The Museum of Useless Efforts Read online

  ‘Get down from there!’ I yelled, overcome with rage.

  She didn’t budge. She was on a wicker chair, which I was hoping would collapse under her weight. Unfortunately, because I had plaited it myself, it was very sturdy.

  ‘I would like to see your face,’ she told me, ignoring my order.

  I could see hers. It was sort of round and nice, vivacious and carefree. I closed my eyes. I would have preferred her to look like the old man, whose face was weathered by time, anxiety, and uncertainty. When I opened my eyes again, she was still standing on the chair, motionless like a statue.

  ‘I’ve brought something for you,’ she said, trying to get on my good side. I knew that trick. My parents, my neighbors, even a doctor had tried it many times. Little objects meant to discourage or encourage me or persuade me of something.

  ‘I don’t need anything,’ I said firmly.

  I don’t know why, but I suspected she had a camera in her clothing and that she was planning to take my picture. People do things like that. But it must have been my imagination: the old man wouldn’t have allowed her in with a hidden camera.

  All of a sudden, she got down from the chair. She fixed her shoes, straightened her olive-colored skirt, and said to the old man, who was pretending to read, ‘It’s true, he doesn’t need anything.’

  ‘Just like I told you, little one,' the old man mumbled.

  Then I emerged, not all the way, just enough so that she could see me. I took a few steps across the rope and looked at her.

  She raised her head and smiled. I liked her smile. It was similar to the old man’s smile.

  ‘You know?’ she said in a quiet, humble, almost confessional voice, ‘I’m dying to get up there. It’s what I’ve always wanted.’

  I was silent.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I have too,’ the old man murmured right away. ‘But you know, what with my age, my ailments, the heat, the cold, I can’t stay on my feet for long. I’m not even worried about the bag anymore. He doesn’t need it. Not the bag, not me. He doesn’t need anyone.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to go up there,’ she repeated, raising her eyes in wonder. She had this imploring expression that disturbed me.

  ‘Maybe, if I were younger,’ the old man went on, ‘I would try it. But at my age, almost everything except rushing around in an empty room with a bag in my hands is off limits.’

  ‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ the girl mumbled, ‘if you would let me try. . .’

  ‘That’s impossible,’ I said gently. ‘It’s not a matter of selfishness. . . .’

  ‘Just once. Just this once, I promise,’ she pleaded. ‘It would be like going out on a boat when you’re little, or taking a ride on a hot-air balloon, or visiting the island where the pelicans live. It’s the dream of a lifetime, just once. . . .’

  ‘I can’t,’ I answered quietly.

  ‘If you let me, I won’t cause any trouble. I just want to get up there for a moment and then come back down. . . .’

  ‘You’d want to stay forever,' I predicted.

  ‘No, I promise, I wouldn’t. Just once, for a moment.’

  ‘I also wanted to,’ the old man added, ‘but the legal considerations, my gout, my age. . . . But I still dream of it.’

  ‘Just once, to try it,’ she suggested.

  ‘No, it’s impossible,’ I tried to persuade her. ‘There’s no room here. Besides, you’d fall. There’s only room for one person. With two of us, we’d hurt each other.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of dying,’ she said.

  ‘It just can’t be,’ I replied. ‘It’s not up to me. It’s a question of physics, of nature. We have to respect those things. But you can get up on a chair and talk with me if you’d like. You can scale a mountain, get on a plane, or ride a cable car. But you can’t get up here, it’s impossible.

  Saddened, she lowered her eyes.

  ‘I told you,’ the old man scolded her. ‘That’s the way it is.’

  ‘It would have been so wonderful,’ she sighed, resting her head on the old man’s shoulder.

  To make her forget her sadness, I danced a few steps on the rope. It was something that normally I would never do, but I felt sad for her.

  She went away. I returned to my activities on the rope: I polished the prisms, made a wicker basket to store handkerchiefs in, played the harmonica, read an old newspaper, pasted a few more clippings on the wall, wrote a poem and a letter.

  The next day I woke up to find the old man rushing into the bedroom, looking jittery. He was panting and seemed to be running away from something. I could hear a lot of commotion outside.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked, frightened.

  The old man shut the door firmly and leaned against it.

  ‘There’s a crowd gathering out there," he said.

  Several explanations occurred to me: a sporting victory, a demonstration, an accident, the appearance of an actress. The crowd was growing larger, and I could hear it getting closer and closer. Nervously, I paced along the rope. The old man was still leaning against the door. I heard shouts, exhortations, whistles, pounding.

  ‘What do they want?’ I asked the old man, who had broken into a sweat.

  He pointed at the rope. ‘They all want to get up there/ he answered, exhausted.

  Mona Lisa

  The first time I saw Gioconda, I fell in love with her. It was an indistinct, misty autumn. In the distance, the contours of trees and smooth lakes faded away, as sometimes happens in paintings. A light mist that clouded our faces, rendering us vaguely unreal. She was dressed in black (the fabric, however, transparent), and I think someone told me she had lost a child. I saw her in the distance, as happens with apparitions, and from that instant I became extremely sensitive to anything that had to do with her. She lived in another city, as I discovered. Sometimes, to alleviate her sorrow, she took short strolls. Immediately - sometimes quite slowly - I discovered the things she favored. I conjured up her pleasures even without knowing them and, with that rare ability of someone in love to notice small details, I endeavored to surround myself with objects that would please her, like a meticulous collector. For want of her, I became a collector, seeking solace in things related to her. For someone who loves, nothing is superfluous. Giocondo, her husband, was engaged in a dispute with a painter, as I found out. He was a prosperous and crude merchant, enriched by trading in textiles, and like those of his class sought to surround himself with valuable things, though he would chaffer over their price. I quickly discovered the name of the city where they lived. It was a melodious, sweet name; I was surprised, because I should have guessed it. A city of water, bridges, and little windows built many centuries ago by merchants, ancestors of Giocondo who, in order to compete with the nobles and bishops, had hired architects and painters to enhance the city’s beauty, like a lady might do with chambermaids. He lived in an old refurbished palace, the facade of which he had had inlaid with gold. But my informant drew my attention to the most beautiful thing about the palace’s facade: a small landscape, a watercolor protected by a wooden frame, depicting a countryside. At the center of the landscape, a vaporous lake where a barely insinuated skiff rose above the water. ‘That, I am certain, must have been commissioned by Gioconda,’ I thought to myself.

  I must confess that since I laid eyes on her, I have slept little. My nights are full of commotion, as if I had drunk too much or ingested some innervating drug. When I go to bed, my imagination unfurls, febrile and disorderly. I work out ingenious projects, formulate thousands of plans, my ideas buzzing about like drunken bees. The excitement is so acute that I break into a sweat and scurry to begin different tasks, these, in turn, interrupted by others until daybreak when, exhausted, I fall asleep. I awake confused, recalling little of what 1 had planned during the night. I feel depressed until the image of Gioconda returns some meaning to my days and makes me happy, like a secret possession (I am not a bad draftsman and I confess I have made some sketches of her face, based on my recoll
ection of the first time I saw her).

  I have completely neglected my wife - how could I explain to her what has happened without betraying Gioconda? I no longer share her bed and I endeavor to spend all my time away, lost amid the woods tenuously drawn in the autumn mist. The faint woods and the lakes I conjured up the first time I saw Gioconda and that now accompany all my images of her. One falls in love with certain places relentlessly associated with the beloved and strolls among them, alone but intimately accompanied.

  I endeavor to obtain information about the city where she lives; I fear some unexpected danger may stalk it. I imagine terrible catastrophes: volcanic eruptions, tidal waves, fires, the insane acts of men - the cities of our times rival one another in aggressiveness and envy. In my mind, I aim to hold back the waters of the rivers that cross her city, and I take the opportunity to stroll with her across bridges - those delightful, intimate, moist wooden bridges that creak under our soles. (I must confess that the first time I saw her, enraptured by the beauty of her face, I did not take notice of her feet. What gaps there are in our power of observation! Nonetheless, it is not impossible to reconstruct them, based on the perfection of other lines. I realize that this harmony is not always humanly possible, but what is surprising about her is precisely the harmonious, serene, incremental development of her features, such that, from a fragment, the whole can be imagined.)

  The passage of time does not concern me. Only too well do I know that her beauty, endowed with a certain diaphanous quality, an inner grace that transcends the progression of months, the passing of autumns, will withstand it. Only terrible harm, the intervention of an assassin’s hand, could disturb that harmony. And Giocondo does not worry me. Engaged as he is with his financial transactions, indifferent to any type of value that cannot be hoarded in a well-guarded coffer, his relations with her are as superficial as they are harmless. Which, to a certain extent, spares me from jealousy.

  For some time now, I have been miserly. I save in every way I can so as to set aside enough money to make the journey I have dreamed of. I have stopped smoking and frequenting the tavern, I do not purchase clothing, and I am extremely vigilant with regard to the upkeep of the house. Whatever small repairs are necessary at home I do myself, and I make use of all those things squandered by dissolute men who are not in love, probably because they no longer dream. I have painstakingly studied the ways to reach that city and am certain that shortly I will be able to set out on the journey. That dream fills my days with intensity. I make no attempt to communicate with Gioconda. I am certain that when I saw her, she did not take notice of me, nor would she have taken notice of any man. She was overcome with sorrow and her eyes looked without seeing, contemplating, if anything at all, things that were of the past, things hidden in the still lakes where I continue to conjure her up. When my wife questions me, I answer in vague terms. It is not a matter of simply keeping my secret: the most heartfelt things almost never withstand translation into words.

  But I know, I am certain, I will be able to find her. Somewhere in the city, her unmistakable features await me. As for Giocondo, he seems to still be engaged in a dispute with a painter. He doubtless does not want to pay for a canvas or, if he is owed something, plans to throw the painter out of his atelier. Giocondo has the insolence characteristic of the rich, and the poor painter has to make a living. My informant explains that the feud has gone on for close to three years and that the painter has sworn revenge. What would my Gioconda say about all this? Despite the reputation women in that city have for being nosy, I am certain she is wholly unaware of her husband’s affairs. The loss of her child is still recent and she is unable to find solace. Attempting to entertain her, Giocondo hires musicians who sing and dance in the garden, but she seems not to hear them. Gioconda, mournful notwithstanding her decoiletage. Regrettably, I am not a musician. If I were, I might have access to your castle. I would play the flute like no one has ever played it before, conjuring up the lakes and woods where you stroll in autumn, lakes seemingly suspended above which a skiff sometimes rises. I would compose verses and sonatas until you gently, almost unwillingly, smile, as if offering a small reward for my efforts. Oh Gioconda, that smile would be a vague acknowledgment, confirmation of your having heard.

  I have arrived in the city of bridges, of circular lakes and misty woods that disappear on the horizon amidst placid clouds. I have walked the narrow, winding streets with their fluffy dogs and markets brimming with golden fruit and silken fabrics. Everywhere the peddling: the oranges shine; fish just plucked from the sea; the merchants’ offers buzz; avid buyers scrutinize gold vessels, acquiring carefully set, sumptuous jewels, feuding over valuable pieces. The streets are damp, and in the distance a serene forest is outlined.

  Forthwith, I sought someone with information about the Giocondo family. It was not difficult: everyone knows them in this city, but for some reason, when I questioned people, they wanted to change the subject. I have offered money, the few coins I have left after the journey, but this is a prosperous city and my fortune small. I tried with traders who courteously offered me cloths and products from India, and then with the gondoliers, who take passengers from one part of the city to another. I should say that one of the most lively pleasures to be enjoyed here is that of traversing certain regions in those delicate, slender crafts (which they adorn in fine taste and treat with the utmost care, as if they were precious objects); they glide beneath the wooden bridges, scarcely stirring the green waters. Finally, a young man, whom I chose for his humble appearance but intelligent gaze, agreed to inform me. He revealed something terrible: the painter that Giocondo had hired and with whom he had been feuding for years decided to seek revenge. He painted a slender mustache on the lips of Giconda, and no one has been able to remove it.

  The Runner Stumbles

  He saw the towering trees, the green leaves, a distant nest (or was it simply a mesh of twigs?), the sky’s cupola, the clouds speeding around the track like white runners, the clouds rushing toward the finish line, he saw the moon at midday, the moon that had appeared silently, discretely, situating itself at an almost imperceptible angle to the landscape, the birds with their games, their own tournaments, ceaselessly flying here and there, he saw dark wings cutting through the air, sumptuous movements, with his eyes he followed their unforeseeable course, their routes; collapsed, on the ground, through astonished eyes, he saw all that.

  He was on the fourteenth lap. He was a good runner. The newspapers had predicted he would win, even set a new record. For years they had been waiting for a new record, people are always waiting for things like that. And now there was that theory suggested by a Brazilian physicist, probably a lunatic, it seemed to him: the speed of light is not always the same. ‘What could that mean?’ he asked himself. The newspapers had said that he might break the record. So, had Einstein been wrong? Or was it that light was trying to break a record, just like he was? And people were crowding around the track, the fifteenth lap, he was in the lead, way ahead, because he was born to run, the sun radiating heat, so much heat (what did born to run mean?), these marvelous feet. The announcer saying, ‘An extraordinary pace on the sixteenth lap, two-thirds of the way there,’ long-distance runner, steady pace. From the start he hadn’t hesitated to break away from the rest of them, to make it clear from the outset who was going to win; if they thought he was going to hold back, reserve his energy and not break off from the pack, save the final struggle - the merciless struggle - for the final few meters, they were wrong: free of their elbows, with no one in his way, with the whole track ahead of him, he was running as fast as light, that is if light travels through space at a constant velocity. Somewhere - outside the oval-shaped track he was running around time and again, torturously, like in a dream - his coach would be nervously checking his watch. So the speed of that ray of light that hit the track was not constant? Constant, like his pace? Lap number nineteen, only seven more to go, for that ray of light hurled like a yearning runner; everyone el
se was behind him, he’d passed them several laps back, so it was just a matter of beating someone, the legendary runner who’d set the last record, up to now the definitive record, if light moves at a constant speed. On the twenty-first lap, he felt he was about to achieve his goal; although fatigued, his rhythm was excellent, he was progressing around the track at a steady pace, his movements nimble and light, like those of a gazelle - in the words of the announcer - elegant, as if for him there was nothing difficult about running. In a confused sort of way, he could make out the faces of the spectators, but there was n0 need to see them more clearly, only the track was circulating in his brain, the coach would have his eyes riveted on his stopwatch. Then he lapped the young runner with red hair and blue shorts whose tired pant didn’t bode well for him, then runner number seventeen, trailing far behind, several laps back, still on a lap he’d left long ago, with the spot of sun on the track. Everyone’s eyes were clouding over, their eyes filling with sweat, throbbing. According to his count, he had only three laps to go, three laps till the little man with the chessboard-like flag would let him collapse after crossing the finish line, the finish line, the end of the track, the ribbon that would say the insane race was behind him, and he heard a shout, just one shout, and it was his coach who must have been announcing that he was about to do it, that he was going to set a new record, clock the best time in the world for the ten thousand meters, ten thousand perfectly flat meters.

  That was when he felt an enormous urge to stop. It wasn’t that he was so tired; he had done his training and the experts had all said he would win the race; in reality, he had only been running to set a new record. And now this undeniable urge to stop. To fall on the side of the track and never get up again. Careful: if a runner’s down, you can’t touch him. If he gets up on his own, he can continue running. But not if someone helps him to get back up on his feet. This uncontrollable urge to sit down on the side of the track and look at the sky. Surely, he thought, he’d see the trees. A fistful of branches with quivering leaves, and up at the top, a nest. The smallest leaves fluttering in the wind, in the light wind that alters the speed of light forever, which is no longer constant, according to the Brazilian physicist. I'm nothing special, ma’am,’ he’d told a slightly senile fan the other night. I'm just an expert at organizing time.’