Valeria Luiselli - The Story of My Teeth

I felt the urge to run, the erection that had initially held me back no longer being an impediment. But immediately I realized that there was no point in running. Where would I go? And what good would it do? Instead, I stood up and walked around the room. It was a square no larger than twenty paces across and twenty wide. Bare, except for the four large screens upon which the sleeping clowns were projected. Near the door that had been left ajar, a small wall text read: “Ugo Rondinone. Where do we go from here? Four video installations, sound, ink on wall, wood, yellow neon light.” I pushed the door fully open and peeked out. The room gave onto another, much larger and well illuminated. I crossed the threshold and walked around that larger space. Placed in odd spots and in corners were a series of objects: a billboard featuring a horse inside a hotel room, a sleeping stuffed dog, a couple of plush rat and mouse costumes, a hairy prosthetic leg, a tiny baobab tree, a pile of whistles, a music score on a tripod, and a fake window consisting solely of light thrown onto the wall by halogen spotlights. The last of these I found particularly beautiful, and thought it might be worth collecting, or at least copying the idea for my warehouse, which didn’t have as many windows as a decent place should.

I was trying to gauge how much the spotlights weighed when I heard the same phlegmatic voice in the other room. I sauntered back, taking my time.

Are you still here, Fancioulle?

Where am I supposed to go? I said, returning to sit on my bench.

You said you’d fetch my mother’s VW from the pound, and don’t try to pretend you didn’t. It was your fault they towed it away, Fancioulle.

I didn’t say I’d do anything. Who are you? Where are you?

Here, on your right.

Now I understood. Although the voice was the same, it was now purportedly coming from the direction of the clown in the brightly colored bodysuit. If it was intended to be convincing, this was a really bad production. The second clown was blaming me for having parked a white VW in a space that was obviously for disabled drivers, and, in addition to showing a lack of concern for invalids on my part, it had been, he claimed, an act of extreme passive-aggressive violence toward him and his progenitor. Generalized lack of consideration for others and passive-aggressive violence were, as he went on to explain, typical characteristics of depression. It was, therefore, clear that I was deeply depressed, so he respectfully suggested that I go to a psychologist or psychoanalyst, and he also advised me to sleep at least eight hours a day, stop drinking alcohol, and definitely take a lot of exercise, since that leads to the production of large amounts of serotonin in the cerebellum and the hypothalamus. I interrupted:

Why don’t you go get the VW? What are you doing lying there?

Me? I’m just here, making some thoughts.

What do you mean, making thoughts? You don’t make thoughts.

You might not. I do.

Really? Like what?

Well, right now, for example, I’m thinking that dogs are truly contemptible animals, as well as being dangerous, and that they should be wiped out.

A very profound thought, I said with forced sarcasm. What else?

I’ve also made the thought that Italian politics are ridiculous; that stray cats can turn violent in spite of being almost always good-natured, fiercely independent beings; that abusive couples aren’t at all uncommon; that people are obliging due to fear; that lots of primary school teachers are cruel; that The Little Prince is a book for kitsch forty-somethings; and that it doesn’t make sense to have so many saints in the Gregorian calendar.

Ah, I said, or perhaps I didn’t. Perhaps I only sighed. Or maybe I just breathed.

I also think, for example, that the fact that you’ve forgotten to get the car has to do with Bacon’s parable of the horse’s teeth.

Another parable?

Shut up and pay attention:

In the year of our Lord 1432, there arose a grievous quarrel among the brethren over the number of teeth in the mouth of a horse. For thirteen days the disputation raged without ceasing. All the ancient books and chronicles were fetched out, and wonderful and ponderous erudition such as was never before heard of in this region was made manifest. At the beginning of the fourteenth day, a youthful friar of goodly bearing asked his learned superiors for permission to add a word, and straightway, to the wonderment of the disputants, whose deep wisdom he sore vexed, he beseeched them to unbend in a manner coarse and unheard of and to look in the open mouth of a horse and find the answer to their questionings. At this, their dignity being grievously hurt, they waxed exceeding wroth; and, joining in a mighty uproar, they flew upon him and smote him, hip and thigh, and cast him out forthwith. For, said they, surely Satan hath tempted this bold neophyte to declare unholy and unheard-of ways of finding truth, contrary to all the teachings of the fathers. After many days more of grievous strife, the dove of peace sat on the assembly, and they as one man declaring the problem to be an everlasting mystery because of a grievous dearth of historical and theological evidence thereof, so ordered the same writ down.

I didn’t understand a word of that, I said.

Don’t you think it’s fishy?

In what way?

In the way that you’re a toothless, despicable, old man who doesn’t understand, and forgets things and people.

Maybe you’re right, I said, feeling the shrine to guilt carving out a larger space for itself somewhere in my chest.

And are you going to fetch my car now, small, insignificant, spindle-legged, deceitful, mediocre Fancioulle?

Well, maybe.

The clown said nothing — and his silence went on long enough for me to understand that our conversation had come to an end. Perhaps he was right. Maybe I should go and buy the makeup remover and get the car out of the pound. Anyway, I had nothing else to do. But what an idiotic thought. The clowns were just videos, and the voice was clearly coming in through the loudspeaker from somewhere else. I decided to wait patiently for the voice to sound again.

THE FIRST TIME I felt horror in the presence of a clown was at the age of fifteen or sixteen. I was in Balderas metro station with my friend El Perro. It was just after eleven at night, and we were coming back from playing dominoes on a friend’s rooftop in downtown Mexico City. There was no one else in the station, just El Perro and I, waiting for the last train. At some point, we heard a sort of deep grunting sound, immediately followed by a huff. And again: grunt, huff, grunt. We looked around us — nothing, not a single soul in the station. El Perro went over and looked up the stairs connecting the platforms with the concourse. He stood there for a moment, frozen in astonishment. Then he beckoned me over and put his finger to his lips to indicate that I do so in silence. I moved cautiously toward him. Squatting on the top step, his pants at half-mast, a clown was taking a leisurely shit. I tried to stifle the laugh I felt rising up through my lungs like a nervous reflux, but was too slow. I emitted a sort of sneeze: a laugh passed through the muffler of self-constraint. The clown raised his head and looked into my eyes — he seemed to me like a defenseless animal looking straight at a possible predator, quickly realizing that the stalker is, in fact, its prey. He pulled up his pants and lunged at us. We ran, faster than we had ever before.

Terrified and disoriented, we retraced our path through the labyrinth of passages in Balderas station, looking for an unlocked exit. Rounding the corner of one passage, the clown came within grabbing distance and tackled me. I fell to the ground. He threw himself onto me, like a man throws himself onto a woman who is resisting him. Pinning me down by my lower legs, the clown let his head fall and pushed it into my belly, his button nose embedding itself in my navel. He buried his makeup-plastered face in my white shirt and, to my surprise, burst into tears — I never knew if from shame or natural sadness.