Set

Moacyr Scliar

The Dwarf in the Television Set

It is terrible to be a dwarf and have to live inside a television set—even if it happens to be a gigantic color TV; however, there is at least one advantage: When the TV is turned off, it is then possible to watch some very interesting scenes from behind the screen. And what’s more, it’s possible to do so without anybody noticing—after all, who is going to pay any attention to a television set when it is turned off? If people paid attention, they would be able to see—deep down where the small luminous point disappears at the moment when the TV is turned off—my attentive eyes. In the daytime I watch, that’s what I do. At night .. . Well.

It was Gastão who brought this TV set to the apartment. It is a huge apartment—an extravagance, for a man who lives alone (seemingly alone)—and in each room there is a TV set. Gastão can afford to have as many as he wants, for he is now the owner of the department store. The death of his father forced him to withdraw from the course in dramatic arts that he was taking (incidentally, that’s where I first met him) in order to.fun his father’s business. It is a very big department store.

Gastão describes it like this: In the basement, bicycles, motorcycles, tents, fishing and hunting gear. The entire fast floor is the territory of the television sets; there are about eighty on display, arranged in rows—a battalion of TV sets, both color and black-and#white, in all shapes and sizes, all of them tuned in to the same channel. One smiling face—eighty smiling faces—one weapon being fired—eighty weapons being fired. When the security guard turns off the main switch, eighty images flee; eighty screens turn dark. And in not a single one of them—and Gastão is constantly repeating this to me—in not a single one are there any peering eyes. In not a single one—he says, with a note of censure in his voice. In not a single one! he repeats, with great annoyance.

Gastão finds it very stressful to run the store. When he returns to the apartment after work, all he wants is to take a bath, put on his silk dressing gown, and sit sipping whiskey. All of this I watch from here, from amid the wires and the transistors—and I, too, am dying for a whiskey, but I manage to control myself. I can’t leave my hiding place until all the servants are gone. So here I remain, cramped  for space. There’s no room to swing a cat in here, far less a dwarf. (Funny that I should think of this remark now. It was my first line in a play in which Gastão and I were acting together. He would appear on stage, walking in that peculiar way of his, and he would open a suitcase that was in a corner—and at that point I’d come in, say#ing: Shit, there’s no room to swing a cat in here, far less a dwarf! Gastão would then break into a smile and take me in his arms. Night after night.)

Nowadays, night after night, and day after day, I have to remain here, hidden inside this boob tube. Thank God, at least he brings me food—a few sandwiches prepared in a slapdash way, and cold milk. Cold milk! He has a grudge against me, I know.

The servants have already appeared at the door to ask if the boss needs anything else, and he has already replied in the negative, and they’ve already said their good-nights and are now gone—but he still hasn’t taken me out of here. I could come out on my own, if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. He knows that he is supposed to come and get me. But no, he chooses to play dumb. This has been going on since he became a businessman. With arrogance, he is now holding the glass of whiskey against the light to examine it.

Handsome, this devil... A carefully trimmed beard, manicured fingernails—he is handsome, I admit, with a constricted heart. Handsome—but he won’t come and get me out of here.

The doorbell rings.

Of course—he lingered over his drink for such a long time that the door bell was bound to ring. Deep down, that’s what he was waiting ing for. With a sigh—but what a fakey bugger he is—he rises to his feet and answers the door.

I can hear some muffled exclamations, and a moment later he is back in the room, accompanied by a couple have never seen before. But they are obviously common people. The man is young and dressed in a manner that he must consider stylish: checkered jacket, purple pants, platform shoes (and he isn’t a dwarf!), red tie. The woman is dressed in a more simple way. And she is pretty, a salesgirl type, but nice.  Gastão invites them to sit down. Ill at ease, they sit on the edge of their armchairs. Conversation is difficult and spasmodic. From what they say, gather that they are Gastão’s employees. Newlyweds, who first met at their place of work. They exchanged passionate glances amid the bicycles and the motorcycles (they are both from the basement) and finally got married. And now they are here to pay a visit to the boss, (What a riot! If I weren’t imprisoned here, I would laugh uproariously. To pay a visit to the boss! What a riot!)

They talk about their honeymoon, which they spent in a resort  town. Without too many details, they describe the roast chicken  dinner they had at the house of an uncle. “

A prolonged silence.

The young woman gets up. Blushing, and twisting a handkerchief  in her hands, she asks where the bathroom is. Gastão, courteous,  gets up to show her the way.

He returns to the sofa, where he sits curled up like a cat. Like a cunning cat. His employee—up to now sitting motionless and tongue-tied—starts talking. Senhor Gastão, he says, I’ve got a problem. I’m telling you about it, Senhor Gastão, because you’ve been like a father to me, you’ve given me a TV set as a wedding gift. Senhor Gastão...

The problem, he tells Gastão, is that his wife is frigid. When he  is through with his story, he buries his head in his hands.

Gastão, sympathetic, asks him to come and sit on the sofa beside him.

“Here, right beside me. Let’s talk,” he says in a low, slightly hoarse voice, a gleam of sympathy in his eyes—what an artist he is! He learned a lot in that dramatic arts course. He was the top student. .. . But wait a moment—what he is saying now?

He is saying that frigidity is quite common, that many women have this problem.

That often young women are not prepared for sex.

“But it’s nothing to worry about,” he adds, taking the young man’s hand. “You’re a handsome man...”

But what a sleazeball he is, this Gastão! How dare he, and right under my nose! And the young woman, what’s taking her so long?

Then it dawns on me: She is lingering in the bathroom on purpose, so that her husband will have plenty of time to ask his boss for advice on their problem. A prearranged thing. Such idiots they are!

I'll have to do something right now, and here’s what I do: I stir myself inside the television set, and I produce crackling and snapping noises.

“What was that?” The young jumps to his feet.

“Don’t be alarmed,” says Gastão. “It’s just the TV set, there’s something wrong with it.”

He then looks at the screen—at me—and I see hatred in his eyes.

“You'll pay for this, you dwarf,” his eyes threaten me. Beautiful, his eyes.

“I’m sending it back to the warehouse tomorrow. Come, sit here.”

But the employee doesn’t sit down. He has become quite nervous, and he is unable to look at his boss in the face.

“I’ve never thought that you, Senhor Gastão.. .”

The young woman returns. The young man takes her by the arm and says that they should be going now, they will have to get up early. They take their leave, and are gone.

Gastão remains seated on the sofa, snorting with rage. All of a sudden, he throws his glass away, rises to his feet, and comes near the television set. He looks at the screen—but not at me.

“This TV has had its day. It has outlived its usefulness. I don’t think it works anymore.”

“Don’t, Gastão!”

He presses the button. A thousand jolts send me into a screaming fit. Sparks fly, and they dazzle and burn me. Gastão is delighted. He has never seen such a good program on television before.