Leopoldo Marechal - Adam Buenosayres

The priestly figure’s speech ended in a huge sob. Burying his face in his hands, he wept soundlessly for a few moments. By and by, he pulled from his soutane a green handkerchief and used it to staunch his tears and noisily blow his noise. His pain was so sincere that even Schultz seemed to hesitate, as though turning over in his mind a question of justice. But then the old dandy, who up to that point had hardly intervened in the conversation, gave vent to his fermenting anger:

— Very well, he said. We’ve just heard the extremely vulgar stories of two “gourmands.” It seems to me there’s some justice in their being thrown into a hell such as this — what incalculably uncouth cuisine, upon my word! I still don’t know what someone like me is supposed to be doing here, a man who has turned cooking into an art with a soupçon of science or a science with a soupçon of art.

— Pardon me, Schultz said to him. Do I perhaps have the pleasure of speaking with a “gourmet”?

— You said it, the old duffer replied. And I assume the inventor of this inferno’s laughable architecture must be some kind of bungler, a moron incapable of seeing the nuances distinguishing one case from another. If I had the chance to go back up above for just a minute…

— What would you do?

— Nothing, crowed the old boy. I’d just call up Macoco Funes, the senator, and have him close down this clandestine den of iniquity.

Schultz was about to give him the response he deserved and maybe uncover a third story, when two enormous Cyclopes came striding down upon us, single mid-brow eyes beaming left and right as though in search of something in the semi-darkness. The one in the vanguard soon spied the three WC heroes and with amazing ease plucked them from their thrones. He tucked the priestly figure under one armpit, the old fop under the other, and with one hand held Don Celso in the air.

— Back to the grindstone! he told them. You’re not gonna sit on the john all night long like a buncha broody hens!

Then he noticed Schultz and me observing him with curiosity.

— Seleucus! he grunted to his companion. What’s this pair of patsies doing here?

— Rubbernecker th , for sure, lisped the other Cyclops in response. Leave’m to me, Chry th antu th !

In other circumstances I might have laughed out loud hearing those names of Attic sonority applied to such characters. One was a cyclopean low-lifer from the suburbs. The other put me in mind of a day labourer I’d seen tending to ten heifers roasting on spits, on that day we lost the elections and the frock coats took power. 55But Schultz raised a head radiating authority and turned to face Seleucus:

— You be quiet! he said. I’m the captain of this ship!

— Oh yeah? Seleucus guffawed, looking down at Schultz from above.

— He’s a patsy! insisted Chrysantus. Seleucus, give him a black eye!

Fury had taken the place of hilarity in the countenance of Seleucus:

— Leave’m to me, Chry th antu th ! he shouted. I’ll make thi th crowbait gallop!

— You be quiet and do as you’re told! Schultz ordered him again.

— Crowbait! yelled Seleucus. Lemme at’m, Chry th antu th ! I’ll put the rein th on him!

At this point the three personages of the privy all piped up at the same time:

— A phone call to Macoco Funes! threatened the old fop, wriggling in one of Chrysantus’s armpits.

— Gentle souls! implored the priest from the other.

— Good afternoon, Schultz, young man! rumbled Don Celso, who had been nodding and dozing in the monster’s fist and was awakened by the uproar. How’s your precious health? Heads up, eh! Your bronchial tubes get congested, heart failure, and salute!

But the astrologer stood his ground. Looking at both Cyclopes at once, he said with some bitterness:

— Despicable wretches! I did you the favour of rescuing you from the junk bin of Mythology, where you languished like old bits of bric-à-brac, and gave you a destiny much better than you deserve. And what do the arrogant little pups do in return? That’s the Devil’s gratitude for you!

— You lie, varmint! Seleucus boiled over.

— Let’m have it, Seleucus! Chrysantus egged him on. Blacken his eye for him!

Without further ado, the heartless Seleucus grabbed us by the lapels, hoisted us up, and crushed us against his giant thorax. We resisted in vain; the monster scarcely noticed our punching and kicking. He had turned on his heels and was carrying us God knows where. That was when we started shouting for help:

— Ciro! cried Schultz in Italian. A noi!

— Aiuto, Ciro! I yelled at the top of my lungs.

Before long we heard the wrathful voice of Ciro Rossini, begging, suggesting, and threatening:

— Santa Madonna! Leave them alone, they’re from the barrio! A little party in famiglia!

Unfortunately, Seleucus wasn’t getting the message. He accelerated to a lively trot and squeezed us even harder against his agitated thorax, which was rising and falling like the sea. Now, the Cyclops trots rather like a camel, and the rider who by consent or constraint mounts such an unusual beast suffers oscillations and changes of level that he feels with particular sensitivity in the diaphragm. Frightened out of our wits, almost suffocating, and subject to the infernal rhythm of that gait, Schultz and I were suffering even more discomforts. The monster was panting up a windstorm that lashed us and blew a nasty smell of garlic up our noses; and his armpits reeked of old sweat, goatish emanations, and exhalations from a lion’s lair. I can hardly say, therefore, how long our trip aboard the Cyclops lasted. All I remember is that suddenly Seleucus snatched us away from his teats and landed us beside what looked to me like the head of the banquet table. There, seated in a very high-backed chair, a lady was presiding over the feast.

The woman’s repugnant obesity was amplified by a sequin-covered evening gown bursting at every seam. She had a full-moon face, on one of whose two round cheeks thrived a very protuberant black mole. Her pug-nose, like a dog’s wet muzzle, was incessantly rising and sniffing; it was planted between two beady eyes that had trouble opening and seeing their way clear through the fat. Above her narrow, concave forehead rose a monumental hairdo adorned with mussels and prawns, pejerreyes and tinamous, sausages and blood puddings, asparagus, and bananas. A double chin joined her jaw to a non-existent neck; from there the contour-line soon took flight again to trace the formidable expansion of two bovine boobs, then dipped slightly where the umbilical region may have been, continued with increased brio to rise over the curve of an almost spherical belly, and finally plummeted, beneath the table, toward unknown though suspected depths. Massive and shapeless, the arms of that lady ended in two chubby little hands with short fingers sporting a gaudy ring on every last one of their phalanges.

Contemplating the woman, I understood that Schultz wanted to show me a personification of Gluttony. And I wondered if the astrologer was going to try to personify each and every one of the capital sins in his Inferno, though I doubted it (and with time my doubt was confirmed), taking into account his capricious genius, which rebelled against all symmetry. Meanwhile, the woman observed us for a moment and then turned to ask Seleucus:

— Officer, what are these young men doing here?

— Intruder th , answered the Cyclops. They re th i th ted a repre th entative of authority, and their paper th aren’t in order.

— Anything more?