The Story of My Teeth (10 page)

It’s a superb parable, a supraparable, and one that seems inspired by your very self, Fancioulle. What do you think?

It’s informative.

Really? Just informative?

Very informative, and also ingenious. But I don’t understand why it’s a parable.

And so what would you suggest I do about it, great Fancioulle?

I wouldn’t suggest anything.

That’s what I thought. Don’t you realize that you’ve got nothing to offer?

Yes, I guess I do.

And that the schism between the perception you have of yourself and the perception other people have of you is irreconcilable?

Maybe.

You’re also incapable of laughing at a joke that isn’t your own. You’re incapable of appreciating humor. And that reveals the limitations of your intelligence.

Fine.

And if you cross the boundaries of eccentricity, Fancioulle, what’s on the other side is buffoonery: you’re a clown.

Please, enough is enough.

That’s just what I say, Fancioulle. Enough is enough. And if you did me a favor?

What is it?

I need a monograph on the Russian Revolution. Will you get it from the stationery store for me?

Yes, of course, I replied, suddenly finding myself swamped in docility.

And I need “Cotton and Its Derivatives” and “Arctic and Antarctic,” plus one called “Whales and Their Derivatives,” and maybe also “Flags of Asia.”

O.K
., I’ll find them for you.

Thanks, replied the voice, satisfied.

By the way, you don’t happen to know what model his
VW
is, do you? I inquired, pointing to the clown in the red bodysuit, who was looking at me in complete silence, blinking from time to time.

A white
VW
70, there’s no doubt about it.

And which pound is it in?

I think it must be in the one over in Calle Ferrocaril. But why are you going for his car?

Because it was my fault they towed it away.

I waited for the clown’s reply. It didn’t come for some time.

When the ventriloquist voice sounded again, I immediately knew that it was the fourth clown talking to me, the one with the sinister face painted red and black. I was by then prepared for the blows, the humiliation, for his outrageous attempts to wear me down. What that son of a fat sow didn’t know is that the peerless Highway is unconfoundable and unbreakable. I decided to get in first, matching my face and voice to my predicament.

Fancioulle, at your service. What can I get you, Siddhartha?

There was a long silence.

What would you like, son? I repeated.

Nothing, he eventually replied.

No, really. What can I get you?

Nothing, really, nothing.

Come on, tell me. Something, anything at all, I insisted.

Honestly, you can’t get me anything, sir.

A glass of water, at least?

No.

You’re not going to refuse a glass of water!

Well,
O.K
. A glass of water.

I’ll fetch it for you, I said, finally getting up from the floor and stretching my arms and legs. It took me a few moments to regain my balance, but as soon as I felt steady
in my shoes, I crossed the room in a state of sudden, unconcealed euphoria. I felt light, freed of something. I suppose my uncle Fredo Sánchez Dostoyevsky was right when he said that insult, after all, is a purification of the soul. I made a polite bow to the catatonic clowns and went out the door: la-la-tra, la-la-tra.

There never existed a philosopher who could bear the pain of a toothache with patience.

BOOK IV

The Circulars

Rigidity in the strict sense means naming the same thing at all worlds, or at least all worlds where that thing exists. That’s all very well for numerals and the like, but without overlap of worlds we wouldn’t expect an ordinary proper name of a person or a thing—of a railway, say—to be strictly rigid. However, an ordinary proper name may well be quasi-rigid: that is, it might name at another world the counterpart there of what it names here.

—
DAVID LEWIS

I
HAVE TO REPORT THAT
one morning, I don’t know at what precise time, I too went out into the street after having passed a day and a night in my “room of ghosts,” as my uncle Roberto Sánchez Walser used to call his sitting room. I’d lost my teeth, I’d slept on a bench, I’d allowed myself to be humiliated and emotionally tortured by my own son, but, despite all this, I was in an outlandish, tropically romantic-adventurer frame of mind; I believe that this is because I have always been a well-grounded person.

In the metallic light reflected by the clouds, I recognized the first signs of dawn and was relieved to find that I was in familiar surroundings: one of the parking lots of the old juice factory in Ecatepec, a few meters from the Vía Morelos. It had been raining and the air smelled of trailers, tortillas, and burnt tires. This is where I belong, I thought, and I remembered that masterly song by Napoleón, “Just for being what you are, that is why I love you.” It made me want to sing out loud at the top of my voice, and that’s what I did.

I crossed the grounds of the factory, singing beneath the wiry early morning clouds, until I came to a bicycle shelter. Among the workers arriving at the factory, stopping off at the shelter to leave their vehicles, I spotted my wise old friend Tacito—who writes Chinese fortune cookie proverbs for a living—attempting to chain a bicycle to one of
the metal tubes. He was wrapped in an ivory-colored toga, his hair neatly combed and his mustache cut painter’s-brush style—as elegant and distinguished as ever. He greeted me effusively and asked how I was, but when I opened my mouth to answer him, he noticed my missing teeth and couldn’t hide his shock.

Quid accidit, Highway?

As you see, my dear friend, I said, I’ve lost my teeth.

E longinquo contemplari, si non nocet, he responded with his accustomed serenity.

Thank you. I think that son of a bitch my son stole them, I said. But I’m not sure. I’m going to go looking for them.

Cum cœperint cum faciunt animos nostros facultas amittatur.

Exactly, my dear friend. Listen, could you lend me your bicycle to search for them?

He told me that the bicycle belonged to his brother, and then asked me if I had happened to come across him. I replied no, I hadn’t seen him in many years. His brother, it seemed, had taken an almost lethal dose of peyote a week before and had wandered off into the streets of Ecatepec. Tacito had been looking for him for several days in order to return his bicycle. I am practical. I proposed a sensible solution:

Instead of chaining it up, why not let me borrow the bicycle, and I’ll look for your brother while I’m trying to find my teeth?

Tacito, in turn, has always been reasonable and generous.

Et spes inanes, et velut somnia quaedam, vigilantium, Highway my friend, he said, offering me the handlebars.

Then, from a leather satchel he had strapped diagonally across his chest, he took a bag of Chinese fortune cookies and placed them in the basket of the bicycle with a solemn gesture:

Antiquam sapientiam Chinese fortune cookies vestram in comitetur vobiscum quaerere.

I thanked him sincerely and mounted the bicycle. Then I crossed Morelos and turned onto Sonora, heading east, determined to fulfill all my tasks, possibly find Tacito’s lost brother, and even perhaps recover my teeth. A wide, clear sky was before me, and the sun was just beginning to show itself among the stark rebars on the housetops.