At this point Ruty released some of the laughter pent up in her body.
— He’s the man from Mars! she hooted.
— If you’re going to interrupt, Schultz told her, then I’ll just pack it up, and that’ll be that.
— Oh no, Ruty begged. I want you to tell me about the Neocriollo’s nose.
— It will be a beautiful nose, said the astrologer. Its right nostril will be ruled by Mars and the left one by Venus. Which means that the Neocriollo will breathe destructive furor through one side, and loving or constructive furor through the other. Imagine an enormous nose, with its windows wide open and pulsating, free of hairs and mucous.
— There he goes with the disgusting details, scolded Ethel.
But Schultz paid no attention.
— The Neocriollo’s tongue, he expounded gravely, will be an organ for both taste and expression, and will be under the dominion of Mercury. It will have the shape of a long, flexible ribbon, like the anteater’s tongue, and the Neocriollo will stick it into all kinds of places, avid for flavours. This means his mouth will be merely a small hole, and toothless, since the Neocriollo will no longer feed on gross substances — ah, no! He will subsist on all that is subtle in this world. And now I must describe his skin, the tactile organ. The Neocriollo will have a very large skin area, accommodating a prodigious number of nerve endings; and, logically, since it will be too big for his body, it will fall down around him in wrinkles and folds, like the skin of Merino lambs.
— A regular Beau Brummell! exclaimed Ruty.14
— I told you so, said Ethel Amundsen, indignant and amused. An abominable freak.
The engineer Valdez seemed to be looking at the Neocriollo in his imagination.
— Let’s just say he doesn’t have a lot of sex appeal, he finally allowed. There’s no accounting for taste, as my old mom used to say. But there are still five senses we haven’t heard about yet.
— Six, Schultz corrected. Five under the sign of Action, plus the single sense of Feeling.
— Go on.
— Don’t encourage him! Ethel pleaded with a worried air.
— If you’re just going to take it as a joke, said Schultz, we’d best drop it here.
But Ruty put on a contrite face, and the astrologer spoke thus:
— The organs of Action are the word, the hands, the feet, the digestive tract, and the instruments of generation. The language of the Neocriollo will be a cross between metaphysics and poetry, without logic or grammar. His hands and feet will be of a magnitude unknown at the present, and will operate on a complex system of second- and third-degree levers. I’ve already mentioned that the Neocriollo will feed on perfumes, dew, and other quintessences. Thanks to this diet, his digestive tract will be simplicity itself and will emit neither putrid gases nor repugnant shitlets.
— Schultz, Schultz! remonstrated Ethel, furrowing her Pallas-like brow.
— What are shitlets? asked Ruty impetuously.
— Now then, concluded Schultz, implacable, let us go on to consider his generative organs. The testicles will be ruled by the sign of Venus and the penis by Mercury. I shall now describe their forms.15
But Ethel Amundsen, splendid in her fury, was already on her feet.
— Schultz! she warned. One more word and I’m throwing you out.
The sense of relief in the salon was palpable when Ramona made her solemn entrance, pushing a cart loaded with clinking bottles. It was clear the tertulia was dying of thirst; dried-out glasses scattered here and there testified to the severity of a drought that was becoming worrisome. Only Mister Chisholm and Adam Buenosayres still held on to theirs, the former because he’d already exacted a new tribute from Ramona, detaining her in the vestibule with truly imperial circumspection, and Adam because he’d forgotten about the empty glass in his hand, distracted as he was by the soliloquy of his souclass="underline"
Come, sad friend!
In the shadow of the conservatory,
by the side of fraternal roses.16
He had been right to fear the crucial moment when the heavenly Solveig would be measured against the earthly Solveig. The confrontation had taken place. From now on, all that was left to him was the brackish taste of defeat, as he returned to his tremendous solitude, leading a poetic phantom by the hand. Weaver of smoke! Would he never learn? Yes, a phantom of light, engendered by the night that wept for its darkness; or was born of the solitude that wept for itself and fashioned a bit of music to keep itself company. Was that all?17
Adam Buenosayres contemplated Solveig; in her hands the Blue-Bound Notebook was a dead thing:
I, a potter seated upon the carpet of days
with what clay did I model your idol-like throat
and your legs that turn like streams?18
That’s what she was: clay to be moulded. And the work of his thumbs, wrought in her entirety by his own hands from head to foot, north to south, east to west, zenith to nadir, according to the three dimensions of earth and the fourth of poetry. Weaver of smoke! What for? So that night might not weep; so that solitude might bear a child.
My thumb formed your belly
smoother than the skin of nuptial drums,
and put strings in the new bow of your smile.
The work accomplished in his retreat, kneaded from silence and music. Come to life and breathe, powerful statue! Let red blood circulate in your veins of poetic marble! Ah, she moves not, nor burns! Pygmalion!
Now Solveig’s hands were rolling and unrolling the Blue-Bound Notebook.
Two parallel creatures, reflected Adam Buenosayres. God’s creature on the divan, mine in the Notebook. Perhaps made from the same clay. Two parallel lines, never to meet. And Don Bruno had humiliated him because he didn’t know the definition of parallel lines. But wait, wait! Something of his own remained in the ideal creature he’d forged: the number, measure, and weight of his vocation to love, the sum of his thirst, the physiognomy of his hope. And according to Don Bruno, parallel lines also converged, albeit in the Infinite. What about the others? What would he do with his heavenly Solveig?
Make the fruits ripen
and the rain leave its country of lamentation
idol of potters.
Adam recited the poem in his heart. So well did the verses resonate with the colour of his thought that he felt within a kind of musical excitement that announced the precise moment when the stuff of pain transmuted into the stuff of art. Idol of potters! Whom was he invoking in that prayer? A woman made of literature, who could neither listen nor respond to him from the pages of the Blue-Bound Notebook. What to do, then, with the heavenly Solveig? Fine! Just as he’d given her body, soul, existence, and language, he would also give her a poetic death. He himself would carry the mortal remains of the heavenly Solveig in his arms. For want of earth in which to bury her, he would invent an opulent literary interment. He would do it that very night in the room of his torments, in a solitude shredded by sobs. The Blue-Bound Notebook would have a second part: a cursed funeral and a liturgy of ghosts, their eyes pouring tears down to their feet.
At this point, Adam observed, as so many times before, two external signs about to betray his turmoiclass="underline" a deep inhalation painful to the chest and an affluence of tears to his eyes. Fearing he might be found out, he took a quick look around the tertulia: by the window, the three ladies engaged in animated conversation; atop his ladder Mister Chisholm struggled with a recalcitrant strip of wallpaper. Marta Ruiz and the engineer were now holding forth on the sky-blue divan. And in the metaphysical sector, the argument was again heating up, Samuel Tesler dominating the conversation as usual. Adam calmed down: it was clear nobody was looking at him. But at the same time he felt the urgent need to let his voice join all the other voices, to share in that audible world, to melt completely into the tertulia, if only to forget himself and set aside the commotion in his soul. A truce! More desperate than thirsty, he knocked back his whisky at a single gulp. As he turned to set down his empty glass, the enigmatic Ramona appeared at his side with another glass filled to the brim. Ancient Hebe. Silent Hebe. Merciful Hebe, ministering angel.