Adam Buenosayres: A Novel

by Leopoldo Marechal

  So do his imagination’s monstrous offspring return now, one after another, filing past his shame-stricken conscience, tracing their ridiculous gestures, theatrical poses, damnable attitudes. Adam Buenosayres wants to be rid of them, but the monsters persist; he has the impression they’re circling him – laughing like demons, palming their howling mouths, winking malignant eyes – as they whirl in a carnivalesque round.

  – Enough! Enough! I’ve wasted my only real destiny by assuming a hundred invented shapes. Like a weaver of smoke. Or a motionless god, perhaps, one who never loses his serenity, never breaks his necessary unity, but develops ad intra his possibilities, as though dreaming . . . Analogy? No! Megalomania. Only a wordsmith!

  Angelic swords and demonic tridents clash noiselessly on Gurruchaga Street, fighting over the soul of Adam Buenosayres, wordsmith. For, according to the supreme economy, the soul of one man is worth more than the entire visible universe. But Adam does not know this, and it’s good that he doesn’t yet know. Phew! His nostrils sense the first emanations from La Universal tannery, looming now only a stone’s throw away, with its reeking walls and blind windows. Viscous and shiny under the rain, it looks like a malignant mushroom. Before facing the tannery, Adam stops at the corner, still hesitant. Usually, he holds his breath while making a dash for it across the danger zone. And this time?

  – Ulcer of the suburb: soulless capitalists and corrupt inspectors. The stench of carrion, night and day. Yes, just like the dead animals on the prairie. I’ve seen them rotting in the sun, a-boil with worms and a-buzz with flies, in broad daylight displaying the full gamut of sickly greens and purples of corrupted flesh. Even more revolting is the stench of human carrion. First time I smelled it was that day at the Maipú cemetery, when they exhumed the remains of Grandfather Sebastián. Corruptible flesh can’t stand the stink of its own disintegration. But the soul has no sense of smell. Venerable Antigone, fighting both crows and men for the corpse of her brother, fulfilling the funeral rites, at midnight, her soul all alone amid the dust and the stench that cries out the flesh’s defeat! Or Rose of Lima, drinking ulcerous humours so as to humiliate the rebellion of her already mortified body. Or Ramon Llull,14 who advised against fleeing the smell of latrines, in order to recall, time and again, the body’s miserable poverty, so frequently forgotten. And why shouldn’t I do that tonight? Absurd!

  But Adam has already set off for the tannery. Between shame and curiosity about himself, he deliberately walks slowy along the sidewalk, breathing in the gradually intensifying foul odours. Meanwhile, the invisible armies at war round about him are seized by a great anxiety. For the battle will take on a new rhythm now that Adam, unbeknownst to himself, has declared himself a belligerent. Now he is beside the tannery’s main gate; from beneath it slither black waters, slurpy viscosities. Pausing there, Adam rests his head against the wet iron and deeply inhales the emanations. A first wave of nausea shakes him from head to foot. Then, anguished, sweating, he vomits profusely against the gate. Still panting, swabbing tears and sweat with his handkerchief, Adam glances along the street:

  – Fortunately, not a single witness.

  He is not aware that a thousand eyes follow him closely, nor that the battle around him grows more intense, for the definitive moment is approaching. Adam does not know this, and it’s good that he is not yet aware. Curious about himself, smiling at his patently useless gesture, he leaves the gate and starts to walk again. His bodily upset has managed for a moment to silence those intimate voices that have been pursuing him all along the street. But no sooner has he put some distance between himself and the tannery than other voices rush in, murmuring or shouting in his soul, as though the street knew every last one of his regrets and brought them to mind, one by one, as precisely and inexorably as a judge. Over there is the zaguán with the girls (whispers, murmurs!), deserted now, dark and moist as a grotto.

  – Young bodies, yesterday, flattered by the light, rendered precious by the praise called out to them by my blood, from this very spot. The One-in-Blue, the One-in-Green, the One-in-Pink, the three of them dispersed in a thousand provocative moves – ah, unawares perhaps, or aware of it ever since the first Eve! Animal splendour appealing to the ears of the flesh, but beckoning with the spiritual voice of beauty. Yes, therein lies the error and the invisible trap! I fell for it a thousand times before understanding it. And then another thousand times, with the troubled conscience of one who knows he voluntarily participates in a shameful game. I have taken those womanly forms and transfigured them, perfumed them with incense, sung their praise; later to humiliate, destroy, and abandon them, according to the intensity of my thirst or my thirst’s disillusionment.

  Savouring the bitterness of these intimate reproaches, Adam Buenosayres struggles in anguish to keep them in the abstract terrain where they still resonate; he fears the images already reviving in his memory, images that come forward as vivid testimonies, stammering something still imprecise or gesticulating. But at last the images win out and charge ahead: they shout their names at him, the names of women; they undress with animal shamelessness, coldly exhibit their ways in love, mechanically howl their ecstasies, and parrot back to him the terrible words he once proferred them in his madness. And Adam Buenosayres, hemmed in, tries to fend them off, make them shut up, send them back to the shadowy realm whence they issued. But now new figures come forward, and Adam recognizes them with a shiver of terror. For they are not the impetuous creatures who once got burnt playing with fire but the women who, despoiled and offended, suffered violence and reaped pain. And now they show him their softly weeping faces, or gestures of rage, or mouths open to supplicate, insult, threaten!15 But, suddenly, one figure stands out from the rest – terrible Eumenides.16

  – No, not her! Adam begs, sputters, covered in cold sweat.

  For Eumenides nails him with her dried-out eyes and offers him a hand red with blood.

  – Not her! Adam repeats, then spins round as if to shake off the vengeful image.

  Then it seems to him that the whole street rises up against him, shouting from each of its doors, windows, and skylights: “Adam Buenosayres! It’s Adam Buenosayres!” And Adam flees now, crosses Gurruchaga Street, Eumenides hot on his heels, hooting incomprehensible words. Ruth, the reciter, shrieks from her tobacco shop: “Here she comes, Melpomene the tragic Muse!” And Polyphemus, at his station, raising a hand toward the statue of Christ up above, recites like an ironic demon, “Gaaaawd will rewaaard you!”

  The bell tower of San Bernardo rises in the night. The wrought-iron gate is closed, the atrium deserted; no other life than the palm trees dishevelled by the wind. There Adam Buenosayres stops, his breath agitated, heart pounding. Clinging to the grille, he looks around and listens: no one, nothing. The voices are quiet, the images have vanished. Then the dense cloud of his fears, anxieties, and regrets explodes in a wracking sob, smothering him, like the nausea at the tannery. Next, without letting go of the grille, he looks up at the Christ with the Broken Hand. And there he remains, staring and weeping gently:

  – Lord, in thee I confess to the Word which, through the sole act of naming them, created the heavens and the earth. Since childhood I have recognized you and admired your wondrous works. But I sought and followed you only on the perilous trails left by beauty. I lost my way and tarried on paths until I forgot they were only paths, and I but a traveller, and you the end of my voyage.

  Adam interrupts himself here, suddenly discouraged. It seems that his words, spoken within, do not soar but rather plummet like clay pigeons as soon as they try to take flight. Meanwhile, angelic swords and demonic tridents have suspended their conflict, for the hour has arrived when Adam Buenosaryes must fight on alone.

  – Lord, he says again in his soul, in thee I confess to the Word which, out of love for mankind, also took the form of man, assumed his infinite debt, and redeemed it in Calvary. I never found it hard to understand the prodigy of your human incarnation and the mysteries of your life and death.
But in sad pathways I wasted and offended the intelligence you gave me as a gift.

  With his eyes on the Christ of the Broken Hand, Adam becomes silent, waiting for an intelligible sign, the merest echo of his words, the shadow of a message. But he notes no sign whatsoever, only the starry cold that seems to rain down on his agony. Then there is a relaxing within, more painful even than tension. Adam does not know that a thousand invisible eyes weep for him on high, nor that the sword-bearers, all around him, have begun to exchange glances and smiles, as though from all eternity they possessed an inviolable secret. And Adam attempts to call out one last time:

  – Lord, I can’t go on any longer! I am weary unto death. I . . .17

  The bells in heaven have begun to ring, and they ring festively. Triumphant voices burst out in the nine choirs above. Because the soul of one man is worth more than all of visible creation, and because a soul is fighting well beside the grille of San Bernardo. But Adam Buenosayres does not hear them, and it is good that he doesn’t hear them yet. With his eyes on the Christ of the Broken Hand, he again waits for Someone to announce that he may have been heard. And again he is answered by silence pouring from the cosmos, the wind whistling in the palms, the murmur of the rain. Then his will breaks. His gaze descends, he turns on his heels, and stands there as if dumbfounded, in front of the streetlamp’s pool of light on the paving stones. A little black dog, whimpering, scuttles from here to there, sniffing, squatting on his hind legs at various spots, in the misery of a difficult bowel movement. And Adam Buenosayres, dead to himself, lets his still tearful eyes follow the twists and turns of that little drama.

  The black dog has gone off into the night. Adam crosses Warnes Street and heads down Monte Egmont. The crisis in his soul is succeeded now by a great inner silence, a muteness of memory, mind, and will. But what figure is that, lying asleep on the front step of his house?

  – A linyera,18 Adam answers himself. A poor tramp who has washed up in Buenos Aires and flopped down wherever nightfall finds him.

  Keys in hand, Adam considers the bundle of rags curled up at the door. But either the man wasn’t asleep or he has woken up, because now he gets to his feet and meekly waits, as if waiting were what he must invariably do. By the light of the corner street lamp, Adam contemplates his face, coppery beard, and eyes at once dismayed and happy.

  – What are you doing here? asks Adam.

  – Waiting.

  – For whom?

  The man of the night has smiled.

  – How do I know! For everyone.

  Opening the front door, Adam thinks about the extra mattress, the fuss Doña Francisca will make when she finds out, and Irma’s rancorous delight.

  – Come in, he tells the linyera, who gathers up his things.

  Wordlessly, the man of the night has obeyed. Adam helps him carry his scruffy bundles of baggage. Then, in full darkness, he goes upstairs to the inner door and switches on the light. But when he turns around, he finds the man has disappeared. He runs back downstairs, goes out on the street, peers in all directions. Nothing.

  – A poor linyera, repeats Adam Buenosayres. Of course, he prefers the freedom of the outdoors.

  He closes the street door and goes up to his room, leaving his light off, afraid that his intimate possessions will jump into sight and strip him of the absolute emptiness in which he now rests. He undresses in the dark and lays his aching body down on the creaky old bed. Sleep descends upon him like a great reward.

  Adam dreams he is marching with a legion of warriors, anachronistically armed warriors. In the midst of them, lashed by whips, stumbling, falling to his knees and getting up again, there walks a man bearing a cross. Strangely enough, in the flogged man Adam recognizes the linyera who was at his door. Now, however, there is blood in his coppery beard, and large grimy tears drip from his dismayed yet joyful eyes. The most curious thing about the dream is that both victim and persecutors are following the bank of river that could be the Olivos or Tigre, under a torrential sun that revels in the metallic gleam of the bees, in the vivid colours of the butterflies. A festive multitude goes there, unmoved when the procession passes by (do they not see it?), indifferent to the snap of the riding crop (do they not hear it?). Here, males and females dance to music blaring from a portable phonograph on the ground. There, paunchy men and women tend to their barbecues, open tins of food, and toss away greasy paper. The children, shrieking like beasts, try to knock down butterflies with a towel or beat skinny rental horses with sticks. Furtive couples, after a quick look around, sneak off into the reedbeds. Drunken old men trade thick-tongued insults, exchange slow punches, and finally collapse, vomiting copiously. Further off, brutal faces encircle a pit where game-cocks, spurs bloodied, fight to the death Adam looks again at the man with the cross, and in his dream is aghast at the blindness of the crowd. He wants to shout at them, but his throat is voiceless. Then he sees the warriors marching at his side, and terror invades him, for each and every one of those physiognomies seems symbolic. This yellow-tinted face, with blue pouches under the eyes, is the very semblance of Lust. That other one with the hooked nose, sharp chin, and beady eyes is called Greed. Over there are rheumy-eyed Sloth, clench-jawed Wrath, double-chinned Gluttony, and Envy gnawing at its thumbs. Adam’s hands grope at his own facial features and, weeping with horror, he discovers there the same odious traits, while the procession makes its way through the blind multitude and the flogged man falls down and gets up.

  A great stillness reigns in the room. The silence would be complete now but for the rain’s whisper and the bed creaking under Adam Buenosayres as he stirs in his sleep. Baleful presences recede: defeated, they flee reluctantly to the four corners of the chamber. Standing by the head of the bed, Someone has laid down his arms and, leaning on them, keeps eternal watch.19

  BOOK SIX

  (“The Blue-Bound Notebook”)1

  I

  My life, for the first ten years, offers nothing that merits the honour of the pen or the exercise of memory. At that age, the soul is like an empty goblet plunging deep into the inconstant river called reality (the name we first give to the earth’s deceitful colour), therein to glean, gather up, and devour visible creation, as though she existed for the sole purpose of such a barbarous harvest. It is a time when child, stone, tree, and ox go whirling hand in hand in the first dance, without distinction of colour or clash of frontier. But later, by virtue of her natural weight, the soul places herself at the centre of the wheel. From there, motionless and as if held in suspense, she sees that the other creatures go on spinning around her: the tree in the circle of the tree, the stone in the circle of the stone, the ox in the circle of the ox. And at that point the soul asks herself what circle among the circles might be hers, what dance among dances. And since she herself has no answer, nor receives any from others, she begins her journey of tribulation; for her doubt is great and her solitude waxes. My soul found herself in that conflict, and there she stayed until her true orientation was revealed in the figure of The One2 for whom I write these pages. And I want to declare myself with exactitude in relation to that state of soul, in the hope that my story, should it one day be published, may give consolation and support to those who follow the paths of Love. For of love is the flesh of my prose, and from love’s colour is its garment dyed.

  II

  More in sweetness than in sadness do I evoke the image of that creature who, with one foot still in childhood and his cares already at work on the loom of meditation, was wondering what could be his circle among circles, his dance among dances. My childhood universe was the prairie of Maipú, open from horizon to horizon, and the house built in the lowlands, where the ever-present water attracted an avian world whose myriad black, white, and pink wings cut the air and furled back the light at the slightest provocation – the sudden intrusion of a horseman making his way through the reeds, or the movement of an otter hunter setting his traps in the glade. Fresh in my memory are the days in Maipú and that melancholy hour of
nightfall when our house seemed as large as the universe: homey rooms, faces and voices, familiar objects, all were devoured by the incipient darkess, before the soft yellow lamps were lit. And if the infinitude of the countryside poured in through our open windows, a sky cruel in its immensity weighed too heavily on the house and made the roof creak at the hour when a long and delicious dread is born. Then it felt good to cry in a corner, but hidden away and in silence, so that no one would notice. Because more than once, when I was caught and questioned about my tears, I did not know what to say to those tall men and bounteous women who laughed and cried for concrete reasons only, and who would never understand how one can weep gratuitously, at nightfall, when the vocation to tears precedes the cause of tears in man. The men and women of my lineage cried or laughed without shame, full-faced, in the precise season of their grief or in the exact season of their joy. Well grounded in this reality, they exerted a rough and cheerful dominion over animals and things; they were secure in their circle of fiery horses, of spirited herds, of sown fields and flowers, which likewise responded to an exact season. And it was good, at times, to take refuge in the security of those valiant arms outstretched by the men, or in the warmth of those soft and fruitful breasts upon which the women would nestle a child’s small head, even though the child was crying for no reason, at nightfall, and neither women nor men understood, back there in Maipú, that one might cry for no reason at all when the vocation to tears comes before the cause of the tears!