The Story of My Teeth (6 page)

I paused for applause. But the audience merely regarded me with the silent skepticism of cattle.

I managed to keep my focus and continued, raising my voice a little: All the original owners of these teeth were considered social parasites, ne’er-do-wells, and sluggards; many suffered from dementia, megalomania, graphomania, melancholy, erotomania, and acute egomania. But despite
all those negative characteristics, they were the possessors of profound souls and magnificent teeth. In other words, as my uncle Miguel Sánchez Foucault said in relation to something else, these men and women are “singular lives transformed into strange poems through who knows what twists of fate.” Taken as a collection, the teeth of these infamous people are, to use an auctioneering term, a “metonymic relic.” And you don’t have to be superstitious to know that, when used correctly, certain objects can transfer their powerful qualities to us.

I had to restrain myself so as not to overdo it because, as Quintilian suggests, when using hyperbole, “some moderation must be observed, for though every hyperbole is beyond belief, it ought not to be extravagant, since in no other way do writers more readily fall into κακοζηλία, or exorbitant affectation.”

I am going to recount for you the fascinating stories of all these teeth, and I would urge you to buy them, take them to your homes, use them, or simply cherish them for persecula seculorum. That is, for forever. Otherwise, I continued, slightly overstating the case in a menacing tone, if these relics don’t find owners by the end of this session, they will be sold abroad. And the last thing we need is for the little we have to be carried off by others.

I noted that this latter argument, although it wasn’t completely valid, had begun to capture the Cardenist, socialist, national-reconstructive hearts of my audience. Without further ado, I gave a half-turn, moved toward my dental collectibles, picked up the first lot, and, holding it high as
I walked back to the pulpit, like a priestess in full Delphic trance, I began my chant with the skill and charm of which only the greatest of my stripe are capable.

HYPERBOLIC LOT NO. 1

Our first lot is a piece in a somewhat deteriorated state. Yet, considering its antiquity, the overall condition is good; one might even say excellent. Significant flattening of the point leads to the supposition that the original owner, Mr. Plato, talked and ate continuously. He was five feet five inches tall and thirty-three and a half inches broad; he was of medium height but robust, with a fighter’s build. He had a long, cotton-woolly beard, light brown in color; thick hair of the same hue and texture. Mr. Plato flaunted the conventional fashions of the day and wore his toga loose, without a belt. Neither did he wear sandals.

Mr. Plato once made a comparison between the period of dentition and a man falling in love: “In this state, the soul enters into effervescence and irritation; and this soul, whose wings are just beginning to develop, can be compared to a child whose gums are inflamed and enervated by its first teeth.” Lovely, don’t you think?

I paused momentarily for greater effect. Wafts of cool morning air were beginning to enter the church through the high main door. I had the sense that a ray of light was falling from the sky, miraculously illuminating the pulpit. I raised
my eyes and immediately noticed the altar boy Monge up in one of the galleries, throwing a spotlight onto me. It wasn’t divine light, but even so, it filled me with motivation. I took a breath: Ladies and gentlemen, who will open the bidding for the cavernous tooth of our first infamous man?

A hand was timidly raised at the back of the church: 1,000 pesos. It was followed by another, more eager hand: 1,500. And another, and another, and another. The lot went for 5,000 pesos. Not at all bad, for a warm-up. It was bought by a small, elderly, opulently dressed woman. Quintilian explains that “there is in all men a natural propensity to magnify or extenuate what comes before them, and no one is contented with the exact truth.” I believe that’s why the most worn-out tooth in my collection went for such a high price. I cleared my throat and continued with my infamy.

HYPERBOLIC LOT NO. 2

The owner of this tooth, of North African origin, was of medium height, with spindly arms and smooth skin. There is some argument as to whether he was black or white. In my opinion, he was unambiguously black. His name was Augustine of Hippo, and on the top of his head was a bald patch bearing some resemblance to the mouth of a volcano. Had we been capable of looking into the bowels of that volcano, we would have discovered one of the most labyrinthine memories ever spawned by the union of Mother Nature and God the Father. That
prodigious memory, the inferior hatchway of which was this very tooth we have before us today, was once compared by Mr. Augustine himself to an infinite stretch of open countryside, where all the copies of the impressions entering through the senses were stored, in addition to their many variations; there were all the things that had been entrusted to it; the abstract numbers of mathematics; his own earliest memories, both accurate and false; and even, in its furthest reaches, the things that seemed to be forgotten but, in fact, were not.

Do you see this hole on the crown of the piece? If we had been able to enter through that orifice and move upward through the labyrinth of channels that connect the mouth with the cranium in which the teeth nestle, in one of the most remote chambers of the brain we would find this memory: a young student of rhetoric—who is, of course, Augustine himself—is suffering the mortifying pain of a dreadful toothache. The young man is surrounded by family and friends, all of whom believe he will soon be dead since his pain is so severe that he cannot open his mouth to communicate his affliction. At a given moment, he gathers his strength and writes on a wax tablet: Pray for my health. The friends and family pray and the young lad is cured. A miracle. He then decides to dedicate his life to God by means of a book that he begins to write just a few years later, his famous
Confessions
. That’s right, this gentleman wrote the great
Confessions
because of a toothache. Who will open the bidding for the memorious tooth of Augustine of Hippo?

Several parishioners showed interest. The first offered five hundred. The next wanted to offer less rather than more, appealing to my compassion by alleging a recently diagnosed dementia. But his companions on the pew quickly silenced him and forced him to sit down, arguing that his case was nothing special. At the end of the round of bidding, Saint Augustine’s tooth was bought by a lady poet with the face and body of an owl for three thousand pesos. I took the third piece from the table behind me and returned to the pulpit.

HYPERBOLIC LOT NO. 3

The owner of this lot was an eminent man of harmonious proportions, with a notoriously beautiful face. He was christened Francesco Petracco, but went by the name of Petrarch, I believe because it sounded more patriarchal. He was a poet and songwriter. Slothful, as they all are; fickle and mellifluous, but skillful.

Some years ago, a group of scientists opened his tomb because the honorable Italian government wished to have an exact, definitive copy of his face made to commemorate the seven hundredth anniversary of his death. On reassembling the cranium, the scientists suspected that the bones very probably belonged to a woman. They had
DNA
tests done both on the ribs and an incisor. Several days later, Dr. Carameli, leader of the team, made a public declaration stating that the tests had confirmed their suspicions: the head was “apocryphal.” The loss
of the original head was blamed on a certain Father Tomasso Martinelli, a poor, seventeenth-century priest who, in addition, was judged to be an alcoholic. Without further evidence, Martinelli was pronounced guilty of having sold Petrarch’s beautiful head to some punters in order to buy a few casks of wine. What didn’t occur to any Italian politician was that it was perhaps the corpse in the tomb that belonged to someone else, and that the head was Mr. Petrarch’s.

I can assure you that this is one of Petrarch’s teeth. One irrefutable proof is the fact that it is an exact reflection of his character. The teeth are the true windows to the soul; they are the tabula rasa on which all our vices and all our virtues are inscribed. Mr. Petrarch had a choleric nature, keen intelligence, and a weakness for sensual pleasures: he was hornier than a goat, and it’s easy to tell by just one look at the length of this incisor. It’s said that Petracco was once found at the doors of the church of Saint Clara, ogling the widowed, single, and married women who entered there to commend their souls to Our Lady of Saint Clara at all hours of the day. The gentleman was a veritable rake. He would make flirtatious comments, sing ribald lyrics of his own composition, leer at their ankles and necks. For years he plagued the wife of the prominent Count Hugues de Sade, the beautiful and discreet Laura de Noves. Naturally, he never gained the attention of the demure lady.

It is also known that this infamous man was in the habit of writing intimate letters to people who were,
quite clearly, imaginary and, what’s worse, by anyone’s reckoning, dead. Mr. Petrarch termed the products of this demoniacal practice “familiar letters” and sometimes “senile letters.” To my mind, “senile” would be more appropriate than “familiar.” Senile or, I’d say, without wishing to offend those present, “demented”: he wrote demented letters to the dead. Petrarch collected all the letters he wrote. In total, he managed to compile 128 senile and 350 familiar letters. He was a daring collector, an idiotically annoying slacker—and brilliant. The depths of his infamy and genius are without equal, so in this case I’m obliged to set the reserve price high. Who will give me a 1,500 bid?

An almost totally bald man, with a scrawny neck and a chubby collection-box face raised the bidding by 100. I noticed when he opened his mouth to call out the amount that it didn’t contain a single tooth. No one else raised a hand. My incisor went for 1,600. Father Luigi, standing like a Cerberus by my line of collectibles, passed the fourth piece to me. He raised an eyebrow, encouraging me to continue.

HYPERBOLIC LOT NO. 4

This lot has, for many years, been one of the most sought after in the market for portable oral collectibles. Its owner was a short man, broad in the beam, with a snub
nose and a forehead like a pig’s backside. Megalomania had no limits in the soul of this infamous man of minute stature. On more than one occasion, he said, “I study myself more than any other subject; I am my physics and my metaphysics.” He was scarcely four feet ten inches tall. His hair was sparse and straggly, but his ideas were prolific and forceful.

Mr. Montaigne, the original owner of this tooth, had a serene, honest gaze. His face had an expression somewhere between melancholic and jovial. His ineptitude in everyday activities, however, reached the point of burlesque: the handwriting in his manuscripts was illegible; he was incapable of folding a letter properly; he couldn’t saddle a horse or carry a hawk and fly her; he had no authority at all over dogs; nor could he communicate with horses. A waste of space, it would seem. A waste of space, nonetheless, who enjoyed good oral health, with the exception of recurrent tonsillitis. He preferred his flesh almost raw, including fish. He didn’t like any fruit or vegetable, other than melons. That is perhaps the reason why the tooth is in such good condition. Moreover, the quality is sublime: it is fine, slender, slightly pointed. The secret of his long-lived teeth? Mr. Montaigne was given to saying: “J’ay aprins dés l’enfance à les froter de ma serviette, et le matin, et à l’entrée et issue de la table.” That is to say, from childhood he learned to rub them with a napkin every morning, and both before and after dinner. Who will open the bidding for Montaigne’s ultraclean tooth?

A sudden wave of enthusiasm welled up among the bidders. I sold my favorite lot for six thousand pesos. It was bought by an old woman with a forgettable face and a Mediterranean build—it’s a mystery why all female Mediterranean bodies look like eggplants after the age of fifty.

By the end of that round of bidding, I was beginning to feel like John Paul
II
. I imagined myself entering a packed stadium, greeting the vast crowd, hand raised high. I’d have been the envy of Mussolini, the envy of Madonna, Sting, Bono, Lennon, and Leroy Van Dyke himself. I finally caught sight of Siddhartha—he was sitting on a pew toward the back of the church. Emboldened, I began the next lot without a pause.

HYPERBOLIC LOT NO. 5

Only one of Mr. Rousseau’s teeth remains in existence, but what a tooth! This adorable, infamous man had aristocratic features in which the slightest trace of facial expression was stifled by a vigilant, tyrannical conscience. His eyes were expressive and mobile, but his gaze was not commanding. Despite his undeniable intelligence, his sense of humor was infantile. He fervently believed in man’s kindly nature, especially his own. This gentleman wore shoulder pads, as he was rather lacking in that part of his anatomy. This deficit, however, was compensated by a manly jaw—broad, square, with a slight cleft in the center—within which lay the teeth
forever invisible to the world. They were so ugly that he never showed them, not even in private. He himself was conscious of the awful monstrosity of his teeth. He was an avid reader of Plutarch, from which he learned some virtues and many vices. In
Parallel Lives,
Plutarch writes that the courtesan Flora never left her lover without ensuring that she bore on her lips the marks of his teeth. After reading that, Jean-Jacques also acquired the habit of asking his lovers to bite him before leaving. But he didn’t once return the bite, since, as he said, his teeth were “épouvantables”; that is, horrifying. He wasn’t exaggerating.