César Aira: The Musical Brain: And Other Stories

By the time the news of his death reaches the relevant diocesan authorities, his successor has already been chosen. Given the old priest’s advanced age and the state of his health, known to be delicate for some time, preparations have been made. So the new priest arrives without delay. He is a young man, as young as his predecessor was when he arrived in the area. And he begins by doing the same things: observing the state of destitution in which his parishioners are living, imagining the effects of charitable action, like bounteous rain in a drought-stricken land. One thing, however, is not repeated: his own living arrangements have been taken care of, splendidly.

Except that they are rather more than “living arrangements” and they have been more than “taken care of.” He realizes this as he visits the house, admires it, discovers its comforts and refinements. It’s as if he had been there already, as if someone had examined his person with a microscope made of days and nights, of sleep and waking, in order to get to know him and communicate with him. You can get to know someone who’s present simply by speaking and looking, but to get to know someone who isn’t there, and may not exist (he estimates that the construction of the house began before he was born), a great deal more is required, as this enormous mansion shows, with its endless grounds and multitudinous riches.

Attending to his duties, he visits the neighboring village and is duly horrified by the poverty and neglect. Initially he is surprised and intrigued by the contrast between that wretchedness and the luxury of the house. Little by little, as the days go by, he begins to understand: he wasn’t mistaken in feeling when he first entered the house that it was trying to tell him something. The house is a message, so is the garden, and every object they contain, a message personally addressed to him, addressed to that which lies deepest within him and participates in the divine being.

And the syntax of that message is so perfect that he finally succeeds in understanding it completely. He’d already realized, though without expressing it in words, that the house had been conceived and built for him. The words, once found and articulated, supply the motive: his predecessor, of whom he knew nothing before but is now, via the motive, coming to know a great deal, wanted him to have everything, so he wouldn’t have to keep anything aside for himself and would be able to give it all to the poor. It’s pretty obvious, really. It’s self-explanatory. He feels a deep and growing admiration for the sacrifice made by his forerunner, who renounced the possibility of fulfilling his mission and thereby opening the gates of heaven, in order that the priest to come might do so. It’s like one of those oriental fables, he thinks: unfathomably mystical and ingeniously constructed. Exploring the house and its treasures feels like entering the fable: a palace of déjà vu in which every step has already been taken and every movement made.

He is grateful, of course. How could he not be? How could he not feel beholden to that kindly genius who dedicated his life to smoothing the way for his successor? But he senses that there is something more. That he can do “something else.” Accepting the gift just like that, as if he had earned it, would be unworthy of a man in whom such great hopes had been placed.

Gradually he clarifies his mission, with a certain number of hesitations, which are observed by the local poor who, ill clad and hungry, are enduring a cruel winter. He has plenty of money and no need to spend a peso on himself. . It’s a great temptation to shower his wealth on those who are silently beseeching him. But that’s just what it is: a temptation. His determination to resist it, and the example set by his predecessor, prove to be stronger. What the dead priest did was so heroic, so saintly in its way, that it demands to be imitated. Also, simply to harvest the fruits of his action would be an injustice to him. These reasons, all of which are valid, are strengthened by an irresistible force, to which the new priest attributes a higher cause.

So he, too, decides to prepare the way for his successor’s action, choosing self-sacrifice, forbidding himself to use the money at his disposal for charity, and spending it on the house instead. . He is excited by the prospect of working for a man he hasn’t met and will never know, guessing his tastes, his habits, even his little quirks, and responding to them in advance. It’s like having company, one of those “invisible friends” that children entertain, but without the fantasy. And bequeathing a matchless legacy to that friend: the unmatchable gift of being able to give.

It’s not an easy decision to make. In his excursions beyond the limits of the property, he can see for himself the extremes of suffering produced by child malnutrition, inadequate housing, and untreated illness, where poverty rules. What if he put aside a part of the money? No. Again he is tempted. But he realizes that it’s all or nothing. He cannot serve two masters.

Another and more serious objection is that the house is there already, and the needs of its inhabitant have been provided for. But it’s very easy for him to brush this objection aside. In spite of the supposed exhaustiveness to which his predecessor dedicated his life, and all the love he put into his work, it’s all too obvious that a great deal is missing. . At least it’s obvious to him, for two reasons: First, as time goes by, and people have access to more information and therefore have more opportunities for consumption, needs increase and diversify, as do the ways of satisfying them. The touching attempt to prepare a response to each of his desires in advance has turned out to be woefully inadequate. The second and more important reason is that he can benefit from his own experience as a receiver of the gift and act in consequence, whereas his predecessor had to rely almost entirely on intuition and guessing.

So he wastes no time in getting to work. The first task, imposed by a particularly cold winter, is to replace the now obsolete heating system with a more modern one, equipped with temperature controls. This provokes the first of a very long series of reflections concerning his successor. Will he be someone who feels the cold? The mere supposition is enough to give the priest the sense that he is in touch with the man who will take his place, and has already begun to accompany him, mute and inexistent but eloquent nonetheless; and he sees himself reflected in this situation, an imagined, inexistent figure accompanying the priest who originally built the house. . The whole edifice, down to its most hidden corners, is affected by the installation of the new thermostat-controlled boilers and the system of pipes. As the work proceeds, the priest takes note of various improvements and additions that are either necessary straightaway or logical steps in the process of perfecting the house for its future resident. The general theme of heating suggests the idea of supplementing the comforts of the house with a conservatory. Like a new Janus, the priest looks back at his predecessor (“How could he have overlooked this?”—a question he will ask again and again) and forward to his successor (“He might be a flower enthusiast”). He fills the conservatory with orchids, dwarf palms, and bromeliads, creating a tropical enclave: colors, scents, and forms that open and close in a tableau of unfamiliar beauties.

Since the new system of boilers is more than powerful enough to heat the house, he decides to exploit its excess capacity by putting a heated swimming pool in one of the basement rooms. To complement the pool, he builds a glass solarium. Maybe the next priest won’t want to swim, or sun himself; but maybe he will. .

As time goes by, and the priest identifies a possible interest here, and another there, the figure of his successor becomes more clearly defined. When he thinks that he was once the successor himself, he is overtaken by a strange dizziness, which compels him to continue. Everything he can see in the house, and the house itself, was conceived and made in accordance with a hypothesis about him, and now he is repeating that process, completing it, perfecting it.