Final Exam

by Julio Cortázar

  “Hey man, tell me something: what’s all this with the concert?”

  “I don’t have a clue,” said Bebe. “Just give me Pichuco or Brunelli and some chick to dance with. No classical music for me. No. Once and only once I was taken to Teatro Colón and saw an opera where there was a cave and God knows what else. Who needs it?”

  “But what concert is it?”

  “What do I know?” said Bebe. “Besides, you two are the ones who are going.”

  Juan went back to the dining room. Incredible he would have us go to a concert today of all days, he thought, eating fish salad with enormous appetite. Of course, yesterday I told him we’d go, but what we should do is sleep some more to be fresh for this evening. Clara had circles under her eyes. Her mouth was a little wrinkle of fatigue, and she spoke in a low voice.

  As long as I don’t panic, thought Juan, like that time in first year

  or was it let me see no, it was in third year, third-year philosophy. They asked me who Hegel was, and I said a friend of Copernicus … Then he choked on the wine, and Bebe, who was just coming back, started pounding him on the back. Juan hit him back hard, amused in the extreme.

  “Juan laughs all by himself the way crazy people do,” said Clara, caressing his cheek to remove a tear that was sliding down.

  “Even if it means plagiarizing Chesterton,” whispered Juan as he cleared his throat, “it’s important you know that no madman laughs by himself. What you really call laughing, you know: the right to skip having to talk to someone and nevertheless laugh: that is divine laughter, granted only for the most elevated beings. It’s divine because it creates itself and is also gratifying. A kind of epiglottic masturbation.”

  “He was just like this last night lying in bed,” complained Clara in coddling tones. “You called me a bitchy fly, and then you tossed and turned for five minutes. Hey, Bebe, how’s the lady from Apartment 8?”

  “Better, I think. Dad asked after her last night.”

  “She almost died,” said Mr. Funes. “Complications from old age. She’s very fond of you and always asks after you. All the neighbors always ask about you.”

  The shadow of a pigeon passed over the tablecloth. Irma served the stew and brought in the telephone: for Miss Clara.

  “Titina? How did you know I was at Dad’s house? Oh, of course!”

  “Titina is an incommensurable item,” Bebe informed Juan. “A friend of Clara’s from high school. Incredible. She rows and likes to drink.”

  “I know all about her,” said Juan. “I cozied up to your sister so I could get closer to Titina. Isn’t that right, Clara?”

  “It’s a lie,” said Clara, covering the mouthpiece. “But of course, Titina, whenever you like. I’d love it. Oh that … Yes, last night was weird.”

  “See? Here we go again,” said Mr. Funes. “I bet one half of Buenos Aires is calling the other half to scare them with this nonsense. They’re even saying a ship sank in the port.”

  “It might well be true,” said Bebe. “In movies with fog, there are at least foghorns. Hey, give Titina a big kiss from me.”

  But Clara had already hung up and was eating stew.

  “Turn the radio on. Not too loud, Bebe,” said Mr. Funes. “Let’s see if there are any more news bulletins. It looks as if the sun’s setting!”

  “Actually there hasn’t been much of what you’d call sun,” affirmed Juan, staring ironically at Bebe manipulating the radio. “But it’s really odd. In this fog, there’s such a brilliant dose of solar light. Did you see that pigeon pass over the tablecloth? A shadow, barely for a second.”

  “If it was a shadow, then there must have been sun,” said Mr. Funes. “Find the State Radio Channel, Bebe.”

  He’s afraid, thought Juan. He’s scared out of his wits, this father-in-law of mine. And in a flash he understood the business of the concert, the need to do something, to avoid being chased

  by

  by what

  Girls are not

  Love toys

  “Get rid of that tango,” said Mr. Funes. “Would you like some cheese and sweets, dear?”

  “Yes, Dad,” said a somnolent Clara. “Girls aren’t love toys. So what are they then?”

  “They’re the love of toys,” said Juan. “Now, dearest, who was the first to suspect the greatness of Delacroix?”

  “A Category 3 question,” said Clara. “No one knows, but probably it was Delacroix himself. And then Baudelaire.”

  “Very good. And what is the title of Tristan Corbière’s famous book?”

  “Les Amours jaunes. And who speaks ill of Emile Faguet in an essay on Baudelaire?”

  “Menalcas,” said Juan, winking. “And what do you think of Symbolism?”

  “For the purposes of the exam, I think exactly the same as Dr. Lefumatto.”

  “You’ll pass, but you’re going to wear yourself out,” said Juan. “Don Carlos, I think your daughter’s going to pass the exam, if she gets to the end safe and sound.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing, nothing at all,” said Juan, half surprised. “No one can know if he’ll pass happily over the River Styx of Category 7. Actually, and excuse me for saying so, this idea of going to a concert before the exam …”

  “Who knows,” muttered Clara. “Maybe it’ll be good for us. It’s useless to go on studying.” The telephone right next to Clara’s plate rang. She made a sudden gesture and knocked over a glass of water. “Hi. Yes. Oh, Mrs. Vasto. I’m fine, ma’am.” She waved to Bebe to lower the volume of the radio, which was blaring a full orchestra’s allegro. “We’re all fine. Oh, what a shame. But is he better? Of course, in this season … No, why?”

  “Here we go again,” said Mr. Funes. “Another one telling tales.”

  Scared out of his wits, thought Juan, almost envying his father-in-law. An opera box: the great refuge, the snail in his shell. I’ve got to hand it to you, buddy.

  At lunch, at dinner you

  will be happy if—

  gave Splend—

  and they swam and they swam all over the dam—

  proved by Hugo del Carr—

  —curity counsel of the United Nations convened in…

  “What a shame,” said Mr. Funes. “They already gave the Argentine news. We’ll have to wait until the next report.”

  “And I hope they all get better,” finished Clara, who was talking with her eyes closed—which in reality is how one should speak over the telephone. She hung up and looked at the palm of her hand. “What humidity. You stick to everything.”

  Rácing opened the golden gates for him so he’d fly high! And Huracán gave him an opening as wide as the sky so he’d reach the height of a condor! And Uzal—epitome of the professional player—gave his all to the new division; which is where we see him today—magnificent, tricky, with his acrobatic strikes, intelligent, vigorous; ready to put a stop to River Plate’s aspirations!

  “Turn off the radio, Bebe,” said Mr. Funes, “and come eat your fish salad. Irma, at six, go down and buy the papers even if I haven’t come home yet.”

  “Yes sir,” said Irma. “All three, sir?”

  “All three. Pass your plate, Clara.”

  “Just a little, Dad. Dad … is the box for four?”

  “Yes. Pass your plate, Juan. Do you want to invite someone?”

  “The chronicler!” said Juan. “That’s it: let’s invite the chronicler. Hey look!”

  But the shadow had passed so lightly and rapidly over the tablecloth that they only saw Juan’s finger grotesquely pointing at nothing.

  “Hmmm,” said Clara cautiously. “Okay, invite the chronicler.”

  “Did you have another candidate?”

  “No, I wasn’t thinking of anyone.” She passed him the telephone. Irma removed the fish salad and left a letter next to Juan’s free hand. He was laughing at the chronicler’s sleepy voice. Clara glanced at the envelope, glanced at Bebe, and then back at the envelope. The writing was lar
ge, irregular. She brusquely opened the letter.

  “But my dear boy, come on,” Juan was saying. “It’s fine that the paper squeezes the cephalic liquids out of you, but they have to let up once in a while. When do you get a day off?”

  “What do you call last night’s infinite wanderings?” the chronicler was saying in the tiny voice of a man with a cold.

  “Come with us. It’s a box. You’ll see a lot.”

  “I can’t. And stop harping on the box. Besides, I can’t imagine you in a place like that. Why are you going?”

  “I have no idea,” said Juan. “Since we’re prepping for the test, it’s a good idea to amuse ourselves with something. So you won’t come?”

  “No. They’re going nuts down at the paper. They almost suspended me because I didn’t call them every hour on the hour as it seems I was ordered to do.”

  “What’s that all about?”

  “Nothing, the mushrooms,” said the chronicler. “The nutty things going on. They still don’t have their analysis of the fog, but there have already been two bulletins from the police; and an old lady caused a horrible brawl at the intersection of Diagonal and Suipacha. Just half an hour ago. Hysteria by the bucket, my friend.”

  “At least you’re having fun,” murmured Juan. “Anyway, I understand why you can’t come.”

  “I’m glad you understand,” said the chronicler. “Hey, last night I recited one of your poems so I could get to sleep. Ciao.”

  Juan hung up, laughing. He felt Clara’s hand in his jacket pocket, the rustle of paper. “Don’t read it now,” said Clara, looking down at her plate. “No, Dad, I don’t want any more stew. Give some to Bebe, he looks thin.”

  Juan locked the door, put down the lid on the toilet, and after lighting a cigarette and making himself comfortable, began to read the letter. Through the beveled glass in the bathroom window came a yellow, violent glow from the banks of fog. From a radio on another floor came the voice of Toti Dal Monte, cackling actively like a hen. But Mr. Funes, still in the dining room, turned on the radio again in search of news, and with Bebe’s help, moved the dial from one end to the other. He would have liked to call La Prensa—a last, sibylline resort, an in extremis consultation with the oracle—but he was too ashamed.

  Clara excused herself for a moment and carried the telephone to the room that had been her mother’s, where Bebe’s collection of pin-ups was now displayed. She thought about Juan reading Abel’s letter, because it was certain he was reading it in the bathroom—the space allotted to secrets, our first cigarette, to the first ghost we embrace with a whine. She dialed Andrés’ number.

  “Shadow of the gods,” said Andrés’ voice. “Hello.”

  “That’s pretty,” Clara congratulated him. “Very nice. Do you have a varied stock, or do you always repeat the same thing?”

  “Actually what happened was that I pinched my finger when I closed the door,” said Andrés, slightly confused. “And to what do I owe this exalted honor?”

  “If you could only hear,” said Clara. “A magpie’s screeching in the palm tree at our house. Delightful.”

  “The telephone is for loud noises, insignificant things.”

  “Yes, and now you’re talking to me,” said Clara. Then why is it I always say everything truly important over the telephone? she thought. On the other end of the line there was a long silence.

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” said Andrés after a long pause.

  “I didn’t take it that way. But what you said is true. Actually, the two of us hardly ever talk.”

  “Probably because we see each other everywhere.”

  “That’s also true.”

  “But it’s great that you called,” said Andrés; and Clara noted the clever effort he made to be abstract, avoiding the “me” that would have been an interjection of vanity. I must speak to him about that, she thought, with a strange pain in her temples and in the roots of her hair. The halos of the saints must burn in the same way. She heard Andrés cough, turning his mouth away from the telephone.

  “It’s hot,” she heard him say. “Could you sleep?”

  “Badly, a lot of tossing and turning,” said Clara, and she felt a strange desire to weep—as if he had asked her something extraordinary, ineffable. “What about you two?”

  “More or less.”

  “It’s the heat.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Listen,” said Clara, imagining Juan with the letter in his hand, his face, “Dad has a box for a concert by Jaime something-or-other. Would you like to go with the three of us? We’re leaving in ten minutes.”

  The silence communicated Andrés’ obvious vacillation.

  “Shadows of the gods,” said Clara, not intending to mock him, simply giving him support. I can’t tell him over the telephone, she thought. But at the Colón, perhaps for a moment, just outside the box. But why, when …

  “Look, Clara, thanks a lot,” said Andrés.

  “It’s all right. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

  “Thanks. I don’t think I have to beat around the bush. It’s just that I’m not in the mood for music.”

  So now I’ll have to tell him about Abel, thought Clara. She heard Mr. Funes in the living room banging with his cane to get them back to the table.

  “I don’t know, I would have liked to talk to you,” she said. “Oh well.”

  “I was thinking about going to the University tonight.”

  “And why do you have to go to the University!?” she shouted hysterically. “Do you like to see people being hung? Sorry.”

  “Yes, I know. The heat,” said Andrés in a strange clownlike voice, distancing himself.

  “Bye-bye. Sorry.”

  “Bye-bye.”

  When Juan came in, she said, “I called Andrés to see if he wanted to go to the concert.”

  “Hard to imagine he’d come.”

  “Right, he didn’t want to. A shame.”

  “Yes, a shame,” said Juan, staring at her. “I suppose you wanted to talk to him about this.”

  “I did. It would be good if he knew. You know how fond he is of us.”

  “Your father’s fond of us, too, but we won’t say a word to him.”

  “It’s different,” said Clara without looking at him. “After all, it’s not such a big deal. We should simply pay no attention. We aren’t going to call the police or anything like that.”

  Juan sat down on the edge of Bebe’s bed. Mr. Funes’ cane was coming down the hall, and he entered the bedroom in a fury. Two blows with the cane. Another. Like in Molière, or just about.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Making a call,” said Clara, pointing at the telephone as if it were an insect.

  “Come back to the dining room,” said Mr. Funes. “Don’t you want dessert?”

  “But there’s no hurry, Dad.”

  “It’s 1:30,” he said. “The sooner we leave, the better.”

  Fine. They’d go to the concert. It was worse to wait and smoke or pace the floor. Passing in front of the mirror, Juan saw his face was dripping with perspiration. At the window in the apartment opposite theirs, a boy was repeating, “You’ll see, you’ll see, you’ll see, you will.”

  Clara was finishing her dessert, and Bebe was cutting another pin-up out of Life. On Juan’s plate, the cheese was oozing like yellow rubber.

  “Extra creamy,” he said to Bebe. “Very good for those taking exams.”

  “Just think, it comes from the refrigerator,” said Mr. Funes.

  “Are you happy with your refrigerator?” asked Clara, eating distractedly.

  “It’s perfect. Nine cubic feet, marvelous.”

  “It’s huge,” said Bebe. “It makes you want to get inside.”

  “Like a mummy in a case,” said Clara.

  Juan listened, as if at a distance. More dessert appeared, and he ate a little; but the memory of something the chronicler said about mushrooms worried him. Poor chro
nicler.

  “The six cubic-feet refrigerators are worthless,” the father was saying to his son.

  “Very small,” said Bebe. “You put a head of lettuce and a carrot in, and there’s no room for anything else.”

  “And besides, this one has a dry cold.”

  Clara went on finishing her dessert, then rolled her eyes back, resting her forehead on her free hand.

  “The people in Apartment 4 have one that runs on kerosene. Disgusting, huh?”

  “That’s garbage, Bebe. You can’t tell me that kerosene makes cold.”

  Sighing, Juan got up so he could sit farther away on the sofa, the one that had been his mother-in-law’s favorite. He began to write, sadly, having forgotten about Abelito and the exam. He passed the paper to Clara who had come over to keep him company. She could see that the verses were written on Abel’s envelope, which was now coming apart, spread-eagle like a cross. On one end, Juan had made an awkward drawing of a refrigerator.

  “Enthronement,” Clara read aloud.

  Here it is, they’ve brought it in, contemplate it—o sugared snow, o tabernacle!

  The day was propitious and mama went to buy flowers; and the sisters sighed, deceased.

  Air of expectancy, access to jubilation, here it is!

  Hallelujah!

  Heart without teeth, cube of the most crystal of crystals, ivory inlay!

  (But the father disposes pure pause, and perfumes.

  The silence with joined hands: let there be contemplation. We were there. We dared,

  barely—)

  Here it is; they’ve already brought it, snow tabernacle.

  As long as it accompanies us we shall live

  as long as it wishes we shall live.

  Hosanna, Westinghouse, hosanna hosanna!

  “You’re nuts,” said Bebe.

  “And after all that, you can’t understand a thing, as usual,” said Mr. Funes. “Aren’t you having your dessert?” He called Irma to bring in dry plates, please, and Irma apologized, saying it was the humidity of the day—she took his observations to heart. Bebe defended her with wit and she thanked him, vigorously drying a flat plate so Mr. Funes could have cheese.

  “It’s cruel,” Clara murmured, leaning on Juan. “Everything you write these days seems so cruel to me.”