Not until he left the high platform—mobile rostrum for compliments and insults—did the tram coachman return to his humble status as a proletarian. But that return to obscurity was too short to give him time to reflect on the insubstantiality of his pride.
Working ten hours a day, they had no leisure time, the source of all bad habits, particularly of the most terrible of all: the philosophical vice of pessimism and timidity . . .
The relics of a cohabitation
However, in the days following his discharge from hospital, Rearte had a few moments of leisure. As soon as he was out, he went to the Company’s Administration where, as though he had willingly deserted his post, he shyly expressed his desire to return to work. They made him take a few steps ‘to see how his leg was doing’, and although his limp was very obvious, Mr McNab, the administrator, decided he could return to work in a fortnight’s time. In addition he gave him fifty pesos, together with the advice that he should shorten the heel of his left boot by three centimetres in order to partly restore the balance of his bearing. Rearte spent the money, although he didn’t follow the advice.
In the fortnight that passed until his return to work, he barely left his tidy celibate’s bedroom, which he had occupied for the last ten years in a quiet house on calle Perú. He devoted all that time to caring for the two dozen pairs of canaries which were the luxury of his existence and the pride of his status as a breeder and tutor. The former, because all that multitude of songbirds had originated from a single couple legitimately inherited from a roommate, who six years earlier had run off with all his savings and his only two suits; and the latter, because he had a special knack of teaching the chicks the tunes he played on his tramdriver’s horn.
Of that ill-fated cohabitation, Rearte had left, in addition to the pair of canaries which, in compensation, had proved to be so fertile, two oil paintings and a few books. It is pointless to say that neither the paintings nor the books had reproduced like the birds. They were the same ones his disloyal room-mate had abandoned in his flight: ‘The Meeting at the Cliff’, in which the outline of an illustrious orator stood out like a rock on a sea of three thousand identical galleons; ‘The July Revolution’, where the bellicose decoration of the Park contrasted with the studied attitude of statesmanship of Alem; The Unión Cívica: Its Origin and Trends, Official Publication, an imposing volume which the tramdriver had never dared browse through; White Magic and the Key to Dreams, a work frequently borrowed by his neighbours; The Lovers’ Secretary, to whose epistolary aid he would never dream of going and, finally, The Businesses of Carlos Lanza, by Eduardo Gutiérrez, a fictional story which had instilled in Rearte a bewildered mistrust of banks and bureaux de change.
On how a single cause can produce opposite effects
After that brief domestic respite which Rearte dedicated to teaching the first few bars of the waltz ‘On the Waves’ to his forty-eight canaries, our hero returned to the scene of his triumphs. He returned somewhat diminished in physical stature, but morally exalted by the glorious misfortune which earned him an allegorical item in ‘El Diario’.
The obscure driver had for a time been the champion of progress, the destroyer of carts, the symbol of the great conquests of his century in the field of urban transport.
But, as the Imitation of Christ says, all human glory is ephemeral, and after a very few months of basking in it, that same progress of which he was made champion had left him behind.
Electric trams arrived on the scene, and although Rearte tried to become a motorman he couldn’t because of his limp, which hindered him from ringing the warning bell. During training, each time he tried to kick with his heel in warning, he lost his balance . . . This episode, which provoked much merriment amongst the other learners, occasioned bitter reflections in the poor driver.
‘So,’ he said to himself, deeply melancholic, ‘progress has left me with a limp and that same limp prevents me from following it, making me the champion of underdevelopment.’
And that, indeed, was how it was, for once the electrification of the tramlines was complete, Mr Bright, the new administrator, posted him to hitching carriages in Caridad station. With a team of increasingly scraggy horses, several times a day Rearte would take from inside the station to the middle of the street the old trams, which were becoming increasingly older, destined now to be a modest appendage to the motor coaches.
In this way he came to be, for several minutes, a parody of himself: of that witty and conquering Rearte who outlined arabesques in the air with his whip, wore a carnation behind his ear and played ‘I like them all . . . I like them all’ on his horn every time he saw a black woman.
A Road Accident
Fifteen years after resigning himself to being a ghost of his pristine glory on the street, Rearte arrived at the station earlier than usual. ‘Bright’s disease’—and not precisely the Bright of the Anglo Argentine Company—makes men become early risers. Complaining, with the palms of his hand on his waist and swearing through clenched teeth, the old driver sat on the windowsill of a low window, under the garage in which the trams were lined up with the wise air of beasts in the manger. Opposite him a half-closed tap dripped isochronously and melancholically, widening with imperceptible tenacity an eye in the water whose brightness livened up the hostile appearance of the depot.
‘It must have been like that all night,’ he thought. ‘These nightwatchmen are becoming more and more careless. Good-for-nothings! I’d soon sort them out.’ He tried to adjust the tap, but after several fruitless attempts in which all he managed to do was splash his boots and hurt his finger, the rebellious tap continued to run, now with a sort of hoarse whistle like a teacher at the end of the year. In a few moments the water was overflowing from the stone basin which contained it and ran sinuously to the straight and predictable canal formed by the rails.
That feeble flow brought to his mind old times, when after four drops of rain the uneven roads of Buenos Aires would flood. Around the Cinco Esquinas . . . the mud! Even with extra draught it was impossible to get out of the mire, and you had to wait until the rain died down, sitting with the passengers on the backs of the seats to avoid the water which reached the step, sometimes flooding the inside of the coaches . . . But the people were different; they were all acquaintances, all friends, you knew who you were dealing with and who you were taking; you could have a chat and smoke a ‘Sublime’ or an ‘Ideal’ with anybody, and from the doorways, in summer, the families out for a breath of fresh air would send regards to your family . . .
The bell, announcing the scheduled time for the departure of the first coach, made him leave the tap, smiling at his memories and, still immersed in them, he bought and hitched the hairy team of nags to the carriage. That’s what he, an Argentine of pure Spanish descent, who appreciated and was a friend of good beasts, had never been able to do with patience; to drive, along the worst roads in the city, those squalid horses, fed like pigs on a mess of bran and water.
‘The truth is,’ he thought, ‘that they’re not worth even that.’
He adjusted the chains, climbed into the driver’s seat after wrapping his scarf around his neck, whistled a happy reveille between his teeth, spurred on the wretched horses with a click of the tongue and with an ironic ‘Gee up, Bonito! Gee up, Pipón!’ the tram set off amid the squeaking and creaking of all its hinges, couplings, windows and boards.
Outside, the electric tram must be waiting for him. Unusual that the bell wasn’t jingling under the Spaniard Pedrosa’s worn hell. But no: the road was clear and in the cold morning mist the city was fading, pale and melancholic like an old photograph. The chill air pecked at the driver’s temples and hands. He would happily go for a ride, he thought; but he was distracted by the desperate gesturing from the street by a high mulatta, loaded with a basket covered by a white scarf.
‘Stop, will you!’ she shouted. ‘Not paying attention, are you?’
Rearte suddenly drew to a halt and the black woman heaved a
board the trembling bulk of her flaccid flesh; the step creaked under the weight of her enormous espadrille and with a flash of white in between her fleshy lips, asked the tram conductor, ‘Will you hand me by basket, now?.
He complied gallantly, and whilst the black woman searched her pocket full of crumbs and medals for the two pesos for the fare, they commented on the weather. ‘It’s a cool morning, isn’t it?’
‘Good for bathing in the river.’
‘Enough to make you perish.’
Further on, from a low balcony, a chubby-cheeked maid signalled him to stop, shouting into the house, ‘The tram, master, the tram’s here!’
A solemn gentleman with frock coat and top hat rushed out, protesting vigorously, ‘What a hopeless timetable! It’s impossible to have breakfast, and even so one is late everywhere! Appalling service . . . taking advantage . . .’
‘Good morning, Don Máximo,’ the mulatta humbly cut in.
‘Morning, Rosario,’ and referring to something implicit, ‘are they nice and tender?’
‘Just out of the frying pan. Would you care for one?’
The solemn gentleman accepted a crispy pasty which scattered golden scales on the dull lapel of his frock coat.
Rearte was remembering those voices, the delicate aroma of cooking; he felt rejuvenated and involuntarily put his hand up to his ear to check whether the large carnation was in place, furtively picked from the plant which flowered in a large coffee tin in the yard. No, he wasn’t wearing it—but of course! It was winter.
‘Get away from there, boy, get away at once or I’ll tell your father!’ shouted Don Máximo to a boy running behind the coach with the obvious intention of jumping on.
‘That’s how accidents happen,’ the black woman remarked.
Rearte lashed out right and left with his formidable whip, which the boy evaded by running away and mocking him from the road.
The bells were calling them to church in Balvanera; the black woman crossed herself devoutly, Don Máximo took off his hat. In the portico, two priests, one with a big belly and dirty-looking, the other scraggy and equally dirty, were talking excitedly, cassocks loose and holding their hats. Without any signal from them, the driver stopped the tram. After giving the service, Father Prudencio Heguera took the tram every day. He waited a couple of minutes, cap in hand, while the reverend said goodbye; Don Máximo coughed discreetly, the black woman cleared her throat and with a swirl of his skirts the priest sat down, greeting everyone like someone granting plenary indulgence.
Rosario was hiding her basket, pretending to look out of the window, twiddling her silver rings which shone on her dark bony hand.
‘Up early, Don Máximo?’
‘What does Your Reverence expect, Father Prudencio, with this Company’s appalling service!’
‘It’s very chilly this morning, healthy breathing this air, gives you a good appetite . . . and after mass . . .’
‘Did you attend last night’s conference, in the National College, Father?’
‘I couldn’t make it, I had to prepare a sermon . . .’
‘The events hall was too small to contain the public, with the 840 students, the teachers and guests . . .’
‘What did you preach on?’
‘On the Gospels . . .’
The priest turned round in his seat. ‘And you, Rosario, always a good Christian?’
‘As long as I’m not told to change . . .’
‘And even if you were told to . . . They smell good today.’
Thin-voiced, the woman offered them. ‘Would you care for one?’
Don Máximo threw some coins into her lap, saying, ‘It’s paid for.’
‘Certainly not, certainly not,’ protested the priest, affecting reluctance, and then, becoming distracted, ‘Is there any news about our wages?’
‘Not that I know of . . .’
‘We haven’t had anything since January . . .’
‘Salaries for teachers and the priesthood should be sacred to the country; its present and its future are in our hands. It is scandalous to think that in yesterday’s session, it was voted that two hundred thousand pesos on paper be spent on furnishing the Courts’ archives . . .’
A maize-pudding cart crossed the mire of the corner of Piedad and Andes at a trot, drenching the conductor and passengers.
‘You maniac!’
‘Beast!’
‘Peace, peace,’ intervened the priest in conciliatory tone.
Taking advantage of the tram stopping, two elderly women walking along the street asked through the window, ‘Will you be taking confession tomorrow, Father Prudencio?’
The reverend, concerned with the honesty of commerce, had a measure of maize pudding and milk filled to the brim, from that maize pudding which old people still recall and which disappeared along with cobblestones.
A pale sun filtered through the mist; the street began to fill with people and the familiar shouting of sellers joined the tooting of the tram; wood and newspaper sellers, pastry cooks, Basques with their churns at the side of their mounts and street vendors selling Paraguayan oranges and Brazilian bananas made a ready chorus for the dogcatcher’s concert, to which the generation of ‘85 awoke every morning.
‘Wouldn’t you like a ride? I’ll take you for free,’ Rearte asked a dark plump girl scrubbing a doorstep.
The girl replied stonily, ‘And you, do you want me to scrub your face for free?’
The tram became full opposite Piedad; Father Prudencio made room very deferentially to an elegant lady with a veil over her eyes and a rosary tangled around her extremely fine fingers. She barely responded condescendingly and made a friendly gesture to a man with a fair, salt-and-pepper beard.
‘So early and on your own?’
‘From church; you know I come every month specially to take communion. And you, where are you off to at this hour by tram?’
‘I’m on my way back, Teodorita, on my way back . . .’
‘You’re telling me! What a scandal!’
‘The thing is, unfortunately I’ve come from the club; all night long discussing the propaganda programme.’
‘Well, for Juarez to be chosen as candidate . . .’
‘It’s the only thing I’d dare deny to you, Teodorita; Don Bernardo has the support of reason.’
‘And Juarez, that of the people. But tell me then, weren’t you at the Colon last night?’
‘I am not blessed with ubiquity. How was “Lucrezia”?’
‘ “Lucrezia” was awful; but, on the other hand, if you’d seen Guillermina . . .’
‘Don’t be so critical. Let’s talk about something else.’
‘Are you scared? Oh well, since I’ve just come from confession and I’ve promised not to gossip . . .’
The gentleman tried to distract her. ‘So, Borghi Mamo is not that great?’
‘She wasn’t very good, I assure you. When you think of Teodorini’s “Lucrezia”! And the bass? In “Vieni, mia vendetta” I thought my eardrums would burst!’
A man with dandruff and thick elasticated boots with holes at the bunions sneezed; he was reading the news in ‘La Nación’.
‘Hey, this isn’t bad.’
‘What?’ inquired a young man who was amusing himself by composing anagrams aloud out of the advertisements decorating the inside of the coach.
‘They’re asking for doormats in the tramways of San José de Flores, so that the passengers won’t get cold feet; I suffer from that a great deal . . .’
A man with a handlebar moustache deferentially greeted another in a hazel-coloured overcoat and of foreign appearance. ‘Congratulations, Icaza old chap; it seems to me that your proposal to the Council, which is so careless in these matters, couldn’t be a better one . . .’
‘It’s the only way to put an end to the plagues of mosquitoes and the spreading of so many diseases . . .’
‘What’s it all about?’ asked Dr Vélez from the other end.
‘Something very simple.
You just plough ten blocks of land around the depots and have canals take the sewage there so that they disappear by absorption . . .’
‘Not to mention that with irrigation and fertilization, the soil will become very fertile indeed.’
The tram swerved so that passengers were thrown against each other, giving rise to terrible protestations.
‘Have you hurt yourself, Teodorita?’
‘Jesus, I’ll never again take a tram even if I have to ask for transport at Cabral’s at four in the morning!’
‘These vehicles should be for men on their own . . .’
The ‘La Nación’ reader remarked on a terrible incident in the news. ‘Listen to this, a poor old porter was having a quiet rest sitting on the kerb of the pavement, at the corner of Cangallo and La Florida, when a cart went by and ran over his foot . . .’
The clock at San Ignacio struck seven. The teacher bade farewell to the priest with his usual protestations, and the latter, half closing his eyelids, began to mutter a rosary. The elegant lady and the distinguished gentleman also got off. Two men travelling on the platform occupied the seats, forecasting the crisis in the British cabinet.
‘Gladstone and his supporters will fall; the situation is imminent . . .’
‘And what do you think of the result of Dr Pellegrini’s negotiations?’
‘A skillful diplomat, superior intelligence, he’ll secure the loan, I’m sure . . .’
The younger man inquired, ‘Tell me, Mr Poblet, is it true that Rodriguez’s land in San Juan is being auctioned off?’
‘Some hope, my friend! Don Ernesto is becoming richer all the time. A lucky Spaniard, if ever there was one!’
‘I’m told that thirty leagues are on sale with no reserve price next to La Rosita and I imagined . . . If you could give me more precise details . . . I’m interested.’
The Book of Fantasy Page 13