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Muchedumbre (Parte II)
de Mauricio Montiel Figueiras
Continuado de Corpse Cyber #4
Crowd (Part II)
translation by Jen Hofer
Continued from CyberCorpse #4

-Tarde otra vez, –eh? Conoce la sanción para los malditos holgazanes, –eh?, y no le importa. No los entiendo, en serio que no los entiendo para nada. Andando, andando, que no pagamos por holgazanerías, –eh?
     La voz del señor Kane resuena con la gravedad de un latigazo en la penumbra del corredor, interrumpida a intervalos escrupulosamente medidos por lámparas de cuarenta watts. Sacudiéndose la nieve del abrigo y el sombrero, Abel echa a andar con paso nervioso por el pasillo; teme que alguien note la mancha de sangre que descubrió en la pernera izquierda del pantalón en el trayecto a la oficina y que ni siquiera la punta de un pañuelo mojada de saliva ha podido borrar por completo. –De dónde, se pregunta desde que hizo el hallazgo, proviene la mancha, ese mínimo cuerpo del delito? –Habrá pisado sin querer uno de los lunares rojos que segaban la blancura de la plaza; se habrá recargado en él un hombre con el rostro vuelto un garabato? En su memoria aún reverberan gritos y sirenas, acordes de Kurt Weill, trozos de un discurso enardecido, la armonía de las porras al morder la carne. Aún perviven, tras sus ojos, facciones deformadas por la angustia, boinas y pancartas caídas como monedas y billetes fuera de circulación, un zapato infantil, una melena escarlata; pero por más que lo intenta no consigue dar con el origen de ese pequeño emblema de la muchedumbre adherido a su ropa, a su espíritu, mientras avanza hacia el tótem checador y el señor Kane extrae del bolsillo de su chaleco un reloj de leontina que fulgura entre las sombras como una llamarada desprendida del incendio de su pelo, aplacado apenas por una capa de goma. En mañanas como ésta, cuando el invierno es más que nunca un estado de ánimo, cuando el corazón amanece convertido en un yermo donde silba un aire gris, las dos figuras que acechan al fondo del pasillo pueden ser intercambiables; nadie lograría precisar en dónde empieza el reloj checador y dónde termina el señor Kane, a cuál de los dos pertenece el minutero que abole el tiempo externo e instaura el secreto equilibrio de la empresa, de quién es la mirada que pone a funcionar los engranes de la rutina. A veces, cuando como ahora el supervisor pelirrojo extrae del bolsillo su reloj, hombre y artefacto se funden en un solo monolito que abre las fauces para recibir su diaria dosis de tarjetas.
     -Hora y media, –eh?, hora y media de retraso. Y usted tan fresco, –eh?, tan tranquilo. Apúrese, es el último en llegar. Acuérdese, –eh?, que los últimos siempre serán los primeros sancionados.
     Abel asiente, aspira hondo, aprieta el paso y vuelve a sacudirse abrigo y sombrero, todo en un mismo impulso mecánico que en otras circunstancias lo haría trastabillar. No obstante, impelido por la estampa de la plaza y los tropezones en la nieve -hay un zapato infantil que relampaguea, negro contra blanco, en el recuerdo-, logra controlar sus miembros y avanzar hasta el reloj checador; del ciclópeo casillero que cuelga en la pared extrae su tarjeta y la inserta en el hocico del tótem, que la deglute y expele con un crujido. Al devolverla a la casilla que le corresponde, Abel es asaltado por una idea recurrente: los empleados de la empresa no son más que trozos de cartón que cada mañana, alineados contra un muro que algo tiene de paredón militar, deben ser marcados para cumplir una atávica condena. –Cuántas veces, de pie ante el único baño del piso donde trabaja, aguardando su turno junto a una docena de vejigas rebosantes, no ha imaginado que al verse en el espejo encima del lavabo notará, un tanto desvaída en medio de la frente, la huella de tres dígitos oscuros? –Cuántas veces no ha levantado la vista de la libreta de contabilidad que al término de la jornada debe guardarse bajo llave y creído distinguir, impresas en las sienes de sus compañeros, las distintas horas de llegada: 7:45, 7:48, 7:51, 7:54, 7:57, 8:00? –Cuántas veces, aunada al destello de los dedos de su madre empeñados en una labor de costura, no lo ha sorprendido la lejana referencia a la tradición del miércoles de ceniza; cuántas veces no ha tenido la certidumbre de que lo que en realidad se vive en la oficina es un remedo de la cuaresma, de que el almuerzo -un café, un sandwich- es otra forma de ayuno dictada por una entidad omnímoda? Algo, reflexiona, hay de destierro en las jornadas laborales, en la aceptación de una individualidad reducida a una penitencia de cartón. –Dónde está el redentor que en plena cuarentena atenderá el llamado de la multitud allá abajo, allá afuera, en la ciudad de las riquezas hechas nieve?
     El carraspeo del señor Kane lo arroja nuevamente a un mundo regido por un minutero implacable y, desde hace poco tiempo, por una culpa grabada en la pernera izquierda del pantalón. Abel arriesga una excusa y se interna en el pasillo que, por el simétrico acomodo de luz y sombra, lo hace pensar día con día en la primera hilera de un tablero en que se juega un ajedrez siempre inconcluso. El ascensor, como es costumbre, está fuera de servicio, lo que le provoca una inquietud momentánea; si alguien se lo preguntara no podría decir cuándo fue la última vez que lo utilizó, o si de hecho lo ha utilizado en sus diez años en la empresa. Más aún: no podría asegurar que sabe de alguien que se haya subido en él. Al reanudar la caminata, sin embargo, mientras sus pasos restallan en el vacío del corredor y las bombillas parpadean, le viene a la memoria la encorvada figura del señor F., auténtico prototipo de la diligencia fallecido casi un año atrás.
     El señor F., conocido así porque hasta el señor Kane ignoraba su nombre verdadero, había conquistado cierta fama por ser el más veterano de los contadores; él mismo, recuerda Abel, en las escasas conversaciones que sostenía con el resto de los empleados, era incapaz de fijar su antigüedad en la empresa. Su muerte trastornó a todos; un conserje lo encontró una mañana en el estrecho cubículo atestado de papeles que la mesa directiva le había otorgado como recompensa a su constancia: derrumbado sobre el escritorio, la cabeza hundida en una enorme libreta de contabilidad, la mitad del rostro manchada de números azules, un estambre sanguinolento colgándole de la nariz. Se habló de derrame cerebral, del pecado de impuntualidad cometido el día anterior por primera vez en sabría Dios cuántos años, de la firmeza del señor Kane al aplicar la sanción diseñada para los malditos holgazanes y de una cantidad tan anómala como la humillación, que nunca tendría cabida en una mente habituada a las cifras exactas. La empresa organizó una ceremonia luctuosa en el doceavo piso del edificio, reservado a las oficinas ejecutivas; a través de una bocina colocada sobre un podio, el director -para muchos no más que unos ojillos penetrantes al fondo de un retrato colgado en sitios estratégicos, junto a reproducciones de cuadros de un tal Edward Hopper- dio un breve discurso sobre la lealtad salpicado de estática y ráfagas de Kurt Weill. En señal de duelo o de desidia -imposible definirlo-, el cubículo del señor F. quedó desierto dos meses; los que atisbaban a través del cristal de la puerta descubrían, con un sobresalto, el filón museográfico de la empresa: el saco del señor F., su libreta enorme, aun su pluma y su tintero, no habían cambiado de lugar. En una especie de morboso tributo al que contribuía el polvo de cada día, permanecían incólumes en el limbo al que los había condenado la muerte de su dueño. Hasta que de pronto, sin previo aviso, otra figura encorvada acabó con la parálisis: era el señor G., nuevo ganador del premio al contador más veterano, que desde entonces sobrevolaba como un cuervo sus cifras exactas.
     La voz del señor F., apenas un rasguño de tabaco, alcanza a Abel al pie de la escalera que se enrosca hacia las alturas del edificio.
     -El ascensor -había dicho el anciano días antes de su muerte, dejando caer las palabras como piedras en medio de una plática de empleados-, siempre funciona. Nunca se ha descompuesto. Lo que pasa es que está reservado al director. Sólo él puede usarlo.
     Mientras empieza a subir, aferrándose al barandal, Abel reconstruye aquel momento en el comedor: ve, una vez más, sandwiches a la mitad cubiertos por esa ceniza radiante que desprenden los ventanales a toda hora. Ve empleados boquiabiertos, mandíbulas detenidas en el acto de masticar, miradas de incredulidad concentradas en la figura -en los labios- del señor F. Se oye a sí mismo diciendo: "–Y eso qué? Hablábamos de presupuestos", para luego atender una historia que arranca entre susurros con la reja del ascensor abierta insólitamente una tarde en un piso indeterminado. Imagina de nuevo al anciano asegurándose de que no hay nadie a la vista antes de entrar al cubículo prohibido; lo imagina tragando saliva, cerrando la reja con un estrépito metálico que altera las entrañas de la construcción, apretando un botón, suspirando. Comienza a ver pisos enteros abandonados a su suerte de polvo, humedad y telarañas; ve una silla y una mesa entregadas a la soledad de los objetos que aguardan el regreso de sus propietarios fallecidos; ve un pizarrón donde el gis de los años ha grabado una agenda de trabajo truncada por un incierto conflicto bélico; ve una pila de ropa -zapatos, faldas, sacos, pantalones, corbatas- que ha intentado nutrir a una generación de roedores. Ve las oficinas de una empresa al borde de la quiebra cuyo nombre es un borrón en el directorio de bronce que cuelga en el vestíbulo del edificio; ve a una secretaria que parece fundirse en la decrepitud que la circunda, a un hombre de traje oscuro vencido por el peso de la espera que también doblega al sofá donde está sentado; oye un teléfono que timbra sin parar en la distancia. Lo que no ve, curiosamente, son los despachos de la compañía para la que trabaja: los huecos del ascensor han sido tapiados en todos esos pisos. ("Pero qué absurdo", recuerda haber dicho Abel, "si los huecos existen, si hay un letrero de 'Fuera de servicio', si yo...". "Son falsos", replica el señor F. en un murmullo, "el elevador nunca ha pasado por ahí, nadie lo ha visto".) Lo que sí ve, al terminar la ascensión, es una puerta de caoba entreabierta que ostenta una placa con la palabra "Director" en caracteres blancos. Ve, a través de la rendija que ensancha una corriente de aire, una vastedad alfombrada de carmesí presidida por un escritorio que hace pensar en un islote de madera; escucha, emitida por el hombre de espaldas que colma el sillón tras el escritorio, una serie de gruñidos donde se intuye una rabia dirigida a alguien fuera del campo visual; capta, mientras el sillón gira como por voluntad propia, términos aislados: "huelga", "números rojos", "sanción física", "muchedumbre". Ve, cuando el sillón acaba de girar, al director por primera y única vez: una calvicie que despide el duro fulgor de un puño, un rostro por el que repta -de extremo a extremo- una delgada cicatriz, unos dedos que manipulan un estuche del que extraen una esfera de cristal que destella bajo la lámpara del escritorio antes de ser encajada en el vacío del ojo izquierdo. Justo entonces el director también ve y suelta una orden que se acerca más a un ladrido; justo entonces el señor Kane irrumpe en el campo visual con la mirada desorbitada, las manos extendidas, el pelo vuelto un fuego fuera de control.
     Justo entonces la memoria cierra sus rejas, dejando a Abel en un rellano de la escalera desde donde atiende el lejano zumbido que de cuando en cuando, a lo largo de la jornada, alcanza a los contadores que naufragan en un oleaje numérico. Algunos, los menos, quienes rodeaban al señor F. aquel día en el comedor, lo atribuyen al ascensor, que Abel ha llegado a imaginar como un bolo alimenticio que circula eternamente por un oscuro esófago. Otros, los más, hablan de tuberías ruinosas, de un antiguo sistema de montacargas que sube y baja lápices para los distintos pisos, agudizando el aroma que todo el día invade el olfato como una infección fuera de lugar.
     En efecto: aunque la planta productora de la empresa está en los alrededores de la ciudad, el olor a grafito se ha instalado en las oficinas administrativas. Más de una vez Abel ha pensado que la atmósfera donde trabaja no es sino un dibujo hecho con un lápiz mal afilado, un boceto cuyo fondo es la penumbra que impera en cada esquina, en cada pasillo, como una retícula inconveniente. En ese dibujo los empleados se mueven con la lentitud de figurillas delineadas con carbón; su mano, por ejemplo, ahora que él se halla inmóvil a mitad de la escalera, es apenas un trazo indeciso que roza el pomo de un croquis de puerta. –Qué habrá, se pregunta, del otro lado de esos croquis clausurados en casi cada nivel del dibujo? –Habrá que creer a ciegas el relato del señor F.; habrá que pensar en bosquejos de muebles fantasmales, en el esbozo de una mujer y un hombre doblados por el peso de la espera? –Habrá que imaginar al director como el Sumo Dibujante que cada mañana, dibujado a su vez por un Lápiz Mayor, se encaja un ojo de vidrio para luego perfilar con su mina el destino de sus empleados? –Habrá que ver en el señor Kane a una silueta ubicua que merodea en la periferia del Gran Plano del Día? –Qué habrá al otro lado de ese croquis que no cede a los embates de una mano trazada con pulso tembloroso?
     Abel se apoya en la puerta, sintiendo en la oreja el hormigueo de la madera carcomida por el tiempo. La respuesta del silencio, alterada por una veloz sucesión de rasguños, es elocuente. Nada, dice el silencio, aquí no hay nada, no busques más. Aquí no está la solución al enigma de las multitudes, aquí no hallarás ese encanto. Aquí sólo vive el abandono que el gentío ha dejado en prenda para alimentar a las alimañas. Lárgate, fuera de aquí, sal a la calle. Un zapato infantil a punto de desprenderse de una pila de ropa vieja y una melena escarlata peinada por insectos acompañan a Abel mientras sigue subiendo, piso tras piso, puerta tras puerta, una sombra integrándose a un dibujo arquitectónico. Sus pasos son ideales onomatopeyas de la penumbra: velados, a cada escalón más confusos.

ContinuarÝ...

 "Late again, eh? You know the punishment for those goddam lazy-asses, hm? And it doesn't matter to you. I don't understand you people, I truly don't understand you people at all. Get going, get going, we don't pay you to laze about, eh?"
     Mr. Kane's voice rings out like a whiplash in the gloom of the corridor, which is interrupted at scrupulously-measured intervals by insipid forty-watt bulbs. Dusting the snow off his coat and hat, Abel begins to walk down the hall with a nervous step; he is afraid that someone will notice the bloodstain on the left leg of his trousers, which he discovered on his way to the office, and which he has not been able to erase completely, even with the corner of a handkerchief moistened with saliva. Where, he has asked himself over and over since he made the discovery, did the stain come from, that minute corpus delicti? Could he, without wanting to, have stepped on one of the multiple red blemishes that peppered the whiteness of the plaza; could some man whose face had become a damp scribble have leaned against him for a moment? Shouts and sirens, Kurt Weill chords, fragments of an impassioned discourse, the murky harmony of clubs biting into flesh still reverberate in his memory. Features deformed by anguish, berets and placards fallen like out-of-date coins and bills, a child's shoe, a scarlet mane still persist behind his eyes. For all his attempts, however, he cannot manage to divine the origin of that small emblem of the crowd sticking to his clothes, to his spirit, as he advances towards the totem time-clock and Mr. Kane extracts, from his vest pocket, a watch on a chain which glitters in the shadows like a flame shooting out from the blaze of his hair, barely placated by a layer of pomade. On mornings like this one, when winter is more than ever a frame of mind, when his heart wakes up already turned into a wasteland where a grey air whistles, the two figures lurking at the end of the hallway might be interchangeable; no one can precisely determine where the time-clock ends and Mr. Kane begins, to which of the two belongs the minute hand which abolishes external time and institutes the secret equilibrium of the company, whose is the gaze which sets the gears of routine in motion. At times, like now, when the red-haired supervisor extracts his watch from his pocket, man and object fuse into a single monolith which opens its gullet to receive a daily dose of timecards.
     "An hour and a half, eh? An hour and a half late. And you, so fresh-faced, hm, so calm. Hurry up, you're the last to arrive. Remember, eh, that the last ones to arrive will always be the first to be punished."
     Abel nods, breathes deeply, hurries his step and dusts off his coat and hat once more, all in a single mechanical motion that under other circumstances would make him stumble. Nonetheless, propelled by the image of the plaza and the fatal tramplings in the snow - in his memory a child's shoe flashes like lightning, black against white - he manages to control his limbs and walk slowly towards the time-clock; he extracts his card from the gigantic compartmentalized box hanging on the wall and inserts it into the totem's maw, which swallows and then expels it with a rapid crackling noise. As he returns the card to its corresponding slot, Abel is assaulted by a recurring idea: the company's employees are nothing more than scraps of cardboard which must, each morning, lined up against a wall somewhat reminiscent of the backdrop to a firing squad, be stamped in order to carry out a kind of atavistic sentence. How many times, standing in front of the only bathroom on the floor where he works, waiting his turn together with a dozen other near-bursting bladders, hasn't he imagined that when he sees himself in the mirror above the sink, he will notice, slightly dim in the middle of his forehead, the impression of three dark digits? How many times hasn't he lifted his gaze from the accounting book which at the end of the workday must be locked away and thought that he could distinguish, printed on his colleagues' brows, their various hours of arrival: 7:45, 7:48, 7:51, 7:54, 8:01, 8:07? How many times, mingled in his mind with his mother's flashing fingers as she worked endlessly on her sewing projects, hasn't he been surprised by a distant reference to that Catholic tradition of Ash Wednesday; how many times hasn't he had the certainty that what is actually happening in his office is an opaque mimicry of Lent, that his lunch - a cup of coffee, a sandwich - is another form of fasting dictated by an all-embracing entity? There is something of exile in the workday, he reflects, in the acceptance of an individuality reduced to a cardboard penitence. Where is the redeemer that in forty days' time will attend to the call of the crowd down there, out there, in the city of snowy riches?
     Mr. Kane's clearing his throat plunges him once again into a world governed by an implacable minute hand and, since just a short time ago, by a sense of guilt imprinted on the left leg of his pants. Abel ventures an excuse and slips into the hallway which, with its symmetrical arrangement of light and shadow, makes him think day after day of the first row of a board on which an ever-unfinished game of chess is being played. The elevator, as per usual, is out of service, which causes him a moment of uneasiness; if someone asked him, he could not say when was the last time he used it, or if, in fact, he had ever used it in his ten years with the company. Furthermore, he could not be sure that he even knew of anyone who had ever gone up in it. As he resumes his trek, however, while his steps smack against the emptiness of the corridor and the lightbulbs blink, his mind is flooded with the stooped figure of Mr. F., an authentic prototype of industriousness, who had passed away six months earlier.
     Mr. F., known thus because even Mr. Kane did not know his real name, had won a certain fame for being the most veteran of all the accountants; he himself, Abel remembers, in the scant conversations he had had with the other employees, was unable to fix exactly the number of years he had served with the company - half a century? fifty-two years? fifty-six? His death was disturbing to everyone: a janitor found him one morning in the narrow cubicle crammed with papers which the management had allotted him as a reward for his steadfast work - collapsed on his desk, his head submerged in an enormous accounting book, half his face stained with blue numbers, a bloody thread hanging from his nose. There was talk of a cerebral hemorrhage, of the sin of impunctuality he had committed the day before for the first time in half a century, fifty-two years, fifty-six?, of Mr. Kane's firmness in the moment of inputing the punishment designated for those goddam lazy-asses and of a quantity as anomalous as humiliation, which would never have had any place in a mind accustomed to exact figures. The company organized a memorial ceremony on the twelfth floor of the building, generally reserved for executive offices; through an elderly loudspeaker placed on a podium, the director - for many nothing more than a pair of penetrating eyes in the depths of a portrait, copies of which were hung in strategic spots beside reproductions of paintings by someone named Edward Hopper - gave a brief speech on loyalty, peppered with static and bursts of Kurt Weill. As a sign of grief - or of negligence, it was impossible to define it clearly - Mr. F.'s cubicle remained deserted for two months; those who peeked through the glass door discovered, with a shock, the company's goldmine of a museum: Mr. F.'s suit jacket, his enormous accounting book, even his pen and inkpot, had not moved from their places. In a sort of morbid tribute to which the dust of every passing day contributed, Mr. F.'s things remained untouched in the limbo to which the death of their owner had condemned them. Until suddenly, with no prior notice, another stooped figure brought the paralysis to an end: it was Mr. G., who had recently earned the title of most veteran accountant, and who from that time onward flew above his exact figures like a raven.
     Mr. F.'s voice, barely a tobacco scratch, reaches Abel at the foot of the staircase which spirals up towards the gloomy heights of the building.
     "The elevator," the elderly man had said just days before his death, letting his words fall like stones in the well of silence which suddenly opened in the middle of the employees' talk, "always works. It has never been out of order. The thing is that it is reserved for the director. Only he can use it."
     As he begins to climb, grasping the railing, Abel reconstructs that moment in the cafeteria: he sees, once again, half-eaten sandwiches covered by that radiant ash which shakes down from the large windows at all times. He sees employees with their mouths gaping, their jaws stopped in the act of chewing, incredulous gazes concentrated on the figure - on the lips - of Mr. F. He sees himself, saying "And what does that have to do with anything? We were talking about budgets," only later to catch wind of a story ignited in whispers, of the elevator's grate opening unusually one afternoon on an indeterminate floor. He once again imagines the old man making sure there is no one in sight before entering the prohibited cubicle; he imagines him swallowing saliva, feeling the first palpitations of anxiety, closing the grate with a metallic clamor which alters the very innards of the building, pressing a button, sighing. He begins to see entire floors abandoned to their destiny of dust, damp and silken spiderwebs; he sees a chair and a table given over to the solitude of objects that await the return of their dead proprietors; he sees a chalkboard where the chalk of the years has engraved a work schedule stopped short by some uncertain war; he sees a pile of clothes - shoes, skirts, suit jackets, pants, ties - which has attempted to nourish a generation of rodents. He sees the offices of a company on the brink of bankruptcy whose name is just a smudge on the bronze directory that hangs in the front vestibule of the building; he sees a secretary that seems to melt into the decrepitude of her surroundings, a man in a dark suit defeated by the heaviness of the wait which bows, also, the sofa where he sits; he hears a telephone which rings ceaselessly in the distance. What he does not see, oddly, are the offices of the company where he works: the elevator openings have been walled over on all of those floors. ("But how absurd," Abel remembers saying, "if the openings exist, if there is a sign saying 'Out of Service,' if I..." "They are false," replies Mr. F. in a low murmur. "The elevator has never arrived there, no one has ever seen it.") What he does see, at the end of his ascent, is a mahogany door, slightly ajar, boasting a plaque with the word "Director" in white letters. Through the crack, widened by a small current of air, he sees a vast expanse of crimson carpet, presided over by a desk which recalls a wooden islet; he hears, emanating from the man with his back to him who nearly overflows the armchair behind the desk, a series of growls from which can be intuited a fury directed at someone outside his field of vision; while the armchair turns as if by its own will, he catches isolated terms: "strike," "red numbers," "physical sanction," "crowd." When the chair ceases to turn, he sees the director for the first and only time: a baldness that radiates with the hard brightness of a fist, a face across which - from one extreme to the other - a thin scar slithers, some fingers manipulating a case from which they extract a crystal sphere which flashes beneath the lamp on the desk before being slotted into the empty space of his left eye. Just then, the director also sees, and fires off an order that sounds more like a bark; just then, Mr. Kane bursts into his field of vision with his eyes popping out of his head, his hands extended, his hair become an out-of-control fire.
     Just then, memory closes its grates, leaving Abel on a landing of the staircase from which he perceives the faraway buzz that from time to time, throughout the day, reaches the accountants capsizing in their numerical surf. Some, the few who surrounded Mr. F. that day in the cafeteria, attribute the noise to the elevator, which Abel has come to imagine as a bolus eternally circling a dark esophagus. Others, greater in number, speak of dilapidated pipes, of an ancient lift system that raises and lowers pencils to different floors, sharpening the smell that daily invades their olfactory passages like an infection that doesn't belong there. In effect, though the company's manufacturing plant is on the outskirts of the city, the smell of graphite has taken root in the administrative offices. More than once, Abel has thought that the atmosphere where he works is nothing more than a drawing done with a poorly-sharpened pencil, a sketch whose background is the gloom which rules every corner, every passageway, like an impassable reticulum. In that drawing, the employees move about with the slowness of tiny figures outlined in charcoal; his hand, for example, now that he stands immobile halfway up the staircase, is barely an indecisive line which grazes the handle of a faintly-outlined door. What might there be, he asked himself, on the other side of those closed-off outlines on almost every level of the drawing? Must Mr. F.'s account be blindly believed, is it necessary to think of sketches of phantasmal furniture, of the outline of a woman and a man, bent under the heaviness of waiting? Is it necessary to imagine the director as the Supreme Draftsman who, each morning drawn in turn by a Greater Pencil, sets a glass eye in place so that later he can profile his employees' destiny with his own lead? Must Mr. Kane be seen as a ubiquitous silhouette marauding on the periphery of the Great Map of the Day? What might there be on the other side of those outlines which do not yield to the pressures of a hand traced with a tremulous pulse?
     Abel leans against the door, feeling, beneath his ear, the swarming patterns of wood eaten away by time. The response of the silence, altered by a quick series of scratchings, is eloquent. Nothing, says the silence, there is nothing here, don't search any further. There is no solution here to the enigmas of the crowd, you won't find that charm here. The only thing that lives here is the abandon pawned by the mob, to nourish the predators. Go away, get out of here, go out into the street. A child's shoe about to shake loose from a pile of old clothing and a scarlet mane combed through by insects accompany Abel as he continues climbing, floor after floor, a shadow which forms part of an architectural drawing. His steps are the perfect onomatopoeia of the gloom: dulled, more confused with every stair.

   To be continued...
     

Jen Hofer is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area and currently lives in Mexico City where she is editing and translating an anthology of contemporary poetry by Mexican women, which will be co-published by University of Pittsburgh Press and Ediciones Sin Nombre in 2001. Her translations, essays and poems can be found in recent or shortly forthcoming issues of Explosive, Lipstick Eleven, Rhizome, Skanky Possum, Tripwire and in the a+bend press chapbook "as far as" (order from jilith@aol.com). Her poems and translations have also appeared in issues 3 and 4 of the Cyber Corpse, and at www.durationpress.com.

Email: jenho@mindspring.com

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