Como
caspa legada por la sacudida de mil cabelleras durante la noche,
la nieve cae sobre la ciudad: copos gruesos y lentos, cenizas de
una muda catástrofe que congela calles, puertas, ventanas,
toldos, autos y transeúntes en una postal ambigua. El cielo
es la máscara con que cada mañana se asoma a la urbe
un invierno que parece no querer terminar nunca. El albor ha fincado
su imperio en todos los rincones del pa's: d'a tras d'a los periîdicos
regalan al público estampas de un blanco escalofriante donde
a veces se alcanza a perfilar un rostro hundido en las simas de
un abrigo, a veces un árbol estrujado hasta los huesos por
las bajas temperaturas; a veces, sîlo a veces, la silueta
de un cadáver vuelto hacia un muro de argamasa se cuela a
las últimas páginas de un semanario, entre los recuadros
que no dejan de promocionar ropa térmica y calefactores.
Los noticiarios radiofînicos se empeñan en transmitir,
entre ráfagas de estática salpicadas de notas de Kurt
Weill, las estad'sticas de mortandad; hay rumores de estaciones
que saldrán del aire para siempre, de antenas transformadas
por el hielo en mustias esculturas, de locutores cuya voz es un
vaho continuo frente al micrîfono. Se habla de aerol'neas
en quiebra por la acumulaciîn de vuelos cancelados, de un
norte casi m'tico donde el agua caliente es desde hace varios años
parte de la historia, de una crisis encabezada de algún modo
por la industria lapicera que los medios de informaciîn no
pueden delatar salvo por oblicuas referencias y que es la causa
primordial del incremento en mitines y manifestaciones.
A bordo de un taxi conducido por un
anciano que se expresa a través de una bufanda en un dialecto
lleno de extraños giros verbales y fibras textiles, Abel
mira su reloj con aprensiîn para luego darse un golpe en la
rodilla. Llegará tarde al trabajo. Sabe perfecta, desesperadamente,
lo que eso representa: el señor Kane le descontará
la jornada y lo obligará a permanecer en la oficina tres
horas más que el resto de los empleados; ésas son
las reglas no escritas de la empresa fabricante de lápices
en la que se desempeña como contador desde hace un mecánico
decenio. Si la memoria no le falla, tan sîlo en una ocasiîn
anterior ha sufrido en carne propia la sanciîn diseñada
"para los malditos holgazanes", en palabras del mismo señor
Kane; una ocasiîn en que, al igual que hoy, el despertador
no irrumpiî en sus sueños de nieve y cabelleras con
la fuerza puntual de una excavadora. Con el desconcierto hecho un
lazo en la garganta, se levantî en la gélida soledad
del departamento quince minutos después de lo debido para
enfrentarse con una mañana que le ten'a reservadas una tuber'a
que castañeteaba como una dentadura, una taza de café
recalentado en la única olla limpia de la cocineta, una camisa
de la que ni siquiera un poco de lociîn ha podido erradicar
el aroma a sobaco, una corbata de pajarita que se ha anudado pese
a que de un tiempo a la fecha le recuerda una triste mariposa, una
cartera con apenas los billetes suficientes para pagar el taxi que
lleva diez -no, once minutos inmovilizado en uno de esos embotellamientos
que la ciudad, según un célebre caricaturista, ha
vuelto un producto de exportaciîn tan importante como el lápiz.
Quitándose una imaginaria mota
de polvo del puño del abrigo, Abel echa un vistazo por la
ventanilla. La nieve se apila contra las aceras por donde la muchedumbre
fluye en un arroyo incesante de cazadoras y sobretodos; la punta
de zapatos y sombreros, el capî de los coches que exhalan
nubes de vapor en forma de trémulos signos de interrogaciîn
-qué hacemos aqu'?, exigen los jerogl'ficos, qué
demonios hacemos aqu'?-, el cráneo y los hombros de los maniqu'es
cargados en vilo por un grupo de peones de overol que intenta abrirse
paso entre el tráfago matinal, las mejillas de la mujer que
se detiene un segundo a media calle para consultar un trozo de papel
y luego voltear hacia la brumosa altura de un edificio marrîn:
nada está a salvo de la blancura. Abel suspira. Trata de
concentrarse en los crujidos que emite el radio del taxi, entre
los que se intuye ora una voz femenina entonando "Bilbao Song" de
Weill, ora la helada voz de un locutor recitando estad'sticas, pero
pronto se da por vencido. Lo que más lamenta, reflexiona,
es faltar a su cita diaria con los empleados que se congregan en
una enorme fila frente al reloj checador de la empresa. Pocas cosas
le emocionan tanto como llegar temprano al trabajo y formarse en
un pasillo, avanzar lentamente detectando las últimas hebras
de sueño desprendidas por los cuerpos que se hacinan a su
alrededor, oler los efluvios de café y tabaco rancio, escuchar
los murmullos donde se alternan la queja y la resignaciîn;
sentirse, pues, parte de un tumulto de abrigos ra'dos que tarjeta
en mano rinde pleites'a al minutero que impone su presencia de tîtem
al fondo del corredor, ser un engranaje más de la maquinaria
que no tardará en repartirse entre oficinas y cub'culos inmersos
en una luz cenicienta. Desde hace tiempo -tres, cuatro años,
un lustro, dos décadas, toda la vida?; no sabr'a decirlo-
hay una suerte de estremecedora seguridad que le brindan las multitudes,
los tropeles cuyos hábitos nîmadas se ha dedicado a
seguir a través de notas, fotograf'as y reportajes; la certeza
de que únicamente ah', en medio del gent'o, envuelto en una
crisálida de estambres homogéneos que lo defiende
y por la que debe luchar, está a salvo del mundo y sus afrentas
cotidianas, a salvo del invierno que parece haberse apoderado del
alma misma de la urbe, a salvo de la rutina y las pequeñas
aunque c'clicas vejaciones que han hallado en la figura enhiesta
del señor Kane a su mejor emblema, a salvo de una individualidad
que cada d'a le pesa más al verla reflejada en el espejo
que como un ojo insondable cuelga encima del lavabo. A solas en
el alba amarga del departamento, sentado frente a su tazîn
de avena, enfundado en largos calzones de algodîn que guardan
el secreto de sus poluciones nocturnas, con los pies descalzos y
ateridos de fr'o, no es nadie, apenas nombre y apellido en una credencial
olvidada en un cajîn, una firma en un contrato cuya tinta
ha resentido el paso de los meses; ante el reloj checador, en cambio,
vestido con el tácito uniforme de la empresa -abrigo, chaleco
y tirantes, traje de preferencia oscuro, gafas de aro redondo, sombrero
de fieltro-, es una de las células que integran un organismo
productor que a través de la jornada funciona según
sus propios cîdigos. Es, sencillamente, alguien más,
algo invulnerable: nada puede dañarlo sin dañar al
resto al que pertenece. Hay d'as en que despierta con la sensaciîn
de haber sido en otra vida una estad'stica -uno de los cincuenta
obreros heridos de gravedad al derrumbarse un bloque de la pirámide
donde trabajaban.
Un golpe en un costado del taxi lo
devuelve a la mañana inmaculada. Por el rabillo del ojo alcanza
a distinguir una ráfaga gris; un joven con suéter
y boina de lana ladeada a la derecha se detiene un instante a observarlo
para luego proseguir su carrera enloquecida hacia el frente del
congestionamiento. Al joven no tardan en un'rsele otros dos, cuatro,
seis, ocho, diez, veinte, treinta, cien: una cuadrilla de boinas
ligeramente ladeadas precipitándose entre coches y autobuses,
dirigiendo un concierto de golpes en capîs y cristales, reclamando
no sîlo los espacios entre veh'culo y veh'culo sino también
las aceras, dejando tras de s' una larga estela de rostros azorados.
Abel gira en el asiento, mira por la ventanilla de atrás:
como un enjambre textil proveniente de calles y callejones aledaños,
de umbrales donde la nieve derretida inaugura un idioma de signos
acuosos, las boinas han usurpado la avenida. El radio cruje, brota
un anuncio de zapatos a mitad de precio: "No permita que el invierno
se le suba por los pies". "Jotrj manjfestjson", farfulla el taxista:
otra manifestaciîn. "Maljtoj joljajznejs", dice: malditos
holgazanes. Abel voltea a verlo y por un segundo cree reconocer,
al fondo de esas pupilas que lo escrutan desde el retrovisor en
espera de una respuesta, el brillo glacial caracter'stico del señor
Kane. Una imagen familiar relampaguea en su mente: un lápiz
recién afilado, semejante al que siempre lleva en el bolsillo
interior del saco, hundiéndose en la gelatina ocular. "S'",
murmura, "malditos holgazanes, qué culpa tenemos nosotros",
y después se vuelve a concentrar en la calle.
Las boinas son ya un ejército
que trota bajo la blancura en filas apretadas. El temblor que en
un principio se hab'a insinuado en la carrera de jîvenes aislados
es ahora algo insoslayable: la presencia de la multitud, el ritmo
cronométrico de la multitud. Peatones, conductores y pasajeros
han sido hechizados por el desfile; desde la frágil guarida
de gafas y pestañas, cientos de ojos contemplan el discurrir
de hombres de diversas edades con la vista puesta en la distancia.
Como impulsado por una repentina descarga de electricidad, Abel
extrae la cartera, extiende sus tres únicos billetes al taxista
y abandona el coche. Ignora, al echar a andar bajo la nieve, si
el grito que se pierde pronto entre sus pasos está dentro
de su cabeza o si, por el contrario, es la cabeza del anciano la
que ha salido un momento por la ventanilla: "Maljtoj joljajznejs!".
Para cuando las últimas hebras
de la frase se extrav'an en el aire, Abel se ha disuelto en la marcha.
Mira a izquierda y derecha, sintiendo con un dejo de placer las
primeras percusiones de la taquicardia que suele asaltarlo en los
grandes almacenes por los que le gusta deambular los domingos por
la tarde -la adrenalina de la multitud, los tambores rituales de
la multitud-, ladeándose con ademán inconsciente el
sombrero como si quisiera integrarlo de una buena vez a la legiîn
de boinas en la que ya paladea el dulce sabor del anonimato. A unos
cent'metros de su codo derecho avanza, entre resuellos que delatan
su paulatina ascensiîn a las cimas de la obesidad, un hombre
en cuyas facciones surcadas por venas de sudor se dibuja el abismo
al que Abel se ha asomado en tantas y tantas fotos. Es un rostro
cuyas señas particulares se reducen a la ausencia de ellas,
un rostro que acusa una fascinante limpidez por la que boga una
mir'ada de rostros, la faz numerosa del gent'o que desde la penumbra
de la historia ha atestado coliseos, erigido templos y acueductos
y pirámides y muelles, desatado guerras, construido y destruido
urbes, derramado una sola sangre lo mismo en la arena que en el
lodo, en estepas que en montañas, bajo puentes y en velámenes
blanqu'simos. Nieve, piensa Abel, los ojos fijos en los del hombre
fijos a su vez en la lejan'a; las masas corren siempre hacia el
origen de la nieve.
La marcha da un giro a la izquierda
y comienza a gotear a través de un estrecho callejîn:
hombro con hombro, boina tras boina, los alientos trazando garabatos
ef'meros en las páginas de la mañana. Cae un basurero,
caen dos, caen ocho; cae un joven en una pila de v'sceras humeantes,
cae un viejo que recibe el impacto de un tacîn -de veinte,
de cien- en la cintura y en la nuca, en las nalgas, en las piernas.
La marcha abandona el pasaje y su trote deviene de pronto galope,
veloz aunque ordenada carrera por otra avenida donde el tráfico
también se ha congelado. La sinfon'a de bocinas que acompasa
este cambio de ritmo no tarda en sucumbir bajo un nuevo concierto
de golpes en capîs y cristales al que se agregan notas inéditas:
el relincho de un caballo que se desploma en una esquina con todo
y conductor y carreta de tomates, el estruendo que produce la vitrina
de una tienda al ceder al asalto de un muchacho armado de una vara
de hierro. Abel se limpia el sudor de la frente y no puede reprimir
un oscuro alborozo; hay algo en esas verduras que ruedan entre llantas
y pies como glîbulos sangu'neos, algo en esa tempestad de
vidrio reventando en la banqueta que le evoca una sensaciîn
ominosa, el momento antes de que un lápiz se hunda en la
gelatina ocular, justo el segundo previo a que alguien se desprenda
de la multitud y recupere fugazmente su condiciîn de individuo
-el preludio a la violencia masiva. El alborozo, no obstante, se
desvanece sin dejar más que algunos copos sueltos ante el
primer ramalazo de angustia; a espaldas de la marcha, en alguna
zona del horizonte, ha estallado una sirena que advierte la cercan'a
de la amenaza policial. Abel voltea hacia atrás y hacia arriba;
cree distinguir, resbalando por la fachada de un edificio de ladrillos,
salpicando las facciones que penden como gárgolas de los
ventanales, el borbotîn de sangre inaugural derramado por
un alud de patrullas. Las boinas aprietan el paso y empiezan a serpentear
ágilmente entre los autos, creando una v'bora en cuya piel
uniforme sîlo destaca el sombrero de Abel.
Y entonces, al final de la avenida,
la ciudad se abre igual que un puño para ofrecer uno de sus
remansos de concreto: una plaza en toda su blanca desnudez. En el
extremo oeste se ha improvisado una plataforma sobre la que se yergue
un podio que ostenta un curioso emblema: el rostro de un obrero
con la boca distendida por un grito ante el que ondula un lápiz
partido a la mitad. De postes y arbotantes cuelgan banderines con
la misma efigie, altavoces que remiten a la tristeza de ciertas
plantas de invernadero. Las boinas invaden silenciosamente la plaza
y la v'bora se deshace en un millar de hormigas que se alinean despacio
frente a la plataforma, al pie del podio ocupado de golpe por un
hombre calvo, de barba pequeña y puntiaguda, que viste levita
negra y lanza en todas direcciones una mirada encendida por el fuego
del liderazgo. Crujen los altavoces, crujen la nieve y la escarcha
bajo la presiîn de mil suelas de goma; el hombre del podio
carraspea ante el micrîfono, levanta poco a poco el brazo
derecho, extiende el 'ndice como para sentenciar la culpabilidad
de la distancia. Su voz, el graznido de una estatua a punto de cobrar
vida propia, conquista la plaza, las calles, la urbe entera:
-Allá, en los bosques, el enemigo
sigue trabajando.
La frase es un dique que se derrumba
y da inicio a un torrente donde la arenga y el disgusto, la solidaridad
y la reconvenciîn, la ráfaga l'rica y el apunte profético
se confunden y atropellan con la furia de los troncos desgajados
a merced de una crecida fluvial. Abriéndose camino entre
la multitud con codos y rodillas, Abel intenta acercarse lo más
posible al frente; reconoce, brotando en medio de las boinas como
flores de papel, diversas pancartas entrevistas en los diarios que
exhiben el fruto de una falsa inspiraciîn: "Muera la industria
lapicera", "Los árboles son de nuestras chimeneas", "Alto
a la opresiîn del grafito", "Prohibido escribir en invierno",
"Más calor, menos escritura". A intervalos regulares que
se antojan perfectamente medidos, el hombre del podio alza el 'ndice
derecho para acusar a la lejan'a de la nieve que continúa
cayendo impávida, atenuando los aplausos que de vez en vez
explotan contra el cristal de la mañana. Abel se encuentra
a unos metros de la plataforma cuando descubre, a su izquierda,
a un niño de no más de cinco años subido en
los hombros de su padre; viste también boina y suéter,
pantalîn oscuro, pequeños zapatos de goma, y desde
su atalaya mira al hombre del podio con los ojos huecos de la muchedumbre.
Casi al mismo tiempo, al cabo de una nueva andanada de aplausos
y v'tores fr'os, se hace una quietud donde Abel alcanza a palpar,
segundos antes de que se materialice, la presencia fatal de otra
turba. De pronto, a una pausa del orador, se cuela una sirena policiaca;
de pronto el ulular se duplica, se cuadruplica, se reproduce en
cada esquina de la plaza. De pronto las boinas comienzan a ser bañadas
por una sangre intermitente. De pronto es el pandemînium,
el primitivo pandemînium.
Protegidos por caretas y escudos pasados
de moda, armados de porras que esgrimen con evidente intenciîn
fálica, enfundadas las manos en guantes de cuero negro, los
polic'as han establecido en torno a la plaza un cerco de botas ávidas
por entrar en acciîn. Fugaz, absurdamente, por el lapso de
un parpadeo, la visiîn de Abel es la de un ave que sobrevolara
el escenario a tientas, sin el afilado pico de la "l"; allá,
desde esas imaginarias alturas, las boinas constituyen la pupila
de un ojo delineado de golpe por el r'mel de la autoridad. Y entonces
el r'mel se corre hacia adentro, invadiendo el cristalino, y la
pupila revienta en un tropel de part'culas que huyen en todas direcciones,
logrando que Abel regrese a ras del suelo y reasuma su îptica
fragmentaria. Ve, as', cîmo las boinas emprenden una torpe
retirada, cîmo la polic'a alza sus porras en un tétrico
intento por emular al orador que alguien -hay cuatro espaldas cubiertas
por abrigos que aletean en el aire inmîvil- ha arrancado del
podio. Ve, mientras los altavoces empiezan a emitir una desafinada
pieza de Kurt Weill, a una treintena de jîvenes aproximándose
con varas de hierro al cerco policiaco; ve las varas estrellarse
en los escudos como batutas que marcaran el principio de una violenta
sinfon'a; ve o al menos cree ver, justo cuando la primera porra
se impacta en el primer rostro, a un enorme copo de nieve aterrizando
en una nariz que se vuelve un rojo surtidor. Ve a una boina, a diez,
a cincuenta, caer igual que extrañas monedas para ser pisoteadas
junto a las pancartas en la fusiîn de las dos multitudes;
ve a un hombre, a cinco, a cien, tropezar y transformarse en meros
recipientes de puntapiés y porrazos; ve a un anciano apoyarse
contra la plataforma para tratar de colocar en su sitio la oreja
que le cuelga de un estambre carmes'; ve varias caretas policiales
sucumbiendo a los embates de súbitas navajas de resorte;
ve a dos muchachos sosteniendo por las axilas a un tercero cuyas
facciones son ya una incomprensible mancha de tinta. Ve cîmo
la atmîsfera es surcada por bîlidos que hacen pensar
en una lluvia de estrellas oscuras; entre los huecos de la cortina
de humo que desciende inesperadamente sobre el mundo, ve: una hilera
de manifestantes esposados al ser guiada hacia el extremo norte
de la plaza, una decena de hombres hincados que estrujan sus boinas
y piden clemencia a los escudos erguidos ante ellos, una porra derribando
el micrîfono del podio, un joven con las mejillas húmedas
acunando en el suelo a una figura inerte, un zapato infantil -en
la pupila del recuerdo aparece un niño subido en los hombros
de su padre- sepultado a medias en la blancura como un memorándum
de la inocencia perdida. Ve, luego de que el arrugado uniforme de
la empresa lo convierte en periodista a los ojos de dos polic'as,
y mientras abandona la plaza humeante donde las sirenas han logrado
derrotar a Weill, a un cuerpo tendido bocabajo en la nieve. De la
pulpa que ha ocupado el lugar de la cabeza nace una melena que se
extiende más de un metro sobre el piso; insîlita flor
sangu'nea que, salpicada de copos, flota hacia la realidad desde
las aguas del ensueño, gobernadas -bien lo sabe Abel- por
la reina de todas las cabelleras.
|
Like
dandruff left behind from a thousand thick tresses being shaken
out during the night, snow falls on the city: thick, slow flakes,
the ashes of a mute catastrophe which freezes streets, doors, windows,
awnings, cars and pedestrians into an ambiguous postcard. A winter
that seems never to want to end peers out onto the enormous city
each morning with the sky as its mask. The white has extended
its empire to every corner of the country: day after day the newspapers
present the public with images of a horrifying white inside which
it is possible, sometimes, to make out a face buried in the abyss
of an overcoat or sometimes a tree crushed to the bone by the low
temperatures; sometimes, only sometimes, the silhouette of a corpse
turned toward a mortared wall slips onto the back pages of a weekly,
between the unending advertisements for thermal clothing and heaters.
Radio newscasts are devoted to transmitting mortality statistics
between bursts of static, peppered with notes from Kurt Weill pieces;
stations are rumored to have gone off the air forever, their antennas
transformed by the ice into gloomy sculptures, the voices of announcers
merely continuous vapors in front of the microphone. People talk
of airlines going bankrupt from the number of canceled flights,
of an almost mythic north where for many years hot water has been
a legend from some distant past, of a crisis headed in some way
by the pencil industry, which the news media cannot denounce other
than with oblique references, and which is the fundamental cause
of the increase in riots and demonstrations.
In a taxi driven by an elderly man
who talks through his scarf in a dialect full of strange verbal
turns and textile fibers, Abel looks at his watch apprehensively,
then slaps his knee. He'll get to work late. He knows perfectly,
despairingly, what this means: Mr. Kane will deduct the day's pay
and will make him stay at the office three hours later than the
rest of the employees; those are the unwritten rules of the pencil-manufacturing
company where he has worked as an accountant for the past
mechanical decade. If his memory doesn't fail him, it was
only on one other occasion that he himself suffered the sanction
designed, in Mr. Kane's own words, "for those goddam lazy-asses";
one occasion when, just like today, the alarm clock hadn't erupted
into his dreams of snow and long tresses with the punctual force
of a jackhammer. With a knot of uneasiness in his throat, he got
up fifteen minutes later than he should have in the icy solitude
of his apartment, to face a morning which held in store for him
a set of pipes that chattered like dentures, a cup of coffee reheated
in the only clean pot in the kitchen, a shirt from which a bit of
cologne had not even been able to eradicate the odor of armpit,
a bowtie which he has kept tying despite the fact for some time
now it had reminded him of a sad butterfly, a wallet with barely
the number of bills needed to pay the taxi which had now spent ten
- no, eleven minutes immobilized in one of those bottlenecks which
the city, according to a celebrated cartoonist, had turned into
an export product as important as the pencil.
Flicking an imaginary speck of dust
off the cuff of his overcoat, Abel glances out the window. The snow
piles up against the sidewalks where the crowds flow in an incessant
stream of trenchcoats and woolen overcoats; the tips of shoes
and people's hats, car hoods exhaling clouds of steam in the shape
of tremulous question marks - what are we doing here?, the hieroglyphs
demand, what the hell are we doing here? -, the heads and shoulders
of mannequins carried by a group of workers in overalls who attempt
to force their way through the morning bustle, the cheeks of a woman
who stops for a moment in the middle of the street to consult a
slip of paper and then turns toward the misty height of a brown
building: nothing is exempt from the whiteness. Abel sighs. He tries
to concentrate on the crackling of the taxi's radio, behind which
he can make out now a female voice intoning Weill's "Bilbao Song,"
now the freezing voice of an announcer reciting statistics, but
after a short while he gives up. What he regrets most, he thinks,
is missing his daily appointment with the employees who assemble
in an enormous line in front of the company's time-clock. Few things
move him as much as arriving early to work to line up in a hallway,
to move forward slowly and detect the last strands of sleep floating
off the bodies which heap up around him, to smell the emanations
of coffee and stale tobacco, to listen to the murmuring which alternates
between complaints and resignation; to feel, that is, part of a
tumult of frayed overcoats which, timecards at the ready, pays homage
to the mechanism that imposes its totem presence at the far end
of the corridor, to be one more gear in the machine that will quickly
distribute itself among the offices and cubicles immersed in an
ashy light. For some time now - three, four years, a lustrum, two
decades, his whole life?; he really wouldn't know - he has felt
that a sort of terrifying security is provided by crowds, those
throngs whose nomadic habits he has followed religiously through
articles, photographs and special reports; a certainty that only
there, in the middle of a mob of people, wrapped in a chrysalis
woven of homogenous threads which protects him and for which
he must fight, is he safe from the world and its daily affronts,
safe from the winter that seems to have taken possession of the
very soul of the city, safe from routine and from the small though
cyclic abuses that have found their most apt emblem in the erect
figure of Mr. Kane, safe from an individuality which weighs upon
him more each day as he sees it reflected in the mirror hanging
above his bathroom sink like an inscrutable eye. Alone in the bitter
dawn of his apartment, sitting in front of his bowl of oatmeal,
sheathed in cotton long underwear which holds the secret of his
nocturnal emissions, his feet bare and numb with cold, he is nobody,
scarcely a first and last name on an i.d. card forgotten in some
drawer, a signature on a contract with its ink faded from the passage
of the months; before the time-clock, on the other hand, dressed
in the tacit company uniform - overcoat, vest and suspenders, suit,
preferably dark, glasses with round frames, felt hat - he is one
of the cells forming a productive organism which functions according
to its own codes throughout the workday. He is, simply, just another
someone, something invulnerable: nothing can harm him without harming
the whole to which he belongs. There are days when he awakens with
the sensation of having been a statistic in another life - one of
the fifty laborers gravely wounded when a section of the pyramid
where they were working collapsed.
A blow to one side of the cab brings
him back to the immaculate morning. Out of the corner of his eye
he can just make out a burst of grey; a young man wearing a sweater
and a wool beret tilted to the right stops for a moment to look
at him, then proceeds with his mad race toward the front of the
congestion. In no time another two, four, six, eight, ten, twenty,
thirty, one hundred youths join this one: a gang of slightly tilted
berets rushing headlong between cars and buses, conducting a concert
of blows against hoods and windshields, reclaiming not just the
spaces between vehicle and vehicle but the sidewalks as well, leaving
behind a long trail of startled faces. Abel turns around in his
seat, looks out the back window: like a textile swarm coming from
adjoining streets and alleys, from doorways where the melted snow
unveils a language of aqueous signs, the berets have usurped the
avenue. The radio crackles, erupts into a commercial for shoes at
half price: "Don't let winter get in through your feet." "Janjthrj
dejmojnstjajtion," the cab driver jabbers: another demonstration.
"Gojdjaj lajyasjej,", he says: goddam lazy-asses. Abel turns to
look at him and for a second he thinks he recognizes, in the depths
of the pupils which scrutinize him from the rear-view mirror, awaiting
his response, the glacial brilliance that characterizes Mr. Kane.
A familiar image flashes across his mind: a just-sharpened pencil,
similar to the one he always carries in the inside pocket of his
suit jacket, plunging into the ocular jelly. "Yes," he murmurs,
"goddam lazy-asses, it's not our fault," and then he focuses his
attention once again on the street.
By now, the berets are an army trotting
in tightly-packed lines through the whiteness. The tremor which
had initially insinuated itself with the mad dash of a few isolated
youths is now something unmistakable: the presence of the crowd,
the chronometric rhythm of the crowd. Pedestrians, drivers and passengers
have all been bewitched by the procession; from behind the fragile
shelter of glasses and eyelashes, hundreds of eyes contemplate the
men of varying ages who flow past, their gazes fixed in the distance.
As if propelled by a sudden charge of electricity, Abel takes out
his wallet, holds out his only three bills to the cabby and abandons
the car. He isn't sure, as he starts to walk through the snow, if
the shout which is quickly lost in his footsteps is inside his head,
or if, on the contrary, it's the head of the old man that has leaned
out the window for a moment: "Gojdjaj lajyasjej!"
By the time the last strands of the
phrase dissipate into the air, Abel has dissolved into the march.
He looks to the left and to the right, feeling, with a jolt of pleasure,
the first impact of the tachycardia that usually assaults him in
the large stores he likes to peruse on Sunday afternoons - the adrenaline
of the crowd, the ritual drumming of the crowd -, tilting his hat
with an unconscious gesture as if he wanted to integrate it once
and for all into the legion of berets in which he could already
savor the sweet taste of anonymity. A few centimeters away from
his right elbow a man moves forward with heaving breaths that belie
his gradual ascent toward the heights of obesity, a man on whose
features, furrowed by veins of sweat, are drawn the abysmal depths
to which Abel has sunk in so many, many photos. It is a face whose
particularities are reduced to the very absence of particularities,
a face which registers a fascinating limpidity over which skim a
myriad of faces, the numerous façades of the mob which since
the dawn of history has packed coliseums, erected temples
and aqueducts and pyramids and docks, unleashed wars, constructed
and destroyed cities, spilled its singular blood, the same on sand
and in mud, on steppes and on mountains, beneath bridges and beneath
white, white sails. Snow, Abel thinks, his eyes fixed on
the man's eyes, which are fixed in turn on the distance; the masses
always run toward the origin of the snow.
The march turns left and begins to
trickle through a narrow alley: shoulder to shoulder, beret after
beret, their breath tracing ephemeral scribbles on the pages of
the morning. A garbage can falls, two fall, eight fall; a youth
falls in a pile of steaming viscera, an old man falls and feels
the impact of a heel - of twenty, of a hundred - on his waist and
on his neck, his buttocks, his legs. The march leaves the alleyway
and its trot soon becomes a gallop, a swift yet ordered race toward
another avenue where the traffic has also frozen. The symphony of
horns accompanying this change of rhythm does not take long to succumb
to a new concert of blows against car hoods and windows, to which
unplanned notes are added: the neighing of a horse that topples
over on a corner, spilling everything including the driver and his
cart of tomatoes, the clatter of a shop window as it yields to the
assault of a kid armed with an iron pipe. Abel wipes the sweat from
his brow and cannot repress a dark joy; there is something in these
vegetables rolling around among tires and feet like red blood cells,
something in this storm of glass exploding on the sidewalk that
provokes in him an ominous sensation, the moment before a pencil
plunges into the ocular jelly, the second just before someone pulls
himself out of the crowd and fleetingly recovers his state of individuality
- the prelude to mass violence. His joy, however, evaporates, leaving
behind nothing more than a few stray flakes in the face of his first
flash of anxiety; behind the march, on some spot on the horizon,
a siren has exploded, signaling the nearness of the police threat.
Abel turns to look back, to look up; he thinks he can make out,
sliding across the front of a brick building, splashing the faces
that hang like gargoyles from the windows, the inaugural torrent
of blood-red light loosed by an avalanche of squad cars. The berets
tighten their steps and begin to snake nimbly between the cars,
forming a serpent against whose uniform skin only Abel's hat stands
out.
And then, at the end of the avenue,
the city opens like a fist to offer up one of its concrete oases:
a plaza in all its white nudity. On the far west side is an improvised
platform where a podium stands, displaying a curious emblem: a worker's
face with his mouth distended in a shout, in front of which floats
a pencil broken in half. Pennants with the same image hang from
posts and beams, the loudspeakers are reminiscent of certain sad
hothouse plants. The berets silently invade the plaza and the serpent
disintegrates into a thousand ants that slowly form lines in front
of the platform, at the foot of the podium suddenly occupied by
a bald man with a small, pointy beard, who wears a black frock coat
and casts his gaze, kindled by the flames of leadership, in all
directions. The loudspeakers crackle, the snow and frost crackle
creak the pressure of a thousand rubber soles; the man on the podium
clears his throat in front of the microphone, raises his right arm
little by little, extends his index finger as if to proclaim the
distance guilty. His voice, the croaking of a statue about to come
to life, conquers the plaza, the streets, the entire city: "Out
there, in the woods, the enemy is still working." The phrase is
a dike that collapses and gives way to a torrent in which harangues
and dissatisfactions, solidarity and reprimands, lyric bursts and
prophetic notes mingle, collide with the fury of tree trunks ripped
loose by a rising river. Opening a path through the crowd with his
elbows and knees, Abel tries to get as close as he can to the front;
he notices, sprouting out from among the berets like paper flowers,
various placards he's seen mentioned in the newspapers, displaying
the fruit of a false inspiration: "Death to the pencil industry,"
"The trees belong in our fireplaces," "End the graphite oppression,"
"Writing in Winter is forbidden," "More heat, less writing." At
regular intervals that seem to him to be perfectly measured, the
man on the podium raises his right index finger to accuse the faraway
snow which continues falling, intrepid, attenuating the applause
which explodes from time to time against the glass of the morning.
Abel is just a few meters from the platform when he discovers, to
his left, a boy of no more than five, sitting on his father's shoulders;
he, too, wears a beret and a sweater, dark pants, small rubber shoes,
and from his vantage point he watches the man on the podium with
the hollow eyes of the crowd. At almost the same time, after a new
round of applause and cold cheers, there is a stillness during which
Abel manages to sense, seconds before it materializes, the fatal
presence of another mob. Suddenly, as the orator pauses, the sound
of a police siren filters in; suddenly its ululating is doubled,
quadrupled, reproduced in every corner of the plaza. Suddenly, intermittently,
blood-red light begins to wash over the berets. Suddenly pandemonium,
primitive pandemonium.
Protected by face masks and out-of-date
shields, armed with clubs which they wield with obvious phallic
intention, their hands sheathed in black leather gloves, the cops
have erected a fence of boots, avid to enter into the action, around
the entire plaza. Fleetingly, absurdly, in the blink of an eye,
Abel's vision becomes that of a bird, an ave, flying blindly above
the scene, without the sharpened beak of its "l"; from there, from
those imaginary heights, the berets make up the pupil of an eye
ringed, suddenly, by an iris of authority. And then the iris charges
toward the interior, invading the crystalline lens, and the pupil
explodes into a jumbled mass of particles that flee in all directions,
causing Abel to return to level ground and resume his fragmentary
optics. In this way, he sees how the berets undertake a clumsy retreat,
how the cops raise their clubs in a sullen attempt to imitate the
orator whom someone - there are four backs covered by overcoats
that flap against the immobile air - has snatched from the podium.
As the loudspeakers begin to emit an out-of-tune Kurt Weill piece,
he sees about thirty youths approaching the police fence with iron
pipes; he sees the pipes crash against the shields like batons marking
the beginning of a violent symphony; he sees, or at least he thinks
he sees, just when the first club makes contact with the first face,
a huge snowflake land on a nose which turns into a red fountain.
He sees one beret, ten, fifty, fall exactly like strange coins,
only to be trampled with the placards as the two crowds fuse; he
sees one man, five, ten, stumble and become merely recipients of
kicks and bludgeons; he sees an old man leaning against the platform
to try to put his ear, which hangs from a crimson filament, back
in its proper place; he sees various police masks succumbing to
the surprise attack of hasty switchblades; he sees two kids holding
a third up by his armpits, his features an incomprehensible inkstain.
He sees how the atmosphere is cut through by fireballs that call
to mind a rainstorm of dark stars, and between the gaps in the curtain
of smoke descending unexpectedly over the world, he sees: a line
of demonstrators being handcuffed as they are guided to the far
north edge of the plaza; about ten men, kneeling, wringing their
berets and begging the shields standing before them for mercy; a
club knocking the microphone from the podium; a youth with damp
cheeks cradling an inert figure on the ground; a child's shoe -
a boy sitting on his father's shoulders appears in the pupil of
his memory - half-buried in the whiteness like a memorandum of lost
innocence. He sees, after his wrinkled company uniform has turned
him into a journalist in the eyes of two cops, and while he abandons
the steaming plaza where the sirens have succeeded in defeating
Weill, a body stretched out face down in the snow. Out of the pulp
which now occupies the place where the head once was sprouts a mane
which extends more than a meter across the ground; a strange, bloody
flower peppered with snowflakes, floating up toward reality from
the waters of a dream governed - as Abel well knows - by the queen
of all tresses.
To
be continued...
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