Juan José Saer - Scars

It’s empty. Beyond the cross-shaped window frame in the waiting room the gray daylight shines darkly. I turn on the light, leave the briefcase on the desk, take off my raincoat, and hang it on the coat rack. I cross the polished wood floor to the window. In the plaza the rain soaks the palms and the orange trees. Their yellow fruit mar the hard, green leaves. The reddish paths are deserted. I turn back to the desk and sit down. From the briefcase I take out the notebook, the novel, the dictionary, and the variously colored pens. Most of page 110, marked with the folded sheet of white paper, is covered with tick marks and lines. I open the notebook, in which the black handwriting is also covered with every kind of markup: crosses, circles, vertical and horizontal lines. There are no markings on page 111 of the novel, only the evenly printed type. I read the first unmarked paragraph of page 110, softly underlining it with dashes as I go. “ Your wife! Dorian!. . Didn’t you get my letter? I wrote to you this morning, and sent the note down, by my own man.” “Your letter? Oh, yes, I remember. I have not read it yet, Harry. I was afraid there might be something in it that I wouldn’t like. You cut life to pieces with your epigrams.” The page ends on the word epigrams . I also underline, with soft dashes, in blue ink, the first sentence of page 111: You know nothing then? In the notebook, I write in black ink with my cramped handwriting: “¡Tu esposa! ¡Dorian! ¿No has recibido mi carta?”

By the time the secretary comes in, I’ve reached the bottom of page 111. I’m translating the third to last line. All of page 111 is now covered with symbols and markups made in variously colored pens and pencils. The secretary approaches the desk, leaning his graying head toward me. “Judge,” he says, “I’ve been given a report from the precinct about a homicide that took place last night in section six.” “Yes,” I say, “They called me at home last night.” “They say there’s no space at the precinct, and if you might take his statement,” says the secretary. “We have a hearing this morning,” I say. “That can be postponed,” says the secretary. “And the witnesses?” I say. “There are some,” says the secretary. “I can’t interrogate the suspect without speaking to the witnesses first,” I say. “That’s absolutely true,” says the secretary. “Tell them to send me the witnesses early in the afternoon,” I say. “And if you can postpone the hearing, postpone it. If anyone calls or asks for me, tell them I’m at the hearing.” “When do you want the witnesses?” says the secretary. “At four,” I say. The secretary leaves. I lean over the third to last line of page 111 and softly underline, in green dashes, They ultimately found her lying dead on the floor of her dressing-room. When the secretary returns I’m underlining the thin, green dashes on the third, second, and last lines of page 113, “Harry,” cried Dorian, coming over and sitting down beside him, “why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I don’t think I am heartless. Do you?” He comes in just as I’m underlining the last two words. “The reporter from La Región is here, Judge,” he says. “He wants to speak to you.” “Tell him I’m busy with the deposition,” I say. “He asked me when the inquest you mentioned is going to take place,” says the secretary. “Do you think that by noon tomorrow we’ll be done with the witnesses?” I say. “I think so,” says the secretary. “Then tell him tomorrow at four,” I say. The secretary leaves. I get up and look out the window. The air has cleared up, but the rain continues. In the plaza, the palms glow. Several gorillas, hunched over in the rain, walk across the reddish paths, toward the government buildings. My watch tells me it’s ten fifty-five. I sit back down and continue translating until twelve. I put everything away in the briefcase, put on my raincoat, pass the secretary’s office, tell him that at four exactly I’m going to begin questioning the witnesses, and walk out into the corridor. I walk to the edge of the stairs, lean over the railing, and look down: the square of black and white checkerboard tiles is filled with compressed figures that swarm in close groups that break apart and reform in different parts of the checkerboard. I start to descend and the voices grow clearer until eventually they become an incomprehensible clamor when I reach the ground floor and cross the lobby toward the rear courtyard. I pass the emptier back corridors and reach the courtyard. The rain covers my face. I close my eyes for a moment and pause, but immediately I continue to the car. I get in, turn on the engine, and back out, slowly, toward the street.

I steer the rear end of the car to the east and then start driving down the Avenida del Sur. When I reach the Avenida del Oeste I turn right and pass the regiment, the wholesale market, the cinema, and then I reach the boulevard. I turn right again, headed east. I reach San Martín after passing the yellow facade of the university with its green latticework incrustations. I turn south. On San Martín the gorillas gather under eaves, in thresholds, and under awnings to protect themselves from the rain. I pass the windows of La Región , to my right, the illuminated corridors of the arcade, to my left, the municipal theater, to my left, driving slowly, behind a long line of cars, the progression halted every so often by young gorillas that jump over the puddles and run across the street so as to not get wet. I stop at the traffic light on Avenida del Sur. When the green light comes on I cross the intersection and pass the Plaza de Mayo on my right. The gray government offices approach and then are left behind. Then the convent and finally the trees in the park beyond which the waters of the lake shine. I stop the car along the right-hand sidewalk, in front of the house. I pick up the briefcase and get out.

I go upstairs and straight into the study. Almost immediately, as I’m taking off the raincoat, Elvira comes in. She asks if I’ll eat something. “Yes, something,” I say, “Bring it here, to the study.” Then I tell her that if the manager from the club comes by for my mother’s dues, to pay him. I put Concerto for violin on the record player and sit down on the twin sofa to listen to it, my back to the window. Soon, Elvira comes in with a tray and softly crosses the room. I gesture with my head for her to leave the tray on the desk. Before leaving she takes the raincoat from the chair and then she walks out. I get up and examine the tray. Some crackers on a dish and a bowl of thin, steaming, golden broth. As the music plays I drink the soup slowly and eat three or four of the crackers. Then I pour myself a whiskey, neat, and finish it in two or three swallows. Then I lay down on the sofa until the concerto finishes. Soon I hear the sound of the return and then nothing.

The room is completely silent. No sound comes in from the street, just the gray, somewhat opaque light, through the window. I start to hear the muted crackling and then I see the vast plain, devoured by the fire. The flames extend evenly into the horizon. There is no smoke. Only sudden sparks rising briefly above the flames before they disappear.

I approach the window. The park is deserted. The waters of the lake can be made out, here and there, between the trunks rising from the earth. Then I turn back and sit down at the desk and open the briefcase. When everything is ready — the notebook, the novel, the dictionary, and the pens — I get up and go to the bathroom and then return to the study to work. At ten to four I underline the third, fourth, and fifth lines of page 115, One should absorb the colour of life, but one should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar . Then I get up, leaving everything on the desk. I take the raincoat from the bathroom, put it on, and go out into the street. It’s raining. The sky has darkened a bit. I look up. The gray has grown deeper, darker, and the storm clouds have taken on steely edges. I get in the car, and after turning on the engine, I come around slowly onto San Martín and drive north. At the first intersection on San Martín I turn left and drive a block, pass the courthouse, the north side of the plaza moving behind me, and turning onto the sidewalk I enter the rear courtyard. I park the car and get out. I cross the corridors and the deserted checkerboard lobby and climb to the third floor. In the corridor I see a group of gorillas, two of them in uniforms. The ones in uniforms straighten up when they see me. There are two males, two females, and a tiny girl. I enter the secretary’s office without looking at them. The secretary is at the typewriter. He looks up when he sees me come in. “The witnesses are here, Judge,” he says, “here’s the report.” He hands me the file — a thin, red folder — and I take it into the office with me. On May first, it says, around nine P.M., outside a store in Barrio Roma, Luis Fiore, thirty-nine years of age, discharged two shotgun rounds into his wife, María Antonia Pazzi de Fiore (aka “la Gringa”), thirty-four years of age, causing her death in the act; that the accused, after committing the homicide, traveled to a bar nearby, had a couple of drinks, and then went home. That he stayed there until the police arrived and surrendered without resistance. That according to the witnesses — Pedro Gorosito, fifty-four; Amado Jozami, thirty-six; Zulema Giménez, thirty; and Luisa Luengas, thirty-two — though the protagonists demonstrated some irregular behavior, there was no apparent cause that precipitated the homicide. I put down the file and turn toward the window. In the plaza, the reddish paths are deserted and the rain falls on the palms and the orange trees. I take off the raincoat and hang it up. Then I call the secretary. “I want to finish everything today,” I tell him. “Tomorrow we’ll visit the scene.” “Should I send the first one in, Judge?” says the secretary. “Yes, bring him in,” I say. He disappears and I sit down behind the desk. Then he comes back with one of the male gorillas. He has a gold tooth, and his head and the backs of his red hands are covered with blond hair. I tell him to sit down. The secretary sits down at the typewriter and looks at him. I feel the blond gorilla’s fearful gaze fixed on me. “Your name is Amado Jozami and you are thirty-six years old, is that correct?” the secretary says pleasantly. “Yes, sir,” says the blond gorilla. “You are Argentine and you own a store with a bar, located on the corner of Islas and Los Laureles, is that correct?” says the secretary in his pleasant voice. “Yes, sir,” says the blond gorilla. “That’s fine,” I say. “Tell us what you know then, just the truth.” The blond gorilla perches on the edge of his chair and looks at the secretary and then at me. “We were in the store when they show up in the truck,” he says, and at that moment the secretary starts typing. “We heard the sound of the truck from the store and wondered who it was. Then they come in with the shotgun and the two dead ducks. They leave the ducks and the shotgun on the counter and order two rums. He doesn’t say a word, and he stands apart, watching us, but she starts shouting. He tells her to be quiet. She opens her bag and takes out a flashlight and starts shining it on him. He says to turn it off. She drops the flashlight on the counter and starts complaining about her life. Then he says they need to leave. She complains, but they leave. Like a minute later, we hear the shots. We go out and she’s on the ground and he’s starting the truck. He takes off like a bolt and disappears and she’s lying there dead.” The blond gorilla falls silent. A moment later the striking sound of the typewriter ceases and the secretary pauses, his hands suspended, his fingers pointing at the keys. “Did you know Fiore and his wife?” I say. “Yes,” says the blond gorilla. “They were from the neighborhood. But they didn’t shop in my store. He would come in sometimes, for drinks.” “How did he behave?” I say. “Fine. Sometimes he would just stand at the counter for an hour or two, not saying a word.” “Would he get drunk, or look it?” I say. “Well, the same as anyone else,” the blond gorilla says. “Sometimes, but you could hardly tell.” “Did he cause any problems in the store, apart from last night?” I say. “None, as far as I know,” he says. The typewriter follows his words, loudly, and always stops a moment after his voice goes silent. “Do you think the murderer and the victim were intoxicated last night?” I say. The blond gorilla screws up his broad face and presses his lips together. The gold tooth disappears. “I couldn’t say,” he says eventually, “She was talking a lot and saying things that are, well, indecent for a woman, as I see it, but he didn’t say a word. When she put the flashlight on his face, he didn’t even move. He closed his eyes and said to turn it off, but he didn’t move. I don’t know. They might have been drunk.” “What did you and the other witnesses do when you heard the shots?” I say. “We took off out the door,” says the blond gorilla, “And when we got there he was starting the truck and she was on the ground — she wasn’t moving. After he drove off full speed with the passenger door open, we saw the ducks on the ground, and her bag and the flashlight, which was still on. I was the first one to touch her and see that she was dead. Then I telephoned the station. And then the police came. I told them everything in my statement.” Then he says his business is respectable and tries to show me his inspection certificate. I tell him it’s not necessary, and to go wait in the corridor. He hesitates and then gets up, looking back and forth between the secretary and me. When he leaves, I notice the secretary staring at me. I look at him, but I don’t say a word. The guard appears at the door to the waiting room. “Bring the next one,” I say. The guard disappears. For a moment, the office is silent. I turn my head to look through the black cross of the window frame at the gray sheen of the sky. It’s somewhat clearer out, and brighter, but the rain continues. The secretary shifts in his chair; it creaks. I move my feet and my shoes tap against the wood floor. Then the guard reappears in the doorway. He has the child with him. Her hair is dark and she’s so thin that it seems like the guard’s hand on her shoulder could break her to pieces with the slightest pressure. She approaches, a serious expression on her face. I tell her to sit down. The guard stands behind her chair. The secretary leans toward the child and sweetly asks her name. “Lucía Fiore,” says the child. The secretary asks how old she is, and the child responds that she’s ten. Then I lean toward her and ask what she did yesterday. “I went duck hunting with Mamá and Papá,” says the girl. I ask her where. “In Colastiné, and we shot two ducks,” she says. “And how did you get there?” I say. “We went in the truck from the mill that Papá borrowed because it was May first and there wasn’t a bus,” she says. “Did you hear your parents talk about anything yesterday?” I say. “No,” she says, “nothing.” “What time did you come back from Colastiné?” I say. “At night,” she says. “And my papá and mamá left me at home because they said they were going to take the truck back. But then they went to Jozami the Turk’s store and Papá killed her.” The typewriter resonates a moment after the girl’s voice has gone silent, and then finally it stops. Its echo reverberates briefly inside my head. I’m looking at the girl, at the way she gazes back with large, calm eyes. “Would they argue sometimes, your papá and mamá?” I say. “Sometimes,” says the girl. “Would they hit you?” I say. “Sometimes,” she says. “What did you think when your papá and your mamá said they were going to return the truck?” I say. “That my papá would kill her,” she says. The typewriter stops suddenly. The guard turns abruptly and stares at me in shock. I pretend not to notice anything. I let a moment pass in silence before speaking. “How did you know?” I say. “Because I dreamt it that night,” she says. “I dreamt that I was coming back from Colastiné with Papá and Mamá and then they said they were going to return the truck but they were going to Jozami the Turk’s store and Papá was going to shoot Mamá twice in the face. I dreamt it all just like it happened. So when they said they were going to return the truck, I knew he was going to kill her.” “And why didn’t you say anything, when you knew he was going to kill her?” I say. “Because that’s how it had to happen,” says the girl. “Did you love your mamá?” I say. “Yes,” she says. “And your papá?” I say. “Him too,” she says. The sound of the typewriter continues briefly and then it stops. “You dreamt everything that was going to happen?” I say. “Everything,” says the girl. “Did they tell you that here you have to tell the whole truth?” says the secretary. The girl doesn’t even look at him. The three of us, the guard, the secretary, and I, lean in toward her. She sits stiffly on the edge of her chair, thin as a rail. Now her calm eyes aren’t looking at anything. Again the office is completely silent. “Take her out,” I say. The girl stands, obediently, and leaves with the guard. When they disappear the secretary looks at me. “What do you think, Judge?” he says. “Nothing,” I say.