The Musical Brain: And Other Stories (18 page)

The Topiary Bears of Parque Arauco

THE PHOTOS WILL BEAR ME
out: on either side of the entrance to the
mall on Avenida Kennedy are topiary forms, clipped from a plant with small, dark
(perennial) leaves, which represent:

On one side, a perfectly proportioned polar bear, thirty-five feet high, holding a
bottle of Coca-Cola in his right paw (the bottle is to scale, i.e., huge). Some way
off, there are two smaller forms, clipped from the same plant, representing two bear
cubs, one standing and reaching out toward the full-grown bear, the other sitting on
the ground but also looking at the adult.

On the other side, at the opposite end of the mall’s façade, about a hundred yards
away, another big bear, just like the first, with the same bottle of Coca-Cola, and
a single cub, but this one is up against the adult with his front paws outstretched
as if he wants to be picked up or is trying to reach the bottle.

The sequence of figures sketches out a little story. In the first scene, you might
say that the bear is appearing before his cubs and saying, “Look what I’ve brought.”
In the second, one of the cubs has rushed up to him and is trying to scale his big
body of green leaves, reaching out for the bottle, which the father is holding aloft
as if to say, “Not yet.” The cub’s little brother has disappeared.

It’s a happy Laocoön, a living sculpture made from plants that grow and thrive and
renew themselves. And since there are two sculptures, as opposed to the Laocoön,
which is a single group, they suggest an outcome, a formula that divides the passion
into installments. The formula of death has become the formula of life: the formula
of Coca-Cola, which is at once secret and universal, a secret within everyone’s
reach.

The cars whiz past on the avenue, anonymous, indifferent. The bears are a fleeting
vision, so fleeting there’s hardly a fraction of a second between the two groups, as
in a flip book. The drivers, concentrating on the hellish traffic in this part of
the city, don’t notice them. But the children do: it’s a favorite scene; they press
up against the windows to see it. If they regularly pass this way, they know when to
start looking out: a bit before the mall so they can savor the anticipation and be
sure not to miss anything. If not, they’re taken by surprise, but even so they
understand what it’s about, they interpret, they get the message, even the
youngest.

It’s a universal language, and universal languages are aimed at children, not at
adults. But in this case there is something more than a message, and something more
than a language. The children passing by in cars or joyfully entering the mall, led
by their parents, are not the only beneficiaries. There are others: the invisible,
hidden children who are the protagonists of this fable, the fable of the topiary
bears of Parque Arauco.

When the sun rises over the massive Andes looming beyond Las Condes, poor children
from all the slums of Santiago come with empty plastic Coca-Cola bottles, one bottle
each (no more than one: this is an unwritten rule). It’s a daily pilgrimage; they
come from near and far, some from very far away, with such humble little steps it
seems they’ll never get anywhere and yet they cover enormous distances. Some have to
set out well before dawn. As day breaks, they converge on the mall opposite Parque
Arauco, but not all together, not in groups; some delay their arrival, or hurry up,
or stop and wait patiently, quietly, giving way to another child who got there
first. One by one, they approach the bears . . .

And there, in that dawn communion, a little miracle of charity is repeated over and
over. A poor child approaches one of the bears (either one) and raises his or her
old, dented, empty Coca-Cola bottle in both hands. With the slightest rustle of
vegetation, the bear moves his head of green leaves, and fixes his gaze on the
child. Without an expression, without a smile, perhaps without even what, in this
world, we refer to as a gaze, he seems to gauge the child’s poverty, to understand
and love that need. And then, with movements of infinite precision, he tips his big
bottle to fill the child’s, mouth to mouth, without spilling a single drop. Clasping
the treasure that refreshes, the child withdraws, and hurries home, making way for
the next in line. And so they all have their turn, all the poor children of
Santiago. Not one goes away empty-handed, because the big magic bottles of the
topiary bears are never empty.

There are no bad dawns. There is no drought, neither in winter nor in summer. And
when the day barges in and the big orange buses begin to discharge the multitudes
who come to work in the mall’s stores and restaurants, the last of the poor children
is already far away, with his bottle full of bubbling Coca-Cola, and the bears
resume their majestic stillness for the rest of the day.

Like a sundial, the giant tower of the Marriott throws its shadow, which falls like a
friendly caress over one bear at a certain hour of the day, and then over the other.
I’m in the Executive Lounge on the twenty-third floor, with nothing to do (I never
have anything to do), drinking whiskey and thinking about the sublime reality of the
world.

The Criminal and the Cartoonist

THE CRIMINAL WAS HOLDING
a knife to the cartoonist’s throat with
one hand while furiously brandishing an open comic book with the other, and, in a
voice as full of menace as his body language and the whole situation, subjecting his
victim to violent but also bitter and plaintive reproaches.

“You had to go and tell my story, didn’t you, filthy snitch . . . Rat, squealer,
faggot! And you had to tell it in minute detail, and give the police everything they
need to catch me and get a conviction.”

He was trembling with indignation (but the blade of the knife remained steady, gently
pressed against the carotid artery), and the comic book, printed on the usual flimsy
paper, was shaking in front of the cartoonist’s pale, terrified face.

“You even drew me! And it’s a good likeness, too, son of a bitch: the nose, the
mustache, the expression . . . the clothes! The black waistcoat, the belt buckle,
the striped socks . . . You really went to town, you rat. But now you’re going to
pay . . .”

The cartoonist, faced with what seemed to be the imminent end of the scene, and of
his life, drew strength from desperation, and, in a barely audible voice, attempted
to defend himself (he had a very strong argument).

“I never informed on you. I got all the information from the newspapers, down to the
last detail, like you said! There are photos of you in the paper, hundreds of
photos; that’s what I copied your face from, how else could I have done it? This is
the first time I’ve seen you in person! Everything was published already.”

“Don’t lie.”

“I swear! You can check for yourself. You must know, but you won’t admit it. You were
in the papers every day until the public’s morbid interest in your crimes began to
wane, and that’s all the documentation I used; I didn’t put in anything that wasn’t
already in the public domain. I didn’t have special sources or prior personal
knowledge. I don’t have any underworld contacts; I spend all my time bent over the
drawing board, in a world of fantasy . . .”

“Don’t lie. It’s no fantasy. Everything you put in this comic happened exactly like
you show it.”

The cartoonist’s voice was more natural now, not so shaky; he was taking heart from
his irrefutable reasoning.

“But that’s because I got it from the newspapers! It’s all there, you can ask anyone.
You weren’t reading the papers in prison, so you don’t know how much space they
devoted to your story, how much information they gathered, how many photos of you
they found, how meticulously they reconstructed each one of your exploits . . . The
material was all there, ready and waiting, all I had to do was write the script . .
. Well, I don’t want to get too technical, but—”

“Don’t lie.”

The same hoarse refrain: the record was stuck. What more could the cartoonist say?
His arguments having failed to persuade, the panic was returning and with it the
pallor and the urgent desire not to die. He had placed too much faith in language
and reason. He’d forgotten that he was at the mercy of a terrible criminal, who
could not have become what he was had he not already been an insane monster,
impermeable to humanity. Already, and still.

And yet, when the criminal spoke, which he promptly did (all this took place in a few
fleeting instants of horror), he too resorted to the irrefutable.

“Look at the date.”

These words introduced a new element, which, on the face of it, undermined the
argument based on the newspapers, because if anything is dated, it’s the daily
press. A complex rearrangement took place in the cartoonist’s mind, with the
instantaneity that characterizes moments of high tension. He felt that he had
settled the matter once and for all by appealing to the evidence of the newspapers;
now the question of dates would oblige him to enter into the specific details of the
proof. On the other hand, it was encouraging; by raising the question, his
interlocutor was showing his willingness to rise to the level of a linguistic (and
numerical) conversation, and that was a domain in which the cartoonist felt much
more at home than in the world of action.

This relief, however, lasted only the few seconds it took him to focus (anxious sweat
was running into his eyes, blurring his vision) and read the date in question,
written by hand at the top of the cover. Those cheap comic books were almost never
dated, and collectors like him had to determine the year of publication indirectly,
by means of stubborn, laborious research. They calculated and triangulated,
comparing the styles of the cartoonists and the themes of the scriptwriters, using
providential references to current affairs that had found their way into the
timeless extravagance of the adventures. A wealth of idle, playful erudition was
mobilized, with no prestige or award to be won, but that only made it more
enjoyable.

The date showed that the comic was forty years old, published when both of them had
been children (the criminal and the cartoonist were roughly the same age). That
explained the yellowish color of the paper, the neat grid of panels, the
old-fashioned layout, and the dog-eared pages. It also explained, compellingly, why
the cartoonist’s syllogism had made no impression on the criminal. How could you
argue that a comic published forty years ago was based on events reported by the
press in the last few months?

Because of its age, this element was, paradoxically, too new for the cartoonist to
absorb straightaway. He tried to step back and consider it from a distance, not only
to see it in perspective, but also to put the exchange, if he could, on a more
civilized footing, and above all to buy time, which, in the circumstances, was the
only thing that really mattered:

“I’m a comic book collector . . .”

The criminal interrupted him:

“Don’t lie.”

His leitmotif again! But this time the cartoonist had visible proof to back his
claim.

“I’ve got lots of comic books, from the forties on, I’ve been collecting since I was
a kid . . . You can’t say I’m lying, because you saw them and you took this one . .
. I don’t know how you found it so easily, just like that, among the thousands of
comics in my collection . . . though they are well organized, it’s true, by year, by
publisher, by title . . .”

“Shut up and explain—”

This time it was the cartoonist who interrupted:

“Creating and collecting are parallel activities for me. They’re separate, but they
nourish each other, inevitably. Most of my colleagues are collectors too.”

“What do I care? Why are you lying? This”—the criminal shook the comic book
violently, scrunching it up with no regard for its value as a collector’s
item—“didn’t come out of the newspapers, son of a . . . !”

“That comic, I swear . . . I’d forgotten all about it. You saw yourself how many I’ve
collected: thousands and thousands . . . That’s how it is with collectors, we can
never have enough . . . There must be lots I haven’t even read . . . All I take from
the masters is the form, insofar as I can. For the plots, I use the newspapers, the
crime reports . . .”

The criminal exploded in fury (miraculously, his shouts were not accompanied by a
jerking of the wrist: the slightest movement could have been fatal).

“What the fuck do you mean? The police didn’t know who I was, and the journalists had
no idea! Now they know, thanks to you!”

“But I followed the cases in the newspapers!”

“Well, the papers are going to follow you now, smart-ass, bullshit artist! And they
won’t have any work to do, because you showed it all just like it happened, and it’s
obviously me in the drawings.”

“No . . . I don’t know . . . you’re confusing me. Now you mention it, maybe I used
the Identi-Kit pictures . . .”

“Ha!”

The criminal laughed sardonically, full of contempt for those crude sketches patched
together by the police. Although the cartoonist shared his opinion, he attempted a
lukewarm defense:

“I don’t know. Sometimes they get it right.”

“Come on! Don’t make me angrier than I already am . . . No, do! Go on lying, so I
lose control and get it over with, since I’m going to do it anyway.”

“No.”

It was a cry from the soul, and the vibration of the cartoonist’s vocal cords
perilously tensed the part of his neck on which the blade was pressing. The men were
in an uncomfortable, strained position, both standing in the middle of the semidark
studio, the criminal’s massive body pressing against the cartoonist’s back, his
right arm bent, elbow out, so as to place the knife in exactly the right position
for throat-slitting, the left arm around the other side, extended, holding up the
comic book. It was almost like a sculptural group, except for the trembling of one
figure, the other’s expressive little jolts, and of course the moving lips of both.
It was hard to see how the composition could remain stable, given the turbulent
passions to which it was subject (revenge, terror). But it wasn’t all that strange:
statues hold still too, although they often represent, in a direct or allegorical
way, volcanic passions, including, precisely, vindictiveness and fear.

“No,” the cartoonist repeated. “Are you accusing me of plagiarism? No way . . . Not
because I care about bourgeois morality or property rights . . . I’m not like that .
. .” He was trying, crazily, to win over his attacker by taking the outlaw’s side.
“What I care about is innovation, invention, creation . . . Anyway, the world of
comics is a kind of fan club; like I said, we’re all collectors, we know our stuff,
and we can tell a copy at a glance . . . You even have to watch out for unconscious
memories!”

“What are you talking about? Why should I give a shit about any of that? My life is
on the line here! Don’t you understand? No, of course you don’t: you’re stuck in
childhood; you know nothing about real life.”

The cartoonist seized the opportunity to change the subject, and said with a stutter
that came (like his earlier cry) from the soul:

“The ch-child is fa-father to the m-man.”

“Don’t I know it, jerk! I used to read this comic book when I was a kid; I bought it
when it came out, at the stand on the corner of Lavalleja and Bulnes, where the
tenement is. I used to wait for them to come out every week. I wasn’t some stupid
snobby collector; I bought it because it was the only way I could escape from the
dismal reality of my life: we were poor, my father was in prison, and my mother had
tuberculosis. And this comic, this one”—he shook it savagely, engrossed in the
past—“I read it very carefully, I’m telling you. That’s why I spotted it
straightaway among the thousands of others, the tons of old paper you’ve piled
up.”

The cartoonist, who should have been comforted by the revelation of this common
ground, this comic they had both read, because it was something he shared with a
being who until then had seemed entirely other, jumped instead to a higher level of
fear and alienation. Apart from fellow members of the trade, who had an artistic or
professional investment in the medium, he wasn’t used to dealing with people who
actually read comics. People who read them for their content. He knew they existed,
of course. But he had shut them out of his consciousness. And to find himself
suddenly in the hands of such a person, literally in his hands and at his mercy,
paralyzed him with terror. To make things worse, the terror was irrational, without
a reason that he could identify and articulate. What happened next deepened the
strangeness. Up until then, the criminal had been tight-lipped, but something must
have pressed his talk button:

“Yes, I remembered it clearly, panel by panel, drawings and text, every line, every
word. Even though I read it when I was . . . I don’t know, ten or twelve, and I
hadn’t reread it until today. I remembered it so well because I didn’t actually have
to remember. It wasn’t just another comic for me, like it is for you, with your
thousands; for you, they’re just a fetish, or at best a source of ‘inspiration.’ ”
When he put the quotation marks into his speech, a slow music began to play in the
distance, a melody made of detached notes, deep in pitch, plucked on some string
instrument, distant but curiously loud. “For me it had real importance. I don’t know
why God and the Devil set it up like that, or why I read it just at the point in my
psychophysical development when it was bound to have the biggest effect on me. And
what an effect! That comic strip has been my life, right up to this day. Each one of
its panels has become reality: each crime, each flight, each abyss. My features have
even come to resemble those of the protagonist, and now no one could deny it’s me .
. .”

The cartoonist: “Sorry, but it’s not true that this was just ‘another comic’ for me.”
(His use of spoken quotation marks made the music stop.) “I don’t know how you can
say that, because if you really meant it you wouldn’t be here. That comic is my
masterpiece, at least in the eyes of the public; it’s the one that made me rich and
famous.”

“Come on, stop fooling yourself. They’re all the same to you. Evil, Cruelty, Blood,
and Horror are just the morbid hooks you use to make it sell, and if your marketing
consultants told you the fashion was over and something else was cool, you’d be onto
it.”

“I don’t have marketing consultants.”

“You do it yourself, I know. You’ve got a fantastic nose for it.”

“Artistic intuition is my only guide.”

“Ha!” The blade pressed harder.

“But in that case,” groaned the cartoonist, who hadn’t lost the thread of the
argument, in spite of the knife at his throat, “it’s got nothing to do with me. I’m
innocent! My only sin is having debased my art for commercial gain; you’re
responsible for the course your life has taken—you or the impressionable child
you were.”

“Don’t lie. You know very well you’re responsible . . . not for the way my life
turned out, true, but for the tip-off, the prison sentence . . .” The thought of
prison made his rage boil over, and he shouted: “You’re going to pay! Right
now!”