What to Do Read online

  WHAT TO DO

  Pablo Katchadjian

  WHAT TO DO

  Translated from Spanish by Priscilla Posada

  Originally published in Spanish as Qué hacer by Bajo La Luna in 2010.

  ©2010 by Pablo Katchadjian

  Translation copyright ©2015 by Priscilla Posada

  First edition, 2016

  All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Identifiers: ISBN 9781564787057

  LC record available at https://catalog.loc.gov/

  Partially funded by a grant by the Illinois Arts Council

  Dalkey Archive Press publications are, in part, made possible through the support of the University of Houston-Victoria and its program in creative writing, publishing, and translation.

  Dalkey Archive Press

  Victoria, TX / McLean / Dublin

  www.dalkeyarchive.com

  Cover: Art by Katherine O’Shea

  Printed on permanent/ durable acid-free paper

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  WHAT TO DO

  1

  Alberto and I are giving a lecture at an English university when a student, in an aggressive tone, asks: “When philosophers speak, is what they say true or is it a double?” Alberto and I look at each other, somewhat anxious for not having understood the question. Alberto reacts first; he steps forward and responds that it’s impossible to know. The student, dissatisfied with this response, stands up (he’s eight feet tall), approaches Alberto, grabs him, and stuffs him into his mouth. But although this looks dangerous, not only do the students and I laugh, but Alberto, with half his body inside the student’s mouth, also laughs and says: It’s fine, it’s fine. Then, Alberto and I are suddenly in a plaza. An old man is feeding a flock of pigeons. Alberto approaches the old man and I get a bad feeling and want to stop him, but for some reason I can’t. Before Alberto reaches him, the old man somehow becomes a pigeon and tries to fly, but can’t. Alberto splints his wings and tells him that he’ll get better soon, that his problem is very normal. The old man looks happy. Then we’re suddenly in a restroom in a nightclub. For some reason, we’re in the women’s restroom. Five very pretty, well-dressed girls enter, sweaty from dancing so much. Alberto, up to something, approaches one of them, who seems to be very drunk or on drugs, and throws himself on top of her; from what I can see, she lets him do what he wants, although it’s not exactly clear what it is that he wants to do, because he only rubs himself against her as if his body itches; she responds in the same manner, and so it looks like they’re mutually scratching themselves. The other four approach me and suddenly the five of us are doing something that doesn’t make sense. It’s as if the scene were censored. Then I notice that the girls are old women; simultaneously, I hear Alberto talking to the drunk girl about Léon Bloy. He tells her that he wanted to be a saint and suffered because he couldn’t. He goes over the part where Véronique has all of her teeth pulled out and, although he remains still, it looks as if he wants to pull this girl’s teeth out. I grab him by the hood of his jacket and drag him outside of the restroom. It seems like Alberto is made of rags, he’s very light.

  2

  Alberto and I go to a toy store to pick out a gift for his nephew. Alberto grabs a broom and tells me: This is what I want. He buys it; when we go outside, it’s pouring. We stay under the toy store’s awning, but the space keeps filling up in a striking manner making us more and more uncomfortable. As if we were in a box, we’re pushed upwards by people who keep accumulating underneath us. When we reach the top, right before falling, we’re suddenly teaching in an English university. Alberto is explaining the meter of Lear’s limericks and somehow manages to relate everything to Lawrence of Arabia. I interrupt him to explain what Graves had to say about Lear, but Alberto gives me a look and whispers in my ear: Don’t brag, it’s not necessary. For some reason, what he says doesn’t bother me and I take it as sound advice that he can also apply to himself. A student stands up and asks why anarchists placed bombs in restaurants. Alberto begins to explain; meanwhile, the student grows taller until he reaches the ceiling. Alberto doesn’t realize the danger we’re in and, very focused, talks about Saint Isidore’s Etymologiae. To avoid having the tall student stuff him into his mouth again, I grab Alberto by the hood of his jacket and take him out of there. Suddenly we’re in a bank; Alberto wants to sell a broom (which isn’t the same one he bought before although he thinks it is). We reach the counter and Alberto explains his problem to the teller. She’s naked but Alberto doesn’t seem to notice. I try pointing this out but he scowls while motioning with his hand. I don’t know how the transaction turns out, but afterwards Alberto seems like he’s made of rags. I try moving him but only succeed in making him blink.

  3

  Alberto and I are in some kind of empty lot. About ten English students arrive and take their places as if we were in a classroom. Now it looks like we’re in a classroom in an English university. I’m explaining one of Boethius’s ideas, but Alberto interrupts me. The students get angry at him because, so they say, they’re interested in what I’m teaching. But Alberto keeps interrupting and when he gets some words in, half the students listen to him and the other half insist that I keep talking. The situation keeps worsening until we’re suddenly in a shoe-repair shop. Alberto gives his black boots to the cobbler and asks him to replace the heel. The cobbler does it in ten seconds and brags about his agility, saying: Ten seconds! Ten seconds! Alberto puts his boots on, but one heel is four inches higher than the other one. I tell Alberto that he won’t be able to walk like that, but he doesn’t understand the problem. Alberto pays the cobbler and we leave. Suddenly we’re in a wine cellar. I see that there are about eight hundred people drinking wine. Alberto and I serve ourselves a glass each. The wine tastes like an old rag and Alberto agrees but says it doesn’t bother him. A television goes on and suddenly there’s a well-dressed man explaining how they filter the wine using old rags. Alberto is standing on his highest heel forcing me to look up when I talk to him. Being in this position, combined with the smell of old rags, makes me vomit. People shout at me and, to avoid an ugly situation, Alberto grabs me by the hood of my jacket and takes me out to a black courtyard. I feel made of rags, I have neither weight nor gravity, but I can’t stop vomiting; it feels like what I’m vomiting doesn’t come from my body but rather is suddenly right in my mouth and then falls to the floor. This continues un
til I notice that the vomit, upon falling, or right before falling, transforms into water. The water floods the black courtyard and without realizing it, we reach a university and give a lecture on Latin and Modern Greek.

  4

  Suddenly Alberto is there, accompanied by three others. These people, he tells me, are our English students. I listen to them talk and something catches my attention; I realize that they’re speaking in English but I’m understanding them in Spanish; then I find out that they’re speaking in Portuguese, but I hear them speaking in English and find myself understanding them in Spanish. I ask Alberto if the same is happening to him but he scowls and motions for me to keep quiet. Angry, I grab him by the elbow and this enrages one of the students. When I look at the student, I notice he’s ten feet tall. I realize then that we’re simultaneously on a bridge and on a ship. And yet, it all feels very natural. I ask Alberto what he thinks of this and he responds that it’s all very natural. In that moment, the ship (which is just a ship now) begins to sink, and Alberto tells me: This will sink. We get on a raft that Alberto had and along with us, four women also get on: one young, three old. The young one is pretty and she’s naked; the old women are very ugly and they’re also naked, but they don’t interest us. The young one approaches Alberto and when he rejects her, I realize she’s simultaneously young and old. This feels terrible, and luckily we’re suddenly on a bridge (not the same one as before). There are three Spanish students and they ask if we know why Bloy suffered so much. Alberto and I talk simultaneously. This works out perfectly because not only do we understand each other and they understand us, but they’re also getting double the information. Still, it doesn’t make sense why we talk about Balzac instead of Bloy: I refer to Cousin Pons and Alberto to A Woman of Thirty. But Alberto hasn’t read A Woman of Thirty and the students catch on and start getting restless. Perhaps because of this, one of them, who is eight feet tall, grabs Alberto and stuffs him into his mouth. Alberto doesn’t seem surprised and says everything’s fine. Regardless, I grab him by the hood of his jacket and take him out of the student’s mouth. Alberto thanks me while wiping off the student’s saliva, which he says will ruin his boots, with a rag.

  5

  I’m with Alberto and we’re at an airport explaining a new relationship that we invented between John Donne and Lawrence of Arabia to an old woman. The old woman nods and asks: Would it be a mysterious relationship? The question throws us off, above all because we haven’t fully read Donne—although we’re experts on Lawrence of Arabia—and while we try responding, the old woman is suddenly not there and in her place there’s a ten-foot-tall student. The background also changes and now we’re in an English university. One of the students is a baby with a cow’s head and Alberto makes me notice the medievalness of this image. I simultaneously believe and don’t believe him, because I realize that, as much as the baby is medieval, all of that can’t be medieval from any point of view. And yet, as if Alberto were granted his wish, everything becomes distinctly medieval. Now, it’s a medieval airport and Alberto tells me: All of this is false. I respond yes, that the same happens with any dream. Alberto looks at me and says: No, no, I meant that in any case this is false. I try to pay attention but can’t see anything clearly. Alberto points upwards. I see that there’s someone watching and analyzing what we’re doing. But we aren’t doing anything, I tell him. This person notes everything down. Alberto tells him: To say something isn’t to do something. This person above us keeps taking notes. We ask this person above us who he is, and he says, imitating the voice of an idiot, that he’s an old rag. We ask him what he’s doing and he tells us that we’re his reality. We start laughing, partly because we’re anxious and partly because his response is actually funny. To keep laughing, we ask him if he means to say that we’re his or that he’s for us; to our surprise, instead of responding, this person becomes the background and although we can see that the background is just an English university, we can’t help but know that the background is a person, and that this person is an old rag, and yet the background isn’t an old rag but rather the same English university. Despite all this, since we’re in an English university, we try explaining the mysterious relationship between Donne and Lawrence of Arabia. We write on the blackboard: The seven pillars of Donne’s wisdom. But, as we’re beginning the lecture, the background envelopes us and takes us out of there as if we’re made of old rags. In the darkness, I can notice Alberto blink.

  6

  I hear a noise and suddenly Alberto and I are in a room with four walls covered with shelves. The shelves are packed with small ceramic sculptures that lack a clear shape, or at least it’s not clear to us. Alberto tells me: We’re those sculptures. In that moment I see that the sculptures have my face or Alberto’s, although I can’t explain how they can have my face or his, that’s to say, how something like this can also be undetermined. Suddenly I hear the noise from before, but stronger this time. Without knowing how, we’re suddenly in another room, exactly like the one before, but now everything seems more unstable: the walls, the shelves, the sculptures. Even I, myself. I ask Alberto if he feels the same way, but he doesn’t get to respond because the sculptures start falling from the trembling shelves. I panic and try to save them from destruction. But I can’t and the sculptures fall, break into pieces, and all of this causes me much distress. That’s when I see that Alberto has stopped trying to save the sculptures and that he’s very calm, almost smiling. I shout at him to help me, but he says: It’s better to throw everything before it falls on its own. I ask him to clarify what he means, but instead of responding he sweeps the sculptures off the shelves, destroying them, while shouting that it is. Seeing him so happy makes me want to imitate him and when I do, the joy I feel does me so much good that I can’t help but break everything. I destroy the sculptures against the ceiling, against other sculptures, against themselves. We keep on like this, destroying everything we can, for a long time, and since there’s always something just about to fall we keep on shouting happily, destroying ceramic sculptures.

  7

  I enter a house that looks like an English university and once inside I see Alberto. It seems to be eight or nine in the morning. Alberto and I move through the rooms and hallways until we reach a metal door; he opens it, we pass through, and then he closes it behind us. We see that we’re in a courtyard and that we only have ten square feet of cement to stand on, because the rest is water, some sort of artificial lake. We try returning to the house but the door is locked. We don’t know what to do and before we decide, ten students suddenly pass by on a raft and everything goes back to being an English university. We give a lecture. I want to talk about Stevenson, but Alberto wants to continue with Bloy. I suggest a middle ground, I tell him: Let’s talk about Rubén Darío, about The Odd Ones. Alberto likes this idea and says that Darío hadn’t read Lautréamont when he wrote about him, and that’s why he relies on a review by Bloy. I tell him that he’s breaching our agreement although I realize that what he’s saying is true: that Bloy had written about Lautréamont, that Darío had read this review, and that he had stolen citations from it to use in his own work. But since we’re arguing between us, instead of giving a lecture, the students, who are all eight feet tall, start getting angry. Since we know what could happen, we try to escape and suddenly we’re running through a green and luminous meadow. We run so fast that we end up tripping and falling into a ditch of putrid water and old rag. I get out first and then pull Alberto up by the hood of his jacket. When he’s finally out, I notice he’s blinking.

  8

  Alberto and I are in a bar that resembles one from a foreign film (not English, but American). We call the waitress to order breakfast. When she leans over to clean the table, Alberto tries looking at her cleavage, and I copy him and do the same. We start asking for things in an attempt to see her cleavage: a coffee, a tea, to clean the table, croissants … But I notice that as much as I try to look, I can’t see anything because the view is blocked, that�
�s to say, because there are holes in the depth of the dream that prevent us from seeing what would be there if the background were complete. I point this out to Alberto. The same is happening to him and after a confusing conversation, we discover that the background has these holes because it’s made with an old rag. Suddenly, Alberto is a mummy. And even though the mummy’s face isn’t visible, I know the mummy is Alberto, for two main reasons: first, because his jacket’s hood creates a bulge under the bandages; secondly, because the bandages are made of rags. We aren’t in the bar anymore, but the waitress is with me and she’s worried about Alberto’s situation. I try looking at her cleavage although, in that moment, I’m certain that in reality she’s an old woman and that looking at her cleavage is worthless. Instead, I try taking the bandages off Alberto, but as much as I try there are always more bandages. When I think I’m closer to his face, I see that it’s not Alberto’s face but rather that of a student from an English university, and I become very happy upon realizing that we’re already in an English university and that Alberto is comparing Paul the Apostle to Paul the Anchorite while I explain Saint Isidore’s “six ages of man.” However, the students don’t understand religion and accuse us of both being mystics and of bragging, and Alberto and I get a little anxious and start to blink. Then we hear a voice say: “So many other beautiful things that will be explained to me in paradise.” Alberto thinks I’m the one who said this and accuses me of being pretentious. I get so anxious that I start salivating while the students throw rocks at me, and Alberto, sorry for having instigated all of this, protects me with the hood of his jacket and some very thin old muslin-like rags.

  9

  I’m with Alberto and our pockets are full of cold butter. It’s so hot that we fear the butter will melt and ruin our clothes. We run along a path, past a meadow full of something resembling dried fruit, and enter a house in which an old woman lives. She points at me and Alberto says: Your head is getting bigger. I look at myself in a mirror and see that my head is getting bigger, but the sensation I get is that everything’s shrinking except my head, which remains its normal size. Alberto hands me a pair of scissors and I try cutting my hair to keep my head from growing, but I can’t do anything because everything keeps worsening and becoming more and more confusing. In that moment, I realize that the cause of all these problems is the old woman who keeps shouting and making us anxious. I tell Alberto to quiet her by stuffing her mouth with an old rag. Alberto can’t find an old rag so instead he stuffs her mouth with old muslin, which he does find. The muslin works in such a way that instead of shouts, the old woman produces a beautiful melody that enchants the whole forest (in that moment, we’re in a forest). We leave the old woman and find ourselves in an English university, this time as students. And yet, the professors are also us, and it’s terrible hearing ourselves argue over Bloy. We realize that we’re sick of ourselves (I of myself, Alberto of himself). The argument is interrupted when someone with a very strange face tells us that if we continue with our mouths shut, we won’t be able to talk. But we’re talking and our mouths aren’t shut so we come to the conclusion that this person’s comment is a trap: they want us to protest upon noticing the falseness of their observation. So, we decide not to protest and it’s then that we realize that the trap was more complex: the act of not protesting makes us keep our mouths shut and when this person makes their observation again, we can no longer protest because it’s true.