Instructions for John Howell
12:31 Jun 29 2007
Times Read: 1,059
This Argentinian writer is very unknown(unfairly) to the Anglo-Saxon world.He belongs to the gallery of the great modern South-American writers.His work is vast and diverse but he excels (in my opinion) in the magic-realism short stories.This short-story here is a strange one and it`s a profound text about theatre and human fears.Enjoy one of the best of his works and please let me know what are your thoughts about it.
Instructions for John Howell
By Julio Cortázar
(To Peter Brook)
Thinking it later - in the street, in a train, crossing fields all that was absurd similarity, but a theater is not more than a pact with the absurd one, its effective and luxurious exercise. To It curls, which one became bored in an autumnal London of weekend and that had entered the Aldwych without watching too much the program, the first act of the piece mainly seemed to him mediocre; the absurd one began in the interval when the gray man approached his armchair and he invited it courteously, with an almost inaudible voice, to that it accompanied it between frames. Without too much surprise it thought that the direction of the theater had to be making a survey, some vague investigation with advertising aims. “If one is an opinion”, it said Curls, “the first act seems to me loose, and the illumination, for example…” The gray man agreed amiably but its hand continued indicating a lateral exit, and Curls understood that it had to rise and to accompany it without being made request. “It had preferred a tea cup”, thought while it lowered steps that they gave to a lateral corridor and was let lead between distracted and annoying. Of blow one almost was in front of a frame that represented a bourgeois library; two men who seemed to become bored greeted it as if its visit been predicted and had even discounted. “Of course you he lends himself admirably”, said upper of both. The other man inclined the head, with an air of dumb. “We do not have long time”, said the high man, “but I will try to explain its paper to him in two words”. It spoke mechanically, almost as if it did without the real presence of Curls and it was limited to fulfill a singsong slogan. “I do not understand”, said Curls giving an one step back. “He is Almost better”, said the high man. “In these cases the analysis is rather a disadvantage; it will see that as soon as is accustomed to the reflectors it will begin to amuse itself. You already know the first act; it already knows, did not like. To anybody it likes. It is from now on that the piece can be put better. It depends, clear.” “Hopefully it improves”, said Curls that it believed to have understood badly, “but in any case already it is time from which it returns me to the room”. Since it had given another one step back did not surprise too much the soft resistance of the gray man, that murmured an excuse without separating. “It would seem that we are not understood”, the high man said, “and is a pity because they hardly lack four minutes for the second act. Him request that listens to me kindly. You are Howell, the husband of Eva. He has already seen that Eva deceives Howell with Michael, and who probably Howell has itself given account although she prefers to shut up for reasons that are not still clear. One does not move, please, is simply a wig.” But the admonition seemed almost useless because the man of gray and the dumb man had taken it from the arms; and a high and skinny girl who had abruptly appeared was wearing him something lukewarm in the head. “You will not want that I put myself to shout and arms a scandal in the theater”, she said Curls trying to dominate the tremor of his voice. The high man shrank of shoulders. “You would not do that”, said tiredly. “He would be so little elegant… No, I am sure that it would not do that. In addition the wig perfectly it has left, you you have type of pelirrojo.” Knowing that it did not have to say that, It curls said: “But I am not an actor.” All, until the girl, smiled encouraging it. “Indeed”, the high man said. “You one occurs very well counts of the difference. You are not an actor, you you are Howell. When he leaves to scene, Eva will be in the hall writing a letter to Michael. You will pretend not to realize of which she hides the paper and disguises her confusion. As of that moment he does what wants. The eyeglasses, Ruth.” “ What wants? ”, it said Curls, trying deafly to release his arms while Ruth fit eyeglasses to him with mount of Sea turtle. “Yes, that one is”, it said the high man very lethargically, and Curls had as a suspicion that he was very to repeat the same things every night. Oía the bell being called to the public, and Curls reached to distinguish the movements of the schemers in the scene, changes of lights; Ruth had disappeared of blow. She invaded one more an indignation bitterer than violent, that somehow seemed outside place. “This is a stupid farce”, said trying to get away, “and I come up to them that…” “It moan”, murmured the high man. “Frankly it had thought another thing of you. But since it takes it thus…” A threat was not exactamete, although the three men surrounded it by a way that demanded obedience or the open fight; to He curls seemed to him that a thing had been so absurd or perhaps as false as the other. “Howell enters now”, said the high man, showing the close passage between the frames. “Once he does there what wants, but we would be sorry that…” He said it amiably, without disturbing the sudden silence of the room; the drop curtain was raised with rubbing of velvet, and it surrounded a gust of lukewarm air. “I who you would think it, nevertheless”, the high man added tiredly. “He goes now.” Pushing it without pushing it, the three accompanied it until half by the frames. An violet light blinded to Curls; ahead there was an extension that seemed to him infinite, and to the left it guessed the great cavern, something like a gigantic contained breathing, that that after all was the true world where little by little pecheras white began to stand out and hats or stops perhaps combed. It took a step or two, feeling that the legs did not respond to him, and was on the verge of becoming and to back down to the race when Eva, rising precipitadamente, went ahead and tended a hand to him that seemed to float in the violet light at the end of a very white and long arm. The hand was frozen, and Curls had the impression that a little in hers was irritated. Letting itself take until the center of the scene, it confusedly listened to the explanations of Eva on his headache, the preference by the penumbra and the tranquillity of the library, esperndo to that it shut up to go ahead to proscenio and deci, r in two words, that were swindling them. Pero Eva seemed to hope that it seated in the sofa of as doubtful taste as the argument of the piece and the scenery, and Curls understood that it was impossible, almost grotesco, to follow standing up, while she, tending again the hand to him, reiterated the invitation with a tired smile. From the sofa it distinguished better the first rows of silverplates, as soon as separated of the scene by the light that had been turning of the violet to a yellowish orange, but peculiarly to It curls was easier to him to become towards Eva and to maintain its glance that somehow bound still to that folly, postponing a moment to it plus the only possible decision to less accepting madness and giving themselves to the maneuvers. “The afternoons of this autumn are interminable”, was this Eva looking for white metal box a lost between books and the papers of the low small table, and offering a cigarette to him. Mechanically It curls more and more removed to his lighter, feeling ridiculous with the wig and the eyeglasses; but the slight ritual to ignite cigarettes and to inhale the first whiffs was like a truce, allowed him to seat more comfortably, relaxing the unbearable tension of the body that was known watched after you cold invisible constellations. Oía their answers to the phrases of Eva, the words seemed to provoke an a others with a minimum effort, without it was being spoken don't mention it in concret; a dialogue of castle of naipes in which Eva was putting the walls of the fragile building, and Curls without effort put in its own letters and the castle was raised under the orange light until when finishing a tedious explanation that included the name of Michael (“Already has seen that Eva deceives Howell with Michael”) and other names and other places, a tea which had attended the mother of Michael ( or was the mother of Eva) and an anxious justification and almost on the brink of madness the tears, with a movement of anxious hope Eva inclined towards Curls as if it wanted to embrace it or hoped that it took it in the arms, and exactly after the last word said with a voice clarísima, next to the ear of Curls murmured: “You do not leave kill to me”, and without transition it returned to its professional voice to complain the solitude and the abandonment. They struck in the door of the bottom and Eva bit the lips as if she had wanted to add something more (but that was happened to him to Curls, too much confused to react in time), and put itself standing up to give the welcome to Michael who arrived with fatua smile that already had hoisted unbearably in the first act. A lady dressed red, a old one: suddenly the scene filled with people who changed greetings, flowers and the news. Rice narrowed the hands that tended to him and returned to seat as rapidly as possible in the sofa, shielding itself behind another cigarette; now the action seemed to do without him and the public received with murmurs satisfied a series with shining games of words of Michael and the character actors, while Eva took care of the tea and gave instructions to the servant. Perhaps outside the moment for approaching the mouth of the scene, for dropping the cigarette and for squashing it with the foot, in time to announce: “Respectable public…” But perhaps outside more elegant (you do not leave kill to me) to wait for the fall of the then drop curtain and, going ahead quickly, to reveal the fraud. In all that he had like a ceremonial side that was not laborious to accept; to the delay of his hour, He curls entered the dialogue that to him the old horseman proposed, accepted the tea cup that Eva offered to him without watching it front, as if she knew herself observed by Michael and the lady of red. Everything was in resisting, in making in front at the same time interminably tense, to be stronger than the clumsy coalition that it tried to turn it pelele. Already it was easy to warn to him how the phrases that directed to him (sometimes Michael, sometimes the lady of red, almost never Eva, now) took implicit the answer; that pelele answered the foreseeable thing, the piece could continue. Rice thought that of to have had a little more time to dominate the situation, it had been amused to answer contrapelo and to put in difficulties the actors; but they would not allow it, its false freedom of action did not allow more than the riotous rebellion, the scandal. You do not leave kill to me, was this Eva; , somehow as absurd as the rest, It curls continued feeling that was better to hope. The drop curtain fell on a sentenciosa and bitter retort of the lady of red, and the actors seemed to him to Curls like figures that suddenly lower an invisible step: diminished, indifferent (Michael shrank of shoulders, giving the back and going away by the forum), they left the scene without watching itself among them, but He curls noticed that Eva turned the head towards him while the red lady of and the old one amiably took it of the arm towards the frames of the right. He thought about following it, he had a vague hope of dressing room and private conversation. “Magnificent”, the high man said, slapping the shoulder to him. “Very either, really you have done it very or.” He indicated towards the drop curtain that let pass the last applause. “They have liked truely. We are going to take a drink.” The other two men were something more far, smiling amiably, and Curls stopped to follow Eva. The high man opened a door at the end of the first corridor and entered a small room where there were weakened armchairs, a closet, a whiskey bottle already begun and most beautiful carved crystal glasses. “You have done It very well”, insisted the high man while they seated around Curls. “With a little ice truth? Of course, anyone would have the dry throat.” The gray man went ahead to the refusal of Curls and he reached an almost full glass to him. “The third act is more difficult but simultaneously more entertained for Howell”, the high man said. “He has already seen how they are discovered the games.” He began to explain the plot, agilely and without vacillating. “In certain way you are complicated the things”, said. “I never imagined that it would come so passively with its woman; I had reacted of another way.” “ How? ”, he asked dryly Curls. “Ah, dear friend, is not right to ask that. My opinion could alter its own decisions, since you have to already have a preconceived plan. Or no? As It curls shut up, it added: “If I say to him that is indeed because it is not to have preconceived plans. All we are too much satisfied to risk to us to spoil the rest.” Rice drank a long whiskey drink. “Nevertheless, in the second act you said to me that she could do what wanted”, observed. The gray man lay down to laugh, but the high man watched it and the other made a fast gesture of excuse. “There is a margin for the adventure or the chance, as you want”, said the high man. “From now on him request that relies on which I am going to indicate to him, is understood that within the Maxima freedom in the details.” Being the right openhanded with the palm upwards, it watched it fixedly while the index of the other hand was going to lean time and time again in her. Between two drinks (they had filled again the glass to him) It curls listened to the instructions for John Howell. Sharp by the alcohol and by which it was like a slow one to return itself ago that was it filling of one cold rage, discovered without effort the sense of the instructions, the preparation of the plot that had to make crisis in the last act. “I hope that it is clear”, the high man said, with a circular movement of the finger in the palm of the hand. “It is very clear”, said Curls rising, “but in addition I would like to know if in the fourth act…” “We avoid the confusions, dear friend”, said the high man. “In the next interval we will return on the subject, but now I suggest to him is concentrated exclusively in the third act. Ah, the street suit, please.” Rice felt that the dumb man unbuttoned the jacket to him; the gray man had removed from the closet a suit of tweed and gloves; mechanically He curls changed of clothes under the approving glances of the three. The high man had opened the door and hoped; to the distant spot oía the bell. “This damn wig gives heat”, thought me Curls finishing the whiskey of a single drink. Almost immediately one was between new frames, without being against to the amiable pressure of a hand in the elbow. “Still not”, the high man said, more back. “He remembers that he makes fresh in the park. Perhaps if the neck of the jacket rose… We go, it is his entrance.” From a bank on the brink of madness the footpath Michael went ahead towards him, greeting it with a joke. It was called on to respond and to discuss to the merits of the autumn in Regent's Park to him passively, until the arrival of Eva and the lady of red whom they would be giving to eat the swans. For the first time - and him it surprised it almost as much as to other Rice it loaded the accent in a reference that the public seemed to appreciate and that he forced Michael to put itself to the defensive, forcing it to use the most visible resources of the office to encontar an exit; giving abruptly the back him while cigarette ignited uun, as if it wanted to protect itself of the wind, Curls it watched over the eyeglasses and it saw the three men between the frames, the arm of the high man who did a gesture to him conminatorio (he had to be a little drunk and in addition the arm was amused, being shaken him towards an extraordinary grace) before becoming and supporting a hand in the shoulder of Michael. “Regocijantes things in the parks are seen”, said Curls. “I really do not understand that it is possible to be lost the time with swans or lovers when one is in a London park.” The public laughed more than Michael, excessively interested in the arrival of Eva and the lady of red. If to vacillate He curls continued marching against the current, violating little by little the instructions in a ferocious and absurd fencing against the most capable actors who made an effort to make it return sometimes to their paper and obtained, but he escaped to somehow help to them again Eva, if to know well so that but saying itself (and he gave laughter him, and he had to be the whiskey) who everything what changed then would alter inevitably the last act (you do not leave kill to me). And the others had realized their intention because it was enough to watch after on the eyeglasses towards the frames of the left seeing the iracundos gestures of the high man, outside and within the scene it and Eva were fighting against, they interposed so that they could not communicate, so that she did not reach to say nothing to him, and now arrived the followed old horseman from a dismal driver, had as a little while of calm (He curls remembered the instructions: pause, soon conversation on purchase of actions, then phrase revealing of lady of red, and drop curtain), and in that interval in which obligadamente Michael and the lady of red had to separate so that the horseman spoke with Eva and Howell of the stock-exchange maneuver (really he did not lack anything in that piece), the pleasure to spoil a little plus the action filled to Curls of which it was looked like the happiness. With a gesture that left the deep scorn well clear that to him the dangerous operations inspired, took from the arm to Eva, envolvemente it envolvemente drew for the maneuver of the infuriated and smiling horseman, and walked with her oyendo to his backs a wall of ingenious words that did not concern to him, exclusively invented for the public, and however yes Eva, however a lukewarm breath hardly second against his cheek, the slight murmur of his true voice saying: “Quedate with me until the end”, broken by an instinctive movement, the habit that made respond to the interpellation of the lady of red, dragging Howell so that it received expensive the revealing words in the heat of. Without pause, without the hollow minimum that had needed to be able to change the course that those words gave definitively to which there would be to come later, Curls saw fall the drop curtain. “Stupid idiot”, the lady of red said. “She leaves, Flora”, she ordered the high man, patch to Curls that she smiled satisfied. “Stupid idiot”, the lady of red repeated, taking from the arm to Eva who had bent the head and seemed like absentee. A push showed the way Curls that it felt perfectly happy. “Stupid idiot”, the high man said as well. The pull in the head was almost brutal, but It curls took off he himself the eyeglasses and it tended the high man. “The whiskey was not bad” said. “If it wants to give the instructions me for the last act…” Another push was on the verge of throwing it to the ground and when it was able to straighten itself, with slight nausea, already it was walking to tropezones by an illuminated bad gallery; the high man had disappeared and the other two were narrowed against him; forcing it to advance with the mere pressure of the bodies. There was a door with a night light orange in the stop. “One changes”, said to the gray man reaching to him his suit. Almost without giving time him to put the jacket, they opened the door of a kick, the push removed it to the sidewalk trastabillando, to the cold of a alley that smelled of sweepings. “Children of dog, I am going away to fish one pulmonía”, thought Curls, putting the hands in the pockets. There were lights in the moved away end more of the alley, from where the rumor of the traffic came. In the first corner (the money nor the papers had not cleared him) It curls recognized the entrance of the theater. As nothing prevented that it attended from its armchair the last act, entered the heat of foyer, the smoke and char them of people in the bar; it had left time to drink another whiskey, but it felt incapable to think about anything. A little before the drop curtain was raised reached to ask itself who would in the last play the role of Howell act, and if some other unfortunate poor man would be passing through amiabilities and threats and eyeglasses; but the joke had to finish every night in the same way because immediately it recognized the actor of the first act, that read a letter in its study and it reached it to a Eva pale and dressed gray. “He is scandalous”, commented Curls becoming towards the spectator from the left. ” How is tolerated that they change of actor in half of a piece? “The spectator sighed tired. “No longer he knows himself with these young authors”, said. “Everything is symbol, I suppose.” Rice complied in silverplates it malignantly savoring the murmur of the spectators who did not seem to accept as passively as their neighbor the physical changes of Howell; and nevertheless the theater illusion dominated them almost immediately; the actor was excellent and the action hurried of a way that even surprised Curls, lost in an pleasant indifference. The letter era of Michael, who announced his game of England; Eva read it and she gave back it in silence; one felt that it was crying contenidamente. Quédate with me until the end, was this Eva. You do not leave kill, had said absurdly Eva to me. From the security of it silverplates it was inconceivable that could happen something to him in that scene of pacotilla; everything had been a continuous swindle, one long hour of wigs and painted trees. Of course the infaltable lady of red invaded the melancholic peace of the study where the pardon and the love of Howell was perhaps perceived in their silencios, in their way almost distracted to break the letter and to throw it to the fire. It seemed inevitable that the lady of red insinuated that the game of Michael was a stratagem, and also that Howell gave to understand a scorn him that would not prevent a courteous invitation to take the tea. To She curls vaguely amused the arrival of the servant with the tray; the tea seemed one of the greater resources of the comediógrafo; mainly now that the lady of red maneuvered at some time with a romantic botellita of melodrama while the lights were lowering of a completely inexplicable way in the study of a London lawyer. There was a telephone call that Howell took care of with perfect composure (the fall of the actions or any other necessary crisis for the outcome was foreseeable); the cups happened of hand in hand with the pertinent smiles, the good previous tone to the catastrophes. To the gesture of Howell at the moment Curls seemed to him almost inconvenient at which Eva approached the lips the cup, their abrupt movement and the tea spilling itself on the gray dress. Eva was immovable, almost ridiculous; in that instantaneous halting of the attitudes (It curls had been straightened without knowing so that, and somebody chistaba impatient to its backs), the scandalized exclamación of the lady of red was superposed the slight one chasquido, to the hand of Howell who raised itself to announce something, to Eva who twisted the head watching at the public as if she did not want to believe and later she slid of side until being almost tended in the sofa, in a slow renewal of the movement that Howell seemed to receive and to continue with his abrupt race towards the frames of the right, his flight that Curls did not see because also he ran already by the central corridor without no other spectator had still moved. Lowering by jumps the stairs, he had the tino to give his heel in the wardrobe and to recover the shelter; when he arrived at the door heard the first rumors of the end of the piece, applause and voices in the room; somebody of the theater ran stairs above. It fled towards Kean Street and when happening next to the lateral alley it seemed to see a bulk to him that advanced patch to the wall; the door by where they had expelled it was half-closed, but It curls had not finished registering those images when already it ran by the illuminated street and instead of moving away of the zone of the theater it lowered again by Kingsway, anticipating that to anybody would be happened to look for it cel close to him theater. It entered the Strand (the neck of the shelter had risen and walked quickly, with the hands in the pockets) until losing itself with a lightening that he himself did not explain itself in the vague region of the internal side streets that were born in Chancery Lane. Leaning against a wall (jadeaba a little and felt that the sweat stuck the shirt to him to the skin) it ignited a cigarette and it was asked for the first time explicitly, using all the necessary words, so that it was fleeing. The steps that approached interposed between him and the answer that it looked for; while it ran thought that if managed cross a river (already this near the bridge of Blackfriars) would feel out of danger. One took refuge in a vestibule, far from the light that illuminated the exit towards Watergate. Something burned the mouth to him, took of a pull the butt that had forgotten; and it felt that it tore the lips to him. In the silence that surrounded it tried to repeat the questions nonanswered, but ironically the idea that interposed to him it would only be out of danger if reached cross a river. He was illogical, the steps also could follow it by the bridge; by any side street of the other border; and nevertheless it chose the bridge, it ran in favor of a wind that helped to leave it back the river and to lose himself in a labyrinth that did not know until arriving at a zone badly illuminated; the third stop at night in a deep and narrow impasse finally put it as opposed to the only important question, and Curls included/understood that he was incapable to find the answer. You do not leave kill to me, there was this Eva, and he had done possible, the clumsy thing and miserably, but the same they had killed it, at least in the piece they had killed it and he had to flee because he could not be that the piece finished thus, that the tea cup turned upside down inoffensively on the dress of Eva and nevertheless Eva slipped until being tended in the sofa; it had happened another thing without it was there for preventing it, quédate with me until the end, him had suplicado Eva, but they had thrown it of the theater, they had separated it from which it had to happen and that he, stupidly unstalado in his silverplates, had contemplated without including/understanding or including/understanding it from another region of itself where there was fear and flight and now, sticky like the sweat who ran to him by the belly, the disgust of itself. “But I do not have anything to do”, thought. “And it has not happened anything; it is not possible that things thus happen.” It was repeated aplicadamente; it could not be that they had come to look for it, to propose that folly to him, to threaten it amiably; the steps that approached had to be those of any vagabond, passages without tracks. The man pelirrojo that stopped almost next to him without watching it, and which he took off the eyeglasses with a convulsive gesture to return to ponérselos after rubbing them against the lapel of the jacket, was simply somebody that was looked like Howell, to the actor who had played the role of Howell and had overturned the tea cup on the dress of Eva. “He throws that wig”, he said Curls, “will recognize it anywhere”. “It is not a wig”, he said Howell (Smith or Rogers would be called, already nor remembered the name in the program). “What idiot I am”, he said Curls. It was to imagine that they had had prepared an exact copy of the hair of Howell, as well as the eyeglasses had been an retort of those of Howell. “You did what you could”, said Curls, “I was in silverplates it and I saw; everybody will be able to declare to its favor”. Howell shook, supported in the wall. “He is not that”, said. “What matters, if the same they left with hers.” Rice bent the head; an invincible fatigue oppressed it. “I also tried to save it”, said, “but they did not let to me follow”. Howell watched it rencorosamente. “It always happens the same”, said like being spoken to itself. “He is typical of the fans, they think that they can make it better than others, and in the end he does not serve don't mention it.” The neck of the jacket rose, put the hands in the pockets. Rice had wanted to prreguntar to him: “ So that it happens always the same? And if it is thus, so that we are fleeing” The whistle seemed to engolfar itself in the alley, looking for them. They on a par ran long short while, until stopping in some corner that smelled of petroleum, to suspended river. Behind a battery of fardos they rested a little while; Howell jadeaba as a dog and to Curls him acalambraba one pantorrilla. Rubbed it, leaning in the fardos, staying with difficulty on a single foot. Perhaps “But he is not so serious”, murmured. “You said that always it happened the same.” Howell put a hand to him in the mouth; two whistles were heard alternadamente. “Each one by its side” said Howell. “Perhaps one of both can escape.” Rice included/understood that it was right but had wanted that Howell answered to him first. It took it from an arm, attracting it with all its force. “You do not let to me go thus”, suplicó. “I cannot continue always fleeing, without knowing.” It felt the tarred scent of the fardos, its hand like hollow in the air. Steps ran moving away; Rice was crouched, taking impulse, and started off in the opposite direction. The light of a light it saw a name any: Rose Alley. Beyond it was the river, some bridge. Bridges nor streets did not need by where to run.
All the fires the fire, Colombia, Publishing Group Noerma, 1991
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