I put down the green pen and pick up the black. I write, Dieron las tres y después las cuatro, y después la media hora hizo sonar su doble repique (teo) (campanada), pero Dorian Gray no se movió. Estaba tratando de reunir (juntar) (amontonar) (hilvanar) (enhebrar) (atravesar) los hilos (pedazos) (fragmentos) escarlatas (rojos) (rojizos) de su vida, y darles una forma, para hallar su camino a través del sanguíneo (sangriento) laberinto de pasión por el cual (que) había estado vagando.
With the red pen I underline the words campanada, pedazos, and sangriento. Then I get up and look out the window. The rain is falling on the palms and the orange trees, and the reddish paths of ground brick glow. Three gorillas are crossing the plaza. They are coming from different directions: one is crossing at a diagonal from southwest to northeast, another in the opposite direction, and the third from northwest to southeast. They meet at the center of the square, in the wide reddish circle. They walk with difficulty, hunched over, blurred by the rain and wrapped in their raincoats. One of them, the one walking to the north, carries a black umbrella that partially obscures his body. The black circle moved rigidly, contrasted against the reddish path. Then I go back to the translation. I write, cross out, and make marks in the notebook and the noveclass="underline" crosses, vertical and horizontal lines, circles, arrows. I return to page 109 and then turn over to page 110. The page fills up around its even printing with my nervous, quick symbols: crosses, vertical and horizontal lines, arrows, circles. I write, Hace dos días le he dicho a Sibyl que se case conmigo. No voy a quebrar mi promesa (faltar a mi palabra = to break my word to her). I underline faltar a mi palabra. Then I write, “Ella va a ser,” and at that moment Ángel walks into the office. I close the dictionary and mark my page in the novel with the red pen and close it. Ángel’s raincoat is soaked on the shoulders, and his dark hair is a mess. He is very thin.
“I haven’t been able to call you,” says Ángel. “I have lots of problems at home these days.” Then he leans over the desk and touches the book. His thin fingers brush over the surface of the cover on which there is a face — drawn in white lines on a purple field — that covers most of the surface. The face is obliterated by jagged, white lines. Ángel asks if I’ve made much progress with the translation. “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “It’s already been translated so many times that it makes no difference if I make progress or not. All I’m doing is traveling a path that others have made. I don’t discover anything. Whole passages come out exactly the same as the versions of the professional translators.” Ángel is quiet a moment, and then he asks if I have sent many people to prison. “Lots,” I say. “Have you ever been in prison?” he says. “I’ve been a few times,” I say. “Visiting.” He’s thinking that I’m not bothered by sending people to prison just because I’ve never been locked up. “Try to avoid vulgar ideas,” I say. “That’s just advice. Thinking vulgar things is anti-aesthetic. No one is better off because they’re free, or worse in prison. It’s not better to be outside than inside. People who are alive aren’t happier than dead people. It’s all a shapeless, gelatinous mass where nothing is different from anything else. Everything is exactly the same.” “They said you were looking for me,” says Ángel. “I wanted to invite you over for dinner tomorrow night,” I say. “Alright,” says Ángel. “Actually,” I say. “I wanted to see how you were.” “I’m fantastic,” says Ángel. “You don’t look it,” I say. “You look skinnier every day and you have terrible bags under your eyes.” “Well I don’t spend all day sitting behind a desk judging people,” says Ángel. “I have my own life.” I get up and brush my hand over his head. His hair is wet. “Don’t make bad literature and everything will be fine,” I say. He blushes. I ask if he wants some coffee. He asks if it’s the same as the prisoners’ coffee from the press office. “Not the prisoners’,” I say. “But it’s the same as the press office.” “I will decline, in that case,” says Ángel. Suddenly, he stands up and says he’s leaving. I follow him to the door, holding him by the shoulders. “You’re getting very cynical and rebellious,” I say in a low voice. Then he disappears.
I set the briefcase on the table and start putting things away: the dictionary, the pens, the notebook, and the novel, which I mark again with the folded paper after removing the red pen. Then I close the briefcase, put on my raincoat, and leave the office. The secretary looks up from a document. His hair is going gray. “Leaving already, judge?” he says. “Yes, I’m leaving. It’s almost noon.” “I have some reports for you to sign,” he says. “Tomorrow,” I say. “Yes, tomorrow,” he says. “There’s no rush.” I say goodbye and walk out, then down the dark corridor, stopping at the railing to look down at the floors below. The lobby is crowded with gorillas talking in groups or walking across the black and white mosaic in every direction. I make my way slowly down the white marble stairs toward the first floor. As I approach the wide lobby the gorillas’ voices grow louder but no more intelligible. They make strange noises in a strange register that blends together and rebounds off the tall ceiling. It’s a shapeless blend of sound, and when I start to make my way through the mass of gorillas toward the rear of the building, the sounds reach me charged with vibrations and echoes: some are shrill, others harsh, others guttural, blending with shouts and laughter to produce an incessant crackle. With pale faces, bulging eyes, with fur that covers their heads, wet from the rain, their arms gesticulating strangely, some gorillas cluster in groups and some hurry across the black and white mosaic. The stairs are covered in muddy tracks, and the impressions left by their shoes on the mosaic have filled with water. Finally I reach the end of the lobby and walk into the cold, empty corridor. Office doors open to the corridor, revealing, every so often, shelves piled to the ceiling with documents. I reach the end of the corridor and walk out into the rear courtyard. The rain covers my face. I get in the car. I put down the briefcase, and when I turn on the engine and the windshield wipers I hear their sounds again, the monotone hum of the engine and the rhythmic scrape of the wiper blades over the windshield, soaked from the hours when the car was parked in the rear courtyard. I back up slowly, then steer down the narrow passageway toward the exit until I reach the street. After crossing the intersection I turn right and start driving around the plaza and the courthouse is left behind. On the corner, the traffic light stops me, but the engine keeps running. When the green light comes on I turn left up San Martín to the north. The gorillas, males and females, crowd the sidewalks in both directions, and their number grows as I approach the city center. At the corner of the municipal theater I have to brake suddenly when a bus rushes through the intersection, full speed, just as I’m starting across. Then I start moving again, observing the old facade of the theater, its curved marble staircase washed by the rain. Then I leave the theater behind and continue north. Two and a half blocks later I pass the corridors of the arcade, cross Mendoza, and continue up San Martín. The number of gorillas has grown considerably; they huddle in the thresholds of shops and under the eaves of houses to protect themselves from the weather. The female gorillas’ colorful umbrellas move stiffly, filling the sidewalks with circular blurs, red, green, pink, yellow, black, and white. Farther along, as I pass the entrance to La Región, I see Ángel hurrying inside, but he doesn’t see me. I’m only just able to see him stride quickly up the two steps at the entrance and then disappear. I go on, slowly, block after block, until I reach the boulevard, then I turn right, then I pass the university, a pale yellow building, its windows painted green. To the west, through the portion of open sky above the boulevard, I can make out the vast, blurred horizon, a gray that grows more dense as it moves into the distance. The wiper blades sweep across the windshield glass with an even rhythm while the fine droplets fall and collide and form strange, momentary shapes. I drive to the west end of the boulevard, and then, after some fifteen blocks, I turn left again, to the south, down the Avenida del Oeste. Restless gorillas wait silently under bus stop shelters. I can see them through the windshield, and less distinctly through the side windows soaked by the rain. I go about twenty blocks down the avenue, passing, in succession, the Avenida cinema, the wholesale market, then the regimental gardens, until finally I reach the Avenida del Sur again and turn left, to the east, down the avenue. Eight blocks and I pass the rear courtyard of the courthouse again. At the corner I turn right, circling slowly to the south, in front of the courthouse, and then I turn again at the corner, to the west again, between the gray facade of city hall and the southern walkway of the Plaza de Mayo, where the waterlogged palms and orange trees appear momentarily between the reddish paths that crisscross the plaza at angles and arcs. I reach San Martín and turn right, to the south. On my right is the lateral facade of city hall, on my left the historical museum, and at the first intersection the San Francisco church on the left and the row of single-story houses on the right. I move through the rain. The monotone hum of the engine blends with the regular rhythm of the wiper blades sweeping over the glass, where fine droplets of rain collide and explode into strange, momentary shapes. After the convent begin the woods of the southern park. I travel half a block past the second intersection and stop the car on the left side. For a moment I wait inside the car, hearing only the echo of the monotone hum of the engine and the regular rhythm of the wiper blades, which have now stopped but which continue resonating momentarily before they disappear completely. I take the briefcase from the back seat, step out of the car, lock the door and open the front door of the house, go inside, close the front door behind me, and start up the stairs. I go straight to the study and hang up the raincoat that I’ve been removing since I started up the stairs. I leave the briefcase on the sofa. I open the curtains, and the gray light from outside enters the study, a gray and rain-soaked gleam coming down. I observe the trees and the lake beyond, also gray, and also gleaming. The trees appear to be surrounded by a soft halo, and the drops form an evanescent myriad suspended momentarily around the wet foliage before they fall. What I can see of the park from the window is completely deserted. I turn around as Elvira comes in and asks if I’m going to eat now or if I prefer to wait a while longer. I say I’ll wait a while longer and I sit down on the twin sofa, with my back to the window, and soon I’m asleep.