Hopscotch: A Novel (Pantheon Modern Writers Series) by Julio Cortázar Page A

Monod’s shoes, but you gotta die some day, Ireneo the Negro (later on, when she got more courage, La Maga would tell him about Ledesma, about the men at carnival-time, the saga of Montevideo). And suddenly with cool perfection, Earl Hines was giving his first variation of
I Ain’t Got Nobody,
and even Perico, lost in some remote reading,lifted up his head and listened, La Maga had rested her head on Gregorovius’s thigh and was looking at the floor, at the piece of Oriental rug, a red strand that disappeared into the socle, an empty glass next to a table-leg. She wanted to smoke but she wasn’t going to ask Gregorovius for a cigarette, without knowing why she wasn’t going to ask him, and she wasn’t going to ask Horacio either, but she knew why she wasn’t going to ask him, she didn’t want to see his eyes as he laughed and again took revenge for her lying close to Gregorovius and for not having approached him all evening. Helpless, she thought sublime thoughts, quotations from poems which made her feel that she was in the very heart of the artichoke, on one side “I ain’t got nobody, and nobody cares for me,” which was not entirely true, because at least two people were present who were in a bad mood over her, and at the same time a line from Perse, something like
“Tu es là, mon amour, et je n’ai lieu qu’en toi,”
where La Maga took refuge snuggling up to the sound of
lieu,
of
Tu es là, mon amour,
the bland acceptance of a fate which made her shut her eyes and made her body feel like an offering, something that anybody could have and dirty and exalt like Ireneo, while Hines’s music matched the red and blue spots which danced around behind her eyelids, which for some reason were called Volaná and Valené, Volaná on the left (“and nobody cares for me”) spinning madly, Valené on top, hanging like a star in a pierodellafrancesca blue,
et je n’ai lieu qu’en toi,
Volaná and Valené, Ronald would never be able to play the piano like Earl Hines, Horacio and she should really own that record to listen to at night in the dark, to learn how to make love to the phrasing, those long, nervous caresses, “I ain’t got nobody” on the back, on the shoulders, fingers behind the neck, nails working in and out of the hair, one last whirlwind and Valené merges with Volaná,
tu est là, mon amour
and nobody cares for me, Horacio was there but nobody bothered with her, nobody was petting her head, Valené and Volaná had disappeared and her eyelids hurt from having squeezed them together so tightly, she could hear Ronald talking and then the smell of coffee, ah, a wonderful smell of coffee, dear Wong, Wong Wong Wong.
    She got up blinking, glanced at Gregorovius who looked like something spoiled and dirty. Someone passed her a cup.
    (– 137 )

17
    “I DON’T like to talk about him just for the sake of talking,” La Maga said.
    “That’s all right,” said Gregorovius. “I was just asking.”
    “If you just want to hear talking, I can talk about something else.”
    “Don’t be cute.”
    “Horacio is like guava jelly,” La Maga said.
    “What’s guava jelly?”
    “Horacio is like a glass of water in a storm.”
    “Ah,” said Gregorovius.
    “He must have been born during that period Madame Léonie talks about when she’s a little tipsy. A time when nobody was upset, when streetcars were pulled by horses and wars took place in open country. There were no such things as sleeping pills, Madame Léonie says.”
    “The beautiful golden age,” said Gregorovius. “They told me about times like that too, in Odessa. My mother, so romantic, with her hair down … They kept pineapple plants on the balconies and at night there was no need for chamber pots, it was extraordinary. But I can’t picture Horacio in those royal-jelly days.”
    “I can’t either, but he wouldn’t have been so sad. In these times everything hurts him, even aspirin hurts him. Really, last night I made him take an aspirin