— You patent oaf! cried Schultz, stung by those words. Didn’t you used to walk up and down the rue Fontaine, in dinner jacket and slippers, horking nasty spitballs over the lapdogs of retired whores?
— Dissolvons, putrifions, sublimons! parodied the guitarist in execrable French.
The astrologer Schultz turned every colour in the rainbow:
— And what was your ridiculous ambition? he urgently asked the guitarist, as though wishing to change the subject.
— To lay a bouquet of camellias on the tomb of Marguerite Gauthier.96
— Not that one! said Schultz. I mean the other one. The unmentionable one…
— I…
— Your supreme ambition, the astrologer mercilessly reminded him, was to have yourself photographed sitting in a luxurious vestibule on an armchair covered with a white throw.
The guitarist turned his eyes away and pretended not to hear:
— I’m playin’ for radio now, he mused at last in a voice thick with melancholy.
He prudently moved off, away from us, and Schultz’s face then expressed great relief, as if he had just warded off the risk of an awkward revelation. I looked at him, curious, and was wondering what veil over the astrologer’s secret life had narrowly escaped being drawn aside, when a homoplume came fluttering down and recited these words into my ear:
– “In their palatial mansions…”
I recognized the declamatory voice of Prince Charming. But the man was much changed since the last time we’d seen him at Ciro’s restaurant. His erstwhile filthy and dishevelled locks were now impeccably trimmed and well-nigh rhetorically coiffed. It was clear that facial massages and creams had worked wonders on his formerly pimply, sebaceous, pitted face. As always, he was wearing a high wing-collar (though now, marvellously, it was smudged by neither fingerprints nor flyspecks) and a honey-toned cravatte, in the centre of which gleamed a pearl, which may not may not have been oriental but came pretty darn close. In his loud-yellow — gloved hands, the sensitive malevo cradled and strummed a brass harp festooned in gaudy ribbons, whose dull strings of grocer’s twine thudded uselessly. I was glad to see him, for his presence in this circle of hell brought back fond memories of the world we’d imprudently left behind. I ventured to touch his long ostrich plume and said to him:
— Hail, poet! How go those demands for social justice?
Prince Charming recoiled from my hand, as if it were leprous.
— Have some respect! he deigned to warn me. Now I recite on the radio.
— I know! said I in a pitiful voice. That’s why the Muses of the Arrabal are in mourning.
Prince Charming gave me a disdainful smile, as if I were talking about Ancient History.
— Nowadays, he said, my fee is…
— Pesos? I laughed. Look who’s talking about money now! The man who once lashed bourgeois buttocks with the strings of his fulminating lyre; he who troubled the unjust sleep of magnates with naught but the clean blow of a stanza; he who…
— I wasn’t listened to! complained Prince Charming. No one’s a prophet in his own land. For all I care, the tyrants can thrive and multiply. Now I’ve got myself a seat at the banquet of life!
I looked at him with moist eyes:
— At the banquet of life! I exclaimed then. And for what? So sensible folks can laugh in your face, mocking your bad taste, so typically nouveau-riche, and your thuggish elegance and luxury. Those over-the-top shirts, those declamatory ties, those suits of impossible architecture, those agressive shoes you now show off at broadcasting sessions — a scourge for the eyes, an outrage against the light. And what to say about your neuralgia-coloured automobile and its calfskin upholstery? Or your apartment stuffed with useless furniture and knick-knacks, congested with mirrors, where a person can’t even turn around?
— Jealousy will get you nowhere! said Prince Charming sententiously.
— No, Prince, no! I said affectionately. Ever since you left, the soul has gone out of Ciro’s. The barrio moans, the old women whisper, and everyone says in one voice…
— What can they say? crowed the Prince.
— That some day your luck will turn. Once from the Maldonado, always from the Maldonado.
Prince Charming squirmed, tried out a disdainful chortle, cast about for a counter-argument. But he was cut off by three buzzing homoplumes who dove down on us in formation.
— Five times eight is forty! said the three voices in chorus. The pampa has the ombú!
— When? I asked them, recognizing without much enthusiasm the three members of The Bohemians.
— From 6 to 6:15 p.m. LX3, Radio Threnody.
They flew off as swiftly as they had come. And then at my back I heard the melancholy strains of a vihuela. I turned on my heels and faced a homoplume in a gaucho’s hat and chinstrap, whom I recognized as the payador Tissone. Full of a certain bovine melancholy, he contemplated me for a moment. Then, plucking at his guitar, he declared:
— I’m the hindmost harmony of a race soon to disappear…
— Where? I asked him, disheartened.
— LY2, Radio Home-on-the-Range, he answered. Every night from 8 to 8:15.
The wind whisked him away, guitar and all. At this point, Prince Charming, the Mack, the guitarist of Montmartre, the trio of Bohemians, and other homoplumes of similar ilk all came crowding back, apparently with some aggression in mind, judging by their insolent voices and belligerent attitudes. Fortunately, the sound of a xylophone reduced them to silence. Next we heard the nasal voice of a radio announcer:
— ZZ1, Radio Inferno. A very pleasant evening to you all, dear listeners. And it will be pleasant indeed, I assure you, if you have all heeded the wise counsel of prudence and shaved using the unbeatable Styx-brand razor-blade, the only one that’s as as soft on your chin as the caress of a sylph. Before we begin tonight’s program, allow me a brief philosophical digression, which by activating the not always well-exercised cells in your grey matter, may at this hour perturb the respectable working of your no less respectable small intestine. But fear not, dear listeners, for in the case of an internal revolution you will always have on hand the infallible Marathon, the world’s fastest and gentlest laxative.
Another stroke of the xylophone whetted our sense of expectation, and the announcer lifted his voice again:
— Rare is the mortal, he began, who does not revere Radio Broadcasting as among the scientific miracles of today, the one that has most exalted the faith of true believers in a future full of admirable artifacts which, furnishing their houses and unfurnishing their souls, will surely give access to a realm of headache-free bliss. Do you acknowledge this, dear listeners? Celebrate it, then, with a glass of famous Alembic-brand cognac, a masterpiece of contemporary alchemy! But if science has wrought a great miracle in Radio, no less miraculous is the feat that Radio itself has produced in this century, by populating the once silent ether with the crippled voices, whole-cloth grunts, musical belches, confused oratory, and artistic flatulence of a multitude whose lyrical talents had never crossed — alas! — the narrow limits of the family, and which today, thanks to H.M. the Microphone, surge forth from an age-old and unjust anonymity. And so in today’s world, there isn’t a dime-store guitar-picker, neighbourhood soprano, milk-bar playwright, gazebo poet, amateur actor, or home-body declaimer who doesn’t abandon the shameful shovel, the degrading hammer, the servile needle-and-thread, the vulgar scaffolding, in order to rush off to the broadcasting sessions, anxious to let their voices chime into the great universal chord. Our program will faithfully transmit their innovative harmonies. Listen attentively, dear listeners. And just remember: brands of toilet soap may abound, but none equals the exquisite Munda-totum, capable of giving your skin a second, eternal, adolescence.