– So what’s eating you?
– Nothing, answered Schultz. We want to cross the lagoon.
The two boatmen guffawed sarcastically, as if they found the astrologer’s request hilariously outrageous. The one in the stern held a long pole, the boat’s means of locomation; the one in the bow raised a dripping oar whose sole purpose, as we already know, was to bonk rebellious craniums. Both of them, clad only in loincloths, were unspeakably thin; their liverish faces were drawn, their foreheads bitter, their eyes searing within dark hollows dug out by resentment.
– Cross the lagoon! said the man with the oar, still snickering, as though answering a child who had just asked for the moon.
– Sure, added the man with the pole. And Daddy’s gonna bring you home a nice pony, too.
– Listen, you sons of a beehive! thundered Schultz. Do you know who you’re talking to? Has egalitarian pride so blinded you that you can’t even recognize the Neogogue?
Although the man with the pole kept on laughing, the one with the oar seemed to waver for a moment. He turned to the astrologer and pointed at the planetarium:
– Are you trying to tell me you hear the music of the spheres?
– Every last note of it, answered Schultz.
The man with the pole started to bite his nails furiously.
– He’s a second-hand Scipio,115 he warned his companion. If I were you, I’d knock him arse first into the lagoon.
Paying no attention to the man with the pole, Schultz tried to win over the one with the oar:
– So what? he said. Buenos Aires and the entire nation are under the sign of Libra. Here, every intellectual audacity is possible and desirable, even if this filthy pigsty seems to demonstrate the opposite.
– A megalomaniac! insisted the one with the pole. If I was you, I’d knock him arse over teakettle into the lilypads.
But the man with the oar, who no doubt had his responsibilities, adopted a prudent tone with Schultz:
– Look, around here you can’t just assume a highfalutin’ name and expect to bully your way across the lagoon. There’s lotsa guys showed up here claiming to be Tom, Dick, or Harry, with more moxie ’n you can shake a stick at, tryin’ to sneak in and see our sensational show for free. The ladies swimmin’ around in this marsh are wearin’ swimsuits not meant for pryin’ eyes – on account of the synthetic design, you understand. After all, this ain’t no fancy nightclub; it’s an Inferno with all the trappings. Some credential, sir, some sign: that’s all we’re askin’ for.
Schultz was not a man to turn a deaf ear to the voice of reason, when reason was speaking with courtesy. His response to the man with the oar was a paragon of urbanity and concision:
– I could be recognized as a scion of the Sun and the Moon, he said, were it not that my excessive modesty prevents me from wearing on my brow the horns of the inititate. The Prince of Oriental Efflorescence would bear me out if I were to say that I’ve eaten the purple mushroom, tamed the tiger-woman and the dragon-man, that I’ve mounted the red-crested stork and performed the dance of the yellow stork, that I know the garden of Leang, the turquoise pool, the ten islands, and the three promontories. But my true credential is otherwise: the twenty-eight signs of Apis the Ox, tatooed on this body that must one day return to dust.
Without another word, the astrologer began to unbutton his vest and shirt. And he would have stripped down to his underwear if the man with the oar, his mistrust now vanquished, had not, with almost adulatory solicitude, invited us to embark. So it was that Schultz and I hopped aboard, almost capsizing the craft with the weight of our mortal flesh. As soon as we had recovered our balance, the man in the stern gave a forceful shove with his pole and sent the boat gliding over the lagoon, while the man in the bow, his oar held high, scanned the environs in search of uppity heads. The infernal boat cut swiftly through the water, propelled by the energetic thrusts of the man in the stern who, without taking his burning eyes off us for an instant, performed wonders with his bamboo pole in his quite evident desire to get the crossing over with as quickly as possible and be rid of us. Not wanting to look at his hatchet face, his rheum-encrusted eyelids, his belligerent mien, I looked curiously around at the surrounding area. The water’s surface was a-boil with naked humans, of whom I glimpsed only surly fragments, smartly dodging our bow. For the second time the Helicoid was offering me the sight of humanity in the nude; and yet, this nudity did not have the perturbed and confused air I’d seen in the naked bodies of the second infernal residence, but rather a certain zoological candour, a certain innocent brutality that was expressed in the heavy euphoria of their cavorting and games. Clearly, the lagoon, for them, was the best possible world! Another aspect of the marsh came into view when the boat passed among the islets. There, among the black-green reeds, lay equally naked bodies, above water level or half-sunk in the mire of the shoreline. They sucked on the bombillas of their mates, tended their little barbecues, or dozed away in long batrachian copulations; elemental conversations, guitars of mud, earthen bandoneones, the buzz and croak of swamp creatures were all weaving a bestial concert, much like the soundscape I used to hear back in my childhood Maipú – what chthonic dread was it that had me sleepless and sobbing in the dead of night? what immense postdiluvian desolation? I still don’t know. The degradation of those people then became even more loathsome to me; the way they were vegetating in the lagoon, deaf and blind to the call from above, made me want to lie down in the bottom of the boat just to escape the sight of them, but my impulse was stayed by the sting of the poleman’s eyes on the back of my neck. Fortunately, it wasn’t long until we left the islets and emerged again in open water. Now we were crossing paths with other boats, their crews grunting in the grim pursuit of heads to clobber. Although no head had yet come within reach of the oar, it was beyond doubt that the lagoon abounded in rebels. I was just about to give up hope of seeing one, when the water to starboard started churning and the effervescence drew our gaze. A head emerged from the black liquid; dripping-wet, it shouted at us:
– Dwarves-from-around-here, beware the plain!
No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the man in the bow brought his oar whistling down onto the talking head, which ducked back under the surface. Gaseous bubbles surfaced from the depths, and the man with the pole either laughed or croaked, I couldn’t tell which. But the head re-emerged spiritedly, this time beyond our reach. The head spit out a great mouthful of black water, shook its wet hair in the air, and rubbed its eyes with a pair of mittens dripping slime:
– Beware the plain! insisted the head. The plain is the egalitarian horizontal, the line that abhors holy unevenness and differences of level, tries to bring everything down, draw everything to itself, and convert it all to its terrible plane surface. The plain is resentment; it must be overcome. Dwarves-from-around-here, hear me and put aside your malice! The vertical is not disdain for the plain: it is the plain itself getting to its feet.
The aquatic orator flailed his arms to stay afloat and avoid the manoeuvres of the man with the pole, who, sweating like a poisonous fruit, was trying his utmost to get closer to him.
– Woe to him who heeds the drowsy voice of the plain! continued the orator. His destiny will be shameful mediocrity, shameful conformity, then idiotic complacency in shameful mediocrity, and finally a prideful resentment for all that tends toward the heights. Because the horizontal, too, has its pride: the demonic pride of the lowly. “This is an insult,” said the mouse when he regarded the magnitude of the elephant. Thus speaks a dwarf-from-around-here! I prefer the megalomania of the frog who tried to equal the ox by swelling up till he exploded. And it isn’t the frog’s explosion that plunges me into a metaphysical ecstasy; the act of blowing himself up seems to me a lack of moderation on the frog’s part, and an affront against the innocence of the ox. But there’s a certain heroic grandeur in the envious gesture of the frog, a tension toward greatness which, though ridiculous, deserves the praise of the Muses. A dwarf
-from-around-here would demand that the ox shrink to the size of the frog. That’s the spirit of the plain, the spite of the horizontal!
Carried away by his eloquence, the orator had again come within striking range.
– How’s this for some vertical! cried the man in the bow, with a downward swing of his oar.
He missed his mark, for the orator, anticipating the blow, had ducked underwater and was now talking to us from a prudent distance:
– So? he asked. Are we to admit that a frog in a fit of sublimity, or a bit of froggish sublimate, should triumph before the bulge-eyed gaze of the ox? Must we admit that, before the conceited sufficiency of a mouse, an elephant should flatten itself into an elephant compress?116
At this point, I noticed, the two crewmen suddenly renounced pursuit and exchanged an intense, panic-stricken glance. The infernal craft shot frantically across the water toward the shore where we were to disembark. But the orator swam after us.
– No, a thousand times no! he said in response to the questions he’d just posed. We’ll make the frog and the mouse assume verticality without self-destruction. A vertical frog, who knows itself to be both frog and vertical; a vertical mouse, who knows itself to be both mouse and vertical. So declares the Contour of Life!117 Thus spoke the great Caesar and his Pontifex Maximus!
His final words came now only as a distant whisper. The orator had given up following us, but I could still hear him:
– Dwarves-from-around-here! Do ye wish to become giants-from-over-there?
Then, nothing. Our swiftly fleeing boat had just touched the far shore. The astrologer and I disembarked.
XI
I disembarked, alas, only to discover immediately that our excursion over the lagoon had been but a poetic interlude in the Schultzian symphony or, better put, a diversionary scene like the ones you often see at the theatre, mounted on the proscenium in front of the drawn curtain, while behind it the stagehands are preparing the main stage for the drama. No sooner were we out of the boat than Schultz started lecturing me on the topic of Wrath; his speech boded no good, and my previous experiences justified any amount of wariness:
– Sad is the destiny of corporal creatures! lamented the astrologer. They are limited to local movement, displacing themselves to the right or left, up or down, forward or backward: in sum, six rectilinear movements, condemning them to inevitable collisions and making them liable to react with anger.118 Circular motion is reserved for purely spiritual creatures; rotating around their centres, they can recognize and communicate with one another without violence. Man is situated between corporal and spiritual entities, being a hybrid freak whose invention Jehovah was later to rue, whether in a fit of anger or pity or remorse, we still don’t know. Possessing both a body and a soul, man fluctuates between the rectilinear motion of his body and the circular motion of his spirit. If body and soul are in harmony, there is no conflict between the two types of motion, but rather a state of peace in which both combine to produce motion of a third kind, undulatory or sinuous. Participating at once in local and circular movement, wave motion is most appropriate for human creatures, since it corresponds to their mixed nature and prevents them colliding (the curve being the line of detour and non-resistance). The first Adam in Paradise no doubt moved thus, as though dancing; and I believe the art of the dance to be a reminiscence of that paradisal motion.
– So what’s the point of this dissertation? I asked in displeasure.
– The point will be crystal clear, Schultz told me, when you see how today’s Adams move.
We followed the curved hallway that surely led to the seventh Inferno, and before long we heard muffled explosions, their sound apparently arising from below. The detonations shook the ground we walked upon, cracked the side walls, and dislodged chunks of masonry from the ceiling. Then, associating recollections from literature with Schultz’s recent dissertation, I understood the curve was taking us into the infernal circle of Wrath. But I had no time to dwell on my fears, because we were already coming out in front of a vast boxing ring, lit from above by spotlights whose glare blinded me. When I could see clearly again, the entire ring came into view; a group of characters was stationed at intervals throughout its area. At the back, in the right and left corners, were two pulpits or rostrums; a lookout holding a megaphone was posted on each of them. Between one pulpit and the other, against the wall, loomed the circular door of a gigantic boiler that put me in mind of the engine-room of a battleship.
No sooner had I concluded my inspection than the lookout on the left, who must have noticed us, raised the megaphone to his lips and shouted in alarm:
– Two fops in sight! Have an eye, you guys in the ring!
– Ahoy, mates! exclaimed the other lookout. Gunners to your stations!
Greatly astonished, I recognized the voice of Franky Amundsen, especially in that shout straight out of pirate novels. Turning back to the first lookout, I also recognized Del Solar; he was lowering the megaphone so he could take a puff on his mile-long, glass cigarette holder. The characters in the ring suddenly sprang into action, strategically aligning themselves like soccer players on the pitch. In the front line, I saw the Carter from the Hayloft, the malevo Di Pasquo, the taita Flores, and the pesado Rivera. At right mid-ring, the Three Necrophile Sisters-in-Law were already assaulting us with dirty looks, while on the left La Chacharola was brandishing her terrible broomstick. Juancho and Yuyo had climbed onto the pulpit covers and were belligerently surveying the scene.
– A cardboard Dante and a vaudeville Virgil! Franky Amundsen shouted again. Don’t let them through, mates!
– La putta de tua mamma! La Chacharola shouted at us, hurling her broomstick in our direction.
The tough guys in the front line were now bobbing and feinting, jabbing at the air with knife-thrusts and punches.
– Leave ’em to me! thundered the Carter. I’ll show those fops!
– Sock ’em in the eye! Juancho shouted down at him.
– Stuck-up twits! spat the taita Flores. Come on over, if you’ve got the balls!
– They ain’t guys from the barrio! cried Yuyo, egging him on. Plough him one in the gut!
The Three Necrophile Sisters-in-Law clenched their fists.
– Poking their noses into other people’s business, clucked Matilde. And they call that literature?
– They can tell that to my tea-kettle! scolded Dolores, patting her derrière.
The pesado Rivera took off a shoe:
– Gentlemen, he said, don’t waste ammunition on seagulls. Leave them to me!
– Not like that! protested Di Pasquo, the malevo. It’s gotta be a clean fist fight!
Having become quite familiar with Schultz’s technique, I was sure the circular door of the boiler would be the portal to the sector of the irascibles; to get there we were going to have to cross the boxing ring and somehow find our way past all those menacing lunatics. How to accomplish this miracle? I was at a loss until the astrologer spoke to them insidiously:
– Wimps! he said. You’re not up to fighting mano a mano. That’s why you have to gang up!
When the Carter heard this, he turned every hue imaginable:
– You lie, if you’re talkin’ about me! he howled right away. There’s three slaughtermen in Liniers can tell you whether I fight mano a mano!
– Bah! Schultz shot back. According to the taita Flores, who’s right here with us, it was only one slaughterman you fought. He says the fellow gave you a nice shiner.
– You said that? the Carter roared at the taita. I had a sneakin’ suspicion you were goin’ around trashin’ my name.
And without another word he felled Flores with an epic punch.
– Careful, you guys in the ring! cried Franky through the megaphone. Don’t pay any attention to him. He’s trying to sow discord!
But the taita Flores was already back up and having at the Carter in a hailstorm of blows. And because Di Pasquo and Rivera tried to mediate between the two, it wasn
’t long before they were catching stray punches and conscientiously repaying them in kind. The Three Necrophile Sisters-in-Law then moved forward into position.
– Would you take a look at these three honourable women! sneered Schultz. Anyone would say they’ve already got their husbands’ funerals paid for!
– And who dares deny it? Dolores asked him, her eyes glinting.
– Your husband’s funeral was paid for in easy monthly instalments, the astrologer reminded her. Too easy! Leonor and Matilde know it full well.
– What gossip have you been spreading about me? squawked Dolores, already attacking her two companions.
– Don’t listen to him! yelled Del Solar and Franky from their pulpits.
In vain. The Three Necrophile Sisters-in-Law were already in the thick of a shoe-fight, creating a melee of black skirts and great sinister shawls. Seeing this, Schultz turned next to La Chacharola:
– Hey, old woman! he cried. Ask Flores what happened to your four linen sheets from Italy!
– Briganti! howled the old woman, and then took her broomstick to the tough guys, who were already knocking each other out.
The ring having become another King Agramante’s Camp,119 the astrologer and I, despite the lookouts’ shrieks, slipped among the groups of combatants and arrived at the door of the boiler. Opening it, we plunged through into what must have been the very homeland of violence. For, at first glance, that sector of hell gave the impression of the most frightful disorder; it was as if a championship soccer game between Argentina and Uruguay, a pugilists’ match in Luna Park, a movie featuring gun-slinging Yankees, and a Buenos Aires gang fight were all going on at the same time. But what really caught my attention was how the atmosphere was charged with a strange electricity or malignant fluid. The air itself, when I took it into my lungs, seemed to revive a ferment of angry skirmishes from the distant past, reigniting in my liver flames of anger that had long ago abated.
Adam Buenosayres: A Novel Page 66