VI
— Blessèd are those of strong kidneys and unyielding waist!30 Blessèd are those who neither besmirch their soul with the body’s delirium nor destroy their body with the delirium of the soul, but have observed the happy medium and harmonious order in which man honourably takes his place between the level of the Angel and the level of the Beast! Happy are those who have no imagination, or who’ve had its wings clipped by the scissors of loving Reason! And happy those who, upon hearing the sirens’ song, have listened while bound to the mast like Ulysses, so they could enjoy the music of the intelligible realm without foundering on the reefs of the sensual!
Schultz solemnly pronounced these words when the second turn of the spiral hove into view. The astrologer’s flatus vocis seems justified now, as I evoke in memory images from the second circle of hell. Yet my pen hesitates, so shocking were the scenes I saw in that sector, and so numerous the hosts who suffered there the rigours of the Earthly Venus.
We had left Mudtown through another cleft in the wall and, abandoning umbrella and boots, we came to a halt at the edge of a precipice that cut off our path. When I peered over the edge into the abyss, a gust of hot wind lashed at my face, but not a single human sound arose from the depths. Suddenly, something like a very distant drum started beating below; the drumbeat grew louder and louder until it was like thunder, making the walls of the abyss vibrate, and I jumped back. But then, just as quickly, the thunder ebbed to a drumbeat and then to silence, a silence pregnant with menace.
— There’s the bridge, Schultz advised me, heading for a fragile structure soaring from one side of the abyss to the other.
I followed him without comment, but was suspicious of the bridge, which at a distance put me in mind of the toboggan slide or some other contrivance of the astrologer’s fertile imagination. Great was my relief when, drawing near, I saw it was indeed a bridge, complete with wooden handrails, and looking a lot like the ones you see arching over streams in Chinese woodcuts. As usual, my relief was succeeded by a burst of daring that had me blithely strolling across the bridge without a care. So I didn’t notice the astrologer’s brow gradually clouding over with worry. We must have been about halfway across, when the thunderous drumbeat started up again, but this time a vicious wind swept up from the abyss and nearly blew us away.
— Grab the rail! shouted Schultz.
I obeyed in the nick of time and closed my eyes until drumbeat and wind had died down as quickly as they had arisen. But Schultz still looked worried:
— It’s not over yet, he announced. Now comes the hard part.
His gaze sought something on the remaining stretch of bridge before us.
— Where has the filthy beast got to? he wondered aloud, moving forward with extreme caution.
No sooner had he spoken than the monster appeared at the head of the bridge. Now, looking back over the incidents of the journey, I tell myself that animal’s showing up there was the nastiest trick Schultz played on me in all the spirals of his Helicoid. Blocking our way was the gigantic figure of a woman, completely naked. Her dishevelled locks were entwined with brass-foil roses and chiffon laurel leaves. Her idiot’s brow bulged above wild eyes, below which fleshy lips greedily protruded in the four cardinal directions. Where her breasts should have been, the heads of two dogs stared slit-eyed, as if dozing. Her belly, huge and round, looked like the battlefield of every delirium. A crab with immobile pincers concealed or substituted for her sex, and from each of her buttocks sprouted a gawky gallinaceous wing. All in all, the beast expressed a sensuality so painful that my legs turned to mush at the mere sight of her.
— I’m not going any further! I protested, turning away from the courtesan who stood guard at the head of the bridge.
— Don’t let Dame Lust intimidate you, the astrologer advised me. Don’t let her see you’re afraid.
— I’m not afraid of that scarecrow! I retorted. And, if you ask me, those bloody wings growing out of her rear-end are in mighty questionable taste.
Paying no attention to my protests, the astrologer Schultz took my arm and led me toward the woman. But Dame Lust was stirring; her two dogshead hooters stuck their muzzles out and began to bark furiously; her sexcrab extended menacing pincers; and the two ungainly gluteal wings started flapping vigorously in a futile attempt to take flight. Hopping like a chicken, the woman came closer and stared us in the face:
— How ’bout it, boys! she cooed in a monotone. How ’bout it!
— Yeah, yeah, answered Schultz without stopping.
— How ’bout it, boys! How ’bout it! intoned Dame Lust, backing away from us in little hops.
Thus we arrived at the end of the bridge and stepped onto terra firma.
— Goddam franeleros! she yelled after us as she returned to her post, the two dogsheads rabidly biting each other.
Before I go on to describe the various precincts of the second spiral and the order in which we toured them, let me clarify that this sector of hell was nothing like a barrio. As I later realized, it looked more like an enormous movie-production lot, where weird set-designers had seemingly mounted, one next to another, six heterogeneous sets unconnected by any passage.
The first scene (and don’t ask me how we got there) was an immense theatre, decorated with pornographic plaster figurines, threadbare curtains, and fly-specked mirrors. A multitude of randy men filled the orchestra seats and galleries up to the rafters. The air was so thick with cigarette smoke, animal heat, old sweat, garlic soup, and cheap perfume, you could’ve cut it with a knife. While Schultz was looking for a pair of empty seats, I scanned the crowd and spotted the ornate jackets of milkmen, the blue coveralls of mechanics, the shiny suits of office workers, the wide-brimmed hats of students, the top hats of aristocrats, and the Perramus trenchcoats typical of burghers.
— Half of Villa Crespo is gathered here, I remarked to Schultz as I sat down beside him.
— Three quarters of the whole city, he corrected me. But let’s listen now.
The crowd was clearly growing impatient. Suddenly an infernal stomping of feet raised a most acrid cloud of dust. The men in the upper gallery responded with jeers and whistles, and banana peels were pelted against the curtain bearing ads from our most noted specialists in venereal disease. In an apparent attempt to assuage the spectators’ impatience, a brass band somewhere off-stage began playing, out of tune, the San Lorenzo March.31 But the whistling only intensified, and a chorus of indignant voices, a thousand-strong, struck up a chant:
— Song-and-dance, no. We want a speech! Song-and-dance, no. We want a speech!
The brass band stopped playing, the curtain went up, an expectant hush filled the hall. Suddenly, emerging from backstage through red curtains, a little man came on stage and went straight to the footlights, as a clamorous ovation received him triumphantly.
— The pipsqueak Bernini! I cried.
— Quiet! ordered Schultz. Names are not be mentioned in this circle of hell.
It was indeed the pipsqueak Bernini who had just come on stage, receiving the applause with the blasé majesty of a condottiere. Since the applause grew louder, the pipsqueak acknowledged it with a thin smile.
— Listen to the Boss! someone shouted from the orchestra seats.
— Boss! Boss! howled the delirious multitude.
The pipsqueak Bernini raised his hand in command:
— Students with eyes eager as bloodhounds for the chase! he declaimed. Salesclerks intoxicated by movies! Factory workers with active right-hands! Bourgeois gentlemen in unwilling celibacy! And above all, you, oh federal-government employees! It is no ordinary problem that brings us together in this enthusiastic conference, but one that has tormented man since time immemorial. The raciest pages of history are littered with attempted solutions. I refer to the problem of sex.