The Power of Words

1.

My name is Susana Silvia Siciliano. I teach language and literature at the Noble Wood Preparatory School, a coeducational, secular, bilingual institution that charges staggering tuition, located in the Belgrano R neighborhood of Buenos Aires.

Yasmín Magalí Corbatta, one of my fifth-year students, was a contestant on a certain televised quiz show based on questions about Hispanic American literature. The girl, despite being saddled with her parents’ original sin of punishing her with god-awful names, had always been an excellent student, and as such, had enjoyed my highest esteem.

The following conflict arose:

Standing before the TV jury, Yasmín Magalí was asked to cite any three works of her choice published by the Ecuadorian author Juan Montalvo. Being especially well-prepared (in great part, it must be said, thanks to my pedagogical skills), she declared, without the slightest hesitation: Catilinaries, Moral Geometry, and Seven Treatises. According to her, the three members of the jury (a bunch of good- for-nothing bestseller writers) exchanged glances, shuffled some papers around, and mumbled inaudibly. At last, the head of the tribunal announced that the answer was incorrect because, according to his data, Montalvo had never published any work with the title Moral Geometry.

And with that, Yasmín Magalí was eliminated from the contest and unable to proceed to the next round.

But that was not to be the end of it.

On my advice, Yasmín Magalí, accompanied by Dr. Tomás Toledano (who, in addition to being a lawyer, has been my husband for eons), arrived at the television station a few days later in a litigious mood, fueled by a healthy amount of righteous indignation and armed with an A4-sized envelope containing two photocopies, described below:

1) Page 162 of A History of the Literature of Hispanic America and Argentina, by Fermín Estrella Gutiérrez and Emilio Suárez Calimano; 2) page 211 of Authors of Hispanic America, by Rodolfo M. Ragucci. Both of them confirmed that Juan Montalvo had indeed written a work entitled Moral Geometry.

The three dim-witted bestseller writers deliberated among themselves, and having not the slightest idea what in the devil to do, lobbed the whole mess at the television station’s administrators, who promised to  “review the situation and proceed accordingly.” What the higher-ups did next was to “take a corner kick,” as my husband described it, using a soccer metaphor. In other words, they tried to wash their hands of the problem without seeking a solution.

Motivated by the circumstances (that is, by the five threatening registered legal documents drafted by Tomás, my above-mentioned lawyer-husband), the director general of the station met with him and Yasmín Magalí.  He argued, with malicious sophistry, that the question referred to works published by Montalvo and that Moral Geometry had been published in 1902, long after the author had left this earth in 1889. Therefore, the contestant’s answer could not be considered correct.

Tomás told me that at that point he stopped the insolent executive (who was attempting to ensnare him in a game of words) in his tracks, and threatened to take punitive action ipso facto against the program, the station, and the multimedia company that owned it. While he was at it, he let it be known that the fearsome Tirso Toledano, union boss at the Bulldozer and Borer Operators’ Guild, was none other than his big brother.

Then—this is all still according to Tomás—the executive was quite intimidated, and in an effort not to further escalate the conflict, proposed a compromise solution that would do double-duty as a kind of “cultural promotion”: Yasmín Magalí would need to obtain the written opinion of an Argentine academic, who would certify that, in their view, there was not now nor could there ever be any difference between a work published during an author’s lifetime and one published after his death. On this simple condition, Yasmín Magalí would be reinstated in the contest and automatically advance to the round that she had previously been denied.

2.

Being the excellent teacher that I am, I made it my business to procure the exculpatory document.

Because I have never been a mother, I feel that all of my students are, in some way, the children I never had (with the exception of an insufferable few who would have driven me to infanticide).

I described the situation in the teachers’ lounge, where my colleagues (the vast majority of them ignoramuses) provided a variety of insipid opinions that were of no use to me at all.

Gabriela Irene Laguna, even though she teaches incomprehensible subjects like math and physics, is a good friend of mine (in spite of certain defects that need not be mentioned here).

 “No problem, Su,” she chirped. “Benito Benvestiti, the academic, lives right around the corner from me. He’s a frail, slightly senile old man who does his shopping at the corner market and bakery. He’s a friendly fellow, always laughing and saying hello to everyone, although that’s never happened with me. I don’t think he’d mind drafting and signing the requested document. I live on Picheuta Street, and the old codger lives on Barco Centenera.”

I thought it a good sign that we had already found the right person to put our plan in action, even though, despite being exceedingly well-versed in literature, I had never even heard the name Benvestiti.

Indeed, the very next week, Gaby informed me by phone that she had already arranged a meeting with the “renowned scholar” (as she hyperbolically referred to him). He would be expecting us on Saturday the 18th at 11:00 a.m. at his sixth-floor apartment on Barco Centenera street in the Parque Chacabuco neighborhood.

The news inspired a mix of joy and irritation in me; joy because our goal was well on its way to being met, and irritation because, since I live in Olivos — on Catamarca Street to be more precise — it’s nothing at all for me to drive to our school on Estomba street in Belgrano R, but I loathe having to travel to other neighborhoods galaxies away like Pompeya, Soldati, Lugano, or in this case, Parque Chacabuco.

Nonetheless, after consulting a map of Buenos Aires and with a brief geography review with my husband (who knows the city streets quite well despite being useless for many other things), I got in my car (we have two of them, a white one and a black one, same make and model), gripped the steering wheel, and with the help of the GPS, headed toward the apartments on Picheuta Street. I arrived with little time to spare, at ten minutes to eleven. Gabriela was waiting for me on the sidewalk.

She said:

“Want to come up for a cup of coffee?”

What a completely useless and counter-productive invitation. Why would we waste time drinking coffee when, just two blocks away, the academic was expecting us at eleven o’clock sharp?

By way of a reply, I tapped my wristwatch three times with my index finger, and with that we set out for Barco Centenera.

Gabriela and I, without any previous discussion, had both groomed ourselves to look at once attractive, yet at the same time, deep and intellectual. I had done so with my customary restraint and taste.

Gabriela had overdone it. I had never seen her wearing glasses before, but now she was sporting a pair with thick black frames that gave her the unmistakable air of a left-wing sociologist, made all the more believable by her lack of lipstick and her slightly spiked hair. Nonetheless, the combination of her long Chanel skirt and a rather rigid jacket, riddled with pockets and zippers, made her look a little like a nun with aspirations of joining the volunteer fire department. When all was said and done, poor Gaby, with all of her limitations, was actually a good person, but with a great propensity for the ridiculous.

I was used to my Scandinavian-style chalet in Olivos, and the ugly grayish grey building on Barco Centenera, typical of a downwardly mobile middle class, struck me as particularly unpleasant. It had eight storeys, according to the apartment intercom. Since Gabriela was from the neighborhood, it made sense for her to be the one to ring apartment 6A’s buzzer.

She did so with her thumb, not her index finger. After an eternity of at least three minutes, we heard a muffled voice:

“Who’s there?”

In an attempt to show how poised she was, Gaby, ever histrionic, smiled theatrically, and in a singsong soprano voice, trilled youthfully:

“We’re the school teachers, here to discuss the Juan Montalvo matter with you!”

At the sound of the buzzer, we pushed open the door and entered a hallway that smelled like chicken noodle soup. We stepped into the elevator—where someone had scrawled WHOEVER READS THIS IS A PUSSY on one of its walls—and arrived at the sixth floor.

The academic was waiting for us, dressed in a shabby robe the color of a sewer rat, smoking in the doorway of his apartment. He was a short man with a head of messy white hair and a poorly groomed, unattractive beard. A dreadful stench of cigarette smoke wafted out into the vestibule.

He extended a pallid hand resembling a cod fish fillet and gestured for us to have a seat on a threadbare sofa.

The old man was smoking what appeared to be his eleventh cigarette of the morning. There were at least ten brown-filtered butts crushed in an ashtray shaped like a tractor tire. Next to it sat a framed photograph: the author in his Paleolithic period, standing next to a woman with an evil expression on her face, possibly his deceased wife.

Both Gabriela and I were “reformed sinners”: we had been heavy smokers when we were young, but now, having quit the vice for good, could not bear even the slightest whiff of cigarette smoke within fifty feet of us. And it was even worse in that cramped, undoubtedly very dirty, and one might even say squalid apartment that we navigated about in the gloom.

Gabriela started to cough, albeit timidly, so the man would not think that the smoke from his cigarette was bothering her.

“Well then, ladies, what brings you here? I’m all ears,” he said, gazing severely at us.

As the literature professor, I felt it was my job to explain:

“We are both teachers at the Noble Wood Preparatory School…,”

“Yes, I know that. The person who rudely interrupted my naptime and made me get out of bed to answer the phone told me so.”

“That person was me, I’m so sorry,” Gabriela admitted.

“I have merely named the sin. I have no interest in the sinner. Carry on with the story, I don’t have all day to waste on piddling details!”

“Well, as I was saying,” I resumed, a little frightened now, “I am a teacher of language and literature at the Noble Wood Preparatory School, and Gabriela here teaches math.”

The academic waved his right hand around:

“Hurry, hurry, get on with it! I haven’t the slightest interest in autobiographies, much less in professional resumes, which tend to be riddled with lies and falsehoods.”

I swallowed hard:

“What happened was that one of my students participated in the well-known Who Knows It Best? quiz show on channel 73, Your Gratification Station…”

“I don’t know why the contest is considered ‘well known,’” said the academic. “I’ve never heard of it. As if I had time for the kind of low-brow stupidity so attractive to the ignorant, disgusting hoi polloi.”

For a moment, there was silence. Mustering superhuman strength, I continued:

“…and then they asked her for three works by Juan Montalvo and, because there was some kind of discrepancy between my student’s response and the jury’s criteria, they recommended a compromise solution in the form of a validating document be presented, that would certify, if not precisely, then approximately, the authenticity of that answer, which was in conflict with the facts gathered by members of the jury from perhaps dubious sources, but…”

The old man rose to his feet and, for a few seconds, covered his ears with both hands:

“What makes you think I can possibly understand this insane nonsense, this labyrinth of students, juries, and documents? Since you call yourself a teacher of literature the very least one could ask is that you express yourself with a modicum of clarity.”

My cheeks stung as if they were on fire, and a torrent of sweat poured from my armpits. Gabriela’s face, on the other hand, had been overtaken by a corpse-like pallor.

“In short—” This, in a massive effort to regain control of the conversation, “what we need is for you to graciously provide us with a document that certifies that Juan Montalvo…”

“Enough!” he exclaimed. “This must be some kind of terrible joke, and let me tell you why. In the first place, the only thing I ever tried to read by Montalvo was a dense and stultifying book wherein he made up god-knows-what absurd new adventures for Don Quixote. I found it so awful that I stopped reading it on page ten. As you can see, I have nothing to say to you about that insufferable author.”

“We’re so sorry,” interjected Gabriela, “we did not intend to upset you. We’re just a couple of teachers who…”

“In the second place, I do not think for an instant that the two of you are “teachers”. You’re swindlers, quite possibly with an international warrant out for your arrest. And if you are teachers, given your manifest ignorance and your ridiculous appearance and clothing, my heartfelt sympathies to your students, who will never learn a thing from you!”

“Well, in that case…”

“In that case, nothing! The best thing you can do is remove yourselves from my house and never, ever return with all of your idiocy and tall tales and claptrap about contests, montalvos, and noble wood.” Flabbergasted, frightened, and outraged, Gabriela and I clutched our respective handbags like rugby balls, and then, running as if to score a try, we exited stampede-style from the building on Barco Centenera.

We made it half a block away. Gabriela’s face had regained its color, and her hands were balled into fists with her fingers dug into her palms.

“Let’s go back,” she said. “I forgot something.”

She didn’t say what, but I had an inkling of her intention. I know from experience that Gaby can be a force to be reckoned with.

Using her thumb, she pressed at length on the buzzer for apartment 6A. After another eternity of at least three minutes, we once again heard the muffled voice:

“Who’s there?”

In a display of confidence for my benefit, Gabriela smiled, once again as if she were on stage, and in a melodious voice, baritone this time, she said:

“Is this Mr. Benvestiti?”

 “Speaking. What can I do for you?”

“What can you do for me? Here’s what! You, your whore of a mother and the horse she rode in on can all go to bloody hell, you lousy old goat! You decrepit, senile, half-dead son of a bitch!”

We don’t know if the object of her ire did as requested because, instead of responding, he put down the intercom receiver.

We went back to Gaby’s apartment, which, by the way, was tastelessly furnished and filled with atrocious decorations on the walls and shelves — basically a cosmic bordello. But the last thing on this earth I would ever do is speak ill of Gabriela because, despite her shortcomings, she is one of my best friends.

“Héctor and the boys went to a Papi futbol tournament,” she informed me as we went inside.

“Ah, what a shame. I would have loved to see them again,” I replied, thinking: Just as well they’re not here! That husband of hers is a crashing bore and her kids are a pain in the ass.

The humiliation that the abominable Benvestiti had subjected us to had a diuretic effect: seized with the overwhelming need to pee immediately, Gaby rushed to the bathroom. I was right behind her. I noticed that the toilet paper in the little refuge was of appallingly low quality and that the four toothbrushes had long outlived their usefulness.

We went to the kitchen (sky blue tile, some of it cracked) to recover from our battle with the old man, and had coffee with slightly damp cookies (no doubt because they were not properly stored).

Then, with a kiss on each cheek, I bid her farewell until the following Monday when we would meet again at school.

3.

On the morning of Monday the 20th, I explained to Yasmín that Benvestiti the academic, a very charming man, had treated us with the utmost kindness and courtesy, but had politely declined to draft the requested document because that very same week he was going in for a delicate surgical procedure, which he preferred not to discuss in detail.

Yasmín did not appear to be overly concerned:

“Well,” she said, “surely he’s not the only academic alive. We could look for another…”

“Of course we could,” I replied. “But, in any case, you take over the matter. I am very busy now and I don’t have any time to pay visits to academics.”

4.

That same Monday afternoon, I was sipping my yerba mate and leafing distractedly through La Nación when I came across the following notice:

Benito Benvestiti, A Cultural Titan

The academic and intellectual communities are in deep mourning following the sudden death last Saturday of Dr. Benito Benvestiti, the Latinist and Hellenist scholar deep with roots in the classics. The cause of death was a heart attack. Dr. Benvestiti passed away at home in his storied Parque Chacabuco residence, a gathering place for leading artists and writers who would frequently come to hear the master speak.

His unfortunate demise was a great shock to all. At the age of eighty two, he was at the height of his physical and mental capacities. A true Porteño, he was born in Buenos Aires in 1938 and raised in the bosom of a family of poets, painters, and musicians.

His expansive, rich body of work originated in 1965 with the publication of his book of essays Latin Poetry and its Influence on Hispanic-American Lyricism.  He went on to publish over forty works, including his most important and defining book, the classic An Overview of Juan Montalvo: Poet, Author of Prose, and Essayist for All. It is the most comprehensive and exhaustive survey of the prolific Ecuadorian author, for which Dr. Benvestiti was named an honorary member of the Montalvian Literary Society, headquartered in Quito.

This was followed by a list of author’s honors and recognitions, ending thus:

There will be a viewing at the Argentine Authors’ Society, followed by burial tomorrow at the Cementerio de Flores at 10:00 a.m.

I immediately picked up the phone and called Gabriela. She barely had time to say “Hello?”, before

I blurted:

“Gaby! Listen up, I’ve got something interesting to read you.”

I read her the entire La Nación obituary, from A to Z.

“Well, well,” she replied. “It goes to show you the power of words. Looks like the old goat took my advice and went right where I told him to go.”

“That’s exactly what it looks like.”

 “And there’s not a damn thing we can do about it. May he rest in peace.”

English translation © 2021 Kristin Siracusa Fisher