Chapter 43
New Telephone Adventures
The character Iseka, who had gone out with another officer that day, was testing the telephone box on a rooftop in the Central Technocracy Monitoring Center.
As was typical, he found, on the cover covering the circuits and around the wall, countless inscriptions from successive telephones, which the elements hadn't been able to erase:
Ferrini is leaving us! Oh, what pain! Don't worry, Ferrini: when you're bedridden, rotting alive with gas gangrene, we've got several little bottles ready to celebrate your release. / I object. I don't want Ferrini to be hated any more, nor for anyone to write against him any more. Because since he's cursed even by Minoloco, the Anti-being doesn't want him in hell for being useless; he's capable of strengthening himself with hate, and maybe he won't die at all. Are you hungry, Ferrini, since the doctor put you on a diet? Eat shit. Don't bother him, he seems really sick. He's bedridden. They say he smells a lot, but I don't think it's any different from what he always had: roses and jasmine. Yes, Ferrini always smelled like a ton of roses and jasmine rotting in a basement. Why don't you ask the doctor to give him a gofio enema? No one wants to visit him? He seems to complain a lot; since he got sick, no one from the office has been to see him. Yes, I'm going to see him at the Velarium. I'm going to spend half my salary on a beer and five bottles of Monitor Triumfante, the joy of it all. And for once in my life, I won't care if my wife pisses me off for being wasteful. He seems worse. What? He's not dead yet? Now, since he can't bother us anymore, he's tormenting the poor nurses. They wanted so much soda, and he just grabbed it. Huh? Very strange in an era of antibiotics. They seem to have no effect on him. But let him die, that's the only thing he needs. There are human beings—if you will—who only justify their existence by the perfect way they die. Case in point: Ferrini. You finally died, you nasally, lousy, filthy bastard. I'm going to the Velarium to stick a carrot in your coffin. How much damage you've done, Ferrini! If only you'd died a year earlier. How happy we are, Ferrini, to no longer have to put up with your pandering and meanness! Now you've gone to scorch the Anti-being. Screw him now that he has to put up with you! Respect for the dead, man. But I wish that old bastard would die every year!
Character Iseka, after reading all of the above, smiled and said nothing. But she did say something else:
----That direct one I had last month with my partner was much more fucked up than this one.
4 A-12 Iseka, singing the second part of the pornographic tango. What an impossible concavity the old woman had.
----Old bastard / all the sorceries that remained unavenged / old bastard / the old mares with their mares / old bastard / how the Sorias swarm in their progression. ---- She interrupted the song and asked: Why? Character Iseka explained:
----And... The vacancy was without a circuit, according to the Testing Desk. I just asked for a plug with a bridge. The crossover took four hours to come out. When he showed up, the guy started calling Puente. "Dude, Puente isn't answering me," he said. "I'm leaving. If he comes out, tell him to wait for me. Bye." And, indeed. He left, and a minute later Puente jumped out. When he found out the crossover had left, he got angry and left too. And I had the microphone in my ear, you know? I'd been on the roof freezing my ass off for five hours now. The crossover came back, and when I told him Puente was angry, he got angry too and started calling him. Finally, they tested me. What a nerve the... I mean: what an impossible cavity. And Puente said, "Do you want to test?" "I want to try cable 14, pair 872," I replied. "872?" "Yes." "Okay. I waited three seconds, and then he said, "That spot's good, man. Who was the idiot who tested you?" "Ferrini." "Ferrini!? But haven't they retired that filthy, gluttonous, son of a bitch, bad friend, and worse coworker yet?" "Well...no." "Busted son of a . . . !" Then he seemed to think for a bit: "But how? Wasn't the swine an installer for Suburbio Sur?" "Yes." "And? Don't tell me they've now transferred him to Grupo T, so he can screw people over at the Test Table, and to we, the poor people of Puente, are going to have to deal with him." "And . . ." "But. And what wrong did we, those of Puente, do to Telefonos Tecnocratas or the Monitor, to have to put up with Ferrini and his meanness, his slimy flattery, etc." "Well, the Monitor probably doesn't know. I'm sure he's not even heard of Ferrini." "And what do I care if he hasn't heard of him!? He has to sign a decree so he dies of hunger, because that's too little. Very little. Almost doing him a favor. No. The premature walling-in. The amontilado for him. The grave and the pendulum for Ferrini. We telephone workers had to go on a seventy-two-hour strike, and if they don't pay attention to us, it would be indefinite; until the Monitor loosens his grip and signs a decree ordering that Ferrini be buried alive immediately, without losing any time. Now. Or if we can, if we can get it, at least deport him to Soria where he'd be with other sons of bitches like him, and where he suffered like a pig for not having any honest, good-natured telephone operator left to make his life miserable with his meanness. Petty. Vile." It was the second time in my life that I heard talk of Ferrini. As the other guy was hurling harangue at him, I started to do the same: "He's a useless mentally paralytic." "Useless? Utterly useless! Ferrini came into the world with a turd under his arm. He opens little bottles full of farts and smells them as if they were essence. Filthy, filthy. He's so filthy he's almost like a soot stain, he's so filthy. Infamous, full of vices, the very undesirable lice." "That's right, that's right. A bad friend and an even worse companion," I said, having read it on a box. "Aaah! That's it! That's it. There you spoke a great truth." "In a Soria." "And of course in a Soria! It insults the honest name Iseka. Instead of being called Carlitos Ferrini Iseka, he should be called Carlitos Chichito Soria. Or Soria, directly. Or no, better not: Ferrini is fine. I'm glad his name is Ferrini so I can hate him better." The guy from Puente was snoring with hatred. Then he continued saying to me: "Why did you call me? Ah, yes! Well: the torque is fine, eh! Go and tell that guy to test you better." Thanks, bye." "Bye," Puente answered me. Then I called Ferrini back to the Testing Table: "Ferrini, Puente told me that the torque was fine." "Yes. Excuse me. The plug was put in wrong. I'm going to test you again. He tried it on and it was fine. "Ferrini." "What, kid?" "Shall I give you the work?" "Okay." "Cable 14, pair 872, which crosses with cable 18, pair 20 . . . Did you write it down, Ferrini?" "Yes." "Well, that's all, old man. Bye." Ferrini: "Wait. Give me the other crossings." I was surprised because it's me who has to call the others offices, as you well know. But Ferrini insisted. He was suspiciously friendly: "Give me the other intersections, I'll cross them. Are we the head or the end?" "Head," "Okay. Give them to me, I'll cross them. Don't worry." "Okay, if you want . . . Write it down: from there it jumps to cable 100 from the Tarkino office, par 708, with cable 3 from the office, par 25-." "Par . . . 25-Segui." "From there it jumps to Petrushka, which is a bitch. Cable 52, par 232, with cable 30, par 119 from the subscriber." "Okay. Great. I'll take care of everything right away, Bye, man." Bye, Ferrini." But it didn't end there, because an installer who was connected to me and had heard everything, said to me when Ferrini hung up: "Be careful with that broke ass, because now he's acting like a good guy because we all hate him. He wants to curry favor with the installers and goes and sucks our socks off. But it's not going to do him any good." "No, definitely." "Not so definitely, definitely, because you were quite happy when he accepted the crosses from you so you wouldn't have to call the Boards. You're playing into his hands. It's a duty to hate Ferrini; he's going to fall like cats, with their paws wide open. He's going to fall on his feet, as usual; only this time it's not going to do him any good. And anyone who defends him will suffer the same thing. You're in bad company; I'm telling you right now, you're headed down the wrong path. You're all grown up now, I suppose, and you know what you're doing." Then I said to him desperately: "But listen! You're wrong. I don't like that guy at all. Not even looking at him. His name alone makes me allergic to him." Yeah? Well, it didn't seem like it, according to what I heard on the microphone, huh? You and he were more like men and women. Like brothers, almost. Like pigs, I'd say." "But no, no. Listen to me, who are you?" "A telephone man just like you, with the one and only difference being that I don't let Ferrini push me around." "Me neither." I don't believe a word he says!" "I hope so." "Look: what am I going to want with him after what he did to me? He stole my wife." Like I told you last time, I was never married. The guy immediately wised up: "Ah, now I realize you're lying to me. Ferrini can't have stolen your wife because he's a whore. Besides, he's no good for breeding or procreating." "But women like whores." "Ah, that could be it. Ferrini, in order to do something evil, is even capable of all kinds of joyful fornications. The woman he has . . . " "What? Didn't you say she's on the other side? And how does he have a wife?" "She has to be a lesbian. They have to cover each other up." "And how do you justify the children Ferrini has?"
I didn't know if the other guy had children. It was mostly to see what he'd say. I insisted: "And his two children?" "Why two children? He has three. But aren't Ferrini's three children his? While he's making juicy extras, his wife is hopelessly butchered by all the male neighbors and members of the animal kingdom. They have their way with Ferrini's wife." "What? Didn't you say she's a lesbian?" "Well, she must be both." "Well, watch out. I'll leave you." "Bye, kid. And listen to me: don't get too close to him because you too could be struck by lightning, because he's about to be struck."
Character Iseka was silent and then continued in a different tone:
----The thing is, I was stuck with that damned direct line all day. There's no worse mess than direct lines.
----Yes,----answered 4 A-12 Iseka----. Something similar happened to me the other day. Everything was fine, I'd tried the pairs on both ends and the work was done. I called the head office to have them tested it, and it wouldn't work. And it wouldn't work... and it wouldn't work... And guess what the hell was going on?
----What the hell was going on?
----The office pair had been faulty, the office pair. It was obvious. They'd call it Office Pairs assignments. It took three hours until I got in touch and it was fixed. But it didn't end there. I tried again, and it turned out that in the meantime, the end pair had been faulty. Call the Assignment Office in the Guadiana area. The Assignment Office lady told me she'd fix it, but she'd have to give me a detour and two subscription runs, because the vacancy was in Lomas de la mierda. She told me: "Lomas de la mierda."
----What a load of rubbish,----criticized Persona Iseka.
----Yes. I froze. But not because I'd said the word "shit," but because the detour was over a hill and it was cold and one of those humid fogs was falling, you know, that are worse than rain. And it had to be done just because it was urgent.
Character Iseka showed solidarity:
----Yes. Sometimes it's as if the direct routes were bewitched.
As soon as I heard this, the other guy changed his expression. He took the microphone away from his ear even though he was waiting for Puente and it could leave at any moment. He put the device on the ground and smiled very strangely.
----Bewitched, you say? Do you believe in witchcraft? I'm asking because now that you've talked about it, I remembered something someone told me recently. I believe in that stuff, you know?
One day, a healer told me about something that had happened to him when he was eleven. He had a friend about the same age as him. Eduardo, I think his name was. And it was very strange, because both he and his mother were covered in scars. The healer, who at that time wasn't a magician or anything, told me that, despite not being in the habit of prying into other people's business, he asked his friend's mother why they both had those scars. He couldn't hold back his curiosity.
----And what did the old woman say?
My friend thought she looked old because she was a kid. But she was a very pretty woman despite her scars, and she was about thirty-five years old. He said to her, "I'm going to tell you, but you have to promise me you won't tell Eduardo." "Okay, okay," said the other. She confided in him that she had been married to a very good man, but that he couldn't read or write. They worked in the fields. "And one day a man came and became my husband's friend," the woman said. "This guy taught him to read and gave him forty books on black magic. After he learned to read, the other guy disappeared and we never saw him again. My husband, who had never held a book in his life, started reading the books on black magic. He worked like a slave to support us, and when he came home, instead of going to bed with me, he read from them. He slept two or three hours a day, he had always rested and eaten well. And he started going crazy. I realized he wasn't the same anymore. "When you're reading, your face changes," I told him, "it becomes evil and hard." My husband got scared. "How strange that you should say that, Teresa. Because when I read, horrible things come to my mind. It occurs to me, for example, that to become a great magician I have to kill you and the boy." "Hey, don't be crazy!" I said, scared. "No, no. You know how much I love the kid and how much I love you. It's not that. I already know I'm not going to do it. But it occurs to me, just like that. And when I read." He spent months reading. He didn't listen to me. I told him to bury the books, but it was as if he were talking to a wall. And then it wasn't just when he was reading: also when he was working or with us, that the idea occurred to him. And it seems that one day when he came back from work he found us both asleep. So asleep that he shook us and couldn't wake us. It was as if something had been ironed on us. And then he tied us up. I don't remember what excuse he told me he came up with for doing it. Then he left the house and went to a workshop that was behind some trees. He never went there, but this time he went. The first thing he saw was a butcher knife, which he rarely used, on the side of a small table. He was sure he hadn't put it there. He grabbed the knife and began to sharpen it on a nearby whetstone. While he was working, he began to sing at the top of his lungs. He shouted so loudly that we woke up. When we found ourselves tied up, we began to cry for help. But who was going to help us in the middle of the field?" The healer told me that possessed people, when they are about to kill or skin someone, sometimes start singing like that. He said it's because we all have something: a double, the "Ka." The "Kade" a good person is not possessed even if the guy is. And since the "Ka" can't speak, he makes the possessed person scream like a demon so that the victim wakes up and can be saved. "My husband----now I also remember what the wife told me----used to sing a very strange thing: "Ji oolgueis ander ubiter, jioueamanirr schki! jamasanirmelarr . . . taraririraruuuu . . . talamanirasoruun carchis. Ji olgueis ander ubider, ubidein . . . " And crazy things like that. After he sharpened the knife, he came up to us in the smoke and began to cut us, me and the boy; not enough to kill us at first: more like cutting us into little pieces.----------But when my husband saw me half naked, all cut and covered in blood, with my tits hanging out, that thing happened to him, you know what? He threw the knife away and got on top. Even though the cuts hurt and I was scared, I liked it when he got on top of me. It was like he'd never done it before, he wanted so badly. And when he finished, it was the biggest thing I'd ever seen. I figured it was like half a liter of guacamole. I'd never known, nor heard other women talk about, a man who could end up like that. As soon as he did it, he suddenly went crazy. With the same knife that was lying around, he cut our ropes. He lifted us both to put us in the sulky and take us to the town hospital. After he left us there, he went back home, grabbed a revolver, and shot himself." The healer confirmed to me that the guy's Ka, to save the victims, diverted the thing and made him have sexual sadism. That's what he said. By mounting her, he freed himself from the possession. That's why he downed half a liter. Because of all the sexual energy he'd had to expend to shake himself off. Because a normal man can't do that.
Character Iseka burst out laughing:
----But do you really believe in all that nonsense?----The other looked at him very strangely. Iseka, without realizing it, continued laughing:
----But those things don't exist! You come to me with witchcraft or nonsense. Don't tell me that this altruistic woman from the party believes in the miraculous cures of Mother Celestina or any nonsense. like that. Ha, ha, ha, ha! . . .
4 A-12 Iseka doesn't answer. He opened his enormous suitcase containing his tools and began to take out a few odds and ends: a small saw for counting rough wood—an unusual device even for a telephone company—a whetstone, pipes, nuts, and bolts. With a pair of pliers, he began to assemble a machine. He took the saw and began sharpening it on the newly prepared device. He not only sharpened the teeth—until they were razor-sharp—but also the opposite side and the blunt tip. He worked until it resembled a sort of sword. Character Iseka looked at all this in bewilderment. At first—when he was using the machine—he didn't understand. But as soon as he began sharpening, he sang at the top of his lungs: "Ji olgueis ander ubisa----monirr laruimonir pasoriuk frasim jaralojolir . . . ", then Iseka began to tune in to the wave. And he was completely in tune when the other began to stab him with the saw, or to cut the air as if the instrument were a two-handed sword. Personally, Iseka was firing all over the rooftop, thinking that this would be the last day of his life. He found a small attached fiber cement roof and jumped over it without touching it, landing two meters below on another rooftop. The madman, in his desperation to reach him, stepped on the fiber cement and sank through it. However, despite the fall and having a broken leg, he continued behind Iseka, hopping on one leg and always with the saw in his hand, and the remarkable thing was that by this method he advanced faster than Iseka, who had not been hurt. The pursued found a ladder and hurriedly went down it, ending up in a chicken coop full of brawls, always with the other one behind him. He left the place despite the commotion of the fighting rooster, which pecked Iseka but not the other one, and passed by an old woman who was hanging some underwear in the yard. The possessed one, even if fifty appetizing old women appeared, did not think of straying from Iseka, his objective and main focus. What happened—and this miraculously saved Persona—was that the other collided head-on with the old woman; with such force that he fainted. Iseka took advantage of the opportunity to cross a very long hallway and go outside. He never again doubted his possessions.
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