Amulet (12 page)

Seized by fear, she says that she would prefer to stay in the city, close to him.

Orestes loses his patience. If you stay here, I will kill you, he says. The gods have driven me crazy. Once again, he speaks of his crime; he speaks of the Erinnyes and the life he wants to lead when he can sort things out in his head or even before he gets them sorted out: wandering through Greece with his friend Pylades, becoming a legend. Hippies, with no ties to hold us, turning our lives into art. But Erigone doesn't understand Orestes's words, and fears that all this is part of a plan hatched by the cerebral Electra, a kind of euthanasia, an exit into darkness that will not stain the young king's hands with blood.

O
restes was moved by Erigone's misgivings, my friends. Or so Carlos Coffeen Serpas told me. He looked me in the eye and his whispered words emerged through a slit-like aperture, as if they were scalpel-sharp communion wafers. Then he said that it was only from that moment on, that is,
after
having been moved, that Orestes began to give serious thought to the idea of protecting Erigone from the dangers besetting her in devastated Argos, which consisted, fundamentally, of his own madness, his homicidal fury, his shame and repentance, that is, the components of what he liked to call the destiny of Orestes, a high-sounding name for self-destruction.

So Orestes spent the whole night talking with Erigone, and in the course of that night he bared his soul as never before; so numerous were his arguments and so skillfully expounded, that, shortly before dawn, Erigone finally yielded, accepting the guide that Orestes had offered. She left the city at first light.

From a tower, Orestes watched her walking away from the city. Then he shut his eyes and, when he opened them again, Erigone was nowhere to be seen.

As he said this, Coffeen shut his eyes, and I saw the moon (full, waning, or waxing—what did it matter?) racing at a vertiginous pace to touch every tile in the women's bathroom on the fourth floor of the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature in the unscathed year 1968. And I thought, as I had thought before, as I am thinking now, What shall I do? Make a run for it while his eyes are closed? Escape from that decrepit time-warp of an apartment? Or wait until he opens his eyes, and then ask him what that episode from Greek mythology meant, if anything? Sit quietly and close my own eyes, at the risk of opening them again to see not Coffeen and his dusty paintings but bathroom tiles illuminated by the moonlight that shimmered in that month of September on the campus of the UNAM? Realize that I had been playing with fire for long enough, snap out of it, say good night or good morning, and leave, turning my back on that apartment adrift in a Mexican wilderness of closed eyes? Or stretch out my hand, touch Coffeen's face, act as if I had understood his story (although I hadn't), and then go resolutely to the kitchen and brew some tea or, better still, two cups of lime blossom infusion.

I could have done any of those things. In the end, I did nothing.

Coffeen opened his eyes and looked at me. That's all, he said. He tried to smile, but he couldn't. Or maybe that grimace or nervous tic was his way of smiling. The rest of the story is pretty well known, he said. Orestes goes traveling with Pylades. At one point in his travels he meets his sister Iphigenia. He has adventures. He is renowned throughout Greece. At the mention of Iphigenia, I was about to say that Orestes would have done better to keep away from his poisonous sisters, but I didn't. And then Coffeen stood up, as if to make it clear to me that it was very late and that he wanted to get back to work or go to bed or consider the deeds of ancient Greeks on his own in a corner of the living room. The problem was that I had gone on thinking about Erigone and suddenly I realized something about the story that had escaped my notice until then. Something, something, but what?

Coffeen stood there frozen in a posture that was an invitation to leave, and I remained frozen on the sofa, while my gaze wandered over the floor, the furniture, the walls, even Coffeen's face. I was wearing the expression of someone who is about to remember something, or has a name on the tip of her tongue, a thought beginning to géstate among electrical impulses and currents of blood, but remaining in the shadows, as it were, formless, frightened of itself or of the mechanism it has set in motion, or rather frightened of the effect that it will inevitably have on that mechanism, and yet unable to delay the connection or the revelation, as if by dint of repetition the name Erigone had become a kind of forceps dragging whatever it was from its lair, to an accompaniment of howls, involuntary giggles and sundry atrocities.

And then, before I knew what it was that I had remembered or thought, Coffeen said that it was very late, and walked nervously across that room encumbered with the objects that in former times had constituted the comfort and luxury of Lilian Serpas's home, avoiding them with an agility which can only be acquired through habit.

Cronus, I said. I was thinking of the story of Cronus. Do you know it? I asked in a shrill tone of voice, not so much a relic of my Rio de la Plata accent as a self-defense mechanism. The story of Cronus, of course I do, said Coffeen, his eyes filmed with some kind of solvent. I don't know why I thought of it, I said, stalling for time. It doesn't have anything to do with Orestes, said Coffeen. Aha, I replied, without covering my mouth, looking at one of Coffeen's drawings on the wall, hoping it would help me find something to say. The drawing showed a man walking along a path, watched by stars that had eyes. To be frank, it was abysmal. To be frank, it was no spur to eloquence at all. To be frank, I was at a lost for words, and for a moment—as if for the span of a lightning flash I had seen through appearances to the other side—it seemed that Coffeen was Orestes and I was Erigone, which meant that the night would have no end, I would never see the light of day again, I would be incinerated by the black gaze of Lilian's son, and as my speculations ran wild and my fear mounted steadily (although without spreading), assuming the proportions of a birch or an oak, a vast tree in the midst of a vast night, the only tree on a lonely plain, Coffeen opened his eyes, eyes that had seen Erigone disappear in the vastness of time, and looked at me with a gaze that was blank for a moment or perplexed, the sort of gaze that settles on a perfect stranger or a random configuration of shapes, but as he gradually recognized me, perplexity gave way to hatred, rancor, and homicidal fury.

And then I understood and seized upon what had escaped my notice until then.

Hold on, I said. Now I remember, I said. The air had been thick with thousands of flying insects, but now it cleared. Coffeen was looking at me. I was looking at an airport devoid of planes and people, from whose shadowless hangars and runways only dreams and visions departed. It was the airport of the drunks and the drug addicts. But then it evaporated and in its place I saw Coffeen's eyes wanting to know what it was that I had remembered. And I said: Nothing. Nothing, just some crazy idea I had. I went to get up, because by then I really did feel it was time to go, but Coffeen put his hand on my shoulder and stopped me. Let God's will be done, I thought. I am not a religious woman, but that was what ran through my mind. And: I shall not see the light of a new day, which, put like that, sounds rather trite, but for me, at that moment, those words had the ring of a mysterious portal, or something. And, strange as it may seem, what I felt was not fear but relief, as if I had been anesthetized by suddenly realizing what I had overlooked in the story of Erigone, and although there was nothing clinical, to say the least, about the living room of Lilian Serpas's apartment, I felt as though I was being wheeled into an operating room. I thought: I am in the women's bathroom in the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature and I am the last person left. I was heading for the operating room. I was heading for the birth of History. And since I'm not a complete idiot, I also thought: It's over now, the riot police have left the university, the students have died at Tlatelolco, the university has opened again, but I'm still shut up in the fourth-floor bathroom, as if after all my scratching at the moonlit tiles a door had opened, but not the portal of sadness in the continuum of Time. They have all gone, except me. They have all come back, except me. The second affirmation was hard to accept, because in fact I couldn't see anyone, and if they had all come back I would have been able to see them. In fact, all I could see, strain as I might, were the eyes of Carlos Coffeen Serpas. Still the vague certitude remained, as my trolley was wheeled down the corridor, a forest-green corridor with stretches of camouflage and bottle green, toward an operating room dilating in time, as History announced its birth with raucous cries and the doctors diagnosed my anemia in whispers, but how are they going to operate for anemia, I wondered. I barely managed to whisper, Am I going to have a baby, doctor? The doctors looked down at me, wearing their green bank-robber's masks, and said, No, as the trolley accelerated on its way down a corridor that was writhing like a loose vein. I'm not going to have a baby, really? I'm not pregnant? I asked. And the doctors looked at me and said, No, Ma'am, we're just taking you to attend the birth of History. But what's the hurry, doctor? I feel dizzy! And the doctors replied with the patter they use on the dying: The birth of History can't wait, and if we arrive late you won't see anything, only ruins and smoke, an empty landscape, and you'll be alone again forever even if you go out and get drunk with your poet friends every night. Well, let's get a move on, then, I said. The anesthesia was going to my head, overwhelming me as homesickness sometimes does, and I stopped asking questions (for a while). I fixed my gaze on the ceiling and all I could hear were the rubber wheels of the trolley trundling along and the muted cries of other patients, other victims of Pentothal (that's what I thought), and I even felt a pleasant, gentle warmth creeping up my long, frozen bones.

When we reached the operating room, the vision misted over, cracked, fell and shattered, and then the fragments were pulverized by a bolt of lightning, and a gust of wind blew the dust away to nowhere or spread it through Mexico City.

It was time to open my eyes again and say something, anything, to Carlos Coffeen Serpas.

So I said it was late and that I should go. And Coffeen looked at me as if he too had seen something that can normally be seen only in dreams. He stepped back abruptly. Your mother will be home again tomorrow morning, I said. All right, said Coffeen, looking away.

He accompanied me to the door. As I was going down the first flight of stairs, I turned around; he was still there on the landing, watching me, with the door open. I lifted my hand to my mouth and started to say something but soon realized that I was pronouncing incoherent syllables. It was as if I had suddenly become demented. So I stood there with my hand over my mouth, looking at him, unable to speak, until Coffeen closed the door with an expression compounded, as far as I could tell, of fear and fatigue in equal parts. For a few seconds I remained there motionless. I was thinking. Then the light in the stairwell went out and I started going slowly down the stairs, in the darkness, holding on to the banister.

I hailed a taxi on Bolivar.

As it was taking me to my rooftop room, which at the time was in Colonia Escanden, I started crying. The driver glanced across at me. He looked like an iguana. I think he thought I was a whore going home after a hard night. Don't cry, blondie, he said, it's not worth it, things'll look different tomorrow, you'll see. Instead of philosophizing, I said, Why don't you watch where you're going.

By the time I got out of the cab, I had stopped crying.

I made myself a cup of tea, got into bed, and tried to read. I can't remember what. Certainly not Pedro Garfias. Eventually I gave up and drank my tea with the light off. Then day broke once again over the capital of Mexico.

T
hen I realized what was going on and a fragile, tremulous joy came into my days. My nights with the poets of Mexico City left me exhausted, empty, or on the verge of tears. I moved to a new rooftop room. I lived in Colonia Ñapóles and Colonia Roma and Colonia Atenor Salas. I lost my books and I lost my clothes. But soon I came by other books and, eventually, other clothes as well. I picked up odd jobs at the university and lost them again. I was there every day, circumstances permitting, and saw things that no one else was there to see. My beloved Faculty of Philosophy and Literature, with its Florentine feuds and Roman vendettas. From time to time I ran into Lilian Serpas at the Café Quito or some other place on the Avenida Bucareli and, naturally, we said hello, but we never mentioned her beloved son (although some nights I would have given anything to be asked to go to her apartment again and tell him that she wouldn't be coming home), until at some point she stopped turning up in my haunts like a ghost in a storm, and no one asked after her, and I didn't feel like inquiring about her whereabouts, my spirit had become so fragile, I was so devoid of the curiosity that, in former times, had been one of my most salient traits.

Not long afterward I started sleeping a lot. I never used to sleep much before that. I was the insomniac of Mexican poetry; I read all the poems and praised them all and never missed a gathering. But one day, a few months after having seen Carlos Coffeen Serpas for the first and last time, I fell asleep on a bus to the university and only woke up when someone took me by the shoulders and shook me as if they were trying to get a broken clock going. I woke with a start. It was a boy of about seventeen who had woken me, a student, and when I saw his face I could barely hold back my tears.

From that day on, sleeping became a vice.

I didn't want to think about Coffeen or the story of Erigone and Orestes. I didn't want to think about my own story and the years I had left to live.

So I slept, wherever I happened to be, mainly when I was alone (it was an escape from solitude— as soon as I was on my own, I'd fall asleep), but as time went by the vice became chronic, and I started falling asleep in public, leaning on a table in some bar or sitting on a hard seat at some student play.