adventures of an atonal novelist (submission for nea grant)

8/16/2019 Adventures of an Atonal Novelist (Submission for NEA Grant)

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Adventures of an Atonal Novelist

(Translated from the original Aventuras de un novelista atonal)

By Alberto Laiseca

Translated from the Spanish original by Nicolas Allen

In a cavernous, spheroid room, our novelist is writing something. By all outward

appearances something quite amusing.

Both the walls and ceiling were bending: the floor sloping downward, near collapsing-in

at its center; there, table, chairs, closet and novelist, all together practicing a kind of

desperate mountaineering against the mouth of that horrendous, sagging pit, that abyss.

The ceiling on the other hand - and this is really most curious- found itself sagging

upwards: as if by some violent upward explosion the whole rusted surface had been

mangled into a concave shape. The outlandish shape was more likely the work of oneindividual with a truly peculiar architectural vision for the hundred-year-old building,

more likely than professional malpractice. No doubt weary of the constantly collapsing

roof, whoever it was must have said to himself: “ That ceiling has fallen more than three

times. No, four times, at the very least.” So, he went and built a dome where there had

once been a ceiling, and not stopping there, he carried on plastering and painting as taste

dictates. For his Sistine Chapel he had applied a method somewhere between the

Moderns and Ancients. The result, long sinewy rows of squiggly rhombi, all twisting and

interlinking where their corners met; in their interior, some bore the trace of a blue flower

framed against a faded lilac backing; in others, there was a color that, insofar

indescribable, I will simply refer to here as “fried wiener schnitzel”. There was an oilysheen everywhere that had been left behind by the finishing laminate. The laminate, like

the paint, could easily be washed off, and yet no one had ever gone to the trouble to do

so; adding to the effect, a weak stream of kerosene from the heater mingling with drifting

clouds of toxic swill had dusted everything with a thick coat of smoke like burnt bacon.

Although it was never my intention to be so meticulous or obsessive, I now can’t help but

expound further on that thing which I’m trying to describe: the ceiling was the exact

color of those objects that head hunters will hold for days on end over smoky bonfires,

until, at last, they reach the size of a human fist.

How delightful. Meanwhile, the novelist, taking no notice, carried on writing obstinately

for those rare moments when his job as a janitorial worker had pardoned him a fewcrumbs of spare time.

Time and again the writer had been obliged to share his attic with two, three, or more

roommates. Dirt poor, suffering the damp, cold winters; or, the summer’s unbearable heat

with only one bathroom for all 50 tenants.


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The landlady of the pension- the “Regentess”, as I prefer to call her out of due deference

to her nobility, and whom I’ll carry on calling in just such a manner, at least for the

length of her non-existent king’s interminable pre-pubescence - acted as mother to all the

tenants of the pension.

She had two glass eyes, Doña Clota with her little slippers. Two glass eyes andnevertheless, she saw perfectly well. No matter the season, winter or summer, Doña Clota

always wore a padded, polychrome negligée, completely threadbare but adorned with

nasty, little tassels. However, the royal topknot on her head was the thing. Beyond a

doubt, the topknot made its way first into the world, followed a close second by the

woman herself. Therein lay her strength; there was contained the secret to all her powers.

No one knew it, but if by some chance accident she were separated from the towering

monolith, the result would have been, even more than a routine psychotic breakdown, the

whole physical collapse of the House of Usher. There, like an emerald tablet, was

deposited her secret elixir, her Rosetta stone. Samson and the Philistines, as one might be

tempted to add.

As time passed the old lady went on adding to the sum total of occupants, as if she were

adding a few more blocks onto the Great Pyramids. Indeed, already a Pharoah, the crown

of Two Kingdoms resting on her head and a false beard to answer any who should come

to doubt her profound masculinity, the old lady, with her hook for grappling and and the

taste of her whip for all the rest, stood toe to toe with the ancient Kheops themselves as

they ordered about their Egyptians and Nubians to polish and load their stones.

Every week for nearly twenty-ve years, religiously, she placed bets on

the football matches. The most she ever won was seven of the thirteenpoints necessary to move on to the next round. Shed tried everything!lling-out the boxes with her eyes shut" repeatedly using the sameticket #she carried on this way for ve years, until she became totallydemorali$ed%" nally, she decided to proceed according to a statisticalsystem of her own design. &fter so many years of playing withoutsuccess, she had managed to establish a whole ling system, amonumental database.

Every team had its corresponding letter and every player their ownnumber. Every variable was duly taken into consideration.

'or example! she had conrmed that player ()*, member of Team +,played his best on the weekend and at the beginning of each month#perhaps due to its proximity to payday%. hats more, umber ()*gave his all on the rainy days. These were facts. 'or two years, umber()* played with Team +" however, to the dismay of the old lady, he wassold to Team . She still had no idea how he would perform in his new


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environment. &n important, new, unknown variable had beenintroduced.

The real impossibility of her system consisted in the fact that what itwas was an e/uation made of 0*,1)0 unknown variables. 2f she

managed to clear up one of those, there remained 0*,1)( variables, allunknown, leaping, vibrating, writhing, and laughing in her face.

Thousands of possible variations came under her scrutiny! the latestpolitical developments and how that might a3ect the mood of a givenplayer #to each one, if 2 hadnt already made myself clear, belonged avast rap sheet" in that respect, the old lady was worse than the4estapo, or the 5.4.6.%.

She took into account if a player had recently married, if he had 7usthad a child, or if a family member had died. 2f the maga$ines were

talking about him" something that, no doubt, would have a profoundin8uence on the player and adversely a3ect his creativity. 2f hehappened to be in the midst of a romance with the latest starlet,model, or showgirl of the moment. & curious shortsightedness, the oldlady insisted, to assume that such in8uence always brought out thebest in the player. She was sometimes heard to say! 9that hussy hassucked his brains out. :es cant get his mind o3 her. 2t will drag downhis game in no time.; 2n other moments, seemingly at random #orperhaps according to some gossip%, she would assert! 9Shes keepinghim happy and in good spirits. Everything will turn out ne.;

The referees, the trainers, the technical directors, the club presidents,they were all factors that weighed in her calculations. She followed thenancial fortunes of the di3erent sporting institutions /uite closely.

Even if an ace player went into retirement she would never forgetabout him. :is ou neverknow, later on he might become a coach in his own right.;

?n one particular afternoon, an abrupt rainfall caused her to changeher wager 7ust a half hour before the days bets were to be closed.9@ough terrain. 2 should change things up. umber ()* plays better for

Team + on rainy days. Team + is going to beat Team 6. Still, theyreplaying in Team 6s stadium, so 2ll mark it down as a tie.;

Etc.

She took into account the most innocuous things, like the psychologicalpressure exerted by the fans. 'or example, she had taken note that thefans of


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the case for the fans of


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meanwhile, were getting their kicks through a kind of subconscioussadism! the old landlady, the tenants, even the novelist, with somee3ort, had started to play along.

The old lady, as it happened, never ever put into words the following!

9'all to your knees and let your head hang.; hat she actually saidwas! 9 ow listen here, my dear child, and mind the words of a lovingmother! youre an intellectual, with an important body of work behindyou, and in front of you too. & whole ton of work. &nd if 2 dont dosomething on your behalf, rest assured, youll die, buried in the middleof those two mountains that youre stuck between, like a toad. ow, 2wouldnt have any amphibian of mine s/uashed in the toolshed. So,youll go on writing your novel and 2ll continue putting money on thematches. 2t will be our bonding point. The thing that will bring us closertogether. 2ll get to know you a bit better. 2t doesnt have to be a hugesum of money, if 2 7ust once were to win (,* dollars on the football

matches 2 could x-up the pension. 4ive it some artistic touches. ?reven better! give everything a little Fface-lift with eight new shacksand some new tenants. 2 feel it, deep down, my topknot feels it too,that if 2m good to you then 4od will let me nally win a football match,and with the money 2ll get together a construction crew and 2ll buildsix brand new hovels. 2 dont ask for much, but with )0,G dollars 2could really put something together.;

2n that same instant, the novelist began with another of hishallucinations, this time after inadvertently laying eyes on the rumpledhem of the landladys bathrobe. 2t rst came emanating in waves from

the voodoo-topknot, next from her @egentess-face, which nowsuddenly was the heraldic campaign banner, all worn and faded fromthe rain, winds, and sun, of &ttila the :un. 2t came 8owing from thatunreal face, where, on either end, like a headboard, hung wolves tailsrather than ears. The enchanted topknot began to cast sparks andshadows in all directions. 2t struck him then that that gathering of haircould see and hear everything. The old ladys double appeared in thenext instant in a vision and said! 9 'or all the aforementioned reasonsand for all those neglected or omitted, a rough scratch andamendment of the satrapal wart, my dear child 2 say unto you!wouldnt you much rather have a room of your ownA Dy proposal is, in

exchange for (HI0ths of your wage as a cleaning boy, the room at theend on the right is all yours" the one we like to refer to as 9thebathroom;" the one located on the rst 8oor, and if you dont like it,well, you can take a hike. Essentially, it was a bathroom until two yearsago. 6ut now its shuttered and you can hardly even smell the odor.ell, whats your reply then, my dear child, to these my words gracedwith Poetic 8ourishes that 2 have wafted in your direction like the8owing waves of so many corpusclesA;


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9Thanks a lot, mom. >es, 2 accept.; 9Bont call me mom, son-of-a-bitch;- she growled softly and sweetly- 9es, BoCa


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:e might not have been so uncomfortable had it not been for twothings! the bedbugs and the rats. The former appeared one night in anendless cohort, a phalanx, a legion that kept him up at all hours. Thefollowing day on the 7ob, working as a 7anitor, it took every ounce of his

strength to keep from nodding o3 on the push broom, or curled up onthe newspapers in the basement after he had thrown all the garbage inthe incinerator.

6ack at home and exhausted, he couldnt bring himself to write. :ethrew himself on the bed, but in no time the bedbugs had swarmedhim.

Besperate, he spent his last cent on some bug spray. The mostpowerful street-grade stu3 he could get his hands on. :e brought ithome and proceeded to coat his entire room from top-to-bottom in bug

spray. The closet, the chair, the mattress, his writings. Everything.

& couple hours later he took a little nap. & day and a half later he wokeup with a headache and the distinct sensation of being nearly poisonedto death. The fool had no idea that one should always allow time forventilation after fumigating. Juckily he had left the window open, orsurely he would have died. 9:e 7ust looked so peaceful, 2 didnt want todisturb him,; said BoCa


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:e watched as one of the rats escaped into a crack in the wall. Jeavingthe rat for later, he took up a pair of scissors by its nger hole andgripping it by the handle like a knife, he went after the remaining rat. 2f he had been in his right mind he might have thought twice, especiallyas the rat occasionally tried to turn on him. 6ut our mad artist, in the

grips of semi-consciousness, was in no mood to gauge any kind ofpotential risk. &t some point the rat leapt onto the bed in an attempt tond some means of escape through a closed window. The sight of therat atop his bedspread was too much, and howling with a mix of rage,fear, and disgust the novelist drove the knife in deep. The animal,sensing itself wounded, coiled back to bite at his hand. 6efore it couldmanage, the novelist had already released the scissors, horried. Therat fell to the 8oor along with the clippers. The disgusting creaturebegan to drag itself about in an attempt to free itself of the improvisedknife, but the novelist had already begun to bombard the rat withbooks until, at last, it went limp.

:e then turned, trembling, to the crack where the other rat had soughtshelter. 9hile 2 was busy killing o3 her companion, shes probablygone and hidden in some other place,; he told himself. 6ut still hecouldnt bring himself to believe it. :is intuition was telling him thatthe ugly beast was still there.

ith a 8ashlight he could scan the inside of the crevice. The hole wasnearly a meter long and a few centimeters deep. :e couldnt /uite seeto the back, since that mini-4rand


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Three days later he detected a fetid odor 8oating in the air. 2t wouldseem that his rat sandwich had begun to petrify. The rotting smell soonwould disappear, never to bother him again. &nd later, whenever thenovelist was heavy with worries, he would comfort himself by lookingupon the cement-lled hole in the wall.


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The novelist observed with disgust the unreal ob7ect that lay drapedacross his bed. hat to do with itA 2t didnt exist, but 7ust the same itexisted right there. 2t made its presence felt with a kind of radiantforce. 2f he were to cast the thing o3, in conformity with his desires, theold lady might grow angry and not bring him any more food. The

money he had set aside from his wages was 7ust enough to eat for twodays out of the month, given that the rest went towards lling theco3ers of the mad faux-female osferatu. The servings brought to himby the cra$y old lady were miserly- the novelist liked to call them9combat rations; or 9concentration camp scraps;- but they were stillbetter than nothing.

:e decided to nail the nonexistent knickers, with a nonexistent nail, tohis existing wall, as if it were a poster, and in that way he forgot aboutthem.

2 fear that our novelist was of the type that had taken to heart theteachings of Sartre in Les Chemins de la Liberté. :e had found a 7ob asa laborer in order to keep from being bourgeois. :e felt that it was hisbest and only bet for keeping his dignity. The miserable wretch wasforced to swallow endless shady dealings, all the times he was forcedto hang his head, the treacheries he was obliged to commit 7ust to beable to stand e/ual among all those who where, well and truly, belowhis station. Those 9ruMans;, who he had learned to despise so well,had their own little schemes to get by and make due. :e, on the otherhand, was forced into committing a thousand vile deeds 7ust to keepfrom being driven away from the campre in 6arrio de las Jatas.

2ts really something to see 7ust how many bad people there are in thelower ranks of society. 2n e/ual proportion as above, of course, but forbeing more numerous, the likelihood of the whole thing blowing up canonly grow exponentially.

:ed have done well to learn from the very same Daster +ean-Laul, whowhile he may passed 7udgment in his books, in real life always wentabout beaming, well heeled, plodding about in his little shoes, ordrifting forward in his car amidst a sea of people. Strange, also, thatbeing a writer, our friend the tenant seemed to neglect that books

ought be written, and not lived. ow, our friend was a preordainedidiot, that is to say, blind to the fact that 9honest; novels are boobytraps, or electronic mines, like the ones used in =ietnam. Theyre madeto fool people and make a bit of money, but whoever writes themshould never in their wildest dreams think of taking them seriously. 2nthe drug subculture theres an unwritten law! 9The dealer who abstainsis the dealer who survives. Bont get high o3 your own supply.;


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6ut seeing as our friend the novelist had his head permanently amongthe clouds, he simply had to nail the horrible old ladys knickers to thewall. :e nailed it metaphorically" as in an allegory and within the worldof symbols. 6ut all the same, he nailed it.

To hell with you, then, you stupid nitwit.

6ut the time has come at last to speak about the artists lifes work,the one that he would write with such great determination and againstevery imaginable adversity. :e was a great admirer of the work of&rnold Schoenberg. :ad he been a musician he un/uestionably wouldhave followed in the composers footsteps, 2 havent the slightestdoubt. 6eing a man of letters he spent ten years of his life writing theworlds very rst atonal novel. &nd anytime anyone happened to bespeaking about the avant-gardes, he could immediately shut them upby simply reading from one of the many indigestible passages making

up his magnum opus. Buring times of spiritual doubt, it brought himsolace. The work itself was absolute, pure discontinuity. The workingmethod involved harnessing the energy provided by di3erent resonantsectors, all of which would ultimately nd its minute expression on thepage. &lready he had written more than two thousand pages. Some ofthose pages were concerned exclusively with the 7ewels and vases ofthe Ding dynasty, with the porcelains and the di3erent varieties of 7ade. ?thers dealt with di3erential e/uations, or fragments ofe/uations, or with classical formulas, where he would omit certainparts and insert diverse bits as suited him. 2t touched on the di3erentgeological periods of the Earth, the names of minerals, plants, 8owers,

horrible diseases, microbes, viruses, bacteria, micro-particles,magnetic elds, teratology #that is, the study of monstrosities%,


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The novels nale ended up being a bit of a fraud. 2t recalled theheterodox compositions of Stravinsky. To the readers great surprise,the last paragraphs were completely tonal. 2t concluded with aperfectly continuous and complete @iemann theorem. The novelistinsisted that the theorem was among the most beautiful poems of all

time. e should mention in passing that this concession, or better thisbetrayal, this genu8ection before the lowest sentimentalism, hadearned him the hostility of the very few who had followed his work withany interest. Still, whenever the chance presented itself, he would readthe conclusion of the novel to his friends, to ac/uaintances, at socialgatherings, and in poetry readings" always with a catch in his voice,overcome with emotion and holding back his tears.

?ne particular ?ctober evening, the aforementioned scenario wasrepeated but with a uni/uely cruel twist. Those listening were alreadyhowling with laughter. o /uestion, the spectacle could put even the

best circus to shame. &nd when 2 speak of the circus 2 mean the


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adventures of an atonal novelist (submission for nea grant)

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