Perfect Day
Ricardo Piglia
Sunday
Here in the east, the sun is setting. Somebody once told me that
for the Greeks sunset was not a poetic theme. Everything was written in praise
of sunrise, with its metaphors of aurora, dawn, and awakening. Only in Rome,
with the decline of the empire, had Virgil and his friends began to celebrate
sunset, the twilight, the dying day.
Would we then have writers of dawn and writers of dusk?
These are lists I do enjoy making. But now it is nightfall, and I light an old
Uruguayan lamp that brings back a feeling I associate with the sun. How do we
define a perfect day? Perhaps it would be better to say, how could I narrate a
perfect day?
Is that why I kept a diary? To fix or to reread one of those
unforgettable days. For example.
Friday July 6, 1973
My first impression of China when the plane was landing: a
square sampan floating along the river, the trees and the white silhouette of a
farmer with round hat working on the rice field. I thought he will be the only
man that I'm going to see from now on.
At the airport in Shanghai I was separated from other
passengers and led down a corridor into a secluded room with plush couches and
coffee tables. There were screens to protect me from prying eyes. For your
safety, the tall and relax Mr. Liang told me in French. Smiling, without making
a move, he asked, shall we spend the night in Shanghai. No, I will follow you
to Beijing. We drank Chinese tea, slightly perfumed.
A tense and monotonous music coming out from a speaker, a
chorus of women, sounding like ashes, like cats meowing. Then came an old man
in blue Mao suit, asking firm but gently, how was my journey? Repeatedly,
asking me to watch my steps, while he led me into the dining room with Mr.
Liang. Another official wearing a grey Mao suit saluted at the door. The one in
grey is lower ranking than the one in blue which in turn is superior to the one
in brown. We ate rice with vegetables and seafood. A bitter tasting beer.
During the flight to Beijing. Hostesses in white shirts,
braids, socks, always smiling. Sandalwood fans, sweets and fruits. All the passengers
are Chinese except for a blond girl sitting on the side, and an Italian
delegate at the far end. The hostesses explain the direction of flight, the light
function and the significance of the national anniversaries.
Not long after, the young blonde girl approached me. Are you
South American? She noticed me reading a newspaper in Spanish (Pasado y Presente). She is Chilean,
daughter of a diplomat. Chinese-speaking, she has been living Beijing for many
years, since high school. Her name is Maria Pilar U. She thinks I will be staying
at the Nationalities Hotel. She works as a Spanish translator in Xinhua agency.
Beautiful, very elegant. I was very careful. Glad that you are Chilean, I said.
My favourite Chilean is Nicanor Parra. Oh no, he is a terrible reactionary, he
had tea with Nixon, he says. Well Mao too, I told her. She looks at me
seriously, it's not the same. Very young, smooth legs, blue eyes, she looks
German. There are many Germans in Chile. Yes, they are all bums, she said. Then
we got up. I will look for you, she told me. What are you going to do here?
Don’t you worry. Great, I said to her, I
need a guide ... You could be my Beatrice. Don’t joke , there no need to,
anyway I am married. All the more I have
to then, I say. I'm so disoriented that I fall for the first woman who speaks
to me. ("I swear I no longer remember her name, / but I know what to call
her: Maria" as in a verse by Nicanor).
In Beijing, there is a very young man from the reception committee.
He is in charge of the cultural work in the city. He has the face of a bird,
speaks to me in Chinese. I reply in Spanish: I'm so glad to be in Beijing. Affectionate,
with smiles. He offers us a maotai (a
kind of rice wine).
I got on to a rather sinister looking limousine, alone under
the starry night. A long avenue of six lanes, tall poplars, the world's most
populous city is serene and calm. Men and women cycling by silently like
ghosts. We finally entered the infinite and empty Tiananmen Square. English lamps.
The Nationalities Hotel, seems like the Majestic de Avenida,
of Mayo. The traveler thought and smiled.
A large living room and a large bedroom, large windows, high
ceilings. The hot running water is yellow and rusty. The bathtub has feet like
bear claws. The bed is hard, the pillows are too flat. On one table a thermos
flask with green tea. Two cups with lids. On the bedroom walls, (rivers,
rushes, yellow birds) are Oriental landscapes. No telephone. But there is a
bell on the side of the bed. When I pressed it, it rang somewhere far away. But
no one came to attend to the call.
One evening, unexpectedly, I bumped into Bernardo Kordon at Calle
Corrientes. The publishing house where I work has published her complete short
stories. We had a coffee and chatted, Kordon pulled a notebook and asked if I
wanted to travel to China. There was a vacancy, Edgar Bayley at the last moment
pulled out. Many brothels, said Edgard. Kordon is president of the Friendship
Association China-Argentina, several national writers have already travelled to
the Celestial Empire, as he calls it. No obligations to, but if I want to write
something about China, it would be better. I thought I could write a travel journal,
and at the same time, the observations of a man alone.
(I was thirty, and on the other side of the world. Would this
be considered a perfect day?)
Translated by J. Loke
