No Variations (Argentinian Literature Series) (34 page)

#29

Delayed
relief
in the story of Rebatet’s music:

“Boulez—who was not yet thirty—provided an example, which fitted well with the accounts of his countless enemies, especially the ‘classical’ dodecaphonists, of those sessions he devoted to vomiting out diatribes: ‘Let’s leave them to surrender themselves, alone or in groups, to frenetic, arrhythmic masturbations. They don’t ask more of us: they know only how to count to twelve, and then in multiples of twelve. Nothing even remotely interesting may remain.’ ” (Compare with Oliverio Lester’s preface.)

Final. All in:
The Legend of the Writers without Stories

(in the reproaches of the title, Joseph Roth (
Holy Drinker
). Not wholly feasible)

Certitude not yet reached

24. Ekaterinodar, April 23, 1899 [sic]

While the revolution (if one can call it that) was progressing, Ouspensky—before meeting Gurdjuieff, and before he was Ouspensky—lived in Ekaterinodar, “the cheapest place in Russia,” he wrote, a place where it was possible to indulge one’s tastes, to luxuriate, a city where he dedicated himself to observation, so that he could note how it contrasted with the ferocious cost of living, for example, and consequent spiritual enervation that typified the rest of mother Russia. Such is life. That wasn’t Europe. Or was it? And did it really matter? Ouspensky, the greatest economist of the twentieth century, whom everyone in that great wasteland nonetheless denigrated—everyone in that Grand Hotel Abîme, property of Lukács and Houdini—was at least famous in Moscow, his native city, famous and respected and referred to by his given name—perro pila—by the police—manto negro—because … Because, when drunk, instead of provoking fights, he’d endeavor to stop them.

In the roguish and puerile kingdom of speculation and despection.

Please, don’t tell me about the translations. I don’t want to know. To be informed of the disastrous oversight of writing without an agent or publisher. I don’t care if Prosan is translating it for both Gallimard and Faber & Faber. In fact, I don’t even consider the news to be bad. I have none of the dermatological symptoms of envy. I was born and raised—what a disappointment—having never experienced an outbreak. Nothing, nada, zilch. The definitive proof of the decline is, after all, the dodecaphony of the fault:
The loss of the kingdom that was only for me
.

One time, we were the last ones left, waiting for a performance of I know not what. Tango bar. Eduardo Rovira. Café Concert. Gustavo Kerestezachi. A swap, some tickets in exchange for a notice (an ad, placed, in case I ever became famous in Spain). It was a Friday. The “we” were Nurlihrt, Luini, and me. We were the last ones there, waiting for who knows what.
Friday nights
, said Luini,
bring promises of naked shoulders and champagne
,
and that’s what we like
. Let’s say Viamonte and Reconquista. We went down quite a few steps, staggering, tarrying, reeling, because we decided to go drunk, so even those few steps we managed to negotiate without a hitch, seemed like many. A scene within touching distance. An upright piano. We took our seats and asked for the most expensive. A woman took care of it, a lady who was surely famous and whom we treated as if we knew she was famous. Then the waiter came, whom we treated as if we were the ones who were famous.

An adult male was singing. He had striking eyes and a hippopotamus’s gaze. He was holding a glossy bag for some reason, and was wearing a horrible violet and beige cravat. We’d seen him before on occasion. He’d grown so fat in the last few months, he was struggling to sing, whether standing or sitting. Grizzled and rotund, with two lateral streaks of dandruff on the collar, he tried to appear relaxed speaking English, although he mispronounced almost every consonant and distorted all the vowels. Like Charlie Parker, he was lacking a canine, which lack its base metal replacement threw into relief. There I met my tenant, my landlady here: Chiquita Zucco Lezcano, whom the reader—although I don’t provide a key—will recognize as being better known by the name, Ilaria Prior.

D
ON’T BOTHER ME ANYMORE WITH YOUR DOUBTS AND JUST PAY THEM FOR THE TRIP
. I
F YOU DID IT WITH THE MAGNANIMOUS AND SPECULATIVE IGNORANCE OF AN INVOLUNTARY PARIAH, LEAVE IT TO THEM TO DO THE WORK OF TRULY APPRECIATING IT
. B
LESSED BE THE LAST PAYCHECK
.

26. Colony. December 15, 1958 (sic)

Serendipity. I am going: to Sarandipti del Yi. Island.

Arrecife. Castling (no traveling to the North Pole on a tricycle: (??!) To Sri Lanka in a skiff like back in the days of yore. I dressed in manly robes. Horripilated. Arundel. From here. Dying of pain, since they don’t keep out the cold. Hither: Ekaterinodar, the paradise (which is ever the cheapest principality, thanks to speculative business dealings, and hence, the wealthiest in Europe, but the condominium still managed between the Alpine and Uralic authorities still isn’t mine: I [who] inherited nothing. Adir. Nadir. (Note
adir
is a verb and
nadir
not.) Abur. So long. No more the old oversight of Juvenal’s satire. I want to stay asleep. Sleep the siesta. To love. To fear. Elena systole, Elena diastole. Rítmo hesicástico. Suddenly I noticed—yes sir, pray tell—that it’s a matter of conversion (that no, that he hasn’t seen) the light of implacable Zion, having seen the abyss, the serrated cesura, sitzfleisch, he waits to see his friend to hand him the handsaw (toothed. The stammering fern.) Gather the diminishing desire to finish! At this time of night, this Edomitish night, in the Washington Barbot, político colorado, I welcome you to my
Bar Mitzvah
. Ruined by the sight of this chain of hotels—of which the one that now shadows me isn’t even famous—I give up. Cualunque. On embarking, on taking a leap, I’d like to make my way gropingly when—as I already said—I head for Sri Lanka. Back in Serendipity del Yi. In a skiff. A rolling skiff or gunboat, the means of escape, and to some—some followers—the means of giving up. Followers like a supporting cast. I who once had asthma. Asthma and Family, book of a graduate friend I once had, who, once in a while, did corrections for me. Corinaldesi, proceeds from the neglected friend. Grébano! But who will have done—I now wonder—the technical revision (as we said before)? What neglect!
Which reminds me
, the appointment I made—to please the others— for a medical checkup is still pending, although it’s still some time away. My art doesn’t stop for checkups. It doesn’t leave footprints. Not a single lively idea lies in its wake. How marvelous! It finishes them off without having to kill them.

1997–2003

About the Author

L
UIS
C
HITARRONI
was born in Buenos Aires in 1958. He is a writer, critic, and editor, and has to date published two novels and two collections of nonfiction and critical writing.

D
ARREN
K
OOLMAN
is a poet and literary translator from Spanish, French, and Dutch.

Selected Dalkey Archive Titles

M
ICHAL
A
JVAZ
,
The Golden Age
.

The Other City
.

P
IERRE
A
LBERT
-B
IROT
,
Grabinoulor
.

Y
UZ
A
LESHKOVSKY
,
Kangaroo
.

F
ELIPE
A
LFAU
,
Chromos
.

Locos
.

I
VAN
Â
NGELO
,
The Celebration
.

The Tower of Glass
.

A
NTÓNIO
L
OBO
A
NTUNES
, Knowledge of Hell
.

The Splendor of Portugal
.

A
LAIN
A
RIAS
-M
ISSON
, Theatre of Incest
.

J
OHN
A
SHBERY
AND
J
AMES
S
CHUYLER
,

A Nest of Ninnies
.

R
OBERT
A
SHLEY
,
Perfect Lives
.

G
ABRIELA
A
VIGUR
-R
OTEM
,
Heatwave and Crazy Birds
.

D
JUNA
B
ARNES
,
Ladies Almanack
.

Ryder
.

J
OHN
B
ARTH
,
LETTERS
.

Sabbatical
.

D
ONALD
B
ARTHELME
,
The King
.

Paradise
.

S
VETISLAV
B
ASARA
,
Chinese Letter
.

M
IQUEL
B
AUÇÀ
,
The Siege in the Room
.

R
ENÉ
B
ELLETTO
,
Dying
.

M
AREK
B
IE
CZYK
,
Transparency
.

A
NDREI
B
ITOV
,
Pushkin House
.

A
NDREJ
B
LATNIK
,
You Do Understand
.

L
OUIS
P
AUL
B
OON
,
Chapel Road
.

My Little War
.

Summer in Termuren
.

R
OGER
B
OYLAN
,
Killoyle
.

I
GNÁCIO
DE
L
OYOLA
B
RANDÃO
,

Anonymous Celebrity
.

Zero
.

B
ONNIE
B
REMSER
, Troia: Mexican Memoirs
.

C
HRISTINE
B
ROOKE
-R
OSE
,
Amalgamemnon
.

B
RIGID
B
ROPHY
,
In Transit
.