Juan José Saer - Scars

Sergio. It’s strange, I said. It’s been months since anyone called me Sergio.

We should see each other more often, said Tomatis.

At the bar he asked me if I had written any more essays.

I’m writing one now, I said. I told him about my work on Sivana. Tomatis offered the theory that next to Sivana, Captain Marvel was a secondary character. That Superman had already exhausted the line.

I told him that he was partly right and partly not. If you examined the issue from an ideological perspective, I said, he could have a point; but still, Superman’s powers had a certain antihuman flavor. The fact that he comes from Krypton already makes him a beggar at a banquet. It precludes the human possibility for change, I said. Captain Marvel, meanwhile, lives up to the name. He’s the apotheosis of the power of the word. It’s the magic word, Shazam , that allows him access to his powers. It doesn’t matter that the word itself is meaningless. At the beginning of language, no word means anything. Shazam is at once a magic word and all words. In that sense, Captain Marvel is a symbolic character.

And so what’s with Sivana, asked Tomatis.

Sivana represents modern science, I said. The anxiety of power concealed behind the narrative of pure science. In the title I add the question, pure science or compromised thought? The thesis of the essay is that Sivana pretends to be a pure scientist, but to be a pure scientist is, in effect, to be compromised. It’s an ideological alibi.

Intelligent, very much so, said Tomatis. Then he added that he had been quoting.

We had a bite to eat, and then another. After paying for the food, Tomatis took a five thousand peso bill from his pocket and held it out. He said it was from what he owed me, but as far as I knew he didn’t owe me anything.

We separated outside the Casa Escassany, just as the clock struck one. I told him to call me some afternoon, that when the essay was ready he had to read it. He said he would and then he left for the paper.

It was even hotter than the previous days. It was a murderous sun. The rows of houses didn’t cast an inch of shade. At a grocery I bought some grapes and then went home. When I got there Delicia asked if I wanted to eat, and I told her that’s what the grapes were for. I put them in the freezer so they would get really cold, then I washed my face and went to my desk. I sat for ten minutes reading a few issues of Superman, because the conversation with Tomatis had left me with a few questions. Then I called for Delicia. When she came in, I told her to sit down. My face felt like it was burning, and not from the heat.

Delicia, I said. I gambled your fifty-four thousand pesos, and I lost them.

Delicia was silent. I thought I noticed an expression, something like surprise, on her face. I thought that maybe she didn’t know that I gambled, and that I should have told her before asking for the money. But she didn’t say a word.

Yes, Delicia, I said. I lost every cent of it.

You had bad luck, said Delicia.

Very bad luck, I said.

Now you don’t have anything else to bet? said Delicia.

I’ve got five thousand pesos, I said. A friend loaned it to me. But I’m not planning to gamble them, but to put them in your savings tin.

I opened the tin, took the bill from my pocket, and dropped it in. Then I closed the tin.

Don’t do that, she said. Bet them.

You want me to play the five thousand pesos after I lost all your savings? I said.

I gave them to you thinking you were asking so you could bet them, said Delicia.

So she did know I gambled. She must have overheard a telephone call, because as far as I knew no one had stepped foot in the house since she’d come to work for me. She’d cleaned the entire house except the dark, indelible stains from my grandfather’s brown spit, charging me the miserable sum of three thousand pesos a month, without spending a cent for eighteen months, and then she had given me all her savings so I could lose it in two hours. I got up and kissed her forehead.

God bless you, I said. God bless every hair on your head, and may He keep you in His glory for all eternity.

Delicia laughed, and then she said she was going to take her siesta. I told her to eat some grapes, that I had bought them for her, and told her not to polish the door handle, that it wasn’t worth it. It’s pointless work, I said.

Delicia said that it wasn’t pointless for everything to be clean, and she left. I heard the sound of the freezer opening and then closing. I sat down to work. I reread all my copies of Superman, and then marked up frames from Captain Marvel. Then I dug through the filing cabinet and took out the complete Mary Marvel series. Translated onto a female character, the story lost its appeal. Mary Marvel, with her American co-ed attitude, didn’t inspire any respect. A dyke, I suspected. Then I started wondering if Clark Kent and Lois Lane slept together. For hours I thought about Superman’s sexuality without reaching any kind of conclusion. Clark Kent showed obvious affection for Lois, but it wasn’t clear to me if that affection went as far as sexual attraction. In the end, without knowing why, I decided it didn’t.

At five, Delicia brought me a bitter mate . She knew that I drank one at that hour, but she’d never brought it for me before. I took a sip, and then told her I was three days late sending the bimonthly letter to her mother, and asked if she wanted me to say anything. I assumed the recent events would lead to a change in the content, which for eighteen months had been, That I’m fine, but she said the exact same thing. Then I told her to leave the kettle and the mate and I wrote for an hour.

That night we took on the letters E and F. Delicia was writing somewhat quicker, and the rows of letters were getting straighter and the letters more alike. Then I ate and went out to play.

I had the five-thousand-peso bill balled up in my pants pocket. When I got there, the game had just started. A crowd of people stood over the table, above the heads of the players sitting in the front row. I made a space behind one of the workers and started observing the game. To catch up, I looked at the note pad of the player sitting to the left of the worker. Two bancos had just turned over. I thought it had to go banco again, but I didn’t play, and it turned out punto. I squeezed the bill inside my pocket into an even tighter, flatter ball. My hand was sweating, and the bill’s hard, crisp consistency gave way to something soft and damp.

I told myself that if I could change my luck with those five thousand pesos I would cancel the mortgage.

The next hand went to banco. Logic told me the following: a game of two bancos and one punto is taking shape. One more banco has to turn over before the next punto. If it goes banco in the next hand, in the one after I should play punto.

When it went banco, as I had calculated, I changed the five thousand bill for five red chips of a thousand. I put three on punto, and a third banco turned out.

So the two bancos and one punto game had been broken up in favor of the banco. I put the two thousand-peso chips on banco, and it came out banco. I cashed in the four thousand and waited.

Two more tricks went to banco. Six bancos had now been dealt. That was too many bancos. In my judgment, it made sense to play punto. So I played the four thousand on punto, and it came out punto, and I cashed out eight thousand.

The next hand was a push at six. History teaches that after a push at six it goes banco. I bet five thousand on banco. It wasn’t a banco, but a push at seven, and historically a push at seven is followed by punto rather than banco, so I took out the chips I had put on banco and put them on punto, and it turned out banco.