César Aira: The Musical Brain: And Other Stories

Children quickly tire of games, and we were no exception. Even the games that excited us most were abandoned after a few days. The ISI lasted because of its peculiar format, though I’m not sure whether it was the splitting or the secret that made the difference. I should say that it wasn’t entirely exempt from the general tendency, and the initial frenzy died away after a week or two, but the system of written communication guaranteed a continuity that was, in a way, independent of us.

We started forgetting to go to the old red door to see if there was a new message, and if by chance I passed and saw a folded sheet of white paper wedged into the crack, I would pull it out, only to discover, more often than not, that it was my last message, written and left there so long ago I couldn’t remember what it said, so I would read it with interest before putting it back.

Or else the old message would be from Miguel. In any case, all the workings of the game would come rushing back into consciousness, and arouse a real enthusiasm in me (or him), a feeling of responsibility and loyalty, and admiration for the mind (whose mind?) that had invented such a brilliant source of fun. Development is rapid at that age, and although we were still children, we regarded the already distant creators of the ISI as infants with scant intellectual resources and were amazed by their precociousness; we couldn’t have come up with it, in spite of our age and education. We couldn’t believe it, our past selves seemed so remote and primitive. . Nevertheless, we’d quickly write a reply, of course, whichever one of us it was, pleased to have the chance to display what we had learned in the meantime. We’d put it into the crack, and for a day or two, we’d go back every half hour to see if there was a response, not realizing that the ISI was as far from the other player’s mind as it had been from mine or Miguel’s before he or I happened to see the message. And this preoccupation would soon be displaced by others and lapse into oblivion.

It’s no exaggeration to say that these interruptions became extremely long. It was as if they corresponded to successive phases of our lives, as if all the body’s cells had to be replaced before one of us could pass the peeling, weather-beaten door, notice a thin white strip in one of its cracks, and ask himself what it might be. Say it was me. Out of pure idle curiosity, and only because I wasn’t in a hurry, I’d pull it out, with difficulty, because time and rain had lodged it firmly. It was a ragged, discolored wad of paper. It came apart along the creases when it was unfolded. There was something written on it, the ink had faded and run, but the message was still legible; the handwriting was childish, interspersed with maps and sketches, and warnings in stern capitals, with underlinings and exclamation marks. For a moment, and this would provoke a certain flutter of excitement, there seemed to be a possibility that it was about something serious like a kidnapping or a denunciation. . In that case, it would have to be shown to the police. But no, it was too absurd. And suddenly the memory would return, as if from very far away: The ISI! The dear old ISI. . That game we invented. . So many memories, so much nostalgia! But then I’d think: It’s my turn to reply. He’ll be so surprised to find that I’m still checking up, still ready to play!

Could it be true, as I seem to remember, that this scenario was repeated over and over? Maybe I’m mistaken. If it had really happened like that, my childhood, and Miguel’s, would have lasted thousands of years, and we’d still be alive today.

JANUARY 22, 2011

IT ALL BEGAN WHEN the genie came out of the Magic Milk bottle and asked me what I would prefer: to have a Picasso or to be Picasso. He could grant me either wish but, he warned me, only one of the two. I had to think about it for quite a while; or rather, I made myself think about it. Folklore and literature are so full of stories about greedy fools who are punished for their haste, that it makes you think those offers are all too good to be true. There are no records or reliable precedents on which to base a decision, because this sort of thing happens only in stories or jokes, so no one has ever really thought about it seriously; and in the stories there’s always a trick, otherwise it would be no fun and there would be no story. At some point, we’ve all secretly imagined this happening. I had it all worked out, but only for the classic “three wishes” scenario. The choice the genie had given me was so unexpected, and one of the options was so definitive, that I had to weigh them up, at least.

It was a strange choice but not inappropriate; in fact, it was particularly apt. I was leaving the Picasso Museum, in a state of rapture and boundless admiration, and at that moment I could not have been offered anything, or any two things, that would have tempted me more. I hadn’t actually left the museum yet. I was in the garden, sitting at one of the outdoor tables, having gone to the café and bought a little bottle of the Magic Milk that I’d seen tourists drinking everywhere. It was (it is) a perfect autumn afternoon: gentle light, mild air, and still a while to go before dusk. I took my notebook and pen from my pocket to make some notes, but in the end I didn’t write anything.

I tried to put my ideas in order. I silently repeated the genie’s words: to have a Picasso or to be Picasso. Who wouldn’t want to have a Picasso? Who would turn down a gift like that? But on the other hand, who wouldn’t want to have been Picasso? Was there a more enviable fate in modern history? Not even the privileges of supreme worldly power are comparable to what he had, because they can be removed by political events or wars, while the power of Picasso, transcending that of any president or king, was invulnerable. Anyone else in my place would have preferred the second option, which included the first, not only because Picasso could paint all the Picassos he liked, but also because it’s well known that he kept a lot of his own paintings, including some of the best (the museum I’d just visited had been set up with his personal collection), and in his later years he even bought back works that he’d sold as a young man.

This inclusion did not of course exhaust the advantages of being transformed into Picasso, not by a long shot: the “being” went far beyond the “having,” taking in all the protean joys of creation, stretching away to an unimaginable horizon. “Being Picasso,” in the wake of the real-life Picasso and whatever he was really like, meant being a Super-Picasso, a Picasso raised to the power of magic or miracle. But I knew my geniuses ( je m’y connaissais en fait de génies ), and I could tell or guess that it wasn’t quite so simple. There were good reasons to hesitate, and even to recoil in horror. In order to become someone else, one has to cease being oneself, and no one willingly consents to that surrender. Not that I considered myself to be more important than Picasso, or healthier, or better equipped to face life. He was fairly unstable — I knew that from the biographies — but not as unstable as me, so by becoming him I would improve the state of my mental health to some degree. Still, thanks to a lifetime’s patient efforts, I had made peace with my neuroses, fears, anxieties, and other handicaps, or at least reached a point where I could keep them under control, and there was no guarantee that this partial cure would work with Picasso’s problems. That was more or less my reasoning, although I didn’t put it into words; it was just a series of hunches.

Fundamentally, this was an extreme case of the problem of identification, which is raised not only by the master of Málaga, but by every artist one admires or venerates or studies. The problem goes beyond Picasso, and yet remains within him too. Identification is one of those things that can’t be generalized. There is no identification in general, as a concept, only identification with this or that figure in particular. And if the figure is Picasso, as in this case, there can be no other. The concept turns itself inside out, as if we were to say (although it’s a clumsy way to put it) that it’s not about “identifying with Picasso” but about “Picassifying identification.”