Juan José Saer - La Grande

The rest of the planet is dying of hunger and all they know how to do is buy things; and they pretend that the whole rest of the world is like them; it doesn’t cross their minds that it’s possible to live differently from their way of life, which they insist they’ve chosen freely but which is clearly just a state in which they’ve been shipwrecked. And they’ve exported this disaster to the rest of the world, and everywhere they go everything has been left in ruins. And everyone who travels there from the most remote corners of the world, dazzled by the counterfeit shimmer they can make out from a distance, arrive finally at what they believed was an inexhaustible well of happiness but quickly discover its mistrust, its rejection, its exclusion. But I’m repeating myself , Gutiérrez says with an apologetic smile, unsure how he has once again, for the umpteenth time, punished his friends — Clara, Marcos, and Leonor — with his favorite diatribe, always spoken without hatred or violence or anger, but rather with a sense of irony, or reproach perhaps, as though he would have preferred that the place which, in reality, didn’t offer him such a bad reception, had been more similar to the idealized fantasy that had been constructed for him long before he entered its noisy and colorful aura.

The four of them are sitting in the darkness of the living room, cooled by the floor fan that hums in a corner, sending them, along its semicircular trajectory, periodic bursts of gentle air. On the low table between their chairs, on a metal platter, there’s a pitcher of cold water in which, when they serve themselves, ice cubes clink, along with the four tall glasses that they drank from, and in which there’re still some traces of water. The four of them have a common past that at this distance has become legendary, as if, now unchangeable, it had happened in a different dimension from the one they now occupy, made of space and time, of hesitation and uncertainty. And yet they appear to be seated calmly in their chairs, as if they were lodged in a segment of the eternal. That common past distinguishes them from the others, who wander around the courtyard, seeking a place in the shade, in order to let the wine settle maybe, and to recover from the exhaustion of the lunch and the demands of their digestion; or this is how Gutiérrez imagines it from the cool, dark living room, in any case. His friends, meanwhile, and the lover he had for a few now remote weeks, have in fact listened to him, though they’ve already heard him discuss the same topic many times before, with interest and patience, but also with a degree of skepticism: Marcos, for instance, who is a senator and has traveled widely and is in frequent contact with European parliaments, while he’s not unaware of the brutal contradictions of so-called late capitalism , thinks that many of the social gains made by rich countries wouldn’t be detrimental for the poorer ones. Leonor finds it inexplicable for Willi to find so many faults with a continent that can boast places as picturesque and pleasant as Saint Tropez, Nice, Liguria, and Marbella, with so many magnificent hotels and such impeccable service — anyone who’s seen the dawn in Cadaqués, even though its beaches are small and overcrowded, doesn’t have the right to complain about the European continent. Leonor thinks that Willi is too complicated, and that may have been one of the main reasons why she didn’t leave with him that time, so long ago now. Clara Rosemberg’s skepticism, meanwhile, has a different source than the others’: she gets the feeling that Gutiérrez himself, because of his tone, doesn’t really believe in the seriousness of his accusations, or that he considers them of secondary importance, in any case, and that he’d like his listeners to do the same, following rather his irony and his rhetorical distancing. Clara asks herself if his cruel critique of Europeans isn’t actually a subtle gesture of reverence toward his local friends. And, with her vague and enigmatic smile, she gives Gutiérrez a look of acquiescence, whose cause or significance Gutiérrez, somewhat perplexed, is not able to guess at.

Yes , Nula thinks, but I saw them in Rosario, on the sidewalk outside that awful house, with some strange and dubious people, the morning when I passed in a taxi . And, simultaneously, though he didn’t for a second doubt that he’d seen them, he still couldn’t believe it. At times, he was sure that it was them, Lucía silent and sleepy and Riera, as usual, cheerful and animated. Because it was winter, they were dressed warmly, Riera in a black overcoat and Lucía in a fur. The people they were talking to, in a circle, two women and a very young-looking man, were different from them in a way that Nula couldn’t quite define. Later, at other times, it was as if he’d only imagined them, or had seen them in a dream, or had been told about it by someone, or had read about it somewhere. But every time he passed the house, in a taxi or on the bus, and even on foot, during the day, when it seemed empty and closed, he would see them again, sharply, in the icy morning, speaking in a circle with their strange friends, and he would try to block out, without managing to, the intolerable images of what might have happened just before, inside, according to what the friend who’d pointed out the house had told him. And now Riera is saying something about how hard the separation with Lucía was for him, and that for months they’ve been trying to get back together. Yes, but I saw you with her in Rosario, on the sidewalk outside that awful house , Nula thinks again, more as a hurt protest than as an accusation. And he’s about to tell him, to make him remember, to make him know that he knows , but no matter how much he tries to give shape to and pronounce the words that would put his doubt to rest (Riera is incapable of lying), he isn’t able to, though his expression must betray his effort somewhat because Riera interrupts his conjugal disclosures and looks at him quizzically, and when Nula doesn’t catch on, he asks him directly:

— What’s wrong?

— Nothing, Nula says, I was thinking that you and Lucía are a perfect match, and I’m absolutely sure you’ll end up together.

— Seriously? Riera says, his smile full of suggestion, clearly signaling that in the words Nula has just spoken there are numerous, darkly hidden allusions that to him are more amusing than offensive or worrying. And suddenly he stands up and shouts to Diana, who sits several meters behind them, sketching under the umbrella:

— Should we take a swim?

Nula laughs, defeated. He realizes that Riera has wanted to demonstrate to him, through his attitude, not only that his allusions aren’t a threat to him, but that he can do things that are even more disturbing, something which translated into words would look something like, Anyone who would suggest to me that the relationship I have with my wife is perverse should know that I would be more than happy to have one even more so with theirs.

— Sit there for two more minutes without moving from those positions and I’ll accept, Diana says without looking up, because she’s finishing the sketch of them from behind, sitting in their chairs under the pavilion, near the empty table. They freeze for a minute more or less and finally Diana shouts, Done!

She closes the pad and the pencil box and, standing up, heads toward the pavilion.

— Immortalized, she says when she passes them on her way to drop the pad and the pencils in the straw bag. Nula and Riera stand up and start to unbutton their shirts, removing them almost simultaneously, as though they’d been competing to see who could take theirs off first. Riera leaves his on the back of his chair, but Nula folds his carefully and puts it in the bag, where Diana is dropping the leather band that she’s just removed from her wrist. Go ahead, I’ll be right there , Diana says, and Nula understands that, though she already has her bathing suit on, she doesn’t want to undress in front of them. The two men walk toward the pool, and only when she sees them standing with their backs to her, at the edge, looking at the water, does Diana remove her dress and her sneakers and put them in the bag. When she reaches the pool, Riera is already in the water, but Nula has waited for her at the edge. When she sees her arrive, Lucía, who is standing in the shallow end, opens her arms to receive them, shouting, Come in, come in! Diana and Nula dive in to the deep end, and Diana, swimming under water, moves toward Lucía, but by the time she surfaces Lucía’s enthusiasm seems to have vanished. They stand there motionless, without knowing what to say, in the four o’clock sun that projects unstable sparks on the water disturbed by the movement of the bodies that have just dived into it and which continue to move and twist inside it. Lying on his back, Nula observes the completely empty blue sky, almost the same color as the water, possibly a bit lighter due to the intense light of the sun, which, though it’s not visible to him in the portion of sky framed by the courtyard, the trees, and the house, flows ceaselessly in the April afternoon, as hot as any January or February. The serene stillness of the blue sky contrasts with the sparkling undulations of the water, and Nula concentrates on that contrast, telling himself that it only exists within the human incapacity to perceive with only our sight the prevalence of that same agitation in what, because of that same optical illusion, its earlier observers named the firmament.