Final Exam

by Julio Cortázar

  “Abelito,” whispered Juan, leaning on the bar. “Abelito!”

  But Abel settled into a corner and stared at the wall without seeing him or, more likely, without wanting to see him. Juan stirred his coffee, not wanting to drink it. He’d ordered it out of habit. He never liked making telephone calls from bars without first ordering something. Seen from the back, Abel seemed even thinner, his shoulders were stooped. How long it had been since they’d seen each other. In the old days, Abelito never wore anything as nice as that blue suit. He’s got money, thought Juan. The most natural thing would have been for them to wave to each other even if from a distance, not to shake hands. They’d never had a falling out. How could you fight with Abel? He vaguely remembered the creeps who would sometimes appear in the bathroom of the house where they lived—he’d come back late in his student days. Poor Abelito, really, it was too much to compare him with … He gulped down the tepid, overly sweet coffee, stared tenderly at his shopping bag with the cauliflower in it. (As soon as he came in, he’d put the bag near him on the bar near the telephone, so no one would put a hand or elbow, on it.) Now a blond man in shirt sleeves was shouting into the telephone. Juan glanced once more at Abel, who was sitting at the other end of the café, then paid, and walked out carrying the bag very carefully.

  He walked along Cangallo, making his way through the scurrying passersby. The evening was hot; it was crowded, the cafés on the corners were overflowing. But what the fuck are all these people doing here at this hour? thought Juan. What lives, what deaths are they plotting? Well, how about me, what business do I have in the House? I would have been better off going up to Abel, asking him why he was walking around with a fresh-pressed face … Seeing him in the café, he was beginning to suspect that perhaps Abelito … But the fact was no one liked Abelito; which was more than sufficient reason to run into him in cafés. Poor Abel, so alone, so looking for something.

  If he were really looking for us, he’d have found us by now, thought Juan.

  He crossed Libertad, crossed Talcahuano. The House had turned on the extra lights for Thursdays. Not one classroom empty! Six thousand listeners they pack in in sections of a thousand each. How Menta must regret not having Kavanagh … And he’s probably in his office, wearing a dark blue or black suit, checking over forms, taking care of the public, filled with good intentions: We think the Dostoyevsky course should be given again, and the one on Ricardo Güiraldes. We waste too much time with Central American magazines. When will the cinematheque open? Dr. Menta is terribly sorry, but in classroom 31, they still have enough material for six more weeks with Pérez Galdós. It’s not easy running the House, thought Juan. He went up the stairs two at a time and almost ran into pug-nose Gómez, who was running out.

  “You should warn people if you’re running away from the cops.”

  “Worse than that, Juan, I’m escaping from that pudgy Maers,” said pug nose. “Every time she corners me, she starts explaining Darwin and anthropoid behavior.”

  “Holy Mother,” said Juan.

  “And her mother too, because she’s always talking about her family and a sister she’s got out in Ramos Mejia. See you later. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, everything’s okay. What about you?”

  “I’m in the Interest on Earnings course,” said pug nose, and he went his lugubrious way.

  Juan crossed the gallery and went to the patio, where with all certainty Clara was in a fury. He sneaked up behind her and tickled her.

  “You’re odious,” said Clara, handing him the last of the Dolca bar.

  “You smell like a birthday. You’ve got the air of the victim, of the laboratory subject. Dr. Menta regrets.”

  “Disgusting man.”

  “And you receive me with the charm associated with fountains, with hills.”

  “It’s 8:20.”

  “Indeed it is. Time’s marched on and passed us by.

  Time, like a child

  led by the hand

  who looks back … I wrote that haiku

  two years ago, imagine … Clara, in this bag you see here I have a prodigious cauliflower.”

  “Eat it and, if you like, puke it. Besides, you’re supposed to say ‘cauliflower’ not ‘colleyflower.’ ”

  “It isn’t meant for eating,” explained Juan. “This cauliflower is for carrying around in a bag to admire it from time to time. I think the present moment is propitious for the admiration of the cauliflower. So …”

  “I’d rather not see it,” said Clara, proud of herself.

  “Just for a second, so you get to know it. It cost me 1.90 in the Plata Market. I couldn’t resist its beauty, so I went in and they wrapped it up for me. It was more beautiful than an early Flemish painting, and you know how I … Just take a good look at it …”

  “It’s pretty. I can see it just fine that way. No need to take it all the way out.”

  “There’s something of an insect’s eye to it magnified thousands of times,” said Juan, allowing his finger to pass over the tightly bunched, grayish surface. “Just think: it’s a flower, the enormous flower of the cabbage family—a cau-li-flower. But, you know, it’s got something of a vegetable brain to it. O, cauliflower, what are you thinking about?”

  “You were late because of that thing?”

  “Yes. Also because I called your Dad, who’s inviting us to lunch tomorrow; and I was looking at Abel.”

  “You certainly know how to waste time,” said Clara. “Abel and Dad … I’d opt for the cauliflower.”

  “Besides, I was counting on your forgiveness, dear,” said Juan. “Moreover, we’ve still got time to listen to Moyano for a while. And I know how much you like Moyano’s voice. The great acoustic fondler, the telephonic rapist.”

  “Jerk.”

  “But he’s just fine! The guy reads with such a degree of perfection, it doesn’t matter what he’s reading. And I like the three blondes who sit in the first row to drink it all in. The poor man, the superheterodyne lover! Hold on while I fix up the wrapping, someone could damage the colossus, the colossal cauliflower— the brilliant cauliflory, the caulicle.”

  From a room on the left, where the gallery began, came a psalmody muffled by the glass doors. They’re reading Balmes, thought Clara, or it could be Javier de Viana … A couple came running in and separated to read the little signs on the doors; they exchanged angry glances. Bam, headfirst, into the Ballad of the Wolves, Galiano Sifredi reader. A boy with huge eyeglasses was diligently reading the motto of the House written in gold letters on the wall:

  L’art de la lecture doit laisser l’imagination de

  l’auditeur, sinon tout à fait libre, du moins pouvant

  croire à sa liberté. —Stendhal

  (Everyone knew it was Gide who really said it, that Dr. Menta had swallowed the attribution to Stendhal.)

  Just invent an apocryphal intellectual structure, thought Clara. Make a founding father say what he should have said and didn’t; modify stupid temporality, render unto Caesar what should have been rendered unto him, but what was something actually said by Frederick II or President Yrigoyen …

  “Let’s go,” said Juan. “I hope there’s a place to sit.”

  Halfway up the stairs, they paused to examine the bust of Caracalla. Clara liked the domineering gesture in his eyebrows, which closed over the eyes like drawbridges. She always caressed the bust as she passed, deploring the crack in the nose that made him look wicked.

  “One of these days, he’s going to bite your hand, Clara. Caracalla was like that.”

  “Caesars don’t bite. And with a name as sweet as that, Caracalla, lord of the Romans.”

  “It’s not a sweet name,” said Juan. “It snaps like the whips of his charioteers.”

  “You’re mixing him up with Caligula.”

  “No, he sounds like some bitter root. Two grains of Caligula in a glass of honey. Or how about this: The sky is caligulated, who will discaligulate it? Oh, good-bye, Dr. Romero.”

&nb
sp; “Good night, youngsters,” she said, firmly grasping the banister.

  “Hurry up, Juan, Moyano probably started reading twenty minutes ago.”

  “You were the one who stopped to jerk off that poor Caesar.”

  “So what? He deserves it, he’s good to me. And no one stops to look at him—he who was once so looked at.”

  “Caracalla’s caracoles,” said Juan. “The Romans were like that. Dr. Romero’s turned into an elephant by the way. She turned around and contemplated my package. She smelled the cauliflower.”

  “Are you really going to carry that thing into the room?” asked Clara. “You’re going to make noise rustling the paper bag and disturb everybody.”

  “If I could only put it in my buttonhole, how about that? A caracallesque caprice. But you do think it’s pretty, right? You just can’t get cauliflower like this anymore.”

  “It’s okay. In my house, they bought bigger ones.”

  “Your famous house,” said Juan.

  The Reader made his end-of-chapter pause. Before beginning the next one, he allowed time for coughs, the manifestation of handkerchiefs, quick comments. Like a veteran pianist, he permitted a few seconds of relaxation, but not too many, so as not to lose that fluid yet tense substance adhering his voice to the people, his reading to attentions not always easily attracted.

  Making a small bow:

  Moise prenait de l’âge, mais aussi de l’apparence. Les banquiers ses contemporains, qu’il avait dépassés à trente ans en influence, à quarante en fortune …

  “Let me put the package between us,” whispered Juan. “This fat guy on my left is fully capable of flattening the cauliflower.”

  “Give it to me,” said Clara, grabbing the paper bag which rustled, causing Andrés Fava to turn his face toward them and grimace. In the finally ensuing silence, the Reader’s voice dropped effortlessly from its preceding discrete volume. Clara suddenly remembered:

  “What was he doing?”

  “Who?”

  “Abelito. What was he doing in the café?”

  “I don’t know. Looking for you, maybe.”

  “Hmm. But looking for me in the exact place I’m not.”

  “That might explain,” said Juan, “why he’s looking for you.”

  “Be quiet, both of you,” grumbled Andrés. “You two walk in, and everything falls apart. I lose my concentration, see? Then I lose my mind.”

  Abelito, thought Clara, staring in a friendly way at Andrés’ slightly skinny neck, examining critically the vulgar permanent ruining Stella’s appearance—Stella, naturally, was sitting next to Andrés. Yes, he looks for me in the exact place I’m not, where I never was. Poor Abelito.

  Stella slowly slipped her hand into Andrés’ pocket. Slowly Stella slipped her hand. Stella, into Andrés’ pocket, slipped her hand, slowly. It’s no easy thing to slip a hand (your own, that is) into the trouser pocket of a seated man. Andrés played dumb and watched her out of the corner of his eye. The funny thing was that his handkerchief was in his other pocket.

  “You’re tickling me.”

  “Give me your handkerchief, I’m going to sneeze.”

  “Let’s at least cry together, sweetheart, because I don’t have one.”

  “You most certainly do have a handkerchief.”

  “Yes, I most certainly have a handkerchief, but not for you.”

  “Hateful thing.”

  “Germ bearer.”

  “You’re the one demanding silence,” whispered Juan, “and now you start a riot over a handkerchief. How about some respect for culture, buddy? Let the rest of us hear.”

  “That’s right,” said another fat man sitting to Stella’s right. “Show a little respect.”

  “Right,” said Juan. “That’s just what I say, sir: more respect.”

  “That’s right,” said the fat guy.

  Clara was listening to Eglantine:

  Eglantine entrait, et redonnait subitement leur réalité, pour les yeux de Moise ému, au taupé et au Transvaal …

  And she was appreciating the Reader’s talent for reading with a minimum of gestures. I'd be flapping my hands every which way, thought Clara. Juan is perfectly capable of falling over backwards in his chair just reading me some article in “Crítica.” Completely distracted, incapable of focusing on Eglantine (she intended to read it on her own, as she did so many books she never ended up reading), she again stared at Andrés’ back, at Stella’s hair, at the Reader’s indifferent face. She was surprised to find herself using her fingers to explore the contents of the package, moving along like an insect over the cold, wrinkled surface of the cauliflower. She brought her fingers up to her nose: they had a weak scent of moist bran, a rainy season in a room with a piano and furniture draped with slipcovers, of a set-aside copy of Para Ti.

  Juan allowed her to keep holding the package. He took advantage of the next pause in the reading to move to Andrés’ left. Now they could talk without annoying the fat man—he was chatting with a lady who was probably retired, and wearing a violet dress.

  “One day the true contents of a pocket will be revealed,” said Juan, “and it will be seen they have very little to do with Charles Morgan.”

  “The introspection of you,” said Andrés. “So what’s happening, man?”

  “Everything’s the same, my friend. And you? Stella’s as pretty as ever.”

  “You’re always the same,” said Stella. “All Andrés’ friends are the same, a bunch of liars and scoundrels!”

  “Charming young lady,” said Juan to Andrés. “You’ve got a treasure in your own house and you probably don’t even realize it.”

  “How wrong you are,” said Andrés. “I’m the first to appreciate Stella’s merits and delights. I’ve already filled several notebooks with praise, and posterity will one day know what the city with Stella in it meant to me.”

  “Do you write, young fellow?” asked Juan, initiating one of their pseudo interviews. “Amazing. How promising.”

  “And you, lad? Don’t you write? It would be a sad thing if you didn’t, believe me when I say it.”

  “Calm down, young man. I also write. All of us, all of us in our intelligent set write. As for you, I’ve heard rumors that you keep up a kind of day book I’d someday like to get a squint at, if that would be acceptable to you.”

  “You’re asking for it,” said Andrés. “But it isn’t a day book, it’s a night book.”

  “Did you hear that?” asked Stella. “It sounded like a siren.”

  “It was a siren,” said Clara. “Loud enough to penetrate the insulated armor walls of our holy House.”

  “Rude reality ends up coinciding with mythology,” said Andrés. “My personal opinion is that we should go somewhere where we can use our vocal cords to the full. Stella, darling, you won’t be angry if we interrupt your intimate colloquy with literature, will you?”

  “But there are only five minutes left,” complained Stella, who easily confused attendance with time well spent.

  “Five minutes, what nonsense,” said Andrés. “Anyway, Clara doesn’t even allow us to hear with all that rustling of paper. Man, the devotion some people have to fine writing is incredible. One night at the boxing matches I spotted a guy reading a couple of pages of Karl Jaspers between fights.”

  “I’m not bothering you with the paper in the slightest,” said Clara. “He’s the guilty party: he bought the cauliflower, and then handed it over to me for safekeeping.”

  “I don’t want anyone to bruise it,” said Juan. “As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted, I wouldn’t mind at all if you were to let me read your recent essays. I hold your prose in high esteem, and besides, I humbly respect my destiny, which consists of reading the lives and opinions of others. It was the same with Abelito. And with Clara it’s even worse: she informs me orally—she’s the factory, and I’m the consumer. Intimacy: just think of it. Her mother had four false teeth, her brother collects Frank Sinatra records … Why did we com
e to the House? The best things to hear are outside.”

  “Five before nine,” said Stella. “Gosh, today I was so inattentive …”

  “Don’t take it so hard, sweety,” said Andrés. “Next time. I’ll take you to hear a reading of Vicki Baum.”

  “You’re mean. You don’t see that what I want to do is practice my French. It’s because of all of you that I lose track of things. What a pain you all are.”

  Clara ran her hand through Stella’s hair, moved by her words. Is she an idiot, or does she play at being one? she thought. Poor Andrés, but it seems he chose her. Stella’s thick hair allowed itself to be invaded by fingers slipping smoothly through it. It made a kind of halo though which Clara saw the Reader close his book and get up. The chairs began to creak and squeak—as if they too had begun to comment on the reading. What the poor things must know, thought Clara. One book after another, week in, week out. The lights blinked twice, went out, then came on again: one of Dr. Menta’s ideas to empty out the House rapidly at 9:00 P.M.

  Andrés walked out next to Clara and felt the package. “Nice vegetable you’ve got there,” he said. “But you’re looking a little thin.”

  “Guard duty. Tomorrow’s the final exam,” said Clara. “Why do you come here, Andrés?”

  “Actually I bring Stella so she can practice phonetics. It’s all the same to me whether I’m here or not. A habit I must have picked up when I studied at the University; and besides I always run into some friend or other. For instance tonight—I was lucky.”

  “The truth is we’ve been seeing very little of each other recently,” said Clara. “What a stupid life.”

  “Please don’t be redundant. Anyway, the House is amusing, and Stella thinks it does both of us good. Personally what I like most about it are the sandwiches in the café. Especially the pâté.”