Collected Fictions

Guayaquil*

Now I shall never see the peak of Higuereta mirrored in the waters of the Golfo Plácido, never make my journey to the Western State, never visit that library (which I, here in Buenos Aires, picture in so many different ways, though it must have its own precise existence, contain its own lengthening shadows) where I was to unriddle the handwriting of Bolivar.

As I reread the foregoing paragraph in order to compose the next one, I am surprised by its tone at once melancholy and pompous. It may be that one cannot speak about that Caribbean republic without echoing, however remotely, the monumental style of its most famous historiographer, Capt. Józef Korzeniowski; but in my case there is another reason—that first paragraph was dictated by the intention, deep within me, to imbue a mildly painful and altogether trivial incident with a tone of pathos. But I will relate what happened with absolute honesty; that, perhaps, will help me understand it.

After all, when one confesses to an act, one ceases to be an actor in it and becomes its witness, becomes a man that observes and narrates it and no longer the man that performed it.

The incident happened to me last Friday in this same room I am writing in now, at this same hour of the afternoon (though today is somewhat cooler). I know that we tend to forget unpleasant things; I want to record my conversation with Dr. Eduardo Zimmermann (of our sister university to the south) before it is blurred by forgetfulness. My memory of it now is still quite vivid.

The story can be better understood, perhaps, with a brief recounting of the curious drama surrounding certain letters written by Simón Bolívar, "the Liberator of the Americas." These letters were recently exhumed from the files of the distinguished historian don José Avellanos, whose Historiade cincuenta años de desgobierno["A History of Fifty Years of Misrule"] was itself initially believed lost (under circumstances which no one can fail to be familiar with), then discovered and published in 1939 by his grandson, Dr. Ricardo Avellanos. To judge by references I have gathered from various publications, most of these letters are of no great interest, but there is one, dated from Cartagena on August 13,1822, in which Bolivar is said to give the details of his famous meeting in Guayaquil with Gen. José de San Martín.*One cannot overstress the value of a document in which Bolivar reveals, even if only partially, what took place at that encounter. Ricardo Avellanos, a staunch opponent of his country's current government, refused to surrender the correspondence to the Academy of History; he offered it, instead, to several Latin American republics. Thanks to the admirable zeal of our ambassador, Dr. Melaza, the government of the Argentine was the first to accept Avellanos' disinterested offer. It was decided that a delegate would be sent to Sulaco, the capital of our neighbor country, to make copies of the letters and publish them here. The chancellor of our university, where I am professor of Latin American history, was so kind as to recommend my name to the minister of education as the person to carry out that mission; I also obtained the more or less unanimous support of the National Academy of History, of which I am a member. Just as the date was set for my interview with the minister, we learned that the University of the South (which I prefer to think was unaware of these decisions) had proposed the name of Dr. Zimmermann.

Dr. Eduardo Zimmermann, as the reader perhaps may know, is a foreign-born historian driven from his homeland by the Third Reich and now an Argentine citizen. Of his professional work (doubtlessly estimable), I know at first hand only an article in vindication of the Semitic republic of Carthage (which posterity has judged through the writings of Roman historians, its enemies) and an essay of sorts which contends that government should function neither visibly nor by appeal to emotion. This hypothesis was thought worthy of refutation by Martin Heidegger, who proved decisively (using photocopies of newspaper headlines) that the modern head of state, far from being anonymous, is in fact the protagonistes, the khoragos, the David whose dancing (assisted by the pageantry of the stage, and with unapologetic recourse to the hyperboles of the art of rhetoric) enacts the drama of his people.

Heidegger likewise proved that Zimmermann was of Hebrew, not to say Jewish, descent. That article by the venerable existentialist was the immediate cause of our guest's exodus and subsequent nomadism.

Zimmermann had no doubt come to Buenos Aires in order to meet the minister; the minister's personal suggestion, made to me through the intermediary of a secretary, was that, in order to forestall the unpleasant spectacle of our country's two universities disputing for the one prize, it be myself who spoke to Zimmermann, to apprise him of where the matter stood. Naturally, I agreed. When I returned home, I was informed that Dr. Zimmermann had phoned to tell me he was coming that evening at six. I live, as most people know, on Calle Chile.* It was exactly six o'clock when the doorbell rang.

With republican simplicity, I opened the door to Dr. Zimmermann myself and led him toward my private study. He paused to look at the patio; the black and white tiles, the two magnolia trees, and the wellhead drew his admiration. He was, I think, a bit nervous. There was nothing particularly striking about him; he was a man in his forties with a rather large head. His eyes were hidden by dark glasses, which he would occasionally lay on the table and then put back on again. When we shook hands, I noted with some satisfaction that I was the taller, but I was immediately ashamed of my smugness, since this was not to be a physical or even spiritual duel, but simplya mise aupoint, a "getting down to brass tacks," as some might say, though perhaps a rather uncomfortable one. I am a poor observer, but I do recall what a certain poet once called, with ugliness befitting the thing described, his "inelegant sartorial arrangements."

I can still see his bright blue suit, much encumbered with buttons and pockets. His necktie, I noticed, was one of those stage magician's bow ties attached with two plastic clips. He was carrying a leather briefcase that I assumed was full of documents. He wore a well-trimmed, military-style mustache; during the course of our conversation he lighted a cigar, and at that, I felt there were too many things on that face. Trop meublé, I said to myself.

The linear nature of language, wherein each word occupies its own place on the page and its own instant in the reader's mind, unduly distorts the things we would make reference to; in addition to the visual trivialities that I have listed, the man gave one the impression of a past dogged by adversity.

On the wall in my office hangs an oval portrait of my great-grandfather, who fought in the wars of independence, and there are one or two glass cases around the room, containing swords, medals, and flags. I showed Zimmermann those old objets de la gloire and explained where some of them had come from; he would look at them quickly, like a man performing his duty, and (not without some impertinence, though I believe it was an involuntary and mechanical tic) complete my information. He would say, for example:

"Correct. Battle of Junin. August 6, 1824. Cavalry charge under Juárez."

"Suárez,"I corrected.

I suspect that the error was deliberate.

"My first error," he exclaimed, opening his arms in an Oriental gesture, "and assuredly not my last! I live upon texts, and I get hopelessly muddled; in you, however, the fascinating past quite literally lives."

He pronounced the v almost as if it were an f.

Such fawning did not endear the man to me.

Zimmermann found my books more interesting. His eyes wandered over the titles almost lovingly, and I recall that he said:

"Ah, Schopenhauer, who never believed in history.... In Prague I had that same edition, Grisebach's, and I believed that I would grow old in the company of those volumes that were so comfortable in one's hand—but it was History itself, embodied in one senseless man, that drove me from that house and that city.

And here I am in the New World, in your lovely home, with you...."

He spoke the language fluently, but not without error; a noticeable German accent coexisted with the lisping s's of the Spanish peninsula.

We had taken a seat by now, and I seized upon those last words in order to get down to our business.

"Here, history is kinder," I said. "I expect to die in this house, where I was born. It was to this house that my great-grandfather, who had been all over the continent, returned when he brought home that sword; it is in this house that I have sat to contemplate the past and write my books. I might almost say that I have never left this library—but now, at last, I am to leave it, to journey across the landscape I have only traveled on maps."

I softened my possible rhetorical excess with a smile.

"Are you referring to a certain Caribbean republic?"Zimmermann asked.

"Quite right," I replied. "I believe that it is to that imminent journey that I owe the honor of your visit."

Trinidad brought in coffee.

"You are surely aware," I went on with slow assurance, "that the minister has entrusted me with the mission of transcribing and writing an introduction to the letters of Bolivar that chance has disinterred from the files of Dr. Avellanos. This mission, with a sort of fortunate fatality, crowns my life's labor, the labor that is somehow in my blood."

It was a relief to me to have said what I had to say. Zimmermann seemed not to have heard me; his eyes were on not my face but the books behind me. He nodded vaguely, and then more emphatically.

"In your blood. You are the true historian. Your family roamed the lands of the Americas and fought great battles, while mine, obscure, was barely emerging from the ghetto. History flows in your veins, as you yourself so eloquently say; all you have to do is listen, attentively, to that occult voice. I, on the other hand, must travel to Sulaco and attempt to decipher stacks and stacks of papers—papers which may finally turn out to be apocryphal. Believe me, professor, when I say I envy you."

I could sense no trace of mockery in those words; they were simply the expression of a will that made the future as irrevocable as the past. Zimmermann's arguments were the least of it, however; the power lay in the man, not in the dialectic. He continued with a pedagogue's deliberateness:

"In all things regarding Bolivar—San Martin, I mean, of course—your own position, my dear professor, is universally acknowledged. Votre siège est fait, l have not yet read the letter in question, but it is inevitable, or certainly reasonable, to hypothesize that Bolivar wrote it as self-justification. At any rate, the much-talked-about epistle will reveal to us only what we might call the Bolivar—not San Martin—side of the matter. Once it is published, it will have to be weighed, examined, passed through the critical sieve, as it were, and, if necessary, refuted. There is no one more qualified to hand down that ultimate verdict than yourself, with your magnifying glass. And scalpel! if scientific rigor so requires! Allow me furthermore to add that the name of the person who presents the letter to the world will always remain linked to the letter. There is no way, professor, that such a yoking can be in your interest. The common reader does not readily perceive nuances."

I now realize that our subsequent debate was essentially pointless. Perhaps I even sensed as much then; in order not to face that possibility, I grasped at one thing he had said and asked Zimmermann whether he really believed the letters were apocryphal.

"Even if they were written by Bolivar himself," he replied, "—that does not mean they contain the whole truth. Bolivar may have wished to delude his correspondent, or may simply have been deluding himself.

You, a historian, a contemplative, know better than I that the mystery lies within ourselves, and not in words."

The man's grandiloquent generalities irritated me, so I curtly observed that within the Great Enigma that surrounds us, the meeting in Guayaquil, in which Gen. San Martin renounced mere ambition and left the fate of the continent in the hands of Bolivar, is also an enigma worth studying.

"There are so many explanations ..." Zimmermann replied. "There are those who speculate that San Martin fell into a trap. Others, such as Sarmiento, contend that he was in essence a European soldier, lost on a continent he never understood; others still—Argentines, generally—maintain that he acted out of abnegation; yet others, out of weariness. There are even those who speak of a secret order from some Masonic lodge."

I remarked that be all that as it might, it would be interesting to recover the precise words spoken between the Protector of Peru and the Liberator of the Americas.

"It is possible,"Zimmermann pontificated, "that the words they exchanged were trivial. Two men met in Guayaquil; if one prevailed, it was because he possessed the stronger will, not because of dialectical games. As you see, I have not forgotten my Schopenhauer."

Then, with a smile he added:

"Words, words, words. Shakespeare, the unparalleled master of words, held them in contempt. In Guayaquil or in Buenos Aires, or in Prague, they always count for less than people do."

At that moment I felt that something was happening—or rather, that something had already happened.

Somehow, we were now different. Twilight was stealing upon the room and I had not lighted the lamps.

A little aimlessly I asked:

"You are from Prague, professor?"

"I was from Prague," he answered.

In order to avoid the central subject, I remarked:

"It must be a strange city. I am not familiar with it, but the first book I ever read in German was The Golem, by Meyrink."

"That is the only book by Gustav Meyrink that deserves to be remembered,"Zimmermann replied. "The others, which are concoctions of bad literature and worse theosophy, one is best not to like.

Nevertheless, there is something of Prague's strangeness to be found in that book of dreams dissolving into further dreams. Everything is strange in Prague—or, if you prefer, nothing is strange. Anything can happen. In London one afternoon, I had the same sensation."

"You mentioned will," I replied. "In the Mabinogion, you may recall, two kings are playing chess on the summit of a hill, while on the plain below, their armies clash in battle. One of the kings wins the game; at that instant, a horseman rides up with the news that the other king's army has been defeated. The battle of men on the battlefield below was the reflection of the battle on the chessboard."

"Ah, a magical operation,"Zimmermann said.

"Or the manifestation," I said, "of one will acting upon two distinct battlegrounds. Another Celtic legend tells of the duel of two famous bards. One, accompanying himself on the harp, sang from the coming of day to the coming of twilight. Then, when the stars or the moon came out, the first bard handed the harp to the second, who laid the instrument aside and rose to his feet. The first singer admitted defeat."

"What erudition! What power of synthesis!" exclaimed Zimmermann. Then, in a calmer voice, he added:

"I must confess my ignorance, my lamentable ignorance, of la matière de Bretaigne. You, like the day, embrace both East and West, while I hold down my small Carthaginian corner, which I now expand a bit with a tentative step into New World history. But I am a mere plodder."

The servility of the Jew and the servility of the German were in his voice, though I sensed that it cost him nothing to defer to me, even flatter me, given that the victory was his.

He begged me not to concern myself about the arrangements for his trip. ("Negotiatives" was the horrendous word he used.) Then in one motion he extracted from his briefcase a letter addressed to the minister, in which I explained the reasons for my withdrawal and listed the acknowledged virtues of Dr. Zimmermann, and he laid in my hand his fountain pen so that I might sign it. When he put the letter away, I could not help seeing in his briefcase his stamped ticket for the Ezeiza Sulaco flight.

As he was leaving, he paused again before the shelf of Schopenhauer.

"Our teacher, our master—our common master—surmised that no act is unintentional. If you remain in this house, in this elegant patrician house, it is because deep inside, you wish to. I respect your wish, and am grateful."

I received these final alms from Zimmermann without a word.

I went with him to the door.

"Excellent coffee," he said, as we were saying our goodbyes.

I reread these disordered pages, which I will soon be consigning to the fire. Our interview had been short.

I sense that now I will write no more. Mon siège est fait.