Álvaro Enrigue - Sudden Death

The line about God and the King was indeed one of her husband’s favorite sayings, the widow said, and he would utter it when one of his men or some priest dared to suggest that what he was doing might be improper for or unbecoming of a Christian. But the best part, her mother concluded, was the rest of it: The ball on the right is the Holy Father and the one on the left is the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Your father was an old bastard, she said in Nahuatl, to the delight of the ladies she had brought from Cuernavaca.

Juana didn’t remember this extra bit that her mother recited with a laugh. The old woman thought for a moment and then said that Juana must have added “I play with them when I like,” thinking that her father meant the balls for Basque pelota, which he played with other war veterans. And do you miss him, Juana asked, touching the belly in which Catalina was already splashing, the girl who in time would marry Pedro Téllez Girón, Duke of Osuna. Who? Father. He was old and rich by the time I had him, the poor thing; he imagined that he was a real nobleman and tried to behave like a gentleman. She laughed again, a bit hysterically, and said: He was a wolf in a fine cap. But did you like him? The widow opened her eyes wide and dropped her embroidery on her lap to underscore the drama of her words: Who wouldn’t like him; he was Hernán Cortés, se los xingó a todos . Or, in Juana’s polite translation for the benefit of the ladies and maids who didn’t speak Mexican Spanish: He fucked everybody.

From: Teresa Astrain

June 12, 2013

To: Me

Subject: Second Pass

Álvaro, here are the files. One with corrections (just a few) and a couple of queries. The other is a clean version, for search purposes. For now it has the latest title, handwritten. Too bad the subtitle is just one syllable too long.

Now the ball is on your roof. Have at it.

Besos and onward,

Teresa

On 6/12/13 19:26, “Álvaro Enrigue” wrote:

Dear Teresa,

Can I use this e-mail you just sent me in the new novel? As is. And tell me: Do you know where “the ball is on your roof” comes from? The novel — which you’ll be seeing soon if Jorge decides he wants it — is all about balls and courts.

Besos,

Á.

On June 13, 2013 17:02, Teresa Astrain wrote:

Somehow I knew that ball on your roof thing wasn’t an actual expression. It means your turn.

Please, please, please send the proofs back soon.

Besos,

Teresa

On 6/13/13 17:18, “Álvaro Enrigue” wrote:

But you haven’t answered my question, cara Teresa: Do you know where it comes from?

The new subtitle should be “Dinero, letras y cursilería.” A little bit of tweaking and now it scans — a perfect hendecasyllable.

Besos,

Á.

On June 13, 2013 17:23, Teresa Astrain wrote:

So we finally have a subtitle. I stayed late yesterday playing with syllables, but I couldn’t get it down to eleven, not with all the accents in the right places. You win. Now send the damned proofs.

Teresa

The Lombard was unstoppable at first, but then he got distracted. The score was love–30 when two women came by the court. They had just lunched and were dressed like what they were: whores. The Spaniard was so deep in the game that he didn’t register their arrival. But his linesman sat lost in contemplation of them for a moment, because there was something familiar about these women and because they were truly fantastic pieces of tail. Despite the sporting rivalry between Italy and Spain on the tennis court, Osuna was sitting nearly shoulder to shoulder with the Lombard’s linesman, so he could almost smell the women.

Without removing his gaze from their enticing skirts, the duke ran through the images he retained of the previous night. These two hadn’t been at the brothel or the tavern. It took him a while to pinpoint where he’d seen them: in a painting that he’d had the leisure to examine as he and the poet waited endlessly for an audience with a banker. The whores appeared in it as models for Martha and her cousin Mary Magdalene.

The matter was resolved when he recognized a seductive flaw — a big mark like a continent on Martha’s chin — which the painter had copied just as it was. They had even discussed it: Who would put a saint infected with some contagion in a painting? The poet had pointed out that Mary Magdalene, played by a strikingly lovely and spirited model, was holding the mirror of vanity in a hand with a crooked finger. The world turned upside down, he said.

Martha sat down next to Saint Matthew — an old cock among falcons — as if to calm the flurry that she and her friend had roused in the gallery. Meanwhile, Mary Magdalene, as defiant in the piazza as in her painted role of saint brought low by life, remained standing by the railing: her ass cocked, her cleavage a declaration of war. When she leaned forward, the duke noticed that the middle finger of her left hand was crooked. The artist who painted her hand hadn’t twisted reality to suit the biblical tale, he had done the opposite: he had twisted the biblical tale by painting reality. The duke raised his eyes a little and fixed them on Mary Magdalene’s breasts. He recognized them: they were, of course, the most defiant pair of tits in the history of art.

When the Spaniards had been received in the trophy hall of the banker’s palace, they’d had a look at another eye-catching painting, in which the same woman — he hadn’t realized it until just now, seeing her in person — appeared in a biblical scene, more jarring than the first, of a beheading in a bedchamber. The work was still propped on a chair: a place hadn’t been found for it yet, lacking as it was in decorum.

It was an oil painting depicting the moment when Judith, having seduced the Assyrian general Holofernes, beheads him as he sleeps. The painting is bloody, but it also stirs up other things: in it, the model and courtesan looks more sensuous than vengeful as she slits the throat of the enemy of the people of Israel. She’s seriously hot: her nipples are so hard that they show through her blouse, almost bursting out of it. The painting isn’t a heroic portrayal of a Jewish nationalist committing the patriotic act of killing the oppressor of her people but the portrait of a killer who finds carnal pleasure in spilling the blood of the man whose semen still runs down the inside of her thighs. The odd look on her face isn’t an expression of revulsion at the evildoer overcome or disgust at having to behead him; it’s an expression of pleasure: an orgasm.

Unlike the poet, who was still deep in the game, the artist let himself be distracted, and more: when the match permitted — and even when it didn’t — he added his own shouts to the jests of the audience, making ridiculous flourishes to return the ball, blowing kisses to Mary Magdalene.

Cacce per lo spagnolo, cried the mathematician after the poet’s last point, his fourth in a row since the arrival of the whores. The duke hurried onto the court to gather up his dividends from the line where the coins were stacked. It was a generous handful, the poet noted, because the professional gamblers were still mostly favoring the painter, even though the poet had a comfortable lead.

He didn’t remark upon it to the duke, who put the coins in his pocket and then handed him a handkerchief to dry his sweat. He took his time fanning himself with the rag before beginning to wipe his torso. He even moved into the shadow of the gallery to put on the second shirt of the match, as gentlemen did. The Lombard was still wearing the same black shirt he’d had on since the night before, and very likely since the day he’d bought it. He was standing on the court, hands resting on the rail, just in front of Mary Magdalene, who was in the gallery; he had rested his head on her chest, as if accepting that his own body was defeating him.