Statue of Salvador Garmendia in downtown Caracas
I came across this wonderful tale by Salvador Garmendia, translated into clear, accessible English by Jeremy Munday, in The Vintage Book of Latin American Stories, edited by Carlos Fuentes and Julio Ortega—a story that is a fascinating blend of psychological obsession and dark humor that deserves its own review.
THE MELANCHOLIC PEDESTRIAN
"It's ten years ago today that I started to write my novel. In all this time, working day after day, I have managed to amass 970 pages of tiny handwriting, but I still have to admit that up till now I hadn't really begun."
So reflects our unnamed narrator, a middle-aged bachelor living in a comfortable apartment in Caracas, Venezuela, freed from the need to work thanks to a modest income—just enough to cover the needs of a single man.
For ease of reference, I'll call our novelist-wannabe Ignacio. And Ignacio tells us that ten years ago, he decided to write a novel, no matter how long it took, since, after all, he didn’t have anything else to do. As for what type of novel he would write, the decision was easy: he’d write a detective novel, as he found no other genre particularly appealing, and a detective novel, so Ignacio reasoned, was the only kind guaranteed to truly capture the reading public’s interest.
Then comes one of the more fascinating bits of Salvador Garmendia’s tale: every day for the past ten years, Ignacio has pictured himself “sitting at my table churning out pages, while a whole crowd of faces and indeterminate figures (so many over all these years I would not be able to properly describe any of them) sat and waited, completely motionless, for the final outcome of my work. In ten long years since, I haven't had to recount a single desertion, a single casualty: none of them has moved from their seat nor have I stopped writing page after page.”
If anyone reading my review is a novelist, can you imagine sitting at your desk day after day for ten years, all the while picturing yourself surrounded by the exact same crowd of people watching you write your novel? I don't know about you, but this would surely drive me mad.
So, Ignacio will be writing a detective novel. Now, as he sees it, his novel will follow the tried-and-true formula. There must be a crime—the more perfect, the better—and, equally important, a victim of a brutal murder that occurs within the first few pages. Lastly, of course, his novel will feature an incredibly intelligent and perceptive detective who solves the case.
And who will Ignacio base his savvy sleuthhound on? Why, himself! The logic he employs to justify this approach is flawless—convenience, pure and simple. As he tells us, “in all likelihood, it was going to be much easier for a completely inexperienced writer like myself to take note of my own habits, gestures, and thoughts than to invent as I went along the peculiarities of a character created out of my imagination.”
The next step: find someone to serve as the novel’s victim. To this end, Ignacio ventured forth from his apartment every day, pretending he was the detective. As was his daily habit, Ignacio the detective sat in a neighborhood park. Then, one day, it happened—he spotted his victim! "I sensed within her whole being, the very first time I clapped eyes on her, a feeling of innocent predestiny that was alive and touched by a certain tenderness. She tripped along with quick little steps, had a delicate figure of fine, nervous little bones, faded-mahogany hair with a lot of white, a fragile and lily-white neck. As for her age, she must have been in her sixties."
Ignacio begins writing, recounting his encounter in the park. Then, the very next day, when the woman reappears at the same hour, Ignacio follows her down the street until, after a few blocks, she enters an Adventist's chapel. Ignacio listens to a harmonium playing along with high-pitched voices. Turns out, this woman is the chapel organist, which according to Ignacio, “seemed the most appropriate occupation for her role as angelic victim.”
Maintaining his role as detective, Ignacio follows her back, first stopping at a butcher shop, then past the park, and finally into her apartment building. To his shock, our gumshoe-novelist discovers this little sixty-something lady lives in the apartment directly below his. Along with hours at his writing table, spying on his neighbor became Ignacio's prime occupation.
Ignacio reflects back on his ten years of novel writing and makes the following curious observation: “Today I am able to state, and this is in full possession of the facts, that the human eye is poisoned without us noticing, a poison that manages to subtly penetrate what we look at. I cannot find any other explanation for the fact that certain little things in the victim's conduct should have seemed so suspicious, as if she, consciously playing a part in the game, had been leaving little signs behind her (directed only at her pursuer), uncertain clues which would lead me to the revelation of some surprising form of depravity, of secret cruelty or deceit.”
At this point, the story takes a few weird twists. Ignacio recounts a bus trip where he musters up the courage and takes a seat next to his novel's victim. Actually, as we as readers soon learn, the little lady is not only the novel's victim but becomes Ignacio's victim. And we are left wondering if his 970 pages of tiny handwriting isn't so much a detective novel as a work of autofiction written by a man who has, as they say, gone off the deep end.
Salvador Garmendia beautifully mixes comedy with tragedy and has created one of the most memorable short stories I have ever encountered.
Venezuelan author Salvador Garmendia, 1928-2001
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