Reseňas deshilachadas: "Muerte súbita", de Álvaro Enrigue.

Ya el hecho en sí de que Álvaro Enrigue hubiera ganado el premio Herralde de novela era de llamar poderosamente la atención, me explicaré, pero cuando me fui a ver de qué se trataba el libro triunfador y más todavía cuando lo leí, me pregunté seriamente si el jurado lo habría leído bien, y si conocerían medianamente la obra restante de Enrigue. Hay que suponer que así fue, pero la pregunta es lícita: ¿Muerte súbita es una novela? Para cualquier lector que haya seguido las páginas de Hipotermia, Vidas perpendiculares o Decencia sabrá que a Enrigue lo que más le atrae es coquetear con los géneros, con el corte y las distribuciones de historias. Con el primero de los títulos mencionados persiste la discusión de si estamos ante una colección de relatos o si somos testigos de un "nuevo" género en el que cada una de las narraciones, indiscutiblemente independientes, sería el eslabón de un relato más amplio, una novela. Propuesta ésta muy atractiva y sin lugar a dudas poseedora de cierto fundamento, pero que el autor ha rechazado en varias ocasiones, afirmando que se trata sólo de una serie de cuentos.

Si el entramado de Hipotermia ya daba para la discusión, ¿qué decir de Muerte súbita? Allá estamos ante un género, el cuento, que si se le prolonga, podría dar como resultado una novela, por así decirlo, pero acá lo que tenemos es una inusitada mezcla de relato breve, ensayo, novela histórica, estudio monográfico (¡se incluye bibliografía!), crítica de arte y cita erudita. ¿Es un chiste aún más mordaz, una nueva provocación de parte del autor? Muy bien, pero estamos olvidándonos de algo. ¿Dónde está la novela? Sin entrar en suspicacias, cabe pensar que si un libro de tal naturaleza fue condecorado con uno de los más prestigiosos premios de novela en español, signifca que, entre otras virtudes que pueda tener la obra, se está premiando esa ingeniosa combinación de elementos, se está juzgando valiosa esa audacia, y eso ya merece destacarse.

El contenido del libro, como se puede deducir, tampoco admite una identificación simple. Enrigue mismo afirma no tenerlo del todo claro (p. 200 y ss.). El libro no trata exactamente sobre un partido de tenis que se llevó a cabo en las canchas romanas entre Francisco de Quevedo y Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, o no sólo de eso. El libro, acepta el autor, tampoco trata del todo sobre cómo América lenta y dolorosamente se adhirió a la cultura occidental, si cabe afirmar tal cosa. "Tal vez sea un libro que se trata solamente de cómo se podría contar este libro, tal vez todos los libros se traten sólo de eso. Un libro de vaivenes, como un juego tenis". Detrás de esta declaración de principios se encuentra su idea de la disolución de los géneros, no por mera necedad, sino porque es la única manera -recurrir a todas las formas posibles- de contar algo que de cualquier manera se va a escurrir entre los dedos como un puño de canicas, según afirma en algún lugar de Hipotermia. También aquí está presente su idea sobre la "muerte del autor", la idea de que las historias son significativas por sí mismas, "tal y como sucedieron", de manera que cuando un escritor trata de articularlas, reconstruirlas en el papel, indefectiblemente termina haciendo el ridículo o una cursilería, como el mismo Enrigue insiste en Hipotermia. Por último, en Muerte súbita se evidencia un ansia de catarsis ("Las novelas aplastan monumentos", afirma), un desquite con la historia y los hijos de puta que la han construido, intencional o accidentalmente.

Independientemente de que se esté de acuerdo o no con los postulados del autor que he bosquejado, lo cierto es que en Muerte súbita somos testigos de la gestación y desarrollo de acontecimientos cruciales para la historia de algunos países, de algunas regiones y quién sabe si para la historia universal; de la actuación de algunas de las figuras más emblemáticas de la historia política o del arte. Considero que los niveles más altos de la "novela" Muerte súbita están representados precisamente por aquellos episodios, espléndidamente contados, donde los destinos de dichos personajes señeros  (Quevedo y Caravaggio, sí, pero también los Papas de la Contrarreforma, Galileo, Hernán Cortés, Cuauhtémoc...) se cruzan, "todos cogiendo, emborrachándose, apostando en el vacío". Así es, en efecto, Enrigue se arriesga a hacer a hablar a los grandes Nombres, a dialogar entre sí, los sitúa en un plan de igual con nosotros ("el primer pintor propiamente moderno... fue también un gran tenista y un asesino. Nuestro hermano") y los vemos en su humanidad. Es una experiencia placentera. Enrigue alimenta el morbo del lector y curioso de la historia cuando pone a conversar a los ideólogos de la Contrarreforma sobre un regalo proveniente de las Indias mientras Europa se desangra, cuando pone en una misma cancha a Quevedo y a Caravaggio, frente a frente, pero más aún cuando nos enteramos del por qué del duelo (nunca mejor dicho). En el caso particular del lector mexicano, no encuentro mejor pasaje que aquellos situados en la intimidad de una covacha recién levantada en una tierra desconocida donde dos personajes entran en pasiones y con cuyo coito (descrito pormenorizadamente) cambian el destino de un mundo. Enrigue se convierte en un iconoclasta al traducir a nuestro lenguaje, al desmitificar, al humanizar lo que nos han enseñado únicamente a maldecir. La escena de Cortés y la Malinche cogiendo debajo del manto sagrado de Moctezuma será memorable, junto al mural de Orozco acaso no haya otra descripción más original de los que son nuestros lares y penates, mal que nos pese.

De esa manera vemos cómo Álvaro Enrigue coquetea con la novela histórica, pero, entre otras cosas, como se intentó expresar aquí, también hay escarceos por ejemplo con la llamada historia contrafactual. Todo es parte de todo, parece decir el autor. La inclusión de los elementos de la "novela" no es gratuita. Hay un nexo que une de alguna manera los episodios que se van desarrollando paralelamente, y a los personajes: el mejor amigo y protegido de Quevedo resulta que era esposo de la nieta de Hernán Cortés, Caravaggio revolucionó la idea del color al ver un manto elaborado por unos indios del nuevo territorio conquistado, los cabellos de Ana Bolena van a convertirse en el forro de las pelotas de tenis más importantes del siglo, y así algunas cosas más. Puede parecer innecesario o hasta caer mal recordársenos que sin América, Europa no sería que lo que llegó a ser, que sin los mexicanos quizá el catolicismo se hubiera extinguido y la pintura hubiera seguido otro cauce o retrasado su desarrollo. Enrigue sugiere algunas veces ese ¿qué hubiera pasado si...? ¿Si Cortés hubiera muerto ahogado al cruzar un río o emboscado en plena Tenochtitlán? Es como regodearnos en el lodo, es como si la espina se nos clavara algunos centímetros más cada que recordamos aquellos acontecimientos. Bien visto, es gracias a los mexicanos pazguatos derrotados aquella vez por el conquistador que el mundo vive esta mierda actual.  

            

Álvaro Enrigue

Muerte súbita

Anagrama

2013

De entre las letras mexicanas, las de Enrigue –por autoexiliadas– saben a niuyorquinas, a washingtonianas, a lombardas y quizá por eso, también, a cual más, a muy mexicanas. 

Muerte súbita cuenta al menos cuatro historias: dos individuales y dos colectivas. La de Quevedo, el poeta burlador de la corte española, más la de Hernán Cortés, santo patrono mezquinamente  irreconocido de todos los  “late” y “under” something; y por extensión genética, de todos los mexicanos. Una de las dos hazañas colectivas narradas en la novela es la de Caravaggio, el pintor iluminado de los putti tamaño natural; pintor con paisaje: el papado de los putti tamaño natural (bis). La otra, la del campeón del indigenismo Vasco de Quiroga y su pueblo de indios amatecas, es en realidad la más lograda, la única que da coherencia y final a esta novela en la que siempre ganan los malos.

El deseo de regresar sobre la historia de México, de revolverla de veras, en episodios a la vez cotidianos y a la vez trascendentales, le viene al autor desde hace por lo menos dos novelas: Vidas perpendiculares y Decencia (en La muerte del instalador hay quizá uno que otro incipiente balbuceo parecido). Pero en ningún lugar sino hasta aquí, el mexicano Enrigue había logrado iluminar así a los hombres y a las cosas. Su lenguaje, sardónico hasta el satrapismo, parece fructificar más durante los apareos de la (auto)multiorgásmica Malinche que durante los desaires de la multifrígida Flaca Osorio.

Y ya que estamos en los lenguajes, dice la megalomana tapa de la edición de Anagrama que Enrigue se vale de todas las armas de la escritura para renovar esa “maltratada tecnología”: matriarcal pero irregular, Su Majestad la novela. La discusión de la muerte de la novela, del futuro de la novela, de los rasgos de la antinovela son un somnífero para nosotros los lectores, cicuta que dejamos a los ya de por sí mortíferos, mortificados y mortuorios críticos y académicos. Lo que interesa, en todo caso, a partir de la sabiduría de la contraportada, es la revelación de la novela como una tecnología.

Decía Platón que decían los egipcios que decía Amón, que la escritura era una mala tecnología para el hombre porque lejos de acercarlo a la sabiduría lo acercaba a la huevonería; en otras palabras: las palabras no sirven si no se leen siempre de manera oblicua, si no se leen a partir de lo que no está en ellas mismas; en otras palabras: las palabras no sirven. Esto quizá sea una obviedad para todo buen lector. Joyce proponía “jugar el texto” leerlo como una partitura musical –y en toda partitura, ya se sabe, la notación no sirve. Enrigue compone, entonces, un pentagrama de epilios o divertimientos que parecen inofensivos y que sólo cobran coherencia a la salida del concierto, en la charla del café, cuando uno se acuerda y dice: “Certo!, ti ricordi, carina…”.

La gratuidad de personajes en la novela, la de Caravaggio, la gratuidad de la pelota y la raqueta, de los tenis convers de Enrigue, del correo a Teresa Ariño, del propio Quevedo, incluso, toda gratuidad, quizá pueda perdonársele sólo por ese final epifánico y polifónico. Pienso en la polifonía pop del tecno y del caos de la Ciudad de México (Nueva York para Enrigue). No necesariamente en la polifonía de Palestrina ni Gesualdo, ya tan sobada.

En fin, el final lo merece, o lo merecía, incluso si la novela –tecnología imperfecta– está llena de baches y loops del sistema, de fouls y de fairs. Como en Macbeth, en Muerte súbita hay también una inversión de bellezas: Pátzcuaro es el Golfo de Nápoles; Cortés es la Malinche; la Bolena es un puto en el claroscuro caravaggiesco; Caravaggio es Quevedo y viceversa; Enrigue es su editora Ariño… y siempre ganan los malos.

Álvaro Enrigue, por cierto, ganó con ésta, esa otra tecnología llamada premio Herralde de novela. 

OHT 

La dirección de la mirada, Julio Cortázar

A John Barth

En vagamente Ilion, acaso en campiñas toscanas al término de güelfos y gibelinos y por qué no en tierras de daneses o en esa región de Brabante mojada por tantas sangres: escenario móvil como la luz que corre sobre la batalla entre dos nubes negras, desnudando y cubriendo regimientos y retaguardias, encuentros cara a cara con puñales o alabardas, visión anamórfica sólo dada al que acepte el delirio y busque en el perfil de la jornada su ángulo más agudo, su coágulo entre humos y desbandes y oriflamas.

Una batalla, entonces, el derroche usual que rebasa sentidos y venideras crónicas. ¿Cuántos vieron al héroe en su hora más alta, rodeado de enemigos carmesíes? Máquina eficaz del aedo o del bardo: lentamente, elegir y narrar. También el que escucha o el que lee: sólo intentando la desmultiplicación del vértigo. Entonces acaso sí, como el que desgaja de la multitud ese rostro que cifrará su vida, la opción de Charlotte Corday ante el cuerpo desnudo de Marat, un pecho, un vientre, una garganta. Así ahora desde hogueras y contraórdenes, en el torbellino de gonfalones huyentes o de infantes aqueos concentrando el avance contra el fondo obseesionante de las murallas aún invictas: el ojo ruleta clavando la bola en la cifra que hundirá treinta y cinco esperanzas en la nada para exaltar una suerte roja o negra.

Inscrito en un escenario instantáneo, el héroe en cámara lenta retira la espada de un cuerpo todavía sostenido por el aire, mirándolo desdeñoso en su descenso ensangrentado. Cubriéndose frente a los que lo embisten, el escudo les tira a la cara una metralla de luz donde la vibración de la mano hace temblar las imágenes del bronce. Lo atacarán, es seguro, pero no podrán dejar de ver lo que él les muestra en un desafío último. Deslumbrados (el escudo, espejo ustorio, los abrasa en una hoguera de imágenes exasperadas por el reflejo del crepúsculo y los incendios) apenas si alcanzan a separar los relieves del bronce y los efímeros fantasmas de la batalla.

En la masa dorada buscó representarse el propio herrero, en su fragua, batiendo el metal y complaciéndose en el juego concéntrico de forjar un escudo que alza su combado párpado para mostrar entre tantas figuras (lo está mostrando ahora a quienes mueren o matan en la absurda contradicción de la batalla) el cuerpo desnudo del héroe en un claro de selva, abrazando a una mujer que le hunde la mano en el pelo como quien acaricia o rechaza. Yuxtapuestos los cuerpos en la brega que la escena envuelve con una lenta respiración de frondas (un ciervo entre dos árboles, un pájaro temblando sobre las cabezas) las líneas de fuerza parecerían concentrarse en el espejo que guarda la otra mano de la mujer y en el que sus ojos, acaso no queriendo ver a quien así la desflora entre fresnos y heléchos, van a buscar desesperados la imagen que un ligero movimiento orienta y precisa.

Arrodillado junto a un manantial, el adolescente se ha quitado el casco y sus rizos sombríos le caen sobre los hombros. Ya ha bebido y tiene los labios húmedos, gotas de un bozo de agua; la lanza yace al lado, descansando de una larga marcha. Nuevo Narciso, el adolescente se mira en la temblorosa claridad a sus pies pero se diría que sólo alcanza a ver su memoria enamorada, la inalcanzable imagen de una mujer perdida en remota contemplación.

Es otra vez ella, no ya su cuerpo de leche entrelazado con el que la abre y la penetra, sino grácilmente expuesto a la luz de un ventanal de anochecer, vuelto casi de perfil hacia una pintura de caballete que el último sol lame con naranja y ámbar. Se diría que sus ojos sólo alcanza a ver el primer plano de esa pintura en la que el artista se representó a sí mismo, secreto y desapegado. Ni él ni ella miran hacia el fondo del paisaje donde juntoa una fuente se entrevén cuerpos tendidos, el héroe muerto en la batalla bajo el escudo que su mano empuña en un último reto, y el adolescente que una flecha en el espacio parece designar multiplicando al infinito la perspectiva que se resuelve en lo lejano por una confusión de hombres en retirada y de estandartes rotos.

El escudo ya no refleja el sol; su lámina apagada, que no se diría de bronce, contiene la imagen del herrero que termina la descripción de una batalla, parece signarla en su punto más intenso con la figura del héroe rodeado de enemigos, pasando la espada por el pecho del más próximo y alzando para defenderse su escudo ensangrentado en el que poco se alcanza a ver entre el fuego y la cólera y el vértigo, a menos que esa imagen desnuda sea la de la mujer, que su cuerpo sea el que se rinde sin esfuerzo a la lenta caricia del adolescente que ha posado su lanza al borde de un manantial.

Cathedral Raymond Carver

    This blind man, an old friend of my wife's, he was on his way to spend the night. His wife had died. So he was visiting the dead wife's relatives in Connecticut. He called my wife from his in-laws'. Arrangements were made. He would come by train, a five-hour trip, and my wife would meet him at the station. She hadn't seen him since she worked for him one summer in Seattle ten years ago. But she and the blind man had kept in touch. They made tapes and mailed them back and forth. I wasn't enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to.

    That summer in Seattle she had needed a job. She didn't have any money. The man she was going to marry at the end of the summer was in officers' training school. He didn't have any money, either. But she was in love with the guy, and he was in love with her, etc. She'd seen something in the paper: HELP WANTED--Reading to Blind Man, and a telephone number. She phoned and went over, was hired on the spot. She'd worked with this blind man all summer. She read stuff to him, case studies, reports, that sort of thing. She helped him organize his little office in the county social-service department. They'd become good friends, my wife and the blind man. How do I know these things? She told me. And she told me something else. On her last day in the office, the blind man asked if he could touch her face. She agreed to this. She told me he touched his fingers to every part of her face, her nose--even her neck! She never forgot it. She even tried to write a poem about it. She was always trying to write a poem. She wrote a poem or two every year, usually after something really important had happened to her.

    When we first started going out together, she showed me the poem. In the poem, she recalled his fingers and the way they had moved around over her face. In the poem, she talked about what she had felt at the time, about what went through her mind when the blind man touched her nose and lips. I can remember I didn't think much of the poem. Of course, I didn't tell her that. Maybe I just don't understand poetry. I admit it's not the first thing I reach for when I pick up something to read.

    Anyway, this man who'd first enjoyed her favors, the officer-to-be, he'd been her childhood sweetheart. So okay. I'm saying that at the end of the summer she let the blind man run his hands over her face, said goodbye to him, married her childhood etc., who was now a commissioned officer, and she moved away from Seattle. But they'd kept in touch, she and the blind man. She made the first contact after a year or so. She called him up one night from an Air Force base in Alabama. She wanted to talk. They talked. He asked her to send him a tape and tell him about her life. She did this. She sent the tape. On the tape, she told the blind man about her husband and about their life together in the military. She told the blind man she loved her husband but she didn't like it where they lived and she didn't like it that he was a part of the military-industrial thing. She told the blind man she'd written a poem and he was in it. She told him that she was writing a poem about what it was like to be an Air Force officer's wife. The poem wasn't finished yet. She was still writing it. The blind man made a tape. He sent her the tape. She made a tape. This went on for years. My wife's officer was posted to one base and then another. She sent tapes from Moody AFB, McGuire, McConnell, and finally Travis, near Sacramento, where one night she got to feeling lonely and cut off from people she kept losing in that moving-around life. She got to feeling she couldn't go it another step. She went in and swallowed all the pills and capsules in the medicine chest and washed them down with a bottle of gin. Then she got into a hot bath and passed out.

    But instead of dying, she got sick. She threw up. Her officer--why should he have a name? he was the childhood sweetheart, and what more does he want?--came home from somewhere, found her, and called the ambulance. In time, she put it all on a tape and sent the tape to the blind man. Over the years, she put all kinds of stuff on tapes and sent the tapes off lickety-split. Next to writing a poem every year, I think it was her chief means of recreation. On one tape, she told the blind man she'd decided to live away from her officer for a time. On another tape, she told him about her divorce. She and I began going out, and of course she told her blind man about it. She told him everything, or so it seemed to me. Once she asked me if I'd like to hear the latest tape from the blind man. This was a year ago. I was on the tape, she said. So I said okay, I'd listen to it. I got us drinks and we settled down in the living room. We made ready to listen. First she inserted the tape into the player and adjusted a couple of dials. Then she pushed a lever. The tape squeaked and someone began to talk in this loud voice. She lowered the volume. After a few minutes of harmless chitchat, I heard my own name in the mouth of this stranger, this blind man I didn't even know! And then this: "From all you've said about him, I can only conclude--" But we were interrupted, a knock at the door, something, and we didn't ever get back to the tape. Maybe it was just as well. I'd heard all I wanted to.

    Now this same blind man was coming to sleep in my house.

    "Maybe I could take him bowling," I said to my wife. She was at the draining board doing scalloped potatoes. She put down the knife she was using and turned around.

    "If you love me," she said, "you can do this for me. If you don't love me, okay. But if you had a friend, any friend, and the friend came to visit, I'd make him feel comfortable." She wiped her hands with the dish towel.

    "I don't have any blind friends," I said.

    "You don't have any friends," she said. "Period. Besides," she said, "goddamn it, his wife's just died! Don't you understand that? The man's lost his wife!"

    I didn't answer. She'd told me a little about the blind man's wife. Her name was Beulah. Beulah! That's a name for a colored woman.

    "Was his wife a Negro?" I asked.

    "Are you crazy?" my wife said. "Have you just flipped or something?" She picked up a potato. I saw it hit the floor, then roll under the stove. "What's wrong with you?" she said. "Are you drunk?"

    "I'm just asking," I said.

    Right then my wife filled me in with more detail than I cared to know. I made a drink and sat at the kitchen table to listen. Pieces of the story began to fall into place.

    Beulah had gone to work for the blind man the summer after my wife had stopped working for him. Pretty soon Beulah and the blind man had themselves a church wedding. It was a little wedding--who'd want to go to such a wedding in the first place?--just the two of them, plus the minister and the minister's wife. But it was a church wedding just the same. It was what Beulah had wanted, he'd said. But even then Beulah must have been carrying the cancer in her glands. After they had been inseparable for eight years--my wife's word, inseparable--Beulah's health went into a rapid decline. She died in a Seattle hospital room, the blind man sitting beside the bed and holding on to her hand. They'd married, lived and worked together, slept together--had sex, sure--and then the blind man had to bury her. All this without his having ever seen what the goddamned woman looked like. It was beyond my understanding. Hearing this, I felt sorry for the blind man for a little bit. And then I found myself thinking what a pitiful life this woman must have led. Imagine a woman who could never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one. A woman who could go on day after day and never receive the smallest compliment from her beloved. A woman whose husband could never read the expression on her face, be it misery or something better. Someone who could wear makeup or not--what difference to him? She could, if she wanted, wear green eye-shadow around one eye, a straight pin in her nostril, yellow slacks, and purple shoes, no matter. And then to slip off into death, the blind man's hand on her hand, his blind eyes streaming tears--I'm imagining now--her last thought maybe this: that he never even knew what she looked like, and she on an express to the grave. Robert was left with a small insurance policy and a half of a twenty-peso Mexican coin. The other half of the coin went into the box with her. Pathetic.

    So when the time rolled around, my wife went to the depot to pick him up. With nothing to do but wait--sure, I blamed him for that--I was having a drink and watching the TV when I heard the car pull into the drive. I got up from the sofa with my drink and went to the window to have a look.

    I saw my wife laughing as she parked the car. I saw her get out of the car and shut the odor. She was still wearing a smile. Just amazing. She went around to the other side of the car to where the blind man was already starting to get out. This blind man, feature this, he was wearing a full beard! A beard on a blind man! Too much, I say. The blind man reached into the back seat and dragged out a suitcase. My wife took his arm, shut the car door, and, talking all the way, moved him down the drive and then up the steps to the front porch. I turned off the TV. I finished my drink, rinsed the glass, dried my hands. Then I went to the door.

    My wife said, "I want you to meet Robert. Robert, this is my husband. I've told you all about him." She was beaming. She had this blind man by his coat sleeve.

    The blind man let go of his suitcase and up came his hand. I took it. He squeezed hard, held my hand, and then he let it go.

    "I feel like we've already met," he boomed.

    "Likewise," I said. I didn't know what else to say. Then I said, "Welcome. I've heard a lot about you." We began to move then, a little group, from the porch into the living room, my wife guiding him by the arm. The blind man was carrying his suitcase in his other hand. My wife said things like, "To your left here, Robert. That's right. Now watch it, there's a chair. That's it. Sit down right here. This is the sofa. We just bought this sofa two weeks ago."

    I started to say something about the old sofa. I'd liked that old sofa. But I didn't say anything. Then I wanted to say something else, small-talk, about the scenic ride along the Hudson. How going to New York, you should sit on the right-hand side of the train, and coming from New York, the left-hand side.

    "Did you have a good train ride?" I said. "Which side of the train did you sit on, by the way?"

    "What a question, which side!" my wife said. "What's it matter which side?" she said.

    "I just asked," I said.

    "Right side," the blind man said. "I hadn't been on a train in nearly forty years. Not since I was a kid. With my folks. That's been a long time. I'd nearly forgotten the sensation. I have winter in my beard now," he said. "So I've been told, anyway. Do I look distinguished, my dear?" the blind man said to my wife.

    "You look distinguished, Robert," she said. "Robert," she said. "Robert, it's just so good to see you."

    My wife finally took her eyes off the blind man and looked at me. I had the feeling she didn't like what she saw. I shrugged.

    I've never met, or personally known, anyone who was blind. This blind man was late forties, a heavy-set, balding man with stooped shoulders, as if he carried a great weight there. He wore brown slacks, brown shoes, a light-brown shirt, a tie, a sports coat. Spiffy. He also had this full beard. But he didn't use a cane and he didn't wear dark glasses. I'd always thought dark glasses were a must for the blind. Fact was, I wished he had a pair. At first glance, his eyes looked like anyone else's eyes. But if you looked close, there was something different about them. Too much white in the iris, for one thing, and the pupils seemed to move around in the sockets without his knowing it or being able to stop it. Creepy. As I stared at his face, I saw the left pupil turn in toward his nose while the other made an effort to keep in one place. But it was only an effort, for that eye was on the roam without his knowing it or wanting it to be.

    I said, "Let me get you a drink. What's your pleasure? We have a little of everything. It's one of our pastimes."

    "Bub, I'm a Scotch man myself," he said fast enough in this big voice.

    "Right," I said. Bub! "Sure you are. I knew it."

    He let his fingers touch his suitcase, which was sitting alongside the sofa. He was taking his bearings. I didn't blame him for       that.

    "I'll move that up to your room," my wife said.

    "No, that's fine," the blind man said loudly. "It can go up when I go up."

    "A little water with the Scotch?" I said.

    "Very little," he said.

    "I knew it," I said.

    He said, "Just a tad. The Irish actor, Barry Fitzgerald? I'm like that fellow. When I drink water, Fitzgerald said, I drink water. When I drink whiskey, I drink whiskey." My wife laughed. The blind man brought his hand up under his beard. He lifted his beard slowly and let it drop.

    I did the drinks, three big glasses of Scotch with a splash of water in each. Then we made ourselves comfortable and talked about Robert's travels. First the long flight from the West Coast to Connecticut, we covered that. Then from Connecticut up here by train. We had another drink concerning that leg of the trip.

    I remembered having read somewhere that the blind didn't smoke because, as speculation had it, they couldn't see the smoke they exhaled. I thought I knew that much and that much only about blind people. But this blind man smoked his cigarette down to the nubbin and then lit another one. This blind man filled his ashtray and my wife emptied it.

    When we sat down at the table for dinner, we had another drink. My wife heaped Robert's plate with cube steak, scalloped potatoes, green beans. I buttered him up two slices of bread. I said, "Here's bread and butter for you." I swallowed some of my drink. "Now let us pray," I said, and the blind man lowered his head. My wife looked at me, her mouth agape. "Pray the phone won't ring and the food doesn't get cold," I said.

    We dug in. We ate everything there was to eat on the table. We ate like there was no tomorrow. We didn't talk. We ate. We scarfed. We grazed that table. We were into serious eating. The blind man had right away located his foods, he knew just where everything was on his plate. I watched with admiration as he used his knife and fork on the meat. He'd cut two pieces of meat, fork the meat into his mouth, and then go all out for the scalloped potatoes, the beans next, and then he'd tear off a hunk of buttered bread and eat that. He'd follow this up with a big drink of milk. It didn't seem to bother him to use his fingers once in a while, either.

    We finished everything, including half a strawberry pie. For a few moments, we sat as if stunned. Sweat beaded on our faces. Finally, we got up from the table and left the dirty places. We didn't look back. We took ourselves into the living room and sank into our places again. Robert and my wife sat on the sofa. I took the big chair. We had us two or three more drinks while they talked about the major things that had come to pass for them in the past ten years. For the most part, I just listened. Now and then I joined in. I didn't want him to think I'd left the room, and I didn't want her to think I was feeling left out. They talked of things that had happened to them--to them!--these past ten years. I waited in vain to hear my name on my wife's sweet lips: "And then my dear husband came into my life"--something like that. But I heard nothing of the sort. More talk of Robert. Robert had done a little of everything, it seemed, a regular blind jack-of-all-trades. But most recently he and his wife had had an Amway distributorship, from which, I gathered, they'd earned their living, such as it was. The blind man was also a ham radio operator. He talked in his loud voice about conversations he'd had with fellow operators in Guam, in the Philippines, in Alaska, and even in Tahiti. He said he'd have a lot of friends there if he ever wanted to go visit those places. From time to time, he'd turn his blind face toward me, put his hand under his beard, ask me something. How long had I been in my present position? (Three years.) Did I like my work? (I didn't.) Was I going to stay with it? (What were the options?) Finally, when I thought he was beginning to run down, I got up and turned on the TV.

    My wife looked at me with irritation. She was heading toward a boil. Then she looked at the blind man and said, "Robert, do you have a TV?"

    The blind man said, "My dear, I have two TVs. I have a color set and a black-and-white thing, an old relic. It's funny, but if I turn the TV on, and I'm always turning it on, I turn on the color set. It's funny, don't you think?"

    I didn't know what to say to that. I had absolutely nothing to say to that. No opinion. So I watched the news program and tried to listen to what the announcer was saying.

    "This is a color TV," the blind man said. "Don't ask me how, but I can tell."

    "We traded up a while ago," I said.

    The blind man had another taste of his drink. He lifted his beard, sniffed it, and let it fall. He leaned forward on the sofa. He positioned his ashtray on the coffee table, then put the lighter to his cigarette. He leaned back on the sofa and crossed his legs at the ankles.

    My wife covered her mouth, and then she yawned. She stretched. She said, "I think I'll go upstairs and put on my robe. I think I'll change into something else. Robert, you make yourself comfortable," she said.

    "I'm comfortable," the blind man said.

    "I want you to feel comfortable in this house," she said.

    "I am comfortable," the blind man said.


    After she'd left the room, he and I listened to the weather report and then to the sports roundup. By that time, she'd been gone so long I didn't know if she was going to come back. I thought she might have gone to bed. I wished she'd come back downstairs. I didn't want to be left alone with a blind man. I asked him if he wanted another drink, and he said sure. Then I asked if he wanted to smoke some dope with me. I said I'd just rolled a number. I hadn't, but I planned to do so in about two shakes.

    "I'll try some with you," he said.

    "Damn right," I said. "That's the stuff."

    I got our drinks and sat down on the sofa with him. Then I rolled us two fat numbers. I lit one and passed it. I brought it to his fingers. He took it and inhaled.

    "Hold it as long as you can," I said. I could tell he didn't know the first thing.

    My wife came back downstairs wearing her pink robe and her pink slippers.

    "What do I smell?" she said.

    "We thought we'd have us some cannabis," I said.

    My wife gave me a savage look. Then she looked at the blind man and said, "Robert, I didn't know you smoked."

    He said, "I do now, my dear. There's a first time for everything. But I don't feel anything yet."

    "This stuff is pretty mellow," I said. "This stuff is mild. It's dope you can reason with," I said. "I t doesn't mess you up."

    "Not much it doesn't, bub," he said, and laughed.

    My wife sat on the sofa between the blind man and me. I passed her the number. She took it and toked and then passed it back to me. "Which way is this going?" she said. Then she said, "I shouldn't be smoking this. I can hardly keep my eyes open as it is. That dinner did me in. I shouldn't have eaten so much."

    "It was the strawberry pie," the blind man said. "That's what did it," he said, and he laughed his big laugh. Then he shook his head.

    "There's more strawberry pie," I said.

    "Do you want some more, Robert?" my wife said.

    "Maybe in a little while," he said.

    We gave our attention to the TV. My wife yawned again. She said, "Your bed is made up when you feel like going to bed, Robert. I know you must have had a long day. When you're ready to go to bed, say so." She pulled his arm. "Robert?"

    He came to and said, "I've had a real nice time. This beats tapes doesn't it?"

    I said, "Coming at you," and I put the number between his fingers. He inhaled, held the smoke, and then let it go. It was like he'd been doing it since he was nine years old.

    "Thanks, bub," he said. "But I think this is all for me. I think I'm beginning to feel it," he said. He held the burning roach out for my wife.

    "Same here," she said. "Ditto. Me, too." She took the roach and passed it to me. "I may just sit here for a while between you two guys with my eyes closed. But don't let me bother you, okay? Either one of you. If it bothers you, say so. Otherwise, I may just sit here with my eyes closed until you're ready to go to bed," she said. "Your bed's made up, Robert, when you're ready. It's right next to our room at the top of the stairs. We'll show you up when you're ready. You wake me up now, you guys, if I fall asleep." She said that and then she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

    The news program ended. I got up and changed the channel. I sat back down on the sofa. I wished my wife hadn't pooped out. Her head lay across the back of the sofa, her mouth open. She'd turned so that her robe slipped away from her legs, exposing a juicy thigh. I reached to draw her robe back over her, and it was then that I glanced at the blind man. What the hell! I flipped the rope open again.

    "You say when you want some strawberry pie," I said.

    "I will," he said.

    I said, "Are you tired? Do you want me to take you up to your bed? Are you ready to hit the hay?"

    "Not yet," he said. "No, I'll stay up with you, bub. If that's all right. I'll stay up until you're ready to turn in. We haven't had a chance to talk. Know what I mean? I feel like me and her monopolized the evening." He lifted his beard and he let it fall. He picked up his cigarettes and his lighter.

    "That's all right," I said. Then I said, "I'm glad for the company."

    And I guess I was. Every night I smoked dope and stayed up as long as I could before I fell asleep. My wife and I hardly ever went to bed at the same time. When I did go to sleep, I had these dreams. Sometimes I'd wake up from one of them, my heart going crazy.

    Something about the church and the Middle Ages was on the TV. Not your run-of-the-mill TV fare. I wanted to watch something else. I turned to the other channels. But there was nothing on them, either. So I turned back to the first channel and apologized.

    "Bub, it's all right," the blind man said. "It's fine with me. Whatever you want to watch is okay. I'm always learning something. Learning never ends. It won't hurt me to learn something tonight, I got ears," he said.


    We didn't say anything for a time. He was leaning forward with his head turned at me, his right ear aimed in the direction of the set. Very disconcerting. Now and then his eyelids drooped and then they snapped open again. Now and then he put his fingers into his beard and tugged, like he was thinking about something he was hearing on the television.

    On the screen, a group of men wearing cowls was being set upon and tormented by men dressed in skeleton costumes and men dressed as devils. The men dressed as devils wore devil masks, horns, and long tails. This pageant was part of a procession. The Englishman who was narrating the thing said it took place in Spain once a year. I tried to explain to the blind man what was happening.

    "Skeletons," he said. "I know about skeletons," he said, and he nodded.

    The TV showed this one cathedral. Then there was a long, slow look at another one. Finally, the picture switched to the famous one in Paris, with its flying buttresses and its spires reaching up to the clouds. The camera pulled away to show the whole of the cathedral rising above the skyline.

    There were times when the Englishman who was telling the thing would shut up, would simply let the camera move around the cathedrals. Or else the camera would tour the countryside, men in fields walking behind oxen. I waited as long as I could. Then I felt I had to say something. I said, "They're showing the outside of this cathedral now. Gargoyles. Little statues carved to look like monsters. Now I guess they're in Italy. Yeah, they're in Italy. There's paintings on the walls of this one church."

    "Are those fresco paintings, bub?" he asked, and he sipped from his drink.

    I reached for my glass. But it was empty. I tried to remember what I could remember. "You're asking me are those frescoes?" I said. "That's a good question. I don't know."

    The camera moved to a cathedral outside Lisbon. The differences in the Portuguese cathedral compared with the French and Italian were not that great. But they were there. Mostly the interior stuff. Then something occurred to me, and I said, "Something has occurred to me. Do you have any idea what a cathedral is? What they look like, that is? Do you follow me? If somebody says cathedral to you, do you have any notion what they're talking about? Do you know the difference between that and a Baptist church, say?"

    He let the smoke dribble from his mouth. "I know they took hundreds of workers fifty or a hundred years to build," he said. "I just heard the man say that, of course. I know generations of the same families worked on a cathedral. I heard him say that, too. The men who began their life's work on them, they never lived to see the completion of their work. In that wise, bub, they're no different from the rest of us, right?" He laughed. Then his eyelids drooped again. His head nodded. He seemed to be snoozing. Maybe he was imagining himself in Portugal. The TV was showing another cathedral now. This one was in Germany. The Englishman's voice droned on. "Cathedrals," the blind man said. He sat up and rolled his head back and forth. "If you want the truth, bub, that's about all I know. What I just said. What I heard him say. But maybe you could describe one to me? I wish you'd do it. I'd like that. If you want to know, I really don't have a good idea."

    I stared hard at the shot of the cathedral on the TV. How could I even begin to describe it? But say my life depended on it. Say my life was being threatened by an insane guy who said I had to do it or else.

    I stared some more at the cathedral before the picture flipped off into the countryside. There was no use. I turned to the blind man and said, "To begin with, they're very tall." I was looking around the room for clues. "They reach way up. Up and up. Toward the sky. They're so big, some of them, they have to have these supports. To help hold them up, so to speak. These supports are called buttresses. They remind me of viaducts, for some reason. But maybe you don't know viaducts, either? Sometimes the cathedrals have devils and such carved into the front. Sometimes lords and ladies. Don't ask me why this is," I said.

    He was nodding. The whole upper part of his body seemed to be moving back and forth.

    "I'm not doing so good, am I?" I said.

    He stopped nodding and leaned forward on the edge of the sofa. As he listened to me, he was running his fingers through his beard. I wasn't getting through to him, I could see that. But he waited for me to go on just the same. He nodded, like he was trying to encourage me. I tried to think what else to say. "They're really big," I said. "They're massive. They're built of stone. Marble, too, sometimes. In those olden days, when they built cathedrals, men wanted to be close to God. In those olden days, God was an important part of everyone's life. You could tell this from their cathedral-building. I'm sorry," I said, "but it looks like that's the best I can do for you. I'm just no good at it."

    "That's all right, bub," the blind man said. "Hey, listen. I hope you don't mind my asking you. Can I ask you something? Let me ask you a simple question, yes or no. I'm just curious and there's no offense. You're my host. But let me ask if you are in any way religious? You don't mind my asking?"

    I shook my head. He couldn't see that, though. A wink is the same as a nod to a blind man. "I guess I don't believe in it. In anything. Sometimes It's hard. You know what I'm saying?"

    "Sure, I do," he said.

    "Right," I said.

    The Englishman was still holding forth. My wife sighed in her sleep. She drew a long breath and went on with her sleeping.

    "You'll have to forgive me," I said. "But I can't tell you what a cathedral looks like. It just isn't in me to do it. I can't do any more than I've done."

    The blind man sat very still, his head down, as he listened to me.

    I said, "The truth is, cathedrals don't mean anything special to me. Nothing. Cathedrals. They're something to look at on late-night TV. That's all they are."

    It was then that the blind man cleared his throat. He brought something up. He took a handkerchief from his back pocket. Then he said, "I get it, bub. It's okay. It happens. Don't worry about it," he said. "Hey, listen to me. Will you do me a favor? I got an idea. Why don't you find us some heavy paper? and a pen. We'll do something. We'll draw one together. Get us a pen and some heavy paper. Go on, bub, get the stuff," he said.

    So I went upstairs. My legs felt like they didn't have any strength in them. They felt like they did after I'd done some running. In my wife's room, I looked around. I found some ballpoints in a little basket on her table. And then I tried to think where to look for the kind of paper he was talking about.

    Downstairs, in the kitchen, I found a shopping bag with onion skins in the bottom of the bag. I emptied the bag and shook it. I brought it into the living room and sat down with it near his legs. I moved some things, smoothed the wrinkles from the bag, spread it out on the coffee table.

    The blind man got down from the sofa and sat next to me on the carpet.

    He ran his fingers over the paper. He went up and down the sides of the paper. The edges, even the edges. He fingered the corners.

    "All right," he said. "All right, let's do her."

    He found my hand, the hand with the pen. He closed his hand over my hand. "Go ahead, bub, draw," he said. "Draw. You'll see. I'll follow along with you. It'll be okay. Just begin now like I'm telling you. You'll see. Draw," the blind man said.

    So I began. First I drew a box that looked like a house. It could have been the house I lived in. Then I put a roof on it. At either end of the roof, I drew spires. Crazy.

    "Swell," he said. "Terrific. You're doing fine," he said. "Never thought anything like this could happen in your lifetime, did you, bub? Well, it's a strange life, we all know that. Go on now. Keep it up."

    I put in windows with arches. I drew flying buttresses. I hung great doors. I couldn't stop. The TV station went off the air. I put down the pen and closed and opened my fingers. The blind man felt around over the paper. He moved the tips of his fingers over the paper, all over what I had drawn, and he nodded.

    "Doing fine," the blind man said.

    I took up the pen again, and he found my hand. I kept at it. I'm no artist. But I kept drawing just the same.

    My wife opened up her eyes and gazed at us. She sat up on the sofa, her robe hanging open. She said, "What are you doing? Tell me, I want to know."

    I didn't answer her.

    The blind man said, "We're drawing a cathedral. Me and him are working on it. Press hard," he said to me. "That's right. That's good," he said. "Sure. You got it, bub, I can tell. You didn't think you could. But you can, can't you? You're cooking with gas now. You know what I'm saying? We're going to really have us something here in a minute. How's the old arm?" he said. "Put some people in there now. What's a cathedral without people?"

    My wife said, "What's going on? Robert, what are you doing? What's going on?"
   "It's all right," he said to her. "Close your eyes now," the blind man said to me.

    I did it. I closed them just like he said.

    "Are they closed?" he said. "Don't fudge."

    "They're closed," I said.

    "Keep them that way," he said. He said, "Don't stop now. Draw."

    So we kept on with it. His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like nothing else in my life up to now.

    Then he said, "I think that's it. I think you got it," he said. "Take a look. What do you think?"

    But I had my eyes closed. I thought I'd keep them that way for a little longer. I thought it was something I ought to do.

    "Well?" he said. "Are you looking?"

    My eyes were still closed. I was in my house. I knew that. But I didn't feel like I was inside anything.

    "It's really something," I said.