No Variations (Argentinian Literature Series) (23 page)

Venus Rattlesnake—Venus Cascabel in the Spanish translation—an elegant woman and dedicated socialite, soon became the most important character in the everyday life of “the publishers.”

Under cover of daylight she was called Prunella Crane. She had a husband, two children, and a lapdog, Toon (Chasco, according to the local version). She was affiliated with many charitable organizations. She used to consult the tarot as well as dabbling in many other kinds of sortilege. She ran a small and exclusive cosmetics company,
Liliata Rutilantium
. The names of her husband—Adam Hapwood—and of her children—Silvia and Bruno—were irrelevant, [at the end of the day], but not Chasco’s, because, at the end of the day—literally, after nightfall—Chasco became Rascal (Rapáz, in our Spanish editions), and he ceased to be a mere lapdog, becoming instead a ferocious bandog, guarding her—Prunella, who at nightfall became Venus Cascabel—during her secret meetings at which someone’s execution was discussed, among other things; or accompanying her and her henchmen in taking part in “sanguinary orgies,” to quote our blurbs (the originals in English were anemic and overly descriptive). I transcribe the metaphorical enthusiasm of the early days: “As if it had been the sea, an orgy of sarcasm from which spawned two fish of human aspect.”

The first two episodes,
Massacre in Hoboken
and
The Bullet in the Footprint
, introduced Prunella’s ally and occasional enemy: the private detective, Tecumseh Talbot. Bearish and sullen in disposition, a womanizer by predilection, he was of Sioux or Shawnee extraction, and was plagued by odontological and intestinal problems. The masterful description of a toothache compares with that of the battle of the “serendips” [“sapajous” in the original] in
The Clashing of Penknives in Brooklyn Heights
, in which the Cascabel’s business affairs led to her arbitrating a dispute between gang members.

From the sixth or seventh issue, it was evident Venus had lost a lot of ground to Tecumseh. In the eight,
Chicano Cocktail
, a new character was introduced, Silveyra (thereafter called, without explanation, Silvero), who dominates most of the action in this most over-the-top and remiss of the novelettes. For this reason, it is said, Venus came to respect Silvero. Tecumseh, on the other hand, despised him “because he’d murdered two of the best.” In
Orange Juice for One
, my favorite, we discover that Venus’s apparent misgivings about Silvero were only a show. She’d been completely and unambiguously in love with him, “a gentleman of some fifty years, white-haired and elegant, a silver fox whose boundless gentility had been a flue for his criminal impulses.”

The original North American edition was published by Dout, a short-lived eighties version of Dell publishers (the eighties, decade of ephemera). Gustavo, editor of the local Spanish edition, had read the original English with gusto. But he noted one irregularity: The English series stops at issue sixteen, whereas our Spanish one keeps going, now with the garrulous tongue unrestrained. When I began working at Beehaitchhaitch, we were about to print issue twenty-one.

Sad Skin of the Universe:

I can’t use Tecumseh (whom I cribbed from Wilson’s
Patriotic Gore
), because Rex Stout (whom I know through Nero Wolfe) has a second investigator by the name of Tecumseh Fox. But the coincidence is worth the trouble, I so loved Nero.

And if the investigator was English? What would an Englishman be doing there? It is characteristic of the English, as Stevenson notes, to always be there.
Verisimilitude
(Brother Gerundio, Brother Gozne, Brother Alpe) …

Antagonist of the last chapter: Regina Constrictor.

On considering these variants: Prosan’s point of view, that of a woman who was in love with Nurlihrt (Prosan seems to have had the [good] fortune to know her), and from the point of view expressed by Nurlihrt himself—whom the woman in question, while seated in a canvas chair [taking in the sun], had interviewed the day before. From what I could gather, Lester wasn’t very impressed. But Prosan’s enthusiasm didn’t need encouraging. I recall meeting Nurlihrt about three months afterwards (the second-last time I saw him), before he’d closed down his office. He rejected the story, telling Lester it was “an incredibly banal version of Rashomon,” and invited the “wheedler” (Lester) to try dissuading the author, who was obsequiously willing to rewrite the whole thing. Although I can attest to Prosan’s scrupulous literality, it’s obvious he hadn’t detected in the writer’s monologue the same superabundant, highfalutin prose, the same tautologies, the same gimmicky hallmarks the senile founder of
Agraphia
exhibited to a journalist he was one day going to marry. There are so many errors, anachronisms, and stylistic defects in this bathetic rubbish, but I vow to shut up as long as it’s not included in the volume. It would save us having to waste the whole budget in bowing to your request for a “thorough edit and correction of the volume.”

People so complacent they haven’t prepared their spouses for the prospect of abandonment. Predominance of cruelty. Predominance of self-reproach.

The Myope’s Nightlife

In compensation for his lack of vigilance, the Myope’s nightlife should be exclusively oneiric. We grant that nightmares are members of that genus, but we must frequently remind ourselves that this is the case.

Discard Tecumseh and the imitation of James since the publication of Lodge and Tóibín books. Horrible incursion of reality when trying to write and organize a novel. O therapy.

Post Scriptum 2004 (summary)

NO to “Occupation” after Lodge and Tóibín. Penalty for taking so long. No to the title, too many people dislike it. They believe the word games are taken exclusively from titles published by
Página / 12
. I don’t like giving or receiving orders, but I’m no bastion of common sense, so I’ll acquiesce. Look for other titles then. No to “The Cult of St. Mawr,” which I wrote more quickly because I attributed it to the fake author, Eduardo Manjares, in an anthology of stories about London. No to the Tecumseh because there’s already a series of books by Rex Stout (which I haven’t read) with a protagonist called Tecumseh Fox. Change “The Old Bachelor” to “The Referent.” Exclude prologue and epistolary. Try telling the contextual story—the history of
Agraphia
—another way.
Agraphia
or
Alusiva
?

Great shipwreck.

Look for a sequence.

List of edits based on lexical and syntactical habits of Eiralis, who, as news spreads about him throughout
Agraphia / Alusiva
, will be known as the most exacting, the most forceful of redactors.

64 interventions / fragments in total. 41 before the anthology, 23 after.

41 fragments

8 stories Early / The Soup / The Bachelor / St. Mawr / The Visit / Semblance / Replicas / Xochimilco

23 fragments

Or no: 32 and 32 (
Goldberg Variations
) If the general title was “News from Agraphia,” replace News with Crossings

Departure and return

Preparations

1 Precisions

2 News

3 Ceremonies

4 Issues

5 Concealments

6 Emphasis

7 Farewells

8 Repetitions

Pushkiniana suite dispersa

(scan and recite aloud)

It wasn’t good to know or to discover

(or to deceive ourselves into believing)

that yesterday’s most notable act

happened in our infancy (which I now evoke):

the Kirkcaldy tinkers kidnapped

Adam Smith
,
Adam Smith
,
Adam Smith

(a name that resonates with the dessert
,
Balcarce)
.

The Kirkcaldy tinkers (cry
,
little boy
,
cry)

(whose only currency were golden ballads

hid in romanes scrips) kidnapped him. In those

hours stiff

from seizure and delay

you will have experienced
,
dear beagle
,

beloved storyteller

working fulltime

(not a moment of which you spend

fretting over the prodigal Icarus)

A ventriloqual distaste

(yours and/or mine)

for that source

Of wealth

That falls from the master’s table
*:

a scattering of syllables (yours and/or mine)
.

It is a virtuous economy
,
so to speak
.

*
(Avaricious Scotsmen
,

Oídos sordos; far-off militiamen
,

sóngoro cosongo)

1 news

2 emphasis / anecdotes

3 liturgies

4 concealments / calumnies

5 precisions

6 issues / lots

7 preparations

8 farewells / positions

1 news

2 preparations

3 precisions

4 issues

5 emphasis

6 concealments

7 liturgies

8 farewells

sestina sequence [[x6]] reproduce scheme and simplify

precisions

emphasis

liturgies

concealments

issues

calumnies

early

specular soup

semblance

replicas

xochimilco

thunbergias

Sestina takes round trips between fictional and factual references to
Agraphia

6 x 8 48 NO 6 x 9 54. 54 parts of six chapters each

Books from which the fragments that appear under the title “News from
Agraphia / Alusiva
” are taken

Hilarión Curtis:
Bannerless Days
,
The Two Nations

Nicasio Urlihrt:
A Nightcap with Death
,
The X-Positions
, work in progress,
far from complete

Elena Siesta:
Final Drafts
,
The Place of Apparitions
,
Unedited Letters
,
Dead Aunt’s Diary

Oliverio Lester:
Unimportant Details
,
Plan for a Plagiarism
,
Plan for a Preface

Felipe Luini:
Diary of the Surrounding Area