The Conversations (New Directions Paperbook) by César Aira Page B

Rolex.
    No, that wasn’t quite it. I wanted to retract my former skepticism, because in reality I had proven something, almost without meaning to, or “without meaning to mean to”: I had proven, through the positive absurd, that fiction was fiction. To ride on a dehydrated goat through the star-studded sky, wasn’t that fiction? Who could ask for anything more? Th rough simple deduction, the actor who played the goatherd . . . Wasn’t that crystal clear? In a certain way, we had reached the point where words die.
    This reference to silence seemed to arouse my friend, exactly as when one has been hearing a constant noise for so long that one ceases to notice it, then when it stops, the contrast becomes deafening. He looked at me as if he didn’t recognize me, or on the contrary, as if he suddenly recognized somebody he had thought was a stranger. Th e expression on his face was so peculiar that when I tried to mentally reproduce it in my memory, I almost failed to find the representational resources to make it credible. What he said when he emerged from his state of perplexity was so amazing (to me) that I became electrified, and I moved into the present. My memory accompanied me into the present, like a written play that is being performed.
    But then . . . are you talking about the real-real actor?
    Who else? And what does that mean? Are you saying there is a double “real” and a single “real”?
    Don’t start again with your twisted logic. Let’s talk about the movie we both saw, please. There was the actor who played the goatherd, and the actor who played the actor who played the goatherd, right?
    Just one moment! Now you’re the one with the twisted logic. What’s with this regressus ad infinitum?
    Infinitum my foot! Did you see the movie or didn’t you?
    Of course I saw it! I saw more of it than you did!
    It doesn’t seem like it. It seems like you missed the whole part about the actor . . . But I know you didn’t miss it. You yourself told me about it, about his mansion in Beverly Hills, his dog Bob, the press conference in Paris . . .
    I was stunned.
    But what does that have to do with it?
    What do you mean, what does that have to do with it? Did you see it or didn’t you see it?
    I saw it . . . Yes . . . Now that you mention it, I remember seeing it, but I don’t know what that has to do with the movie. So it wasn’t . . . ?
    You thought it was . . . ?
    You thought that I thought . . . ?
    The questions and answers crisscrossed back and forth over the café table at the speed of light, until the questions turned into answers and the answers into questions. In bed, while nervously tossing and turning, I couldn’t manage to make them occur in the correct order. The quid of the question was that I thought that they had inserted scenes from one of those documentaries about the making of the movie — what they call “backstage” scenes — that are so common these days when they show a movie. It seems, however, that these were part of the movie itself. I would not have gotten so confused had I paid closer attention, but one does not pay close attention to such entertainment.
    Little by little, then all in one fell swoop, with that majestic slowness the instantaneous tends to have, everything became crystal clear. The basic plot of the movie, the one we had both watched, was of the filming of a movie. The CIA wanted to investigate the supposed production of enriched uranium by the Ukrainian separatists and sent their agents to investigate an area under suspicion, but they did so under the guise of shooting an action and adventure thriller, a coproduction, on location. To make themselves credible, they hired a famous actor, obviously imaginary, though played by a real famous actor. And to perfect appearances, they really did make the movie, though they were not very concerned about its quality or verisimilitude, for it was merely an excuse to carry out their espionage; a few scenes from that