– 2 –
Irrespective of the time he finally gets to bed, on the eve of election day the candidate always sets at least one alarm clock, and two or three if he is very tired or is afraid his usual alarm clock will let him down at the decisive moment. The candidate must be sure he will wake up early enough, although the electoral campaign has in fact finished and theoretically he can allow himself to rest, after weeks of going from one meeting to another and sleeping only two or three hours a night. He must get up early because he knows that on the final straight there are few things that make a worse impact than the candidate who gets to the polling place late, looking sleepy-eyed and unkempt. A candidate who places his vote at noon is a thoughtless fellow that the electorate will dub a slacker: the day his immediate future is at stake, as is, presumably, the city’s, his head seems stuck to his pillow. The thinking behind that is clear enough: if he lets laziness rule when he isn’t mayor, what will he be like when he is?
It wouldn’t matter if his lethargy showed itself afterwards: tonight or tomorrow, once election day is over and done with. But the reports showing the candidates casting their votes will be on the midday television news. And midday is still hours away from when the election stations close, and that makes these reports the last act in the election campaign, although that officially isn’t the case. The law rules that the campaign must finish at midnight on the day before the election. However, many potential voters (the people who always leave everything to the last minute, the ones who get to the cinema after the film has started) will see the reports at midday, and the way a candidate comports himself when he votes may in the end make him decide to get up from his sofa and go vote. And even (and this is what’s crucial as far as he is concerned) vote for him. That’s why his attitude at the polling place is so critical, as are the exchanges with the members of the electoral table, his vote, and his subsequent appearance back on the street. A serious, thoughtful expression may have a positive impact on the don’t-knows who believe that this candidate has been too lighthearted or arrogant during the campaign. Though others might conclude that this sudden seriousness reflects fear of possible failure, a conclusion that would persuade them not to vote for him. Conversely, a frivolous, facetious attitude, that might appear positive to those who felt he was too distant during the campaign, could be counter-productive if it was interpreted as presumptuous, that he thought victory was already in the bag. It would be unseemly to whistle your way into the voting booth. Bad vibes if you cry and bad if you laugh: and equally bad if you don’t cry or laugh.
To compensate for this via crucis to the town hall, the candidate has the ultimate advantage: at least theoretically, he is the citizen who should be in the least doubt when it comes to placing his vote. Even family and collaborators could (out of conjugal boredom, envy, or internal intrigue) vote for someone else: to fuck him up or, in their heart of hearts, to feel like schoolboy hooligans once again. But he wasn’t allowed any doubts. It’s an unwritten law. The possibility of puncturing that particular bubble has indeed been buzzing around the candidate’s brain for some time on the way to the polling place, and when he gets out of his car, smiles into the flashes of the photographers, enters the voting hall, and walks through the crowd of voters. And what if he didn’t vote for himself? They say that any candidate who is really honest and believes in the program he is putting forward is duty-bound to vote for himself. If he reflects on this dispassionately, however, isn’t this vote for oneself, to a certain extent, a kind of spell, a propitiatory magical ritual? He recalls the first time he was able to vote (long before he became a professional politician), the overwhelming emotion, the doubts about whom to vote for and whom not to, his exhaustive scrutiny of the election programs of each of the candidates, his leap of faith. He takes a voting slip for each party, enters the booth, and closes the curtain. The journalists smile and think it’s one big joke. He doesn’t need to pick up a slip for each party and hide in the booth to decide his vote. Everyone knows whom he is going to vote for, and he doesn’t need to keep any secrets.
Alone in the booth, the candidate reviews the slips and thinks that maybe one could formulate the proposition in the opposite way: that a candidate who is so confident of his honesty and the value of his program has no need, at any stage, to be in thrall to superstition. On the contrary: confidence in himself and the power of his arguments should allow him to make a gift of his vote, to present it to his rival—his own arguments are so clearly right they are bound to win over the hearts and minds of the majority, who will ever cast their votes for his opponent? Too bad then if victory is finally decided by his wretched vote. He seals the envelope, opens the curtain, exits the voting booth, smiling broadly and flourishing the envelope containing his vote. In the history of humanity has there ever been another candidate who (as a result of a sudden attack of sincerity, or of schizophrenia), under the protection of the sealed envelope, has voted for his rival?
– 3 –
The curtain rises. The stage set is a dining room. The walls are covered in blue and green flowery paper. In the center, a large redwood table, on the top of which are a vase of flowers and a heap of musical scores (that the theater-goers in the stalls simply see as a heap of paper). On the right, a sideboard; on the left, a fireplace with a plastic log and fake flames. Above the fireplace, a painting of an ugly woman wearing a tiara. The actor strides confidently in and walks towards the table, but he stops halfway. He clicks his tongue and turns around, stops and clicks his tongue again, walks back towards the table. This is his way of trying to communicate a sense of bewilderment, indecision, and grave concern. He places his right hand on the table and, finally, after waiting for the necessary seconds to pass, launches into his monologue. He speaks unhurriedly, in a clear, deadpan tone, and at a brisk tempo. It is a long monologue; the author wrote it so that the character can reflect on the harshness of existence, the dubious life he has led to that point, and his bitterness at the realization of having made so many mistakes and wasted so much time. All these reflections mean that every day the actor inevitably (as he continually repeats his lines) thinks that it is indeed a bitter pill to acknowledge one’s mistakes, and (while he lists those his character has made) he reviews in parallel those he himself has made throughout his life, the last being precisely his agreeing to take on this role in a play he finds increasingly awful. Even though he’s an experienced actor, he doesn’t find it easy to simultaneously maintain the flow of words in his speech and allow his own thoughts to wander. In fact, he ought to concentrate exclusively on what he is saying and defer his own meditations. But he finds that quite impossible. He is getting more bored by the day, finds the play drearier; he’s never had such a boring part. It is of no help to him whatsoever that the play has been so successful. He knows the play is a con. Initially, he’d not thought that, had believed passionately in the work. He was thrilled with the role! He remembers the day they called him, the evening he read the play, from beginning to end in one sitting, his return call to the director that same night, enthusiastically accepting the role. But now with each performance he realizes there is nothing behind the glitter of the words. However much the critics analyzed the play, and (in a rare show of unanimity) all had praised it, however much the audiences packed the theatre every day, and there’d been a flood of invitations to tour the play abroad, it had gone flat as far as he was concerned. No one knew it as well as he did. Not counting the rehearsals (that lasted months), he had performed it nine-hundred-and-twenty-three times. Today was number nine-hundred-and-twenty-four. And after nine-hundred-and-twenty-four performances one knows a work back to front. One knows that, if it were any good, one would have reached that number without any problems: after the nine-hundred-and-twenty-fourth or fifteen-thousand-and-thirteenth, he would have continued to find new insights. When it comes to bad plays, on the other hand, each performance reveals a new crack. After nine hundred and twenty-four performances, the cracks win out and the play falls flat. No matter that nobody, except him, notices. Like this obediently laughing audience, laughing precisely in the silence marked out for laughter. As soon as the laughs end, he resumes the monologue and, speaking all the time, sits on a chair, puts his elbows on the table, and places his head in his hands. He has repeated this action so often . . . Instead of sitting down and placing his head in his hands, why doesn’t he, one night, go to the curtain and smell it, or lift his foot up and examine the sole of his shoe? He has repeated it all so often he could perform the play (from the first to the last scene) in total darkness, on a stage that had been turned into a minefield. A suitably mined stage would be no problem for a methodical actor—he could tread fearlessly there, confident he’d never step on a mine, every movement would be etched on his brain, to the last millimeter. Today’s actors are undisciplined; they modify their movements from one performance to the next, not to improve them (no problem, if improvement were the aim) but because of their lack of discipline—they’d be blown up after taking a few steps. Hah! He simulates a coughing attack, spits out the last sentences of his monologue, hits his fist against the blue and green flowery wallpaper (gently, even though the sound echoes round the auditorium), and sits down again. When he finishes the monologue, with the words “If it weren’t for that, all would have been in vain!”, the actress will makes her entrance (she is thrilled by the work and will never, however many years pass, realize that it is completely devoid of substance), will simulate surprise and say: “Hi, Lluc. I didn’t expect to find you here.” The actor hears footsteps, feigns surprise, stands up, and concludes: “If it weren’t for that, all would have been in vain!” The actress immediately makes her entrance and says: “Hi, Lluc. I didn’t expect to find you here.” The actor walks over to her, not exactly gracefully, embraces her, she rejects him histrionically, he retreats to the sideboard and decides to abandon ship: to make an announcement that very day, as soon as this performance is over, to the effect that he no longer finds the play fulfilling, that he needs fresh, intelligent challenges. But what excuse can he give? He can’t say, just like that, without further explanation, that he’s abandoning a work he has performed, without interruption, for years, the work which has finally, after decades of struggle, brought him fame and recognition. He can’t confess that he’s gradually discovered that the work he was so proud of performing, nine-hundred-and-twenty-four times, is complete garbage. If he pretends to be sick (actor and actress now kiss passionately), the performances would be suspended. But how long could he pretend to be sick before the impresario started to suspect something? A fortnight? A month? If his fake illness lasted any longer, the impresario (despite himself, even though he doesn’t suspect foul play) would look for a replacement. The play has reached its climax. It can’t be suspended just like that. After the kiss, the actress ostentatiously cleans her lips on the back of her hand and rebukes him; he insults her, imagines his substitute playing the role he has made famous (not for a moment does he consider the possibility he might do it better); the very thought makes him shudder. He also shudders when he thinks that’s the only reason he doesn’t leave and continues performing the role day after day, and when the curtain falls and he hears the audience applaud, he gives a routine wave, full of pride.