Simón Radovitzky pulled out a red flag he’d hidden under his leather overcoat and waved it in the face of one of the thugs on horseback. The soldier charged toward Simón, intending to crush his skull under the horse’s hooves. Several demonstrators interposed themselves, trying to prevent the incident. The man with the big ears would not let up. He waved his rag as if he were facing a bull and in precarious Spanish shouted to him, “If you strike me, you strike yourself, you savage on a horse! Let your murderous blows fall on me, cover my skin with red splotches where you’ll be able to read your Destiny!”
Those words were incomprehensible to the uniformed laborer. He took them to be a string of insults, so he unsheathed his saber and, making threats, swung it around wildly. Simón, shrieking euphorically, fired five shots into the air. Roberto Falcón, on his motorcycle, sitting behind his helper with the Greek profile, whispered into his ear. The driver honked his horn three times. Instantly the police opened fire on the workers. A single fusillade was all it took to bring down many victims. Amid an enormous confusion, a general retreat began, but the situation worsened when companies of firemen arrived and used their powerful hoses to decimate the demonstrators. The motorcycle horn honked again. Silence. Colonel Falcón smiled in satisfaction.
Scores of wounded and dead were pouring out blood, whose stains seemed to write out a melody on the five parallel lines painted on the asphalt. The only person who could see that was Radovitzky, who observed the massacre hidden in a cart loaded with artichokes. He copied out the musical phrase in his notebook and watched the police chief pass by on his ridiculous motorcycle, probably on his way to a press conference where he’d communicate the official version of events to calm public opinion. Then he slipped off the cart, and staying close to the shadowed walls, lightly made his way, satisfied, toward the bordello.
By provoking this loss of workers blood, he’d created martyrs, who in turn would create hatred and the desire for revenge. For him, the most powerful weapons in a revolt were innocent victims: “The lives of many are won with the death of a few.” He did not feel guilty, because he himself was ready to sacrifice himself at any time. He’d donated his existence to humanity a long time ago.
As soon as he reached the mansion with the red light, he asked Icho Melnik to play (never mentioning its source) the musical phrase created by the workers’ blood on his harmonica. Out came a proud lament which, in tango rhythm and arranged for accordion and a string trio, became the house anthem and made the sensual orgies of the clients more pleasing.
Jashe, on the eve of giving birth, all dressed in white, wrapped her arms around her enormous belly and danced that stabbing tango, which came from the floor below, with her unborn daughter for a partner.
In the absence of Alejandro, who would come home after midnight, give her a kiss on the forehead, and collapse into bed to (for the first time since they met) snore like a locomotive, she conversed with the fetus, communicating her hopes. For her, there was neither past nor present, only future. Nothing existed here and now, neither there nor before. Everything was nowhere and later… Yes, someday things would come to be. The money they’d saved would be enough to buy a property with mansion, gardens, and private cemetery. The cypresses would grow around that transparent house, and their children and grandchildren, playing trombones, tubas, and cornets, would put their bodies inside a grandfather clock in order to throw them, their limbs interlaced, into the well-mausoleum, which would reach the enormous heart of fresh water that was the center of the planet.
The indefatigable giant dancer, with his blond beard and mane of golden hair that caressed his waist, persevered in trying to stage his ballet Life. It was like trying to trace a star on the surface of a lake with one finger and forever. His inconstant students did not like rehearsals or philosophic messages, but they did spend whole hours before the mirror admiring themselves in their tights, tutus, wool stockings, wide belts, and slippers with steel toes. Alejandro would pull them out of their self-amazement by striking the floor with his long walking stick to make them repeat, once, a thousand times, the four parts of the choreography.
First, “The Great Yes” would express the struggle against doubt through the unconditional acceptance of existence. Second, “The Unlimited Gratefulness” would show the end of asking and the ecstasy of constant gratitude. Third, “The Rapid Farewell” would describe the abandonment of all possessions and the tranquil acceptance of death, making it the most beautiful moment of life. Finally, “The Instantaneous Return” would show the rapid reincarnation of souls, not as punishment but as a means of progress. But the Argentine dancers thought that dance was a circus show and were only interested in competing to raise a leg higher or complete more spins on the tip of a toe.
Alejandro, with his minimal Spanish, tried to open their awareness and reveal to them that God inhabited them and to convince them to yield their bodies to mystery so they could carry out movements reason was unable to imagine. Useless! Locked within their proud mediocrity, they could not allow their legs, arms, torsos, or hips to live their own lives as autonomous organisms fed by the wisdom of the stars. My grandfather, at times right in the middle of this inept group, would fall to his knees sobbing desperately. His female students fought to dry his tears with delicate licks accompanied by such hot sighs that shame would burn their cheeks. He would arise in a rage to shake his body, trying to shake off those sexual meanings as if they were fleas.
Jashe gave birth helped by the bordello midwife, an old German woman, Bettina the Turtle. She’d acquired that nickname because a jealous Argentine had clipped her ears and nose. My mother, Sara Felicidad, was born, a baby as white as marble with two huge lapis lazuli eyes and four nipples, which would later become, I think, four large breasts where I could suck, unless it’s a false memory, a double portion of milk. Alejandro didn’t realize he’d become a father. He was so stubbornly intent on his work that around the dance, the world vanished. He no longer saw people but misty shapes. He marched through the world without belonging to it, listening to the interminable river of phrases God dictated to him: “I am the summa of your calls. Present is the complete perception of yourself. Don’t try to be another, allow the other to exist in you. Never express more than what you feel. To give is to know how to receive.”
A tranquil Jashe fed her invisible daughter, preparing monumental fruit salads that Alejandro, now a vegetarian, devoured directly from the plate, on all fours like a ruminant. The woman had to buck up her courage because my grandfather, trying to express his animal nature freely, took it upon himself to defecate in corners or on an armchair, sometimes under the table. Jashe, in the moment these things were happening, saw them as past and, thinking about the future of sanity and happiness that awaited them, cleaned up those eccentricities with good will.
On her own, she devoted herself to educating Sara Felicidad. On the wall next to the cradle, she tacked the seventy-eight Tarot cards so her daughter would quickly learn to count by pointing to the cups, coins, clubs, and swords. At six months, the child said her first word “MAT,” and by one, she already knew how to speak some Russian and a lot of Spanish. Instead of saying “papa,” she loved to say “paradise” and instead of “mama” she would say “marvel.” At eighteen months, she began to sing, first imitating Marla’s nightingale, then the violin from the tango quartet, later the she-cats in heat, and finally Bettina the Turtle, who during the Catholic festivals of the month of May intoned “Come, and let us all go with flowers to Mary” so the Virgin would grant her the miracle of allowing her to grow another nose and two new ears.