César Aira - The Musical Brain - And Other Stories

Eventually, Nélido came to believe that the disease contained its own remedy. A fairly obvious thought occurred to him. If he wasn’t a man, if he was a drop, and a drop from the world’s most famous artwork, he wasn’t constrained by human laws, so he could do anything. In a picture, a drop of paint is powerless, entirely dependent on the matter surrounding it, the artist’s intentions, the effect, and a thousand other things. But once the drop has become independent, and ventured into the world to discover the strange taste of freedom, everything changes.

And yet it hadn’t worked like that. Nothing had changed. How odd. Perhaps because the laws that apply to beings of any kind, from the most complex organism down to the atom, come into effect universally as soon as one crosses the threshold of reality. The fantastic drop’s reality was the same as that of a human being.

This insight, which had emerged from the experience of a humble Argentine cigarette vendor, was confirmed at the cosmic level as well. There were drops that crossed the last frontier and left the planet behind. They realized that they had been going round and round the world of humans by force of habit, simply because it hadn’t occurred to them to try the measureless expanses of the universe. One drop set off, then others followed. It wasn’t hard at all for them. They didn’t need to breathe, and they weren’t affected by radiation or adverse conditions in the ether. At most they softened a bit in the proximity of suns and hardened when the temperature plummeted below zero. Distances were not a problem. They could cover three hundred thousand light years in a second, thanks to the partitioning of time that had occurred when they dispersed. So the galaxies saw them go whizzing past. Beneath the red skies of those dusks in the void, the drops took charge of organizing matter, leaving the atoms and particles gaping in surprise.

No one was bored in the cosmos. It was as if fierce races were being run in those vacant abysses: luminous, mechanically complex racing cars running on endless circuits. Darkness opened behind screens made of light painted on nothingness, a light without shadows but not without figures. And from a single point of darkness on the screens, new universes opened out, becoming The Universe. Roaring curves, the beams of the headlights sweeping through titanic basement spaces, nebulae for barriers.

Two drops met at one of those inconceivable intersections of parallel lines. On a distant planet, in a sphere of gas, in the midst of a density festival, a drop cast its shadow on a ground of rocky atoms. Because of the drop’s perfectly spherical shape, its shadow was always the same, wherever the suns and moons happened to be. Another drop was approaching from the opposite direction in a rocket. They communicated via microphones. The shadow of the spacecraft expanded and contracted like bellows. The sky remained black, with ringlets of helium.

They got out to explore. The two drops, sealed in their space suits, floated in the fourteen thousand dense atmospheres of planet Carumba. On the horizon, Perspective appeared, perched on stilts, wearing pearl necklaces, carrying a yellow handbag, her white hair swirling in a cloud of quarks. She seemed indifferent. She never looked at anyone because she knew that all eyes were on her; and the enraptured drops were no exception. They had been missing that beautiful deity ever since they left the painting. They would have liked to shelter again under her invisible wings. But she didn’t see them. Her eyes were fixed on the beyond. Was that abandonment the price they had to pay for the freedom that had allowed them to go so far? Unwittingly, the three of them had formed a perfectly symmetrical figure.

Then something happened. With a sound like thunder, the black concavity of the ether tore open, and Gravity appeared, in his crimson plastic cape and pointy shoes. The drops took fright, thinking he would fall and squash them. To their relief, he passed overhead and landed on the downward-curving line of the horizon. Perspective, who was on the same line, slid along it and fell into the arms of Gravity. He was waiting with open arms and an erection. She connected perfectly, like a heart impaling itself on a lance. When they made contact, there was a sound of kissing, and bright rays of light, on which the constellations would come to rest, went shooting out in all directions. What had happened? Simply that the meeting of two drops had brought the ever-remote Perspective into her own proximity. And Gravity, who had been anticipating this opportunity for countless thousands of years, didn’t let it pass him by. In recognition of the favor, he turned, without letting go of Perspective, and gave them a knowing wink. The two drop-astronauts were amazed that their presence in a place that could have been Anywhere should have produced such an extraordinary effect. Since leaving the painting back in the Louvre, they had become accustomed to causing no effect at all. The embrace continued and worked a transformation. Gravity, formerly so serious and rotund, became slim and amusing. Perspective shed her customary air of decrepitude, taking on a compact and tangible form. Their nuptials were celebrated at an instant party; there was no need to send out invitations (they’d been on their way since the Big Bang).

The two drops looked at each other, as if to say: “How about that?” The same thought had occurred to them at the same moment: now they knew for sure that the Pope would remain a bachelor forever. They imagined him in the Vatican, jilted at the altar, standing there in his white dress, holding the suppositories, a tear rolling down his wrinkly old cheek. It was the last fantasy, and the most realistic.

The pair of newlyweds drove off in a car, trailing tin cans through the firmament. It was to be a combative honeymoon, for they were preparing the final assault on Evolution, the eternal spinster, and this time, now that the balance of power had been upset (divide and conquer), she would be defeated.

But the drops that were treading reality’s fantastic limits. . remained within the real and succumbed to melancholy.

JUNE 19, 2003

THERE ARE TWO LADIES AT THE GYM who talk nonstop, occasionally to other people, but always to each other. They seem to be lifelong friends, with everything in common: the same dyed-blond hair, the same clothes, the same reactions, and no doubt the same tastes. Even their voices are similar. They’re the kind of ladies who, having turned fifty and reached middle age, feeling they should take care of their bodies, decide to start going to the gym together, because they wouldn’t go on their own. Not that these two need much extra physical activity; they’re slim and active and seem to be in good shape. They’re local housewives, with nothing to set them apart except for their chattiness, which is hardly an exceptional quality. It’s not as if the gym’s the only place they can talk, because they’re already talking when they arrive. If I’m on one of the bikes near the entrance, I hear their voices as they come up the stairs; they talk in the dressing room while they’re getting changed; then they work out together on the bikes, the treadmills, and the various machines, without interrupting their conversation for a moment; and they’re still talking when they leave. I’m not the only one to have noticed. Once when they were in the women’s dressing room and I was in the men’s, I could hear them talking, talking, talking, and I said to the instructor: “They sure can talk, those two.” He nodded and raised his eyebrows: “It’s scary. And the things they say! Have you listened to them?” No, I hadn’t, although it would have been easy, because they speak loudly and clearly, as people do when they have no secrets or concerns about privacy. They conform to a stereotype: housewives and mothers who are sure of themselves and their normality. Once, years ago, in a different gym, I came across a similar but different case: two girls who talked all the time, even when they were doing really demanding aerobic exercises; they were young and must have had tremendous lung capacity. One day when whey were on facing mats, doing the kind of sit-ups that take your breath away, talking all the while, I pointed them out to the instructor, who said, excusing them: “It’s because they’re good friends and they both work all day: this is the only time they get to spend together.” But it’s not like that for the two ladies, who are clearly together for a large part of the day: I’ve seen them shopping in the neighborhood, or looking in store windows, or sitting in a café, always talking, talking, talking.