Final Exam

by Julio Cortázar

  “I came here,” said the chronicler, “with a girl the night Roosevelt died. Since she was crying a lot, I had her drown her sorrow in Catamarca grappa. I think that made her resent me a bit.”

  “We’ve come here so many times,” said Clara. “It’s so far from downtown and really only a short walk. That’s why we liked it. Andrés, remember the night of the strike?”

  “Poor Juan,” said Andrés. “What a punch he took.”

  “Look who’s talking! It cost you a new suit. Drink up, Stella, please. I don’t want any of you to be depressed any more.”

  “I’m looking at that man,” said Stella, timidly pointing to a customer sitting at a center table, under one of the ceiling fans (which didn’t work), sweating. He looked identical to ex-President Agustín P. Justo, but with an inflamed eye, bright red, and a stogey, in his mouth. Another four stogies, like a picket fence, peeked out of his jacket pocket which should have held (and didn’t) a handkerchief.

  “The complete outfit,” said Juan. “Look at his ring: Ford Trimotor model. Glasses and short hair, black tie. Perfect. Now he’s going to get up and try to sell us some fabric.”

  “But he’s drinking coffee,” said the chronicler. “It’s scandalous, because what he should be drinking is orangeade. Waiter!”

  “Yes sir,” said the waiter, glancing over at the door through which three men entered on the run. One of the men turned around and looked out at the street, the others fumbled their way confusedly around, until they chose a table in a corner. The first one waved his hand and sat with them: his face was covered with soot, his hair matted down on his temples sweat brilliantine.

  “More sandwiches,” said the chronicler. “Unless you all want to leave. Drink something Clara, you’re whiter than Grock in the funny papers.”

  “What I am is an idiot,” said Clara. “Animula vagula blandula. But it was so…”

  “Enough, Clara,” said Juan, smiling. “All this is slightly foul, and you behaved very well. If you don’t loosen up from time to time… Look at that girl with the yellow blouse, she’s scared out of her wits. Hey, the guy’s threatening her.”

  “Of course,” said Andrés. “Hysteria’s a Hellenic word. Wouldn’t it be better if you were to get Clara out of here? I mean, out of Buenos Aires.”

  “Killjoy,” said Juan, bitterly. “What for? This can’t last more than…” He made a puerile gesture and sat back to look at the stogey smoker. A good cry alone. A good cry under the sheets. A shower, a… He looked at the man in the small booth next to them, his knee seeking out the woman’s knee. She in turn was laughing like a rat. He’s afraid too, thought Juan, exploring Andrés’ eyes and seeing something that surprised him. Then, absurdly, he thought he would have liked to have his cauliflower. They didn’t speak for a while, but hearing the distant explosions was almost worse. And the halo of mist around the lights, the stalled air conditioner, the price list next to the portrait of the president: Old Smuggler, Ombú caña, Amaro

  Pagliotti.

  “It’s incredible,” the chronicler said suddenly. “Are you looking at the guy with the cigar? It’s as if nothing’s happening. I should write a piece about him.”

  “Write it,” said Juan. “You’ll have fun. Contrasting with the general tumult occasioned by perturbing elements…

  —that should be your style—

  we are pleased to provide our readers with the profile of the sensible man, who at his table in the First and Last…”

  “Shit,” said the chronicler. “If my articles were like that, I’d already be famous.”

  “Stick to it,” said Juan. “Remember Bernard Palissy.”

  Stella stirred when she heard the name but said nothing:

  Children’s Encyclopedia

  perhaps expecting Juan to go on. But Juan was looking at Clara, who was diligently eating her sandwich. He began to imitate her, putting his head next to hers and chewing in time with her, making Andrés, who was watching them, smile.

  “You probably know best,” said Andrés, as if the matter were of no importance. “But the two of you should get out of here.”

  “Why us specifically?” asked Clara. “What do we gain by leaving? Tell him your cute ontological cachet, Juan: To go, to stay…”

  “Listen,” said Juan.

  To go, to stay,

  is the being’s game.

  Barely is it

  after and it’s before.

  “I wasn’t talking about ontology, I was talking about leaving this joint,” muttered Andrés. “Don’t pull those Elizabethan tricks on me.”

  “This joint,” Juan repeated. “But my dear boy, they’re the same thing.”

  Nevertheless, we were prepared, we knew the themes…Juan brewed on it, bending his head forward, concentrating on the vision of the bread and the little tongues of prosciutto hanging between his fingers. That horrible face… He pulled the jacket away from him the same way he put it under him for support. He tried to swallow his sandwich, made a movement to pick up his glass. Maybe drinking it down with beer… But the taste would be horrible; curious that if it was first beer and then sandwich, everything went fine. But like burning your mouth with a spoonful of stew and drinking wine to cool it, the mixture in his mouth was something disgusting that…

  Juan tossed Clara’s hair back, blowing on her forehead. He smiled at her.

  “Better better old bed wetter,” he chanted. “Better better with a change in the weather.”

  Clara dropped her sandwich onto the plate and put her face on Juan’s chest. He put his arm around her, blocking the immediate setting from her view.

  “Come get a breath of air with me,” said Andrés to the chronicler. “Stella, you stay here.”

  Outside there was still some light, which seemed to fall from high above. The port was disappearing in the fog, from which emerged people crossing toward the market or gathering on the corner. One group was speaking in low voices. One man, on the side that led by way of Bouchard to the plaza, was parsimoniously lighting a cigarette. The chronicler looked at him a while, without paying attention. A gummy film of humidity stuck to their faces and hands. They felt dirty.

  “Look,” said Andrés. “We’ve got to get these two out of here somehow.”

  A moth

  “Okay,” said the chronicler. “But how?”

  “How, how… Hey, Look at that bug.” searched for

  “Yeah.” the entrance

  to the bar.

  “The poor thing is smashing itself against the wall, and the door is right in front of its nose. Incredible how moths are always at the service of practical philosophy.”

  “My sympathies are totally on the side of the moth,” said the chronicler.

  “The two of them are stubborn as mules,” said Andrés. “Even I can’t figure out why it’s so hard to convince them.”

  “Of course.”

  “After all is said and done, you and I are going to stay. And Stella too. I mean, what’s going to happen to us?”

  “Nothing. Nothing ever happens here.”

  “But it’s different for them. I don’t know, it just looks that way to me.”

  “It is different for them,” said the chronicler, smashing a bug running over his shoe which burst with a happy, dry noise. Looking toward the end of the block there—on the ground, he’d left the glass against the fence—he saw a vague phosphorescence over the boards being used as a sidewalk (it was eaten up by the fog; but amid the yellow tatters, bluish lights were visible).

  “Look at that evil light,” he said. “Humidity, rot—but the by-product is always a beautiful blue.”

  “The sky is the gut of the dead past,” said Juan’s voice. He came to them, as they walked slowly. “Beautiful things are being said this evening…”

  Andrés was about to answer when they heard two whistles and a hoarse scream from the direction of downtown; in the distance along Viamonte, a reddish glow grew, coloring the fog and the air as far as they could see.
>
  “Ca chauffe,” said the chronicler, and he whistled softly. The group speaking quietly on the corner dissolved in a quick escape—with half-finished phrases. Only a few remained. The man was calmly smoking on the corner of Bouchard, and a filthy black dog was barking at the air.

  “Let me speak to him,” said Andrés to the chronicler. “Come on, Juan, let’s take a little walk.”

  “Well now,” said Juan, glancing back at the chronicler, who was returning to the bar. “Better he stay with the girls. Did you hear some shouts just now?”

  “Look over there,” said Andrés. From the corner it was possible to see the glow getting more and more intense. “The funny thing is that it doesn’t look like fires.”

  “It’s the fog,” said Juan. “It’s really starting to be a pain in the ass. What explosions those…”

  A truck loaded with people sped up to them from the port, made a sweeping turn in the parking lot on the other side of the bar in an attempt to orient itself, and then headed for the river. The headlights sliced the fog.

  “That,” said Andrés, “is exactly what you have to do now.”

  “Not that again.”

  “Of course that again. Get her out of here now, Juan; without thinking twice about it.”

  “Nice conditions you set. Don’t think twice. I guess that’s about right.”

  “Please,” said Andrés. “If everything is always a matter of words…”

  “Okay, sorry. I’m not questioning your motives. But it’s absurd. It’s easy to talk about my leaving with her. But first of all I don’t see why…”

  “If there’s anything to see in all this it’s that you should leave,” said Andrés. “Don’t make it a question of pride.”

  “But you’re going to stay,” said Juan, stopping.

  “How do I know? I’m going to bring Stella over to her mother’s place in Caseros. Don’t think I’m going to stick around downtown.”

  “Caseros,” said Juan. “Personally, I don’t think you can get to Caseros any more.”

  Andrés shrugged his shoulders. It hadn’t occurred to him to think about himself, about what he was going to do. He had put off deciding—it was something to do when he felt like it. Everything decided, but still free. He’d lied randomly. Juan was looking at him and waiting for a response. He had spurred him on with his friendly accusation.

  “Maybe,” said Andrés. “But I’m asking you to get out of here with her now. I’m asking you to do it.”

  “Why?” asked Juan, with the petulance of a sick child.

  “No reason, I’m afraid. Clara. You can see what condition she’s in.”

  “Well, after the kind of schedule we’ve been on.”

  “You’ve got to get her out of here right away,” said Andrés.

  Since Stella was hungry, they ordered another sandwich.

  “Please eat it quickly, let’s get going,” said Clara. “Don’t you thing that this place is blazing hot?”

  “It’s the zinc roof,” said the chronicler. “But at this hour Apollo’s heat should be diminishing. Hmm, this place is getting crowded. My god, what faces. I wouldn’t be surprised if…”

  (and at that moment he was surprised to find himself thinking about the back of that man he’d seen outside lighting a cigarette)

  “… if that famous professor of yours walked in.”

  “Unlikely,” said Clara. “The stinker’s probably sitting at his table in the Suizo.”

  “Waiting for the dean’s car, right?” said Stella, and the chronicler congratulated her enthusiastically, at the same time helping her to get rid of a gigantic moth that kept walking over her face. Some of those drifting in were in shirtsleeves, most of them sailors. One was already drunk and went to a table;

  Sometimes I wonder why I spend

  the lonely nights

  dreaming of a song…

  “Great voice,” said the chronicler, who was on his fifth glass of beer. “He really sings what he drinks. What were you saying, honey?”

  A thin man, wearing a blue pajama top, came and leaned over him.

  “Excuse me,” he said, looking all around. “It would cost you a hundred pesos.”

  “Really?” said the chronicler. “That’s pretty cheap.”

  “It’s easy now because it’s dark,” said the man. “The river’s really low. It’s way back from the shore.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “The thing is to get to the canal. See, I know the way…”

  (Now he’s going to say: like the back of my hand, thought Clara.)

  “… like the back of my hand. The thing is to get to the canal.”

  “For a hundred pesos,” said the chronicler, who was beginning to understand.

  “For four. Right now.”

  “Hey, Calimano!” called a voice from the back of the bar. “Come’ere!”

  “I’m coming,” said Calimano. “So what do you think?”

  “What I want to know,” said the chronicler, “is if you think I’m running away from the law.”

  Calimano smiled and went on waiting even though the voice called him again.

  “Okay, I’ll be hanging around,” he said finally. “You think about it and just whistle if you want me.”

  “I’ll whistle,” said the chronicler, opening another bottle. “This beer is hot. Drink up, girls.”

  “No, no more for me.” Clara saw that Calimano was watching them from his table in the rear, waiting.

  (“But I know that guy,” the chronicler said to himself. “When he lit that cigarette—but of course…”)

  And at times he twisted around to talk with two men, who answered him between sips of

  possibly, because of the shape of the bottle and the glasses, they’re drinking white wine.

  “Well, well,” said the chronicler, pouring more beer. “It was him. This is becoming as repetitive as the theme of Siegfried’s horn. Hey Juan, you’re back, listen a minute.”

  “Drink your beer and leave me in peace,” said Juan returning to his seat not looking at Clara—who looked up and began observing Andrés’ face, the tic that soon made him raise his right eyebrow. A wink in reverse, how strange. He had a layer of soot on his hair, on his forehead. Clara blew on it, and the soot landed on another table, next to a plate. A carbon moth. The night’s filled with—A phrase from Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony passed through her head. The word ocelot. El Dorado… A poem by Juan: with the words, “a golden ocelot.”

  “Recite the Marcopolo for me, Juan,” she asked. “When I’m tired, I like the Marcopolo.”

  “I don’t want to. Besides, it would be better if we left.”

  “Where would you go?” said Andrés. “Didn’t you see what was going on up the street?”

  “Recite the Marcopolo,” Clara was saying, and Stella echoed her: “Recite the Marcopolo.”

  “This is blackmail,” muttered Juan, looking furiously at Andrés. “First you, and then these two and the Marcopolo, and…”

  “And one hundred pesos,” said the chronicler. “That gentleman over there is named Calimano, and he’s offering you a boat for one hundred pesos.”

  “What’s that?” shouted Andrés.

  “Just what you heard. It’s the first of two news items. The other is more in the order of repetition. Don’t be in such a hurry, man. What nerves!”

  But Andrés was crossing the bar (and he knocked over the chronicler’s glass as he got up. Luckily it was empty, so the chronicler filled it instantly.).

  (I’d like to hear the Marcopolo.) “Come on, Juan, recite it.”

  “Where’s he going?”

  “To talk to Calimano,” said the chronicler. “Actually, for you and Clara it would be the best thing.”

  “Right,” said Juan and he took out another cigarette.

  “I…,” said Clara, looking at Andrés bent over the table in the back, his thin body framing the boards of the wall, above the fake burlesque curtain (but was it fake?)—and also the door of the lavat
ory, the painted hand pointing out its location, and the bluish mist of smoke, and the fog entering through the hole for the stalled air conditioner. An individual came in on the run and said something to the boy at the cash register. When he went out again, bumping into a chair, the bartender shouted “Wait! ” seeing him pass out the door, and with a leap

  (Golden ocelot, really!)

  vaulted over the counter and went after him, running on tiptoe.

  “Now who’s going to bring me another beer?” complained the chronicler. “The waiter really should have no autonomy, considering that I think he took off through the back door. But are they going to abandon the place? There’s going to be a riot when the marinai get stirred up.”

  Juan smiled at him, calmer now. The real end of a day, he thought. Every night we see people leave, we say good-by to them, we hang our clothes in the closet—All without thinking much about it, without gravity. Because anyway, tomorrow we start all over again. Any way. Now those two are not coming back. This bar won’t be open for us tomorrow.

  “We want the Marcopolo,” said Stella. “It must be so pretty.”

  “Produce the Marcopolo,” said the chronicler. “That way we break the monotony, which is the only thing left to break by now.”

  “I can’t remember it,” said Juan. “It’s a dumb poem, written for another time.”

  “For that very reason,” said Clara, putting her face on his shoulder. “For that very reason, Juan.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll recite it,” murmured Juan. “This is from a time when I liked words. Poetic caviar. Sit down, Andrés, join the audience. Taillefer once again crosses the fields of Hastings, and instead of battle he regales us with an aubade or an apricot madrigal.

  See? Everything comes back. Words dont je fus dupe—Yes indeed, my dear, we deserve the Marcopolo, and it is thus that

  Marco Polo Remembers: