The Musical Brain: And Other Stories (25 page)

I had intended to scrutinize their faces, in search of an expression, since no one
can maintain a perfect neutrality forever. But it was futile. Their faces were
irrelevant and inexpressive. They were smooth, regular faces, which seemed to
predate the birth of expression, manly but with something feminine or childlike
about them, too. They gave the men an archaic, doubly concrete character, making
them undeniable. They were a small part of the world, a tiny part, and hidden, but
it was a center that moved mountains and seas, all the while remaining a sordid
little detail, a regrettable accident that had befallen me.

Yet I couldn’t even be certain that it
had
befallen
me. What happens hasn’t really happened unless it can be told, and the two men
didn’t fit into any tellable story. It wasn’t just the need for secrecy, or my
shame, that stopped me from telling anyone. There was a kind of obliteration or
hollowing in them that made it impossible. The story wasn’t theirs but mine, the
story of my failure and helplessness, of something vaguely monstrous slowly growing.
In the end, the spiderweb of my lies and miserable stratagems—those flimsy strings
of spittle with which I kept provisionally tying one moment to another—solidified,
becoming impenetrable, rock-hard. But even rocks wear away with time.

Reason, or logic, the mechanical logic that blindly governs the events of this world,
indicated that eventually, at some point, the conditions for my liberation would be
fulfilled. There would be no need for a cataclysm or a revolution or a titanic
effort of the will: everyday permutations would suffice. Which meant that the
conditions could be fulfilled at any moment, perhaps very soon. Perhaps it had
happened already, and all I had to do was open my eyes and see it.

But first I would have had to know what I was supposed to be seeing. I had no idea
what those conditions might have been; I couldn’t conceive of them, although this
shouldn’t have been inherently difficult. Again, as always, it was a matter of
“seeing”: that was the key. But seeing wasn’t as simple as keeping your eyes open. A
mental operation was involved. Thought had to blaze a path through the dense jungle
of the visible . . .

And then one day it struck me that the giant feet of one man and the giant hands of
the other had begun to shrink. I’d been so distracted or blind that I hadn’t noticed
them reverting to almost normal, or completely normal, dimensions. I found the idea
strangely confusing. Only time could have provided a confirmation of what was
happening, but it was the action of time, precisely, that obliterated the traces, or
scrambled them, tying them into a knot. It wasn’t impossible. Every impossibility
has a basis in the possible. After all, one of the men had always had normal-size
feet, and the other, normal-size hands. This alternation, or distribution, or
asymmetrical symmetry, might have been the source of my confusion. There was
something in them that had always resisted clarification: for me they had always
been an inseparable pair. I mentioned that they tried to avoid being seen singly; so
my memory or perception of them (my “idea” of them) was double; but at the same time
the difference between the members of the pair could not have been greater. I could
only recognize them by means of that difference: one of them was “the one with the
feet”; the other, “the one with the hands.” The prodigious enlargement of those
extremities was so striking that it made any other characterization impossible or
superfluous. So if the monstrous element had disappeared, would I have been able to
say which was which, or, more precisely, which had been which? Through all those
years, maybe ever since I’d first seen them or (this comes to the same thing)
grasped what made them special, I must have been under the unconscious impression
that they were a single man. One man in two manifestations. First impressions, of
course, are crucial. That’s why I never considered the question of individuality. It
wouldn’t arise until the hypothetical moment, on time’s farthest horizon, when the
hands of one man and the feet of the other had shrunk to normal dimensions, when
both, that is, had the same size feet and hands. In that scenario there was at once
a possibility and something impossible.

By transporting myself in imagination to that far horizon of time, I could ask how
the change might have come about. In such cases, the question is typically whether
it took place in a gradual, continuous, and imperceptible way, or occurred by leaps
from one stage to the next, or happened all at once. They say that habit has a
blinding effect. The brain, which is always looking for ways to save energy, cancels
or dulls the perceptions that are most frequently repeated in everyday life,
skipping over them, taking them for granted, the better to concentrate on what’s
new, which might be important for survival, whereas familiar features of the
environment have been ruled out as potential threats.

The misplaced tact that had always governed my relationship with the two men
prevented me from fixing my gaze, in an obvious way at least, on the enormous hands
and feet, but I was also inhibited by the very common reluctance (which, in my case,
was particularly strong, almost a taboo) to look in detail at anything monstrous,
deformed or horrible, for fear it might become an obsession, or prove to be
unforgettable (when everything beautiful is forgotten). Perhaps this is a remnant of
ancestral superstitions. Attention skirts around whatever might “leave an
impression.” To shut my eyes would have been impolite, as well as impractical. Which
left me with only one option: peripheral vision.

This might seem a contrived and twisted solution, but it can be exemplified by a
situation from everyday life that’s familiar to all of us (or at least to all men):
finding yourself face-to-face with a naked man, in the locker room of a gym, for
example. You don’t fix your gaze on his genitals, do you? But I should add that what
I’m offering as an example, that is, as a rhetorical device to convey my meaning, is
actually no such thing. Because it was incontrovertibly the case that the two men
were naked, and their genitals exposed.

These associations of ideas might have led me to suspect that the two men got dressed
and went out to work, or even that each of them lived with his family, and that the
house was their secret place, to which they went in the afternoon, just in time to
strip off and be there waiting for me when I arrived. An absurd and impossible
fantasy, but it did cross my mind, like so many others. Fantasies I tried, in vain,
to use as arms against the mental void into which the hopelessness of my life had
cast me. It was enough to make me hate the human race and turn me into a
misanthrope, if I wasn’t one already. At certain moments, trapped in the circles of
my partial, peripheral vision, I felt a fierce irritation, a stifled, suffocating
fury. Why were they enslaving me? What did they need me for? They were younger and
stronger than I was, more resolute and free. If they’d been real invalids, they
would have aroused pity, and I would have had a good reason for taking care of them.
But as they were—athletic, statuesque, proud—what I felt for them, rather than
pity, was admiration: in them I saw the beauty of the savage and the terrible.

AUGUST 22, 2007

Acts of Charity

WHEN A PRIEST IS SENT
to exercise his ministry in an economically
depressed area, his first duty is to alleviate the poverty of his flock through acts
of charity. Those acts will earn the gratitude of his beneficiaries, and, in due
course, open the gates of heaven for him. He should remember, however, that poverty
will not (alas!) be eradicated by the donations that his conscience, his vocation,
and the directives of his superiors oblige him to make. Although charity may
effectively address a temporary crisis or a specific case of need, it is not a
long-term solution. Its provisional nature means that it has to be renewed over
time, in the form of a continuous flow of material goods, for which a source must be
found. The clergy, backed up by an institution that has, over the course of its
millenary history, accumulated ample resources, is more than capable of meeting the
demands of charity. But it should also be kept in mind that the minister of divine
consolation has to live as well, with the dignity appropriate to his office, and the
comforts that his upbringing and habits have rendered indispensable. These
arrangements cost money, money that could, and really should, be used for charity.
There has to be a balance, and common sense, combined with the priest’s good
judgment and sense of propriety, will find that balance and maintain it. And yet it
remains the case that the less a priest spends on himself and his relatives, the
greater the means at his disposal for helping the needy, and the closer he will be
to obtaining the corresponding heavenly reward. And this, on reflection, may prompt
a suspicion: isn’t the exercise of charity shadowed by self-interest, pride, and
vanity? Aren’t the poor being used as stepping-stones to sainthood? The suspicion is
justified, and easy to confirm, but dangerously corrosive like all doubts, and
finally paralyzing, because the alternative would be an egotistical indifference to
the suffering of others. Here again, prudence, tempered in this case with trust in
divine providence, will determine the right course of action.

The aforementioned problems—how to balance personal expenses against charity,
and how to avoid the vanity of the self-admiring benefactor—can be avoided by
following the example set out below.

The priest begins by recognizing that he is a visitor passing through a world in
which poverty and need are permanent fixtures. He will be replaced by another
priest, who will be faced with the same dilemmas. And he realizes that a good way to
practice charity is to ensure that it will not be discontinued in the future. This
is not only a precaution but an act of humility as well, if the person acting
charitably in the present deliberately gives up piety points in favor of his
successor. In other words, and to be more specific, it’s a matter of taking the
money that might have been given to the poor today and investing it in amenities
that will be enjoyed by the next priest assigned to the parish, so that he will be
able to use his whole budget to protect the needy against hunger and cold.

Motivated by this reasoning, which might seem rather unusual, but has a solid logical
base, the priest arranges for a house to be built as soon as he arrives to take up
his new position. The existing house, which is his to live in, is old, small,
uncomfortable, and dark. The roof leaks, the floors are bare gray cement, and there
are no shutters on the little windows. It’s surrounded by a patio full of weeds, a
ruined chicken coop, and swampy scrubland. For him, it would be fine. He doesn’t
need luxuries, not even modest ones. His vow of poverty implicitly or explicitly
enjoins him to share life’s hardships with the least fortunate of his fellow men.
And the money at his disposal would make a difference to many of those who live
nearby: doing his initial rounds, getting to know the flock that has fallen to his
care, he can see for himself the terrible poverty afflicting those helpless
families, victims of unemployment, ignorance, and distance from major cities. It
would be easy for him to play the role of benefactor, beginning, for example, with
the most desperate situation (although it would be hard to choose among so many
pitiful cases) and providing a remedy that would seem nothing short of miraculous.
So acute is the deprivation that what he and his relatives would consider a
trifle—literally: the price of a dessert—might keep those poor people in
food for weeks. Then he could move on to other families, and others, his action
spreading like a drop of oil, finally earning the love and respect of everyone in
the area . . . But he would leave a minefield for his successor, who’d be tempted to
look after himself rather than his neighbors, especially since he’d be able to say:
My predecessor did so much for others, he was so self-abnegating; he left the
priest’s house in such a ruinous state, it’s only reasonable for me to do something
for myself, and for my successor. The poor, meanwhile, as well as having been
spoiled by the largesse of the first priest, would find themselves without food,
shelter, or medication.

So, although his heart is bleeding for the pitiful condition of his flock, he pays no
heed, but hires architects and builders, buys bricks, cement, marble, and wood. And
he embarks on the construction of a large modern house, equipped with all the latest
conveniences, built to last, with the finest materials.

Under the innocent, admiring gazes of barefoot children, teams of builders brought in
by a developer work in shifts to erect a worthy abode. The priest has discussed the
plans at length with the architect. Every step of the way he thinks of his faceless,
nameless successor, who may still be unborn, but is already foremost in his
thoughts. The house is for that future priest, after all; it has been designed so
that he will find it splendid and welcoming, so well suited to his taste that there
will be nothing for him to do, besides devoting his days to the exercise of charity.
But with a stranger, there’s a lot to cover, if you’re trying to cover it all; where
there’s a choice between two possibilities, you have to allow for both rather than
choosing one. So the priest finds himself obliged to opt for a magnificence to which
he is not accustomed, and yet he forges on without fear of excess, regardless of the
cost.

In matters of taste, of course . . . And alterations are costly, sometimes even more
costly than building. So he has to figure it out as carefully as possible at every
step. But tastes don’t differ all that much, and in this case the differences are
limited because he’s designing the house for a priest like him, a pious man, devoted
to his pastoral duties. So all he has to do is identify with his successor, imagine
a version of himself transported into the future, for whom the previous incumbent
has smoothed the way by leaving him a fully prepared and furnished dwelling, so that
he won’t have to worry about setting up house and will be able to focus entirely on
spiritual matters and helping his neighbors. He is guided by his own taste,
stretching it here and there to accommodate any unexpected idiosyncrasies. When in
doubt, he opts for a Solomonic solution, but instead of dividing, he duplicates.
With the bathrooms, for example: he knows that some owners prefer en suites, while
others find them repugnant and hold that bathrooms should give on to a hallway. So
he decides to have two main bedrooms, one with an en suite bathroom, the other with
the bathroom next door, but opening off a hall. This problem solves itself as the
plans are worked out and the bedrooms and bathrooms multiply: they can be disposed
in a variety of ways to satisfy not only the eventual owner of the house but all his
guests and visitors as well. When it comes to the kitchen, however, there’s a choice
that can’t be avoided by multiplication: should it be an “open” kitchen, giving on
to the everyday dining room, or a “closed” one, with a separating wall? It’s hard to
know, because, really, it’s up to the woman of the house, who will be the main user
of the kitchen, so all the priest can do is speculate. Some women, he thinks, might
want more privacy, less interference when they’re cooking, while others would prefer
not to be cut off from the other members of the family, who might be chatting or
enjoying some game at the table in the dining room. A sliding door would seem to be
the synthesis that overcomes this problem, but, on due reflection, there’s no need
for a synthesis: all one has to do is make the kitchen large enough to include a
dining area, should one be required, and have a separate dining room as well.

The house has two floors, three including the attic rooms. Or four, including the
basement, where the laundry is, and which is only half underground because the
ground floor, the
piano nobile
, is elevated. That’s
where the salons are, arranged in a kind of circuit, so that, whatever the time of
day, the ample windows of one, at least, can capture the sunlight. Having climbed
the twelve steps of the grand stairway to enter the house and walked down a long
hallway, one reaches a central lobby, which is the only large space on the ground
floor that does not give on to the outside. Yet it is not deprived of daylight,
because a spacious arcade connects it with another lobby, of the same dimensions,
which opens on to the rear gallery and receives the rays of the sun. These twin
spaces cater to different tastes: for light or shade, for gatherings (or solitary
meditation) in the cool of the back lobby during summer, with the doors open to the
gallery, or in the snug warmth of the central lobby with its fireplace in winter
time. The design also allows for choice between large and small spaces, between the
majestic and the intimate. To the right of the lobbies, a maze of little rooms,
arranged in an arc around the lateral façade, satisfies the taste for intimacy. They
could be used as studies or waiting rooms, for storing documents or accommodating
extra guests and residents who might prefer to be away from the main bedrooms on the
first floor. A large bathroom and two smaller ones service this area. Tucked away
among these little rooms are two without any windows, which offer the possibility of
complete isolation, should anyone need to withdraw in order to concentrate, or for
any another reason. Preferences for large or small spaces are not mutually
exclusive: the same person might opt for one or the other in different circumstances
and at different hours or moments of the day.

On the other side, to the left of the lobbies, is the grand dining room, twenty yards
long, then a little octagonal Chinese room for smaller but still formal meals, and a
third dining room, for daily use, with a dumbwaiter going down to the kitchens; but
another kitchen is planned for the ground floor, to allow the future owner to choose
between two domestic arrangements: one that would suit the relaxed style of a lady
who likes to do the cooking herself, and another for the mistress of the house who
is happy to let her qualified staff take care of everything. In the first case, the
downstairs kitchens could be adapted for some other use, and joined up with the rest
of the basement, accessed by a larger staircase: that’s where the billiard room is,
along with spaces that could be used as recording studios, darkrooms, or workshops
for various hobbies.

The main library, in a prime location—one of the corners on the ground
floor—is complemented by a smaller one upstairs, which provides a store of
reading material handy to the bedrooms. These range in size from large to small,
have views in all directions, and among them, as well as the library, are little
salons, galleries, and two small dining rooms, one at either end. There are bedrooms
with and without dressing rooms, private sitting rooms, and connecting doors, but
each one has a balcony, and those at the ends of each wing have terraces as
well.

On the next floor up, a long row of small but comfortable bedrooms, with good
ventilation and natural light, for the staff, should they be required to live in,
plus little sitting rooms, hallways, bathrooms, and ample storage space. The house
is crowned by a circular cupola with a dome and glass walls. The various levels,
from the basement to the cupola, are connected by stairways, the grander of which
are made of marble with wrought iron and bronze railings, while the humbler are of
timber or granite, but all are elaborately designed. Disabilities and weariness must
be taken into account, so the priest reserves an empty space for an elevator shaft
going right to the top of the building. He wouldn’t hesitate to foot the bill for a
state-of-the-art model, but he has second thoughts: the newer the mechanism, the
greater the likelihood that a specialized technician would have to be called in if
it broke down, which, in a remote region like that, would take time and cost a
considerable amount of money. So he opts for an old design, so old it’s almost
anachronistic to call it an elevator at all, with a hydraulic mechanism (just like
the ones built for Frederick the Great’s palaces in Potsdam in the eighteenth
century): it’s primitive but, precisely because of that, ingenious and perfectly
functional. The degree of mechanical skill that might be expected of any gardener or
chauffeur is quite sufficient to puzzle out its system of pulleys, sheaves, and
counterweights. Since it has to be built specially, it turns out to be far more
expensive—five times more, in fact—than the latest model; but like all
the other expenses, this one is balanced by a future saving.

There’s no need to go into more detail. But that’s what the priest does, plunging
into the depths of detail, spending long days in research, reflection, and
conversations with the architects. In those sessions, a doubt begins to surface, or
not so much a doubt as the intimation of a danger: that of creating a monster.
Reality consists of beings and things in which all possibilities but one have
already been set aside. In reality, alternatives do not coexist. And what is he
doing if not attempting to bring them into coexistence? There are many ways of
defining monstrosity, he thinks, but their common feature is the coexistence of
possibilities among which a choice should have been made. And the house that he is
building conforms to that description frighteningly well. Or it will if he gets his
way, if he realizes his project to its full extent and depth, and makes a house that
is at once big and small, grand and modest, melancholic and joyful, eastern and
western, this and that . . . The supposedly ideal house could end up inspiring
horror, like some diabolical invention. Satan employs the same weapons, after all,
subtly introducing possibilities into the real . . .