The Story of My Teeth (15 page)

              
Does the slip of paper say all that? asked Daniil Kharms.

Yes, replied Guillermo Fadanelli.

I don’t believe you, Kharms retorted, and shot Fadanelli between the eyes.

He then extracted a cookie from the basket the waiter was still holding out. Copying his now defunct companion’s movements, he broke it into two identical halves, let the slip of paper fall onto the table, picked it up, and read:

When biting bamboo sprouts with your teeth, remember the man who planted them.

ALLEGORIC NO. 7: BONSAI BAOBAB

Artist: Sam Sánchez Durant

Listing: 3.5M

Mario Levrero had had a lousy month. September was almost over and he hadn’t been able to sell a single life insurance policy; apparently no one was afraid of death any longer. When he left his office, Every Minute Insurance, on Friday, he walked to Mr. Alejandro Zambra’s nursery and bought a bonsai baobab tree. He
was feeling so inadequate that he attempted to commit suicide by hanging himself from a branch of that tiny plant. He only just failed.

ALLEGORIC LOT NO. 8: STUFFED DOG

Artist: Maurizio Sánchez Cattelan

Listing: 2.3M

Some years ago, Álvaro Enrigue, the bus driver on route M100, treacherously attempted to run over a paralyzed old lady on Avenida Revolución. He served a brief but horrid sentence. After his release, I met him one afternoon in Mrs. Abramo’s bar, Let There Be Lux, and he told me that on that fateful day, the notary, Juan José Arreola, had gotten on his bus at the corner of Loma Bonita and Avenida Interior. As soon as Álvaro Enrigue saw him, he knew his presence was an ill omen. In fact, at the next stop, a pair of identical twins in shirtsleeves, who identified themselves as Oscar de Pablo and Pedro de Pablo, lifted a lady in a wheelchair with a dog sleeping in her arms onto the bus. Between them, they hoisted her out of the wheelchair, settled her in the seat next to the notary, and got off the bus in silence. The dog continued to sleep like a baby in the old lady’s flaccid arms.

Two blocks farther on, the lady asked for the next stop, saying: Stop. The same young men in shirtsleeves were waiting for her, holding the handles of the wheelchair. They boarded the bus, lifted the old lady, and,
once outside, deposited her in the wheelchair again, with the dog still sleeping peacefully. A few blocks later, the same two men, with the same lady still sitting in her wheelchair, waved down the bus. They repeated the previous procedure, and, two blocks farther on, the lady again requested a stop by calling out: Stop.

During all this, the notary, Juan José Arreola, feigned exhaustion, incapable of saying or doing anything about the clearly absurd situation, as intolerable for the driver as for some of the passengers.

In Calle Barranca, Mr. Paco Goldman Molina and Mrs. Guadalupe Nettel boarded the bus. They took out their guitars and began to perform “La Guanábana.” A slight smile appeared on Álvaro Enrigue’s face. He turned right onto Revolución and asked Paco and Guadalupe to do “La Baraja.” While Paco Goldman sang and Guadalupe Nettel strummed her guitar, the ascent and descent of the paralyzed old lady and her sleeping dog was repeated yet again, with the assistance of the twins of ill omen.

Álvaro Enrigue had had enough. The half-empty glass of his proverbial Spartan patience had been drained. When the shirt-sleeved twins, standing on the corner of Revolución and Periodismo like a pair of malevolent sphinxes, next to the lady in the wheelchair and her disgustingly dormant dog, yet again waved down the bus, he drove it straight at the four of them. The twins and the old lady, who turned out to be not in the least paralyzed, managed to dodge the bus by throwing themselves to one side. The dog, however, was killed in the unfortunate mishap.

ALLEGORIC LOT NO. 9: MUSIC SCORE ON TRIPOD

Artist: Fernando Sánchez Ortega

Listing: 3M

Mario Bellatin and César Aira straightened their black jackets, adjusted their sunglasses, and looked attentively at the score in front of them. Taking one deep, synchronized breath, they began, in C major, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want . . .”

E
ND OF
A
LLEGORICS
. W
HEN
I’d finished dictating, I made a repast of bread and tomato for Voragine and myself, and we sat down in my Acapulco chairs to watch television. You never know when society is going to make mountains out of molehills. The news bulletin had all its alarm bells ringing. A massive burglary had been reported at the gallery belonging to the juice factory. The police had detained a suspect, whose name they would not yet reveal, but who was associated with the factory. Our first thought was to fear for El Perro. Then, a little, for ourselves. But when I rang him up, his wife said he was taking a nap. I was certain they’d arrested Siddhartha.

And I was right, wasn’t I, Voragine?

Yes, Highway, you were.

Nevertheless, we decided that we should get rid of the lots as soon as possible. That night, we asked El Perro to help us take them to Mr. Ibargüengoitia’s junkyard, on Calle Ferrocarril. We got one hundred pesos for them.

And I guess I can now say that I lived happily thereafter, right Voragine?

I guess, so, Highway.

So write that down and let’s go out to meet some ladies.

He who steals an egg will steal an ox.

BOOK VI

The Elliptics

If “the author of
Waverley
” meant anything other than “Scott,” “Scott is the author of
Waverley
” would be false, which it is not. If “the author of
Waverley
” meant “Scott,” “Scott is the author of
Waverley
” would be a tautology, which it is not. Therefore, “the author of
Waverley
” means neither “Scott” nor anything else—i.e., “the author of
Waverley
” means nothing.

—
BERTRAND RUSSELL