The Seven Madmen (12 page)

The Astrologer got up, came over to Erdosain and, putting a hand on his head, said:

"You're right, son. We're all mystics without realizing it. The Melancholy Ruffian is a mystic, Ergueta is a mystic, you, me, her, and them
...
The plague of our time, lack of religion, has blinded our understanding, and so we look outside ourselves for something that lies within the mystery of our subconscious. We need a religion to save us from the disaster that's come over us. You'll say what I'm saying is nothing new. Okay: but remember, all that can change on this earth is the style, the manner; the substance stays the same. If you believed in God, you would never have had such a rough time of it, if I believed in God I would never hear out your proposal to kill a fellow man. And what's really terrible is that the time to get a belief, a faith, has passed us by already. If we were to go to a priest, he wouldn't understand our problems, and all he'd suggest would be reciting an Our Father and going to confession every week."

"So what are we going to do—"

"There you have it. What are we going to do? In the old days we could have taken refuge in a monastery or traveled to unknown and marvelous lands. But today you can eat a morning sherbet in Patagonia and be eating bananas in Brazil in the afternoon. What are we supposed to do? I read a good deal, and believe me, in every book from Europe now I find that same undercurrent of pain and bitterness you describe in your own life. Look at the United States. Movie stars have platinum ovaries implanted and murderers compete for the most horrible crime on record. You've been around, you know this stuff. Houses, more houses, different faces, but the hearts are the same. Mankind has lost its festivals, its celebrations. Men are so low in spirit they've even lost God! And even a three-hundred-horsepower motor can only manage to distract them if some madman at the wheel blows himself to bits. Man is a sorry creature who can only get his kicks by miracles. Or blood and guts. Well, with our organization we'll give them miracles, plagues of Asian cholera, myths, gold strikes, diamond-mine bonanzas. I've noticed this talking to you. You only get excited when the conversation is about miraculous things. And everybody is that way, saint or sinner."

"So then, we kidnap Barsut?"

"Yes. Now we have to see how we can get him and the money."

The wind stirred the leaves. For a few seconds, Erdosain contemplated the bar of light that fell from the half-open window onto the pomegranate trees. The Astrologer had moved his chair next to the cabinet, so he leaned his head against its ocher paneling, and his fingers again played with the steel ring, twisting it and watching himself do so.

"How do we get them? It's very simple. I tell Barsut I've found out where the Captain and Elsa are—"

"Fine, that's fine. Only, how did you find that out? We can be sure he'll ask you that
...
"

"I'll say I wrote to the Personnel Division of the Ministry of Defense."

"Perfect
...
very good
...
sure
...
"

Now the Astrologer had sat up, almost enthusiastically, and was looking at Erdosain with interest.

"And pretending he's supposed to convince Elsa to come back home to me, we'll lure him here."

"Fantastic. Let me think a little. Everything you propose
...
of course
...
is just fine. Ah
...
tell me this one thing, does he have relatives?"

"Except for my wife, no."

"And where does he live?"

"In a boardinghouse. The landlady has a cross-eyed daughter."

"What will they say when Barsut disappears?"

"We can work this terrific cover-up. We send the landlady a telegram from Rosario, signed by him, saying she should send his trunks to such and such a hotel, where you'll be staying under the name of Gregorio Barsut."

"You've got it. You know you've thought the plan through thoroughly? The plan is perfect. Of course, everything is set up for it, the Captain, the address from the Defense officials, his having no relatives and living in a boardinghouse. It's neater than chess."

Saying this, he started pacing up and down the room. Each time he passed in front of the window grate, the garden went dark or the cabinet sent a shadow up to the roof beams. He and Erdosain were in total agreement that the plan was as well-minted as if they had stamped it into iron under a thousand pounds pressure. And as the Astrologer's boots thunked hard and loud in the room at each step, Erdosain regretted that the "plan" should be so simple, not at all like a thriller. He would have liked a more dangerous adventure, less neatly geometrical.

"Damn it! There's nothing tricky about the plan. If this is all there is to it, anybody can be a murderer."

"There's nothing between Gregorio and the crosseyed girl?"

"No."

"Then why did you tell me about her?"

"I don't know."

"And you're not afraid you'll suffer from remorse after 'it' happens?"

"Look, I think that stuff only happens in novels. In real life, I've done bad things and good things and not felt the least bit of happiness or remorse in either case. I believe what they call remorse is really fear of punishment. Here, they don't hang people, and only cowards—"

"And you?
...
"

"If you don't mind, I'm no cowardly man. I'm a cold man, which is another matter. Think about it. If I just stand there and let somebody take my wife, if I let myself be slapped around by the guy who turned me in, won't I be even more apt not to have a reaction to his death, so long as it's not done butcher style?"

"True. That makes a lot of sense. Everything you do makes sense. Do you know, Erdosain, you're one interesting guy?"

"That's what my wife used to say. It didn't stop her running off with another man."

"And you say you hate him?"

"Sometimes. It depends. Maybe for me physical repulsion is stronger than hatred. Really, it's not hatred, since we can never hate a person when we know he's willing to lower himself to our level."

"So then why do you want to kill him?"

"Why do you want to set up the organization?"

"And why do you think a crime will make a change in your life?"

"That's what I'm so eager to find out. To find out if my life, how I see things, my feelings change after I watch him die. Besides, I have this need to kill somebody. Even just to take my mind off things, you know?"

"And you want me to do the dirty work for you?"

"Sure!
...
because for you, in this case, doing the dirty work for me means getting twenty thousand pesos to set up the organization and the brothels."

"And where did you get the idea I might not be above carrying 'it' out?"

"How? I've been observing you a long time. But the realization that you were the man to try a dangerous scheme came to me when I met you at the Theosophy Society."

"How's that?"

"I remember like it just happened. A lady coal vendor, on your left, was talking about the perispirit with a cobbler. Haven't you noticed how cobblers have a tendency toward occult sciences?"

"And?"

"That time you spoke to a Polish gentleman who communicated with the spirit of Sobiezki."

"I don't remember
...
"

"I do. The Polish gentleman, you yourself told me this later, was a construction worker
...
You and the Polish gentleman went on from Sobiezki to debate the 'homing instinct in pigeons' issue and you replied, 'For me all the homing instinct in pigeons means is that they would be useful messengers in a blackmail plot,' and you went on to explain exactly how— Well, when you stopped talking, leaving the Pole, the coal lady, and the cobbler dumbfounded, I said to myself: this is one audacious man ..

"Ha, ha! You're quite a guy!"

"Right."

"You have to figure in all this: it's a setup that involves three elements that must work in harmony, even though they're independent. Look: the first element is the kidnapping. The second, when you stay in Rosario, and from there send for and receive the trunks under the name Barsut. The third, the murder and the disposal procedure."

"Will we destroy the body?"

"Of course. With nitric acid or else with an oven where—if it's with an oven it has to be four hundred degrees minimum to turn the bones to ash, too."

"Where did you find that out?"

"You know I'm an inventor. Ah, from the twenty thousand pesos we can set part aside to produce the copper rose on a large scale. I have a family I'm friends with working on it. Maybe one of the kids could be part of the organization. Also, the other day I figured out how to switch Stephenson's steam engine over to an electromagnetic system. With my scheme, it's a hundred times simpler. You know what I need? To get away for a while, to stay up in the mountains, to rest and study."

"You could go to the colony we'll have set up—"

"So the plan meets with your approval?"

"Ah! One thing. The money, where did Barsut get it?"

"Three years ago he sold some property he'd inherited."

"And he keeps it in a savings account?"

"No, he can write checks on it."

"So he's not living on the interest?"

"No, he keeps spending it bit by bit. At a rate of about two hundred pesos a month. He says he'll be dead before it's all gone."

"That's odd. What sort of guy is he?"

"Strong. Cruel. The kidnapping will have to be watertight, because he'll defend himself like a wild beast."

"Okay."

"Ah! Before I go. Are you going to mention this to the Ruffian?"

"No. The secret stays with us. The Ruffian will participate by getting the brothels set up, but that's all. Tomorrow you pay back the Sugar Company, right?"

"Yes."

"Now I remember. I know a printer. He'll make up the official bulletin from the Ministry of Defense."

Erdosain paced about the room for an instant.

"The kidnapping is easy. You go to Rosario and send a telegram asking for the trunks. What happens is, when you're faced with actually committing a crime—"

"Well, it won't be the only one we commit."

"How's that?"

"Well, of course. Another thing on my mind is how we keep the society secret. I came up with this: there will be revolutionary cells all over the country. The central committee will be located in the capital. So, this committee will be organized according to this plan: chairman of the provincial capital, member of the central committee, chairman of the principal township, committee member of the head district."

"Doesn't that seem rather complicated to you?"

"I don't know, I'll think about it. Some other details of organization that occurred to me are: each cell must be equipped with a radio setup, and it will be necessary to have one car per ten members, and ten guns, two machine guns, and when we get a hundred members they must buy a war plane, bombs, etc., etc. The system of increments will be worked out by a high council, while lower-level choices will be made by standard voting procedure. But it's time to go to bed. The train will be here shortly
...
or do you want to sleep over?"

Really Erdosain had nothing to do. The clock had already struck three in the morning and the words the Astrologer had said flowed through his mind in a near blur. Nothing interested him. He wanted to go away, that was all. To go far away.

He shook the Astrologer's hand: his host said goodbye to him in the pomegranate orchard, and Erdosain, feeling it was all too much, walked to the boundary of the land. When he looked back into the darkness, the light from the window projected a yellow rectangle out into the dark.

Up the Tree

Dawn is breaking. Erdosain walks along the path beside a ruined sidewalk past the villas. The morning cool penetrates to the innermost sac in his exhausted lungs. Although the open sky above grows blacker and descending darkness makes things seem closer to his eyes, distant objects are invisible on the horizon. Flowing through the streets, some gray-green streaks take on a reddish tinge. Erdosain thinks as he walks away: "This is as sad as the desert. Now she's asleep beside him."
{2}

Quickly the watery dawn light fills the street with pale wisps of fog.

Erdosain tells himself:

"But still, man must be strong. I remember when I was little, I thought I saw, on the clouds' crests, big men stride by with kinky hair and angular limbs all agleam. But really they were striding through the land of Happiness within me! Ah! to lose a dream is almost like losing a fortune. What am I saying? It's worse. Man must be strong, that's the only truth. And show no mercy. And even when he's tired, say to himself: Right now, I'm tired, I regret getting involved in this business, but tomorrow I won't. That's the truth. Tomorrow."

Erdosain closes his eyes. A fragrance, which might be spikenard and might be carnations, wafts a mysterious festive scent into the air.

And Erdosain thinks:

"Despite everything, it's necessary to bring some happiness into life. This is no way to live. It's not right. Some happiness must be floating high above our misery, who knows just what, but something more beautiful than the ugly human face, than the horrible human truth. The Astrologer is right. We must usher in the reign of Lies, of magnificent lies. Having someone to worship, making a pathway through this forest of stupidity—only how?

Erdosain continued his soliloquy, his cheeks flushing rosy pink.

"So what if I'm a murderer or a degenerate? Does that make any difference? No. It's beside the point. There's a thing more beautiful than all the vileness of all men put together, and that's happiness. If I were happy, bliss would absolve me of my crime. Happiness is the key. And also, to love someone
...
"

The sky tinges green in the distance while the low-lying darkness still swathes the tree trunks. Erdosain scowls. Vaporous wisps of memory flow from his spirit, golden mists, glowing rails trailing away into the countryside of an afternoon canopied with sunshine. And the girl's face, a pale little face, with greenish eyes and black curls escaping from under a straw hat, floats upward from the surface of his soul.