Hopscotch: A Novel (Pantheon Modern Writers Series) (28 page)

these fat novels in your hand and sometimes you’d even be

My first impressions of Madrid were surprisingly pleasant, crying, yes, don’t deny it, you’d be crying because they’d just since I had not been there since the days of González Brabo. I cut somebody’s head off, and you’d hug me as hard as you could was flabbergasted by the beauty and expanse of the newer sec- and want to know where I’d been, but I wouldn’t tell you betions, the efficient system of communications, the obvious imcause you’re a burden in the Louvre, it’s impossible to walk provement in the appearance of the buildings, the streets, and around there with you alongside, your ignorance is the kind that even the people; the pretty little gardens now planted where destroys all pleasure, poor girl, and it’s really my fault that you once there had been dusty old squares, the magnificent homes read potboilers because I’m selfish (
dusty old squares
, that’s all of the rich, the varied and well-stocked shops, inferior in no right, it reminds me of the squares in provincial towns, or the way, as was evident from the street, to those of Paris or London, streets of La Rioja in 1942, the purple mountains at sunset, that and lastly, the many elegant theaters for all classes, tastes, and feeling of happiness that comes with being alone in a particular incomes. These and other things that I later observed in my spot in the world, and
elegant theaters.
What the hell is the guy social contacts made me understand the rapid advances that talking about? He’s just mentioned Paris and London some-our capital had made since 1868, advances more in the manner where there, he talks about tastes and incomes), you see, Maga,
of whimsical leaps than in that of the solid, progressive move-you see how these eyes of mine are being pulled along with ment forward of people who know where they are headed; but irony through the lines you read with great emotion, convinced it was no less real because of all this. In a word, my nose had got of the fact that you were getting all kinds of culture because the scent of some European culture, of well-being, and even you were reading a Spanish novelist whose picture is on the riches and hard work.

My uncle is a well-known businessman in Madrid. In years fly-leaf, but right now the guy is talking about a scent of European culture, you’d convinced yourself that all this reading past he had held important positions in the government: he had would help you understand the micro- and the macrocosm, and been a consul general; then he had been an attaché in an em- about all that was ever necessary was for me to come home for bassy; subsequently his marriage demanded his presence in the you to take out of the drawer of your desk—because you did capital; he was with the Treasury for a while, under the protec- have a desk, you always had to have one around even though I tion and power of Bravo Murillo, and finally his family responsi- never found out what kind of work you were doing on it—yes, bilities made it necessary for him to exchange the vile security you would take out a folio with poems by Tristan L’Hermite, for of a salary for the adventures and hopes of work on his own. example, or a study by Boris de Schloezer, and you would show He was possessed of a fair amount of ambition, uprightness, them to me with the uncertain and at the same time proud air of activity, intelligence, good connections; he began to work as the someone who has just bought some great things and is going to agent in diverse commercial matters, and after running about read them right now. There was no way to make you understand a bit in pursuit of all this he ended up in command of every- that you wouldn’t ever get anywhere like that, that there were thing and was able to tuck all of the accounts away in his files. some things that were too late and others that were too soon, and He lived off them, however, stirring up those that were dozing you were always so close to the brink of despair in the very in his cabinet, moving along those that had come to rest on his center of joy and relaxation, your baffled heart was always so
desk, keeping on the right track, as best he could, a few that full of fog.
Moving along those that had come to rest on his desk
, were in danger of going astray. His friendships with members no, you couldn’t count on me for that, your desk was your desk of both parties were helpful to him, as was the high regard in and I didn’t put you behind it or take you away from it, I simply which he was held in all branches of the government. No door watched you as you read your novels and looked at the jackets remained closed to him. One might even think that the doormen and the pictures in your folios, and you were hoping that I would of the various ministries owed their existence to him, for they sit down next to you and explain it to you, relieve your mind, do showed deep filial respect and opened doors wide for him as if what every woman hopes a man will do with her, sneak his arm they were the doors of his very own house. I had heard tell that around her waist a little and now he makes her snuggle closer, in certain periods he had made a good deal of money by putting he gives her the urge to drop her tendency to knit sweaters or his active hands on some well-known mining and railroad talk, talk, talk on endlessly about everything that doesn’t mean stocks; but that in other cases his timid honesty had not been anything. I’m a real beast, what have I got to be proud about, I favorable for him. When I settled in Madrid, his situation, as don’t even have you any more because you were so set on losing far as could be seen, must have been comfortable but not yourself (not even losing yourself, because first you would have lavish. He had everything he needed, but he had no savings, had to find yourself),
really not a praiseworthy situation for a
really not a praiseworthy situation for a man who had worked
man who
…Praiseworthy, how long has it been since I heard so hard and who was now coming to the end of his days with that word, we’re really losing our language in Argentina; when barely enough time in which to recoup his losses.

I was a boy I was aware of a lot more words than I am now, I

He was at that time a man who looked older than he really used to read these same novels, I built up a huge vocabulary that was, always immaculately dressed in the style of the elegant was perfectly useless for anything else,
immaculately, very dis
-young men of the time, and with a very distinguished air. He
tinguished
, yes indeed. I wonder if you really got into the plot
was completely clean-shaven, this being a token of loyalty to the of this novel, or whether you used it as a jumping-off point for previous generation to which he belonged. His charm and his those mysterious countries of yours that I used to envy while joviality, always kept in delicate balance, never fell into im- you used to envy me my visits to the Louvre, that you must have pertinent familiarity or petulance. His best would come out in suspected even though you didn’t say anything. And there we his conversation, as well as his worst, for knowing how good were getting closer and closer to what had to happen someday he was at speaking, he would let himself be led into the habit of when you would understand fully that I was only going to give describing every detail and his accounts would be lengthened to you part of my time and my life,
and his accounts would be
a tedious degree. Sometimes he would do this right at the very
lengthened to a tedious degree
, that’s it exactly, I get boring beginning and would adorn his stories with childish minutiae to even when I reminisce. But how pretty you used to look at the such a degree that one would find it necessary to beg him, for window, with the gray of the sky hovering over your cheek, a heaven’s sake, to be brief. When he would be speaking about book in your hands, your mouth always a little intense, doubt something that had happened at home (an exercise he was pas- in your eyes. There was so much lost time in you, you were so sionately fond of), so much time would elapse between the much the shape of what you might have been under different exordium and the firing of the shot, that the listener would have constellations, that taking you in my arms and making love to let his mind wander so far off the subject that the
boom
would you became a job that was much too tender, that bordered too give him a bit of a start. I am not sure whether I should classify much on charity, and that’s where I used to fool myself, let my- as a physical ailment the chronic irritation of his tear-producing self fall into the stupid pride of an intellectual who thinks he’s apparatus, which at times, mostly in winter, would make his capable of understanding (
weeping until his nose had begun to
eyes water so that one would think that he had been weeping
run
?, but that’s really too repulsive). Capable of understanding, until his nose had begun to run. I do not know of any other man it makes you want to laugh, Maga. Listen, this is just for you,
with a more extensive collection of linen handkerchiefs. Because don’t mention it to anyone else. Maga, I was the hollow shape, of that and because of his habit of always holding the white you used to tremble, pure and free as a flame, a stream of quick-fabric in his right hand or in both hands, a friend of mine, an silver, like the first notes of a bird when dawn is breaking, and Andalusian, a wag and a good fellow, of whom I shall speak it’s nice to tell you all this in words that used to fascinate you later on, used to call my uncle
la Verónica.

because you had thought they didn’t exist outside of poetry, and

He showed me real affection, and during the early days of my that we had every right to use them. Where are you now, where residence in Madrid he was continuously at my side, so that he will we be from today on, two points in an inexplicable universe, could see to it that I was getting installed without difficulties near or far, two points that make a line, two points that drift and so that he could be of help in a hundred little ways. When apart and come close together arbitrarily (
great figures who
we would talk about the family and I would reminisce about my
had made the name of Bueno de Guzmán renowned
, but how childhood or tell anecdotes about my father, a nervous discomcorny can the guy get, Maga, how did you ever get beyond page fort would come over my uncle, a feverish enthusiasm for all five…), but I won’t explain to you the things they call the great figures who had made the name of Bueno de Guzmán Brownian movements, of course I won’t explain them to you renowned, and taking out his handkerchief he would tell me and still both of us, Maga, form a pattern, you a point some-stories that were interminable. He looked upon me as the last where, me another somewhere else, displacing each other, you male representative of a stock rich in great figures, and he would probably now in the Rue de la Huchette, while I’m discovering comfort and spoil me as if I were a child, in spite of my thirty-this novel in your empty apartment, tomorrow you in the Gare de six years. Poor uncle. In these shows of affection, which would Lyon (if you’re going to Lucca, my love) and me on the Rue du cause a considerable increase in the outflow from his eyes, I Chemin Vert, where I’ve discovered a wonderful little wine, and found a secret and most painful sorrow, a thorn driven deep little by little, Maga, we go along forming an absurd pattern,
into the heart of that excellent man. I do not really know ex- with our movements we sketch out a pattern just like the ones actly how I came to make that discovery; but I was as certain flies make when they fly around a room, from here to there, that there was a wound he was covering up as if I had seen it suddenly in mid-flight, from there to here, that’s what they call with my own two eyes and touched it with my own two hands. Brownian movement, now do you understand? a right angle, an It was a deep grief, overwhelming, the sorrow of not seeing me ascending line, from here to there, from back to front, up, down, married to one of his three daughters; an irremediable annoyspasmodically, slamming on the brakes and starting right up in ance, because his three daughters, alas!, were already married. another direction, and all of this is drawing a picture, a pattern, something nonexistent like you and me, like two points lost in Paris that go from here to there, from there to here, drawing their picture, putting on a dance for nobody, not even for themselves, an interminable pattern without any meaning.

(–
87
)

YES Babs yes. Yes Babs yes. Yes Babs, let’s turn out the light, sweetie, see you tomorrow, sleep well, count sheep, it’s all over, baby, it’s all over. Everybody so nasty with poor Babs, we’ll kick them all out of the Club to punish them. Everybody so nasty with poor Babs, nasty Étienne, nasty Perico, nasty Oliveira, Oliveira the worst of the lot, that inquisitor as delightful, delightful Babs had called him so exactly. Yes Babs yes. Rock-a-bye baby. Tura-lura-lura. Yes Babs yes. Something was bound to happen, in any case, there’s no living with those people without something happening. Sh, baby, sh. That’s the way, go to sleep. The Club’s had it, Babs, that’s for sure. We’ll never see Horacio again, perverse Horacio. Tonight the Club took a jump like a pancake that lands on the ceiling and sticks up there. You can keep holding on to the frying pan, Babs, it won’t come down again, don’t knock yourself out waiting. Sh, darling, stop crying, the girl has really tied one on, even her soul smells of cognac.

Ronald slipped down a little, steadied himself on Babs, he was falling asleep. Club, Ossip, Perico, let’s go back over it: everything had begun because everything had to come to an end, the jealous gods, the fried egg along with Oliveira, the real blame belonged to the god-damned fried egg, according to Étienne there was no need to throw the egg out into the garbage, a marvel it was with its metallic green tints, and Babs had a kind of Hokusai hairdo: the egg had a smell of carrion that was enough to kill a person, how could the Club hold a session with that egg sitting there a couple of feet away, and suddenly Babs began to cry, the cognac was coming out of her ears, and Ronald realized that while they’d been arguing about timeless things Babs had drunk herself over half a bottle of cognac, the egg business was a way of getting it out and nobody was surprised,
Oliveira least of all, that from the egg Babs would little by little get to the business of the burial, preparing herself between hiccups and a sort of fluttering around to bring up the case of the baby, a complete blowup. There wasn’t any use for Wong to try to set up a screen of smiles between Babs and the unaware Oliveira, or make complimentary remarks about the edition of
La Rencontre de la langue d’oïl, de la langue d’oc et du franco-provençal entre Loire et Allier
—
limites phonetiques et morphologiques
, Wong was very emphatic—by S. Escoffier, a book of great interest, Wong was saying as he pushed Babs along in a greasy sort of way, trying to head her towards the hallway, nothing could have stopped Oliveira from hearing that business about the inquisitor and he raised his eyebrows in a look somewhere between surprised and puzzled, checking with Gregorovius along the way as if the latter could explain the epithet. The Club knew that when Babs got started she was like a catapult, it had happened before; the only solution was a circle around the recording secretary and hostess in charge of food, waiting for time to do its work, no weeping can last forever, widows remarry. Nothing could be done, Babs was weaving drunkenly among the coats and mufflers of the Club, she came back from the hallway, she wanted to settle accounts with Oliveira, it was just the right moment to tell Oliveira about the inquisitor business, to affirm in her teary way that in all her lousy days she’d never met anyone as low, cold-blooded, bastardly, sadistic, evil, butcher, racist, incapable of the smallest kindness, trash, rotten, piece of shit, slimy, and syphilitic. Items received with infinite delight by Perico and Étienne, and with mixed reactions among the rest, including the recipient.