He kept checking his pulse and touching his forehead to see if he had a fever. When the door finally opened, he saw a lean, rather swarthy face, with large bags under the eyes; it was, he judged, the face of a degenerate, and it was vaguely familiar. Morini invited him in. My parents, he said, have been working as caretakers of this hotel for more than thirty years. They sat down in the lobby, where the armchairs were protected from dust by enormous sheets embroidered with the hotel’s monogram. On one wall Rousselot saw an oil painting of the beaches of Le Hamel, with bathers in belle époque costumes, while opposite, a collection of portraits of famous guests (or so he supposed) observed them from a zone infiltrated by mist. He shivered. I am Alvaro Rousselot, he said, the author of Solitude—I mean, the author of Nights on the Pampas.
It took a few seconds for Morini to react, but then he leaped to his feet, let out a cry of terror, and disappeared down a corridor. Such a spectacular response was the last thing Rousselot had been expecting. He remained seated, lit a cigarette (the ash dropped progressively onto the carpet), and thought sadly of Simone and her son, and a café in Paris that served the best croissants he had ever tasted in his life. Then he stood up and started calling Morini. Guy, he called, rather hesitantly, Guy, Guy, Guy.
Rousselot found him in an attic where the hotel’s cleaning equipment was piled. Morini had opened the window and seemed to be hypnotized by the garden that surrounded the building, and by the neighboring garden, which belonged to a private residence, and was visible, in part, through dark lattice-work. Rousselot walked over and patted him on the back. Morini seemed smaller and more fragile than before. For a while they both stood there looking at one garden, then the other. Then Rousselot wrote the address of his hotel in Paris and the address of the hotel where he was currently staying on a piece of paper and slipped it into the director’s trouser pocket. He felt he had committed a reprehensible act, executed a reprehensible gesture, but then, as he was walking back to Arromanches, everything he had done in Paris, every gesture and action, seemed reprehensible, futile, senseless, and even ridiculous. I should kill myself, he thought as he walked along the seashore.
Back in Arromanches, he did what any sensible man would have done as soon as he realized that his money had run out. He rang Simone, explained the situation, and asked her for a loan. The first thing Simone said was that she didn’t want a pimp, to which Rousselot replied that he was asking for a loan, and that he was planning to repay it with thirty-percent interest, but then they both started laughing and Simone told him not to do anything, just stay put in the hotel, and in a few hours, as soon as she could borrow a car from one of her friends, she’d come and get him. She also called him chéri a few times, to which he responded by using the word chérie, which had never seemed so tender. For the rest of the day Rousselot felt that he really was an Argentine writer, something he had begun to doubt over the previous days, or perhaps the previous years, partly because he was unsure of himself, but also because he was unsure about the possibility of an Argentine literature.
Two Catholic Tales
I. The Vocation
1. I was seventeen years old and my days, and I mean all of them, were a continual shuddering. I had no distractions; nothing could dissipate the anxiety that kept building up inside me. I was living like an interloping extra in scenes from the passion of St. Vincent. St. Vincent—deacon to Bishop Valero, tortured by the governor Dacian in the year 304—have pity on me! 2. Sometimes I talked with Juanito. Not just sometimes. Often. We sat in armchairs at his place and talked about movies. Juanito liked Gary Cooper. Elegance, temperance, integrity, courage, he used to say. Temperance? Courage? I knew what lay behind his certitudes, and would have liked to spit them back in his face, but instead I dug my fingernails into the armrests and bit my lip when he wasn’t looking and even closed my eyes and pretended to be meditating on his words. But I wasn’t meditating. Not at all: images of the martyrdom of St. Vincent were flashing in my mind like magic lantern slides. 3. First he is tied to an X-shaped wooden cross and they tear at his flesh with hooks and dislocate his limbs. Then he is subjected to torture by fire, roasted on a grill over hot coals. And then he’s a captive in a dungeon where the ground is covered with shards of glass and pottery. And then a crow keeps watch over the martyr’s corpse, abandoned in a wasteland, and fends off a ravening wolf. And then the saint’s body is cast into the sea from a boat, a millstone tied around his neck. And then the waves wash the body up on the coast, and there it is piously buried by a matron and other Christians. 4. Sometimes I used to feel dizzy. Nauseous. Juanito would talk about the last film we had seen and I would nod and realize that I was drowning, as if the armchairs were at the bottom of a very deep lake. I could remember the movie theater, I could remember buying the tickets, but I simply couldn’t remember the scenes that my friend (my one and only friend!) was talking about, as if the lake-floor darkness had infiltrated everything. If I open my mouth, water will come in. If I breathe, water will come in. If I stay alive, water will come in and flood my lungs forever and ever. 5. Sometimes Juanito’s mother would come into the room and ask me personal questions. How my studies were going, what book I was reading, if I’d been to the circus that had just set up on the outskirts of the city. Juanito’s mother was always very elegantly dressed, and, like us, she was addicted to the movies. 6. Once I dreamed of her, once I opened the door of her bedroom, and instead of seeing a bed, a dresser and a closet, I saw an empty room with a red brick floor, and that was just the antechamber of a very, very long corridor, like the highway tunnel that goes through the mountains and then on toward France, except that in this case the tunnel wasn’t on a mountain highway but in the bedroom of my best friend’s mother. I have to keep reminding myself: Juanito’s my best friend. And, as opposed to a normal tunnel, this one seemed to be suspended in a very fragile kind of silence, like the silence of the second half of January or the first half of February. 7. Unspeakable acts, fateful nights. I recited the formula to Juanito. Unspeakable acts? Fateful nights? Is the act unspeakable because the night is fateful, or is the night fateful because the act is unspeakable? What sort of question is that? I asked, on the brink of tears. You’re crazy. You don’t understand anything, I said, looking out of the window. 8. Juanito’s father isn’t tall but he cuts a dashing figure. He was in the army and during the war he was wounded a number of times. His medals are displayed on the wall of his study, in a glass-fronted case. He didn’t know anyone when he first came to the city, Juanito says, and people were either afraid of him or jealous. After a few months here, he met my mother, Juanito says. They were engaged for five years. Then my father tied the knot. Sometimes my aunt talks about Juanito’s father. According to her, he was a good, honest police chief. That’s what people said, at least. If a maid was caught stealing from her employers, Juanito’s father locked her up for three days without so much as a crust of bread. On the fourth day he would question her personally, and the maid would be quick to confess her sin, giving him the precise location of the jewels or the name of the laborer who had stolen them. Then the guards would arrest the man and lock him up, and Juanito’s father would put the maid on a train and advise her not to come back. 9. The whole village applauded this procedure, as if it were a sign of the police chief’s intellectual distinction. 10. When Juanito’s father first arrived, the only people he knew socially were the regulars at the casino. Juanito’s mother was seventeen years old and she was very blonde, to judge from a number
of photos hanging unobtrusively around the house, much blonder than she is now, and she had been educated at the Heart of Mary, a school run by nuns in the northern part of the old fort. Juanito’s father must have been about thirty. He still goes to the casino every afternoon, although he’s retired now, and drinks a glass of cognac or coffee with a shot, and usually plays dice with the regulars. New regulars, not the regulars from the old days, but it’s not so different, because of course they’re all in awe of him. Juanito’s older brother lives in Madrid, where he’s a well-known lawyer. Juanito’s sister is married and she lives in Madrid too. I’m the only one left in this damn house, Juanito says. And me! And me! 11. Our city is shrinking every day. Sometimes I get the feeling that everyone is either leaving or shut up inside packing a suitcase. If I left, I wouldn’t take a suitcase. Not even a few belongings wrapped up in a little bundle. Sometimes I put my head in my hands and listen to the rats running in the walls. St. Vincent, grant me strength. St. Vincent, grant me temperance. 12. Do you want to be a saint? Juanito’s mother asked me two years ago. Yes, Ma’am. I think that’s a very good idea, but you have to be very good. Are you? I try to be, Ma’am. And a year ago, as I was walking along Avenida General Mola, Juanito’s father said hello and then he stopped and asked if I was Encarnación’s nephew. Yes, Sir, I said. You’re the one who wants to become a priest? I nodded and smiled. 13. Why did I do that? What was that stupid, apologetic smile for? Why did I look away smiling like a moron? 14. Humility. 15. That’s excellent, said Juanito’s father. Fantastic. You have to study hard, don’t you? I nodded and smiled. And cut down on the movies? Yes, Sir, but I don’t go to the movies much. 16. I watched Juanito’s father receding into the distance: old but still vigorous, he held himself straight and looked as if he were walking on tiptoes. I watched him go down the stairs that lead to the Calle de los Vidrieros; I watched him as he walked away without a moment’s unsteadiness or hesitation, without looking into a single shop. Not like Juanito’s mother, who was always looking in storefront windows, and sometimes she would go into the stores, and if you stayed outside, waiting for her, you could sometimes hear her laugh. If I open my mouth, water will come in. If I breathe, water will come in. If I stay alive, water will come in and flood my lungs forever and ever. 17. And what are you going to be, dickhead? Juanito asked me. Be or do? I asked him back. Be, dickhead. Whatever God wants, I said. God puts us all in our rightful places, said my aunt. Our forefathers were good people. There were no soldiers in our family, but there were priests. Like who? I asked as I nodded off to sleep. My aunt grunted. I saw a square blanketed with snow, and I saw the farmers come with their produce, sweep the snow away and wearily set up their market stalls. St. Vincent, for example, my aunt burst out. Deacon to the bishop of Zaragoza, who, in the year 304, anno domini, though it might well have been 305, 306, 307 or 303, was arrested and taken to Valencia, where Dacian, the governor, submitted him to cruel tortures, as a result of which he died. 18. Why do you think St. Vincent is dressed in red? I asked Juanito. No idea. Because all the Catholic martyrs wear a red garment, to identify them as martyrs. This boy’s clever, said Father Zubieta. We were alone and Father Zubieta’s study was bone-chillingly cold, and Father Zubieta or rather Father Zubieta’s clothes smelled of a combination of dark tobacco and sour milk. If you decide to enter the seminary, the door is open. The vocation, the call, when it comes, can make you tremble, but let’s not get carried away. Did I tremble? Did I feel the earth move? Did I experience the rapture of divine union? 19. Let’s not get carried away. Let’s not get carried away. It’s what the reds wear, said Juanito. The reds wear khaki, I said, green, with camouflage patterns. No, said Juanito, those red faggots wear red. Like whores. That piqued my curiosity. Like whores? Which whores, where? Well, here, for a start, said Juanito, and I guess in Madrid too. Here, in this city? Yes, said Juanito, and then he tried to change the subject. You mean there are whores even here, in this little city or town or godforsaken backwater? Well, yes, said Juanito. I thought your father had reformed them all. Reformed? Do you think my father’s a priest or something? My father was a war hero and then a police commissioner. My father doesn’t reform. He solves crimes. That’s all. And where have you seen these whores? On Cerro del Moro, where they’ve always been, said Juanito. Good God. 20. My aunt says that St. Vincent—Enough about your aunt and St. Vincent, your aunt is raving mad. How can you trace your family back to the year 300? Who’s got a family that old? Not even the House of Alba. But after a while, he added: Your aunt’s not a bad person; she’s got a good heart, but her mind’s not right. Shall we go to the movies this afternoon? They’re showing a Clark Gable film. And Juanito’s mother: Go on, go, I went two days ago and it’s very entertaining. And Juanito: The thing is, he doesn’t have any money. Juanito’s mother: Well, you’ll just have to lend him some. 21. God have mercy on my soul. Sometimes I wish they’d all just die. My friend and his mother and his father and my aunt and all the neighbors and passers-by and drivers who leave their cars parked by the river and even the poor innocent children who run around in the park beside the river. God have pity on my soul and make me better. Or unmake me. 22. Anyway, if they all died, what would I do with so many bodies? How could I go on living in this city, or sub-city? Would I try to bury them all? Would I throw their bodies into the river? How much time would I have before their flesh began to rot and the stench became unbearable? Ah, snow. 23. Snow covered the streets of our city. Before going into the cinema we bought roasted chestnuts and sugared almonds. We had our scarves up around our noses and Juanito was laughing and talking about adventures in the old Dutch East Indies. They didn’t let anyone in with chestnuts—it was a question of basic hygiene—but they made an exception for Juanito. Gary Cooper would have been better in this role, said Juanito. Asia. The Chinese. Leper colonies. Mosquitoes. 24. When we came out we went our separate ways in the Calle de los Cuchillos. I stood still in the falling snow and Juanito went running off home. Poor kid, I thought, but Juanito was only a year younger than me. When he disappeared from sight, I went up the Calle de los Toneleros to the Plaza del Sordo, and then I turned and followed the walls of the old fort, headed for Cerro del Moro. The snow reflected the light of the streetlamps, and, in a fleeting but also natural and even serene way, the old house-fronts gathered the glamour of the past. I peered through a gap in the whitewash on a window and saw a tidy room, with the Sacred Heart of Jesus presiding on one of the walls. But I was blind and deaf and continued up the hill, on the dark side of the street so I wouldn’t be recognized. When I reached the Plazuela del Cadalso, and only then, I realized that throughout the climb I hadn’t come across a single person. In this weather, I thought, who would exchange the warmth of home for the freezing streets? It was already dark, and from the square you could see the lights of some of the neighborhoods and the bridges beyond the Plaza de Don Rodrigo and the river bending around and then continuing eastward. The stars were shining in the sky. I thought they looked like snowflakes. Suspended snowflakes, picked out by God to remain still in the firmament, but snowflakes all the same. 25. I was starting to freeze. I decided to go back to my aunt’s house and drink some hot chocolate or soup beside the heater. I felt weary and my head was spinning. I went back the way I’d come. Then I saw him. Just a shadow at first. 26. But it wasn’t a shadow, it was a monk. He could have been a Franciscan, judging from his habit. His thoughtful face was almost entirely obscured by a large hood. Why do I say thoughtful? Because he was looking at the ground. 27. W
here was he from? How’d he get there? I didn’t know. Maybe he’d been administering the last rites to someone who was dying. Maybe he’d been visiting a sick child. Maybe he’d been supplying a destitute person with a frugal meal. In any case, he was walking without making the slightest sound. For a moment I thought it was an apparition. But soon I realized that the snow was muffling my own footfalls as well. 28. He was barefoot. Noticing that was like being struck by lightning. We came down Cerro del Moro. When we passed the church of Santa Barbara, I saw him make the sign of the cross. His immaculate footprints shone in the snow like a message from God. I started crying. I would gladly have knelt down and kissed those crystalline prints—the answer for which I had waited so long—but I didn’t, for fear he might disappear down some alley. We left the center. We crossed the Plaza Mayor, and then we crossed a bridge. The monk was walking at a steady pace, neither slowly nor quickly, as the Church herself should proceed. 29. We followed the Avenida Sanjurjo, lined with plane trees, until we reached the train station. It was stifling inside. The monk went to the bathroom and then bought a ticket. When he came out of the bathroom, I noticed that he had put on a pair of shoes. His ankles were as slender as sticks. He went out onto the platform. I saw him sitting there, hanging his head, waiting and praying. I remained standing on the platform, shivering with cold, hidden by a pillar. When the train arrived, the monk jumped with surprising agility into one of the carriages. 30. When I left, on my own, I looked for his prints in the snow, the footprints of his bare feet, but I could find no trace of them.