, at dawn’s early hour, the hard-hearted King, he of the vulture’s head, wept and grieved beside the Red Sea. By the sea that vomited up his bright and colourful cavalry, by the blood-coloured sea, wept the King. All those bronze chariots, all those upright horsemen, all those good horses with flashing skin and fiery nostrils! As one launches a stone from a catapult, he had thrown them after the fleeing slaves, like a rabid dart had he thrown them. That is why the King in his purple finery was weeping, the King of avian profile: for he saw the slave traversing the watery abode, and the slave went hand in hand with his God, and it was the terrible God who rolls up and unrolls the sea like a papyrus scroll. And the King had watched as horse and horseman, arms and chariot wheels, all foundered. That is why the King wept, in front of Baalzephon, hard by the blood-coloured sea. And on the other shore the slaves cried out their freedom: I shall sing unto the Lord – said the slaves by the beard of their prophet – I shall sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. And the prophet sang: The Lord shall reign for ever and ever.2 And the slaves repeated it in jubilation. But the prophet turned his eyes to the desert, and in that terrible solitude he sought for the way to the land of milk and honey.
– A theological race! Samuel proudly proclaimed.
– But terribly fallen, Adam objected.
The philosopher didn’t hear him. He was prevented by the rustic symphony of an early-morning cart with its squeaky wheels, the clop-clop of its little horse, its lamp mounted on the axle, its load of vegetables, its driver asleep at the reins.
– A just man! Samuel began to whimper, pointing at the sleeping man. Unbeknownst to himself, he fulfils the Pythagorean precept, arising before dawn . . .
– All right, all right, Adam interrupted him. More blubbering?
No, Samuel Tesler was not once more on the verge of tears. Something else was happening to him. Just as he’d recently gone from contrition to tears and from tears to metaphysical consolation, so too was his mutable heart slipping down the slope of a cloying tenderness. It had been prompted by the early-morning cart, which had put him in mind of Boaz,3 the sleeping man (back in the days when his race was bucolic!); by the sweetness of going home on the shores of the new day; and by the silent friend who walked with him, whose ineffable love story he alone knew and appreciated for its true worth. Hence, as both men walked along, Samuel tenderly squeezed the arm of Adam Buenosayres. Under cover of the silence enveloping them both, Samuel recalled the figure of a certain brat who was already good at putting on airs among the willowy women of Saavedra. And he said, in his soul, that only someone as naive as his friend Buenosayres could find in such a feeble creature the raw material of a Laura or a Beatrice. But his mental associations, moving until now in more or less calm neutrality, suddenly lurched toward displeasure and wrath when the image of Lucio Negri came to mind. He saw the quack doctor on the sky-blue divan, whispering into the ear of Solveig Amundsen, who listened to him with the air of an adolescent sphinx. A restrospective indignation pulled him up short:
– No! he blurted out and put a fraternal hand on Adam Buenosayres’s shoulder. If I were you, I’d put the boots to him.
– Who? asked Adam Buenosayres, completely in the dark, yet not at all surprised.
– He’s a damned beast! insisted Samuel. You should have seen him, strutting like a peacock in front of the brat.
– What brat? Adam asked again.
– Solveig.
“The sweet name profaned,” Adam said to himself. That was why gods and creatures concealed their true names: they jealously hid them from profanation and insult. And that’s why “the sweet name profaned” would never be read in his Blue-Bound Notebo
ok.
– Fine, he grumbled. What’s it to me?
Samuel Tesler gave him a good shake:
– Brother! he cried. Love has to be defended!
Having said which, he drew himself up to his full stature, as though a helmet, a shield, and a lance were just being bestowed upon him so that he might defend love. Abruptly, without so much as a “here goes,” he danced away from his friend in a series of ornate hops. Flapping his arms in mimed flight, he shouted out the Latin conjugation:
– Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant!
Hop by hop, he made it to the corner of Canning and Warnes. There, under a streetlight, the philosopher of Villa Crespo produced a wallet of uncertain shape, leather-type, and age, and stuffed with grimy bits of paper; out of the wallet he fished a dog-eared card and began to contemplate it with a great show of reverent devotion. He was still gazing at it when Adam Buenosayres caught up with him. With an effort, the philosopher pried himself out of his ecstatic delight and handed the card to his friend.
– That’s her! he murmured in a sigh that seemed to well up from the depths of his soul.
Adam glanced at the card: it was a snapshot of Haydée Amundsen. She was wearing the requisite bathing suit, showing off her natural endowments, and appeared determined – oh, yes! – to face the waves rolling in from a sea of adulation and already lapping at her feet. As he looked at the photo of Haydée Amundsen, Adam wondered what act of theft, guile, or imprudent generosity had deposited the photo in the philosopher’s wallet. When he turned again to Samuel, he saw him hugging a paradise tree and kissing it with great tenderness.
– Are you crazy? he asked.
– I love and am loved, explained Samuel devoutly.
And seeing the photo still in Adam’s hand, Samuel snatched it away, pressed it against his breast, and finally replaced it among the mysteries of his wallet.
– Have you spoken to her formally? Adam asked in a grave tone.
Samuel didn’t answer. He remained silent as the two of them crossed the intersection of the two arteries of Villa Crespo. Then they turned onto Warnes Street in the direction of Monte Egmont. Only then did the philosopher speak up; evidently, his soul had clouded over.
– Speak to her, sure, he grumbled. But what could I offer her? That’s the problem!
– Love doesn’t seek gain, said Adam sententiously. Or at least it shouldn’t.
– With her? Samuel laughed bitterly.
He took his friend by the arm.
– In the first place, began Samuel, you’ll admit that, physically, I’m no Adonis.
– No, indeed! Adam agreed fervently.
– I’m not a monster either! squawked Samuel, smarting at Adam’s enthusiastic corroboration.
– Who said you were?
– Fine. What I mean is, I don’t have the kind of movie-star good looks I’d need to conquer as frivolous a heart as Haydée Amundsen’s.
– Not exactly high praise for the girl, Adam pointed out to him.
– Hmm! Samuel said acridly. I wasn’t born yesterday; I know what the score is.
– On the other hand, Adam suggested, physical beauty isn’t everything.
– I was coming to that, said Samuel. Let’s admit that I’m somewhat intelligent.
– True.
– Very intelligent!
– Absolutely!
– What the heck! cried the philosopher. In this country of mulattos, a guy like me is a genius!
Far from contradicting him, Adam Buenosayres warned that such an obvious truth need not be broadcast at full volume in the street. And so the philosopher lowered his voice.
– Yes, yes, he said. So where was I?
– You were talking about your enormous intelligence.
– That’s right. But what good does it do me? Haydée Amundsen couldn’t care less about intellectual matters. As I have found out to my delight.
– What? laughed Adam.
– A splendid animal de luxe! exclaimed Samuel, grinding his teeth. Then he added with venomous pleasure:
– Intellectual women, like that crazy Ethel, make me laugh my head off. An intellectual woman is against nature. Like a seal on a bicycle, or a gorilla demonstrating how to square the circle.
Adam laughed again, and the philosopher joined in with gusto.
– Am I right? he shouted. Do I reason well?
– Like a perfect piss-tank, Adam answered.
– I’m not pissed! protested Samuel. Right here and now I’ll do “the four” so you can see.
Stopping where he was, he balanced on one leg and prepared to cross it with the calf of his other leg to form the probatory numeral “4.” But Adam Buenosayres gave him neither time nor space to complete the manoeuvre and yanked him along.
– I believe you, he assured him. Let’s get back on topic.
– What conclusions did we come to? asked Samuel.
– I can see only one conclusion. Haydée Amundsen is impervious to both your physical charms and amazing intelligence. Dunque, all that’s left for you is the consolation of philosophy, like your buddy Boethius.
The philosopher gave a sinister little chuckle:
– There’s another possibility.
– What is it?
– The great temptation!
His voice grew harsh, as though filtered through a clenched jaw.
– There’s another way, he said. Dazzle her with wealth. Suppose I wrap a necklace of the finest pearls around her goddess-like neck. And dangle sparkling diamonds before her eyes, and emeralds, and rubies.
– Faust, mused Adam Buenosayres.
– Yes, Samuel admitted. But he forgot about the furs, the big fool. Haven’t you ever seen how women surrender unconditionally when they’re at the furrier’s shop, looking at ermines, martens, foxes, astrakhans? Jewels and furs: two instruments of domination. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but most of the world’s great jewellers and furriers are men of my race. And then there’s the automobile! It’s incredible how cars fascinate females so. Put a gorilla at the wheel of a Rolls-Royce, and women will see the Apollo of Belvedere.
By the time he finished this quasi-monologue, the initial harshness in Samuel’s voice had become vitriolic, his tone seeming to translate all his turbid imaginings, ancient resentments, and flaming despair. Adam couldn’t see his face, but he sensed the eloquence of its diabolical grimaces and how it moulded itself according to the infamy of each of the words he uttered. When he came to the end, Samuel squeezed his friend’s arm till it hurt:
– It’s all true, he announced in a fury. But what’s still needed is gold. Gold!
– Let go of my arm! Adam ordered.
– Gold! Gold! shouted Samuel. It picks the lock of the world!
He laughed perversely and continued:
– And why not? My race knows well the secret of gold. We manufacture it, we adore it. And why not?
The scars of the whip were still bleeding on your skin, and the mud of the Nile was still fresh on your feet. The manna sent from heaven melted in your mouth, and in your throat was the freshness of the prodigious fount. And you were already forgetting, hard-hearted man! Already you had made burnt offerings to the golden beast, and kissed its hooves cast in the metal of your women’s earrings and bracelets! (But the Just Man struggled on the mountain; he held back the arm of his Lord that was about to fall upon your shaven head.)4 And later you were among your brothers in the house of Naphtali, and you went weaving your obscene dance around the golden calves wrought by Jeroboam. (But the Just Man looked up to the ever clear sky, and descended at dawn, heading for Jerusalem.)5 And still later you were seen on the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon, with your aquiline nose in the air and your ear attentive to the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, psaltery, dulcimer, and the entire musical ensemble. And when the signal sounded, you fell on your face, adoring the golden statue that Nebuchadnezzar had built. (But the three men sang in the fiery furnace: Fires of the Lord, praise the
Lord!).6 And later still you were the sordid alchemist, vainly working with mercury, sulphur, and salt. (But Abraham the Jew made authentic gold, and saw in his athanor the fulfilment of the great work: the Green Lion and Lion’s Blood.)7 And nowadays you can be seen working to transmute blood and sweat into gold. And fulfilling the liturgy of gold, and enjoying the beatitudes of gold, and suffering the martyrdom of gold. (But announced is Philadelphia, city of brothers.)8
– That is the great temptation, concluded Tesler. To accumulate that yellow stuff!
– I don’t see how, Adam rejoined. Unless you sell your soul to the devil. And what devil would buy it from you?
The philosopher laughed disdainfully.
– Black magic, he said. Bah! It used to work when man knew himself to be the proprietor of a soul. But now we live in the time of the body.
– So what would be your plan? asked Adam.
– He who rules over bodies will rule over gold, Tesler responded prophetically.
– You’re wandering off topic.
– No, I’m not. I’m short three courses to fulfil my degree in Medicine. Only three! I take the three courses, and I become Doctor Samuel Tesler, clinician and surgeon.
– What’s the connection?
– It’s another key to gold.
Samuel took on an air of cold calculation.
– To be a doctor now, he said, means being able to rule over bodies in the age of the body.
And he added, with glacial brutality:
– The bourgeois slobs who amass gold will be parted from it by only two powers: those who defend it for them, and those who keep their viscera in good working order. That’s why we live in the era of lawyers and doctors.
He laughed cruelly:
– Let’s imagine a financial idol, inaccessible, all-powerful, revered, feared. Along comes Doctor Samuel Tesler, and the idol falls apart. Doctor Tesler makes the idol strip naked, prods and pinches him, sticks a cannula up his anal orifice or a catheter up his urethra, keeps him nervous about the state of putrefaction of his vital organs, plays on his hopes and fears, regulates how much he eats, sleeps, and fornicates. Thus does Doctor Tesler elegantly take control of the broken idol. Is it worth taking the three exams?
Adam Buenosayres: A Novel Page 37