Juan José Saer - Scars

The guard brought a wicker-backed chair and set it across the desk from Ernesto. The guy stood there until the guard gave him a little shove on the shoulder with the points of his fingers, and then he sat down. Now he was closer to me and the secretary, and facing Ernesto. I was the farthest from everything, but I could see him well. Just his face was obscured, by that mass of black beard that gave off a reddish glitter. The guy looked at me, or at least turned his head in my direction.

— When we finish I’ll call you, officer, said Ernesto.

The guard bowed and then left, closing the door behind him. Ernesto arranged the papers on his desk and then looked up at the guy.

— Your name is Luis Fiore, correct? said Ernesto.

The guy didn’t say anything. His eyes looked like they were covered with a patina of some transparent material, a kind of flat lacquer that clouded them and made them seem blind. Ernesto stared for a moment, directly at his eyes, not blinking, waiting. The secretary leaned over the typewriter and waited, his hands suspended with his fingers over the keys. The guy’s gaze — if you could call it that — was fixed on Ernesto, but he didn’t move a single muscle on his face.

— I’ll repeat the question. Is your name Luis Fiore or not? said Ernesto.

The guy shook his head, but so weakly and with such a distracted expression — his gaze or whatever you want to call it remained fixed on the point where a moment earlier Ernesto’s eyes had been — that it was difficult to consider this movement a response to anything.

— The accused responds in the affirmative, said the secretary, inclining his gray-streaked head slightly more and beginning to strike the keys. For a moment the only sound in the room came from the typewriter keys and the hum of the machine — until the secretary stopped typing and it was silent again. The secretary rubbed his hands for a few seconds and then was still. I leaned toward the guy, sliding forward to the edge of my chair.

Ernesto wrote down two or three words, apparently considering something. Then he said:

— Do you know the charges against you, Fiore?

The prisoner’s face opened into a weak, cunning smile, and the terrain around his eyes filled with creases and crows feet. But his eyes didn’t light up. Or it might not have been a smile, but actually the facial expression of his effort at understanding. I tried to guess his age. Then I remembered that in the piece the police reporter had read to me it said he was thirty-nine. I looked closely at him and guessed he could be anywhere between thirty-nine and a million. Then he opened his mouth, revealing white teeth under his reddish lips and black beard. His mouth stayed open, but he didn’t say a thing. Ernesto narrowed his eyes and leaned forward.

— Do you know the charges against you, Fiore? he said.

The three of us — Ernesto, the secretary, and I — waited for him. The guy leaned toward Ernesto and narrowed his eyes as well. His jaw was clenched, as if he was struggling with something, and I realized that his previous expression hadn’t been a smile, or if it had been at that moment, it had now become something else, more turbulent and indistinct. When he spoke, his voice was incredibly soft, high-pitched, and weak.

— Judge, he said.

Ernesto didn’t respond. The guy leaned farther in, and I saw that his eyes were now squeezed shut.

— Judge, he repeated in a high-pitched voice.

He started to shake his head.

— The pieces, he said. Can’t be put back together.

Then he jumped. None of us — Ernesto, the secretary, and I — moved until we heard the sound of the window shattering; the guy disappeared from the room. The three of us stood up at the same time, but he was gone; all that was left was broken glass and the splinters from the window frame, and in the silence that followed — still filled with the echoing crash of the body hitting the window and disappearing — the piece of glass that came loose and fell into the room made me turn faster than if the guy had reappeared at the window, returned from the void. The secretary started running around the room, saying Oh God over and over. When the secretary cut him off as he walked slowly toward the door, Ernesto shoved him aside. The secretary fell over a chair and started foaming at the mouth. Ernesto opened the door and walked out. I approached the secretary; he opened his eyes and said Oh God twice, weakly. Then I went out into the corridor and ran down the three flights in one second. When I reached the street, a circle had formed on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse, below the window. Others were running toward them across the plaza. Rosemberg was talking to Ernesto. I pushed into the front row of the circle. The guy was in the center, face down, so shrunk up that he looked like a dwarf. The yellow stones under him were stained with blood. The guy wasn’t moving. I realized that when someone throws himself through a window and falls to the ground from the third floor, he doesn’t break anything at the moment of impact with the glass or with the pavement — nothing — because he’s already been broken to pieces and all he’s doing is tossing out an empty shell. The guy had hollowed himself out to the bone, then thrown the shell out the window. The rain fell over the shell and the circle of pale faces that were looking at it silently. I pushed my way out and went back to the courthouse. Separated from the group, Ernesto and Rosemberg were talking in low voices. Two guards were starting to push people out of the way. I went straight to the operator’s office. She asked me what had happened and I told her. She got up to leave, but I told her to connect me to the newspaper first. She made the call and ran out. The police reporter told me that the page was closed and we’d have to wait till the next day. Then he said he was leaving for the courthouse. Coming out of the operator’s office, I crossed the gallery toward the entrance and ran into Ernesto and Rosemberg coming up the steps quickly, two at a time. I touched Ernesto’s arm.

— Tomorrow, tomorrow, said Ernesto, not even slowing down. The other guy didn’t look at me.

On the street, the crowd of gawkers had doubled. I couldn’t see the guards. I pushed through the crowd and saw them in the center of the group, which was pressing closer and closer on the body. The guards were pushing people away. The guy was still face down, even more shrunken than before. He didn’t even look like a shell anymore; he didn’t look like anything. When I made my way out of the group that was pressing closer and closer, I saw the secretary, alone, next to the wall. He had put on a raincoat and was looking at me.

— Is he dead? he asked.

— I think so, I said.

His gray-streaked beard was stained with dried saliva. It looked like someone had thrown a handful of quicklime on his face. His eyes were wide open.

— Did the judge go up? he asked.

— Yes, I said.

— I didn’t even see him jump, said the secretary. I heard the sound of the glass and he was gone.

— It happened fast, I said.

— All I heard was the sound of the glass, said the secretary.

— I don’t know how he could have jumped so quickly, I said.

— I didn’t see him move at all, said the secretary. I heard the sound, but I didn’t see him. I heard the glass breaking. The glass broke. I heard it break, and he wasn’t in the office. It must be raining up there, inside.

He leaned against the wall.

— It’ll be covered with glass, he said.

It was getting dark, a sunless, blue twilight. I said goodbye to the secretary and went to the bar at the arcade. It was dark by the time I got there; the lights were on. I drank two cognacs but didn’t see anyone. Around seven I went home. The light in my mother’s room was on. A rectangle of light showed through the transom. I went to my room and turned on the light. Almost immediately my mother came in.