Leopoldo Marechal - Adam Buenosayres

Among the eleven personages who had glanced at the door, only the Taciturn Young Man was still staring at the door handle, seemingly abstracted from his surroundings. His extravagantly slicked-back hair, his ceremonious necktie, his gleaming patent leather shoes, the razor-sharp crease of his trousers, everything in his attire appeared to conform to a liturgical order. Adam Buenosayres, who had been studying him with interest, whispered these observations into the ear of the astrologer.

— His nuptial suit, Schultz responded in a low voice.

— What? Adam was astonished. Do you really think so?

— If I’m not mistaken, said Schultz, that boy will be the next to pay homage to the beast.

— It’s his turn, Adam admitted. But the bit about the suit is impossible. It would be monstrous.

— Study him closely, replied Schultz, glancing furtively at the Taciturn Young Man. For half an hour now that boy has been an architect.

— An architect?

— That’s right, insisted Schultz bitterly. And do you know what the architect is constructing now? A phantasm.

— An ideal construction?

— Listen carefully, assented Schultz. I haven’t seen the woman who is officiating behind that door; nor has he, in all likelihood. But believe me, when that lad goes in there, he will be wed to a phantasm.

Adam Buenosayres remained silent, and the image of Solveig Amundsen crossed his mind. “Yes, the fragile clay of a subtle architecture, or the raw material of a dream.” Instinctively, his hand went to the Blue-Bound Notebook, but he drew it back right away. “Not now, later! It will be an opulent wake. The poetic death of a phantasm.”

— Possibly, he answered at last, without looking at the astrologer.

— Pure metaphysics, Schultz corrected him severely.

The Mature Gentleman, meanwhile, had been devouring his newspaper. Now he raised a venerable white head, two chubby pink cheeks, and a nose straddled precariously by a pair of tortoiseshell spectacles. He was the only one among the men in the vestibule who looked absolutely natural, at ease, at home — all he was missing to be completely in character were his slippers and robe de chambre .

— Just as I thought! he exclaimed, jabbing a finger at a headline in his newpaper.

Everyone, except the sleeping Doña Venus and the dreaming Taciturn Young Man, turned to stare at the Mature Gentleman.

— The murder of the rancher Martínez? asked Franky.

— Kidnapping and murder, corrected the Mature Gentleman. I was right when I said the Mafia in Rosario was behind it.

— Bad people, opined the Syrian Merchant, smiling with Asian ferocity. His eyes glinted beneath the brim of his pearl-grey Stetson; a stiff collar and a red tie were nearly strangling him around the neck. His get-up was completed by a green Perramus coat 1and shiny colt-leather boots, and the Merchant looked as though he couldn’t be more comfortable inside a torture machine. “His nuptial suit,” Adam Buenosayres thought uneasily.

Very excited now, the Mature Gentleman was playing detective, authoritatively brandishing his newspaper. All those flashy crimes, macabre headlines, photographs of cadavers in supine or lateral position lent a touch of heroic colour, yes, to his drab, insignificant existence.

— Think about it, he explained. The method of the crime is obvious: first the rancher disappears, the investigation yields nothing, the police are disoriented. Then the corpse turns up in a field, shot through the head! It’s as clear as day!

— What are you implying? Franky asked him in a severe tone.

— The Mafia! whispered the Mature Gentleman confidentially. And the police are in the dark!

Franky stared hard at him. Contemplating the Gentleman, Franky was torn by conflicting thoughts. He couldn’t decide whether to go and kiss the old man’s chubby cheeks or thump him one on his shiny pate. But finally he opted for a third plan: he knitted his brow and pulled a sombre face.

— Choose your words carefully! he threatened. Are you sure about what you’re saying?

Amid the general surprise, the Mature Gentleman paled visibly, overcome by a suspicion — could this young fellow be from the Secreta ? He struggled for words under Franky’s ruthless stare. About to respond, he was interrupted by a monotonous, ghostly, incredible voice, issuing from a quarter no one would have suspected. How was it possible? For it was beyond doubt that Doña Venus was sleeping, with her two hundred pounds of fat well stacked upon her stool. Her eyelids closed, nothing budged in her mask of wrinkles and flaking rouge, and her head looked like plaster under a light that revelled in displaying her bizarre hair, parted down the middle into two bands, one snow-white and the other as black as the raven’s wing. Doña Venus was indeed sleeping! And yet, she was also saying something in a voice seemingly from another world.

At the sound of that voice, the lapdog Lulu woke up and lifted her head, her little eyes dripping rheum.

— It was a ranch-hand, Doña Venus mumbled in the manner of a medium. One of the hired hands at Los Horcones. The owner had fired him. Yes, yes. It was a revenge killing.

Everyone was left speechless by the verdict Doña Venus had pronounced from her stool like the oracle of Delphi from her ritual tripod. But the Mature Gentleman was not long in taking up the gauntlet.

— False hypothesis, he shot back. An old story.

Then he added, waving his newspaper at her:

— Have you read this?

He was answered by a euphonious snore; Doña Venus had sunk back into the depths of lethargy. Lulu followed her example, curling up on her cushion upholstered in ticking.

The Mature Gentleman then turned to Franky.

— And what do you think, sir? he queried, both wary and friendly (could the young fellow be from the Secreta ?). Myself, I think the Mafia…

— Hmm! growled Franky in a reserved tone, feeling under his left armpit for an imaginary revolver.

That was when the Galician Conductor spoke up. A dour man wearing an oilskin cap, a leather jacket, and a red scarf, he was obviously fed up to the teeth.

— Those Italian mobsters, he groused. Cowardly murderers, that’s what they are!

— Bad people, repeated the Syrian Merchant.

The Galician Conductor looked askance at the Italian Gasfitter, who sat beside him listening placidly, wearing a blue overall with the monogram CPG stitched in red. 2

— It’s that Mussolini’s fault, the Conductor cursed. He kicked them out of Italy, and now we’ve got them here! Just look what dictators can do.

Smiling and timid at the same time, the Gasfitter scratched his head.

— If they were mafiosos he did good, he argued, gesturing profusely. Seems like the dummy isn’t Mussolini, if you ask me.

— He should have kept them! shot back the Conductor, sour as vinegar.

— Seems like the dummy is the government that let them in, concluded the Italian Gasfitter. If you ask me.

The Galician Conductor had a formidable harangue on the tip of his tongue against dictators, the Mafia in Rosario, and the whole world. His bushy eyebrows were arching as he prepared for debate. Just then the famous door handle turned again. Twenty-two startled eyes took note. The Taciturn Young Man instinctively straightened his tie. And then the door opened — ah, only one leaf of the double door, and slowly! — while Doña Venus, without raising her eyelids, was mechanically singing her pitch:

— See what a girl is Jova!

A woman stood outlined in the doorframe. (Step right up, gentlemen! Come see the ancient monster!). Her nakedness had the violence of an insult, scarcely veiled by a maroon negligee enveloping her like a swath of bloody spume. Beneath her mop of hair (blond, brunette, red, who could say?) her lustreless face was a powdered block defined by two violet stains for eyes and a lipstick smile aimed at everyone and no one. Her body secreted a cloying odour of scented wood or rubber, mixed with smells of antiseptic soap and kerosene that wafted through the open doorway into the room.