Read Online The Musical Brain: And Other Stories by César Aira - Free Book Online
Authors: César Aira
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geographies, and epochs, and can even encompass night and day, since the
little flying hen was also flying like a bat and, given the inherent ambiguity of
all chunky forms, might in this case have been taken for one, except that a bat
would have been completely out of place in the hands of candor incarnate. And
speaking of candor, the color of the paper napkins conspired against that
interpretation too: their white was irreversible. In any case, all that flying and
the erratic pressure of the child’s little pink fingers proved to be utterly
destructive: the hen’s round body became a pyramid in ruins, the proud triangles of
the tail were soon all askew, and by the time the junior test pilot remembered to
show it to her mother (a ceremony to which she seemed to attribute the gravity of a
certification), it was already in tatters. But obviously no one minded, and they
wanted to go on indulging her. Two girls who were having a lively conversation and
had not appeared, up till then, to be paying attention to what was going on, waved
something white, which, like a red rag to a bull, brought the interested party
rushing over: it was a clown made by ingeniously folding a small paper napkin.
Presumably, then, they had been inattentive to the girl’s forays because they were
attending to the little work in progress. And it was a remarkable work, superior in
quality to what had been produced so far: the clown had a round hat, a
disproportionate protuberance to represent his rubber nose in the middle of the
paper circle that was his face, a tail coat, baggy pants and the classic shoes that
reach all the way to next door. To judge from appearances, neither the girl who was
now handing the clown to its eager recipient nor her companion would have seemed
capable of such an exploit: they looked like airheads, good for nothing but idle
chatter (which is what they had seemed to be engaged in, at least for those out of
earshot). The only explanation that bridged the gap was that they were kindergarten
teachers, or one of them was, and her training must have included an obligatory or
optional unit on making paper figures. A clown! Every child’s best friend, who keeps
his little charges company even when they close their eyes, tucked into bed, and
never forsakes them, not even in their worst nightmares; on the contrary, that’s
where he takes the lead role, in order to prevent others—monsters, for
example—from stepping in. This inoffensive little clown, made of paper so
fragile a gaze could tear it, had been marked somehow by his contact with monsters
in the world of dreams. But how? The trace was perceived subliminally, and in no
other way, because the co ntinual movements of the clown’s possessor—her dashes
and sudden displays—prevented any detailed observation. It was, in fact, a
stain: the paper clown’s white was not immaculate like that of the earlier figures.
Not a very noticeable stain, just a dirty brown smudge, of indeterminate shape,
which, because of the folding, appeared on various separate parts of the body.
Coffee, from the lips of one of the girls. So they must have folded a used napkin.
That was strange. Given a choice, why pick faulty materials for a delicate and
difficult piece of work? Maybe they had started folding just to see (could it be
done with this sort of paper and a sheet of this size?), using the first napkin that
came to hand, and by the time they realized it was possible, the work was so far
advanced that it wasn’t worth getting a new napkin and starting all over again. If
they really were kindergarten teachers, as it seemed from the general impression
they gave—the loud voices, the dyed hair, the spontaneity—satisfying
childish desires with whatever came to hand was what they did every day. Now might
be the moment to say a few words about the napkins that were being used to make
these gifts for the little girl. A well-stocked napkin dispenser sits on every café
table in Buenos Aires. The
little flying hen was also flying like a bat and, given the inherent ambiguity of
all chunky forms, might in this case have been taken for one, except that a bat
would have been completely out of place in the hands of candor incarnate. And
speaking of candor, the color of the paper napkins conspired against that
interpretation too: their white was irreversible. In any case, all that flying and
the erratic pressure of the child’s little pink fingers proved to be utterly
destructive: the hen’s round body became a pyramid in ruins, the proud triangles of
the tail were soon all askew, and by the time the junior test pilot remembered to
show it to her mother (a ceremony to which she seemed to attribute the gravity of a
certification), it was already in tatters. But obviously no one minded, and they
wanted to go on indulging her. Two girls who were having a lively conversation and
had not appeared, up till then, to be paying attention to what was going on, waved
something white, which, like a red rag to a bull, brought the interested party
rushing over: it was a clown made by ingeniously folding a small paper napkin.
Presumably, then, they had been inattentive to the girl’s forays because they were
attending to the little work in progress. And it was a remarkable work, superior in
quality to what had been produced so far: the clown had a round hat, a
disproportionate protuberance to represent his rubber nose in the middle of the
paper circle that was his face, a tail coat, baggy pants and the classic shoes that
reach all the way to next door. To judge from appearances, neither the girl who was
now handing the clown to its eager recipient nor her companion would have seemed
capable of such an exploit: they looked like airheads, good for nothing but idle
chatter (which is what they had seemed to be engaged in, at least for those out of
earshot). The only explanation that bridged the gap was that they were kindergarten
teachers, or one of them was, and her training must have included an obligatory or
optional unit on making paper figures. A clown! Every child’s best friend, who keeps
his little charges company even when they close their eyes, tucked into bed, and
never forsakes them, not even in their worst nightmares; on the contrary, that’s
where he takes the lead role, in order to prevent others—monsters, for
example—from stepping in. This inoffensive little clown, made of paper so
fragile a gaze could tear it, had been marked somehow by his contact with monsters
in the world of dreams. But how? The trace was perceived subliminally, and in no
other way, because the co ntinual movements of the clown’s possessor—her dashes
and sudden displays—prevented any detailed observation. It was, in fact, a
stain: the paper clown’s white was not immaculate like that of the earlier figures.
Not a very noticeable stain, just a dirty brown smudge, of indeterminate shape,
which, because of the folding, appeared on various separate parts of the body.
Coffee, from the lips of one of the girls. So they must have folded a used napkin.
That was strange. Given a choice, why pick faulty materials for a delicate and
difficult piece of work? Maybe they had started folding just to see (could it be
done with this sort of paper and a sheet of this size?), using the first napkin that
came to hand, and by the time they realized it was possible, the work was so far
advanced that it wasn’t worth getting a new napkin and starting all over again. If
they really were kindergarten teachers, as it seemed from the general impression
they gave—the loud voices, the dyed hair, the spontaneity—satisfying
childish desires with whatever came to hand was what they did every day. Now might
be the moment to say a few words about the napkins that were being used to make
these gifts for the little girl. A well-stocked napkin dispenser sits on every café
table in Buenos Aires. The
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