Nobody answers. Usually no more than seven or eight patrons are sitting in his corner of the room, and they pay him only sporadic attention from behind their unfurled newspapers and glasses of whiskey. Sandoval scans their faces, looking for support, a gesture of approval that might spur on the rest of his speech. Not finding one, he simply keeps talking. It is 1904, he says, and from there he spins off into prophecies based on his theory that all of history’s major milestones occur at five-year intervals. So five years later — which is to say, in 1909—the eight-hour workday will become reality. Ten years — that is, 1914—and a great war will break out among all the world’s nations. A war that will go down in history as the first in which nobody goes off to battle because the proletariat has at last understood that its enemies are not on the other side of the trenches; despite Alsace and Lorraine, the wealthy Frenchman will always, when it comes down to it, be the German capitalist’s brother; similarly, notwithstanding Tacna and Arica, the Peruvian sugar tycoon will always be the friend and compatriot of the Chilean landowner. In twenty-five years — that is, 1929—the mirage of capitalism will collapse in an explosion that will push all the millionaires out the windows. Thirty-five years — that is, 1939—and another war will break out, one in which the proletariat will go to battle because for the first time the conflict will be between social classes, not nations. Forty years — that is, 1944, give or take a year — and the communists will square off against the anarchists for the first time. (We must be honest, Sandoval confesses in a murmur, and recognize that the communists are ultimately just as dangerous as the capitalists, not to mention much more organized.) Eighty-five years — that is, 1989—and the last foundations of communism will be toppled. Just a century from the present day — that is, 2004—and nothing of note will happen; everybody knows that reality rarely indulges in round numbers in producing its significant milestones. A century and ten years — that is, 2014—and anarchism will have managed to vanquish the last of its enemies and will hold sway in the remotest corners of the earth. The end of History.
Carlos is not interested in politics. He’s not really even certain that he knows what terms like anarchism, means of production, and Marxism mean. But there is something in the passion with which Sandoval addresses his audience that he is instinctively drawn to. And so he sometimes pauses in his game of billiards or his conversation with José to listen to Sandoval, to learn, for example, when belief in God will finally die off (around 1969, after the final Catholic council, which will be celebrated in honor of Friedrich Nietzsche). And it is in fact while listening to Sandoval that it first occurs to him that, just as History has an end, so too should their novel, and that dénouement, which he cannot even imagine, fascinates and terrifies him all at once.
~ ~ ~
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Anyone who saw them walking together — from high up in a garret, for instance — would think that they were friends. And perhaps they are. It all depends on whether one believes that friendship between rich men and men who have to earn their living, between protagonists and secondary characters, between young men in linen suits and old men in grease-stained felt jackets, is possible. The two of them, at least, seem to believe in this kind of friendship, and so on some days Carlos accompanies Cristóbal to the tavern to polish off his midday glass of pisco. Alcohol sparks my creativity, the Professor explains, which is why most of my customers show up after lunchtime. People who are in love notice everything, and they’ve figured out I write my best letters when I’m drunk.
When they drink, Carlos is forbidden to mention Georgina. Cristóbal doesn’t like to combine letters with alcohol — that is, work with life. Instead they talk about a great many other things, or rather Cristóbal talks about a great many other things while Carlos listens. He talks about the last covered ladies he met as a child. He talks about the scrivener’s ethic, which is as complex and strict as a priest’s but can ultimately be reduced to a single principle: never, ever swim against love’s tide. He recounts many memorable anecdotes from his professional life, such as the time a young woman asked him to compose a response to the letter he himself had written that morning.
Carlos listens patiently. Perhaps because those anecdotes are helping him write his own novel. Or perhaps because in fact, little by little, they are becoming friends. Or maybe just because the Professor is the only person with whom he feels that Georgina is alive, that in some way she actually exists.
“You know what? There was a time when I wanted to write novels and then sell them one by one, door to door.”
“And why didn’t you?” Carlos asks.
“Well, I did become a writer of a sort, don’t you think? I’ve invented quite a number of love stories… They say that when The Sorrows of Young Werther was published, the young Germans who read it felt sorrow even more acute than the protagonist’s. They were so profoundly affected by his despair that apparently a wave of suicides washed over the nation. Think of it, the pragmatic Germans blowing their brains out because of love — well, because of Goethe, at least. But my efforts are no less worthy; because of me, a hundred people around Lima haven’t so much married a husband or a wife as they have my work… And so a person must take great care with words…”
That was another of his favorite topics: words.
“Most people believe my work is a sort of business deal, a simple exchange… the customers provide the emotions, and I provide the words. That’s the way they’d sum it up, at least in their heads. If only it were that easy!”
“So that’s not how it works?”
The Professor feigns horror.
“Of course not! Well, it might work that way for the illiterate. They come to me with a letter they cannot read and a piece of paper to answer it, and I am their eyes and their hands. For them, then, sure. But with the wealthy youth it’s a different story. Let’s say, for example, that you are the customer and you want me to write a love letter for you. Because while you no doubt write and read well, even very well, you don’t know what to say to your sweetheart. For instance. As you see it, the transaction is as we described it a moment ago: on one side, emotions; on the other, words. Very easy, or so it seems. But that’s not the way it is at all! Because before I give you those words, you don’t actually have anything. No, don’t look at me like that. You have nothing. You feel some things, of course, I’m not saying you don’t, but they are only the symptoms of an illness: rapid pulse, apathy, perspiration, melancholy, confusion, bouts of euphoria, dizzy spells, shortness of breath, fatigue, a sense of unreality… the whole lot. And you also have a natural inclination, of course, the emotions of a dog that wants to mount a bitch, that’s all. But love — where is it? It’s not there yet because nobody has given it words. Love is a discourse, my friend, it’s a serial novel, a narrative, and if it’s not written in your head or on paper or wherever, it doesn’t exist, it remains only half done; it is ever only a sensation that believes itself an emotion…”
“But you—”
“I write it. That’s what they come for, really, the swains and sweethearts, and that’s why they wait for hours under the punishing sun. They come so that I can write that emotion for them, show them what love should be, what they should feel. That’s what my business consists of. The important thing is not to gratify the sender — after all, I don’t even know him — so much as the customer, who comes for his romance the way a loyal reader goes for the latest installment of his serial novel. The more heartbroken the love I invent for them, the more wretched I make them on paper, the happier they leave. If you could see them, elated to feel all that nonsense! Because from that point on they will truly begin to feel it, and that’s what matters. And the same goes for the letters’ addressees, who also want someone to write them a beautiful story and are ready to fall in love with anyone who pulls it off. They look at themselves in the mirror of the other’s letter: if they like what they see, it’s a done deal. And when they get married, if they get married, it may be that one night the two of them will sit by the hearth to read the letters they sent to each other, and then they will remember — will believe—that they actually lived that tempestuous love story I created for them…”