Santiago Gamboa - Necropolis

Kosztolányi and Supervielle were talking to a couple of venerable-looking old men, so I left them and followed Rashid through the crowd. Listen, I said, what on earth does Alqudsville mean? and he said, oh, that’s nonsense, don’t take any notice, people invent that kind of thing to give the foreign press something to write about, but here it’s of no importance, you know wars are fought at every level, including the level of language, we’ll see what happens, just forget it for now, better to hit this damn hotel’s reserves of alcohol, don’t you think? I took a long slug of whiskey and remembered that evening many years earlier, I no longer knew how many, when Rashid and I had gone to an Arab wedding in Tira, his native town, north of Tel Aviv. The bride and groom greeted the guests in the door of the living room, beside a huge strongbox with a slot, into which, after congratulating them, people put envelopes containing cash. Of course, the Arab tradition of not serving any alcohol was being respected, so we sat down at a table at least a hundred yards long that snaked through the living room and waited for dinner. There were bottles of mineral water, Fanta, and Coca-Cola, so Rashid, his father, and I spent the whole time passing each other a bottle of whiskey under the table. Parties without alcohol tend not to last long, so within a couple of hours we were already back in his house, drinking and waving to the neighbors. Rashid’s novels were about the people of that town, so that journey was like entering the world of his books. A few years later, we met again in Bremen, at a conference called Writing in the Midst of Chaos , at which we were asked to reflect on fiction in countries in conflict, in cities under siege or under pressure, and of course, there were Rashid and I, an Israeli and a Colombian, as well as a couple of Angolans, some poets from Rwanda, and a few Yugoslavs, in addition to the Western Europeans, who theorized about other people’s violence and seemed to have the best ideas. As it turned out, the best thing about that conference, as we both remembered, was the night the Belgian professor Céline July burst naked along the corridors of the sixth floor of the hotel, very drunk and a bit drugged, fleeing from the Congolese poet Abedi Lassora, who was following her waving a cock so big it knocked down flowerpots and candlesticks as it swung from side to side. They had been about to have sex when the author of the essay Postcolonial Metaphor in the Former Zaire had been startled to see the exaggerated dimensions of the member possessed by one of the leading practitioners in her field.

Something similar could well happen at this conference, given that the presence of Sabina Vedovelli seemed to emit a kind of eroticizing gas into the atmosphere of the hotel, affecting all the men and women gathered there. Would anyone succeed in getting to first base with her? As I thought this, I searched for her with my eyes and spotted her at the far end of the room, just as she was putting her tongue in a glass of martini to extract the olive. A long red tongue that was like a living being. Then Rashid pointed to somebody and said, come, let me introduce you to my publisher, he’s the man over there, his name is Ebenezer Lottmann, he runs Tiberias, the largest publishing company in the country, come, you should meet him. We made our way through the human tide until we reached a short, bald man in a tuxedo, who greeted Rashid effusively. After we had been introduced, the little man looked me in the eyes, nodded, and said, it’s a pleasure, my friend, a real pleasure, but before we say anything else I need to tell you something: one of your books is being considered by Tiberias, our editorial board is very selective and I haven’t heard anything from them yet; I prefer to tell you that now, in order not to raise false hopes. Don’t worry, Mr. Lottmann, I hastened to reply, the fact is, I didn’t even know my agent had submitted anything to you, but he insisted, I prefer to be honest from the start, I’m surrounded by writers who want to get their friends published, and of course Rashid is no exception, but I want to make it quite clear that if the verdict of the editorial board is a negative one it won’t have been through any fault of mine, let alone of your friend Rashid’s, don’t think that, the board is very selective, as I already said. .

I turned my back on him and walked away in irritation. His harangue was starting to ruin the party for me, but Rashid caught up with me and said, wait, he’s a good man, just a bit distrustful, as you know, everyone has some stupid flaw in their character, and his is that he’s a bit arrogant, but I assure you he’s worth it. I thanked Rashid, and said, I know the world is full of rich, arrogant people, but I think it’s time I went to bed, I’m tired. Come even if it’s only for a minute, he insisted, and the little man, who had heard my words, approached saying, don’t worry about Rashid, really, if publication with Tiberias isn’t assured it’s not because of him, you must try to understand that we’re very selective, so I said, I understand that perfectly well, but this scene strikes me as absurd, I have no idea what happens to my books until things actually work out and I have to give my agreement or sign a contract, do you follow me? so I’m not expecting anything at all from you, because until thirty seconds ago I didn’t even know you existed, got that?

The little man tilted his head to one side and looked at me gravely, in silence, then, suddenly, he gave a smile that spread all over his face to such an extent that it distorted it, contracting muscles and making his eyes bloodshot, and he said, almost cried, excellent! really excellent, friends, a little masterpiece! Was that prepared or was it an improvisation? At that moment I also laughed and decided to have another whiskey, one last one, because I was starting to like the little man.

You should know, dear friend, that Tiberias has the most demanding editorial board in the publishing world, because it works like an inverted pyramid: at the bottom are the least perceptive, those who can only spot obvious mistakes in construction and characterization, but then, at the second level, the book or manuscript begins its Stations of the Cross, because I want you to know that the same system applies to everyone, even Rashid had to experience this Via Dolorosa, dolorous indeed, if you’ll pardon the expression, climbing through every level until it reaches the top of the pyramid, where I sit, the final stone, and I want you to know that just because I’ve worked my way up from the bottom doesn’t mean I’m in any way indulgent toward the candidates, no sir, quite the contrary, when I know perfectly well that I run the best publishing company in my language, how could it be any other way, do you see that?

I told him I did, and, my curiosity aroused now, asked him what Latin American authors he had in his catalog, and he replied, ah, well, that’s another matter, it’s no secret to anyone that Tiberias publishes the most exclusive products of the human mind, hence the difficulties of selection and, of course, the huge disappointment of those who remain on the outside, which has brought us, believe me, a great deal of criticism, my God, they’ve said the most horrible things about us, but all that, as you can imagine, is a product of envy and frustration, which is understandable on a human level, I know that a rejection from us is a tragic occurrence to an author and I understand that the natural thing is to search for extra-literary reasons, to play the aggrieved victim, or claim that there is some kind of personal vendetta against him, can you imagine, most of those who remain on the outside of what I call the “Tiberias ladder” react with anger and immediately swell the ranks of our most embittered critics and enemies, oh, my friend, you look surprised but I assure you that’s the way it is, and that’s why I dare to ask you, to beg you, if we reject your book, not to be tempted by hate, antipathy, or resentment, don’t do it, I implore you, stay away from those resentful coteries, because in the long run it achieves nothing, none of the more spirited refutees has ever gotten in with subsequent books, while those who choose the stoic path of resignation, with integrity and a vision of the future, always get a second chance, and believe me, we have had notable cases of condemned men who swallowed their pride and persevered and in the end saw their books in the sky blue covers of Tiberias, yes sir! and as he said this, he raised his glass and said, a toast to forbearance and tolerance, and the three of us drank.