– Señor Lombardi!
But when he heard me, the man gave a start and took off running toward the building.
– He’s the boss of the sawmill, I told Schultz.
– Ah! he rejoined. Is he not the gentleman who used to pass by the San Bernardo church? The one who would raise his hat and pretend to scratch his neck so as not to let on he was saluting?
– The very one.
Without another word, the astrologer and I took off after the fugitive, giving chase until we caught up to him just as he was entering the engine room. Then, giving up flight, Lombardi turned a panic-stricken face toward us:
– Shhh! he ordered us. They’re over there! They’re planning to blow up the sawmill.
– Who? Schultz asked him.
– The one-armed man and the stoker! shouted Lombardi. The boiler is about to explode, and they keep on shovelling and pouring the coal into her! Just look at the needle on the pressure gauge! The motor’s screeching and the gears are grinding! They want to blow up the sawmill! The one-armed man is the ringleader!
I looked around and noted the same state of abandon and the same cold silence as out in the yard. The motor was literally dissolving, eaten by rust. Old cobwebs covered the regulator, the flywheel, and the arm of the piston. Lacking both glass and needle, the pressure gauge eloquently summed up the state of disrepair. But Lombardi continued to shout his alarm. All of a sudden, as though expecting an explosion, he covered his ears with his hands and started running again. We pursued him through dismantled workshops until he reached his dusty desk and plopped down on a chair.
– What do you want now? he muttered, finding himself hemmed in between his filing cabinet and his cashbox.
I turned to Schultz:
– It’s Don Francisco Lombardi, honour and decorum of industrial Villa Crespo.
– Ah! commented Schultz. Isn’t he the gentlemen who used to confess every Saturday, took communion every Sunday, and went back to the sawmill every Monday greedier than ever?
Lombardi reminded him acidly:
– Don’t forget that every Sunday at Mass I threw three pesos into the collection bag.
But he quickly recovered his attitude of alarm and, looking around uneasily, asked us:
– The one-armed man hasn’t followed you, has he?
– Look, I assured him, there isn’t a soul in the whole sawmill. Who is the one-armed man?
– A vengeful type! whimpered Lombardi. His arm got cut off on my circular saw, and he demanded the insurance he was entitled to. I denied it, declaring before the authorities that the man had got himself mutilated because he was notoriously drunk at the time.
Lombardi was suddenly silent, no doubt having seen the expression on our faces.
– Oh! he exclaimed a moment later, don’t look at me like that! I know very well nine hundred pesos wasn’t a lot to pay for a man’s arm! Now I’d give him the whole sawmill. I’ve offered it to him countless times. But the one-armed man won’t accept!
He was silent again for a moment and then voiced his worries:
– Tell me, he asked in a shaky voice. Are you sure the old man hasn’t slipped in behind you?
– What old man? I inquired.
– The stoker. I threw him out of the sawmill when he could no longer lift a shovel. Forty-six years at the boiler had consumed his eyes, dried out his body, and had his nostrils constantly dripping yellow mucous into his mustache. But can he ever handle a shovel now! He’s the right-hand man of old One-Arm! You look at me again with hard eyes? Listen, you’re in for a big disappointment if you think I’m a bourgeois scared out of his wits. It isn’t the catastrophe itself that’s wrecking my nerves. It’s the way they’ve got me worrying and waiting for an explosion they just won’t stop crowing about! And I’ll tell you something else: what’s really giving me sleepless nights is a disturbing idea . . . hmm!
He stopped talking for a moment and looked at us with perplexed eyes. So I ventured to suggest:
– It can’t be easy to put into words.
– It’s an not an idea easy to grasp! Lombardi rejoined aggressively. Never mind, just listen: up in the rafters of the sawmill, I have a hiding place the stoker and the one-armed man don’t know about. There, where my only company is a grey mouse and two resident spiders, I’ve been able to have a good long think. And I’ve come to the conclusion there is such a thing as immanent justice.
– Good! Schultz interrupted, as though encouraging him.
But Lombardi looked at him with severity.
– Your approval means nothing to me, he said. Are you surprised to hear me talk like this? I went to school, too. Or do you take me for an ass loaded with money? Hmm! Anyway, I haven’t said anything special yet. Now comes the hard part. I already mentioned a troublesome idea that’s been keeping me awake nights, ever since I started thinking, up in the rafters, about what I did to the one-armed man, the stoker, and all those people now rising up against me. Oh, don’t think I’m talking about ordinary claims, like eight-hour days or minimum wages. Trifles! At bottom, do you know what I did to those poor devils? I robbed them of their human time! Do you understand?
He fixed us with an inquistive gaze and shook his head, visibly skeptical:
– You don’t get it at all! he groused. When I say I robbed them of their human time, I mean their time for singing, laughing, contemplating, and knowing. And that’s where the great theological mischief comes into play! Because by robbing them of all that, I’ve robbed them perhaps of that special moment, the unique opportunity even the lowliest man has a right to: the chance to look in peace and quiet at a flower or a skyscape, hear without anxiety his children laugh and his wife sing, and so discover that life is hard but beautiful, God-given by a good God . . .
At these last words, the solitary of the sawmill let his brow fall to the table. He wept face down for a moment; then his sobs faded into absolute silence; and the silence was at last broken again by laboured snores in 2/4 time. Lombardi was now sleeping.
Schultz and I crept away from the desk on tiptoe, went out to the sawmill yard, and contemplated again the desolation there. Then we continued on our journey, still beneath the aureate luminosity, which by then seemed less like light and more like the incandescent ash of dead and cremated gold. We had to pass through more factories, foundries, spinning mills, and washing plants. Among their ruins wandered frantic men who hid when they spied us, as well as meek figures lost in thought who paid us no attention. By and by, we came to a kind of hill covered with the unfinished buildings of an urban housing development under construction. There were scaffoldings and heavy machinery; bricks and bags of cement were stacked here and there. And yet we didn’t see any architects or building contractors or construction workers, and it all gave me the impression of things stillborn. The first building was a mere skeleton of reinforced concrete: an enormous cage, an outline of ten floors and twenty apartments.
– In this cement cage, Schultz told me, lives quite a nasty old bird from Saavedra. I’m surprised he hasn’t sung yet.
He looked up at the top of the building, and I did likewise. Just then, we heard commands being shouted up there, the rebukes and threats of an angry man. Then we saw him come tearing down the concrete stairway linking the various storeys. At each floor he paused to bawl insults at invisible workers, his voice ragged and shrill, his fist raised. When he got to the ground floor, he rushed up to us, pouring sweat, and asked:
– Are you the new architects?
He was a big man who looked like a cross between a greyhound and a walrus, sour-faced, his skin tone excremental. His clothes were incredibly slovenly, and he stank like a porter at the spring equinox, house-moving day.
Adopting a ceremonious demeanour, the astrologer turned to me:
– Allow me to introduce to you Don Abel Sánchez de Aja Berija y Baraja, man of means, pioneer, self-taught man, and other boastful titles in the same vein, which he is wont to recite at bars, should someone stand hi
m a drink (otherwise, he does not indulge).61
– Drop the Berija y Baraja bit! shouted Don Abel, surprised and indignant.
– This man, continued Schultz, displays a lyrical virtue rare in our time. He has been devoting himself to the difficult mission of providing chambers for his fellow citizens. To that noble end, he has erected in Buenos Aires thirty apartment buildings, with twenty suites apiece, wherein his fellow citizens may enjoy a veritably paradisal existence, if only they pay an exorbitant rent. The dawn of his vocation, though obscure, is nonetheless honourable, for it stems from Don Abel Sánchez’s past practice in the traditional conventillos where – as recorded in the archives of the Justice of the Peace – he performed a great many altruistic deeds, such as throwing out orphans, widows, and the destitute who fell behind in their ludicrous monthly rent.
Don Abel stomped one foot on the ground:
– Enough of the irony, already, he grumbled. I am a man who . . .
But Schultz ignored him:
– It should be acknowledged, he added, that the twentieth-century winds of change did not catch him unawares. No sooner had he breathed in the novisecular breeze than he demolished his tenements and set about speculating in cement.
– Enough chit-chat! Don Abel interrupted again. I demand that you tell me whether you two are the new architects or not.
– What if we are? Schultz responded.
– Then, he shouted, why are you standing there like a couple of oafs? This building needs to be finished right now. I’ve already kicked nine architects off this job.
– Why? I intervened.
Don Abel’s sour face flushed with fresh anger:
– They wanted to put only twenty apartments in ten storeys! he exclaimed. I told them forty. Thank God, we can still put things right: the plans have to be corrected.
– Listen, Schultz rejoined. Do you want to put up a building fit for men or for rats? Have you forgotten the human body, too, has its dignity?
– I was educated by priests, Don Abel hypocritically refuted. And they taught me to humiliate the body.
– The human body! Schultz went on. The residence of the immortal spirit! The dwelling, albeit transient, of divine Psyche!
Don Abel inflated his thorax, and I saw something stir in his eyes, a fanatical gleam that gave me a glimpse of the true physiognomy of his demon.
– Did I say otherwise? he retorted heatedly. In all my apartment buildings, didn’t I sacrifice the bedrooms, the dining room, the living room, and the office so as give more space and luxury to that temple of bodily dignity known as the Bathroom? Haven’t I seen half the city fall into ecstacy at the sight of my built-in bathtubs, my aerodynamic bidets, my fashionable toilets? Did I not have full-size mirrors placed in front of my bathtubs so my tenants could admire every last detail of their intimate operations?
– Yeah, sure, Schultz admitted. And I hope the city shows its gratitude and honours you with an equestrian statue: Don Abel Sánchez de Aja Berija y Baraja mounted on a gigantic bidet cast in bronze.
– I told you to drop the Berija y Baraja! Don Abel protested again.
– I have no intention of filching your glory, Schultz growled. But don’t try and deny you’ve stolen from people their portion of air and their ray of sunshine.
– In exchange, I gave them a garbage incinerator and central heating.
– Which barely works, muttered Schultz. And besides, what about the children? Can children live in that cement cage?
The autodidact’s mouth fell open and stayed open for good while, as if he’d been left speechless.
– Children? he exclaimed at last. But, sir, do you think we’re still in the Middle Ages? Children!
He turned his gaze from me to Schultz, seemingly turning over an idea that didn’t quite fit into his skull. Next, he looked at the unfinished building: the autodidact’s face reflected the oblivion to which he was already consigning us, then deep attention, then calculation, and finally indignation.
– What are those fools up to there? he bellowed threateningly toward the heights. Those servants’ quarters should be narrower!
Furious, he tore off up the stairs. He again ran from floor to floor and hopped from scaffolding to scaffolding, brandishing his fist in the face of phantasmal workers and vociferating among the bars of his cage.
We didn’t climb the hill; nor did we visit any other building of the many that were going up there. Cutting to the left, we entered a barrio very disagreeable to the sense of sight. Full of anthropomorphic constructions, the zone was swarming with people who had been brutally twisted into numerical forms. Someone had wrenched those human bodies so violently that even today I seem to feel back pains just thinking about the hominids shaped as the number 3. And I say “swarming” with human numbers, because they really were filing in and out of the anthropomorphic premises like ants, a double line of them packing the most absurd materials on their backs. In spite of my repeated questions, Schultz told me nothing about this barrio. The buildings were starting to thin out, when we were stopped by a very high wall of vegetation. It rose before us like a living fence woven of thorny branches, privets, and creepers. We picked our way through the vegetal rampart, and when we came out on the other side, my eyes beheld the saddest garden they’d ever seen.
Deformed trees stood there with trunks of gold-coloured metal, leaves of yellow brass, and flowers of chocolate paper. The same tackiness could be observed throughout the garden: in the shrubs and grass, in the wasps and butterflies fluttering listlessly among the dead calyxes, and even in the gigantic mushrooms, which took flight like a child’s balloon at the mere brush of one’s foot. The place was thick with wingèd figures of Mercury and revolving effigies of Fortune cast in wax or soap, according to the norms of the most outrageous kitsch. Nevertheless, my curiosity was soon attracted by a big villa hulking in the middle of the garden, whose sorry, peeling frontispiece matched the rest of the buildings in the Plutobarrio. The astrologer had me walk around the outside of the mansion, and I saw that each of the four facades was in a different style. The northern facade was Egyptian, the southern Greek, the eastern medieval, and the western Renaissance.
– The architect who designed this mess, I told Schultz, had his head in one godawful muddle.
But the astrologer put his index finger to his lips and ordered me to keep my ears peeled. Listening closely, I noticed that from inside the palace, as though filtering through its cracks, came the sound of music played on exotic instruments; its slow monotony reminded me of the Oriental strains in the Café Izmir, or of certain Hebraic laments I’d heard at night on Gurruchaga Street. And given the mansion’s apparent state of long abandon, fear stirred within me at the thought that it was haunted only by such music. At this point Schultz took me by the arm:
– Let’s go in, he said, pointing to the Greek facade.
We passed between two columns to a monumental door, which my guide unceremoniously pushed open, causing it to creak harshly. A new wave of fear would have held me back, had Schultz not given me a violent shove to the shoulder and propelled me, tumbling and staggering, inside the house. When I regained my balance, I found myself in an enormous hall and in the middle of a circle formed by couples dancing like automatons to the aforementioned music; wordless and expressionless, they danced beneath immense chandeliers in whose crystal teardrops, chipped and dirty, the light guttered and died before it reached the floor. The phantasmagorical dancers, ladies and gentlemen alike, wore rigorously formal attire: men’s tailcoats alternated with the uniforms of military officers and diplomats; the tulle of young ladies, with the satin of matrons. But all of their apparel and adornments, shamefully rumpled and tattered, ravaged by moths, were crying out their antiquity and ruin. As I observed this, I was struck by the disquieting suspicion that those poseurs had been there dancing nonstop for the past half century.62 I looked around for Schultz and found him behind me.
– Look at the orchestra, he told me, completely unpertu
rbed.
Only then did my eyes take in the entire room. As I said earlier, it was an immense hall which, according to my reckoning and despite all logic, must have taken up the whole building. The orchestra, installed in a theatre box off to one side, was made up of twenty musicians decked out in gaucho-style chiripás made of satin, wildly embroidered jackets, multicoloured kerchiefs, and accordion boots. It was impossible, however, to identify the noble son of the pampas in those musicians of Hebraic nose, gold teeth, thick glasses, and wan complexion. Moreover, instead of the bandoneón or guitar, their hands held the psalter, trumpet, cymbal, bagpipes, and drum; with these instruments they were playing the lugubrious air we’d already heard from outside, but which had now assumed the tempo of a very slow waltz, to whose strains the dancers seemed to be spinning eternally.
I was watching the scene in amazement, when an official with the greenish face of an actor introduced himself to us. Judging by the megaphone in his right hand, he was playing the role of an announcer.
– Don Moses Rosenbaum is on view, he announced. This way, gentlemen. The cloakroom is on your left. Our show will commence right away.
He led us among the dancing couples until we came to a red curtain, the first of a series that seemed to conceal several stages around the room. I looked at Schultz and saw curiosity in his eyes, but I didn’t have a chance to speak to him because our announcer was preparing to speak into the megaphone.
– Your attention, please! he shouted in a falsetto voice.
The dancers stood stock still on the spot, the music stopped, and the curtain went up to reveal a scene in which the characters acted like puppets as soon as the announcer started to speak:
– Ladies and gentlemen! said the man with the megaphone (his voice of a hoary old rogue recited in a liturgical style, his tone rising and falling according to the exigencies of the text). You are about to witness a tragicomedy which, though contemporary, possesses an antique quality verging on the mystical. The first scene takes place, as you can see, in the parlour of a tenement house on Warnes Street, where a gathering of people stirs excitedly; drinks in hand, carefully circulating amid sewing machines and piles of overcoats, they are celebrating the circumcision of the twelve sons whom Don Moses Rosenbaum owes to the magnificence of Jehovah. Ladies and gentlemen, look to the right and see how the rabbi, anointed with the oil of wisdom, counts the product of his difficult art! And look to the left at Don Moses Rosenbaum himself (stuffed into his lustring frock coat and holding the cane which, according to him, has been passed down by his ancestors): he is the hero and martyr of our story. His eyes, at once festive and attentive, seem to bless the guests and watch every move they make, lest they make off with some utensil! Ah, ladies and gentlemen, put your hand on your heart and tell me: do you not feel you are in the presence of a scene straight out of the Bible? Me neither.
Adam Buenosayres: A Novel Page 57