Please Talk to Me: Selected Stories

EARLY BEGINNINGS OR ARS POETICA

In the beginning (but not in the beginning of the beginning) a horse is going up in the lift. I know he is brown, but what I don’t know is how he got there or what he is going to do when the lift comes to a stop. As far as that is concerned, the horse is quite different from the lion. And not only because the lion climbs the stairs in a reasonable manner, but also because, above all, the appearance of the lion has a logical explanation. I say to myself: there are lions in Africa. I say to myself: lions walk. I ask myself: if they walk, why don’t they ever leave Africa? I answer myself: because lions don’t have a particular destination in mind; sometimes they walk this way and sometimes that, and therefore, just going and coming, they never leave Africa. But that deduction doesn’t deceive me of course. Even if they don’t have a particular destination, at least one of the lions, unintentionally, might walk always in the same direction. He might walk by day, sleep by night, and in the morning, not aware of what he’s doing, he might walk again in the same direction, then sleep again by night, and in the morning, not aware of what he’s doing… I say to myself: Africa ends somewhere, and a lion walking always in the same direction will one day walk straight out of Africa and into another country. I say to myself: Argentina is another country, therefore that lion might come to Argentina. If he came at night, no one would see him because at night there are no people out in the street. He would climb the stairs up to my apartment, break the door without making a sound (lions break doors without making a sound because their skin is so thick and smooth), cross the hallway and sit down behind the dining room table.

I’m in bed; I know he is there, waiting; my blood throbs inside my head. It’s very unsettling to know that there is a lion in the dining room and that he hasn’t stirred. I get up. I leave my room and cross the dining room: on this side of the table, not on the lion’s side. Before going into the kitchen I stop for a moment, turning my back on him. The lion doesn’t jump on me, but that doesn’t mean anything; he might jump when I come back. I go into the kitchen and drink a glass of water. I come out again, without stopping. This time the lion doesn’t jump either, but that doesn’t mean anything. I go to bed and wait warily. The lion isn’t moving, but I know he’s also waiting. I get up and go again into the kitchen. It is almost morning. On my way back, I glance sideways at the door. It hasn’t been broken. But therein lies the real danger. The lion is still on his way; he will arrive tonight. As long as he isn’t here, one lion will be like a thousand lions waiting for me, night after night, behind the dining room table.

In spite of all this, the lion isn’t as bad as the horse. I know all about the lion: how he came, what he is thinking every time I go for a drink of water; I know that he knows why he doesn’t jump every time he doesn’t jump, that one night, when I decide to meet him face to face, all I’ll have to do is walk into the dining room on that other side of the table. About the horse, on the other hand, I know nothing. He also arrives at night, but I don’t understand why he has gone into the lift, nor how he manages to operate the sliding doors, nor how he presses the buttons. The horse has no history: all he does is go up in the lift. He counts the floors: first, second, third, fourth. The lift stops. My heart freezes as I wait. I know the end will be horrible, but I don’t know how it will happen. And this is the beginning. Horror of the unexplainable, or the cult of Descartes, is the beginning.

. . .

But it’s not the beginning of the beginning. It is the end of the beginning. The time has come when the little people inside the radio are soon to die, and God will also die, sitting cross-legged on top of the Heavens with his long mane and a gaucho’s poncho. Because throughout the whole beginning, the world was made so that God and the dead could sit and walk on top of the Heavens; that is to say, the Universe is a hollow sphere cut by a horizontal plane; moving on that plane are we, the living, and this is called the Earth. From the Earth, looking upwards, you can see the inner surface of the upper hemisphere, and that is called the Heavens. Or the floor of the Heavens as seen from below. If you go through it, you can see the real floor of the Heavens, Heaven itself, on which the good dead walk and where God is sitting; to us, this seems difficult, because the floor of the Heavens is rounded, but the dead can hold themselves upright on a Heaven like that, and so can God, because He’s God. Underneath our floor, inside the lower hemisphere, is the burning Hell, where little red devils float around together with the evil dead.

Now, before the end of the spherical universe, and before the lions and the horse, in the very heart of the beginning, are four cups of chocolate on a yellow plastic tablecloth. I’m four years old, and it’s my birthday. But there are no guests, no cake with candles on it, no presents. The three of them are there, of course, sitting around the table; but in the beginning they don’t count, because the three of them have always been there, and a birthday hasn’t. I am alone in front of four cups of chocolate and a yellow plastic tablecloth. I’m moved to tears. This must be what it’s like to be poor, and I’m supposed to feel terribly sad. The roof of the kitchen is made out of straw and the walls are of mud and my body is covered in rags; wind and snow seep through the cracks of my poor hut. I’m dying of cold and hunger while, in the palace, the spoilt little princess celebrates her fourth birthday with a ball: coaches at the door, dolls with real hair and a monkey that dances for the princess alone. I drink my chocolate. I weep inside my cup. And this really is the beginning. The trick of stories — the trick of the power of the imagination — lies in the beginning.

. . .

But this isn’t the beginning of the beginning either. It is an awareness of the beginning. It is the beginning of an awareness of the beginning. Beyond this awareness, rising from behind strange faces like flashing images are a straw chair on a tiled courtyard, a wrinkled great-grandmother with a black scarf around her head, a madman climbing into a streetcar with a stick and, in the true beginning, a white hood. The white hood is mine. Or it was mine, I don’t know, I don’t understand what’s happening, she has it on her head now. She arrived this morning and ever since she arrived everyone is fawning over her. I’ve been told she’s my little cousin, but she doesn’t look like my cousins because she isn’t bigger than I am. She doesn’t call me her baby, and she doesn’t lift me up in her arms. But they lift her up in their arms, all the time, because she hasn’t yet learnt how to walk, like the little babies in the park. I hate her. It’s night-time already. They say she’s going to leave, and they say it’s cold out there. I run through the rooms. I throw myself against the legs of the grownups. I roll around on a mattress. I don’t care if they scream at me, I’m happy; she’s leaving. I look at her and it’s there. She has my hood on. They say it looks big on her; they say she looks like a little old lady; they laugh. I’ll sink her eyes in, like with a doll; I’ll bite her nose off; I’ll tear my hood away from her. Then it happens. Someone looks at me and says: ‘Won’t you lend your little cousin your hood?’ I don’t know what ‘lend’ means; I know I want to tear her up into small bits. I look at them. All eyes are fixed on me. Then I understand: all I need is a gesture, one single gesture, and the kingdom will be mine once again. They are waiting. They are laughing. I smile at them.

‘Yes,’ I say.

They laugh louder. They pinch my cheek and tell me I’m a darling. I’ve won. It’s the beginning.

Further back, there is nothing. I look carefully for a taste of clementine, for my father’s voice, for a smell of lip ointment. Something clean that will change my beginning. I want a whitewashed beginning for my story. It is useless. Further back, there is nothing. That hood, my first infamy, is for ever the beginning of the beginning.