— Look at the orchestra, he told me, completely unperturbed.
Only then did my eyes take in the entire room. As I said earlier, it was an immense hall which, according to my reckoning and despite all logic, must have taken up the whole building. The orchestra, installed in a theatre box off to one side, was made up of twenty musicians decked out in gaucho-style chiripás made of satin, wildly embroidered jackets, multicoloured kerchiefs, and accordion boots. It was impossible, however, to identify the noble son of the pampas in those musicians of Hebraic nose, gold teeth, thick glasses, and wan complexion. Moreover, instead of the bandoneón or guitar, their hands held the psalter, trumpet, cymbal, bagpipes, and drum; with these instruments they were playing the lugubrious air we’d already heard from outside, but which had now assumed the tempo of a very slow waltz, to whose strains the dancers seemed to be spinning eternally.
I was watching the scene in amazement, when an official with the greenish face of an actor introduced himself to us. Judging by the megaphone in his right hand, he was playing the role of an announcer.
— Don Moses Rosenbaum is on view, he announced. This way, gentlemen. The cloakroom is on your left. Our show will commence right away.
He led us among the dancing couples until we came to a red curtain, the first of a series that seemed to conceal several stages around the room. I looked at Schultz and saw curiosity in his eyes, but I didn’t have a chance to speak to him because our announcer was preparing to speak into the megaphone.
— Your attention, please! he shouted in a falsetto voice.
The dancers stood stock still on the spot, the music stopped, and the curtain went up to reveal a scene in which the characters acted like puppets as soon as the announcer started to speak:
— Ladies and gentlemen! said the man with the megaphone (his voice of a hoary old rogue recited in a liturgical style, his tone rising and falling according to the exigencies of the text). You are about to witness a tragicomedy which, though contemporary, possesses an antique quality verging on the mystical. The first scene takes place, as you can see, in the parlour of a tenement house on Warnes Street, where a gathering of people stirs excitedly; drinks in hand, carefully circulating amid sewing machines and piles of overcoats, they are celebrating the circumcision of the twelve sons whom Don Moses Rosenbaum owes to the magnificence of Jehovah. Ladies and gentlemen, look to the right and see how the rabbi, anointed with the oil of wisdom, counts the product of his difficult art! And look to the left at Don Moses Rosenbaum himself (stuffed into his lustring frock coat and holding the cane which, according to him, has been passed down by his ancestors): he is the hero and martyr of our story. His eyes, at once festive and attentive, seem to bless the guests and watch every move they make, lest they make off with some utensil! Ah, ladies and gentlemen, put your hand on your heart and tell me: do you not feel you are in the presence of a scene straight out of the Bible? Me neither.
The announcer fell silent, the curtain came down, and we applauded coldly. Then, as the orchestra took up the same air as before but now in foxtrot time, the dancers began to dance again. Meanwhile, the announcer led us before a second stage.
— Your attention, please! he cried again.
Orchestra and dancers halted once more, and the curtain went up to reveal a second tableau:
— Gentlemen, recited the announcer. As you will recall, we left Don Moses Rosenbaum in a humble tenement house on Warnes Street. Look at him now in the book-filled study in the mansion he’s built overlooking the gardens of Palermo.63 Ah, if you could look through the picture windows of his study, you’d see the cheerfully fuming smokestacks of his factories! But tell me: who are those twelve unanimous lads who have their twelve identical noses buried in as many books, atlases, and guides? They are the twelve sons of Don Moses Rosenbaum training to do battle by studying codes, itineraries, statistics, and languages! See how the proud father looks at them, as he scratches his beard gone grey, which releases not dandruff but powdered benevolence! And answer me this: doesn’t Don Moses look to you like a man who has realized his ambitions? Yes? Well, look out, then! Because Don Moses Rosenbaum, despite his satisfied air, already has one eye on the wheatfields by the coast and the other on the cattle herds in the south, one ear on the quebracho forests in the north, and the other ear on the mineral deposits in the west; his right nostril is already sniffing at the winepresses of Cuyo and the left nostril smells the sugar mills of Tucumán.64 But, hey there! What’s happening now? The twelve lads have just got up! See how they follow Don Moses’s nervous index finger as it traces routes on a map. Now they take out twelve identical suitcases, they put on twelve selfsame raincoats, and they head off in the twelve directions of the Argentine Republic! Curtain.
A new round of cold applause was heard as the curtain descended. The dancers moved to the sempiternal music, which was now assuming the form of a tango. And again the announcer stopped them with his liturgical drone:
— Gentlemen, he said, the curtain has just risen to reveal a third scene to your astonished gaze. You see the interior of a temple. Look at the twelve sons of Don Moses Rosenbaum, all standing by the baptismal font in the presence of grave witnesses who apparently have their foreskins intact, and receiving the redemptive water the way a person might take a dubious cheque! One thing’s for sure: the twelve lads wear their morning coats quite stylishly (take away a couple of the rings burdening their fingers, and they would be perfect). Now turn your eyes to Don Moses Rosenbaum and see how he sneaks a sidelong glance at the Crucified One. Did you catch it? Well then, that glance has got some pedigree: it’s two thousand years old. And you will ask me now, what angel or demon is at work on this tribe? My response: hmm, this business is making me very uneasy.
The man with the megaphone stopped talking, and the dancers repeated their routine, breaking off when the fourth scene was unveiled:
— Ah, gentlemen! recited the announcer. If you now see me waving, practically in your faces, the ever-sweet torch of Hymenaeus,65 do not think my heart exults with pleasure. Voilà the fourth scene! It’s the altar of a basilica: the twelve scions of Don Moses Rosenbaum are contracting marriage with as many young ladies from our high society. Aristocrats come down in the world, ruined families, illustrious lineages gone bankrupt, none have hesitated to sacrifice their finest buds for the sake of Mammon, if we may so rename Don Moses Rosenbaum, who stands by the altar sweating anguish (just look at him!), eyes popping out of his head, ears peeled, nostrils flared in order to ensure that the candles are burning properly, that the incense is the one agreed upon in the contract, that the organist isn’t skimping on the semi-quavers. But hell’s bells! Have you not just noticed the light has grown dimmer? It was Don Moses Rosenbaum who, on the sly, has just blown out the flames in the candelabrum. The wretch just can’t help himself! Ah, gentlemen, do not think my heart overflows with pleasure just because you see me lighting, almost under your noses, the not-always-so-sweet torch of Hymenaeus!