by Rhys Hughes
Now then: the imminent serenade! Don Entrerrosca had his song ready, safely sheathed in his throat. It was an unused weapon, lethal. He entered the outskirts of Córdoba with his giant lute on little wheels. He dragged it behind him. Because of the law and the exclusion zone, he did not find it difficult to walk down the roads to Señorita Soler’s house. The traffic flowed smoothly. Soon he was parked far below her window. He called up: “Eber! Eiiiiibbbbaaa! I am here to melt your heart, and to defy the authorities, and to make a sweet din, which should accomplish both my desires simultaneously!” And before he could be sure that his shout had roused her from her siesta, he began to pluck the strings. No troubadour worth his boots will sing to a lady in the middle of the afternoon, but fear not that Entrerrosca had lost the soles of his senses. Dusk was drawing on, and the moon. The fair Eber generally took a longer siesta than most of her neighbours. Her beauty had earned it.
Did his song reach her? LOVE is not just a word, but a word on stilts; which is how it is able to touch even the highest balconies. It was the first time he had sung it all the way through. It was so potent that he had composed and rehearsed small passages in isolation. Now he was fitting them together. Any living thing which heard the whole song would instantly fall in love with him. Imagine it! The most beautiful song ever written played on a lute which was already soaked through with desire. How could Eber fail to be moved? Even her marble heart would have to turn liquid under this amorous assault. I know what you are thinking. Córdoba is renowned for its beautiful women. If Don Entrerrosca finished his song without interruption from anybody else on the street, such as a robber or drunkard, then all the ladies of the entire neighbourhood would fall in love with him, and throw themselves off their balconies into his arms, one at a time, and he would try to catch them all, from a sense of duty, and soon he would be crushed to death under a rain of accelerated caresses.
But Entrerrosca was clever and had anticipated this. He was also an amateur philosopher and knew the difference between logic and a good time. They are two separate things, but he hoped to finally blend them together, or rather to harness the former in service of the latter. He had considered the problem of courting the fair Eber to a much greater depth than his rivals. They simply launched themselves into the task without restraint. In a sense, their efforts were all feeling and no mind. But Entrerrosca, as we have already learned, was a bad romantic. Unlike his rivals, he had no natural charm. Thus he had been forced to study the ways of seduction; he had employed his reason. He knew that the inaccessibility of Eber’s balcony was the doom of all other snipers of love. Invariably they chose small instruments, partly because they were easier to aim, but mostly because they were easier to digest if apprehended by the police. But the angle was just too difficult for any aim, and they always missed. And then the neighbour who had been accidentally hit with the song would reach for the telephone. We know the outcome. WOO! WOO! Oh, those jealous Señoritas!
Don Entrerrosca’s first idea was to perfect the accuracy of the aim of a mandolin, perhaps with the aid of a telescopic sight and parabolic dish, to catch and concentrate any potential echo. He soon abandoned the scheme as unworkable. Any instrument which achieved the desired accuracy would be too small to be actually heard! So he decided to adopt the opposite approach. He would not bother with secrecy. He would play to the entire neighbourhood! It did not matter if the whole of Córdoba heard him! Because his song had more love in it than any other. It was a song of total love.
What does this mean? How would it save him? Well, the answer can be found at the end of a simple logical exercise. If all the girls fell in love with him simultaneously, they would not throw themselves off their balconies. No, if they felt true love, rather than just carnal desire, though lust is certainly a part of love, but only in the same way that the taste of an apple is a component of an orchard, with all its trees and paths and fences and ladders and thieves hiding in the dark of a moonless night, concealed as cunningly as a pithy saying in an overlong sentence, which reminds me of the paradox that when a heart is stolen its recovery is the crime, but let me return to the point, which is that if the love inspired in the Señoritas was total and true, what they would wish most of all is the happiness of Entrerrosca. And thus they would not interfere with his courting of Eber Soler. For his blessed sake, they would allow him to continue his song. This paragraph has been clumsy and strained. I have exhausted you, dear reader. Please boil a kettle and make yourself a refreshing drink.
Now then, let us examine more closely his giant lute. It was a whole tree, as we already know, and had been uprooted without undue fuss from a Patagonian valley. Because it was an old tree, an ancient lovers’ tree, it was gnarled and hollow. An owl had made a nest inside it. This space acted as a natural soundbox. Entrerrosca had strung it with silver wires, not just the six of a guitar, nor the doubled seven of a traditional lute, but one hundred, which made it almost impossible to play. He did not use ten fingers and a tail to sound inhuman chords: that is a conceit for a different story by a better writer. Besides, Entrerrosca was no devil. He relied on hope, luck and his burning love to master the instrument. When he plucked it, the owl flew away and the leaves on the branches of the tree trembled. All the accumulated love in the trunk was squeezed out. It radiated over the whole street, and yet it seemed that two soundboxes were amplifying the note rather than one, for the interior of Entrerrosca’s chest also throbbed with the song, as if there was a space inside there too. He continued to play and every balcony in the neighbourhood was swept by waves of love.
The jealous Señoritas leaned out to see what this beautiful fuss was about. They peered down at Entrerrosca and all fell in love with him. First they wanted him for themselves. They unpinned their hair, which was swept back and secured in big chignons. Then this impulse passed: they noted that the troubadour was gazing up only at Eber’s balcony. So they rushed to their telephones to report him to the authorities. But before they had crossed their rooms, they thought to themselves: “I love this fellow and therefore want the best for him; and he desires only Eber Soler, so I shall fondly allow him to continue singing to her and I will not spoil his attempts to win her.” And they disconnected their telephones and sat on their chairs, sighing and pouting and growing their fingernails. And nobody else who heard his song, male or female, felt the need to betray him, even with the promised reward for doing so. The stratagem had worked.
And what of beautiful Eber? What did she think of the song? I fear that at this point you may accuse me of writing a contrived fiction instead of reporting the facts. I swear that I am not playing a literary game. I would like to say that she was convinced by the melody and came down to her lover and so began a fabulous affair. Alas, the truth is more complex. As twilight fell each night, Señorita Soler placed a lamp in her window to let the world, and any passing troubadour, know that she was at home. It was a political act, a challenge to the authorities, who had decreed an end to romance in her part of Córdoba. Don Entrerrosca knew this from his researches and he had seen the light. Unfortunately, this flame did not belong to the lamp. A minute before he started his song, Eber had ignited her little stove in order to boil her kettle. She had felt a sudden need for a refreshing drink. But then she realised that she was out of tea. There was no yerba mate in her cupboards. So she had gone to the shops to buy some. She descended and left her house through the back entrance. She never saw Entrerrosca, who was standing at the front, and he never saw her. He played to the flame of the kettle and she did not hear a single note. It was a stroke of very bad luck. But why did she feel the urge to make tea at that precise moment? Somebody must have suggested it. Somebody who loved Eber but who did not hear the song and who was thus free to sabotage the poor minstrel’s efforts. A deaf rival, perhaps?
But let me tell you the remainder of it: how Entrerrosca finished his song on a bended knee, and how he was carried off against his will by his own instrument. It was the first time the entire song had been played. It
was powerful enough to win the affections of any living thing. The tree had been uprooted whole and thus was still alive. Being a tree, it knew nothing about Eber Soler and did not care to withhold its spontaneous passion for her sake. All it understood was that it was madly in love with the man who was already cradling it in his arms. It snatched him up with its branches and started running on its exposed roots, using them as legs. It had so many that its velocity was considerable. My best guess is that it intended to run with him out of Córdoba and all the way back to Patagonia, perhaps to live together in a casita blanca on the pampas, surrounded by rheas; probably not. Who can say? Its romantic plans remain a mystery, for it was knocked down by a vehicle where the main avenues, General Paz and Colón, intersect. Knocked down and smashed into little splinters!
The lesson of this accident is that all troubadours should beware of what they sing to their sweethearts, for their instruments are closer to them. Anyway, Don Entrerrosca was deemed absurd and exiled from this story forever. The remains of the tree were eaten by him, but he was allowed to spit them out as pulp and they were turned into paper. Córdoba is a major publishing centre. Oddly enough, the vehicle involved in the incident was a police car, but with its siren turned off. I was driving the car and could not have known about the serenade, because nobody had reported it. A pure coincidence. I did not sustain any injuries in the collision, though I was later reprimanded for dangerous driving.
I managed to obtain the paper which was later made from the tree. It was suffused with love. Here it is. I cannot play a note on a lute, nor can I write poetry. But when Eber reads this story, which is also my official report, she might fall in love with me. It is my only chance to win her. It is my offering. What are you thinking? That this is too self-referential for a proper twist and that I am a post-modern fool? No, just a lovesick one. And what about Eber’s heart? Will it finally melt? Impossible for me to know, unless she presses this tale to her bosom and the droplets dry here on the page. . . .
Toastmaster, Buttermistress
I was feeling nervous, so I went to the funfair to relax. The crowds were small but noisy, and the smells were too mysterious. I wandered among the booths and rides, in the lattice shadow of the rotting rollercoaster. The place was falling apart. I visited every stall, but nothing really tempted me. I accosted a small man with a large hammer.
“Will you invite me to test my strength?” I said.
“No, I just check for structural defects. I’m an engineer, mister. See this rollercoaster? I hit the beams and watch how much falls off. I have a collection of nails at home.”
“Why don’t they shut it all down?”
He shrugged and dragged his hammer by the shaft between the tents. Later I saw him standing on the carousel, swinging at the wooden horses. He knocked the head right off a varnished stallion and it went tumbling to the edge of the spinning platform. Maybe a child or centrifugal force flung it out high above the crowd. But it wasn’t trampled into the mud. Eventually, it found its way into a bed.
I had no right to be nervous and now I felt frustrated instead. Worrying about my job is a luxury because I’m the best in the business, at least in this city. But there was extra pressure on me today because I had a personal involvement with my clients.
I parted the flaps of a tent, seeking solitude. But it was the abode of a mystic, a teller of fortunes. She was dark and exotic above her blank crystal ball. Her hands roamed over its surface.
“Can you guess my career?” I sneered.
“I doubt it. I’m the electrician. They keep having problems with the fuses. This wiring is so old it was used to hang rebels in ancient civil wars.”
“That’s a poor excuse for avoiding my challenge. I declare you to be a quack and charlatan, also a fraud, sham, mountebank, impostor and swindler. I’ll go further and label you a cheat, fake and confidence trickster. How do you live with yourself, hoaxing money off the innocent and gullible? How can you justify taking advantage of the emotions of the recently bereaved? It’s a sad, sick and cynical trade you conduct here! I suggest you are too incompetent to answer my question. What do you say to that?”
“You make speeches,” she said.
“Why yes! I’m a professional toastmaster, a hired orator. I stand automatically whenever a spoon is tapped against a glass, even if by accident. So your powers are real!”
She shook her head, picked up the crystal ball and fitted it into a socket in the ceiling. It glowed into life, like some kind of lamp. And when she threw her wand down onto the table, I noted its resemblance to a screwdriver. I hurried out.
I passed the Tunnel of Love. It was located in the centre of the funfair. An artificial river, too choppy to be called a canal, ran in through the entrance, went on its hidden way inside the building and came out through the exit, stagnant and oily. I sighed at the symbolism. There were boats shaped like huge lips, just wide enough to accommodate two young lovers. Curiosity overcame my bitterness, and I lingered to see who would pay for the next ride.
A man with unkempt hair and a cheap suit approached the kiosk and bought a ticket. He carried something under one arm. It wasn’t a girl. It was a wardrobe mirror. He positioned it on the seat of a boat and climbed in next to it. The attendant cast off the mooring rope and the implausible couple drifted through the opening. The last I saw of the man before he vanished around a corner, he was embracing the mirror and gazing deeply into the eyes of his own reflection. I don’t know if he attempted a kiss, but I should have liked to see how he solved the problem of nose angles.
I tapped the attendant on the shoulder. “Do you get many men going in with mirrors?”
“Each to his own. There’s too much hatred in the world as it is. No need to complain about something so harmless as narcissism. I just take the money. None of my business.”
I rubbed my chin. I was embarrassed. It was his business. I waited for the man and his mirror to come out of the exit. I wanted to see how steamed up the glass was. But they failed to emerge. I checked my watch. Still there was no movement at the portals of the exit. I frowned. Why would a man take a mirror instead of a girl into a Tunnel of Love? Wasn’t it a waste of time, energy and opportunity? Wasn’t it a waste of love? I decided that the man in question must be a lonely failure with women. Clearly he had no choice but to enter the tunnel on his own, with his reflection providing an illusion of company.
No, that wasn’t right. He would have chosen a mannequin or enlarged photograph if the figment was the only thing he needed. He preferred to go into the tunnel with himself. An egotist! I felt superior, because such psychological decadence was not for me. I was pure, clean, feeling love for other people all the time. For instance, within the hour, I was going to give a speech in honour of two young friends, Haylan Duesing and Bowie Crowtoe, bride and groom, the man blushing even more than the wife, married that very morning. I was the toastmaster for the reception. A special favour, because I had known the pair all their lives. They had been childhood sweethearts and had finally decided to do something large and legal with their love. I loved them both, honestly, truly, and my prepared speech reflected this. It was full of praise for them, a frank admission of how marvellous they were. The man with his mirror would never understand the beauty of such affection. He was too sunk in petty self-regard.
But then I began to doubt this analysis. He had entered the tunnel with a look of genuine passion on his face. He hadn’t seemed so forlorn after all. I waited another ten minutes and then walked to the exit. I leaned over the railings and peered inside. It was dark, but something vast and white glimmered just beyond the portals. This side of the building was in a sorry state of repair, with peeling paint and crumbling plaster. The water was topped with a green scum, undisturbed, I surmised, for decades. I twisted my head to obtain a better view of the interior. A dozen yards or so up the exit, a giant web completely blocked the passage. It was so pale it appeared almost artificial, thick cables faintly humming in the gentle, almost imperceptibl
e, breeze which wafted from the tunnel.
A giant web! I craned forward, eyes searching for the spider which had spun it. But I saw nothing, not even a vague silhouette, which might indicate the existence of such a grisly creature. What a woebegone trap! The lovers at the end of their ride would drift straight into the sticky strands of this cruel net, so skilled at sighing they might forget to scream as the horrid monster scuttled from its vantage, hairy legs balancing lightly on the wires, to sink its fangs into their muscles, numbing them with poison, spinning their shrouds while they remembered how to scream, but only in their minds, for their mouths were frozen, paralysed no less than if they had caught their partners in the arms of another lover, before being dragged off to its larder, perhaps a large cavity in the tunnel wall, still alive! Ghastly! And how fundamentally distasteful for the spider too, to be so cynical and repulsive. Imagine owning knees higher than your head!
I assumed the builders of this Tunnel of Love had become confused, mixing up its function with that of the Ghost Trains so typical of funfairs. Or was the spider really smart enough itself to devise this opportunistic stratagem? The more I looked, the more the nastiness of the idea diminished, for there were no bones floating on the surface of the canal, and no signs of struggle among the strands. The web was perfect and bare. If anything, it was a little dusty. I was forced to conclude that this in itself wasn’t the reason why the man with the mirror hadn’t yet emerged. He hadn’t been eaten. He was still inside and presumably still in love.