BOOK SEVEN
(Journey to the Dark City of Cacodelphia)
I
On Saturday April 30, 192–, in the lowlands of Saavedra, at midnight, the astrologer Schultz and I set out on the memorable journey I now propose to recount. Our itinerary was to include, according to the astrologer’s nomenclature, a descent into Cacodelphia, city of torment, and an ascent to Calidelphia, city of glory.1 Needless to say, the mere announcement of that journey had plunged me into doubt, hesitation, and not a few reservations, aware as I was that for some time Schultz had been pondering a trip to hell in order to explore its sinister realms, a descent undertaken by precious few heroes even in antiquity, and by not a one, as far as I know, in the vulgar, prosaic age we live in now. Just a couple of hours earlier, I recall, we were sitting in Schultz’s studio, where I was still grumbling and making last-ditch objections. The astrologer listened in silence, moving with absolute calm amid handwritten manuscripts and volumes lying open, celestial spheres and zodiacs, astrological tables, and other paraphernalia that stuffed his studio.
– Let’s suppose for a moment the two mythological cities might actually exist, I joked. Even if we were crazy enough to follow in the footsteps of Ulysses, Aeneas,2 Alighieri, and other infernal tourists, what merit do we have that would make us worthy of such an adventure?
– I have the merit of my science, and you the merit of your penitence, Schultz answered with much gravity.
I fell silent in surprise and confusion for, although I didn’t exactly know what Schultz’s science entailed, I was well aware of the lugubrious state I’d been floundering in for some time, its chief symptom an indefinable aridity, and I thought I’d kept this a jealously guarded secret. Recovering from my astonishment, I turned to Schultz with a question on my lips; but at that instant the astrologer was examining a ball of twine held between his fingers.
– What do you reckon is the diameter of an ombú? he asked doubtfully.
– Listen, I answered laughing, what the heck have ombú trees got to do with anything?
– You’ll find out, he said. I’m talking about the one we discovered the other night in the outback of Saavedra.
Then, recalling the scene with the magus and the ombú and the bonfire burning amongst the tree’s black spurs, I mentally assessed the thickness of its trunk.
– Five feet or so, I said at last. Maybe a bit more.
Schultz nodded. Scratching with a pencil, he figured out how long a circumference would correspond to that diameter. Then, unravelling a portion of twine, he measured out a length equal to the circumference he’d calculated, marked the spot with a knot, added to the measured-out length three units from who knows what bizarre metrical system, cut it off with his famous black-handled penknife, and finally put both knife and string in his pocket, all with the air of someone performing a liturgical ceremony. The job finished, he let himself fall back into an antediluvian armchair.
– I’m going to set you straight on two points, he announced, as if during his manoeuvres with the string he’d been considering my final arguments. First of all, we won’t be undertaking a voyage to Tartarus, as metaphysicians understand the term. Pshaw! That would be too ambitious, at least for you.
– Thanks! I interrupted, feeling a prick of resentment.
– Which means, Schultz concluded, that if you imagine you’re going to play a pathetic, dime-store Orpheus at my expense, you’d best renounce that illusion right now.
I couldn’t help laughing out loud.
– Gladly! I answered. So, what’s the second point?
In his antediluvian armchair, with legs crossed and arms hanging loose, the astrologer was the very image of indolence.
– Cacodelphia and Calidelphia, he said, are not mythological cities. They really exist.
– Sure, I grumbled, just like your blessèd broody angels.
– What’s more, insisted Schultz, the two cities conjoined form a single city. Or better yet, they are two aspects of the same city. And that Urb, visible only to the eyes of the intellect, is the counterfigure of the visible Buenos Aires.3 Is that clear?
– Clear as mud.
I report our colloquium in so much detail, giblets and all, so readers may get an exact impression of the spirit in which Schultz and I tackled that singular adventure; and above all, because such a frivolous beginning was to contrast seriously with the extraordinary nature of the episodes to follow. But before recounting them, I should perhaps sketch a profile of the astrologer Schultz, the journey’s instigator and guide.
Standing nearly six-foot-six, the astrologer had a long, skinny body, a wide brow, and silvery hair. His severe face was afflicted with a sort of earthy pallor, approaching the colour of tubers, and was animated by the light of grey eyes whose gaze would suddenly fall upon you like a fistful of ashes. It was just about as impossible to calculate his age as to square the circle, for while some thought he was fast approaching the third childhood, others didn’t hesitate to give him all the years of Methuselah; and still others, refraining from laborious speculation, credited him with the simple, straightforward immortality of the crab. One thing I can say is that Schultz sometimes showed traces of an infinite decrepitude, no doubt the result of certain astral oppositions. At other moments, under more favourable signs, he was capable of fits of mad glee, and he would dance the entire night away at the Tabarís Cabaret;4 or he would hang out in neighbourhood general stores, singing lewd songs that even the prudent tough-guys from Villa Ortúzar couldn’t hear without blushing. And here I must put special emphasis on his moral nature, equally contradictory: it was true that the general orientation of his conduct lent him a certain ascetic tone with regard to the vulgar appetites (many people swore, for example, that Schultz’s sole nourishment was the nectar of flowers, and that his relations with women bordered on the ineffable, consisting in an exchange of more or less vagarious fluids). But it was no less certain that Gildo’s Grill (corner of Rivadavia and Azcuénaga) had more than once witnessed him voluptuously attack a heap of steaming entrails, cow’s kidneys, and bull’s testicles, and that he was wont to fall into ecstatic perorations before certain feminine thighs, whose perfection he attributed to Jupiter’s classical munificence. As for the astrologer’s wisdom, popular opinion was equally divided. Some imagined he was at the ultimate stage of Vedic initiation. Others thought he must be afloat in the sublime realms of theosophical fiddle-faddle. And then there were those who, too suspicious by half, revered him as the most doleful humourist ever to have drawn breath by the shores of the River Plate.
II
It was with this strange Virgil5 that I hit the road for Saavedra one more time, on the aforementioned day and year, not long before midnight. By his allusions to the ombú I understood what place the astrologer had in mind, and I was afraid we’d have to cross for a second time the rugged region we had braved forty-eight hours earlier. But Schultz, always foresighted, took me on a long detour around that solitary plain, so that our second incursion began at the exact spot where the first had ended.
It was one of those nights in the Province of Buenos Aires when the calm, humid air creates a dense and static atmosphere, like a womb pulsing with the seeds of future upheavals. The sky was as motionless as the earth below: the high, slate-dark cloud cover was gashed by the horn of a mangy moon on the wane. Beneath the uncertain light bleeding down from above, Schultz and I crossed the first uneven stretch of fallow land, both of us wordless and panting, our eyes peeled. As we made headway, my initially blasé attitude gave way to interest and excitement, perhaps because of my penchant for things supernatural, which, though with me since childhood, had been flaring up of late; or, who knows, it may have been the magic of the terrain we were penetrating, where space and time apparently took on other dimensions.
In any case, when a slope in the plateau took us down to the very foot of the ombú, I had the strange notion that we’d walked an infinite distance over terra incognita. I recall that, sitting d
own at once on one of the ombú roots, I wanted to linger over my inner impressions and savour the calm silence, so wondrously suggestive at that hour, in that place. But Schultz snapped me out of my introspection:
– We haven’t come here to mooch around! he muttered between his teeth.
Then he took out his famous string, tied one end to the ombú’s trunk and the other end to his venerable penknife. Pulling the string taut, he used it as a radial spoke to trace out a large circle on the ground around the ombú.
Next he marked three points in the circle, which no doubt corresponded to the three vertices of an equilateral triangle. I watched him perform these operations, I must admit, without yet understanding their object.
– Light, the astrologer ordered. Your cigarette lighter.
I took it out of my pocket and lit it. Everything became clear to me when I saw Schultz make a ritual bow over each point of the triangle, his penknife scoring the ground with the dread names of Tetragrammaton, Eloha, and Elohim.
– Cripes! I exclaimed. This is a magic circle!
– Shhh! the astrologer silenced me. Bring the light closer.
I obeyed mechanically, and then saw him incribe the names Santos Vega, Juan Sin Ropa, and Martín Fierro in among the others.
– Strange confluence of names, I murmured.
– Yes, Schultz admitted, but the person we’re going to invoke requires it.
– Who is it?
Without answering, the astrologer made me enter the circle and put out my lighter. Next I heard him articulate the following spell:
Lagoz atha cabyolas
Harrahya
Samahac ori famyolas
Karrehya.6
– Are you speaking Basque? I asked innocently. My grandparents are Basque, and I wouldn’t want . . .
– Silence, you fool! he hissed. To hell with your grandparents!
Raising his voice, he declaimed into the vastness of the night:
– I conjure you, Doña Logistilla,7 in the name of the living God, El, Ehome, Etrha, Eel Aser, Ejech Adonai Iah Tetragrammaton Saday Agios Other Agla Ischiros Athanatos, amen!8 I conjure you to appear before me in pleasant form, without noise or evil odour, and to answer and obey me!
The spell recited, Schultz and I listened, though without hearing a damned thing. But then, all at once, a gust of wind hit the ombú, whistling through each and every one of its branches. A moment later, we heard a furious pack of dogs bearing down on us.
– That’s enough now! someone shouted in the night. Git outta there, Cinnamon! Back, Fang! Gi’down, Pastor!
A frenzied, ear-splitting mob, the dogs rushed right up to the circle. But there, they stopped short and backed off, their fur standing on end, copiously pissing themselves and howling as if they’d been soundly whipped. Behind them shuffled a sharp-boned old woman wrapped in a shawl, her eyes a little too bright. As she drew near the circle, we recognized the same Doña Tecla we’d met at the Robles wake. According to nasty gossip, Doña Tecla was a frequenter of caves and covens, famous for casting evil spells, and without rival in the arts of the go-between, as handy at repairing what has been torn as at tearing what is whole.9
– Howdy, boys! she greeted us with politic courtesy.
– Hey, Doña! Schultz snapped at her. How about shutting up that pack of dogs!
Gathering the dogs around her, Doña Tecla pulled up her skirts and underskirts and let fly the loudest fart I’ve ever heard in this world.
– Go fetch! she shouted at the dogs. Go fetch, Pastor! Go gid’t, Fang!
The dogs sniffed the air and tore off at full speed, barking like crazy in the night. Then Doña Tecla, rubbing her hands as though warming them over an invisible stove, turned to Schultz and muttered:
– “Nice fire,” the old hag said as ’er shack burned down.
– Yes, replied the astrologer. But it’s no bad year when the crone drops a pup.
– In proverbs a bluffer, still a duffer! snarled the witch, not hiding her chagrin.
She stroked her bony chin, raised her mummified index finger, and said:
– Its beak’s a pecker, its arse a schlepper.
– The sewing needle! Schultz answered without missing a beat.
– Okay. But just remember that in mules we find two legs behind, and two legs before. We stand behind before we find what those behind be for.
– For my part, rejoined Schultz, I’m not the fig plucker nor the fig plucker’s son, but I’ll pluck your figs till the fig plucker comes. And I ain’t the pheasant plucker nor the pheasant plucker’s mate; I’m only pluckin’ pheasants ’cause the pheasant plucker’s late.10
I listened in astonishment to that display of folkloric jousting. And at this point it looked to me like the old woman was fixing to get mad. Dancing a couple of steps from a cueca, she stomped her feet hard, planted herself in front of the astrologer, and let him have it with the following ditty:
From my neck o’ the woods I come over,
My shawl dragged o’er the bog,
Just to come and see your
Face of a drooling dog.11
But Schultz, no doubt playing with a stacked hand, in turn stomped his feet within the circle, then stepped up to the old woman, and answered like this:
From my neck o’ the woods I come over,
My shawl not catchin’ no snag,
Just to come and see you,
Horsey-faced old nag.12
And here it was really something to see how Doña Tecla wrung her hands, sweating in anxiety:
– What’s the cure for rheumatiz? she asked, clinging to the last shreds of her wisdom.
– Buck-armadillo grease, prescribed the astrologer.
– To make a man go blind?
– Take a black snake and sew its eyes shut with red thread.
– You win, Mandinga!13 exclaimed Doña Tecla in unconditional surrender. Here I am, at yer service. What kin I do ya for?
The astrologer Schultz regarded her with an air of supreme dignity:
– We withcome, he announced, to inframbulate in the cacosites and suprambulate in the calirealms. And I order you to tell me where the holiportal opens.14
– Hey, now! grumbled the witch. Coltskin boots ain’t for everybody.
– But I am the Neogogue, revealed Schultz.
– Mercy, me! exclaimed Doña Tecla, crossing herself.
Without another word she entered the circle and went up to the ombú. But before showing us the opening of the passage in a cleft in the trunk, she raised her arms heavenward and cried out:
– Them Pollygogs are gonna pyro-shit theirselves now!15
Then, as I recall, Schultz and I slipped through the cleft of the ombú into a tunnel that sloped downward, impelling us on a wild, vertiginous descent. Suddenly the ground disappeared under our feet: something like a very strong whirlwind literally sucked us toward the depths. Then I lost consciousness, not in a faint, but rather as though falling asleep.16 And here the reader who, like me, has been tagging along on this adventure, must pause a moment and think whether you hadn’t better flee the ombú and go back to the visible Buenos Aires, still nearby; or whether you trust enough in your courage to descend with us into the intelligible Buenos Aires. Because once you cross the threshold of the cleft and plunge down the vertiginous tunnel, there will be no turning back: you will find yourself in the suburbs of Cacodelphia.
III
Upon regaining consciousness, we found ourselves in a region whose nature I couldn’t make out at first. Something like a dense fog surrounded and squeezed us, closing down our horizons almost at the tips of our noses. I’m saying, not fog, but “something like a fog” because its terrible dryness burned our throats, eyes, and nasal passages, as if an atmosphere of suspended volcanic ash were pressing down upon us. The ground was similarly arid. We stepped gingerly, and it crunched beneath our heels like saline crystals or calcified detritus. A vague murmur, as of the sea or multitudes, filled the area, rising and falling rhythmi
cally like the tide.
– Let’s wait here for the fog to settle, Schultz said in a calm voice. We need to get to the jetty, and we don’t want to get lost in this suburb like a pair of fools.
– Suburb? I protested. This place looks like a cross between Lapland and the Sahara, or I don’t know a thing about geography.
– As soon as the fog dissipates, Schultz assured me, you’ll see how terribly populated this suburb is. Meanwhile, just to avoid any possible confusion, I’ll sketch out the basic outline of Cacodelphia’s architectural plan and tell you how I came to construct the city.
His professorial tone was decidedly absurd in such a time and place. But I listened to him with that amazing matter-of-factness we assume in dreams, impassively accepting the most extravagant oneiric creations.
– When I decided to give a visible image to the intelligible Cacodelphia, the astrologer began, my first concern was to avoid crass imitations. Wary, then, of building a garden-variety Inferno, I conceived the form of the inverted-empty-cone, which I called Divicone, within which the Cacodephians would be placed as though inside a gigantic glass, according to the greater or lesser burden of their souls. The densest among them would inhabit the bottom, as montrous figures laboriously swimming through a kind of putri-slime, which they would be eternally swallowing and vomiting. The middle-weights, provided with flotational bladders and scales, would occupy the glass’s central zone, nimbly swimming in water varying from murky to transparent. The lightest ones, the lofty-souled, would be assigned to the upper part of the Divicone; there, thanks to their semi-aerial condition, they would tend to rise like iridescent bubbles and spill over the edge of the glass in search of the regions of holy fire.
Adam Buenosayres: A Novel Page 49