Franky watched him with a kind of glacial melancholy.
— Terrific! he said, pointing at Pereda. They send him to study Greek at Oxford, literature at the Sorbonne, and philosophy in Zurich. And when he comes home to Buenos Aires, he goes soft in the head over record-industry criollismo, poor sod!
The nasal twang from the phonograph was getting more excited:
The wagoner
parries the knife-thrust
and after a couple more
goes hard for the tram-driver
who, had he not been nimble
and stopped the blow in mid-air
woulda had his guts sliced open
like a field watermelon.
Pereda was laughing so hard, it hurt the eardrums.
— He’s out of his mind! scolded Franky. If this ain’t a case of mental masturbation, the ants can eat me alive!
But at that moment, from the metaphysical sector of the tertulia, an irate voice was heard.
— What does he want? asked Pereda, turning a nobly aggressive mug toward the metaphysicals.
— Shut that goddam phonograph up! Samuel Tesler answered.
Franky Amundsen turned off the machine and went over to the philosopher of Villa Crespo, his two buddies naturally following hard on his heels.
— What’s up, what’s the matter? he said melliflously, patting the back of Samuel’s neck as though soothing a furious cat.
The philosopher pointed at Lucio Negri with an index digit that ended in a long, doleful fingernail.
— I need absolute silence! he demanded. I’m trying to flush a vestige of metaphysical intelligence out of this man.
— Any luck? asked Franky.
— Negative.
— I feared as much.
Taking his eyes off the sky-blue divan, Lucio showed signs of wanting to speak. But Franky stopped him with an authoritarian gesture.
— Silence! he ordered. I’ll bet our philosopher dared demonstrate in public the immortality of the soul.
— You’ve got it, laughed Lucio.
— That’s right, said Señor Johansen, sensing in Franky a new and powerful ally.
Franky Amundsen looked from one to the other pessimistically, then turned to the philosopher:
— I’ll bet, he said, pointing at Lucio, that the young medico has just publicly denied the immortality of the soul.
— Immortality? groaned Samuel. He denies the very existence of the soul.
— Soulless wretch! exclaimed Franky, leveling an accusing index finger at Lucio.
Passing a nostalgic gaze around the room, he added:
— Belly of the whale! To think that my ancestral home has degenerated into a philosophical bordello!
He turned around abruptly and faced the group, a fanatical gleam in his eye.
— Well then, he said mysteriously. As an anonymous citizen, the humblest louse in the world, I can tell you about a fool-proof method for demonstrating the existence of the soul.
Astonished voices, incredulous laugher from the metaphysical sector.
— Yes, Franky Amundsen assured them. When some benighted pagan dares deny the existence of the soul, there is only one sure-fire way of showing him he has one.
— How? asked Señor Johansen.
— By breaking it for him!24
Applause engulfed Franky, who saluted the crowd like boxer, joining his hands above his head of red hair. Suddenly, his brow clouded over and he addressed Luis Pereda.
— Blood of a walrus! he said bitterly. For such idiotic trifles, these pagans made us turn off the compadrito mil novecientos!
Now Bernini’s hour had arrived. Cutting-edge sociologist, the pipsqueak had been born (if we are to believe the horoscope Schultz drew up) under a peculiar set of astrological conjunctions and oppositions, such that for every human problem his mind found a solution that some qualified as whorish and others as rigorously scientific, but which in any case invariably had something to do with the union, as difficult as it is pleasurable, of the two sexes.
— Intellectual squabbles, he pontificated, brawls at the soccer stadium, back-biting in the political meeting hall. What are they, when all’s said and done? Escape valves for a sexually repressed people.
— The sexual problem! Franky announced ominously.
Samuel’s ironic guffaw joined Pereda’s laugh in a thunderous chord.
— Go ahead and laugh! Bernini reprehended. Statistics show an alarming imbalance in the ratio of men to women.25
Franky grabbed him roughly by the lapels:
— Let’s have the hard numbers! he shouted. According to your pimpish statistics, how many women does each of us men get?
— Half a woman! lamented Bernini.
Franky could not conceal his relief.
— I’m in the clear! he exclaimed. Give me the half I’ve got coming to me. Blood of a walrus! Half a woman is better than none.
Then he added, eyes glinting mischievously:
— But with one condition.
— What condition? asked Bernini.
— That I get the half from the waist down.
Annoyed and worried, Señor Johansen put his index finger to his lips and pointed with his other hand at the girls on the sky-blue divan.
— Shhh! he begged. Not so loud!
But Samuel Tesler was glowering.
— How can they make the human enigma turn on the question of sex! he grumbled. The beast crowned with flowers.
— And why not? said Lucio Negri. According to Freud…
— Freud is a German pig! Samuel interrupted, as if he were talking about the devil himself.
Lucio Negri subjected him to a bilious smile.
— My understanding is that Freud belongs to the “chosen people,” he retorted blandly.
With a gesture of intimate pain, the philosopher acknowledged the blow.
— That’s the worst of it, he said. He belongs to a theological race, a race he’s dishonoured.
And getting to his feet, he waxed mightily wroth in conclusion:
— Any prestige that outcast has come to enjoy is thanks to the international bourgeoisie. In Freud’s psychology they find scientific justification for their worst vices. That’s it in a nutshell!
— Bravo! shouted Franky, fervently pressing the philosopher’s hand, which Samuel had raised as if to condemn urbi et orbi.
— An anarchist! squealed Señor Johansen. Just as I feared!
Trembling with indignation, Lucio Negri got to his feet.
— I’m leaving, he said. This is a loony-bin.
And without further ado, he abandoned the field of battle where he’d given and received so many honourable wounds. Neither vanquished nor victorious, Lucio Negri headed for the sky-blue divan along the path of a soft look that had been beckoning him, inviting him to abandon the wrath of war.
To convey the commotion now felt by Señor Johansen when he saw his young ally leave is a task verging on the impossible. Faithful to his hyperborean nature, Señor Johansen put coldness aside and entered a state of belligerent ardour he could scarce contain for another second.
— Barbarity! he stammered, indicating the philosopher who was once more sitting in his armchair. This gentleman is a raving lunatic!
— Good, good! said Pereda. So the Bear from Lapland is getting into it too?
Samuel Tesler considered Señor Johansen with retrospective malevolence:
— This gentleman, he said, was weeping tears of joy when that charlatan was singing the praises of progress.
— I haven’t cried at all, retorted Señor Johansen with absolute innocence, but also very angry.