Authors: A. G. Porta
Wandering, by definition, is a going nowhere. And wandering to escape one’s thoughts is as pointless as wandering to escape one’s feet. It’s certainly no analeptic against hypnosis. In fact, it may serve only to exacerbate it. The girl buys a newspaper and sits down to read it at a café in the city center. She reads that the star of her favorite soccer team managed to get back into shape by training alone. She reads about the celebrations for the fiftieth anniversary of the capital’s liberation, about some battle in the past, part of a war that happened decades ago, in which only old geezers like the screenwriter or the philosophy professor in her novel could possibly be interested. She looks at all the pictures of the celebrations to see if her mother appears in any of them, but the only one that catches her eye is of the Little Sinfonietta after one of their performances. She’s particularly struck by the latest conquest’s new hairdo, which is identical to hers. The girl also notices she’s holding a red clown’s nose out to the crowd, and looks as if she’s at the point of releasing it. She’s not surprised. She reads about her tremendous success at the concerts, about her new recording contract with the same record company the girl’s signed to, and about the Sinfonietta’s upcoming appearance on a famous TV show. She reads all this before repeating to herself: nothing that occurs is certain, truth is only an illusion, it exists nowhere outside the mind. Nowhere outside my mind. And true enough, a little later, the girl finds herself thinking about nothing in particular. There’s nothing else in the newspaper to occupy her thoughts. Nothing about the astrophysicist in the classically-cut suit, say, no more reports on his death. The reply to her comment in the classifieds matches what the agency told her word for word. Why would it be any different? The proposed meeting place is a nightclub. She supposes such places shouldn’t be ruled out, although she’d rather have met at the airport or a church, even a library.
The screenwriter amuses himself juggling all these details around in his head, because at this point her story has become fully his, and he wants to explain to the director, the producer, and script editor exactly how the girl feels. He realizes that, in focusing on the girl, he’s compensating for other, less complete parts of the script, because there’s certainly an imbalance of sorts, every other aspect of his screenplay seeming to give way for the sake of a single character, an imbalance that will more than likely have to be corrected by someone else. But why start making excuses now? He may end up doing it himself, for when he’s seen through his role as screenwriter, he’ll take up the mantle of script doctor. He reads some random passages from the book about screenwriters. One day he’ll start on page one and keep on going till the end. He still intends to use some examples from it to teach any potential students. One of the screenwriters confesses in an interview that only a few of the experiences he’s had in his professional life were truly gratifying. In the majority of cases, almost everything that he felt was good about his work ended up on the cutting-room floor. For the screenwriter, there isn’t much solace in reading this, but at least his misery has found some new company. He flips through the pages looking at all the photographs. There’s only one woman among them: a blonde, leaning back in a chair, an elegant pose, wearing pearl earrings and a necklace. Behind her are shelves filled with videocassettes. Just like all the male screenwriters, she’s shown at an age well past maturity, but just before gravitas has given way to dotage. All the men have gray or graying hair, wear horn-rimmed glasses, and are frequently shown posing next to the poster of a movie for which, we are led to presume, they wrote the screenplay; some others are shown looking up from a desk in an office, and others still are shown having a great time on set with actors, directors, and other film crew. The screenwriter flips through the photos and considers what films he’d liked to have collaborated on. Then he thinks he probably appreciates them more because of his aesthetic distance from them. There is a golden tint coloring them all, he thinks, but faded, as of the epoch to which they belonged. But when he reads about their points of view, what it was really like, this golden age, he wonders whether it was all that different. For there is nothing to suggest that a golden-age screenwriter had it any easier. Perhaps what he really admires, although he doesn’t know it, is the success of the industry in every age, including his own, but for him, only when something has come and gone, and has become irretrievable, does it acquire an aureate aspect. . He closes the book and puts it beside the pile of newspapers. It’s best to focus on the girl, who’s still wandering aimlessly around the city, whiling away her time, because she wants to postpone making a definite decision. She thinks about having to confront everyone, but then changes her mind — perhaps it’s only herself she needs to confront. She goes into a music store and buys one of the first CDs she recorded. She wants to be reassured of its quality, that she’s not just another flash in the pan, just another in the long line of piano prodigies who have come and gone without consequence. The biggest stars in the industry don’t need to be great performers; once they attain a certain level of fame, the blinding aura of their celebrity hides many of their less obvious defects. She listens to the disc as she walks. The performance is good, but there’s something missing. Perhaps, back then, her playing lacked soul. And that’s the difference. If she had the opportunity to record the
5 Pieces for piano
, she’d have to bring her performance to a whole new level, a level neither she nor anyone else has yet reached. She sits on a bench by the sidewalk to write for a while. Then she closes her eyes and leans back in the sun, whiling away the hours until dusk. She thinks about visiting the bars and clubs she used to frequent with the others after the concerts. First, she has something to eat in a restaurant. The newspapers report the same news. The only difference is the local papers don’t ever mention the star of her favorite soccer team. She folds it and puts it aside. She thinks of a list of bars and clubs to go to. She has plenty of time to spare before her meeting. It seems to her that aliens must have a lot of patience anyway. Meanwhile, perhaps over a drink in one of those bars, she may be able to resolve the question of her hypnosis. She’s not sure if she remembers the way, but she tries to reconstruct the route she often took while barhopping with the others. Eventually, though, she gets lost walking along streets she doesn’t recognize. She doesn’t find even one of the bars or clubs on her mental list, and not a single member of the group of people who often joined their party over the course of a night. It’s almost as if these scenes didn’t occur in the same city. Even the café in front of the church looks different than it used to. She asks one of the waiters if it’s still frequented by writers and musicians, as it was when she and the group went there before and after the concerts in the church. The man doesn’t seem to recall this ever happening, so she goes off on a new search for all the famous cafés and restaurants she used to visit with her mother, the young conductor, and their retinue. But before long, she gets lost again, and although she asks some people for directions, none are sure of the way. It’s as if the route has been erased, or that it never even existed, or that she only dreamed it. She tires of going around in circles. Then she recalls she still has some of the pills those two pricks used to give her. They should pep her up for a little while, she thinks. Minutes, perhaps hours, later, she finds herself leaning against the hood of a car in front of the nightclub, watching the entrance fixedly. She knows she may be about to have the most important first encounter of her life, indeed of anyone’s life. And yet, something in her gut tells her it’s too good to be true, that anyone could’ve replied to her message, and that the meeting might be a waste of time, which wouldn’t be a surprise, since it’s the running theme of the night so far, of the past few days in fact — days and nights spent wandering aimlessly through the streets, or through her mind, sitting at the laptop, not writing a line, and unable to resolve the question of her hypnosis. When she wrote the ad, she felt she could take on the world, but now she feels tired, perhaps because it’s late, perhaps because she’s been feeling dispirited lately; either way, she’s not very enthused at the prospect of an imminent alien encounter. But might they clarify what exactly her mission is on Earth? Shadowed in the doorway, before entering the nightclub, she hides the gun in her satchel and goes to leave it in the cloakroom, her mind completely blank, like an automaton’s.
She dances alone under the flashing lights, her eyes fixed, unblinking, on the shelves of bottles behind the bar. It’s Friday, so there are quite a few people on the dance floor, although it isn’t the busiest hour yet. The girl is moving like a zombie, hardly aware of what she’s doing or where she is. She looks around the dance floor at the people around her, at the other girls in the club — both those who are dancing and the ones sitting down — biding her time, waiting for something to happen, wondering when this meeting is going to take place, a blind meeting she probably should’ve avoided. How will she be able to recognize him? She’ll wait a while longer before leaving. She slows her dancing down until it appears she’s only half-heartedly following the music’s rhythm. Leaning on the bar, the cousin is watching her every movement. Perhaps he followed her because he has something important to say. She considers the possibility her father sent him to look out for her, like a guardian angel or something, but then she dismisses the thought, thinking her father would never go to such trouble for her sake. She decides to offer him a smile, but her smile quickly fades when she sees him vanish in the darkness between the flashing lights. She continues dancing. Sometimes she believes the human race has a destiny it can’t even begin to imagine. A destiny she can hardly begin to imagine herself. Perhaps they’re not even humans, although that’s not important right now. After wasting enough time pottering around the dance floor, she collects her bag from the cloakroom and goes back outside to lean against the bonnet of a car. She should probably be getting back. She wants to plan her route precisely this time; she’s sick of walking the streets using only her gut as a guide. A guy sits next to her. He smiles while taking out a hanky and wiping the sweat from his brow. She remembers having seen him on the dance floor. Light from the club’s entrance is flooding the sidewalk, which is swarming with young people — some entering and exiting, some hanging around chatting and smoking. The bouncer looks at her for a moment, but he’s busy dealing with the people walking in and out of the club. To one side, a group of friends are debating whether to go somewhere else. Near them, two girls are repeatedly kissing one another on the cheeks. The girl counts five kisses before deciding to leave them to it. The largest group of people seems to be waiting for someone, who finally emerges from inside the club, and after briefly checking his fly is closed, joins the rest of his party, which then swarms as a single unit down the street. This isn’t the best place for dancing, says the guy who’s still sitting beside the girl. He looks at her carefully and points out her striking resemblance to that famous pianist. How did he recognize her with her new clothes and hair? He tells her he went to one of her concerts, and says that her features haven’t changed all that much. It seems she should start wearing her sunglasses at night, she thinks. A cap and scarf wouldn’t go amiss either. She asks if he was one of the group that accompanied the musicians when they went barhopping after their concerts. He was not. The only thing he wants to talk about is the voices. He too hears voices, and that’s the reason he replied to her message. What are they like? she asks, disappointed. The guy launches into his explanation, saying he often hears them call him by a different name, but when he wakes up, he can’t recall what it was. Then it happens in your dreams? the girl asks. She says she hears them all the time, asleep or awake. She hears them pronounce her name with a “ka” instead of a “k” sound. He says it’s probably an honest mistake. August is a horrible month. It must be even for aliens. There’s nothing special about this guy, or the voices he thinks he hears. He shouldn’t have bothered replying. Since he only hears voices in his dreams, maybe they should arrange to have a meeting there, because that’s the only place they’d ever hit it off. August is a horrible month for everyone, whatever the city. They remain seated on the car, talking about aliens and music. He doesn’t think the voices come from another galaxy, and he doesn’t understand why she expects to receive any further contact, aside from him. As regards music, he knows next to nothing, so the girl ends up having to launch into a screed about twelve-tone serialism and why it’s so important. She also tells him what it’s like to be a so-called child prodigy, and how people try to exploit her as a brand. It’s getting late, but something keeps her from going back to the hotel just yet. Maybe it’s the companionship. Perhaps that’s all she’s been looking for. At least her head no longer feels like it’s going to explode. And that’s a good sign. There’s a bitter wind blowing, so the girl buttons up her jacket. The guy offers to make her coffee back at his place. It’s not far. She never really developed a taste for coffee, but she doesn’t mind having some anyway. The pills are already keeping her wide-awake, so it’ll hardly make a difference. If she were present, the girl’s mother would have lost no time pointing out the fact that the guy’s wearing imitation-brand clothing: a polo shirt, unbleached cotton pants, and a pair of moccasins. Casual and cheap. She grins for having thought of it. She wouldn’t dare ask him what brand they’re supposed to be, but she can smell an imitation from miles away, which is about the distance separating them in terms of class. It’s something she inherited, in a sense, a mindset she grew up with, starting when she was an infant, to be aware of all the differences, both glaring and subtle, between people like her and people belonging to the lower classes. But she’s made a promise to herself to combat this mindset and resist all thoughts proceeding from it. The guy lives in a small apartment located in a tiny square at the end of a residents-only passageway off the street. He turns on the lights and walks along a narrow corridor. The floor consists of a series of wooden planks set lengthwise under their feet. It seems strange at first, but then she considers it homey. The girl tells him she wants to be a writer, and that’s the reason she gave up music, because to be a writer is all she really wants in this life. After a few minutes, or perhaps it’s an hour, he’s sitting with a coffee, and she a bottle of beer and what’s left of a slice of cake. She was going to tell him she’s at a crucial stage in her career, having discovered the source of her literary impulse in a hypnotist’s swaying pendulum, but she decided against going into it. He’d like to know what it is she writes about, so she explains to him the plot of her
No World
. She tells him about an angel that isn’t really an angel; about an old professor and his female student; about invisible aliens who keep watch on their charges, who either don’t know they’re aliens or ignore the fact. The angel isn’t really an angel, but another alien who, like the others, is invisible, but invisible in the sense that it doesn’t truly exist, not as something that occupies space and is made of matter exists, anyway, because it’s simply the creation of a single overriding consciousness. The difference being that this angel is unable to imagine the existence of other angels, and for this reason, other angels are invisible to it. She tells him about the war in the City in Outer Space, and the survivor who must face the prospect of being alone for the rest of his life, his only possessions being a tape recorder, a copy of W’s magnum opus, and a gun. She’s certain that her music, which he hears constantly while walking the desolate streets alone, provides some solace. She’s certain it helps to calm this terrible vision he has of a universe that seems to be expanding one day and contracting the next. The constructions of the mind are the constructions of the No World. The No World is all that is the case. The guy thinks her explanation is rather like her notion of a difference between “ka” and “k,” and he really doesn’t know what to make of it. He’s reminded of a movie in which an angel on Earth listens to other people’s conversations, perhaps hearing their thoughts as well. He finds the idea interesting that nothing exists outside the mind, that everything’s constructed by a single consciousness. Then he asks her what No World means. She hesitates to answer, as the idea’s still a work in progress. Finally, she says the No World must be understood as a sort of game. A game that creates a reality parallel to ours, and which, in essence, is identical to ours, just seen from a different frame of reference. The No World, just like everything else, could simply be a dream. No World is simply a name for the all-encompassing thought, the thought of which all things ultimately consist. All that is the case, she adds. Then she explains that, in the beginning, there was only nothingness, and that this nothingness was all-encompassing, except for a single point of concentrated thought, too small to be seen by the naked eye, perhaps too small for an electron microscope to detect. Then, in a timeless instant, this point exploded, and in the explosion, thought began expanding outward, creating a universe that exists only within its own solitude, although it appears so real that it eventually created beings who were convinced it was real, that they were real, and so convinced were they, it was inconceivable to even admit to the possibility that all they saw around them, all they knew and loved and hated, was only a product of thought. These beings eventually thought other universes into existence, universes filled with other people, which they called unreal, fictitious, while always refusing to admit to the possibility that what they saw around them, all they loved and hated, was also unreal, fictitious; always refusing to admit to the possibility that the constantly expanding universe they lived in was just a mind that thought them into existence. The girl could tell him more about the No World, but she thinks she’s said enough, and he accepts this without further comment. Then a minute goes by, perhaps more, either way, it’s too late to beat around the bush, so they decide to go to bed. They have sex, but it doesn’t go well, because she wants to do it fast, while he’d prefer to go at his own pace. This always happens when she pops those pills. It’s nothing new to her. In any case, she acts as if there’s nothing wrong. But she thinks it’s strange she’s now heard them whispering in another language. She tries to get some sleep, but his bed is just a mattress on the floor, and his nightstand just an upside-down fruit box. It occurs to the girl that her mother wouldn’t spend a minute in this place. She doesn’t know why she’s suddenly thinking of her mother. At dawn, they lie in silence under the covers. The windows are open, and the girl watches the shadows of wind-stirred branches moving on the plaster molds of the ceiling. She listens to the silence outside, very different from her father’s hotel room, the incessant din of the Grand Central Station. She’s not looking at the guy, although she can tell he’s also watching the shadows on the ceiling. When a day begins to dawn, there’s a certain point at which the darkness and the light seem mixed in equal proportion. It’s a magical moment, although it only lasts a few seconds — yet she’s able to prolong it by closing her eyes and recalling it once it passes. In the bed, the girl closes her eyes and recalls that moment again, a moment few people ever get to see, she thinks, because they’re always asleep when it happens. Then she falls asleep herself and starts dreaming about a foosball table, a formation of two defenders, five midfielders, and three strikers. She struggles to control the positions of the players and loses every game she plays. Then she’s explaining to her new friend that, in her native country, the foosball tables have three defenders, three midfielders, and four strikers, and she goes wandering the streets looking for one exactly like it. A stranger approaches her and says that, in his native city, they have the best foosball tables in the world. When she awakens, they have sex a second time, with no better results than the first. While she showers, he smokes a cigarette. She asks him if she knows of any foosball tables with the three-three-four formation. He says he doesn’t remember, he’s not a habitual player. The girl eats breakfast quickly; she’s in a hurry. She couldn’t say what exactly has changed since last night, but right now she wants to be alone. He’s happy to go without breakfast and has a couple of cigarettes instead. She opens her satchel, takes out the gun, and slips it between her jeans and the small of her back. Their eyes meet momentarily. I’ve been getting death threats, she lies. He keeps watching her, feeling a little threatened himself. There’s something strange in his look. Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you, she jokes, at least not today. Before she leaves, he takes a quick Polaroid of the two of them, reaching out his arm to snap them both, their heads tenderly touching in the same frame. The girl writes on the back of the photo the same message that brought them together. “I hear voices. 1. The No World is all that is the case.” Then she writes the date and signs it “Ka.” In the photo, they appear together under the door-frame, with the mattress on the floor in the background. To her relief, the guy doesn’t ask for her number, nor does he ask to meet up again. So after they say their good-byes, the girl leaves. The screenwriter lifts his eyes from his typewriter, a little surprised by how dark it’s become, and deduces it must be quite late. He’s spent hours immersed in his writing, but before going to bed, he lights one last cigarette. He needs to relieve the strain in his neck. He turns off the light and stays seated a while, observing the windows of the building opposite. Some are still glowing with signs of life; others are stygian black. The No World is just another way of trying to replace the external world with a replica, but it’s a replica that acts like a photographic negative with an image on it, but which disappears entirely once it’s developed. He’s hungry. When will the money arrive? he wonders.
In the morning he calls the bank from the hotel. He wants to know if they can forward him part of his next pension payment. The employee tells him there was a recent deposit made to his account. This is the advance from the producer. But then he tells the screenwriter it has to be used to cover the outstanding balance on his credit card. So he’s in the black, but must be immediately put back in the red, because this employee, instead of suggesting other options, seems intent on giving him a hard time. The screenwriter can’t bring himself to write. It’s not that he’s drawn a blank, he just can’t be bothered. He has more pressing things to worry about now. He looks down at the street from his hotel window, at the storefronts he’s seen so many times before: the real-estate agency on the corner, the bakery, the shop selling women’s lingerie, and the shoe and handbag store that’s closed for the August vacation. His neighbor passes by her window, but now isn’t the time to try getting her attention. Now isn’t the time to be thinking about her. After breakfast he goes down to the lobby and reads the newspaper. On finishing, he leaves it on the table and goes out to the street, dragging his leg behind him. He gets the impression his limp has gotten worse, which would tally with the decline in his confidence, his mood, and his general psychological well-being, really. A little down the street, he stops in front of a store window, ostensibly to look at the display, but really to have a rest, and to look at his reflection in the glass. When his spirits are up, he hardly notices the limp, but now his leg is like a dead weight, and he realizes what’s happening, that he’s becoming depressed, and this is affecting not only his mind but his body as well, and he wonders whether it’s the beginning of a slow, inexorable decline. He needs to deal with this, he thinks while waiting at the traffic light to cross the street. On arriving at the café, he takes a newspaper from one of the tables, sits down, and indicates the usual with a nod of the head. The waitress acknowledges his order. A little while later, she approaches the table with tray in hand. Have you been thinking about me? he whispers to her. The waitress gives him a sideways glance and smiles. It may be an ironic smile, and she may leave him without an answer again, but the screenwriter keeps watching her as she serves the other tables; he thinks he’s made some progress at last, and that the smile indicates there’s some hope for him yet. He doesn’t have the inclination to write, but he starts listing, one by one, the names of people who could loan him some money: screenwriters and other people in the business, friends, distant relatives, simple acquaintances. He still has the odd telephone number written in his agenda, although most will have to be sought in the directory. All at once, the thought of obtaining the addresses and phone numbers he needs doesn’t seem that difficult. What began as a terrible day hasn’t turned out so badly. He thinks the day sums up his life: at times he feels capable, confident; at other times, he feels the exact opposite. I wouldn’t make much of a philosopher, he thinks, smiling. Perhaps the waitress’s smile is responsible for lifting his spirits, the glimmer of hope he received when she cast him a sideways glance. Perhaps that’s all it is, he thinks. On getting back to his room, he sets the directory beside him on the bed and picks up the telephone.