Daniel Saldaña París - Among Strange Victims

B

Foret, as his notes confirm, arrived in Veracruz too late. Bea had sailed three days earlier, and it took Richard quite some time to understand that there were sixty hours, of which he had no recollection, missing from his life. He had been robbed of the last of his money, his shirt was covered in vomit, and he had absolutely no memory of where he had obtained the hat he was wearing. He talked to strangers in the street and had the fevered gaze of those who have watched an era collapse around them.

Little is known of those final days. Bea Langley’s later reconstructions suggest he was employed in a brothel, ejecting impertinent drunks in exchange for room, board, and a limited dose of violent entertainment. He had left a hefty bill behind in Mexico City, and the owner of the hotel would soon be sending someone to look for him; this was one of his main worries. He started to suspect an international conspiracy to discover his whereabouts; he imagined the U.S. draft board was in cahoots with Duchamp, with Marinetti, with his creditors in Germany, Paris, and Barcelona. They were all plotting to keep him away from Bea, to bury him at the bottom of a trench, to drive him mad.

Pursued by these and other visions, none of them realistic, Foret lived like a vagabond, trying unsuccessfully to pass as a seaman, for almost two weeks. But impatience was one of the crosses he had to bear, and he convinced himself of the immediate need to go to Buenos Aires, where Beatrice would greet him with kisses and exotic fruits. He wrote a couple of letters to his wife, telling her of his latest plan: to sail single-handed to the coast of Argentina in a sturdy boat. But he had no address to send the letters to and had to content himself with keeping them in a wooden box one of the prostitutes — driven by irrepressible tenderness — kept for him out of sight of the brothel keeper.

One Sunday afternoon, as if to gild the lily of a week of excess, Foret staggered to the port. He picked out a small boat that could be handled with a crew of one. He had some knowledge of sails, knots, and winds, and thought it would not be too hard for him to set out to sea and come ashore on the southern coast of Argentina. He imagined himself arriving in his boat at the very door of the house Bea would have prepared for their future life together, a house that would look directly out to sea or onto the River Plate. He stole the boat.

But as has already been mentioned, Foret was man of fluctuating interests. He had not been long aboard when he decided it would be simpler to head north, to Florida, and take an actual cruise ship bound for the south. He came to understand, perhaps late in the day, the complete impossibility of his original undertaking: no one could reach Argentina in a small boat. Florida sounded more plausible.

When he set the prow to the north, it was already a dark, moonless night, and the clouds were gathering above him.

1

A year of economic crisis. The newspapers, the analysts, and the man on the street all make exaggerated complaints about the probable advent of the Apocalypse. There were enormous cuts to the culture budget. A wave of layoffs crashed down on the museum. I saw the effects of the stock market collapse approaching like a domino that, lined up with others, foresees its inexorable fate in the fall of its fellow tiles. Jorge, the designer, was the first to go: they said that in a few months, when everything was better, they would take him back on a freelance basis. Then it was the security guard’s turn, in what was, to my mind, an accurate assessment on the part of the authorities: even in times of crisis, no one steals exhibits from a small museum. Finally, they decided they could manage without my wisdom. Though not without the docile flattery of Cecilia, who lives on untouched by the surrounding tsunami, not registering the effects of the crisis. At least, I think, I won’t have to see her in the office.

The episode with the turd was a one-off. Maybe if I’d found another, identical one on the table a few days later, the image would have become less vivid. Instead, it remains as an incarnation inaugurating a new era: a personal Christ. Before and after the shit. Before: time killing, the nine-to-five consistency, the modicum of freedom, and the almost involuntary marriage of a person who only wants to reach old age, or not even that. After: unemployment, the idle mornings and their result — judicious reflection, the “things would be better if only. .”

Cecilia comes back from work and, as in a bad South American film, reproaches me for my idleness, the constant procrastination. “I’ve got a job interview tomorrow,” I say, just to calm her for a while. She’s beginning to break my balls. .

Nowadays I offer insults more frequently. Since I don’t have a job, I’m allowed to; I’d even say it’s expected of me. I insult the institutions, my wife, the people — always invisible, although presumably close to power — who are to blame for the aforementioned crisis. My preference is for gratuitous, unexpected insults: “Frigging damp.” (The complaint is, in reality, aimed at my father-in-law: he never got rid of the damp in the walls.) My father-in-law, of course, likes me less. He says he can get me a little something with one of his friends, but I say no. I imagine, and not without reason, that any job he could find me would make me unhappy for the rest of my days.

I’ve given up collecting tea bags—“See how I’m saving money, honey?”—and for some time, I’ve managed not to think about the vacant lot. The hen clucks like a bird possessed. I suspect the crisis has hit us all, except the worms, the twigs, except anything frigging domestic fowl like her eat.

Frigging seems to me a wonderful insult, being indefinite. It is the human equivalent of the hen’s clucking. Frigging is one of those words that evokes the unspeakable, that’s the only way to explain why this country is always in such a bad way. Now that I’m no longer concerned with the ghosts of progress, I contribute to the proliferation of disaster: “Frigging damp.”

“Stop saying that, Rodrigo. My dad told you it’s not damp; he said you can get rid of that with the damp-proofing paint he gave us.”

I couldn’t give a fuck about your dad, I think, but cautiously hold my tongue, clinging by my fingertips to the last morsel of common sense I’ve retained.

Common sense: a happy dodge. I imagine it as a chip inserted into the brain at about the age of seven. Or a vague presence, half magical, that murmurs answers in your ear. If it were a person, Common Sense would be very much like Ben Affleck, that North American parody of a hero who appears in the movies shown on interstate buses.

I haven’t said a word about the shit. Not to Cecilia or anyone. I can’t discount any suspect, and until my investigation into the situation is complete, I prefer not to speak about the affair. It could have been Ceci, who had perhaps not gone to the museum and was hiding behind a door to see what I was doing with my sick leave. Maybe she decided to take revenge when she saw me ejaculating on her pillow; or she went to the window, saw me walking around in the lot, and was overtaken by an urgent need. Though she would never have sullied her tiger-striped bedspread. Before doing that, just to screw up my existence, she would have defecated on the collection of tea bags I keep in a drawer in the dressing table. Or just on the floor. Anywhere but on her beloved bedspread.