The St Perpetuus Club of Buenos Aires Read online

  What a look of agony on his face, as he clutched his ankle on the wagon floor and almost got caught in the closing door! His acting was so convincing that the tide of empathy that had been swelling for the Indian finally broke loose . . . for him! So much so that a pregnant woman actually got up to give him her seat.

  When the train pulled in to Callao, he jumped up nimbly from his seat and walked away without a limp. Now that’s style!

  Remember, it takes an average of 7.23 to 8.04 minutes from the time the doors close at Bulnes to when they open up at Tribunales. Do what you must to stay near the doors. Do all you can to not get trapped within the crowd’s briars of newspapers, attachés and ladies’ hats.

  Of course, we can’t all be like that bureaucrat besting the Indian woman. (I mean, I can, but you’re still so far away from Perfection.) But don’t worry. There are other ways for less-advanced beings like you to get to work on time.

  Consider that cadaverous, young man who panders in the subway car, pretending to have HIV. A dirty daughter suctioned to his arm, he recites his creed mechanically:

  A very good afternoon,

  ladies and gentlemen.

  Please pardon the bother,

  but I am HIV positive,

  and the government will no longer

  pay for my medication.

  I am the head of the household

  and the father of three children.

  Thank God my little daughter

  and her brothers

  are not infected with the disease,

  but my wife is dead.

  It embarrasses me to ask like this,

  but it is more honourable than stealing,

  and I am not a thief.

  If you have five cents,

  ten cents, I thank you

  and God will bless you.

  He’s nowhere near a Saint, mind you. And in terms of marketing, he should change his pitch a bit. But he produces such a lovely repugnance in the crowd, making them all afraid of getting AIDS. People give way to him, even faster than to the blind man. Some commuters even get off a stop too early, just to avoid his touch or his warm, stinking breath on the napes of their necks.

  What I suggest is, take advantage of his wake, like a cab driver following a blaring ambulance at rush hour. While the other commuters look away in fear and disgust, fold in behind this conman, close enough to smell his acrid clothes. He’ll get you to the door all right, just as sure as Medea leads Jason back to the Colchians.

  But whatever you do in the subway, please do it with some style.

  Don’t be like those mesomorphic brutes who pay no heed to the train’s closing-door chimes. They defy the disembodied engineer’s voice wailing on the intercom, ‘Please-do-not-hold-the-doors-open-there-is-another-train-right-behind-us.’ They wrench wide the wagon’s orifice, welcoming in the poor, the pregnant and the lame.

  It’s not that I’m against brute force per se. A little murder now and then can be invigorating, like taking a train ride to the seaside, to breathe in the fresh, salty air. But it should be done with a style and comportment befitting of a gentleman. That’s why, in recent months, I’ve come to revise my opinion of Machiavelli.

  You see, ever since I was a boy, I’ve been a bit, well, put out by the way dear Niccolò pooh-poohs Agathocles’ murder of all the senators at Syracuse: ‘if the courage of Agathocles in entering into and extricating himself from dangers be considered . . . it cannot be seen why he should be esteemed less than the most notable captain. Nevertheless, his barbarous cruelty and inhumanity with infinite wickedness do not permit him to be celebrated among the most excellent men.’

  Now, that passage has made me wake up with a start, cold and clammy, on many a night! If Agathocles can’t make the cut for excellence, then can I? Can you?

  I understand Machiavelli’s reluctance to hold up Agathocles as a role model. After all, his father was just a potter. But, honestly, you don’t need a pedigree to kill efficiently. And the way Agathocles lured the senators and other wealthy men of Syracuse into Government house and then had his soldiers put them to the sword was really a stroke of genius. All his enemies done in by one blow and all the gold from their coffers his!

  But, lately, I’ve begun to see what Machiavelli meant. Every act of evil should be like the hand-lathed foot of a Chippendale chair: precise, careful, unrepeatable. Unless killing is filled with those little moments of artistry, it becomes more Herd-like than excellent. The same is true with how you ride the subway.

  Now, remember this, and get ready to jump . . . because the train’s arriving at Tribunales station!

  Book VII

  When you get off at Tribunales, turn right. You could go left, past the many hotdog stands, watch repair stores and key-makers and then up the stairs to the Colon Theatre exit. But don’t give in to temptation: the most obvious exits are usually the most deceptive.

  At the other end of the platform, to your right, is another set of stairs going up. You must take these, because above them looms another Cattaneo mural dedicated to the conquistadores—shiny armour, rippling flags, proud ships and all. Above and to the right, is a portrayal of Buenos Aires’ first founding by Diego de Mendoza on February 2nd, 1536. On the left, the second founding of Buenos Aires (after Mendoza’s unfortunate failure) by Juan de Garay on May 29th, 1580.

  When you think about it, it’s rather fitting you’ll ascend under the watchful eye of Mendoza. You see, he was the first Saint of Buenos Aires, and it is to him I owe my Heavenly Throne.

  Among the many accounts of that first, cursed founding of Buenos Aires, I’m sure you’ve read Ulrico Schmidl’s. He was that one, lonely Bavarian soldier amongst the 1,700 rapists, pig farmers and whores from Spain who accompanied Mendoza to the New World. He was also one of the very few to survive the debacle and return alive to Europe . . . something not even the sainted Mendoza managed to do.

  You may well imagine my favourite section of Schmidl’s journal: the entry he made on Corpus Cristi day, 1535! By then, the Spaniards and their horses were starving to death in that rickety, muck-filled fort Mendoza had forced them to erect (the site of present-day Buenos Aires). Having eaten all the snakes and rats that hadn’t fled, screaming, from their hovels, they ate their shoes, leather shirts, anything for a few calories more. The Indians, whom they’d tried to enslave, rebelled and began picking them off, one by one. An arrow here. A lance there. But Hunger was the greatest enemy.

  As Schmidl recounts, three conquistadores among the settlers soon had enough. They stole a horse and ate it in secret. But Mendoza sniffed out the crime and ordered the suspects tortured until they confessed. Once the blade and red-hot brand had uncovered the truth, Mendoza had them hung and left swinging on the gallows as a warning to the others.

  That night, after the rest of the jeering crowd had gone home, cradling their empty stomachs, a few audacious men returned to the gallows. There they sliced up the thighs of the dead men, as well as other succulent parts, and divided the flesh amongst them for a midnight feast. As Schmidl notes, amongst the party guests was one of the victim’s own brothers!

  Now, I’m sure you’ll agree with me that the word ‘beauty’ is overused these days. (‘Oh, what a beautiful baby!’ or ‘That’s a beautiful puppy! May I hold him?’) But that journal entry is just about the most beautiful thing I’ve ever read. Ever since I was a child, I’ve been attracted to it. In fact, in primary school, when my art teacher commanded me, ‘Thou Shalt Draw Your Favourite Argentine Forefather!’, I painted a watercolour of Schmidl’s unnamed Spaniard, slicing a long strip of flesh from his brother’s thigh.

  Unfortunately, Profesor Tescatelli mistook my homage to cannibalism for a portrayal of an early vivisection. So very pleased with my ‘scientific’ interests was he that he told my father I was destined for the medical profession. Of course, my father was horrified! As a preventive measure, he beat me for a week . . . And so he should have. In my family, we have always been bureaucrats, and we will alway
s be.

  The reason why I like Schmidl’s story so much is that the men he describes aren’t afraid of capitalising on their own hypocrisy. All of Mendoza’s party was dying: men, women, horses. No room for finery at all. Three men, trying to survive, kill and eat one horse. This horse, we can well imagine, is bleeding at the gums, swollen in the belly and quite useless as a mount. So all this business that stealing-a-horse-is-a-hanging-affair really doesn’t play.

  When the rest of the group kill the men for killing the horse, they invert the sacred Aristotelian hierarchy of society. And when they eat those men, in a sense they are also eating the horse that has been digested by them—its horsy essence having been transferred as protein to the corpses’ thighs.

  Now this is the part that’s true genius . . . they convince others of their goodness. The scurvy, lice-ridden survivors wail in one voice ‘All hail Mendoza!’, praising him for upholding Justice. (I feel a beautiful sensation in my trousers just thinking of it!)

  If only God were more like that anonymous Spaniard from my watercolour, who rent his clothes and made a loud fuss about going back to his hut to pray for his brother’s soul . . . and then, under cover of darkness, returned to carve up his brother’s thighs. Divine conduct should make as little sense as that, like filling out those miniature boxes on your son’s birth certificate in the Public Registry. Otherwise, it wouldn’t seem Divine.

  Unfortunately, long gone are the times of eating the horse-eaters and calling it good. Our sense of hypocrisy has grown as stiff as Mendoza’s syphilitic body being shipped back in a mouldy crate to Spain. You can see it in the ads in cinemas today, urging us to pay our taxes and to respect the seatbelt laws!

  But I digress. As I began saying, when you get off the subway at Tribunales, go all the way down to your right. At the end of the platform, take the fixed stairs in the middle . . . for the escalators are always unpredictable. Fifteen steps up, then a landing and then fifteen more. Then out the turnstiles and to your right, up the mechanical stairs.

  I’ve timed that last ascent again and again and derived the average: it should take you no more than twenty-four seconds before you emerge right in the middle of Plaza Lavalle.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I turned over in bed and snuggled closer next to Julieta, her long, dark hair covering my eyes. I glanced up lazily, drawing a pattern on her cheek with my finger. Then I noticed the alarm clock on the night table . . . it was already 8:15!

  ‘Shit!’ I said and jumped out of bed. ‘Shit, shit, shit!’ I grabbed my suit that lay crumpled on the floor and ran to the bathroom.

  I’m always saying ‘Shit!’, probably because I’m always late for everything. I remember reading once that, when Gandhi was shot, he simply said ‘Oh, God’, and died. As I crouched down on my hands and knees under the bathroom sink, trying to find the portable hair dryer, I thought, if I were Gandhi, my last words probably would have been, ‘Oh, shit!’

  I finally found the hair dryer and, as I got up, I banged my head on the rim of the sink. ‘Shit!’ I plugged it in and started fanning my suit, trying to smooth out the most egregious wrinkles. You see, I only have two suits—a brown one and a blue one—and my brown one was at the cleaners. (Dry cleaning is so expensive, and I didn’t have enough money to buy a new suit, so I had to be pretty careful about the rotation.) Since the brown one’s a bit older, and starting to fray at the cuffs, it’s my Tuesday and Thursday suit, and I wear the blue one the rest of the week. But my whole rotation was spoiled because I’d forgotten to pick up my suit at the cleaners the day before.

  If only there were some way to slow down time or stop it altogether. ‘Shit!’ I’d gotten the hair dryer too close to my pants’ leg, and I’d made a big, shiny circle in the polyester.

  I ran back to the bedroom to put on my underpants and a clean shirt. Julieta was just waking up. ‘Oh,’ she yawned, ‘we’re both a little late this morning. I just have time to give Miguelito his bottle and take him to day-care before it starts. It’s a pity you can’t take the morning off.’ She purred, biting her lower lip, ‘After I drop off Miguelito, we could do it on the living room floor with the windows open. I don’t care if the neighbours see . . . I don’t have to be at Jorge’s until 11:00.’

  I hardly registered what she’d said, as I tried to chew out a mustard stain from my best tie. ‘Oh Julieta,’ I groaned, ‘you know I can’t do that. Gutierrez is . . .’

  ‘A complete bastard,’ she finished, hugging her knees. ‘I know.’

  ‘It’s just he’s already on the war path, and, if I’m late today, he’s going to totally explode.’

  Getting up, and putting on her green T-shirt, she said, ‘Come on, don’t let him get to you so much.’

  ‘Well, that’s easy . . .’ I trailed off, stopping myself from saying ‘That’s easy for you to say.’ I knew it wasn’t easy for Julieta. After she’d gotten pregnant, she dropped out of her accounting program, with only three classes left. It seemed like a good idea at the time and then after . . . after it happened, and then Miguelito came along, she never went back. She did the books now and then for Jorge, the butcher, down the street, and for a couple of hair salons on the block.

  I tried putting on my tie, but I hadn’t put on my pants first, so it was too long. I had to take it off and start again, and then the button came off my shirt collar and bounced under the bed. I hadn’t slept, my hands were trembling. What had that crazy book said about saving time while dressing? Like the books of the Old Testament: first underwear, then shirt, trousers, belt, tie, jacket.

  There, that was better. The combination trousers-belt-tie made all the difference. As I double-knotted my shoelaces, Julieta called from the kitchen, ‘You know, you forgot my glass of water last night. What were you doing up so late?’

  Suddenly, I froze. I didn’t know what to say.

  Julieta came walking down the hallway, testing the milk from the baby bottle on her wrist. ‘Miguel?’ she said. ‘What were you doing last night?’

  I know I should have told her the truth. I should have told her that I’d bought that crazy book, that I’d stayed up reading it all night long. We could have had a good laugh at my expense. But, instead, I lied. ‘Uh, I was writing,’ I said, ‘you know . . . a bit of research.’

  ‘For your dissertation?’ she asked, a surprised tone in her voice.

  ‘Yeah . . . that’s it.’

  She smiled. ‘That’s great,’ she said and kissed me on the cheek. ‘I thought you’d given that up.’ As she walked into Miguelito’s room, she said over her shoulder, ‘I’m impressed with you.’

  Well, she was the only one. I still don’t know why I lied to her . . . maybe because I knew she’d tell me that the entry under Saint Perpetuus was pure nonsense, or maybe because I just wanted to have a moment of fantasy all to myself. But I felt like a complete shit as I walked out the door.

  I left our little apartment on Mansilla and sprinted towards the subway stop at Agüero on Santa Fe. I missed the train by about three seconds, and I had to wait ten minutes for the next one to arrive. When I finally pushed myself into the next car, I’d lost all hope of getting to work on time. The ride to work was a complete blur, and my mind was filled with loathing for myself, a pang of desire (mixed with regret) for Julieta, and a growing obsession with that book. Why couldn’t I control Time?

  When I got into work, it was 9:20. I rushed past our receptionist who was busy filing her nails into a pile of fine red dust between the pages of a fashion magazine.

  I sat down at my desk and saw my computer was already on. ‘Esteban,’ I whispered over the partition, ‘did you log in for me?’

  ‘Yeah,’ came Esteban’s mellow voice. Esteban was my cubicle mate, half self-styled Eastern philosopher, half jackass. As a joke, he’d once convinced the new girl at work that the coffee grounds were, actually, ‘organic toner’. The photocopier was on the blink for a month, and the girl got the sack. But we all had a good laugh over it.

  Esteban sa
id, ‘Gutierrez came by about five minutes ago, and I told him you were in the bathroom. If he asks, remember you have a raging case of dysentery brought on by a bad egg salad sandwich.’

  ‘Thanks, Esteban. You’re the best.’

  ‘No problem . . . But boy was Gutierrez pissed when he saw you’d been surfing that naughty Swedish schoolgirl website.’

  ‘Esteban,’ I hissed, ‘you promised you weren’t going to do that ever again.’

  ‘I can’t help it, man. They keep putting up all these firewalls on my computer, and I can only get the really good porn on yours. Hey, at least he thinks you were at work watching porn. Remember, it doesn’t matter what you do at work but you gotta be punctual.’

  ‘What did you just say?’

  ‘I said, I can only get the really good porn on your computer. Speaking of which, do you want to see some really freaky shit I just downloaded from Bulgaria?’

  ‘No, no, forget about it. You’ve done enough for me today.’

  Under great mental duress, I started organising the papers on my desk—incoming memos, pending memos, memos to be filed. (I wondered whether anyone would notice if I started a small fire in my rubbish basket and destroyed them all.) Then I sighed and looked out the window.

  Just then, the buzzer on my telephone rang. The disembodied voice of the receptionist floated through the crackles on the line. ‘Gutierrez wants you in meeting room three right away.’

  ‘Shit!’ I said, and grabbed a stenographer’s notebook and a chewed-up pencil and went upstairs.