Juan José Saer: Scars

— In Buenos Aires, he says, I never left the hotel. I ordered a box of North American cigarettes, and every time the producer came up I had to shake off this paralysis that would set in again the moment he left. The producer would come with the director. They would grab me, take my clothes off, make me shower, dress me in a bathrobe, and sit me at a table with a pencil in my hand. Every once in a while the director would slap me. Use your imagination , he would say. The whole film crew is waiting. We brought three technicians from the US , the producer would say. Alright, what is it you want? I would say. You have to finish the dialogue between Fulano and Mengano , the director would say. Where was I? I would ask. At the word “money,” the director would say. Money , I would say, Yes, exactly, money , the producer would say. At this point a blonde would walk out of the bedroom in a nightgown, holding two empty bottles, one in each hand. Haven’t I told you more than a thousand times not to leave your empty bottles in the suitcase? she would say. Sometimes she would come in totally naked. But no one looked at her, not me or the producer or the director. I don’t think we even saw her. Money , I would say. Money, perfect . And I would start scratching my head wondering why I had written money the day before and what the hell this movie was about. Show me what I wrote yesterday , I would say. Forget about that , the producer would say. The last sentence went something like: I need money . And I would say, with conviction, You never say money outright — you use euphemisms, like “cash,” “bread,” “means.” Money isn’t said. I couldn’t have written that. And the producer would hit me again, twice. Don’t theorize, Tomatis , he would say. I’m not paying you for theory, I’m paying you to write a screenplay . Finally we would come to an agreement — Fulano asked Mengano for money, and Mengano loaned it to him on the following condition: Fulano had to give way as regards a certain lady. Then we would write the dialogue. As he was leaving, the producer would collide with the waiter who was bringing the first bottle of the day. The producer would start talking to me, and what I could make out over the sound coming from the bathroom, the blonde singing, and the tub filling with hot water for the bath, sounded something like, You’re a good guy Tomatis. A cool guy. I’ve seen a lot of cool guys but no one as cool as you. If I didn’t have this two hundred million dollar company, which feeds cool guys like you, and could get by with my two factories and my cattle, I would spend all my time talking to you. I’m positive we’d get along like crazy. I’ve even seriously thought about giving you a stipend so you can write your novels and mail them to me. But I swear on my mother’s ashes that no movie I ever make again will be written by you. And then he would leave. I would start laughing, shake my head, and dive into the bath. With the blonde and me inside, it would overflow, and sometimes we’d get off by spitting jets of bathwater on the waiter’s ass.

Then I went back to the paper, and Tomatis said he was going somewhere or other. The print shop asked me for a headline for the weather report, which I had forgotten when I sent it in, and after turning it over a hundred times I decided on: No Change in Sight . I sent it to the shop and smoked a cigarette without anyone coming around to bother me. Then I went down to the machine room, and when the first copies came out I took one with me to the bar at the arcade. It was full of people, and when I got to the last page — with the comics and the classifieds — it was after seven-thirty. It was dark by then, and it was still raining. The neon signs reflected off the pavement, and since it was too early to go to Tomatis’s, and I had no interest in running into my mother at home, I decided to follow the first suspicious-looking guy I saw. I picked one who was dressed fashionably, with a white raincoat and an extremely fancy black umbrella that he had closed and was using as a cane. He was around thirty.

I was set up in one of the entrances to the arcade, protected from the rain falling on the sidewalk, and saw the guy coming south to north on San Martín. He stopped a second in front of the window to a shoe store and then went in the tobacconist that divides the arcade walkway in half. He bought pipe tobacco and left. I followed. He walked four blocks up San Martín and turned right toward the Plaza de Mayo, and after walking around the block he turned back onto San Martín, this time north to south, on the opposite sidewalk. I was following some forty meters back, not losing a step. In the entrance to a shop he took shelter from the rain and lit his pipe, taking three or four deep drags to make sure it was lit well. I stopped no more than two meters away, pretending to look in the window of the shop where he had stopped. When I realized that it was a lingerie shop, I turned away quickly and went ahead a few meters, but I stopped again because the guy was walking so slow that I was already ten meters ahead. I waited on the corner, and he passed next to me, stopping a second to open his black umbrella because the rain was getting heavier every second. The guy went six more blocks north to south on San Martín and then turned back, south to north again, on the opposite sidewalk. I didn’t lose a step the whole trip. He was walking so slow it was crazy. He passed by the illuminated walkway of the arcade again and at the first corner turned toward the bus station. At the entrance to the platforms he stopped, grabbed the pipe he had been chewing on the whole time, and with his mouth open gazed at the post office on the opposite sidewalk, where the windows were completely illuminated. The guy looked the building up and down, his mouth open the whole time, raising his head so high that at one point I thought he was going to fall backward. Then he went to the ticket window to Rosario and bought a fare. I went up to the window and got close enough to hear that the ticket was for the next day, at eight-ten in the morning. Then he went out onto the platforms, opened his umbrella again, crossed to the opposite sidewalk, and started walking back the way he had come. On the corner of 25 de Mayo he stopped in front of the windows of the Monte Carlo bar and looked in curiously. Apparently he didn’t see anything interesting because he turned around and kept walking north up 25 de Mayo. At the corner he closed his umbrella and went in the Palace Hotel. I went in after. The hotel lobby was incredibly bright and clean. There wasn’t a doormat, and yet there wasn’t a single muddy puddle on the floor. The guy went to the concierge desk and I followed him.

— Two twelve, he said.

The concierge gave him the key. The guy turned around without even looking at me and got in the elevator. I stood there watching him through the elevator gate as the metal box rose and then disappeared. Then the concierge asked me what he could do for me.

— I’m wondering if a Mister Philip Marlowe is staying in this hotel; I expected him this morning, I said.

— Mister what? said the concierge.

— Philip Marlowe, I said.

The concierge started looking over the registry.

— Arriving from where? he said.

— Los Angeles, California, I said.

The concierge looked carefully over the guest registry.

— He hasn’t arrived, sir.

— Thanks, I said, and left.

The clock at the Casa Escassany rang nine times. I passed through the deli, bought two bottles of red wine, and went to Tomatis’s place. It had stopped raining now, but the humidity was madman. I caught a taxi on the corner of the central market and gave Tomatis’s address. When Tomatis invites you to his house, he means you should go to a tiny apartment he rents for work, in a remote neighborhood, jammed between two avenues. When he says to come to my mother’s house , he means the house where he lives with his mother and sister, downtown. I actually prefer the room Tomatis has on the terrace of his mother’s house, because there’s a pullout sofa, a desk, a small library, and a reproduction of Wheatfield with Crows over the sofa, on the yellow wall. The apartment on the outskirts is more comfortable, but you rarely find him there. It’s likely he won’t answer phone calls because he’s either working or in bed with someone. Sometimes he invites me over and he’s not home when I get there. The city rolled by past the taxi’s windows, drenched. The sidewalk in front of Tomatis’s house was darker than the bottom of the ocean, but a trace of light escaped through the foot of his doorway. I rang the doorbell twice and waited a long time before anyone opened the door. Horacio Barco was the one who answered. He took up the whole entrance with his bulk, which was stuffed into a wine-colored turtleneck sweater and these wool pants I’ll ask to borrow the day I take up begging.