A very wise creature, this Schávelzon, he keeps the deep secrets of Buenos Aires. He knows where people heaped refuse to make this hilly city flat, where they tried to smooth over the rough patches against the natural grain of it. But oblivious of this history, you and the rest of the Herd scream at the cabbie, ‘Take the low road!’, ‘Take the low road!’, like a bunch of demented parrots.
If this isn’t proof enough that deep things are beckoning to us to uncover their secrets, then let’s discuss Scalabrini Ortiz street. Or would you ever call it that?
Again, tell any taxicab driver—those useful repositories of folk wisdom and bigotry—‘Go down Scalabrini Ortiz.’ And he’s sure to ask you ‘What number of Canning are you going to?’
Next time you’re walking along that very street, ask for directions to Scalabrini Ortiz. People will look at you, puzzled, suspicious. They respond, out of this great, collective memory, ‘But you’re already standing on Canning, you asshole!’ (You’re lucky they don’t string you up right then and there.)
Consult Jorge Oscar Canido Borges’ supreme reference on the streets of Buenos Aires and you’ll understand their antipathy.
The street has been the scene of a nomenclatural battle of Cosmic proportions!
Long ago, when it was first created, the City Planners named it Ministro Inglés. Then they changed its name to Canning. Then they renamed it Scalabrini Ortiz. Then Canning, and then, once more, Scalabrini Ortiz!
Ah, Mr Ortiz, great man of letters. Born in the province of Corrientes in 1898. Graduate of the Sorbonne. Author of ‘The Railroads: The Main Factor in National Independence’. Why does the Herd want to erase your name from History?
But it doesn’t matter what the government officially calls this street. They could make it a crime to call it Canning. They could bring back public whippings to punish the offence. And, still, as they brought down the lash, again and again, on the back of whatever obese cabbie it was broke the law, he would whimper—Galileo-like in his persistence—but it is Canning . . . it is.
Some would call this ‘custom’ or ‘culture’. Others would call it an unwillingness to change. But I say it’s ‘fidelity’. Fidelity to the notion of a city whose bumps cannot be smoothed away, whose valleys cannot be filled in with garbage and forgotten. We cannot alter the real names of these streets, even if we wanted to. ‘The low road’ is forever ‘the low road’. Canning is forever Canning.
This is because there is some Will, some dark Power that flows beneath the streets of Buenos Aires. And we must obey its ebbs and flows.
I call this force ‘Panther Energy . . .’
CHAPTER FOUR
I went to sleep late that night, wedging myself between the wall and Julieta, who was curled up with Miguelito. But this time, I set my alarm early. I wanted to take the subway at Bulnes station and take a closer look at Cattaneo’s murals there.
In the morning, as I was getting dressed in the dark, Julieta stirred in bed, ‘You got in late last night,’ she whispered. ‘What happened?’
Musing over the quotes from Nietzsche, I barely heard her. I mumbled to myself, ‘Where there is neither love nor hatred in the game, woman’s play is mediocre’.
In the pale light of the sunrise coming through the slats of our bedroom shutters, I could see her outline sit up quickly in bed. ‘What did you just say?’
‘Oh, nothing, nothing . . . I’m sorry. I just stopped by a couple of bookstores to continue my . . . research. I totally lost track of time. I’m sorry.’
‘That’s okay, Miguel. I’m really glad you’ve started your dissertation again. But you know, you could have called.’
‘I know. It was stupid of me. I promise it won’t happen again.’
‘I’m not going to take Miguelito to school today,’ she whispered. ‘He had a really high fever last night, and if it gets any worse I’m going to take him to the doctor’s. Before you go, could you please help me give him his medicine? I washed the medicine dropper out last night. It’s in the kitchen right next to the sink.’
I bent down to Miguelito, his little chest panting heavily up and down, his head making a halo of sweat on the sheets. I kissed him on the forehead. Yes, he was burning up. I thought about going for the medicine, but then I looked at my watch and figured it would take at least five minutes to give it to him. (And then I’d probably get stuck changing him while Julieta took a shower, and I wouldn’t have time to go to Bulnes station.)
Tightening my tie, I edged towards the front door. I said, ‘Look, Julieta, I really don’t have time. I’ve got stuck organising this conference, so I got up early to prepare for it. I promise I’ll come home early tonight and give you a hand.’
‘It’ll just take a minute . . .’ she protested. But I was already out the door.
***
Sprinting down Gallo and then across Santa Fe, I was lucky enough to get into Bulnes station before it started filling up with morning commuters. I’d often glanced at the murals there, while waiting for the train, but I’d never really paid much attention to them. Now that they figured so prominently in the last journal entry, I wanted to soak up every detail.
I searched up and down the wall, until I found the picture of the pulley. I’m sorry to admit it, but it didn’t remind me of Archimedes at all, and I found that a bit disheartening.
I put my back against the pulley and stared across the tracks. Typical! Some fat businessman was blocking my view of the mural on the other side. But then he left to buy a newspaper, and I caught a glimpse of the sketches Cattaneo and Co. commissioned from Alfredo Guido in 1938: the ‘Legends of the Jungle Country’ from the northern province of Santiago del Estero.
The first figure I could make out was the Mul’anima, a winged mule with fiery hooves, trailing broken chains. I remember my great uncle, Edgar, used to tell me stories about it when we sat around the campfire at his place in the country. Hunched over the coals, with his long, drooping moustaches, he told me the story of a beautiful girl seduced by the village priest. As a punishment for her sins, she was turned into a hellish creature, condemned to fly through the night, seeking out souls to feed upon. For years after that, any time I heard a car backfire at night or the scraping of a branch against my window, I would run to my parents’ room, screaming ‘The Mul’anima’s coming to get me!’
Further down the wall, I saw the pitch-black Toro-Supay, spouting light from his nostrils. Supay, the devil in the shape of a bull. I once read it was an ancient reference to Jupiter who raped Europa while disguised as a bull.
And then, the legend of the Liriolay flower: three brothers seek a flower on a dangerous cliff, whose juice would cure their father’s blindness. Only one brother, the youngest, dares pluck it from the heights, and the other two murder him for making them look like cowards.
Such fascinating stories on the subway walls, and yet I bet not one commuter in a hundred knows what the images mean. People are just too busy with their memos and their deadlines and all the rest of their bullshit to pay attention.
Then, just as the train was pulling in, I saw the scene I was looking for—the Salamanca—just as awful as it was described in that entry in Lives of the Saints. The twisting animals, the rising flames, the body of a man being sucked down into the centre of hell. What had that anonymous writer meant, when he referred to its special significance? It was certainly terrifying—I noticed I’d suddenly broken out in a cold sweat—but what did it mean?
As I pushed my way into the subway car and the doors closed, I craned my neck to see the Salamanca again. Then, as we entered the darkened tunnel, I glimpsed the edge of that grey, metal door, locked with a rusty chain.
***
Just for the hell of it, when I got out of the subway at Tribunales, I skirted ‘Zamudio’s Hollow’, like the book said. I’m not saying there was anything to it, but, when I got to work, I couldn’t believe my eyes. I walked through the door, just as the arms of the clock clicked nine o’clock. I couldn’t remember when I’d l
ast arrived to work on time!
Perplexed by this, I wandered to my desk. I called over the cubicle divider, ‘Morning, Esteban!’
‘Mo-orning,’ came the mellow voice on the other side.
‘Man,’ I said, ‘how in the world can you get here early? By some miracle, I just got here on time.’
‘Well, Miguel, I’ll let you in on a scientific fact. There’s a six-hour time difference between here and Finland, so it’s 3 a.m. in Helsinki right now. Prime time for the really hard-core, live web-cam stuff. Do you want to come over and see?’
‘No, thanks, Esteban. I gotta write up this participants list today for the conference. By the way, Gutierrez wants me to invite half of Europe to this thing. So . . . while I’m at it, want me to order you an exotic dancer from Helsinki? We can put her under “miscellaneous expenses” on budget line 12.’
‘Naw, thanks, man. I’m good. After jerking off to the computer for so long, I don’t know what I’d do with a real woman. Besides, it’s my . . .’
‘ . . . Karma,’ I completed his sentence. ‘Yeah, I figured that.’
‘Man, it’s spooky how you read my mind, sometimes. It’s like you can see into the future.’
‘Yeah,’ I mused, flipping through my rolodex, ‘wouldn’t that be a sweet trick?’ I opened and closed my desk drawer and started searching through my cubbyholes. ‘Hey, Esteban . . . don’t you think it’s strange they’ve given me this enormous budget to fly in some expert from Bora Bora, all expenses paid, but they won’t buy me more than a six-pack of pencils a year? You got a pencil you can lend me?’
‘Sorry, man, but I run a strictly paperless business. Much better for the environment . . . and if I get in some deep shit over a deadline I missed, I can always delete the e-mail and pretend I never got it.’
I stopped rummaging around after I found the old nub of a pencil. ‘By the way, did you ever get those three hotel quotations I asked you for? I’m running out of time to book a venue.’
There was silence for a moment, and then Esteban said ‘Uh . . . no, man. Are you sure you sent it to me? I don’t recall ever . . .’ and I could have sworn I heard him click ‘delete’ on his keyboard, ‘. . . seeing that e-mail. You wanna resend it to me this afternoon, and I’ll see what I can do?’
‘Don’t bother, Esteban. I’ll just do it myself.’
‘Cool, man. Whatever makes you feel more comfortable. Look, I’m gonna take a leak while this thing is downloading.’
I started working on the conference agenda, but as the hours dragged on, I thought of doing my own research on St. Perpetuus. I put down the agenda and clicked on the internet.
Looking over my shoulder—as if anyone ever came down to where I worked, except for Esteban, who, by the sound of his breathing, was fast asleep—I did a search for the ‘Institute for the Study and Resolution of Contested Glacier Frontiers’. But nothing came up. Then I typed in ‘ISRCGF’, but all that came up was a webpage for a benevolence club for fire-fighters in Puerto Rico.
I wasn’t that surprised to not find a reference to the ISRCGF. These sorts of institutes come and go all the time, and, after all, there’s no central directory.
What were those two organisations that shared the same building with the Institute? Something political? I couldn’t remember, so I just typed in ‘Argentina and fascism’, and I got 1,000,243 hits. Then I typed in ‘Argentina and communism’, and I got exactly the same number of hits. That was odd, but it didn’t get me anywhere.
Then I remembered the name of the third organisation, so I typed in the ‘Centre for the Study of Anal Masochism’ and hit the return key. Suddenly, my computer emitted a high-pitched sound, and the screen flickered with the message ‘Code 38’. Then it went out.
‘Shit. Esteban,’ I called over the divider, ‘did your computer just crash?’
Esteban yawned. ‘No, man. Why?’
‘I don’t know what happened. I was just doing some research, and then this “Code 38” thing flashed on my screen, and now it’s completely dead.’
‘Shit, man. “Code 38”? No way. You just tripped the latest filter they put in. Man, and I say this with the utmost respect, that thing only gets set off by the most hardcore porn. I’m not judgin’ you or nothin’, but don’t you get enough action at home?’
‘Aaggh,’ I stifled a scream, ‘it wasn’t anything like that. I just typed in the Centre for the . . . You know what? Just forget it. How long is the system going to be down for?’
‘Dunno. Three, four hours, until the computer people reboot your system. And I don’t want to freak you out or anything, but when you tripped the filter, the system sent a list of all the sites you visited to Gutierrez.’
‘Great!’ I said, banging the keyboard up and down on my desk. ‘Now, he’s going to tell the Director that not only am I incompetent, but I’m also a pervert like you.’
‘Ouch, man . . .’ Esteban said. ‘Watch your labels. They can hurt. I prefer the term “sexually curious”.’
Trying to calm down, I said, ‘You’re right, Esteban, you’re right. I’m sorry. But, look, isn’t there anything you can do to cover my tracks? I mean, you’re the Porn Surfing King.
‘Well,’ he said, and I could hear him typing away, ‘I could hack into the mainframe and see what I can do. I’m normally against this sort of thing, but just this time to help you out, okay?’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘I’d better use this down time to check out some of the hotel venues.’
Just then, the speaker box on my telephone screeched. The receptionist said, ‘It’s your wife. Line three. She says it’s important.’
‘Shit,’ I said, sure Julieta was calling to chew me out for leaving early that morning. I talked into the box, ‘Please tell her I’m in a meeting, okay? And I’ll call her as soon as I can.’ Then I picked up my notebook and left the office.
***
When I got back to the office, I called over to Esteban. ‘Are we good?’
‘We’re excellent,’ he said. ‘In the end it wasn’t that hard. I just changed your user ID to Martinez’s . . . You know, that asshole in accounting?’
‘The total Opus Dei nutcase, with ten kids? You think Gutierrez is gonna believe he was checking out an anal masochism website?’
‘My friend,’ Esteban reflected, ‘in my vast experience, it’s always the ones you least suspect.’
‘Brother, ain’t that the truth.’
‘Oh, by the way, your wife called like ten times.’
‘Yeah? What about?’
‘Your kid’s in the hospital.’
***
By the time I got to the Hospital Italiano on Las Heras Avenue, it was already dark. Going through the maze of corridors and wards, I finally found Julieta looking through a window onto Miguelito’s room. He looked so much smaller in the big bed, curled up in the starched, white sheets. He had a long drip line stuck in his arm.
Breathlessly, I asked her, ‘What’s wrong?’
Julieta turned a red face to me. I could tell she’d been crying. ‘Where were you? I’ve been calling all afternoon.’
‘Uh, I was lining up hotels for the conference.’
She shot back at me, ‘The same one that made you too busy to hand me the medicine dropper this morning?’
‘Look, Julieta, I . . .’
Half talking to herself, she said, ‘I bathed him. I put cold compresses on him and everything. But the fever wouldn’t go down. Then he started vomiting, so I rushed him here.’
‘Is he all right?’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I don’t know. I hope so. They have him on antibiotics, and he’s on the drip, because he’s dehydrated.’
‘Look,’ I said, feeling really guilty by now, ‘why don’t you just go home and get some rest. I’ll stay with him all night if I have to.’
‘Have to? Have to? Of course, you don’t have to. He’s just your son, goddamit. He’s just lying there, all worn out, with nothing inside his little belly but saltwater.
’
‘Look, Julieta, that’s not what I meant. I meant, if that’s what I need to do to make things right, I’ll do it. You’re always telling me to take more responsibility, so here I am, ready and willing.’
‘That’s half right, Miguel. It’s also half bullshit. You’re ready, but you’re not willing. I can see it in your eyes. You’re just dying to get away. There’s something more important, some conference, some paper left unfinished that you’d rather be working on, instead of being with us.’
‘Julieta, no, I . . .’
‘Just let me finish. You’re just hoping I’ll take over, like I always do. So, fine, I’ll do it. I release you. Go home and do whatever the fuck you have planned tonight and get out of here.’
‘But I want to help.’
‘Yes, but I don’t want you like this. You feel obliged to be here. You feel guilty. I want you to be here because you want to be here.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense at all.’
‘Miguel, do you know why I stayed with you, after . . . ?’ and her eyes started to fill with tears. ‘It was because I saw in you the potential to be something better than you are. But . . . but I haven’t seen it come out yet.’
‘Great. So now you’re going to complain about me dropping out of the doctorate program and working for the Ministry? I was waiting for you to say that.’
She poked me on the chest. It hurt. ‘Miguel, I don’t give a fuck about your dissertation. I don’t give a fuck about your job. You could be an ice cream vendor or a shoe salesman for all I care. I just want you home with me and Miguelito when we need you. I want to know where you are at night. I want to be able to trust you.’
The St Perpetuus Club of Buenos Aires Page 8