Angelic swords and demonic tridents clash noiselessly on Gurruchaga Street, fighting over the soul of Adam Buenosayres, wordsmith. For, according to the supreme economy, the soul of one man is worth more than the entire visible universe. But Adam does not know this, and it’s good that he doesn’t yet know. Phew! His nostrils sense the first emanations from La Universal tannery, looming now only a stone’s throw away, with its reeking walls and blind windows. Viscous and shiny under the rain, it looks like a malignant mushroom. Before facing the tannery, Adam stops at the corner, still hesitant. Usually, he holds his breath while making a dash for it across the danger zone. And this time?
— Ulcer of the suburb: soulless capitalists and corrupt inspectors. The stench of carrion, night and day. Yes, just like the dead animals on the prairie. I’ve seen them rotting in the sun, a-boil with worms and a-buzz with flies, in broad daylight displaying the full gamut of sickly greens and purples of corrupted flesh. Even more revolting is the stench of human carrion. First time I smelled it was that day at the Maipú cemetery, when they exhumed the remains of Grandfather Sebastián. Corruptible flesh can’t stand the stink of its own disintegration. But the soul has no sense of smell. Venerable Antigone, fighting both crows and men for the corpse of her brother, fulfilling the funeral rites, at midnight, her soul all alone amid the dust and the stench that cries out the flesh’s defeat! Or Rose of Lima, drinking ulcerous humours so as to humiliate the rebellion of her already mortified body. Or Ramon Llull,14 who advised against fleeing the smell of latrines, in order to recall, time and again, the body’s miserable poverty, so frequently forgotten. And why shouldn’t I do that tonight? Absurd!
But Adam has already set off for the tannery. Between shame and curiosity about himself, he deliberately walks slowy along the sidewalk, breathing in the gradually intensifying foul odours. Meanwhile, the invisible armies at war round about him are seized by a great anxiety. For the battle will take on a new rhythm now that Adam, unbeknownst to himself, has declared himself a belligerent. Now he is beside the tannery’s main gate; from beneath it slither black waters, slurpy viscosities. Pausing there, Adam rests his head against the wet iron and deeply inhales the emanations. A first wave of nausea shakes him from head to foot. Then, anguished, sweating, he vomits profusely against the gate. Still panting, swabbing tears and sweat with his handkerchief, Adam glances along the street:
— Fortunately, not a single witness.
He is not aware that a thousand eyes follow him closely, nor that the battle around him grows more intense, for the definitive moment is approaching. Adam does not know this, and it’s good that he is not yet aware. Curious about himself, smiling at his patently useless gesture, he leaves the gate and starts to walk again. His bodily upset has managed for a moment to silence those intimate voices that have been pursuing him all along the street. But no sooner has he put some distance between himself and the tannery than other voices rush in, murmuring or shouting in his soul, as though the street knew every last one of his regrets and brought them to mind, one by one, as precisely and inexorably as a judge. Over there is the zaguán with the girls (whispers, murmurs!), deserted now, dark and moist as a grotto.
— Young bodies, yesterday, flattered by the light, rendered precious by the praise called out to them by my blood, from this very spot. The One-in-Blue, the One-in-Green, the One-in-Pink, the three of them dispersed in a thousand provocative moves — ah, unawares perhaps, or aware of it ever since the first Eve! Animal splendour appealing to the ears of the flesh, but beckoning with the spiritual voice of beauty. Yes, therein lies the error and the invisible trap! I fell for it a thousand times before understanding it. And then another thousand times, with the troubled conscience of one who knows he voluntarily participates in a shameful game. I have taken those womanly forms and transfigured them, perfumed them with incense, sung their praise; later to humiliate, destroy, and abandon them, according to the intensity of my thirst or my thirst’s disillusionment.
Savouring the bitterness of these intimate reproaches, Adam Buenosayres struggles in anguish to keep them in the abstract terrain where they still resonate; he fears the images already reviving in his memory, images that come forward as vivid testimonies, stammering something still imprecise or gesticulating. But at last the images win out and charge ahead: they shout their names at him, the names of women; they undress with animal shamelessness, coldly exhibit their ways in love, mechanically howl their ecstasies, and parrot back to him the terrible words he once proferred them in his madness. And Adam Buenosayres, hemmed in, tries to fend them off, make them shut up, send them back to the shadowy realm whence they issued. But now new figures come forward, and Adam recognizes them with a shiver of terror. For they are not the impetuous creatures who once got burnt playing with fire but the women who, despoiled and offended, suffered violence and reaped pain. And now they show him their softly weeping faces, or gestures of rage, or mouths open to supplicate, insult, threaten!15 But, suddenly, one figure stands out from the rest — terrible Eumenides.16
— No, not her! Adam begs, sputters, covered in cold sweat.
For Eumenides nails him with her dried-out eyes and offers him a hand red with blood.
— Not her! Adam repeats, then spins round as if to shake off the vengeful image.
Then it seems to him that the whole street rises up against him, shouting from each of its doors, windows, and skylights: “Adam Buenosayres! It’s Adam Buenosayres!” And Adam flees now, crosses Gurruchaga Street, Eumenides hot on his heels, hooting incomprehensible words. Ruth, the reciter, shrieks from her tobacco shop: “Here she comes, Melpomene the tragic Muse!” And Polyphemus, at his station, raising a hand toward the statue of Christ up above, recites like an ironic demon, “Gaaaawd will rewaaard you!”
The bell tower of San Bernardo rises in the night. The wrought-iron gate is closed, the atrium deserted; no other life than the palm trees dishevelled by the wind. There Adam Buenosayres stops, his breath agitated, heart pounding. Clinging to the grille, he looks around and listens: no one, nothing. The voices are quiet, the images have vanished. Then the dense cloud of his fears, anxieties, and regrets explodes in a wracking sob, smothering him, like the nausea at the tannery. Next, without letting go of the grille, he looks up at the Christ with the Broken Hand. And there he remains, staring and weeping gently:
— Lord, in thee I confess to the Word which, through the sole act of naming them, created the heavens and the earth. Since childhood I have recognized you and admired your wondrous works. But I sought and followed you only on the perilous trails left by beauty. I lost my way and tarried on paths until I forgot they were only paths, and I but a traveller, and you the end of my voyage.
Adam interrupts himself here, suddenly discouraged. It seems that his words, spoken within, do not soar but rather plummet like clay pigeons as soon as they try to take flight. Meanwhile, angelic swords and demonic tridents have suspended their conflict, for the hour has arrived when Adam Buenosaryes must fight on alone.
— Lord, he says again in his soul, in thee I confess to the Word which, out of love for mankind, also took the form of man, assumed his infinite debt, and redeemed it in Calvary. I never found it hard to understand the prodigy of your human incarnation and the mysteries of your life and death. But in sad pathways I wasted and offended the intelligence you gave me as a gift.