— Suburb? I protested. This place looks like a cross between Lapland and the Sahara, or I don’t know a thing about geography.
— As soon as the fog dissipates, Schultz assured me, you’ll see how terribly populated this suburb is. Meanwhile, just to avoid any possible confusion, I’ll sketch out the basic outline of Cacodelphia’s architectural plan and tell you how I came to construct the city.
His professorial tone was decidedly absurd in such a time and place. But I listened to him with that amazing matter-of-factness we assume in dreams, impassively accepting the most extravagant oneiric creations.
— When I decided to give a visible image to the intelligible Cacodelphia, the astrologer began, my first concern was to avoid crass imitations. Wary, then, of building a garden-variety Inferno, I conceived the form of the inverted-empty-cone, which I called Divicone, within which the Cacodephians would be placed as though inside a gigantic glass, according to the greater or lesser burden of their souls. The densest among them would inhabit the bottom, as montrous figures laboriously swimming through a kind of putri-slime, which they would be eternally swallowing and vomiting. The middle-weights, provided with flotational bladders and scales, would occupy the glass’s central zone, nimbly swimming in water varying from murky to transparent. The lightest ones, the lofty-souled, would be assigned to the upper part of the Divicone; there, thanks to their semi-aerial condition, they would tend to rise like iridescent bubbles and spill over the edge of the glass in search of the regions of holy fire.
— A poetic idea, I commented.
— You’re right, poetic, Schultz allowed. Merely poetic. I was obliged to discard it.
— Why?
— Because of its imprecision, typical of everything poetic. I needed to organize my infernal space mathematically so as to make it comprehensible and passable. So then I dreamed up a subterranean skyscraper (or, if you will, an earthscraper) with various floors, each of them constituting a different infernal abode; the floors would all be connected by an elevator shaft, which would stand as the vertical axis or line of celestial motion.
— A prosaic idea.
— And a very dangerous one. Because it lured me into the temptation to put escalators and diabolical elevator operators all over the place. In other words, to construct a motorized hell that wouldn’t look all that different from the Gath & Chaves department store during a liquidation sale.17
— Exactly, I said. So, after all its mutations, how did your Cacodelphia end up?
The astrologer put on the professional voice of a tourist agent:
— Cacodelphia, he announced, is a helicoid track that spirals downwards. It is made up of nine stages or turns of the spiral, each of them being the site of an infernal barrio or cacobarrio. Where one turn of the helix ends, another begins, with no other complications than a tricky access whose dangers the curious tourist must face and overcome. The vertical axis of the Helicoid is a tube running through the nine cacobarrios and whose virtues I’ll apprise you of when the time comes. As for the amazing details of its construction, they are not included in the prospectus, and they will be revealed to you in situ by the company’s agent.
— And this place where we are now, I asked, is it the first turn of the Helicoid?
— I think I told you this is only a kind of suburb, an agatasbarrio — neither fish nor fowl. But I see that visibility has improved. Follow me and keep your eyes open.
The mist was clearing, and the territory was visible thanks to a sort of milky light seeming to emanate not from above, but rather from the ground itself, and which gradually brightened like the light of a lamp being given more wick, little by little. Schultz and I — with him leading and me hard on his heels — were now walking down a glossy, crunchy incline that gave us the sensation of treading upon the dry crust of a lunar landscape. And as we advanced in the increasing light, the dull roar we’d heard earlier in the fog was also intensifying. But now we could distinguish the diapason of a thousand human accents, a thousand interwoven voices, neither happy nor sad, reverberating as though inside a cavern. Suddenly the incline threw us onto a kind of terrace or plateau that seemed to give onto a void.
— Come and take a look, Schultz said, leading me to the edge.
I looked and for an instant wondered whether what my eyes were seeing was in the realm of reality or fiction. Extending as far as the horizon, in a patchwork of salt flats and sand dunes, was a cheerless plain, arid and monotonous, cracked and furrowed by drought, shiny with saltpeter. Men and women, infinite in number, were swarming in throngs over the plain, running here and there, randomly, like autumn leaves swirling in unsettled winds: the multitude would pause suddenly, its thousands of heads swivelling round like so many indecisive weathervanes; then women and men would go back to running, knocking into each other, pausing, raising their revolving heads. Suddenly there rained down upon the plain a flood of grimy papers, sheets of newsprint, illustrated magazines, gaudy posters. The multitude threw itself upon that grubby manna, picking it up by the fistful, greedily chewing and swallowing it. Immediately afterward, the men lowering their trousers and the women lifting their skirts, they all squatted and solemnly defecated; at the same time, squawking like parrots, they declaimed pompous editorials, movie columns, political debates, soccer news, and crime stories.
— Good God! I murmured, turning to the astrologer. What people are they, writhing in such agitation on the plain? All those faces look familiar to me, as if I’d seen them a thousand times on Florida Street, in Luna Park, or at the Boca Juniors’ stadium.18
— It’s poor old Demos, answered Schultz, our great majority, equally inclined to good and to evil, who go whichever way the wind blows. These days, it’s clear from their actions and words that the majority is wooed by contemptible winds. But with this very clay, a Neogogue will work wonders.19
— And why have you stuck them in this hell?
— We haven’t yet got to the really dark Cacodelphia, Schultz corrected me again. This is the suburb of the irresponsible, those who cannot be held accountable.
— But it’s already gloomy enough, I insisted, looking once again at the plain and the grotesque bustle of its inhabitants.
— If you think about it, Schultz concluded, you’ll see it’s the faithful image of the existence they all lead in the visible Buenos Aires. But now it’s time to go down into the Helicoid: that’s where you’ll see those who do bear responsibility, and in postures not at all comfortable.
The astrologer walked along the terrace. I followed him, wondering now about what jetty he could have been talking about earlier; for, though I looked and looked again all around me, I saw no sign of any river, lake, or sea. It wasn’t long before we came to the edge of a hole, cistern, or well at the very centre of the terrace. Inside it was a very smooth inclining plane.
— What’s this? I asked warily.
— A slide, answered the astrologer. It’s the holitoboggan.20
— If we’ve got to go down there, all I can say is good night and good luck!
— It’s very simple! Schultz assured me. You sit down on the flat surface and let yourself go merrily sliding off.
Matching action to word, the astrologer hopped onto the slide and instantly disappeared, leaving me behind shouting that I wasn’t going to follow, that we should go back to Buenos Aires and he could go to hell all by himself. I listened for a long moment, leaning over the cistern. Not a voice could be heard from the depths. Then, consigning myself to the devil, I climbed onto the slide and let myself fall into the deep. I had the sensation that my body, thrown at full speed, was corkscrewing madly into the depths of the earth.