The ice cream vendor and the attendant weren’t obliged to be normal, while I’m obliged to act it. I’m required to act normal, I repeat, in any place, including my own country. That’s why what I described earlier happened, as I was diligently scrutinizing my map in the middle of the sidewalk, and all my doubts and worries briefly disappeared when I believed the street vendor was waving to me from the gutter, alongside the passing traffic. I returned his greeting and began walking toward him. And as I said, I felt tremendously embarrassed when I realized he was hailing another person to ask for help. Partly because of it, I turned my eyes back to the map, as if I were hiding, and kept on trying to make sense of it. I now replayed those events and was under the impression I’d undergone them a good while ago, not merely a few hours earlier; and furthermore, I was under the impression I’d experienced them in another situation, in another time scheme, and under other conditions. I don’t know whether this may have been an effect of the park — most likely it was. Parks and long walks separate me from time and install me in a different dimension, an alternate one, obviously compatible with the true one, shall we say, or in any case with the regular one, isolated and at times autonomous as it may be.
For instance, from a certain distance I took part in the predictable development of that muted conversation between the two men, the swan attendant and the ice cream vendor, and despite there being nothing in their dialogue that in the least concerned me or aroused my curiosity, I recognized in the scene an essential act, a privileged and moving event which I was flattered, even proud, to have witnessed. It might sound a bit presumptuous, but that’s how it was. Somewhat like my reaction to the landscape the ground often presents. It was a simple or forgettable conversation, a way of killing time; perhaps it wasn’t a conversation at all, but for me it had a transcendent quality. I thought: the park, the harmonized light and shade, the lake, the manufactured nature, the world in miniature, the imitation of fauna, etc., and on top of that, the communication, whose possible simulation I had no reason to rule out, between two individuals. Never before had a dialogue seemed so essential to me. I don’t mean that in dramatic terms, as something essential to resolving a conflict or a mystery, but rather in terms of its human significance, I don’t know what to call it, metaphysical might perhaps be too much. .
Anything, it seemed, could distract those two men, except myself, of course, and when I passed them again on leaving it was as if nothing had happened. My next destination was a building that rose in the distance, at one end of the lake, spacious and low-built, beneath the green canopies of the trees which framed it from behind. The lake was to my left, sheltered by the profuse greenery which seemed to seek to disguise or to conceal it. At one point I thought that in all likelihood that afternoon would be my only time in this place, and so I couldn’t resign myself to the idea of not having another look at its waters. So I first went deep into the grass and then slipped through the stunted shrubs and trees by the shore. The water wasn’t very clear, but a few carp were visible, and one or another turtle swimming with effort, slowly, apparently at risk of sinking, nothing but their diminutive head, like a small nut, bobbing on the surface.
In controlled lakes such as that one, you can analyze, or at least see, the vicissitudes of a well-regulated life. Turtles and fish swim in peace, it’s hard to imagine anything threatening them. A life well-regulated so as to go on, oblivious of the struggle and adapted to its own, possibly unhappy, subsistence. These creatures, including the swans, could give me some kind of a lesson. I tried to see it clearly, but something hindered me; probably weariness. After a life devoted to thinking trivialities, weariness was my body’s last protest, the cry for help, now nearly extinguished, which still contains some kind of hope. I don’t want to be overly abstract, but at times weariness translates into longing. That’s what I felt at that moment: a longing for the well-regulated life, and for what’s foreseeable.
Most likely owing to my shadow as seen from underwater, and the hope for food it represented, a few fish swam up to me, followed by two or three turtles. I had nothing more to offer them than my bitter thoughts and a vague feeling of solidarity with their condition, a condition in which I recognized myself completely: if their lot had fallen to me, I would have been the most well-regulated of carp and the most predictable of turtles; I had nothing to offer them and yet they stayed there, without moving, drawing a semi-circle before me, hanging on my movements as if they made up an audience willing to watch me, with their own rules for positioning themselves and their own patience. Of course, I felt immediately called upon to do something. A writer always dreams of a real audience, and this was the most I could aspire to. Needless to say, I was tempted to give a speech or at least offer some brief disquisition. Because the realest audience is the one that understands the least, I mean, when it flaunts its deafness, or at least a bit of resistance, when it indicates our uselessness, etc.
That’s why I immediately felt united to these people, if I can call them that, since I’d never manage to know how they’d receive my words, or if my words would affect them in any way. They were, therefore, an ideal alibi, because thanks to their incomprehension I would address the world, all the species of the universe and their own materiality. I began by explaining to them how I’d arrived there, my problems in finding that splendid park. The animals listened to me with reverence and didn’t take their eyes off me; I’m not exaggerating when I say they seemed hypnotized by my story. The carp were motionless under the water, their unblinking eyes almost breaking the surface; the turtles, meanwhile, were paddling their feet to keep their heads afloat as their heavy bodies seemed on the verge of sinking. I ended up giving a speech in the least expected of places. I had never been especially interested in animals, apart from regarding them as companions in misfortune of a sort, though for disparate reasons, some unknown to me. That’s why I now didn’t know whether I should adopt an apologetic tone or disregard my former indifference toward them, imputing it to the passage of time or to a mere lack of communication. But, of course, I could have no idea, either, whether they expected any explanation on this matter from me.
I thought of presenting my impressions of the aviary, the stupefied, degraded birds killing time in their gigantic cages. I could tell them a bit about the uncoordinated strut of the peacock, which walked about the wide birdcage as if evading imaginary obstacles. A reeling caused not only by the weight of its great, fanned-out tail — an operation for which I saw no reason besides its desperation at being caged — but by the presence of some fact or some condition nonetheless invisible to me. That is, I had more than enough to say about their comrades in the park, but of course they were in all likelihood uninterested in hearing my opinion about them, a situation with which they probably were quite well-acquainted. They perhaps wanted me to speak about myself, or about my own species, Argentines, males, human beings in general, or whoever my peers were. Maybe they expected a rhapsodic speech harking back to the past and which praised a harmonious, shared natural origin. All of that could have happened, but the fact is I chose not to continue beyond this point.