The Seven Madmen (5 page)

"Ah! So it's you? Come on in. I want you to meet the Melancholy Ruffian."

Crossing the dark, dank-smelling vestibule, they entered a study with faded greenish wallpaper twisting across the walls.

It was, in all truth, a sinister room, its high ceiling furrowed with cobwebs and the narrow window fortified with a gnarled iron grille. When the bluish light fell on the lock of an antique chest, it fragmented into slivers of half-light. Sitting in an armchair covered in worn green velvet was a man in gray, with a jet black shock of wavy hair across his forehead and wearing light-colored spats. The Astrologer's yellow smock billowed out as he went up to the stranger.

"Erdosain, this is Arturo Haffner." On another occasion, the embezzler would have said something to the man whom the Astrologer privately called the Melancholy Ruffian, who, after shaking Erdosain's hand, crossed his legs in the armchair and leaned one bluish cheek on three shiny-nailed fingers. And Erdosain looked again at that nearly round face, with its peaceful slackness, where nothing bespoke the man of action except a mocking, skittery spark in the depths of the eyes and a trick of raising one eyebrow higher than the other while listening to conversation. Erdosain made out on one side, between the jacket and the silk shirt the Ruffian had on, the black butt of a revolver. Undoubtedly, in life, faces mean very little.

Then the Ruffian looked toward a map of the United States, which the Astrologer was facing with a pointer in hand. Standing with his yellow arm across the Caribbean's sea blue, he exclaimed:

"The Ku Klux Klan had only one hundred fifty thousand followers in Chicago
...
In Missouri, one hundred thousand followers. They say that in Arkansas there are over two hundred 'caverns.' In Little Rock, the Invisible Empire affirms that all the Protestant pastors are part of the Klan. In Texas it holds absolute sway over the cities of Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, and Beaumont. In Binghamton, home of Smith, who was Grand Dragon of the Order, there were seven thousand five hundred initiates, and in Oklahoma they got the legislature to remove Walton, the governor, for trying to stamp them out, so in fact the state was under Klan rule until lately."

The Astrologer's yellow smock seemed to be the robe of some Buddhist monk. The Astrologer continued: "Do you know they burned several men alive?"

"Yes," said the Ruffian. "I read the telegrams."

Erdosain now began to take a good look at the Melancholy Ruffian. The Astrologer called him that because many years ago the pimp had tried to kill himself. That was a mysterious affair. Overnight, and after years of exploiting prostitutes, Haffner shot a bullet into his chest, right next to his heart. Only the contraction of the organ at the precise moment of the bullet's entry saved him. Later, he went on with his life just as always, only maybe with a little added glamor from this gesture which made no sense to any of his fellow vultures. The Astrologer went on:

"The Ku Klux Klan collected millions—"

In a fit of despair the Ruffian cut in:

"Yes, and their Dragon—and a dragon is the right word for him!—gets hauled into court for theft." The Astrologer ignored this outburst. "What in Argentina prevents the formation of a secret sect that could grow just as strong as that one did there? And I'll speak frankly now. I don't know if our group will be Bolshevik or Fascist. Sometimes I think the best thing would be to invent some tutti-frutti that would leave everyone guessing. See, I'm being as open about all this as anybody could ask. What I mean to do is make a big something to be the ultimate focus of human yearnings. My plan is to appeal especially to young Bolsheviks, students, and intelligent proletarians. Besides them, we'll appeal to all the world reformers, clerks who fantasize being millionaires, frustrated inventors—not you, of course, Erdosain—plus anyone who's been laid off or else had some run-in with the law, people who're out on the street not knowing where to turn—"

Erdosain remembered what had brought him to the Astrologer's house, and said: "I have to talk to you—"

"Just a moment
...
I'll be with you," and he resumed his pitch. "The power of our group will come not from member contributions, but from brothels each cell will set up for funding. When I talk about a secret society, I don't mean the classic setup but some supermodern version, where each member and initiate has an interest and shares earnings, since that's the only way to really get them involved in the projects which only a few will be very informed about. Anyway, that's the business side of it. The brothels will fund the growing branches of the society. In the mountains, we'll build a revolutionary training camp. There, we'll school new recruits in anarchist tactics, revolutionary propaganda, military hardware, industrial planning, so as soon as they get out of training they can set up a new cell anywhere. Do you see? The secret society will have its training institute, the Revolutionary Institute."

The clock on the wall struck five. Erdosain saw there was no time to lose, and burst out:

"Forgive my interrupting. I came on serious business. Do you have six hundred pesos?"

The Astrologer put down his pointer and crossed his arms.

"What's your problem?"

"If I don't show up with six hundred pesos tomorrow the Sugar Company will send me to jail."

Both men stared at Erdosain. He had to be in great distress to go blurting out his plea like that. Erdosain went on:

"You have to help me. Over the past few months, I managed to embezzle six hundred pesos. Somebody turned me in with an anonymous letter. If I don't bring the money in tomorrow, they'll send me to jail."

"And how did you come to steal all that money?"

"It just happened, sort of one day at a time."

The Astrologer fiddled with his beard in dismay.

"But how did it happen?"

Erdosain had to explain all over again. Whenever the retailers got a shipment of goods, they signed a receipt showing they owed whatever the price was. Erdosain, along with the other clerks in his department, got a bunch of those receipts at the end of the month and had thirty days to collect.

The bills which they said they could not collect on just stayed with them until the retailers paid up. And Erdosain went on:

"Just think, the clerk was so lax about it that he never checked back on the bills we said we couldn't collect on, so if we did collect and pocketed the money, we could just enter it as a regular bill paid and then cover for it using money from a bill we collected on later. See how the coverup worked?"

Erdosain was the vortex of the triangle formed by the three. The Melancholy Ruffian and the Astrologer exchanged glances from time to time. Haffner flicked the ash from his cigarette and then, with one eyebrow cocked, kept examining Erdosain from head to foot. At last he put a strange question to him:

"Did you get pleasure from stealing?"

"No, none
...
"

"But why are you still wearing those wornout shoes?"

"I didn't make much money."

"What about all that money you stole, though?"

"It never occurred to me to buy shoes with that money."

That was the truth. His initial glee at getting away with spending somebody else's money soon wore out. One day Erdosain noticed he was full of a restless ache that turned sunny skies soot black in a way that only a wretched soul could perceive.

When he found out he already owed four hundred pesos, the shock plunged him into madness. Then he dashed about in a mad frenzy trying to get the money spent. He bought candy, which he never even liked, lunched on crab, tortoise soup, and frogs in restaurants that charge for the privilege of sitting among the well-dressed, he drank expensive liquors and wines which were wasted on his untrained taste buds, and still he was without the most necessary items for simple comfort, such as underwear, shoes, neckties
...

He started giving money to beggars and big tips to waiters who served him, just to be rid of the last bits of that stolen money he carried in his billfold and that might be taken away from him at any moment.

"So you never thought about new shoes?" insisted Haffner.

"Really, now that you make me think about it, it does seem strange, but to tell the truth I never thought those things could be bought with stolen money."

"So, what did you spend the money on?"

"I gave two hundred pesos to a family of friends, the Espilas, to buy an accumulator and set up a small galvanoplasties lab, for the production of a copper rose, which is—"

"Yes, I know already—"

"Yes, I told him all about it," said the Astrologer.

"And the other four hundred?"

"I don't know
...
I spent them just in a crazy way
...
"

"And what's your plan now?"

"I don't know."

"Don't you know anyone to help you out?"

"No, no one. I went to a relative of my wife's, Barsut, ten days ago. He said he couldn't
...
"

"So you go to jail?"

"Well, of course
...
"

The Astrologer turned to the pimp and said:

"You know I need to have a thousand pesos. That's for setting up my big projects. So all I can give you, Erdosain, is three hundred pesos. Still, my friend, you sure manage to look after your affairs!"

Suddenly Erdosain forgot all about Haffner and burst out:

"It's unhappiness. You know what I mean? This fucking unhappiness is what pulls you under—"

"How's that?" interrupted the Ruffian.

"I said, it's unhappiness. You steal, you do all these crazy things because you're unhappy. You walk down the streets under a yellow sun, and it looks like a festering plague sun
...
. Sure. You have to have been down to know. Walking around with five thousand pesos in your pocket, still you're miserable. And suddenly a little idea blooms: to steal. That night you can't sleep for joy. The next day you do your accounts, you're shaking all over but you make it look really good, and so you have to keep on with it—it's just like your suicide attempt."

These words made Haffner sit bolt upright in his armchair and grip his knees with clenched fingers. The Astrologer tried to shush Erdosain. It was no use, for he went on in the same vein:

"Yes, just like your suicide attempt. I've often pictured it to myself. You were sick of pimping. If you only knew how much I've wanted to meet you! I said to myself: that must be one strange pimp. Of course, out of a thousand men like you who deal in women, there's one who's like you. You asked me if I got pleasure from stealing. Now, you tell me if you get pleasure—But, what the hell, I'm not here to give explanations, see? What I need is money, not a lot of talk."

Erdosain had got up, and now he stood clenching his hat brim in his fists. He glared indignantly at the Astrologer, at his hat blocking the view of Kansas on his map, and at the Ruffian, who stuck his hands between belt and pants. Haffner settled back into the armchair covered in green velvet, propped one cheek on his plump hand and with a smirk he said calmly:

"Sit down, here, friend, I'll give you that six hundred pesos."

Erdosain pulled his arms up against his sides. Then, not moving, he stared for a time at the Ruffian. The man insisted, and this time emphasized his words more clearly.

"Relax, sit down. I’ll give you that six hundred pesos. What are real men for?"

Erdosain did not know what to say. He was flooded with the same terrible torrent of sadness that had been unleashed in his soul when the pig-headed office boss told him he could go now. So, life was not so bad, after all.

"Let's do it like this," said the Astrologer. "I give him three hundred pesos and you give him the other three hundred."

"No," said Haffner. "You need the money. I don't. I have three women bringing it in." And, turning to Erdosain, he went on: "So see, now, how things have a way of working out? Things okay now?"

He spoke with a smirking calm, with the unshakable cool of a country man who knows that he knows enough about the natural world to cope with any crisis. And it was only then that Erdosain noticed the overpowering rose scent and the tap dripping into the barrel, plunking clearly outside the half-open door. Outside, the roads meandered away, wavy in the afternoon sun, and birds sitting in the pomegranate trees bent the boughs downward in great sagging clusters of scarlet asterisks.

Again a nasty gleam appeared in the Ruffian's eyes. Cocking one eyebrow, he waited for Erdosain to light up with joy, but, when that didn't happen, he said:

"Have you been going on like this for long?"

"Yes, quite a while."

"Do you remember I once told you, even before you had confided in me, that you couldn't go on living the way you were?" the Astrologer objected.

"Yes, but I didn't feel like talking about it. I don't know
...
things that really confuse you are the ones you won't talk about even with people you know you can trust."

"When will you put the money back?"

"Tomorrow."

"Good, then I'll write you a check right now. You'll have to cash it tomorrow."

Haffner turned to the desk. He pulled out his checkbook and wrote the sum firmly, then signed his name.

Erdosain went through a paralyzed moment of utter suspension, as unthinking as someone who is confronted with a dream landscape that stays in his memory later, so that he would swear that sometimes life really operates with an intelligent fatalism.

"Here you go, pal."

Erdosain took the check, and without reading it folded it twice and put it in his pocket. It was all over in a minute. It was more absurd than anything in a novel, and yet it was a real live person doing it. And he did not know what to say. Just a minute before he was six hundred pesos and seven cents in debt. Now he was no longer in debt, and this miracle had been worked by a single move on the Ruffian's part. By all standards of logic it should not even have happened, but it went off without a hitch. He wanted to say something. He peered again into the face of that man lounging in the frayed velvet armchair. Now the revolver stood out visibly under the gray fabric of the suit coat, and Haffner, irritated, propped his bluish cheek on three flashy-nailed fingers. He wanted to thank the Ruffian, but no words came to him. The man understood, and, turning to the Astrologer, who had sat down on a stool by the desk, said: