On Heroes and Tombs by Ernesto Sabato

  I have nonetheless had relationships with many people. I have had “intimate acquaintances,” as this equivocal expression goes.

  And one of these acquaintances, who plays an important role in what is to follow, was a wizened, taciturn Spaniard named Celestino Iglesias.

  I met him for the first time in an anarchist center in the Avellaneda district called Dawn. I frequented anarchist circles because I had vague plans for organizing a gang of armed bandits, which in fact I did organize later; although not all anarchists were holdup men, among their number one came across all sorts of adventurers, nihilists, and in a word that type of enemy of society that had always attracted me. One of these individuals was Osvaldo R. Podestá, who took part in the holdup of the Banco de San Martín and who during the Spanish Civil War was machine-gunned to death by the Reds, near the port of Tarragona, just as he was about to flee the country on an old tub loaded to the gunwales with money and jewels.

  It was through Podestá that I met Iglesias: as though a wolf had introduced me to a lamb. For Iglesias was one of those tender-hearted anarchists who wouldn’t have harmed a fly: he was a pacifist, a vegetarian (because he was repelled by the thought of living himself at the expense of the death of another living creature), and he cherished the utopian hope that the world would one day be an affectionate community built together by free and fraternal men of good will. This New World would speak a single language, and that language would be Esperanto. For that reason he eventually mastered, with enormous difficulty, the use of this sort of orthopedic device that not only is ugly (which is not an insuperable defect for a universal language) but also is spoken by practically no one (which is catastrophic for a universal language). And so it happened that in laborious letters penned with his tongue sticking out he communicated with one or another of the five hundred or so persons in the rest of the universe who thought as he did.

  A curious fact, but a frequent phenomenon among anarchists: an angelic being such as Iglesias was nonetheless capable of devoting his time and effort to making counterfeit money. The second time I saw him, in fact, was in a basement in the Calle Boedo, where Podestá had all the equipment necessary for this type of work and where Iglesias carried out the secret projects assigned him.

  He was about thirty-five at the time, a thin, very dark-skinned, short, wizened man, like so many Spaniards who appear to have lived on land burned to cinders, eating almost nothing, and dried up by the relentless summer sun and the pitiless cold of winter. He was extremely generous and never had a cent to his name (everything he earned, and the bills that he counterfeited, went to the anarchists or to finance Podestá’s shady undertakings); he was always inviting one or another of the many parasites who hung about anarchist circles to share his one tiny room, and even though he couldn’t have hurt a fly, he had nonetheless spent the greater part of his life behind bars in Spanish and Argentine jails. In somewhat the same way as Norma Pugliese, Iglesias imagined that all the ills of humanity would one day be remedied thanks to a combination of Science and Mutual Knowledge. It was necessary to combat the Dark Forces that for centuries had stood in the way of the ultimate victory of Truth. The March of Ideas, however, could lead only onward and upward, and sooner or later the Dawn was bound to come. Meanwhile it was imperative to combat the organized forces of the State, to denounce the Imposture of the Clergy, to keep a sharp eye on the Army, and to promote the Education of the Worker. Libraries were founded in which the reader could find not only the works of Bakunin or Kropotkin but also Zola’s novels and volumes by Spencer and Darwin, for even the theory of evolution struck these anarchists as being usefully subversive, and a strange link existed between the history of Fish and Marsupials and the Triumph of the New Ideas. On the shelves there was also to be found, naturally, Ostwald’s Energetics, that sort of thermodynamic bible in which God is replaced by a lay entity (though again an incomprehensible one) called Energy, which, like its predecessor, explained and did everything, and had the added advantage of being related to Progress and the Locomotive. The men and women who met each other in these libraries thereupon entered into “free unions” and produced offspring whom they named Light, Freedom, New Era, or Giordano Bruno, offspring who, in most cases, by virtue of that mechanism which sets child against parent, or in other cases thanks merely to the complicated and usually dialectical March of Time, eventually became vulgar bourgeois, strikebreakers, and even, in certain instances, fierce persecutors of the Movement, such as the renowned police commissioner Giordano Bruno Trenti.

  I stopped seeing Iglesias when the Spanish Civil War broke out, for like many others he went to Spain to fight beneath the banner of the FAI, the Iberian Anarchist Federation. In 1938 he crossed the border into France as a refugee, and in that country he no doubt had the opportunity to appreciate the fraternal sentiments of its citizens and the advantages of Proximity and Knowledge over Remoteness and Mutual Ignorance. From France he was eventually able to make his way back to Argentina. And I met him again here in this country several years after the episode in the subway that I have already recounted. I was hand in glove at the time with a gang of counterfeiters, and since we needed an experienced man whom we could trust I thought of Iglesias. I went looking for him, making inquiries among old acquaintances and among the anarchist groups in La Plata and Avellaneda, and finally I located him, working as a typographer in the Kraft Print Works.

  I found he’d changed considerably, above all on account of his limp: he had had his right leg amputated during the war. And he was more dried-up and reserved than ever.

  He hesitated but finally accepted my proposal when I told him that the counterfeit money would be used to aid an anarchist group in Switzerland. It was not at all difficult to convince him of anything once it had to do with the Cause, however utopian the idea might appear to be at first glance; in fact, the more utopian it was the better. He was hopelessly naive: hadn’t he worked for a crook like Podestá? I had hesitated a moment, unable to decide what nationality I should assign these imaginary anarchists, but I finally chose Switzerland since it was such a patent absurdity; to anyone in his right mind believing in Swiss anarchists would be like believing in the existence of rats in a strongbox. The first time I passed through that country I had the impression that it was swept down with a broom from one end to the other every morning by housewives (who of course dumped all the dirt on Italy). And this impression was so striking that I pondered once more the entire question of myths concerning different nationalities. Anecdotes are essentially true, because they are invented bit by bit so as to fit the individual exactly. Something similar happens in the case of national myths, which are made to order to describe the soul of a country, and in this particular instance it occurred to me that the legend of William Tell was a faithful description of the Swiss soul: when the archer’s arrow hit the apple, no doubt square in the center, the Swiss missed their one and only historical opportunity to experience a great national tragedy. What can one expect such a country to produce? A race of watchmakers at best.

  7

  My reader might well ponder the unbelievable number of happenstances that finally led me to enter the universe of the blind: if I had not been in contact with the anarchists, if among those anarchists I had not met a man such as Iglesias, if Iglesias had not been a counterfeiter, if he had not been a victim of that accident that blinded him, if … et cetera. Why go on? Events are fortuitous, or appear to be so, depending on the angle from which we observe reality. If seen from the opposite angle, what reason would there be not to suppose that everything that happens to us obeys final causes? Blind men had been an obsession with me since childhood, and as far back as I can recall I remember that I always had the vague but persistent aim of one day entering their universe. If I had not had Iglesias at my beck and call, I would have thought up some other way, for all my strength of spirit was aimed at achieving this objective. And when we pursue, energetically and systematically, an end that lies within the possibilities of the worl
d in question, when not only the conscious forces of our personality but also the most powerful forces of our subconscious are mobilized, a telepathic field is eventually created round about us that imposes our will on others and even brings about events that to all appearances are fortuitous but in fact are determined by that invisible power of our spirit. On a number of occasions following the failure of my efforts involving the blind man in the subway, it occurred to me that it would be useful to have a sort of intermediary between the two domains, someone who, as a consequence of his having lost his eyesight in an accident, would still, if only for a time, be part of our universe of those able to see and at the same time would already have one foot in the other realm. And who knows? it may well be that that idea, which became more and more of an obsession with each passing day, took possession of my subconscious to the point that it eventually acted, as I have already said, as an invisible yet powerful magnetic field, causing one of the beings who entered it to become the victim of what I most desired at that moment in my life: accidental blindness. Thinking back on the sequence of events at the time that Iglesias was handling those acids, I remember that the explosion was preceded by my entrance into the laboratory and by my being struck by the sudden, almost violent thought that if Iglesias went any closer to the Bunsen burner there would be an explosion. Was this a premonition? I am unable to say. Who knows whether that accident was not in some way the direct consequence of my desire, whether that event that at the time seemed a typical phenomenon of the indifferent material universe was not, on the contrary, a typical phenomenon of the universe in which our darkest obsessions are born and flourish? I myself have no clear idea of what really happened, since at the time I was going through one of those periods in which it required a great effort on my part simply to go on living, in which I felt like the captain of a ship in the eye of a tremendous storm, with the decks being lashed by gales of hurricane force and the hull creaking with the strain, trying my best to remain clearheaded so that everything would stay in its place, calling upon all my strength of will and devoting my entire attention to the harrowing task of keeping on course amid the crashing waves and the darkness. Afterwards I would collapse on my bunk, drained of all power of will and with great holes in my memory, as though my mind had been devastated by the violent storm. It was days before everything returned more or less to normal, and the people and events of my real life gradually appeared or reappeared, looking dreary and sad, battered and gray, as the waters slowly grew calm once again.

  Following such periods, I would return to normal life with vague memories of my past existence. And thus, little by little Iglesias reappeared in my memory, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that I reconstructed the events leading up to the explosion.

  8

  A long process had to take place before I could even so much as glimpse the first results, for as can readily be imagined the intermediate region separating the two worlds is one full of dubious and equivocal facts, fumbling approximations, ambiguities: given the terrible, secret nature of the universe of the blind, it is only natural that no one can penetrate it without having first undergone a series of subtle transformations.

  I studied this process closely and was away from Iglesias only when absolutely necessary: this was my best opportunity to infiltrate the forbidden world of the blind, and I was not about to miss it through some gross error. Hence I tried to spend as much time with him as possible, without at the same time arousing the slightest suspicion on his part. I took care of him, I read Kropotkin to him, I had long talks with him about Mutual Aid, but above all I watched and I waited. I hung a huge sign in my room that I could see from the head of my bed, with the words:

  WATCH

  WAIT

  I said to myself: They are bound to appear sooner or later; there must surely be a moment in the life of a person who has recently gone blind when they come in search of him. But that moment (I also said to myself, in great anxiety) might give no sign of being a very special one; on the contrary, it was quite likely that it would appear to be a trivial or even an everyday occurrence. It was imperative to pay close attention to the least little detail, to keep a sharp eye on anyone and everyone who approached him, however harmless such persons might seem to be at first glance (indeed persons of this sort should be regarded as the most suspect of all), to intercept all letters and telephone calls, et cetera. As can readily be imagined, this program was extremely tiring and well-nigh labyrinthine. Only one detail need be mentioned to give some idea of the anxiety that consumed me in those days. Some other person in the rooming house might well be the intermediary of the sect, an entirely innocent one perhaps; and that individual might see Iglesias at moments when it was impossible for me to keep watch on him; he might even lie in wait for him in the bathroom. In the course of long nights spent pondering the problem in my room, I drew up such detailed plans for keeping Iglesias under constant surveillance that in order to carry them out I would have had to have at my disposal an espionage network as large as that required by an entire country in wartime; with the ever-present risk of counterespionage, since it is a well-known fact that any spy may be a double agent, a risk everyone necessarily runs. After lengthy analyses that nearly drove me mad, I ended up simplifying my plans and limiting myself to what was possible for me to carry out by myself. It was necessary to be thorough and patient, to have courage and at the same time use the slyest and most subtle of approaches: my disastrous experience with the blind peddler of collar stays had taught me that even though it might be easier and quicker, a frontal attack would get me nowhere in the end.

  I have written the word courage; I might also have written anxiety. For I was tormented by the suspicion that the Sect might well have been keeping me under very close surveillance ever since that episode with the peddler. And it seemed to me that there was no such thing as being too cautious. I shall cite an example. As I sat in a café on the Calle Paso, ostensibly reading the newspaper, I raised my eyes all of a sudden, with the swiftness of a lightning bolt, so as to try to catch Juanito the waiter unawares and spy any sort of suspicious sign that might betray him, a certain indefinable gleam in his eye, a blush. Then I called him over with a wave of my hand. If he had not blushed, I said to him: “Juanito, how come you turned red in the face just now?” He denied, naturally, that he had. But this too was an excellent test: if he denied it without turning red in the face it was more or less proof of his innocence, but if he flushed as he denied it, he bore watching. According to the rules of logic, the fact that he did not turn red when I put my question to him did not constitute incontrovertible proof (and that is why I wrote “more or less proof”) that he was not involved with the Sect or the plot in any way, since a good spy must be above such shortcomings.

  All this may be taken as a typical symptom of my persecution mania, but subsequently events clearly demonstrated that my mistrust and my suspicions were unfortunately not as absurd as a person unaware of my situation might imagine if he were keeping me under observation. Why did I nonetheless dare to venture so dangerously close to the edge of the abyss? Because I counted on the inevitable imperfection of the real world, in which even the spy network and intelligence apparatus of the blind are bound to have their weak spots. I also counted on something that it was only logical to presume was the case: the existence of hatred and antipathies among the blind themselves, as among any other group of mortals. In short, I came to the conclusion that the difficulties that a person who can see might expect to encounter as he explored their universe were scarcely different in kind from those that a British spy might have encountered during the war while working inside the Hitler regime, an extremely well-organized system, certainly, yet for all that one full of weak spots and rancors.

  The problem was nonetheless doubly complicated since, as was only to be expected, Iglesias’s mentality had begun to change, though in fact it was more than (and less than) a question of mentality: it would be more apt to speak of a change of “spec
ies” or of “zoological condition.” As though by virtue of a genetic experiment a human being were to change, slowly but inexorably, into a bat or a lizard, and what is even more horrible still, with practically no outward sign whatsoever that would betray such a profound inner change. Being alone in a dark, closed room at night, knowing that there is also a bat in it somewhere is always frightening, especially when we can hear this sort of winged rat flitting about and then suddenly experience an intolerable sensation: one of its wings has brushed against our face in its nasty silent flight. But how much more horrendous this sensation can be if the animal has a human form! Iglesias was the victim of such subtle changes that another person might not even have noticed them, but since I had been observing him very closely and systematically, they were quite perceptible to me.

  He became more mistrustful with each passing day. This was only natural: he was not yet a real blind man, possessed of that power to move about in the dark and that acute sense of hearing and touch that the blind have; at the same time he was no longer a man possessed of normal eyesight. I had the impression that he felt lost: he had no real sense of distance, his kinesthetic reactions were impaired, he stumbled about, he would feel clumsily about for a glass in front of him and knock it over. This irritated him, though out of pride he did his best to conceal that fact.

  “Never mind; it doesn’t matter at all, Iglesias,” I would comment, instead of pretending I hadn’t noticed and saying nothing. This made him even more irritated and his movements would thereupon become clumsier still, which was precisely the reaction I had intended to provoke.

  Then I would sit there not saying a word all of a sudden, allowing a total silence to envelop him, so to speak. For a blind man total silence round about him is like what a shadowy abyss separating us from the rest of the world would be for us. He does not know what to expect; all his links with the outside world have been cut off in the darkness that absolute silence is for the blind. He must listen for the slightest sound; danger awaits him on every hand.