Adolfo Bioy Casares (1914 – 1999), Argentine writer, journalist, diarist and translator.
THE NAVIGATOR RETURNS TO HIS HOMELAND
By AB Casares
I think I saw it. A passage to India because my country was in the title of the film. After leaving the theater, I took the underground transportation – or metro, as they call it here – to go to the embassy, where I work every day for a few hours. What I earn here allows me to buy some extravagant things that brighten up my life as a poor student. I suspect that because of these extravagant things, I sometimes fall prey to a kind of somnabulism that usually causes me disturbing situations. Here is an example: when I remember the underground journey, I see myself sitting comfortably, although I have evidence that I was standing, near the door, holding on to the iron pole and almost falling over every time the train stopped or started. From there, I look, with a mixture of contempt and pity, at a completely ragged Cambodian student, on a seat in the middle of the carriage, wasting away with his head leaning against the window. His hair, abundant as it is unwashed, shows a bald spot and is wrinkled, and his beard is three or four days' stubble. He smiles in his sleep, his lips moving quickly and humanly, as if he were having a friendly conversation with himself in a whisper.
I think: "He seems happy, although he has no reason to be happy. He lives, like me, among hostile Europeans. No matter how hard they try to hide it, they are hostile to those they judge to be different. In this sense we Indians have some advantage, because we are less different, but who does not have an advantage over this boy, who seems so special? Even if he were a Westerner and from the north, he would still be considered a representative of the dregs of society. Even I, who consider myself a man without prejudices, would not venture to trust him.
I got off at La Muette station and immediately made my way to Rue Alfred-Dehodencq, where the embassy was located. Incredible as it may seem, the doorman did not recognize me and refused to let me through. As we struggled with our empty hands, the man shouted, “Get out of here! Get out!” several times. The last time, the shout turned into a friendly “Sour-sday,” which in Cambodian means “Good morning.” I opened my eyes and, still dazed, saw my friend, the taxi driver, a fellow countryman, shaking me awake, who repeated his greeting and added, “We have to get out. We are arriving at our station.” I stood up and almost fell over as I got out of the carriage; I followed my compatriot along the platform, without asking him anything, for fear that I was making a mistake and making him think I was crazy, or on drugs. Before we climbed the stairs, I had a flashback, no less painful than I had anticipated. I mean that the mirror reflected my dirty hair, my three or four-day-old beard; but what worried me the most was also to realize at that very moment that I was moving my lips and, what was worse, smiling as if I were talking to myself, like an idiot.
THE WINNING OF LOVE
"Tell me about it," he asked.
I don't really know how it started or where we are. When Virginia asked:
“Do you remember what you promised?” I don't have the courage to tell him, once again, that we'll have lunch together next week, but that my parents are expecting me. I ramble on in vain, as if I wanted to avoid the tension by confusing things with rambling chatter.
Perhaps by association of ideas I speak of a restaurant opened in an old mansion last winter by a French chef named Pierre—in San Isidro? or San Fernando? Or did Pierre actually stay on the Southside? After a few stammers I can only vaguely recall the name and address—my memory lapses may mean that to make myself seem important I was opening a restaurant I barely knew; and to show that I am a connoisseur I proceed to describe in detail the delicacies served there—a description that probably seems out of place to a person with a simple palate like mine. I am not trying to invent some excuse out of complacency or inertia, or to accept a compromise in order to save face. I am sad, I think, precisely because I acted against my will—to invent an excuse, not to accept a compromise.
Since I can't get rid of Virginia, I have to find a way to let my parents know that we won't be having lunch together. To make matters worse, my mother is already waiting for me at Rosedale Gardens. I picture her sitting on the bench, smiling and lively, as if she were in a faded photograph taken of her in those same parks, and now she seems sad to me. Walking along the veranda of our country house, I arrive at the old studio with its peeling plaster. It takes me a long time to wake my father, who is resting in a completely curled-up position on the couch. "I didn't sleep well last night," he says, making excuses. He's very happy to see me. I say immediately, "I'm not having lunch with you." My father doesn't understand at first, because he's not fully awake, and I rush to ask him to “tell mom.” I want to leave before he fully wakes up, because he's still happy and I know he'll be sad very soon.
I inflict this pain on my father and myself so as not to disappoint a woman for whom meeting me means (how can I say this without being mean?) just like that, a lunch date.
He gave me his interpretation:
"What this means is that you don't want to meet them now."
“We were such good friends,” I told him.
I didn't have the energy to explain it to him.
/ Adolfo Bioy Casares, 'A Russian Doll&Other Stories' New Directions, 1992
/Express newspaper
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