Entry #6
Finished Cand. Volt. is a genius, Narrative has just discovered Steam Locomotion. Gave me the Shivers, my heart raced, Reading the book. Even now I remember Lines and images, my nerves on Fire. A Bludgeon, a Lashing—the rage and magic and fury of Words. I fell into a Fever, I read it over and Over again. Many good lines, esp. Martin. I like Martin. Did Cand. pass Manila? Seems trip from Paris to El Dorado, Venezuela, back to Germany via Span. vessel could go Manila galleon route—will trace map. Tio U. angry. My eyes, cost of Kerosene, not good for Health, bla bla bla. I know he is only concerned. His concern breaks my heart, but I ignore it. He put a poultice on my eyes, Threatening. You will go blind, he said. Mabubuta ka, buta. Blind from ecstasy, I thought I would Vomit. But I am already blind, I said! I cannot see at night! Still, Tio U. keeps leaving Books around, as if Forgetful. Looks at me, I think with a Wink. Now, he left Cerv. Cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme. Burn the books of my foolish youth, oh ye of good faith, the noble Gentleman said in delirium. I remember his face bloated by whiplash, tortured by the Span. I remember every day. How many days to heal his burns? How many mornings and nights did we press the oil and herbs on Tio U.’s sick and tortured don quiXote Face? How long did we pray to his indifferent G.? My mind fails at the measures of our fear. I fill with hate. Coños! Then I open up a page—we hauled everything back, every ruined and mauled thing; and it is as if nothing happened, I’m sipping barako and falling in love with a paper girl, Cunegonde. Ms Di-Ganda. Damned son. Damned nephew. I’ll burn in hell.
This Cerv. is funny. Can you believe—113 114 115
113 Entries #5 and #6 are clearly contiguous, but they appear on separate sheets, so I made them separate entries. These sections are faithful to the physical sequence of the papers: but it is I who numbered each separate piece of the manuscript. (Trans. Note)
114 However, on the back of #6 are some crossed-out paragraphs, perhaps a discarded section for another typical school essay, “Mi Familia” (see #9). I append it in its entirety below. One understands why the writer trashed this piece: it presents details just to get them over with, in dull declaratives (“He did . . . he came . . . he was”). He does not seem inspired by the particulars of his father’s life, though I would like to know what happened to his joyous great-uncle Jorge Luis, “el vagamundo de Jaca!”
“Everyone called Papá el genio Jote. His full name: Jorge Raymundo Mata Eibarrazeta. When Papá was born, he had a big head, like Napoleon and also like his great-uncle Jorge Luis, a fiddler and a man of ill fortune. So Papá came out looking unbalanced, brain-heavy, and at first he wasn’t named in case he died. Then they named him after his Papá, the old soldier, and his great-uncle Jorge Luis, a bagpiper from the Basque mountains. Papá grew up handsome, broad-shouldered, and wild. He had a katsila nose—too big for his fine features, much admired. He was generous, impatient, and a good mimic, like his great-uncle Jorge Luis, a clown who stowed away with swine and pineapples on a caravel. Papá had a way with languages. When he went off to Manila, he came home with prizes—for extemporaneous speech, Latin, classical declamations. He was an interpreter, not a creator. (The poems he later gave my mother were other people’s odes, some written by his late great-uncle Jorge Luis, a poete maudit [“un poeta loko-loko” in original—Trans.] and perfumed dandy.) He fell in with a group at the university that dreamed of La Gloriosa, but that was also not original: it was The Liberal Age in Spain. The vogue was to hate the friars: it was only later that hate was necessary. My father, el genio Jote, liked giving speeches. He was good at it. He had a very good memory. Then he got expelled. So much for the liberal age, la gloriosa. God Bless Rey Alfonso! And Rajah Malitic and Lakandula! And my Great-Great-Uncle Jorge Luis, the vagabond of Jaca! At home, my father had nothing better to do but raise a storm. That’s how Papá discovered the holiday plays.” (Trans. Note)
115 Here lies Raymundo’s genius. This biographical nugget is in the wastebasket, not the entry: “if reality is in the seams, where does fantasy abide?” [Mürk, Queries for Ménårdsz at the Analytic Arboretum, Antibes, 1967]. (Dr. Diwata Drake, Vence, France)