Leopoldo Marechal - Adam Buenosayres

— There’s no other girl like Jova! Doña Venus’s words came sputtering up from profound depths.

But Franky’s speech didn’t enjoy the success he was hoping for; on the contrary, it exercised the negative virtue of throwing a shadow across everyone’s face. Adam and Schultz were now lowering brows pregnant with melancholy ruminations. Samuel was stammering a sad, drunken soliloquy. The pipsqueak Bernini, indefatigable sociologist, meditated on the sexual problem resulting from a majority of avid men and a minority of inflexible women who found themselves in this mysterious alluvial land. Motionless and silent waited the Conductor and the Gasfitter, the latter moist and tranquil as a vegetable, the former concentrated and rough-edged as a rock. As for the Mature Gentleman, he had evidently not let go of the Martínez murder case; he looked cautiously up from his newspaper at Franky and then back down, as though thinking the young fellow dissimulated splendidly if indeed he was a detective.

After Franky had run his eyes over each and every one of the expressionless faces, he guessed what was going through the Mature Gentleman’s mind. And so, for the sake of breaking a silence that didn’t agree with his character, he turned to the Mature Gentleman and said:

— Let’s say it was the Mafia. How did you arrive at that hypothesis?

The Mature Gentleman drew himself up to his full stature (which wasn’t much):

— Gut feeling! he exclaimed, at once confused, triumphant, and modest.

— Bah! scoffed Pereda. The gentleman conducts his investigation like it’s a game of truco .

— The intuitive method, Franky declared in a protective tone.

— Not only that, said the Mature Gentleman, miffed by Pereda’s disdainful comment. The circumstances surrounding the crime clearly point to a Mafia job.

— The deductive method, Franky corrected himself. Yes, it’s a crime with a signature, as we say in the trade. No doubt about it. But tell me, how do you see the chain of events?

The Mature Gentleman adopted a circumspect air.

— Same as always, he said. The rancher receives an anonymous message: he has to go to a certain place at a certain time, under threat of death. When he shows up, they kidnap him. They want a huge sum of money, make him sign a cheque, or something along those lines. What happens in the end? The police get wind of it, and the mafiosos get scared and shoot the rancher, and…

— Nothing could be further from the truth! Franky interrupted. That’s where appearances are deceiving.

— What? asked the Mature Gentleman. Is there another theory?

Franky gave him a long look of unconcealed harshness.

— That’s just the point, he said. In the first place, sir, I don’t formulate theories. I, sir, work with magnifying glass in hand.

— And so? the Mature Gentleman asked again, disconcerted.

— The rancher, growled Franky, was murdered right in his bedroom. A shot from a pistol with a silencer.

Adam and Schultz, Pereda and Bernini exchanged furtive glances. The Mature Gentleman’s jaw was hanging open.

— Impossible! he cried at last. What about the corpse? They found it at an estate.

— Pure theatre, Franky explained. They got him dressed in the bedroom, and two men carried him out between them, as if he was drunk. A grey Hudson was waiting for them at the corner with the motor running.

— And the motive for the crime? objected the Mature Gentleman. What could they rob from a dead man?

Franky hesitated, as though deciding whether or not to divulge information that might breach professional confidentiality.

— Look, he finally decided. In the rancher’s bedroom there was a Chinese vase from the Sung dynasty. And the vase has disappeared!

— But the newspapers haven’t even mentioned it! complained the Mature Gentleman.

— And do you know what was inside the vase? concluded Franky, pregnant with mystery. The Eye of the Buddha — the famous emerald of the Maharaja!

The duo Pereda-Bernini burst out laughing, and the contagion passed to the duo Schultz-Buenosayres, then got a thunderous response from Franky himself, as well as an echo of solidarity from the Italian Gasfitter. But the Mature Gentleman wasn’t laughing; quite the contrary. Red with embarassment and anger, he was winding up to give this young whippersnapper a piece of his mind. And doubtless he would have done so, if at that very instant Doña Venus, drowsing on her tripod, hadn’t shown signs of agitation:

— Savages! she spluttered from dreamland. He was in the prime of youth. Death? It’s too good for those sons of bitches! I’d tie them up and turn them over to the young man’s mother and let her scratch their eyes out with her fingernails, or peel them raw, or burn them with matches, nice and slow…

— Holy smokes! murmured Franky. Who the heck could this woman be talking about?

— I think it’s the mafiosos from Rosario, ventured Pereda.

— An atrocity! said Doña Venus in hushed tones that trailed off until they died in silent depths. Killing them would be letting them off easy.

Her voice had been rising and falling like the tide, and it had ebbed again, so normality was re-established in the vestibule. But the astrologer had been very impressed by the ferocity channelled through the medium of Doña Venus.

— That woman has the soul of an executioner, he recognized. A primitive cruelty. Too bad she isn’t acquainted with Oriental torture techniques!

— Or those of the American Indians, Bernini one-upped him, not giving an inch in questions of folklore.

— Bah! Schultz rejoined.

— Are you familiar with them?

— No, but I can imagine what they’re like. Raw bestiality, right? Limited to the realm of the physical. In the East they torture on the spiritual or moral plane.

Bernini smiled condescendingly.

— Do you know about the camoatí torture? 4

— And you, Schultz retorted. Ever heard of the torture of the Enamoured Odalisque?

Franky faced the two contenders:

— How about the Water Drop torture? he suggested mysteriously. Or the Quail Feather torture?

Between the blood-coloured walls, in the mucilaginous light of the vestibule, under the beetle-browed surveillance of the Conductor, before the benevolent eyes of the Gasfitter and the resentful pomposity of the Mature Gentleman, the depictions by the three specialists made their macabre rounds. The pipsqueak Bernini initiated the series: here is his Prisoner being hoisted up to the highest branches of a gigantic quebracho tree and left to hang there, right beside the round wasps’ nests. The Prisoner is stark naked, and the wasps, still calm, are buzzing around his ears and eyes, up his nose, between his lips. The thing is not to budge! Put up with it! The Prisoner tries to stifle all movement, knowing what kind of torment awaits him. But finally he can stand it no longer; he shudders, he convulses. The wasps go into a frenzy, they attack in swarms, sting him everywhere, and cover him with a thousand small, bloody wounds. Then it’s hours of fever and thirst; the Prisoner becomes delirious, laughs or weeps, chants a war cry or stammers a love song. The long night comes to an end. In the morning the vultures circle above a bit of tattered flesh dancing in the breeze at the treetop.

The listeners found Bernini’s description somewhat literary and were quite taken by it. But right away Schultz took his turn to speak. He sketched a more peaceful tableau and immediately won the sympathy of his audience: An Oriental chamber, sumptuous with carpets and incense-burners smoking with aromatic resins. The Prisoner is lying on an ottoman of incalculable worth. Surrounded by opulence, the Prisoner hesitates, doubts, fears. Suddenly the curtain of beads is pulled back, and — wait for it! — in comes the Odalisque, beautiful and agile as an Arabian gazelle. The Odalisque begins her work of seduction, and the Prisoner — ay! — gets caught up in the golden webs she spins. The amorous assaults multiply: the Prisoner believes he is up against one of Mohammed’s houris. Exhausted at last, he would like to sleep. But the Odalisque won’t let him, she extracts from the Prisoner every last drop of his ardour. He passes out, but the Odalisque insists. No response! The Prisoner is asleep. Then two gigantic Ethiopians enter the chamber; they whip the Prisoner with branches of stinging nettle and force him to drink aphrodisiac potions. On and on goes the torment between the Odalisque and the Prisoner, until finally he collapses in a heap among the carpets. The Prisoner dies of love.