Magdalena Tulli - Flaw

The nature of the whole is at fault; it knows no equilibrium. Paved with the best of intentions and propped up by the fractured dictates of conscience, the world in the end always begins to fall to pieces in one place or another. Every collapse turns out to be a catastrophe for someone; after each one, frantic cries for help fly one way or the other. The iron laws of acoustics render them inaudible. It is hard to renounce inattention, that sated, self-absorbed aversion to details. An overly close knowledge of things always entails obligations of some sort. I have to do all I can to open the emergency exits in time. As far as exact solutions are concerned, they are not complicated. All that is needed are a few steps and a section of corridor. A tunnel will be necessary for the taxicabs to get through. The masters, of course, can make one available, though they do not have to. Aside from the services listed in the invoices, I expect others from them of a confidential nature, out of courtesy. I acquiesce in every matter of lesser importance. Squirming with frustration, I turn a blind eye to botched work, underhand dealings, and impunity. I pay without making demands. I accept fraudulent accounts at face value, as long as they agree to open up their tunnels at the required time. Aware that I have no choice, the masters dictate the conditions.

The fallen angels of the back area hold themselves in high regard because of certain special talents they have picked up in the course of their perpetual machinations, as they chased around after small-scale profits and knowingly exploited the nature of things, which have a constant tendency to pass and be gone. For all their faults, the workmen excel at their trade. They have acquired to a fault the art of handling inanimate matter: they are casually able to combine it with nothingness, to mix what exists with what does not, to blend the one and the other into a homogeneous product, an indissoluble amalgam. Through the years of their nonchalant practice, constantly juggling with materials and invoices, they have achieved perfection. Without them neither the creation of America nor its upkeep would be possible. Matters of life and death depend on their idle and capricious good graces. Yawning, they do what is necessary, at the last minute, more worried about counting pallets and cases, because that is the only thing truly important to them. The back area has no room for pity or compassion.

A LONG MOTORCADE OF TAXICABS filing quietly along will appear at the end of this story. All the cabs are full. Slowly, rocking through the darkness on overloaded springs, they are driving straight to America. In this way the refugees finally end up in an earthly paradise, or perhaps a posthumous one — in this matter they will never be entirely sure. They find themselves at the feet of immense mansions made from their own dreams turned into stone, amid vertiginous skyscrapers and sleek towers that soar upward one next to another, their steel needles piercing the sky, with an unparalleled lightness, like all that the ground cannot control. Having miraculously survived, they gaze at themselves in mirrored windows and the glistening bodywork of limousines, dressed in used American clothing from Salvation Army stores. What became of the clothes made for them by the tailor? In those outfits salvation would have turned out to be as shabby as the clothes themselves. Those garments were failures from the start, of no use for anything. The tailor himself knows best how he cursed at them, so he will not miss them either. Now it is of no importance what happened to them. They may be moldering on an American trash heap, though it is more likely they were wedged in between layers of caustic quicklime, stiffened and burned through. In light-colored trench coats and hats pulled over their eyes, in striped pants, in backless dresses, elbow-length gloves, and feather boas, the new owners of this attire begin a new life, realizing they could no longer insist on the old life and the old clothing.

It would be most comfortable at this point to stop at the obvious advantages of such a turn of events, and resist any temptation to dig deeper. Especially not to inquire what all those people do in America, how they make their living, and what hopes they have. Even if it were the smallest America one could possibly have, made up of no more than a handful of skyscrapers and a few streets, maintaining this immense construction with all its wonders requires unbelievable sacrifices. The exorbitant costs incline one naturally to a simple-hearted optimism. It is not easy to accept a fiasco when such large investments are involved. Yet it’s plain that America came from the same hands that bungled everything they touched. Hands that never missed an opportunity for a swindle.

Besides, the sequence of events has a perpetual tendency to stray from its anticipated course, and to yield to disconcerting complications. For example, the notary’s maid, now with short hair and wearing lurid makeup, is to be seen every evening entering the brightly lit bar on the corner, toying with one of her long gloves. She sits on a bar stool, crosses her legs, and lights a cigarette in a long holder. She is not unhappy. The place is filled with music; its mirrors gleam and gold paint glitters everywhere. The men sprawling on the sofas are all lawyers, handsome young bachelors working in the firms of notaries and attorneys or the offices of judges. So she never complains, having her regular clients; and when one knows the whole picture, it’s obvious she could not have found a better situation.

If other details were inquired into, it would transpire that the children from the orphanage support themselves by nighttime robberies; during an argument about a wad of green five-dollar bills, they wave switchblades at one another. But they never lack for American chocolate, the sweetness of which eventually assuages their anger; they have it in abundance, the regular sort or with flavored fillings, any kind they could wish for. It may also turn out that the woman in the white fur coat, now thrown on carelessly over her lingerie, has been forgotten, and is drinking to her reflection in a hotel mirror. But all she needs to do is take the elevator down to the casino and play the roulette wheel as many times as it takes, betting on the red or the black, for her to have everything one would expect in the dressing room of a famous artiste: fresh flowers, open bottles of champagne chilling in ice buckets, canapés with caviar brought in on a silver tray by the liveried bellhop. The blind man is likely playing his violin in second-rate restaurants, cheated by the cloakroom attendant night after night. But on sunny mornings the chords of his own compositions fill the entire space, capturing the ups and downs of life and giving them the meaning they lack; the silvery notes soar all the way up to the fantastical copings of the skyscrapers. The schoolgirl and her elderly grandmother are warming themselves in the sun on a little deserted square squeezed between the insurance companies and the banks; they always have every bench to themselves. The newlyweds have been involved in divorce proceedings for many years now, and meet only in the courtroom. The husband, his temples flecked with the first signs of grayness, is supposed to marry the beautiful daughter of an American millionaire. The wife is about to open a large store selling bridal wear; it’s filled with dazzling white chiffon gowns with veils, and tuxedos black as pitch.

The mother of the family is tranquil, as if the injection she was given to calm her down never stopped working; the father is slaving to death on the production line of a huge auto plant. He wants to secure a better life for his ungrateful children than he himself has had. But the children are already hurtling recklessly towards their future calamities. This family alone has not been given a better fortune by America. Their grief was probably too great. They brought it with them, and though they do all they can to forget it, they cannot. The kind of pain that fell to their lot can never be eased by any medication, even death.