A NIGHT IN NEW YORK (part 3 of 3)
¾ Why are you here? ¾asked abruptly the man in the blue
coat¾. I have the impression that you
could get out as soon as you wanted, to hold any important position¾, you said smiling.
¾ I held them for too long. They did not make me
happy and I regretted many times to have remained in this city, because I
thought that things could have been different in some other place. Later I have
understood that everything is the same everywhere. Look, I told you earlier
some reasons, the most frequent, why people come here to the Bowery. There is
one more, less frequent and of a more philosophical nature. You already said
that I am a little philosopher. And you guessed it right because you are sophisticated
too, this can be noticed at once. I will tell you that, in a certain sense, in
fact I am a philosopher. I prefer to stay here rather that in this crazy world
outside. Crazy, cruel, unjust and tragic. You know the legend that Peter
Stuyevsant buried heaps of gold in his farm and there are still people who
expect to find them somewhere here. I can tell you that, in a way, I have found
that gold since I live apart on the Bowery.
¾ I can understand you perfectly. But I tell
you, however, that there was a time when I truly believed that the world could
be of milk and honey. And, for whatever reasons, this happened while I was
living in this city.
¾ You were happy here because you were young and
you will agree that you would have been happy then in any place. If you had
continued living here you would surely have a less embellished view of the
city. Although I also grant you, because all my life I have tried to be fair
and reasonable, that in truth this is a good place to be hopeful. Perhaps the
best place in the world. And now, I will bid you farewell; it is rather late
even for me.
The bum started to pick up his
belongings getting ready to go to sleep. Suddenly, he spoke again to the
foreigner.
¾ What I have told you about the world was very
clearly stated by your admired and beloved Goethe. I will quote by heart, but I
will not be too wrong: “All things of this world are finally trifles and he
who, in order to please others, against his needs and likings, gets exhausted
chasing after honors, fortune or anything else is always a crazy man”. It comes
from Werther.
The engineer started to feel
something very close to fascination towards the bum. “How do you know that I am
an admirer of Goethe? Are you not a kind of a wizard too?”.
¾ Goethe is an admirable author and clearly you
are a sensitive person who have to admire him immensely. And besides this
night, when you set out to take a grave decision, you decided to dress up a
little like Werther, who wore for that occasion a blue tailcoat and a yellow
vest. You know that after the publication of the novel there was almost an
epidemic of youngsters’ suicides dressed up in the same fashion.
The man in the blue coat could not
help a smile. It was true that his yellow foulard
was more than a last coquettishness. Since he read Werther, being a youth, he
always thought that, if once life became a burden and he decided to escape, he
would like to do it in an elegant manner and wearing something similar to the
young and unfortunate Werther.
¾ You are right; my clothes are not entirely casual.
I always dreamt of a dignified and esthetically irreproachable death, with all
details well taken care of. That is why I had always thought of this city in
full night. And, of course, I admire Goethe very much.
¾ It is relatively easy to prepare one’s death,
from the esthetical point of view. What is really difficult is to live that
way. But this is the only thing worthy. A life far from vulgarity, vain people,
stupid honors, disloyal competitions, adulation, the thousands of tricks,
hypocrisy, servility and so many other things. This is what you should keep
trying. Especially now that, for many reasons, you can be freer than ever and
nothing can be too important for you. I tell you that, not as a moralist ¾I do not like them¾ but as an esthetician. And I think
that this is what you are going to do after all. Tonight you will end up in
your room at the Waldorf and tomorrow you will see things in another light.
There, many times though not always, they had good cuisine.
¾ Tell me, please, why do you think I will go to
the hotel? I can assure you that I did not think that when I left my room many
hours ago. I left a letter…
¾ I do not know exactly. Perhaps because you
keep too many memories. Memories make us sometime suffer, but they help us too,
because they are the best, the only proof of that we have not lived in vain.
And now I leave you. Good luck.
The
engineer saw how the bum walked slowly out and followed him with his eyes for a
while. Then, although he saw only his back, waved to him goodbye with his hand
and left the place too. He was wandering for quite some time, crossing empty
streets and squares in which there were only some cars and was getting closer
to the pedestrian access to Brooklyn Bridge. Finally he reached the pedestrian
platform and started walking very slowly, admiring once again the imposing
structure and the beauty of the design. John Roebling, who built it, was born
almost 200 years ago in a small village in Germany. He had, like many others,
powerful dreams and emigrated to the United States in 1831, aged 25 years. In
1852, going from Manhattan to Brooklyn on the ferry that crossed the East
River, he conceived the idea of building the bridge. When he finally got his
project approved, in 1869, he and his son Washington were one day inspecting
the boarding pier of the ferry, looking for the place to start the
construction. John did not see a boat arriving and the hull crushed his foot.
The wound became seriously infected and he died a month later. During all this
time, from his bed, he could see the works and tried to manage them with the
help of his wife who went tirelessly between her husband and the workers
carrying orders and news, with a mixture of abnegation, rage and stubbornness.
It was his son Washington, already first generation American and born in
Pennsylvania, who finished it. Walt Whitman had also dreamt of a bridge
embracing Manhattan and Brooklyn and had baptized this future unified land with
the name of Brooklyniana, in his poem
Crossing the Brooklyn ferry. He had
chanted the fleeting character of human lives against the tenacious and
perennial Nature: Other will see the islands large and
small; / [...] / a hundred years hence, or ever / so many hundred years hence,
/ others will see them, / will enjoy the sunset, the pouring in of the
flood-tide, / the falling back to the sea of the ebb-tide.
Some other writers, like Hart Crane,
Lewis Mumford or Alan Trachtenberg wrote about the bridge. Painters took it to
canvases like Joseph Stella or John Marin. The bridge was a motive of pride, of
confidence in the future for a nation that had been on the verge of being
destroyed in a devastating and tragic civil war. They started to call it the
eighth world wonder.
You, Arturo, knew details of all
this ¾even some that not many people knew¾ because you had given many talks and attended
conferences on the subject of New York bridges. Some of them were the work of
European immigrants who looked for a country where they could fulfill their
ambitions and projects. There are many things worthy to fight for, you thought.
In your memory, a legion of fighters, visionaries, entrepreneurs, assembled
suddenly and you understood that all the grandeur that you were contemplating
and that moved you so intensely was due to them, had not sprung by some
spontaneous and gratuitous blessing of nature but it was a work of men or
heroes. You remembered once more John Roebling, struggling to reach his dream
while he was dying. ¡This was a good and beautiful way to die! It was already
almost dawn and you remembered the terrible verses from Lorca’s Poet in New York: La aurora de Nueva
York gime / por las inmensas escaleras / [...]
/ La aurora llega y nadie la recibe en su boca,
/ porque allí no hay mañana ni esperanza posible*.
You found them strange,
impossible to share and unjust.
At that moment, a police car
approached and they asked you, from inside, if you wanted or needed something.
You answered that you were only looking for a cab to return to your hotel. The
policemen offered to take you. “Are you sure that you are O.K.?”, they asked
you again, once in the car, with a certain worry. “I am perfectly”, you
answered. In your first years in America, some time the police had stopped you
for some light traffic violation and when you explained or gave some excuse
they had always dismissed the charge. Surely, you thought now, some form of
innocence traveled then in your eyes for which everything was forgiven to you.
Like now in those of the younger policeman who after arriving at the hotel got
out of the car, accompanied you to the reception desk, shook your hand and
finally, with his fist closed and the thumb stretched up, said «Riyal Madrid»
or something similar. It is something that human beings have while they are
young and then it is lost irretrievably. Except perhaps in exceptional cases.
You went to the bathroom, wetted
your face with a towel soaked in warm water, put a pajama on and got to bed.
You left some time to pass. At 8.20 you called the hospital and talked to Dr.
Sethna. “Yes, good morning. Tell me. I am glad, Mr. Villar, I think that you
have made the right decision. Come this afternoon, at 3 p. m. We have to do
some more tests before starting treatment. Do not eat anything after noon; I will
be here. Until later, then”. Dr. Sethna looked in his archive and got a card
with the name Mr. Arturo Villar. He crossed out the notice Patient declined treatment and wrote Patient will start treatment as soon as possible.
In the hotel room a man took refuge
in the sleep. At 2 p.m. he was awakened as he had ordered. He got ready fast,
went to the hospital and once there was taken immediately to Dr. Sethna. They
studied all the practical aspects of the treatment: the first cycle would be
done in New York to study and control his response but he could continue in
Madrid, without any problem. They drew blood from him to do some more tests and
he had something to arrange in the Admissions office. Once everything was over,
the engineer returned to the hotel and dined since he had not eaten in the
whole day. Later, still in daylight, he decided to take a cab for the Bowery,
to the same area where he had been the night before. He arrived at the exact
spot but he did not see the bum he was looking for and only found the tall man
with the black scarf. He spoke to him and asked him directly: “Have you seen
the man who was with me yesterday? Do you know where he might be? He told me
that he is always here…”.
The tall tramp seemed not to
understand him and the man asked anew: “Do you not remember me? Last night…”.
¾ Yes, I remember you perfectly. You gave me
money the past night. I have recognized you at once.
¾ Then, where can he be, the man who was with
me?
The bum looked at him again
surprised and bewildered and answered him: “you will excuse me, Sir. I have
already told you that I have recognized you immediately. But there was no one
with you last night. You arrived in a cab and then you sat here alone, in this
place for a good moment. I was observing you for quite long and finally I
decided to ask you for some money. You gave it to me and a little later you
left. But you were all the time alone, you were never with anyone; this I can
assure you. You remember wrongly or have become confused”.
The engineer did not insist more.
There was still a red copper color in the horizon, at the end of the streets
coursing towards the Hudson River. The Bowery looked desolate and dirty much
more perceptibly in daylight. He felt uncomfortable and returned to the hotel.
He was disturbed by the memory of the mysterious bum on the Bowery. It could
not be a hallucination; he had to exist in reality! Probably the vagabond with
the scarf had been peeping on him only part of the time and was wrong by saying
that he had been always alone. At any rate, it was very reasonable what the bum
had told him. He thought then that he should try simply to live, to finish
sweetly what might remain of life. Instead of installing himself
melancholically in the past it could be tempting to abandon oneself and to
dream. And to be hopeful. He remembered these words of the Kybalion, the treaty on hermetic philosophy of Egypt and Greece
dedicated to Hermes Trismegistos (Hermes, thrice Great): Everything is dual; everything has two poles; everything has a pair of
opposites; similar and antagonistic are the same; the opposites are identical
in nature, but of different degree; the extremes meet; all truths are half
truths; all paradoxes can be reconciled.
You yourself were surprised to
remember these words read so many years ago, in the past. You have never
believed neither in magic nor in esoteric sciences and have always been proud
of being a rational man. Imagine if at the end you are going to grasp to all
that, you smiled. No, obviously not. But it is also human to cling to
something, to think, when everything is over, that it is never too late for
anything, that there still can be a way through, a possibility, remote but
real, of still exhausting the splendid sap of life, of the happiness that
exists also in life. Youth and old age, life and death. Everything is the same,
everything gets fused and only remains, as a last residue, the pure and
incomprehensible sum of fatuities and hazards that we call existence.
* Dawn in New York cries / in the immense staircases / […] / The first
light of dawn arrives and no one receives it in his mouth, / because here there
are neither tomorrow nor possible hope.
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