Shantytown

V

Rapt, in the pink winter dusk, Maxi was contemplating something. . something without a name. Action. Or silence. But no, it really didn’t have a name. And then, in the depths of the inexpressible, the work that he had invented began like a melody. Was it work? A service? A way to give meaning to his strength and free time? Or was it nothing at all? It was as if someone had made it his job to give up his seat on the bus. Doing a favor for a stranger in the street is, essentially, a spontaneous, unpremeditated act, almost an improvisation; in any case, not planned ahead, and impossible to integrate into a program. And yet that was what Maxi seemed to have done. But not exactly or entirely. His action hovered in a kind of ambiguity. For a start, it didn’t have a clear purpose. And any purpose it might have had was determined not by him but by the nature of the scavengers’ work. The scavengers themselves were not an eternal given; their very existence was contingent and depended on historical circumstances. Rummaging through garbage is not something that people do out of a sense of vocation: a little socio-economic shift would have been enough to provide them all with alternative occupations. But there they were: rummaging through garbage! It was as if they had adapted instantaneously, from one day to the next. Perhaps sudden adaptations like that were more frequent than they seemed; perhaps they were the norm. And they must have been occurring at many levels, on one of which a niche had opened up for Maxi, who, in his way, had also effected an adaptation, or something similar: he had transfigured an impulsive, spontaneous gesture into a way of occupying time.

For someone as sensitive as he was to the passing hours of the day, the winter dusk was bound to have a meaning. But what was it? The meaning without a name, in other words: nothing. The meanings all fell away, or revealed how empty they had been from the start. Hardly anything happens, after all, in an individual life: most of the time is spent working to survive and then recovering from work. If someone added up all the time that individuals have spent achieving nothing, just to keep time ticking over, the sum total of centuries and millennia would be overwhelming. By comparison, history is a miniature. But history is a condensation of facts, an intellectual contrivance that artificially gathers together the little that happened in the vast, half-empty expanses of real time.

The time of day was merely a signal for what was about to begin: the reverse of Maxi’s life, the night. His body eclipsed his consciousness, and from that point on he knew nothing. He didn’t know what happened at night. Against the background of that old ignorance, a newer one emerged: how did the inhabitants of the shantytown manage to survive? He understood the collectors’ system more or less, or could have (if he’d made a more concerted effort), but there weren’t many of them — a dozen, or two dozen, three at the most — and there were tens of thousands of families living in the shantytown. What did they live on? Air? He couldn’t rule it out. Maybe you didn’t need so much to live. Extending the earlier reasoning, it might be supposed that the moments at which you actually need something from outside to maintain your place in society or humanity are sparsely scattered over large empty stretches of time in which it is possible to manage with nothing. Added together, those moments of need would come to two or three minutes per year, and there’s always a way to get through such a short span of time.

Anyway, what poor people? The few he saw (by the time he entered the shantytown, the doors were closing) looked and behaved like any other Argentines. The only thing that identified them as poor was living in those makeshift dwellings. It’s true that no one chooses to live in a shantytown, but had he chosen to live where he did? And was it really so obvious that no one would prefer that kind of poverty? Perhaps not when faced with an actual choice, but some might find it desirable in a speculative way. Those dollhouse-like constructions had their charm, precisely because of their fragility and their thrown-together look. To appreciate that charm one only had to be sufficiently frivolous. Maxi wasn’t, but for him, the houses had another advantage: they simplified things enormously. For someone wearied or overwhelmed by the complexities of middle-class life, they could seem to offer a solution. Since their owners had made them, they could just as easily tear them down or leave them behind. After a day, a week, or a year, when the house had served its purpose, the owners could continue on their way. Or rather, make their way. . Of course, for this system to work you had to know how to make a house, of a rudimentary kind, at least. And who knows that? Poor people, that’s who. It sets them apart, and maybe it’s what makes them poor.

There was a moment each night when Maxi found himself alone in the shantytown. He would relinquish the handles and let the cart’s owners take over; they would head off between walls of tin, vanishing after the briefest goodbye, or before. They never invited him into their homes, understandably. He felt as if he were waking up, as if something were about to start. But it was time to finish, to go home, have dinner and sleep. He could barely keep his eyes open or walk straight; his perception was closing down like a clam. Otherwise, it would have been a perfect opportunity to explore. When he went down one of those diagonal streets, he always stayed fairly close to the edge of the shantytown, in the part that was brightly lit. Above his head were strings of light bulbs forming circles, squares, triangles, rows: a different pattern in every street. He kept looking back over his shoulder. Behind him, he could see the white light of Avenida Bonorino; ahead, darkness. The inner depths of the shantytown disappeared into the shadows, and that, along with his sleepiness, discouraged him from venturing further. And then there was the fact that the streets didn’t lead to the center. Because of the angle at which they ran, they would miss it, however far they went. In fact, they led away from the center, not just certain streets but all of them. In the end, he would turn around and head for home.

The shantytown wasn’t deserted. There were people about, of course: he was surrounded on all sides by a veritable ocean of humanity. And the people weren’t invisible. They did tend to go inside at that time of night, mainly because of the cold, and close their doors, or the sheets of tin or cardboard that they used as doors, but there were still some people walking around, or looking out, or hurrying home, or setting off for somewhere. No one paid him any attention; they didn’t even seem to see him. He didn’t look at them much either; he didn’t want to come across as a sightseer, or a busybody; anyway, he was shy, and by that time of night he wasn’t up to noticing anything much.

Nevertheless, one night, at that moment of hesitation when he was left alone and turned his gaze, as usual, toward the interior of the shantytown, he noticed a barely visible figure further down the little street and stayed to watch as it emerged from the darkness, becoming clearer with every step. There was nothing special about that figure, no reason for it to intrigue him, and yet he stood there rooted to the spot, staring. Had he sensed that his gaze was being returned by someone who knew him, and was coming to say hello? Sometimes you can know that much before you know anything else. If so, he should, in turn, have recognized the figure, and he did have a hunch of a sort, growing stronger by the moment. The identification of a tiny moving silhouette, barely distinct from the shadows, seemed an impossible task. But subliminal recognition at a distance is not so unusual either. Because of his poor night vision, Maxi was accustomed to the tricks of perception but also to its exploits. There was an asymmetry because he was right underneath a crown of bulbs, bathed in light, and the unknown figure was still coming out of the darkness, as if dragging it along behind. Was it a man or a woman? Actually, it looked like a child. Or rather it seemed too small to be real, even taking the distance into account.

A feeling of exaltation suddenly took hold of Maxi. Suddenly it seemed to him that the depths of the shantytown were about to reveal a small part of their great mystery. Why he felt this, he didn’t know. Perhaps just because the figure was coming from that direction and must have known what was there and was coming to tell him. This last supposition was unfounded. But it was possible and that was enough. And it wasn’t the only possibility in play. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it was someone he knew, so they could say hello, and chat as they left the shantytown together! Even if it was somebody he barely knew at all, practically a stranger, it wouldn’t matter. Although it was true that something like that would have to be a miracle.

Anyone with normal eyesight would already have been able to see the person’s face. Maxi had to wait until the figure came within ten yards to realize that it was a girl: a very thin, short girl, with practically no breasts or hips, completely dressed in black, wearing tight pants, with her hair tied back. There was a big, flat patch of red swinging beside her. It was a garment, a coat or a raincoat, in a transparent plastic bag, the way they wrap them at the dry-cleaner’s. When he looked up again, he could see her face. She was a girl with Indian features, a boyish look and a deeply serious expression that seemed to be permanent. And yet, when she came up to him, she smiled, and although the smile was very brief, it was very encouraging, mostly because it came as a surprise. Maxi plucked up the courage to greet her with a “Hi,” which she did not return. He didn’t know how to talk to girls, he could never come up with anything to say. But she did reply in the end, and he fell into step beside her. After all, they were going in the same direction.

“Sir, are you going home?”

“Yes, it’s late already.”

“Sir, it’s not so late.”

“For me it is. Very late!”

Then there was a silence, and fearing that it would go on forever, Maxi said the first thing that came into his head, in a brusque tone that he began to regret even as the words came out of his mouth:

“What are you up to at this time of night?”

“Sir, I’m going to buy food for dinner.”

“Now? Why don’t you go to the supermarket and shop for the whole week? It works out cheaper.”

He’d put his foot in his mouth again! Poor people live day by day, obviously; they don’t stock up for a week or a month, and anyway there are no supermarkets in shantytowns. But she didn’t take offence, and said exactly what Maxi’s mother would have said:

“Sir, there’s always something you need at the last minute.”

“You’re not afraid to be out alone at night?”

“Sir, I’m with you now.”

“Yes, because you ran into me by chance. You could get mugged for a peso round here.” He realized that it was rude to talk like that about the people who lived in the shantytown, but it was better than letting her think that he had been imagining the possibility of rape. Attempting to cancel the bad impression, he made a more general comment: “It’s shameful that people who have almost nothing will rob each other of the little they have.”

“Sir, I don’t think it’s so bad.”

“What!? So you justify theft? You’d steal too, would you?”

“Sir, can you see me trying to mug someone? They’d laugh in my face.” And it was true: she was scrawny. “What I mean is, if someone can steal, let him steal. If that’s what he’s made for, what else is he supposed to do? Especially if an opportunity arises.”

“That’s the law of the jungle,” said Maxi, shaking his head despondently.

“Sir, all I know is that everyone looks out for their own interests, and they can only do it properly if they exploit all their relative advantages, legal or not, otherwise they’ll lose out.”

“But someone else will win!”

“Sir, that’s right, but the thing is, for the overall balance to be maintained, everyone has to exploit their possibilities to the maximum! Otherwise there’d be gaps. If I don’t do something that I could do, because of a scruple, I’m relying on other people acting in the same way, and how can I know that they will? How can I oblige them to have the same kind of scruples as me? This is the source of much bitterness.”

She spoke with quite a strong accent, which Maxi couldn’t identify, but it had the merit of making her words, and even the situation, plausible. He bent down toward her and said:

“That’s what I call ‘the law of the jungle’: everything for me, nothing for the others.”

“Sir, if everyone says the same thing, then everyone will have everything. We are all ‘me.’”

“You don’t really think that,” he said, in a brusque tone again, as if he were impatient or cross, although he wasn’t: it was just a way of talking, quite common among the shy. And as before, he broke the ensuing silence with a generalization: “There shouldn’t be any poor people.”

She shrugged her shoulders imperceptibly:

“What poor people? Sir, that’s an old-fashioned word. In the old days, there were poor people and rich people because there was a world made up of the poor and the rich. Now that world has disappeared, and the poor have been left without a world. That’s why the ladies I work for say: ‘There are no poor people anymore.’”

“But there are.”

“Sir, yes. You only have to look around.”

“And they must suffer as a result,” Maxi hazarded.

“Sir, I’m not sure. The old world of rewards and punishments is finished. Now it’s just a question of living. It doesn’t matter how.”

“I just thought of something — maybe you’ll think it’s crazy. Imagine that a poor man comes across a rich man; he pulls out a knife and steals all the cash the rich man is carrying, and his watch while he’s at it. OK. Then they go their separate ways. And what happens? What happens is the rich man goes on being rich, and the poor man goes on being poor. So what use was the robbery? None at all. It’s like it never happened. You probably think that’s stupid.”

“Sir, it’s a thought that must have occurred to many other people because there’s a story I’ve often heard, sir, which starts in the same way: a poor man comes across a rich man, and attacks him. . and from that moment on, the poor man is rich, and the rich man poor, forever.”

“I’ve never heard that.”

It struck him as a typical “poor person’s story.” Or a typical “rich person’s story.” Once a story gets to be typical, the differences dissolve. Since he belonged to neither group, it wasn’t surprising he’d never heard it.

At this point in the conversation, he became uncomfortably aware of an uncertainty that often bothers people with a poor memory for faces: did he know his interlocutor? They must have known each other from somewhere, otherwise she wouldn’t have engaged him so naturally in conversation. There was an additional difficulty because in this case he couldn’t really blame his poor memory for faces: with a girl like her, the face was neither here nor there. His memory would have treated her as a social and human whole. He didn’t have the energy to run through all the possibilities, so he gave up trying to place her. If he didn’t want to make a fool of himself, or worse, hurt the feelings of this innocent girl, he had to maintain the ambiguity, which limited what they could talk about. Maybe the limits had been in place from the start, and that was how they’d got onto poverty.

As if she had guessed what he was thinking, she said:

“Here in Flores, we all know each other, even if it’s only by sight.”

“Really? You know everyone?”

“Sir, if I tried to keep something hidden, people would find out. There’s always someone watching, no matter where you go. And you can’t go very far, of course, unless you take a bus.”

“. .?”

“I was thinking of what you said before, about getting mugged.”

“Oh, that.”

“Sir, someone would see the thieves and go tell the police.”

“As if they’d care!”

“Sir, you never know what they’ll care about.”

They had reached the road and come to a halt. Maxi looked at the large red garment suspended from the girl’s hand. Then he looked back down the little street. Lights arranged in the shape of a star were shining above it. He thought: “This is her street. I must remember the star.”

“I don’t think anyone pays much attention to me,” he said.

“Sir, but people do! You don’t realize. . That’s what I wanted to tell you. Someone saw you come here and went to threaten your sister.”

“My sister? Why?”

“Because he thinks that her friends come here to buy drugs.”

Maxi was puzzled and lost for words, there was such a jumble in his head. In the end he stammered:

“The stupid bitch! Sisters, I tell you, she’s nothing but trouble! But. .! Jesus Christ!” Finally it occurred to him to ask: “Who is it?”

“Sir, he says he’s the father of the girl who was killed here.”

“Cynthia. Yeah. She was at school with my sister. Uh huh. . I see.”

“But maybe he was lying. He seems more like a policeman to me.”

Maxi took a deep breath and said:

“I’ll take care of it. Don’t you worry.”

“Sir. .”

“You’re right, if he saw me, he must be a policeman. Other people wouldn’t notice.”

“Yes they would! I see you myself. .”

“Me? Where?”

“Sir, all the time! When you get up in the morning, when you take a nap in the afternoon. .”

She couldn’t say anything more because of the lump in her throat. Maxi, who thought she was speaking metaphorically, reassured her with his best smile. He didn’t know what to say. She murmured something and walked off.

Maxi headed for home, exhausted, asleep on his feet. He had too much to think about, and it was all getting mixed up. Halfway back, he began to regret not having asked her more questions, some of which were blindingly obvious. For example, where she lived. Or her name. Although, of course, if he did know her from somewhere, those questions would have been tactless. But he might have asked about the garment she was carrying. . Could there be dry-cleaners in the heart of the shantytown? What if his wildest hunches turned out to be true? It didn’t really matter: his questions could wait until the next time he saw her.

Suddenly he stopped as if a bolt of lightning had struck him on the head. Now he remembered where he knew her from! He couldn’t believe it. . but it was her. . The memory had been triggered by thinking about her last words: “When you get up in the morning. . ” He’d seen her, he saw her every day, in the mirror that hung on the wall in front of his bed. A little black figure making meaningless gestures, who turned to face him from time to time. He could only see her from his bed, from a certain angle, and he had always supposed that it was some kind of flaw in the glass of the mirror, which happened to resemble a human silhouette an inch high. But no! It was her! The last person he would have expected to meet in reality. And he wasn’t dreaming. He’d spoken to her, he’d touched her. . no, he hadn’t actually touched her. But it wasn’t a dream. She had come out of the mirror to warn him. She wanted to protect him. .

Even if she was a magical being, she had given a very intense impression of reality. As well as being a mirror fairy, she was a flesh-and-blood girl: poor, not very pretty, and probably a servant (yes: she had mentioned her “employers”). He resolved to do something for her if he could. He’d show her there were still some good people. He wasn’t sure what, but he’d think of something. He wouldn’t rush; he’d let the situation itself indicate the action required. It wouldn’t be like what he did for the collectors; it would be carefully considered, not improvised. That was the only way to return the favor. In fact, he already had an idea.