Leopoldo Marechal - Adam Buenosayres

— Would you take a look at these three honourable women! sneered Schultz. Anyone would say they’ve already got their husbands’ funerals paid for!

— And who dares deny it? Dolores asked him, her eyes glinting.

— Your husband’s funeral was paid for in easy monthly instalments, the astrologer reminded her. Too easy! Leonor and Matilde know it full well.

— What gossip have you been spreading about me? squawked Dolores, already attacking her two companions.

— Don’t listen to him! yelled Del Solar and Franky from their pulpits.

In vain. The Three Necrophile Sisters-in-Law were already in the thick of a shoe-fight, creating a melee of black skirts and great sinister shawls. Seeing this, Schultz turned next to La Chacharola:

— Hey, old woman! he cried. Ask Flores what happened to your four linen sheets from Italy!

— Briganti! howled the old woman, and then took her broomstick to the tough guys, who were already knocking each other out.

The ring having become another King Agramante’s Camp, 119the astrologer and I, despite the lookouts’ shrieks, slipped among the groups of combatants and arrived at the door of the boiler. Opening it, we plunged through into what must have been the very homeland of violence. For, at first glance, that sector of hell gave the impression of the most frightful disorder; it was as if a championship soccer game between Argentina and Uruguay, a pugilists’ match in Luna Park, a movie featuring gun-slinging Yankees, and a Buenos Aires gang fight were all going on at the same time. But what really caught my attention was how the atmosphere was charged with a strange electricity or malignant fluid. The air itself, when I took it into my lungs, seemed to revive a ferment of angry skirmishes from the distant past, reigniting in my liver flames of anger that had long ago abated.

— Let’s bear to our right, the astrologer suggested then.

I gave him a dirty look, because it was obvious that Schultz was strutting with an insolence that, in my view, went way beyond the tolerable and which my status as a denizen of Villa Crespo would not and could not brook.

— I’ll go if I feel like it! I answered him. And don’t shout at me! All we need is some blasted compadrito…!

— How about I thump you one! he threatened me hoarsely.

My fist flew toward his jaw. But the astrologer parried my blow and locked me in a bear hug:

— Calm down! he said in alarm. I went a little overboard with the ether!

I understood he was speaking not as an antagonist but as the inventor of that Inferno. Struggling against the dense choleric fumes, I followed Schultz as he made his way into the Thieves’ Sector.

— Good Lord! I said, finding myself up to my neck in that mob of burglars. I knew that fingernail-fencing was one of the most popular sports in Buenos Aires, but I never imagined it had so may adepts.

The astrologer brought a finger to his lips:

— Shhh! he said. Cover your pocket-watch with one hand and your wallet with the other. Too bad we don’t have another pair of hands to guard our neckerchiefs and false teeth!

— Are we going to have to talk with these people? I asked.

— I don’t advise it, answered Schultz. Some of them are capable of filching anything, even your language.

The astrologer’s watchword was similar to that of his distant colleague — “look and pass on.” 120So I decided to keep my mouth shut and my eyes open in that little corner of hell through which we were scrambling as fast as our legs could carry us. Then I saw a legion of avid pickpockets obstinately working on a legion of bourgeois figures sculpted in granite. The thieves were trying to get their hands into the statues’ stony pockets, moaning at the vanity of their efforts, persistently scratching away at the rock. Finally, they would break off from their labour and go over to a row of Italian knife-grinders to get their broken fingernails sharpened on pedal-driven grindstones. Their nails once again sharp, the pickpockets ran back to the statues, while the Italian knife-grinders produced surprising flourishes on their copper Pan pipes. Next I saw the swindlers or con-artists: exuberant in language, eloquent in mimicry, deceitful in gaze, each of them was trying to pull a fast one on various mannikins, one representing a rural criollo , another a Spanish servant woman, yet another a recent immigrant, using their arsenal of scams: “the inheritance,” “the winning lottery ticket,” “the lucrative marriage,” “the money-making machine,” “the can’t-miss business deal,” “the invisible embezzlement,” “the magic purse,” “the prodigious cheque.” The swindlers were gesturing in vain, talking themselves hoarse; coming to the end of their pitch, they then had to repeat it over and over again, endlessly, always facing the same sly smile in the cloth mannikins. Then I saw the safe-crackers, the counterfeiters, the muggers, the fugitive bank tellers, the bank robbers, the money launderers, all of them subjected to torments that remained unclear to me, for the astrologer Schultz was not just walking but running through the thieves’ sector and pulling me along in his flight.

We entered the Laboratory of the Dynamiters, and I observed that Schultz, far from calming down, was looking around anxiously. To tell the truth, there was good reason for anxiety: the dynamiters had the appearance of Orsini-style bombs, 121hand grenades, and other machines of destruction, some with burning wicks, others with timer-switches emitting a sinister tick-tock. Such hellish devices constituted the torsos of the dynamiters. On top of each torso, an extremely skinny neck stretched up, ending in a mop head covered by an enormously wide-brimmed hat. The torso’s lower end was fitted with two legs made of wire, wobbling beneath the weight of the explosive upper body. And out of the shoulders poked two arms with little hands that feverishly tried to put out the burning wick or stop the timer-mechanism that would make their own particular device explode. The bomb-men were wandering around in their laboratory replete with glass beakers and chemical smells. For fear of colliding and setting off an explosion, they moved slowly, exchanging shouts of warning. And every time they narrowly averted collision, they covered their ears with their hands so as not to hear their own imminent detonation.

While I was observing all this, the astrologer was growing more worried than ever. When I looked at him again, he had his hat pulled down over his eyes and his brow lowered, as if not wanting to be recognized.

— Are they dangerous types? I asked him, gesturing toward the bomb-men.

— A wretched bunch, he answered. Poor souls who thought they’d been born under the sign of Anarkos. 122

— So why are you afraid of them? Are the bomb-men loaded for real?

Schultz chuckled a moment under his hat:

— They’re loaded, all right, he affirmed, but with bad literature.

Schultz was trying to lead me to the exit of the laboratory, when a bomb-man puffing on a bird-bone cigarette-holder approached, looking Schultz over intently and showing signs of recognition.

— It’s him! he exclaimed at last, pointing a nicotine-stained index finger at the astrologer. It’s the traitor, the good-for-nothing, the turncoat who deserted the banner of Anarkos!

Schultz stopped, looked at him coldly, then turned to me:

— I don’t know this man, he told me. He must be suffering from an optical illusion.

— Kowtowing toady! yelled the bomb-man. He deserted the banner of Anarkos to kiss the elegantly shod feet of the bourgeoisie! Look at him now! He invents an inferno in imitation of the Great Bourgeois the priests are always trying to get us to adore!

Attracted by the shouting, the bomb-men had drawn closer to Schultz and were glaring at him menacingly.