The situation really is complicated: the cars coming from the west down the cross street, since to the north the central avenue is set aside for pedestrians, are forced to continue east, or turn south on the central avenue, while the ones traveling south to north on the central avenue are forced, for the same reason, to turn east on the cross street — or they will be, rather, because for the time being the rows of cars meeting at the intersection are jammed up and not moving, no exaggeration, even a millimeter, motionless and scattered chaotically on the street despite the theoretical efforts and arm waving of the traffic agent, who has abandoned his platform and who, added through historical experience to the mechanism of Hippodamus’s excessively abstract project, justifies a posteriori, with his impotence, the invention of the traffic light — in truth no less abstract in its mechanical periodicity, inadequate for the non-periodicity of phenomena, than Hippodamus’s invention, whose imperfections it pretends to correct. Leto, meanwhile, sustains his disbelief and — why not — his vague disillusion: first off, the Mathematician’s singing, his preoccupied automatism, do not coincide with the ferrous self-control he attributes to him, maybe because of his scientific grooming and social origin, and second because the tango lyric, on the Mathematician’s tongue, sounds anachronistic, giving him an impression similar to what he might feel hearing a soprano voice coming from the mouth of a boxer. Furthermore, the Mathematician’s reaction seems disproportionate relative to the obstacle they have to overcome, as they say — there is, now, something monstrous in his expression, not unlike panic, which the even European tan, functioning, unintentionally of course, as a mask, allows through. And to this is added the singing, which instead of developing the melody in a way that will impel the song’s lyric, continuously repeats the same phrase over the same melodic fragment, but with a constantly accelerating tempo, in an increasingly softer voice and more and more slurred diction, making the words incomprehensible as his panicked look ricochets around the motionless cars, whose bumpers, which almost touch, demand extreme skill from the person who wishes to cross. The Mathematician’s gaze pauses anxiously on the thin spaces between the bumpers and then turns toward his own pants. His pants, Leto thinks, following each phase of the Mathematician’s desolation, The risk of staining his pants. The soul, as they call it, which just now yours truly said was not translucent but murky, the Mathematician’s soul, Leto thinks, without using, naturally, the word soul, nor without, for the most part, anything resembling words, the Mathematician’s soul, which with ease distinguishes the real from the counterfeit, the right from the wrong, and which possesses enough integrity to return things to their right place when Tomatis unleashes his slander up and down the street, disintegrates and falls apart at the possibility of staining his pants.
Taking control of the situation, and pretending not to have noticed any change in the Mathematician, who, although his attitude is no less anxious, has finally stopped singing, something he notices with relief, Leto starts looking, among the bumpers that are too close together, for some that will allow them to pass to the opposite sidewalk. There are at least three rows jammed up at the intersection, although in fact the actual idea of a row is less than adequate, owing to the irregular positions of the cars, boxed in to the spaces left open as though they had appeared simply in order to be filled — but now, down the entire cross street, there are no spaces open and you would have to stand on your toes and look west at least a block and a half to see the last of the cars still moving, prudently supplementing themselves, if the expression fits, to the ones that can’t move any more. Resolved, Leto inspects the bumpers in complete detail, then looks up and sees five or six people on the opposite sidewalk looking for a way through in the opposite direction, but when he finds a space a few centimeters wide, he turns to the Mathematician — paralyzed by the ineluctability of the stain, concentrating on his dazzling white pants — and making an almost imperceptible gesture, prompts him to follow. An internal battle manifests on the Mathematician’s face, a battle whose outcome, uncertain at first, ends up confirming, in a provisional way of course, the thesis, to pick an expression, humanistic they call it, and as they have it, that in the creature called man, the so-called rational faculties — currently God, country, home, technology, class consciousness — always end up overcoming the irrational — excrement, suction or mastication, sperm, blood, self-destruction — in a constant way along an indefinite, rising curve, so that after a quick and ill-disguised hesitation, imitating Leto, in whose hands he has blindly and helplessly deposited all of the decision-making power, the Mathematician leaves the sidewalk and ventures, slowly, into the street.
Leto makes a nervous, superfluous gesture, removing and then immediately replacing his glasses, and, turned slightly at an angle, after gauging his chances of success in one glance, begins to cross, slowly, between two bumpers, followed, at a half meter’s distance, more or less — always more or less, no? — by the Mathematician, whose proportioned and muscular figure, so necessary for carrying, while evading his opponents, the prolate spheroid ball from one end of the pitch to the other isn’t, in the present circumstance, of any use whatsoever — just the opposite, in fact. The wide, loose cut of his white pants, in deliberate opposition to the arbitrary tightness currently in fashion, also contributes to making his progress more difficult, unlike Leto, whose relative slightness and lack of fetishistic interest in his cheap pants facilitate, as they say, the task. But out of discretion, in order not to humiliate the Mathematician too much, Leto magnifies his own difficulties: he only had to glimpse the fissures in what they call his soul, and, conscious of the ineluctability of our disillusions, accepts, shrouding himself a little from the inside, that myths always give way to the so-called reality principle. Nevertheless, trying not to get caught, he keeps an eye on the white pants while they cross, turning his head discreetly, likewise not wanting the stain to happen, not out of sympathy, but rather out of fear that the stain would cinch his misery, complete it, and in front of him the Mathematician, who in spite of Tomatis’s insinuations seems to be someone who deserves love and a certain admiration, would shipwreck on the dark and indistinct shore to which the clear morning air is the fragile, momentary counterpart. But with patience, luck, and skill, they manage to cross. One stage, at least, has been left behind, to put it one way, but actually, if before stepping into the street they were obstructed but able to retrace their steps, as they say, now retreating is impossible, and the passage between the bumpers confronts them, not with another passage, but with the red chassis of a car blocking the way. Leto investigates, over the red car, the possibilities of continuing forward offered by the disposition of the cars stopped on the street and notices that, from the opposite sidewalk, the group has likewise been examining a possible itinerary and has also ventured into the street, diverging a few meters to the east, and is now crossing, single file, between two cars, impelling him to likewise turn east. Sidestepping the red car and making sure to check that the submissive Mathematician is following, he confirms, dejectedly, that the red car’s front bumper is almost touching the rear bumper of the next car, and when he lifts his head to check on the progress of the group from the opposite sidewalk, he notices that after turning east to cross the first open space between the bumpers they have now reversed course in search of a second passage through the next line of cars. Swiftly — the word seems appropriate here — Leto sizes up — that’s how it’s said — the two possibilities, west or east, aware of the need to make a decision in the forthcoming fraction of a second, facing the dilemma of either throwing himself, blindly, into unexplored territory, or trusting the accumulated experience of the others who are coming in the opposite direction, confirming — only in a certain sense, no? — and to put it one way, the reversible nature of space and, choosing the second option, turns suddenly, bumping into the Mathematician who has been obediently following right behind him, anxiously studying — the Mathematician, no? — over his head, the chances of success offered by the territory. Confused, they try to step aside for each other several times, blocking the other’s path each time, now that, clearly, the Mathematician resists leading the way but refuses to step aside, afraid that if he leans against a car, the pants, whose hems and legs he is trying to preserve, will suffer the much-feared stain on the backside. Leto recognizes this and, leaning back against the red car, lets the Mathematician past and slides against the chassis, cleaning it off with his own pants and, brushing them inconspicuously in order to not make the Mathematician feel guilty, or maybe fearing that even if the Mathematician notices his sacrifice, inhibited in his moral reactions by the excessive attachment to his own pants, he won’t feel any guilt, begins to retrace his path and move west. One last twitch — you might say — of responsibility makes him glance back quickly to make sure that the Mathematician is following.