The St Perpetuus Club of Buenos Aires

by Eric Stener Carlson

  Getting to work on time was the only thing Ezequiel hadn’t stolen from me, and it was slipping from my grasp.

  When I reached the platform, I tried to centre myself, scanning the wall for the picture of the pulley. But I couldn’t see it! I felt up and down the ceramic tiles, but I couldn’t find the zafra scene. No peons, no machetes, no sugarcane. How could it have disappeared?

  Instead, there was a picture of an ornate altar, covered with candles, fruits and flowers, and baby Jesus in the centre of it, being venerated by angels, heads bowed. Confused, I read the poem inscribed to the left of it:

  Pretty little boy,

  Little mouth of coral

  Little eyes like a star

  That lights up the sea.

  How pretty is the rose

  That’s on the rose tree.

  Prettier still is the boy,

  Who on the altar is.

  Good-bye my little boy,

  Good-bye now I go,

  May God wish you grant me

  A blessing.

  Somehow, I knew those words. I recognised the scene, but it didn’t seem to fit. Then it quickly fell on me. No! I couldn’t have been so foolish.

  I turned around and strained my eyes to see across the tracks. There, on the far side, was the zafra scene. There were the peons, and there, most importantly of all, was Pythagoras’ pulley. In my fever and my confusion, I hadn’t crossed Santa Fe. I’d gone down the steps on the non-shopping mall side of Bulnes!

  My humiliation was complete. I had violated my most basic rule. I was a laughingstock, a fool. I looked at Baby Jesus. How I hated Him! How I hated the reverent angels, heads bowing low.

  And the poem, that facile, little peasant poem: ‘Little mouth of coral’; ‘Little eyes like a star’; ‘How pretty is the rose//that’s on the rose tree.’

  And then something else became clear to me. Roses. Rose tree. Rosenbaum—‘rose tree’ in German. Ezequiel Rosenbaum was behind this. It was all part of his plan. From the very beginning, he’d taunted me, baited me like a bear in a cage. He’d tricked me into a false sense of self-assurance, into buying all those peas. He’d foreseen every step, waited until the numbers were against me, set me up. And I fell for it. I fell for all of it.

  Then, like a perfect amateur, I glanced at my watch. And what time was it? 12! Twelve midnight! It wasn’t time to go to work. Either I’d set my clock wrong, or I’d mistaken the ringing in my ears for the alarm.

  No wonder it was so dark. I looked about me, and there wasn’t a commuter to be seen. I was now double the fool, and I felt I didn’t have the strength to drag myself back up to my apartment and go back to bed.

  I turned and looked wistfully at the pulley across the tracks. But then I turned away, ashamed. If Pythagoras were looking up at me from hell, he would have been so disappointed. How I’d squandered the Mysteries of the universe! My face pressed against Cattaneo’s murals, I closed my eyes and began to cry, to actually cry.

  There, my face wet against the tiles, I opened my eyes and saw the flames of la salamanca shooting up towards the heavens, the serpents, the body thrown amidst it all, the thrashing crocodile grinning madly at me. La salamanca. La salamanca. And the words of that stupid poem pounded in my head,

  Good-bye my little boy

  Good-bye, now I go

  May God wish you grant me

  A blessing.

  I was so desperate to return to my old life. I ached to defeat Ezequiel. But ask for a ‘blessing’? No. In spite of everything, I’d never kneel to Him. I’d prefer He curse me, damn me straight to hell. I’d go gladly into the flames, before I’d ever ask for His help.

  I spat on the mural and pummelled it with my fists as hard as I could. My knuckles bleeding, I turned and saw a faint light grow at the mouth of the opposite tunnel, indicating a train had started pulling away from the station at Scalabrini Ortiz.

  Even though I was in a deep stupor, my interest stirred. How could that be? There were no more trains at that time of night. Who could be running it? No state employee would be working after midnight.

  If there was only some way to cross the tracks and see it when it arrived. This was something interesting. Perhaps it was a sign?

  Then I saw something farther down the platform. Why hadn’t I noticed it before? I . . .

  [Immediately following these words, four pages had been ripped out of the book!]

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The taxi pulled up to my apartment just as I came across the missing pages. The text continued a few pages later, but I couldn’t help but finger the frayed edges of those four, ripped-out sheets. What secrets had they held? Why were they denied me?

  Had the author, himself, ripped them out? Had Professor Pendleton? Had his sister taken them out to spite me?

  I began to read on, but the taxicab driver cut me short. ‘Are you gettin’ out or what? My shift just ended, and I gotta get home. It’s my grandkid’s birthday, and I’m havin’ a barbecue.’

  ‘Yeah, good luck in this rain,’ I said, taking out a wad of bills from my pocket and pressing them into his open palm. I closed the book and put it inside my jacket. Then I burst out of the taxi through the pouring rain to my apartment, jumping through large puddles. In the fading light of the afternoon, I fumbled for my latchkey.

  By the time I got up to my apartment, I was soaking wet and chilled to the bone, but the book was dry. I carefully placed it on the dining room table. Then I peeled off my clothes and left them in a soggy pile in the middle of the living room.

  I fumbled in the closet for an old sweater and a pair of sweatpants.

  At last I was alone, and I could read the rest of the book. Alone . . . with the rain coming down outside, the place had a hollow sound to it. I really was alone, here to pick up my things and leave.

  And where was I going to? To Esteban’s house? Until his mother got back from the beach? And then what?

  I looked at the two bags Juli had packed for me, sitting in the hallway. A few changes of clothes, some socks: my books! I couldn’t forget my Saint Perpetuus books.

  I groped for my keys in the pocket of my soaking pants. Then I unlocked my study door and took out all the copies of Lives of the Saints and my hand-written notes. As I stacked and sorted them on the dining room table, I felt a sense of accomplishment building.

  Look at all the obstacles I’d overcome to get to this point. I’d been bitten by some crazy old lady. I’d gotten into—and out of—the Saint Perpetuus Club with my virtue intact . . . and, God only knows how I’d escaped that death-trap on Santa Fe.

  If I’d survived all of that, then wasn’t this trouble with Julieta just a hiccup? I mean, she couldn’t stay mad at me forever. And once I solved the riddle of St. Perpetuus, once I found out where the pool of Panther Energy was stored, then I could make everything right again.

  Just as I reached for the book Pendleton’s sister had given me, the lightening flashed outside, and the lights went off.

  ‘Shit!’ I’m on the verge of the world’s most important discovery, and the lights go out. I didn’t even try to open the fuse box, because it was an absolute mystery to me. Fucking humanities!

  I bumped my way down the hallway and banged my shin—twice!—and finally found the kitchen drawer where we keep the candles. As soon as I lit one, I saw Miguelito’s milk bottles and the medicine dropper drying in the sink, and my heart sank. Would I ever get back together with Juli? When would I see my son again?

  No, I couldn’t afford to get pessimistic now. I was too close to making things right. I just needed to sit down and organise myself. Why, maybe in the pages of the book I’d been given that very day was the key.

  But it’d been such a hard day, with Pendleton’s funeral, and that asshole ‘Tenured Professor MacIntosh’ and then Juli kicking me out. (Or was I leaving her?) My head started to hurt.

  As I started back to the dining room, I saw a half-empty bottle of vodka on the shelf above, and I thought, ‘fuck it’. If I really
had the place all to myself, then I could do what I wanted. No more nagging from Julieta. No more rules about coming and going. I could have a drink. Hell, I could have ten drinks if I wanted to, and then I’d pack up my books and head out to Esteban’s.

  So I sat down in my study with the bottle of vodka, and I took out my old, battered copy of The Republic. I took a swig and cracked open the book, ‘Several times in the course of the discussion Thrasymachus had made an attempt to get the argument into his own hands, and had been put down by the rest of the company, who wanted to hear the end.’

  Fuck Thrasymachus, I thought. Instead of Socrates, he’s the motherfucker they should’ve made drink the hemlock. What an ignorant shit, just like Gutierrez. I mean, who the fuck did he think he was? Sure, I wasn’t the Assistant to the Assistant Director, but I was close to unravelling the secrets of Eternity. I’d like to see the look on his face when I become Master of Time and Space!

  I’d like to turn back time and kick Gutierrez’s ass the first time I ever met him at the Ministry. Yes, I’d like to kick the shit out of him. That’s the first thing I’d do.

  Then I thought about the fucking parks conference coming up in the next few weeks. How was I supposed to get out of that? With everything that had been going on, it’d totally slipped my mind. Now I wouldn’t even be able to get a decent night’s sleep in my own bed to prepare myself for the follow-up meeting with Gutierrez on Monday morning.

  Then I thought, fuck it. I mean, really just fuck it. Things’ll work out for the best. I took a few more swigs of vodka, and I kept reading, ‘But when Polemarchus and I had done speaking and there was a pause, he could no longer hold his peace; and, gathering himself up, he [Thrasymachus] came at us like a wild beast, seeking to devour us. We were quite panic-stricken at the sight of him . . .’

  That was the last thing I remembered, before I woke up in my study, in a pool of my own drool. I had a vague memory of a nightmare. There was this beast. I think he was Thrasymachus. His voice sounded a little like that pretentious ‘tenured professor’ MacIntosh, but with Gutierrez’s crooked teeth. And then we were fighting, and he was hitting me with this broom that Bernardo’s brother was always holding . . . Oh, my head hurt so badly!

  I carefully opened one eye and looked at the bright light-bulb above my head. The electricity was on again. And I noticed the candle next to me had burned down, a puddle of hot wax. How long had I been out?

  Then I heard a noise, coming from the front of the apartment. Shit! My first thought was that someone had broken in. Someone had followed me from the graveyard. And all my books and notes were on the dining room table!

  Suddenly, I got sober—well, a bit more sober—and I staggered to my feet. I looked around for some sort of weapon, but all there was were books. So I picked up an unabridged dictionary that weighed a ton, and I cautiously headed for the dining room.

  As I turned the corner, the book held high over my head, I saw someone bending over my papers. But it wasn’t an intruder. It was Juli!

  ‘Juli, what are you doing here?’ I thundered at her, tossing the dictionary onto a chair. ‘You scared the shit out of me. I thought you said you wouldn’t be back home until late?’

  Juli turned around, and said vaguely, ‘Well, it is late, Miguel. I had to pick up Miguelito’s teddy bear and a few other things to bring over to my mother’s. Miguel,’ she held up a handful of my papers, ‘what is this shit?’

  ‘What?’ I said evasively. Had she only just gotten here? How much did she know?

  ‘This . . . all this shit about time travel? Have you gone completely crazy?’

  I thought the best defence was to get angry. ‘How dare you go through my research!’

  ‘Research? Are you insane? When you said you were writing again, I thought you were finishing your dissertation. Not . . . what is this? Have you joined a cult?’

  Now my pride was injured. ‘I didn’t tell you, Juli, because I knew this was exactly the way you were going to react. You can’t accept anything outside of your little, intellectual comfort zone. It’s fucking typical of you, always shutting me down.’

  She clenched her fist around a wad of papers. ‘You sanctimonious little . . . Okay, try me. Just fuckin’ try me. Explain this to me about your little Saint of time travel, so it makes sense to my little pea brain. Since I’m only just a woman.’

  Thinking of the notes I’d written on the Zapam-zucún, I said, cautiously, ‘How much have you read?’

  She hissed, ‘Enough to know that, if this isn’t a novel, then you’ve gone off the fucking deep end. Answer me this, my brilliant philosopher. What are you trying to get out of all of this?’

  I gulped and said, ‘Wouldn’t you . . . wouldn’t you like to change anything in your life? Haven’t you ever thought what it would be like to go back in time and fix things?’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘No. I’ve made my bed, and I’m going to sleep in it. I don’t want to go back and fix anything. I want to fix what’s wrong right now. And there’s something terribly wrong with you.’

  Now, I was really angry, and I wanted to hurt her. ‘So, you don’t want to change anything at all? Not even one thing?’

  Her lips trembled, ‘No.’

  ‘Not even . . .’

  She half-pleaded, half-screamed, ‘Don’t you dare mention it!’

  ‘Not even when you . . . ?

  ‘How dare you! You promised me you’d never talk about it again.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? I married you, because of it.’

  ‘You bastard! You bastard! How dare you speak like that!’ and she picked a book off the table and tossed it at my head. ‘You don’t deserve to mention him . . . to make him sound like a thing . . . like a pair of shoes you wished you hadn’t bought. Or like a book you’d like to return and get your money back for. How dare you dirty his memory like that. He was a sweet, innocent little baby . . .’

  ‘I didn’t mean . . . I just meant, an example, of mistakes we made . . .’

  ‘Well, if he was such a horrible mistake, why didn’t you leave me after the miscarriage? Why didn’t you pack up all your fucking books and get out of my life?’ Her eyes burned intensely, like I’d never seen before. ‘Was it the guilt that made you stay? Or was it just easier for you to stay married and blame me for your wasted life?’

  Now I no longer wanted to hurt her, but I realised nothing I could say would ever make things right again. ‘I . . . I don’t know. I guess I stayed . . . I guess I stayed because I loved you.’

  ‘You guess? You guess? This is real life, Miguel. This isn’t some fucking essay question you can talk your way out of. You either love me or you don’t. You either want to be a part of this family, or you don’t. And I suppose you guess Miguelito was a mistake, too?’

  ‘No. Now you’re twisting everything around.’ My head was pounding. ‘Look, if you really want to know . . . I thought, maybe, if I could find the source of this Panther Energy, then I could take you with me. The two of us could go back, we could go back to the way things were. When we were young and things were good. And, knowing what we know now, we’d do things differently.’

  ‘What . . . like your little saint?’ she held up another copy and tossed it at my head. ‘That sycophantic little shit who found a way to turn back time. And all he did with it was destroy “Ezequiel” instead of doing something good for humanity?’

  She stopped me cold. ‘He what . . . What are you talking about? How do you know this?’ Had she been keeping the Secret from me all these years? Suddenly, I pounced on her. ‘Are you a member of the Club?’ I shouted. ‘Did they send you here?’

  She pushed me away and screamed at me, ‘What the fuck are you talking about, Miguel? I’m not a member of any club. For God’s sake you’re paranoid. You’re out of control.’

  ‘Where did you read this? How did you know?’

  ‘It’s here . . . in this book with the cover of Professor Pendleton’s book. I . . . I saw it sitting here and thought, how swee
t of him to remember you like this. And then I started flipping through it, and I saw this writing.’

  I felt the walls closing in on me. As the rain dissipated outside, I heard the sounds of the night traffic humming, ‘zapam-zucún’, ‘zapam-zucún’. I began to realise something. I said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with me, Julieta. It’s you. It’s been you all along. You’re trying to keep me from the truth.’

  She clasped her hands together, ‘Don’t do this, Miguel. What we had . . . it’s lost. It’s broken, and I don’t think we can ever fix it. But, for your own sake, don’t go down this path anymore. I’m begging you. It’s not too late.’

  She sounded sincere enough, but I was on to her. ‘No, it’s a trick,’ I said. ‘That’s just what Pendleton said, and look what happened to him. (If he’s really dead, which I’m beginning to doubt.) You see, I’m starting to remember just how easy it was for him to arrange my job at the Ministry, and how happy you were to keep me there, with my mental energy subdued. I think it’s all one big trick. You just didn’t want me to find the pool of Panther Energy, did you? Because then you’d have to admit I was right! And you couldn’t stand that, could you?’

  Julieta burst into tears. Between crying jags, she said, ‘If that’s what you think, if you’re so trapped in this sick, little fantasy of yours, then just go. Just fucking get out of here, and never come back. Never talk to me. Never come near Miguelito again.’

  ‘Fine!’ I said, gathering up my books and papers scattered all around and stuffing them into my backpack. ‘But you’ll see, when I find the Source of All Power. You’ll see who’s been right all along!’