The Miracle Cures of Dr. Aira (4 page)

II

That winter, freed
from the material necessities of life through a stroke of good fortune
(he’d received a sum of money that had allowed him to take ten months off from
his income-producing activities), Dr. Aira dedicated himself fully to the
writing and publication of his works. His worry-free state could only be
temporary because once the money ran out he would have to again find ways to get
more; but for once in his life he wanted to give himself the chance to be fully
absorbed in his intellectual work, like some kind of monk or wise man detached
from the practical aspects of existence. If he didn’t do it now, at fifty, he
never would.

One effect of his age was that he had lately begun to
appreciate in all its magnitude the responsibility incumbent upon him as a
creator of symbolic material (and who isn’t creating this, in one way or
another, all the time?). Because this material was virtually eternal: it
traveled through time and shaped future thoughts. And not only thoughts but also
everything that would be born from them. The future itself, the block of the
future, was nothing more than what was enclosed in and exemplified by these
forms that emerged from the present.

Of course, the transformations the forms undergo during
their voyage through time render their destinations fairly unpredictable. Work
done in one field can end up exerting an influence on another, on any other,
even the most distant and unrelated one. Hence, his efforts in the field of
medicine could create, centuries later, new styles in fields as different from
his own as astrophysics, sports, or fashion. But what importance does this have?
The true cultivator of worlds sows his seeds in change itself, in the maelstrom.
Be that as it may, the idea enveloped him in a daydream — innate to him, in fact
— in which everything was transformed into everything else, through beautiful
transitions like works of art.

Paradoxically, the opportunity that presented itself to
him — because of the fact that it was an opportunity, particularly an
opportunity to think, to elaborate his thoughts without stopping for practical
considerations — brought with it an urgency for practical action, an urgency to
make something. That’s what it was all about, because the other, theory, is what
he had been doing his whole life, without the tyranny of necessity loosening its
grip even for the few months he needed to transform theory into tangible
objects. He was in the position of a poet who had written ten thousand poems and
now had to seriously consider publishing them.

Things. Tangible things that could be held in a hand,
placed in a drawer. The world was always praising “young people who make
things,” and for good reason. Because ninety-nine percent of the value of
things, of their intrinsic beauty, is derived from time. A comb is useful only
for combing your hair (and not even this if you’re bald), but a
two-hundred-year-old comb is sold as a precious object in an antique store, and
a two-thousand-year-old comb is exhibited in a museum and is priceless. That’s
why it’s worthwhile to make things in one’s youth, because these are the only
things we have the possibility of seeing made more beautiful by the patina of
time, if we live to an old age. Those we make later remain for future
generations, and we miss out on them. Dr. Aira had missed the chance, and he
bitterly lamented this fact. But to make things now, at fifty, might bring back
some inkling of youth; perhaps it would place time on his side.

The first thing was to begin publishing his installments
of the Miracle Cures. First of all, obviously, he had to write them . . . But at
the same time he didn’t need to write them because throughout the last few years
he had filled an unbelievable number of notebooks with elaborations on his
ideas; he had written so much that to write any more, on the same subject, was
utterly impossible, even if he’d wanted to. Or better said, it was possible,
very possible; it was what he had been doing year after year, in the constant
“changing of ideas” that were his ideas. Continuing to write or continuing to
think, which were the same, was equivalent to continuing to transform his ideas.
That had been happening to him from the beginning, ever since his first idea. He
had no other choice if he wanted to progress, for the subject was always the
same: Cure through Miracles. His lack of dogmatism combined with his absolute
conviction gave his mental elaboration on the subject a plasticity that held it
in perpetual flux, which gave him an immeasurable relative advantage over the
other miracle healers; on the other hand, it had prevented him from ever
concretizing anything.

A related problem, which he had worked on laboriously, was
his principled refusal to use examples. The established discourse in the genre
was based on the exposition of “cases,” clinical cases, surprising cases,
exceptional cases . . . But since all cases were exceptional, even the most
typical ones, any text written within that system was condemned to being merely
a digression. It was assumed that one could end up with an exhaustive
illustration of an idea through the strength of examples. But for the idea to
have any value, other examples would have to be able to illustrate it, so how
could one achieve anything exhaustive? Even worse, the method of using examples
in itself imposed a hierarchy between the particular and the general, a
situation that could not stand more wholly in opposition to the very essence of
his system of cures.

In spite of this, he had to think of a form of exposition
that would be attractive to the general public, and the tradition of using
examples was too deeply rooted to avoid altogether. After mulling the issue over
and over he had come up with a compromise solution: to put into effect a
do-it-yourself-examples mechanism the reader would be in charge of. He would
confine himself to one example, only one “case,” with which he would open the
first installment (or rather number zero) and to which all the arguments would
refer, thereby inverting the malevolent order of the general and the
particular.

This
passe-partout
example had given him many headaches. Not its invention, which was easy, perhaps
too easy, but rather the conviction that he would need to employ it. In order to
avoid that ease, he stuck with the first one that popped into his head, and in
the long run he had to admit that he had done the right thing. It was not a case
in the strict sense of the word but rather a little fable, inspired by a pair of
stretchy woolen gloves that were sold as “magic gloves”; he had a pair, which he
wore when he went on strolls in the winter; their “magic” consisted of both of
them being exactly the same, so either could be worn on the right or the left
hand indistinguishably. In turn, all the pairs of gloves were the same, all one
size, and they fit all hands, from a little girl’s to a truck driver’s; their
adaptability, just like their trick of bilateral symmetry, was due to the
elasticity of their knit, and therein lay all the magic. What he imagined was
the existence of a unique pair of truly “magic gloves,” made out of thick red
leather with angora fur lining — hence very thick — that would have the property
of giving the hands that wore them (but only while they were wearing them) the
sublime piano-playing virtuosity of an Arrau or an Argerich . . . but they would
be useless because one obviously cannot play the piano wearing gloves, and less
so with such uncomfortable polar gloves. Hence, their miraculous charm would
never coincide with any proof, and the underlying theory would be left
untouched. Only by dint of useless miracles could one prevent a theory from
degenerating into a dogma.

Choosing the “installment” format was a result of this
kind of reasoning. He had come to it by retreating from more radical formats;
for months he had played around with the idea of creating an album of
collectible figurines, the figurines of the Miracle Cures, which would be sold
in kiosks in sealed envelopes . . . But the operational aspect created too many
complications, and there were even some impracticalities on the conceptual side.
So he rejected the idea of the album, as he had rejected many other
possibilities that were as daring or more so. From these grand escalations of
fantasies he would return to “degree zero”: the book. And he would take off
again from there, because the format of the book, with its classic simplicity
that nobody respected more than he, limited him excessively. All that to-ing and
fro-ing had converged at a point in the middle, which was the collectible
installment, published weekly. The frequency would dictate his work rhythm, and
the advantage of this over a book was that he would not have to finish the
entire oeuvre before beginning to publish; that last part was the most
important, because he had not considered a definite end to his labors; he saw
it, instead, as an open oeuvre, which could incorporate into a fixed format the
changes in his ideas, perspective, and even moods.

His fantasies of being an avant-garde editor turned out
not to be futile, as many of the ideas arising from them were incorporated into
the format he finally chose; and the “installment” plan was very hospitable to
all of them, an additional reason to opt for it.

Illustrations were one of those features he wanted
to incorporate. The idea came from some plans he had discarded, such as the
figurines (and others), but it was also a natural for installments. When has
anybody ever seen installments without illustrations? Once he’d heard of a
dictionary that had been published in installments, but besides this seeming too
absurd to be true, a dictionary was ideal for illustrations, it carried them
within, virtually, for a dictionary is a systematic catalogue of examples.

Needless to say, he himself would make them. He would
never even dream of asking an artist to collaborate, so great was his horror of
relinquishing absolute control over any aspect of his work. He was reasonably
skilled at drawing, which he practiced every day; however, they always turned
out abstract. Only by accident did his drawings ever represent anything.
Nevertheless, he could, like anybody else, draw a comprehensible diagram, though
he only did so when he was planning to fabricate something. Recently he had
filled a notebook with plans and models for fantasy garments, some in color.

These garments, which in reality had nothing to do with
the Miracle Cures, as they were imaginative and highly elaborate items of
clothing conjured up with the exuberance of fantasy, nevertheless constituted an
important part of the project. In order to explain how he made them (because he
had also had to invent this explanation, ex post facto), he had to start with
the value of a text, any text, and by extension, of the one he might write about
the Miracle Cures. Reflecting on the roots of value, he reached the conclusion
that it was necessary to include an autobiographical component. This should
never be missing, and not out of narcissism but rather because it was the only
mechanism that would allow the writing to endure; and he wanted, oh, how he
wanted! for his writing to withstand time, this also not out of intellectual
narcissism but because with time his installments would take on the value of
antiques, a value in and of itself, independent of the uncertain values of truth
or intelligence or style.

As opposed to other objects, texts withstand time only
when they are associated with an author whose actions in life — of which their
texts are the only tangible testimony — excite the curiosity of posterity. Such
posthumous curiosity is created by a biography full of small, strange,
inexplicable maneuvers, colored in with a flash of inventiveness that is always
in action, always in a state of “happening.”

In any case, one day, out of the blue, while he was
watching television, it occurred to him how delightful it would be to fabricate
some garments, though more than garments they would be wire frames that would
hold colorful fabrics — as well as wreaths, horns, halos, and bells — that he
could wear at home to relax in or to energize himself or for any other purpose
that might occur to him; the purpose didn’t matter because the goal of this
one-man theatrical wardrobe was to provide an interesting anecdote . . . The
purpose would formulate itself, and it would fit perfectly into his
aesthetic-theoretical-autobiographical system and contribute to the creation of
his personal mythology. It didn’t matter what an enormous blunder
this would be (even if in the privacy
of his own family); at a certain point, he was willing to sacrifice himself for
his work. Moreover, by taking this route he would reach a stage where the
blunder, the fear of making a fool of himself, all of it, would be neutralized
by being absorbed into the normalized and accepted figure of the Eccentric.

The fact that these garments, according to his idea of
them, were a kind of architectural construction made of wire and fabric he would
have to get into, meant he had to think up a way to equip them with a system of
pleats that would allow him to sit down or walk around or even sit in the lotus
position or dance. As a result, the drawings became more and more complex.
Moreover, as they would be very large and bulky, and the apartment he lived in
with his family was already crowded, he would have to plan for a second system
of pleats that would allow him to store them in small stackable boxes, or
ideally, in a folder.

The sketches he’d already made of these garments provided
him with “ready-made” material he could use to illustrate the first
installments; after that, he’d see. In any case, it wasn’t worth worrying about
at this stage. First he had to focus on the texts, and the illustrations would
naturally ensue from them. For now, it was enough to know that he would make
them, and this knowledge was enough to fill his expectations with vague
figures.

As far as the text went, all he had to do was cull from
his thousands of manuscript pages and begin to create the great collage. He
could start anywhere; no introduction was necessary because the subject was
already well defined in the collective imagination. Indeed, the charm of this
material was like that of versions of a well-known story. Let’s take one from
the Bible, Dr. Aira said to himself, the one about Samson . . . A funny story
could have baldness as its central theme, which becomes a matter of state to the
Philistines, and it would be funny because somehow or other everybody knows that
Samson’s strength resided in his hair. The same thing was happening here: life,
death, illness — there’s nobody who doesn’t know what they’re all about, which
would allow him to create small, delightful variations that would seem like
inventions even if they weren’t (thereby sparing the author the exorbitant
effort of inventing a new story).