would ask the student to say the third note in the scale and then write this down; then the fifth, the first and so on. In the end, without the facilitator having written a single note, a melody existed, written by the student. When it came to instruments, they were taught to play the separate notes or chords and these were recorded. A team of technicians then united them to form a complete song, played by the neophyte. At the end of each course there were exhibitions, dramatized readings, and prerecorded concerts where a new generation of artists were welcomed into the world.
A group of lawyers who believed in the importance of civic unity for eradicating injustice created an organization to help the stray dogs that plagued the streets of Villa Miserias. For a monthly fee, people could adopt a stray from their catalog. The sickly-sweet names beneath the photos would soften even the most hesitant heart. Once the canine had been adopted, the organization took responsibility for bathing and delousing it, administering its vaccinations, and feeding it. As the period of domestication was traumatic for the dog, the adoptive family was not allowed to see it until this had been completed, but they could send it letters and gifts. However, the organization was unwilling to be responsible for outbreaks of violence among the dogs, nor did the owners have time to oversee them. The solution was for the dogs to go on living in the street, receiving food and periodic attention from the association. Once a month, there was a supervised visit in their premises, where the family could meet its new member. The dogs tended to keep their distance; the owners were moved to see the results of the new lease of life they had offered the canines. They would tell it all the family news. Some smuggled in food, in violation of the rules of the organization, which didn’t want to have the dogs sniffing around the premises the whole day. Word got around in the doggy underworld, so that the number of strays went on increasing. They were divided between the fortunate that enjoyed the good life, and those left abandoned to their fate. The organization couldn’t do everything.
A bar called Alison’s also opened and became very popular among the male population of Villa Miserias. They gathered there to yell along with every variety of sporting event, transmitted nonstop, at full volume, on the giant screens covering the walls of the bar. Betting money was prohibited, but clients could make wagers using the trays on which the food and drink were served. The main attraction of Alison’s lay in a squadron of good-looking cheerleaders in civilian clothing who chatted with the clients every night. They were perfectly capable of dealing with unsolicited attentions, but the bald gorillas who acted as bouncers still prowled around them just in case. In addition to good looks, another factor was necessary to be employed there: an exceptional head of alcohol. The auditions were brutal. The girls were required to imbibe a succession of different drinks in a limited time, with television screens on and music blaring, to test their resistance in real life conditions. Every time something occurred worthy of an adrenaline rush—a goal, a hole in one, a spectacular crash, or savage knockout—they had to high-five, bonk heads or chests, and scream euphorically. Very few passed the test. The ones left at the end were invincible.
The procedure was for them to go up to tables for a casual chat; soon afterwards, they ordered a drink for which they immediately paid with money from the bar. They would down this in one, amid laughter and sporting banter. The men, however, couldn’t allow themselves to be left lagging; a new round quickly appeared with drinks for everyone. It was not infrequent for a visit to Alison’s to end in the involuntary use of the bald gorillas’ home-delivery service, even if it meant carrying the client. The only memory he would have of the evening was a photo of his group of friends hugging the good-looking girls. He would count the days until he could go back.
Each year, on the evening of the anniversary of the opening of the bar, only the most assiduous clients were allowed in. The festivities included a long-standing tradition: the table that chucked up most didn’t pay its check. As the clients sometimes missed the bucket provided for the occasion, by the end of the night the floor would be awash with a slippery, pinkish, lumpy slush. The record—three bucketfuls—was held by a group of middle-aged financial executives, who proudly held up their trophies in the photos displayed on the walls of the most paradisiacal bar ever imagined.
14
The reforms signified the commencement of perpetual change. From then onward, there would always be work in progress. Hence the dust. And also the noise. The transformations were like a loose hosepipe spraying water in all directions. To give them some coherence, Selon Perdumes brought in a man capable of measuring everything. G.B.W. Ponce had acquired great renown in the socio-scientific community for a statistical discovery known as the Ponce Scheme. After years of battling with his algorithms—his beaky condor face lost its glow and his hair started to gray—he’d managed to compress thousands of variables into a method he retained for his personal use, in spite of stratospheric offers to share his secret. Inspired by the philosophical notion that history is just an untiring repetition of itself, he proposed to condense the millions of correlations studied into an accurate predictive method: his aim was to quantify the eternal return. If all thought, every impulse or action is contained in the characteristics that define each individual, he could explain real events without having to wait for them to occur.
He investigated innumerable causal relationships, looking for recurring patterns. Beginning with the most obvious categories—social class, nationality, skin color, religion—he managed to corroborate common suppositions. In general terms, people’s thoughts and actions could be blocked out, according to the specific group they belonged to. Ponce concentrated his attention on the remainder, the minuscule deviations within a single group. Why did some millionaires wear denim jeans and jackets? What was the difference between adulterous believers and their chaste counterparts? What did women who lied about their age have in common? Why did hoods indicate a tendency to mindless acts of violence?
He tried out his theory on hundreds of the most elusive variables: the type of music listened to, favorite sexual fetish, being an early morning or night person. Almost all these variables fitted within more general categories, but some stood out for their predictive power. Among people with an average income, those who had had wooden toys were, as a rule, less given to accumulation; those who couldn’t dance salsa had a greater tendency for masochistic relationships. He refined and purified until he arrived at the famous Ponce Questionnaire. Seventy-one questions that summarized the narrative of human behavior. With a margin of error of ±3.14%, it could predict political opinions, consumption patterns, movie preferences, the cost of an engagement ring. Armed with his database, Ponce would consult his cyber-seer and note down the answers. It never failed on the outcome of an election, the sales volume of a new model of car, the numbers of demonstrators at a protest march, or the average abortion figures in a particular stratum of women.
It also worked at an individual level. Once a person had allowed him to take an X-ray of his soul, G.B.W. Ponce was the owner of his future. He knew, with terrifying precision, what that person would think or choose given certain alternatives. On one occasion, a progressive colleague had made a virulent attack on his method—the very idea of its implications deeply alarmed him. Ponce announced a public challenge: the colleague should hand him a sealed envelope containing a document outlining his position on various controversial topics, his normal mode of transport, the number of jackets with elbow patches he had in his closet, and other personal peculiarities. He would then complete the Ponce Questionnaire. The computer crunched the data and came up with the right answer on subjects such as his views on homosexuals being able to enlist in the army, the hours of television he allowed his children to watch, whether or not he believed in personal pensions, and his favorite cruise route. The humiliated professor retired in silence. Ponce’s flamethrower had melted his waxen autonomy.
Each fresh success gave him greater confidence. He was to be found in the most venerable seats of learning, giving presentations to packed lecture theaters, always dressed in the same way: red canvas tennis shoes, slightly torn jeans, and a white shirt, plus his indispensable dark glasses. He enjoyed seeing the effects of his provocations. Once, he turned up at an ultraconservative university disguised as a robot. He explained to the audience he was going to demonstrate that the only God they should worship was the automaton each and every
