began to savagely insult each other. Some fell into a trance and produced conflicting messages. A skeleton-like woman, who in her normal state sounded like a bird chirping when she spoke, emitted a thunderous voice with which she threatened the snake, the worm who claimed to be the Maestro’s messenger, with expulsion from the sect, and added that the former nuns, slaves of papism in the past, had already been redeemed and that, like the magnanimous Sir Cecil Tur-Four, they were absolutely necessary to the revelation of the Truth. Some fell into convulsions only to hurl increasingly inappropriate insults at each other; Luis Prieto deepened his voice and in a cavernous tone announced: “The session has been suspended!” At that moment they all came out of their trance, stood up and, like good Englishmen, said their goodbyes with the greatest propriety imaginable, except for a single elderly woman who became flabbergasted and kept repeating in English, “Two-four, stop! Two-four, stop!” and who had to be carried out on a stretcher. Luis reproduced the session in so many different voices and so many details that it looked as if a demiurge were recreating that amazing theosophical pandemonium before our eyes. Until then, for as long as I had known Carlos, I had never seen him laugh so much, nor could I imagine that a person so introspective and ensconced in books would be so receptive to such madcap humor. It was the first time I heard his inimitable guffaw. Luis and I began to tell variations of the story, adding characters, exaggerating some scenes for effect, and, to my surprise, the neophyte not only laughed like Rabelais but also contributed very skillfully to the construction and deconstruction of that verbal puzzle, the great game, of which Luis’s verbal synopsis had been only a starting point.
Those stories took place three years prior to the day I’m waiting for Carlos at the Kikos on Avenida Juárez. I wait for him as I read ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore, the intense, truculent, and painful tragedy by John Ford. Of all the works of Elizabethan theatre that I know, including those by Shakespeare, Ford’s tragedy is one of those that most impress me. I began to read it when I arrived at the restaurant, and I’m almost finished when the incestuous brother explodes in anger upon discovering that he’s been betrayed. It’s a literary period that I frequent more and more. I would like to study it in depth, systematize my readings, take notes, and establish the chronology of the period. But the same thing always happens: at the moment of greatest fervor I become sidetracked by other subjects, other periods, and I end up not studying anything in depth. Carlos is always late, but on this occasion he goes too far; it’s possible that he won’t even show. I’m famished; I decide to order the daily special. I eat and continue reading Ford. By the time dessert arrives I reach the end, which leaves me terrified. At that moment Carlos arrives. He’s coming from the Radio Universidad, where he took part, he says, in a taping on science fiction. He orders only a hamburger and a Coke. He places the proofs next to his plate and reads them in a few minutes as he eats. He makes one or two corrections. He then takes out a couple of pages from a book, marks through a few words, adds others, changes the last lines completely. He asks me to go with him to the Excelsior, which is next door, so he can deliver the piece that he just corrected; it will only take a moment. In no time we’ll be at Juan José Arreola’s house to deliver the proofs. Waiting for us there is José Emilio Pacheco, who today will submit his manuscript of La sangre de medusa (The Blood of Medusa), which will also be published in the Cuadernos de Unicornio. La Zaplana, Mexico’s largest bookstore, is located on the ground floor of the building immediately adjacent to the Kikos; we’re unable to resist the temptation to glance at the bookstore’s tables and shelves. Each of us leaves with an immense package under his arm. We’re proud of the rapid growth of our libraries (Monsiváis’s will eventually exceed thirty thousand volumes). We return to the Kikos to ask them to sell us some cardboard boxes because it’s impossible to move through the street or get on a bus with so many books in our hands. While they look for the boxes we drink coffee and examine our finds. During our four-year friendship, our reading lists have expanded and overlapped. We both purchased Conrad by coincidence that day. I pick up Victory and Under Western Eyes, and he picks up Lord Jim, The Outcast of the Islands, and The Secret Agent. We both read an abundance of Anglo-Saxon authors, I prefer English, and he North Americans; but the end result is a mutually beneficial influence. We leaf through our purchases. I talk about Henry James, and he about Melville and Hawthorne; I about Forster, Sterne, and Virginia Woolf, and he about Poe, Twain, and Thoreau. We both admire the intelligent wit of James Thurber, and we declare once more that the language of Borges constitutes the greatest miracle that has happened to our language in this century; he pauses briefly and adds that one of the highest moments in the Castilian language is owed to Casiodoro de Reina and his disciple Cipriano de Valera, and when I ask, confused by the names, “And who are they?” he replies, scandalized, that they are none other than the translators of the Bible. He tells me that he aspires one day to write prose that exhibits the benefit of the countless years he’s devoted to reading biblical texts; I, who am ignorant of them, comment, cowering slightly, that the greatest influence I’ve encountered is that of William Faulkner, and there he checkmates me when he explains that the language of Faulkner, like that of Melville and Hawthorne, is profoundly influenced by the Bible, that they are a non-religious derivation of the Revealed Language. Suddenly, he points out that it’s gotten late, that we have to rush to the Excelsior to deliver his piece. I ask him if it’s “The Idiot Box,” and he immediately changes the subject. “The Idiot Box” is a very acerbic column about television and its effects, which are very disconcerting to Carlos. Television! Who in the hell cares about television! Certainly no one I associate with. We arrive at the editor’s office. The section chief, to whom he must turn in his piece, has gone upstairs to a meeting. He might be back in a half hour. We sit wherever we can. A journalist sitting next to us, talking on the phone, says that things in Mexico are getting worse because of the government’s softness, that it’s giving in more and more to union pressure, that if the authorities do not intervene and eradicate the leprosy, the country will unravel. We continue to talk about books, which implies that literature is the subject to which we constantly return, although frequently interrupted by bursts of commentary of all kinds—cinema, the city, problems that concern us at the moment, the university, our lives, friends, acquaintances, and enemies—until we arrive at that subject which most entertains and amuses us: our novel, to the writing of which we have devoted hundreds of hours of conversation, without ever having written a word. Our novel, we confess, is in some way determined by the parodic humor of the young Waugh. We also know that it is equally determined by the impudence and imagination of La familia Burrón, the comic strip by Gabriel Vargas, and by the daily fireworks of Luis Prieto. Before beginning our work, and to exercise our mind a bit, we make a succinct summary of what is being written in Mexico, the authors worth reading, those it’s better to toss in the trash; those who pass are, of the contemporaries: Gorostiza, Pellicer, Novo, and Villaurrutia; The Labyrinth of Solitude and Freedom under Parole by Octavio Paz, which just came out; Juan José Arreola’s prose and the two superb books by Rulfo. We feel a genuine veneration for Pedro Páramo. We’ve heard very good things about two novels, one recently published, another about to be, but already widely commented on: the first is Balún Canán, by Rosario Castellanos; the other, Where the Air Is Clear, by Carlos Fuentes. And we no longer have time to delve into our parodic novel because an employee approaches to tells Carlos that the section chief is about to leave; to our utter amazement he adds that he’s been in his office for an hour. Carlos jumps up, hastily follows the employee and disappears behind a door. Ten minutes later he returns, calm. He’s almost certain that his piece will appear in tomorrow’s edition.
Night falls. A bus drops us at the corner of the Chapultepec movie house, just a short walk from where Arreola lives. When we arrive, he complains about our delay. José Emilio is about to leave. We convince him to stay awhile. Arreola is also about to leave. He has committed to attending the premier of Pirandello’s Henry IV at Bellas Artes. He assures us that the next day he’ll take the proofs to press. Our Cuadernos will appear very soon. He shows us a few sheets of stunning Dutch paper and gives us a lesson on watermarks. It’s obvious that he’s in a hurry to leave, but he agrees to sit for a moment to chat. He urges Carlos to submit material for a Cuaderno. José Emilio and I mention that he has a magnificent story. In unison we shout: “Fino acero de niebla!” Carlos bursts out laughing, covers his face with a cushion, and then promises vaguely that he’s revising
