AUGUSTO MONTERROSO

Augusto Monterroso, Guatemalan author, born in 1921 in Honduras, resident of Mexico since 1956. Winner of the Mexican Xavier Villaurrutia Prize in 1996 and the Prince of Asturias Award for Letters 2000. He died February 7th 2003.

DIOGENES TOO

"Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurseunacted desires.
William Blake."

As for time, as for distance, what is called the material fact of transporting oneself from one place to another through space, it was certainly very easy for P. (as the Headmaster called him when, strong knuckles and trembling mustache, he reprimanded him) to reach hi house. And yet, how difficult! And no, it was not that he was weak or sick. Aside from an imperceptible, hardly bothersome cranial deformation, he was a child like any other.

It was the atmosphere in his house that he disliked, the appearance - I will not call it gloomy, but neither was it pleasant - of the two rooms: their darkness and the fine dust that invaded everything, even his nostrils, making him conscious of his breathing, an indefinable, constant bad smell that floated through every corner, all of this accompanied by his mother's monotonous repetitions: "You should study your lessons, you should study, you should." Reason enough for the simple task of going home to be difficult and hateful.

He noted by way of contrast the joy, the pleasure of his classmates - eight, nine, eleven years old - when, the sun still high, the moment arrived for them to leave the big old house with its narrow classrooms full of teachers - so distant, now, so unreal - whose names he was forgetting or had forgotten, as easily as the precise location of colored seas and impossible rivers.

My house - as I think I've already mentioned - was a few blocks, perhaps four and a few steps more, from the school. Maybe five. I can't say for certain; there's no point in my trying to recall a single time when I took the direct route home. What I used to do, what I always did, what I needed to do, was to make a great detour, like the one that gets you out of the opening paragraphs of this story.

When I left school I generally walked to the markets where I would go into ecstasies when I saw the yellow and red fruit and heard (and learned) the fruit vendor's rough talk, or to the riverbank where you can hear strange, mysterious noises just at sunset, or sometimes to the churches where there were saints (some of them mutilated - I never found out if that is how they were in life or if those defects were due to the effects of time on the material they were made of) and female saints who inspired a raw terror in me that I still feel.

I measured time's passage by waiting until the sun was completely hidden before I approached my house. The door was always open; my mother would open it early - perhaps she never locked it - so I would not interrupt her crocheting when I rang. At the time I didn't know that the hour of sunset changes from day to day. Which was why in June, when the days grow long and it seems they will never end, I would arrive so late that sometimes my mother, worried at what could have happened to me, was waiting at the door. Then she would slap me in a fury and dig her nails into my arms while she scolded me. But despite the blows and the reprimands, I never understood that the sun could move so slowly, and I continued to come home late, sometimes with feet covered in mud and soaked by the lashing rains of summer that in my country is called winter.

It was during a vacation - longed for all year and soon unbearable - that I became fully aware that things were not going very well in my house.

My father was away. I remembered, then I confirmed the fact, that he went away frequently. And I had the feeling that although she seemed calmer when he wasn't there, my mother - impossible, impossible! - was lying when she assured me he was working in one city or another in the interior, working so he could bring home lots of gold coins, and - I say this not meaning any criticism - as far as I could see we really needed them. Then I would ask when that would happen, and she would stop talking or change the subject or tell me to study or (with the obvious intention of making me think about something else) scold me for something I had done or failed to do a long time before.

I'm sure I shouldn't say this: The fact is, my father was a bum, what they call a real bum. He was proud of it and enjoyed making his bad reputation even worse; otherwise the neighbors wouldn't try to avoid him anymore.

I don't believe any other child (except my son) has had a father like mine. Can he even be called a father?

For a long time he tried to shake loose my idea that I was his son. I can still see, still hear clearly the same scene repeated many times over in exactly the same way: When everybody was asleep in the old apartment building, he would come home completely drunk, filling the entire apartment with his heavy, exhausted breathing and its disgusting stink of wine and vomit. I close my eyes and see him walking as quietly as he can, like a ghost, his index finger over his lips to show silence while he staggers from side to side without ever losing his balance completely.

A stranger seeing him might have thought he was, to a certain extent, a considerate drunk especially respectful of other people's sleep. But his silence and his gestures, unfortunately, did not reflect those admirable qualities in a drinker. They hid a diabolical meaning instead. His only purpose was to surprise an imagined lover in my mother's room.

It was his obsession at the time. Later I found out that it was not the only one. Once (one time among many) he abandoned our house completely, certain that all of us - my mother, me, the dog - were plotting to kill him in his sleep. Although I subsequently thought that my mother should have done it, his absurd suspicions were unfounded because she loved him.

When he was completely convinced (or so he thought) that once again he had been deceived, that the lover was more astute and less of a night owl that he was, he would come over to the cot where I lay sleeping and take me in his arms, shaking me in his rage, hurting me with his breath and his soft, idler's hands. I would burst into endless screams that could have wakened the entire city. But he was not satisfied until he had hit me for a long time and shouted "You're not my son, you're not my son," as if he wanted to convince the neighbors and convince me, a boy of six, that I was not the child of a mother like other children had but the son of a (I learned the word later) whore.

Mama would finally come to my rescue and take me away from that voice, that alcoholic breath, for which I thanked her from the bottom of my heart. Then I would curl up, trembling with cold, unable to sleep, nervous, frightened, seeing strange things in the darkness for a long time. Usually I sobbed for a while - sometimes without really wanting to - so my mother would feel sorry for me, sympathize with me, and cry a little too.

Because those scenes were repeated so often, I eventually came to believe that my father really wasn't my father. The one thing I couldn't understand was why he would always hit me that way because I was not his son, while it never occurred to him, not even once, to do the same thing to the other neighborhood kids who were surely not his children either.

Except for those times, I hardly saw him. He usually got up very late, when I was already in school collapsing with fatigue and not understanding the arithmetical operations that the teacher, who was probably also certain we were not his children, tried to beat into our heads with slaps and punches. Today I am amazed that I endured so much, that I can repeat the multiplication table although I stammer and tremble uncontrollably.

I come home, my arms full of packages. I throw some of them on the bed; it looks like a huge dining room table covered with a long, smooth, white crocheted tablecloth. There are some plates on it. Big plates full of fruit. But I soon discover they are not plates but enormous flower paintings of (strange) green roses embroidered with brilliant silk thread.

I take off my hat and toss it, and it lands right on the dog's head. He growls and shakes it off. (I look into the dog's eyes; they have a strange glow). Then, like someone getting ready for a surprise, with my eyes full of mischief, I look at my wife and son (who bears an extraordinary resemblance to me) and from an inside pocket of my jacket I start to slowly remove (pretending all the while to hide it) something that slowly - very slowly - begins to take the shape of a tricycle. My son - I - has always wanted one and why shouldn't I give it to him now that I have plenty of money? Except there must be some mistake, because instead of the necessary, correct, classic three wheels, an infinite number of wheels tumble out one after the other until they fill the room and become annoying, unbearable. I think: a manufacturing defect. Slightly embarrassed, I smile and start to put everything back into my pocket, back where it was before except in reverse. The wheels disappear with a golden metallic ringing sound, but the last ones - which had been the first - go in with great difficulty, oppressing my heart, making my breathing labored, almost suffocating me, choking me as if too large a mouthful of meat were stuck in my throat. I feel the beads of swear break out on my forehead. I must stop at once. Any more and I'll pass out, destroying the happiness of my wife and son. I am obsessed by the thought that if I die, no one will be able to figure out the tricycle's mechanism, explained only on a piece of paper - or papyrus - that the salesman chewed and swallowed noisily so no one could ever reveal the secret of its construction.

In order to survive I must take out the wheels again, but there's another problem with the mechanism and now they are as resistant to being removed as they were to being returned to their original place. Inspired - inspired - I decide to take off my jacket and throw it far away - or close by, it's all the same. I can't because the sleeves are tied to my shoulders with strong white straps. I don't like the straitjacket. It's an infernal device. I throw myself to the floor. That's not the solution. I kick my legs wildly. I feel cold. I keep my legs still. When I can't stand any more, when I can't stand any less, when I'm drenched with perspiration, I cry and shout with all my might. My wife and son look at me with enormous, embarrassed eyes. My wife - my mother - comes, puts her hand on my forehead, gently wipes away the sweat, gives me a little water - very little water - and explains that it's called a nightmare.

Toward the end he didn't treat me so badly; he didn't even insult me. Just every once in a while he would kick me, not very hard, just when he had the chance.

It took my mother and me several weeks to realize that a new fixed idea had taken control of his thoughts. He no longer looked for lovers under the beds, or smelled the food to see if it had been poisoned (as if he could find that out by smelling it), or smashed the dishes on the floor shouting that they had not been washed properly and he was being treated worse than a stranger. He had found a new victim: dogs.

In fact, day by day my soul was overwhelmed by a deep contempt for those animals. I came to despise them more than anything else in the world.

All the passions I might have nourished otherwise settled into a kind of thick, heavy sediment inside me, leaving behind on the surface, on the first layer of daily living, the disgust, the repulsion I felt toward those servile, humble animals with their teary, gentle eyes, their dripping tongues always ready to lick with pleasure the foot that does them harm.

My first victim (how many other have not yet fallen) was our own dog whose name - too degrading, too doglike* - I do not wish to state here. Come to think of it, I believe his name played a major role in the outcome. Perhaps if he had been called something else, I wouldn't have noticed him. A dog's name is as important as the dog himself. A man or a woman can, if they choose, and for whatever strange, eccentric reasons, find another name for themselves. It's a question of taste, and with three announcements by the Bureau of Public Records in the newspapers with the smallest circulation, the matter is taken care of. But a dog has to endure his name for his whole life unless he decides to take to the streets and become a bony, nameless stray, but that is a hard, sad life, and few are willing to settle for being thrown out of restaurants and the urinals of bars with a generic "Beat it, mutt!" much less an evil kick to the stomach. I remembered that the ancient philosopher had chosen can as the lowest, most despicable thing one could find. And I was happy to admire him for imitating dogs so that men would despise him as much as he despised men. I happened to read in a book: "Once, at a dinner, there were some who threw him bones as if he were a dog and he, approaching them, pissed on them as if he were a dog." I also hated the old cynic - so forthright! Sometimes one has to say monstrous things. What I'm going to say is a little monstrous: I think my father was jealous of the animal. I've reached this conclusion through the association of certain ideas; I can't explain the death of Diogenes in any other way.

In any case, the dog was to blame for much of what happened. Who tells dogs to have that look that's so teary, so tender, so loving? And who told ours to hide under the bed whenever my father appeared? Wouldn't it have been better to go out and greet him (even at the risk of a kick) instead of provoking him with flight that was hopeless? No. He always did the least sensible, the most stupid thing. Sometimes he would start to howl even before my father hit him. It never lasted long. My father couldn't stand it.

It was a hot afternoon. I was diligently reviewing some multiplication tables. My mother was doing her endless crocheting. I can't call her to mind without the sliver needle and the little ball of white thread on a newspaper on the floor. I don't know how she took care of her other domestic chores; I can only remember her crocheting or ironing what she had crocheted. The apartment was filled with little doilies that did not beautify the rooms (which was undoubtedly her intention) but gave them a look of vulgar bad taste instead.

Her black metal irons stood in the most surprising, the most absurd places. Her work was also an obsession, I suppose. When she wasn't working she moved her fingers feverishly as if she were actually crocheting without realizing it, as if on no account did she want to lose the rhythm begun who knows how many years ago. If I hadn't grown accustomed to seeing the ball of thread on the floor, I could easily have believed that she produced it herself, like a spider.

The dog had sprawled in a corner, sweating profusely through his tongue and nose.

The brick where he rested his head was covered with vapor at each movement of his lungs. I liked to write my initials with my finger on this vapor, but my mother did not always allow it: "You're a very dirty child."

As I said, he took the three of us by surprise. What we least expected was his arrival or the manner in which he arrived. He came home early, in a very good mood. Sober. Clean. Smiling. Happiness is easy to communicate. He communicated his happiness to all of us. It was a pleasure to have a father like him, and for the moment I forgot about his beatings.

He took off his hat and tossed it very gracefully (it seemed to me) onto the hook on the other side of the room.

Then he went over to my mother and caressed her, passing his hand, slowly and gently, over her hair. As he bent down to kiss her he said a few words I couldn't hear or don't remember. But I'm sorry I don't remember because I'm sure they were sweet and kind.

When my turn came he walked toward me, patted me twice on the shoulder, and said with a smile:

"How are you?"

I lowered my eyes, feeling a blush on my cheeks:

"Okay, Papa."

Then he sat down. He seemed a little embarrassed. We hadn't seen him for several months (or years). He obviously wanted to talk, to keep saying pleasant things, but he remained quiet, his eyes half-closed or looking at the beams (a little dirty with smoke, it occurred to me) that supported the ceiling.

My mother offered him something, or simply said something. She stood up to close the window only when it began to grow dark and a cold breeze blew into the room. Then she returned to her work in silence.

We could all hear it clearly when the dog began to growl the way they do when they feel a heavy stillness. He lay in the corner like a lizard, his four paws stretched out and his belly flat on the floor, as if the heat were still excessive.

When I heard him I moved my eyes slowly in my father's direction. He was smiling. My mother was looking at him too. When she saw him smile she smiled. When I saw her smile I smiled. Then we all looked at the animal again at the same time, and he smiled too in his way. What a relief I felt when I heard my father break the silence again by drumming his fingers, clearly intending to call Diogenes over to him.

When he called, the dog began to move slowly, dragging himself, pushing himself with his hind legs. He never expected to be treated with so much affection. I imagine even the dog realized that my father was not drunk as usual, that this day was different.

To make him lose his fear completely, my father continued to call him with whistles and affectionate diminutives: "Here, doggy doggy."

That day I had a vague idea of what happiness was like. I saw my mother happy, my father clean and happy, the happiness in the dog's eyes. When he had traveled the entire distance separating him from my father, he was glad. He wagged his tail with extraordinary vigor and let out an occasional growl. For a moment - perhaps he was overdoing it - he rolled over, lay with his paws in the air as if he wanted to show all his pleasure, but he quickly returned to his usual posture; perhaps he was a little embarrassed. My father caressed him with his foot.

Wasn't he partly to blame, not meaning this, God knows, as any criticism? He's dead now, and I should respect his memory, but, knowing my father, how could he have done what he did? I won't swear to it, but it's possible that his only desire was to share his joy. In fact, at a certain moment he turned his head toward me. When he grew tired of looking at me, or when I stopped paying attention to him, he turned his stupid eyes towards my mother and stayed that way for a while, his tongue hanging out, waiting for some word.

That's when my father's expression changed. Very calmly he stretched out his right hand to the table beside him, took one of my mother's irons, and let it fall like lightning on the animal's head. He didn't have a chance to defend himself. He didn't even move. Neither did my mother. Neither did I. There was no need.

Well, you can imagine the next few minutes. When his tail stopped moving, when my father was convinced that he was good and dead, he simply stood up, took his hat, and left. We never saw him again.

Perhaps my husband was not really so bad. I'm inclined to think he was sick, but not all that sick, as he himself would say. He confinement in the sanatorium where I found him, after endless searching, is one small proof among many for saying what I say.

Today he is like a stubborn child, believing that his father torments him because of some imaginary sin committed by his mother before he was born. When this idea disappears from his mind, he'll be cured.

As for me, I say this: One is never free of malicious gossip. And it comes when you least expect it, even from your own children. I hope nobody believes (there are people ready to believe anything, even the most blatant lie) this whole insane story invented with only one evil purpose - to harm me. It's easy to see - and it would be insulting to think no one noticed - that my son begins his lies at the very beginning when he describes himself, knowing very well that he's lying, as a victim of an "imperceptible, hardly bothersome cranial deformation." The truth is that his head is monstrous. It's not my fault. He was born that way. We knew it from the start, when his birth was so difficult.

It is absolutely false that he attended school. He learned to read and write at home.

I am a traveling salesman. The firm of Rosenbaum & Co. can attest to that, and I can show beautiful letters of recommendation, which they were kind enough to write for me, unworthy as I am of their kindness.

My wife died long ago. My son never knew her. He was raised by my mother. And as far as dogs are concerned, I am sure, I can sweat to the fact, that I never killed a single one except for Diogenes. I had to do it. No dog is safe from rabies. Why would he be the exception? At any moment he could have contracted the disease, which, as everyone knows, spreads so rapidly in a geometrical progression that it can quickly kill off entire populations.

If he had been infected by this deadly disease one day, I can't even begin to imagine what would have happened to us all. The consequences would have been unthinkable.