Cesar Aira - Varamo

In the ensuing conversation, which was more relaxed, it became clear that the sisters were practical women, with sound business sense. This emerged in a rather indirect way. There were noises outside, and the Góngoras reacted: they went to their rooms, first one, then the other (they took turns so as not to leave Varamo unaccompanied), and came back with powdered faces, brushed hair, and wearing jewelry. “Well, it looks like we have a little get-together on our hands,” they remarked, then added, with the smiling poise of true sophisticates, “Unplanned parties are always the most fun.” For them, to spend the night entertaining was the most natural thing in the world. Their only complaint was that they had been caught with “everything in a mess.” Varamo reassured them politely, but a second look around revealed that the place really was a shambles. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what was giving him that impression of chaos. . But then, all of a sudden, he realized: it was the golf clubs all around the room, in expensive leather bags that were propped against the walls and the furniture, or just lying around. In fact, there was one under the table, and Varamo picked it up out of idle curiosity (he had never handled a golf club before). The sisters sighed: “When Carmencita comes back, we’ll get her to tidy up a bit.” Showing them the club, Varamo said: “Do you. . play?” No, they had never played and had no intention of doing so. They didn’t even know the rules of the game, although the terminology had rubbed off on them over years of dealing with golf enthusiasts. They sold the clubs. Apparently they had decided to confide in him; they told him the whole story, but perhaps they would have told anyone who happened to visit them. Or maybe they wanted to show that the malicious rumors were unfounded: they were business women, who earned their living respectably (although they did admit, in an aside, that the name of one kind of club — putter , which sounded unfortunately like whore in Spanish — might have accounted for some of the slurs).

Many years before, the engineers and other foreigners working on the canal, from France, England and the United States — three nations crazy about golf — had introduced the game, creating a demand for clubs, which grew as the local public servants, anxious to be fashionable, began to play as well. The clubs, of course, were not made in Panama, so they had to be imported. Any one of the city’s shipping firms would have taken care of that, if the government, in the grip of one of its regular financial crises, hadn’t imposed an exorbitant import duty, which made smuggling almost mandatory. And that was where the Góngoras came in, seizing the opportunity, occupying the little economic niche that society provides for each of its members, though few realize it and reap the rewards. The sisters found their opening by a curious fluke: someone realized that the safest way to smuggle the clubs in was to board a ship docked in Colón and disembark again soon afterward, walking with the aid of a “stick,” which was, in fact, a golf club. Since the customs agents and port inspectors had no notion of the game and had never seen the clubs, they assumed that they were a strange kind of walking stick, and gave the matter no more thought. The sister with the prosthetic leg perfected the plausibility of the trick; she ended up making it her specialty and monopolizing the sector. All this was explained while she was away getting herself ready, and the other Miss Góngora added that there had been positive side effects: since the clubs had to be smuggled singly, her sister had been up and down hundreds and thousands of gangways over the years. As well as giving her something to do and helping her to regain her self-esteem after the accident, it had made her exercise intensively and kept her healthy, active and youthful. They couldn’t complain about the other side of the business, either: dealing with the buyers. It had obliged them to keep open house for foreign gentlemen and local personalities, and that had put them in touch with the city’s elite. Another reason, Varamo supposed, for the Góngoras’ anxiety about the potential transfer of the ministries.

No, no, they couldn’t believe that Colón was going to lose its political, cultural and social prominence, said the sisters. They were long-standing residents; they had seen the city grow and change with the construction of the canal, the upheavals that had led to the independence of Panama, and the century’s various transformations. . It had never occurred to them that Colón was not a capital city, since it was the capital for them. And yet, objectively, it wasn’t the capital of the nation. Their outlook dated from a time before the nation existed, when Colón was undeniably a hub. It was the Atlantic port, the gateway to Europe; yet one of the canal’s long-term effects might be to transform West into East, Europe into Asia. Perhaps the time had come for that conversion, which, after all, had been the reason for opening the canal in the first place. It was as if the country were being reversed in a mirror. Listening to them, Varamo thought (but didn’t say) that this was the reasoning of smugglers, for whom the national was a categorical imperative. And the thought occurred to him because his own predicament, which he had just remembered, was of a similar nature: printing money was a prerogative of the nation, and even counterfeiting reinforced the national perspective. But these abstractions seemed rather insubstantial when faced with the self-assurance of the Góngoras. What they were worried about was losing their market, their clients; the illegality of their trading didn’t seem to bother them at all. Was it because they had some kind of protection? Or because crime per se, of any kind, was nothing to be worried about? After all, in modern capitalist society, everyone had to look after their own interests, and the natural and appropriate way to do that was through crime. Which meant that society as a whole was bathed in a criminal atmosphere. The law was just a regulatory mechanism. But individual interests were translated into money, and for money to be useful to all citizens alike, and adapt itself to all the shifts of desire and fantasy (and reality), it had to maintain a level of abstraction. And that was precisely why what had happened to Varamo was so disturbing: the counterfeit notes in his pocket introduced an element of brute materiality; they couldn’t be exchanged for others or abstracted from the situation; they couldn’t adapt.

The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the Police Chief and his assistant. The Góngoras fluttered about like hens, raising their voices as they went to the door, chattering hospitably. The party was livening up. “The Police Chief!” Varamo muttered to himself. “Why did I have to come here, tonight of all nights? I’ve gone and walked into the lion’s den!” The elderly smugglers, by contrast, were happy; their sole concern was providing their guests with drinks and sandwiches, as if they didn’t have a comatose cabinet minister in the house. They were reminded of the fact by the newcomer, who reported directly to the Minister of the Interior. “Do come and see him,” they clucked, “we put him in the broadcasting booth, on the doctor’s orders. But we should warn you that he’s unconscious, the poor thing.” They led the Police Chief away from the entrance hall to a small side door. Varamo was relieved; he had been preparing a little speech with which to introduce himself in case the group headed his way: “I wasn’t involved in the accident. I just happened to be passing when it occurred, and I helped to carry His Excellency’s body.” When he saw the visitors disappear, he slipped away to the kitchen, which seemed a safer place for the moment. An image accompanied his retreat: that of Carmencita, also known as Caricias, who had appeared in the sitting room for the briefest moment before the Góngoras sent her rushing off to the kitchen to serve more coffee. Varamo’s choice of hiding place was partly motivated by the desire to speak to her. But since he didn’t know the house, it took him some time to find his way, and by the time he reached the kitchen, Caricias had already gone to the dining room. He stayed there waiting for her. He couldn’t have been her childhood friend; she was far too young. Perhaps the Góngoras were getting the generations mixed up, and he had played with her mother. He couldn’t remember doing so, but it was possible. It was a logical explanation, although it would be logical too, in a way, for the “last woman” to remain eternally young.