Adam Buenosayres: A Novel

by Leopoldo Marechal

  Another stroke of the xylophone whetted our sense of expectation, and the announcer lifted his voice again:

  – Rare is the mortal, he began, who does not revere Radio Broadcasting as among the scientific miracles of today, the one that has most exalted the faith of true believers in a future full of admirable artifacts which, furnishing their houses and unfurnishing their souls, will surely give access to a realm of headache-free bliss. Do you acknowledge this, dear listeners? Celebrate it, then, with a glass of famous Alembic-brand cognac, a masterpiece of contemporary alchemy! But if science has wrought a great miracle in Radio, no less miraculous is the feat that Radio itself has produced in this century, by populating the once silent ether with the crippled voices, whole-cloth grunts, musical belches, confused oratory, and artistic flatulence of a multitude whose lyrical talents had never crossed – alas! – the narrow limits of the family, and which today, thanks to H.M. the Microphone, surge forth from an age-old and unjust anonymity. And so in today’s world, there isn’t a dime-store guitar-picker, neighbourhood soprano, milk-bar playwright, gazebo poet, amateur actor, or home-body declaimer who doesn’t abandon the shameful shovel, the degrading hammer, the servile needle-and-thread, the vulgar scaffolding, in order to rush off to the broadcasting sessions, anxious to let their voices chime into the great universal chord. Our program will faithfully transmit their innovative harmonies. Listen attentively, dear listeners. And just remember: brands of toilet soap may abound, but none equals the exquisite Munda-totum, capable of giving your skin a second, eternal, adolescence.

  The announcer stopped talking. Three strokes on the xylophone pierced the silence. And right away, as if cued by those notes, the homoplumes struck up the most abominable concert ever heard by human ears: tango orchestras bleating, strident riffs of jazz, crooners bawling, flowery cabaret songs, radio-drama clichés such as “Kill her!” and “Ah, I’m dying!”, newscasters foaming at the mouth, play-by-play commentary of soccer games and boxing matches, commercials insistent as horseflies and mindless as an idiot’s refrain. All these voices and many more erupted at once and mingled in such a dreadful din that Schultz and I took off at a desperate run, knocking aside homoplumes as they strummed or shouted like maniacs.

  Thus, at full speed, we left that sector. Still running, we crossed the zone of silent homofolias; for a few minutes they rained down on us like dead leaves torn from trees by autumn winds. The urgent desire to reach open space and our furious speed in flight prevented me from getting a sense of the homofolias’ character. However, the lethargy of those infernal entities, their indolent gliding fall, and above all their absolute muteness led me to guess that they were of that well-known species of criollo – “those born tired.”

  We stopped at the edge of an area in the middle of which was a merry-go-round (or calesita, as we call it in Argentina). Fitted with something like sails, the carousel span either slowly or vertiginously, according to the fluctuations of the wind. As it turned, it produced a kind of hurdy-gurdy music, its rhythm frantically speeding up or slowing to a crawl in tandem with the speed of rotation. Listening to the nasal strains, I was quite surprised to recognize the Gregorian Dies Irae.97 A concourse of grave men – their solemnity striking me as rather at odds with the infantile pastime – had filled the merry-go-round and were rotating with it. In groups of two or three, they rode ugly animals made of painted wood; among them, I picked out the Dragon of the Apocalypse, the Seven-Headed Beast, the Two-Horned Beast, the Great Whore, and the kings of Gog and Magog.98 These solemn men, castigating the flanks of their monstrous mounts with their brass spurs, did so with a will that seemed quite meritorious, I must say; and so did the way they eagerly strove to grasp a glittering ring nailed to a stick, which a demonic operator disguised as an angel was offering and denying to their outstretched hands.99 I was taking a good look at the calesita, still not guessing what meaning it carried in the hell of Sloth, when one of the solemn men, on the point of seizing the ring, lost his balance and fell off the revolving machine.100 Schultz and I ran over, helped him up to his feet, and with the best intentions began brushing the sand off his clothes. But, with dignity, the man broke free of our hands:

  – Noli me tangere,101 he warned in an utterly passionless voice.

  I felt confused. But the astrologer Schultz laughed benevolently:

  – Of course! he said. This is the Grand Orisonist!

  Difficult indeed to depict the rage that possessed the man when he heard those words. He stammered for a moment, spit out the sand still in his mouth, and shouted:

  – The Vice-Pope is a clown! To Gehenna with him! If he’s blasphemed once, he’s done it a thousand times!

  – No doubt about it, Schultz reaffirmed. We have before us the Grand Orisonist.

  Then the astrologer turned and spoke to me in particular:

  – You should know that a few years ago a new heresy began to spread its deleterious miasma in the very Catholic city of Buenos Aires. A handful of men, prey to a fanaticism not entirely devoid of grace, fell into the pious folly of clinging tooth-and-nail to prayer (which is praiseworthy) and refusing all forms of action to the point of becoming terrestrially immobile. This condition of stasis, however, did not stop them from consuming tea and biscuits in alarming quantities, or prodigiously climbing the ranks in their public service careers, or satirizing those foolish mortals who squandered their time on useless philosophical speculation, vain artistic efforts, and prosaic attempts to reorganize the earthly city.102 And this came to pass in the year of the Great Flood, when the last white herons appeared in the south.

  – I deny the bit about the biscuits! interrupted the grave man at this point. The Vice-Pope’s pointed ears are clearly sticking out from behind this malignant tale!

  Paying him no attention, Schultz continued:

  – That’s how things stood when there appeared a man in whom the prudence of the serpent was wed to the candour of the dove. He saw that doctrinal folly as a final offshoot of the old and apparently exhausted heresy known as Quietism.103 Then he gave it the name of Orisonism, and those who yielded to such a dangerous tendency came be known as Orisonists. That strange apostle (who surely came straight out of the desert, having subsisted there on locusts and wild honey) claimed for himself the title of Vice-Pope – “the Vice” for short, obviously.104

  When he heard that fearful name, the Grand Orisonist was bodily shaken from head to toe:

  – Harrow him! he roared. To the outer darkness with him! Locusts and wild honey, my foot! The waiters at the Adam Bar might tell a different story!

  – Once the heresy had been denounced and his nom de guerre adopted, continued Schultz, the Vice didn’t hesitate to go into battle to succour the Holy Church. He donned the helmet of patience, the breastplate of fervour, the backplate of good sense, the paunch-piece of benignancy, the gauntlets of justice, the knee-pieces of daydream, the sollerets of soldierly love. Then he called for the shield of the philosophia perennis, the mace of Sir Syllogism, and the pike of Lady Scholastic.105 Thus armed to the teeth, the Vice’s lights shone so brightly that his astounded cardinals were emboldened to compare him to the star Aldebaran on a moonless night.

  At this point, the Grand Orisonist laughed as broadly as his gravity permitted:

  – His cardinals! he scoffed. A crew of late-night revellers that drank like Knights Templar! Frivolity on legs, they were regularly hot on the pink heels of the pagan whore!

  – A rock of inebriety in a sea of sobriety, Schultz reminded him judiciously.

  And resuming the thread of his story, the astrologer turned once again to me:

  – Before I go on, I must ask for your undivided attention. For the first time ever you are hearing about a mystery that some day will be divulged at large: it will be confirmed that Buenos Aires, having been the theatre of a battle of such great love, is the mystical centre of the continent. But I return to my tale. Having left the Vice armed like Saint George before the dragon, a description of the d
ragon’s nature is now in order, so as to understand something of the battle very soon to be joined between the dragon and the Vice. Orisonism, undifferentiated in its early hours, soon developed two distinct facets, namely, Aquilism and Vermism. The aquiline type of Orisonist was characterized by an alarming disposition; lord of the heights, pedestrian on the Way of Light and, of course, a citizen of the Celestial Jerusalem, he had all the surliness, solitary pride, and quick irritability of the eagle who leaves his mountain peaks behind. Whenever he descended to this planet, he would display the amazement of an angel, as if suddenly finding himself in a strange world. There were times when his disciples, weeping with piety, had to remind him what a streetcar was for, or how to hold a fork. Be that as it may, once down on earth, the Orisonist of the aquiline type clapped irate eyes on humanity, seeking strips of Promethean liver on which to exercise the heavenly wrath of his beak. And to this line of Orisonism – concluded Schultz – belongs, or once belonged, the man we have before us.

  Seeing himself so clearly denounced, the Grand Orisonist, his face having passed through every colour of indignation, scorn, and shame, erupted in a few plaintive flatus vocis:

  – Excommunicants! he wailed. Lord Saint Joseph is going to hear all about this! Your depiction is as false as the Vice’s Persian carpets.

  – There you have a sample of Orisonism’s dual aspect, at once quietist and malevolent, Schultz told me. This gentleman hasn’t hesitated to demand help from the Celestial Court for such vulgar needs as renting a place to live or getting an irksome neighbour evicted. What’s more, he has just evidenced his taste for blasphemy by casting doubt on the sworn, irrefutable, and incontrovertible authenticity of the vice-papal rugs.

  – What about his opaline glassware? ventured the grave man, one eye weeping, the other laughing.

  – Silence! ordered Schultz. Now let’s have a look at the nature of Vermism. The vermiform Orisonist’s shoes, clothes, hairstyle, and diet were so oppressively humble that no one in his presence could avoid feeling vain and empty – in a word, like worldly garbage. If asked his opinion on any question at all, whether human or divine, the Orisonist would lower his eyes innocently and respond: “What do I know, lowly earthbound worm that I am?” And if someone asked him to make the slightest effort, the man would smile de profundis and answer: “Who am I, despicable grovelling worm, to participate in so admirable a project?” And those who heard him would feel an irresistible desire either to kneel before the worm or squash him in the classical manner, or just wish that sparrows from heaven would gobble him up at once. But the worm, entrenched in his position, felt steadfastly certain among the proud of spirit with their stuck-up attitude. He knew very well it was a sinful feeling, since no one should feel too sure beforehand about one’s own last judgment. And yet, though struggling with himself, the vermiform Orisonist fell a thousand and one times into that dangerous form of complacency. Especially on those evenings in this great Babylon that is Buenos Aires, when he would stroll down Florida Street, thronged with heathens and fornicators. He could barely restrain his mirth at the vision of them all marching straight to hell, while he, poor earthbound worm, could already feel his flesh caressed by the white raiment that will clothe the godly on the Day of Wrath.

  Choked up by his own eloquence, the astrologer Schultz paused a moment. Then he turned to ask the Grand Orisonist:

  – Do you have any objections to this depiction?

  – Several, answered the Grand Orisonist. The Lord has said: “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”106 Judgment Day will come soon enough, when all intentions will be weighed.

  – Another Orisonist leitmotif! said Schultz to me, as though to a witness. This gentleman has harped so abusively on the Last Judgment that he put off everything until that day, even such a trivial matter as finding a shirt button in the dresser.

  – What about the battle? I demanded. Let’s get to the battle! As you may have guessed, I’m not planning to grow roots in this Inferno.

  – The battle, answered Schultz, took place in the Park of the Benedictines in Belgrano, a site both contenders agreed was ideal for the manoeuvres of a jousting match. Armoured and mounted on stormy steeds, the Grand Orisonist and the Vice, at a blast from the oliphant, charged one another at half-rein, lances at the ready. The spectators saw them take off like a shot from a crossbow and doubted not that both paladins were contemplating the bloodthirsty design of sending the other ad Patres. The collision occurred in front of the Benedictines’ three ombú trees. Both were struck in the cuirasse, both lost their stirrups, not to say their cool, and both came down with such a din of banging metal as to drown out God’s own thunderbolt. Both lay stunned on the ground for the time necessary to travel two leagues on horseback. The first to recover was our Vice-Pope. Unsheathing his brand, its pommel encrusted with the finest relics (including a tooth of Saint Stanislaus), he flew at his rival with the intention of laying open his entrails. Seeing him in a dead faint, however, and the Vice not being a man to attack a defenceless enemy, he waited for the Grand Orisonist to come around. Which would have been on Judgment Day after sundown, had the Vice not sent his squire to fetch a litre of Mendoza wine (vintage 1923), with which the Vice doused the face of the sleeping knight, not without first having knocked back at least half the bottle himself. As soon as the Grand Orisonist was up again, they resumed the fight on foot, using swords. The two chieftains, in all the vigour of their respective ages, then exchanged such violent blows that their fractured suits of armour went flying off in pieces, with the result that all the rubies, emeralds, sapphires, and lapis lazuli with which their arms were exquisitely adorned – in a manner some observers qualified as baroque – were scattered like seed over the ground. Meanwhile, the Grand Orisonist’s hosts and the Vice’s cardinals clashed in the most splendid rumble ever to be witnessed in those days. And they say the cardinals performed there such feats, and so many, that Theology and History, both in attendance, exchanged a look of surprise, as though wondering if they weren’t witnessing a revival of the times of the Archbishop Turpin.107

  Whether it was because he felt flattered by the heroic mode the storyteller had cast him in, or for some other reason, the fact was that the Grand Orisonist stopped glowering and condescended to stretch his lips in a gesture that could pass for a smile:

  – If the Vice’s madness were not already a proven fact, he said in the voice of a man without rancour, this carnivalesque tale would clearly clinch it.

  – My tale is history, responded Schultz, even if it’s tricked out in a sailor suit.

  – How did the battle end? I inquired.

  – How do you think? Schultz answered me. The Orisonist hosts ended up melting like frost in sunshine. Some of them, touched by grace, converted to the correct doctrine; others shed their harshness and angelic airs when they crossed the threshold of Holy Matrimony.

  – And the Vice?

  Here the astrologer wrapped himself in solemnity:

  – His merit was great, no doubt. For an angel snatched him from life and placed him in the southern sky in the form of a constellation called Del Vice; its stars, alpha, beta, and gamma, replicate the glorious wounds he sustained in battle.

  An uncontainable guffaw burst out of the Grand Orisonist:

  – The Vice? he laughed. A theologian whose genius never set sail if it wasn’t in an ocean of beer! If the booths at the Jousten Bar could talk!

  – So what? retorted Schultz. After battle, didn’t he have the right to assuage his thirst with the hydromels of Quilmes and Río Segundo?108 Certainly, being a metaphysician, the Vice was not a man to deny the claims of thirst. Because thirst, though an ontological privation, is the potential force of being; as such, it can pass from the condition of potentiality to actuality through being-in-act. And anyway, what quantities of wisdom did he not lavish when he had a half-litre of suds before him?

  – Sure, admitted the Grand Orisonist. For example, when he used to identify a person by asking what the indiv
idual would be if he or she was a toilet article, an element, a food, or a piece of furniture.

  – Great God! shot back the astrologer, stung by the irony. Are we living among Quakers? Is the mind not allowed to frolic for even a moment’s rest, after labouring deep in abstract thought?

  But the Grand Orisonist was no longer listening. In a sudden panic, he consulted his watch (a venerable eighteenth-century Swiss artifact), looked nervously over at the merry-go-round, and with nary a word of farewell ran off toward the artifact. We watched as he climbed back aboard with a touching vehemence.

  When we turned our backs on the Orisonists, a new expression of concern on Schultz’s face caused me some alarm.

  – There’s still more to see in this circle, he declared at last. But I’ll spare you the rest, since getting out of here will be quite tricky, especially for you.

  – For me? What have I got to do with this circle of hell?

  – It won’t do to forget about the Potentials, Schultz answered me enigmatically.

  I followed him, feeling both angry and afraid. Given the tyranny of the rope, by now making my fingers cramp up, and especially the interminably howling winds, I was beginning to hate the fifth circle and its conceited creator. So I was greatly relieved when, after a short walk, I saw, looming in the light or fog that languished in the last corner of this part of hell, not only the wall but also the exit gate, generously open and seeming to invite the easiest of escapes. In my satisfaction, I laughed inwardly at the astrologer, fancying now that he’d purposely spun fears and worries in this tangled web of incident for the purpose of catching my interest or jolting me, according to the case. Distracted as I was by these speculations, while Schultz was lost in his own thoughts, we approached once again the race-course of the wind, which as I said earlier ran very close to the wall. We crossed it in a single hop, for the waxing drumbeat of heels on the ground warned us of the proximity of the wind that held sway in that final 90-degree sector of the circle. Without looking back, we made for the open gate, Schultz now very grave, and I more confident than ever. But in front of the doorway, and blocking access to it, a crowd of human quasi-figures suddenly came into view.